Boots

- wrap 'em in plastic and they'll never touch ground:

The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. "It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country," said an EU official.

A spokesman for the Misurata City Council appealed for NATO to send ground troops to secure the port that is the besieged city's only remaining humanitarian lifeline.

That quote actually appears in last week's story about running out of smart bombs.

Hopefully someone will explain to those folks in the besieged city the difference between the EU and NATO. For American readers: the US is not part of the EU, thus wouldn't be under any compulsion to contribute ground troops to assist, as would be the case if this were a NATO mission involving our NATO allies. Another story from last week:

The European Union is getting ready to launch a military mission to support humanitarian aid work in Libya even as rebels are warning of what they are calling a "massacre" in the western city of Misrata...

The EU-proposed operation would create a safe corridor in the sea up to Misrata as well as on the ground to be able to reach out to those in need. EU officials say the operation would require a formal UN request and fall under the mandate of UN resolutions 1970 and 1973.

But Kristalina Georgieva, the EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response says the EU believes if they cannot reach people, if they cannot evacuate the wounded or help those civilians caught in the cross-fire, then there is no option but to provide military support.

"If we have boats that are trying to get with medicines, or to evacuate wounded, not able to reach the port, this is a signal that that protection is necessary, or if on the ground there is such a forceful attack from Gadhafi forces that the actual presence of humanitarian workers -- people with no guns, no way to protect themselves -- becomes problematic, then there may be a need for protection on the ground in the civilian area," she said.

So, maybe the mission already has UN authorization?

Also last week, as rebel forces in the east crumbled under the onslaught of Qaddafi's troops and many of the remaining civilians fled Ajdibiya for Benghazi, western media shifted their correspondents to Misrata in time to capture dramatic photos of crying babies and file reports on Qaddafi's use of cluster bombs against civilians there.

Misery in Misrata

Click for larger. While most of the reported combat action between Qaddafi's troops and the rebels has taken place along the coast in the eastern half of Libya, Misrata (Misurata) is much further to the west - still on the shore of the Gulf of Tonkin, but closer to Tripoli. Correction: Gulf of Sidra.
(Dashed blue lines explained here.)

Qaddafi's forces would likely have taken Misrata earlier in the conflict, but NATO airstrikes there have at least delayed that outcome. While Qaddafi's troops are experiencing slow progress from Brega to Ajdibiya in the east - where rebel troops are described as "in disarray" - it's unlikely he (or anyone, including citizens of Misrata) would believe the description of NATO troops between that front and Tripoli as "humanitarian forces." The potential for confusion, tragic accidents, misunderstandings, or overt acts of war will obviously be high. All sides will need to exercise extreme caution to avoid escalation.

Meanwhile, a humanitarian sealift mission has been under way in Misrata, thus far without incident, and "The UN agency that coordinates humanitarian aid said Friday that it saw no need for military support for relief missions in Libya."

'Things are improving step by step. We are successful in bringing in food and medical equipment, there are more and more relief activities,' said Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

This potential needed to be exhausted before any military assistance could be foreseen - a 'worst case scenario' that did not exist yet, she said.

"A Red Cross ship carrying vital medical supplies docked in the besieged Libyan town of Misrata" on April 3rd. Other ships are arriving with the mission of evacuating migrants from the city. (Warning: New York Times link, visits are rationed.)

A few ships have stopped at Misurata's docks to ferry migrant workers to safety. But thousands of laborers still wait, unsure when their turn will come.
<...>
The Ionian Spirit, a passenger vessel chartered by an international organization, entered Misurata on Thursday afternoon [April 14] with the mission of rescuing the workers, after a nearly 19-hour passage from Benghazi, the rebel capital in eastern Libya.

Its mission is urgent, said Jeremy R. A. Haslam, head of the crisis response team on board. A brightly painted cruise ship that usually plies the Greek, Italian and Albanian coasts, the Ionian Spirit was chartered by the International Organization for Migration, which hopes to pick up at least 800 of the more than 6,500 migrant workers who have been trapped in Misurata, Libya's third largest city.

Western reporters were also fortunate to reach the town immediately before the ship's dramatic arrival. More:

"Our staff on board the boat report that while we were boarding the migrants, the shelling and the fighting subsided for a bit and there was this almost eerie silence while they would kind of wait until we had got the people on board and that we would leave," said Pandya.

It had been a long wait and, until the very last moment, there was the fear that they would not get out. But in the early hours of yesterday morning, the great escape began for the desperate refugees caught on the deadliest battlefront in Libya's brutal civil war...

But it was not just the regime that these men and their families had grown to fear. Some of the inmates of Ghafr Ahmed camp, mainly from Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh, had lost their lives in clashes with the revolutionary forces who control parts of this city under siege. Others had been arrested and accused of being mercenaries...

Bombardment made it impossible to get into many areas of Misrata and pressed the aid ship to leave as swiftly as it could, he said. That meant making hard choices when deciding who to bring on board.

Men chanted "Allahu akbar" and waved as the chartered Greek vessel, Ionian Spirit, made its way into Benghazi port. Evacuees crowded the top deck, huddling in sweatshirts and coats from the damp wind blowing from the Mediterranean.
<...>
"I don't know where I'm going to go," said Ahmed Jawad, 26, an engineering student from Baghdad who had been living in Misrata for eight years...

"Every tyrannical country, when there's a protest, they use rubber bullets or water cannons, but here they use heavy weapons, anti-aircraft guns, live bullets.

"These weapons are supposed to be used in wars, not against civilians," he said.

Similar reports of atrocities from fleeing civilians preceded UN approval of airstrikes (or "all necessary measures") on Qaddafi's military last month.

More:

IOM says there are 100 Libyans among those rescued, 23 of whom are war-wounded, including a child shot in the face and an amputee.

The IOM has said it hoped the ship would be able to leave Benghazi for Misrata in order to carry out a second evacuation, but after that it would run out of funding. Yet the total needed, $5 million, is not huge, according to the Geneva-based agency.

The Libyan government on Tuesday firmly rebuffed a proposal from the European Union, saying it would fight any foreign troops that landed on its soil, even if they were supposedly there to escort humanitarian aid convoys.
<...>
"If there is any deployment of any armed personnel on Libyan ground, there will be fighting," [Libya's deputy foreign minister] Kaim told a news conference in Tripoli. "The Libyan government will not take it as a humanitarian mission. It will be taken as a military mission."

Also, "Kaim reiterated Gaddafi's claims that the al-Qaeda terrorist network is behind the Libyan rebellion." - a claim with popular appeal to many Americans.

"Separately, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his country was sending a team of military advisers to Libya to help organize the ragtag opposition forces, joining British diplomats already working with rebel leaders in Benghazi, their stronghold in eastern Libya." A lengthy AP report here, and a BBC report here:

The BBC understands 10 officers will provide logistics and intelligence training in a UK and French operation.

Mr Hague said it was compatible with the UN resolution on Libya, which ruled out foreign military ground action.

He stressed that the officers would not be involved in any fighting and the move was needed to help protect civilians.

NATO conducted deliberate, multiple strikes against command and control facilities of the Qadhafi regime last night, including communications infrastructure used to coordinate attacks against civilians, and the headquarters of the 32nd Brigade located 10 km south of Tripoli.

The 32nd Brigade headquarters has been used to lead and coordinate military actions against the Libyan civilian population.

"NATO will continue its campaign to degrade the Qadhafi regime forces that are involved in the ongoing attacks on civilians. We do so in accordance with the United Nations Security Council Mandate 1973 in order to protect, by any means, the civilian population from attack," said Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, the Commander of Operation Unified Protector.

Underlining added, italics in original.