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North Africa and the Middle East

I thank the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) for her speech. I have to say that I am struck by the idea of there being a listening post in Kosovo and I am particularly struck by the idea that the second world war and the Falklands war were negotiated settlements. We actually had to fight to win those wars. I am afraid that I, too, want to talk about Libya, particularly about the timing of decisions and what we should do. I feel very lucky, as we all do, to live in the United Kingdom. I have been to a few rotten places in my life and I feel very strongly as an internationalist that we should help countries and peoples who are less fortunate than ourselves. Where we can help, we should—I made that point earlier in an intervention—but we have to be pragmatic about our foreign policy. There should also be a moral dimension and we should be constructive. I am no warmonger. I have seen for myself what conflict brings. As the first British United Nations commander in Bosnia, I witnessed man's inhumanity to man and I found it loathsome. For me, the political lesson of Bosnia was this: if you are going to do something, do it—make your decision and act. Be decisive, and be clear about your objectives. I do not think we can pussyfoot around when it comes to international crises. We should either do something effective or do nothing. Indecision is next to useless. In such situations, the mission has to be clear from the start, but that did not happen to me in Bosnia. I had no formal mission for three months, but I said to my soldiers that we would have a mission. I told them that our mission was to save lives and I do not reckon that would be a bad mission for us in Libya—I think that all hon. Members present would agree with that. The tactics being used by Gaddafi's thuggish forces seem remarkably similar to the tactics that I saw being used by General Mladic in Sarajevo in 1992 and 1993. He had no thought whatever for civilian casualties. I watched that happening and I felt impotent with rage because we could have done something about it but we did nothing. We all abhor what is happening in Libya on the road to Benghazi. Some hon. Members have suggested that we should not take too much from the past, but I am afraid that I am a bit of a dinosaur and I think that the lessons of Bosnia hold true. The military situation for the rebels in Libya, which we have not touched on, is pretty dire at the moment but is not terminal yet. In the west, Gaddafi's forces have not yet taken Misurata. In the east, approximately 5,000 of Gaddafi's troops are besieging Ajdabiya, which is close to the strategic crossroads leading to either Tobruk or Benghazi. We know that Gaddafi's forces rely heavily on mercenaries. Those guys carry out their business for gold, not love, and we somehow have to get to them.