Gaddafi's Next Move

I count on the ever-sagacious Claudia Rosett to illuminate the darkness surrounding and inside the UN. She does not let me down today, explaining the ramifications of NGO Amnesty International's whinging about the "civilians" who could find themselves in the crossfire between mad Gaddafi's forces and the UN "others":

Gaddafi himself is ruthless enough to read Amnesty’s call, and items like it, as an open invitation to round up civilians for use as human shields. The terror-loving thugs who nest in the Arab world have a tradition of availing themselves of this tactic — from the late Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein, to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Given a Western press and human rights establishment that loves, above all, to criticize its own, what better way to confront the UN-authorized coalition than to present — once the impending strikes begin — innocent victims, arrayed for international publicity? What neater move for Gaddafi than to manipulate the international “other forces” now arrayed against him into defending themselves at home, and sniping at each other? If the aim of well-intentioned human rights groups is to limit collateral damage, this would be a good moment to refrain from sounding preemptive alarms about the “other forces” about to become involved in this conflict, and understand that these “other forces” too — some of them at greater risk than their ever eager human-rights critics — will be striving to protect the innocent.

Fat chance.