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Rage over Lybia


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Uh, hi there. Title says it all. I am almost foaming, y'know.

And the earthquake thing in Japan made it worse, because the natural disaster that has befallen the Japanese people will polarize media attention for the time being, like Haiti, Australia and company, before being forgotten.

But Lybia concerns me more because an earthquake, for how devastating, is a natural disaster, and it's nobody's fault: there's nothing much that can be done besides helping people and scooping up the pieces to get life back on track (not an easy job, I know).

Lybia. An all out war. A completely HUMAN thing. Plans can be devised, actions can be taken, precautions can be applied, and so forth.

At first, bombings or not, the rebels pushed everywhere. They were a spit away from Gheddafi's hideout in Tripoli. Then the situation stabilized. Then,

almost three weeks into the heavy fighting, Gheddafi has gained momentum and his tribal army strategy is paying off. Of course, what could the rebels do against all the high-flying planes with their ZPU-4s and ZU-23-2s?

And the west is still very, very tepid.

If Gheddafi wins, the west does the outraged observer part, but things settle down in his favor again in a few months, I know I'm gonna blaspheme now 'till my blood pressure pulls a Tarantino on me.

Is anybody here on the same page, or a shrug and a meh is all?

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I think we should step in here also...but I am not surprised that many do not believe we should...after all, anyone who condemns us stepping in in Afghanistan, or Iraq, would also have to condemn us stepping in here. In all cases, we fought governments that were horrid to their people. I can only assume if we stepped in in Libya, very quickly, whichever side we were against, would have the world's media talking about "poor them" and how we are bullies, in it for Libyan oil, etc...so I am not that eager to walk back into the fight again...I imagine it is so for most of NATO, who already is dealing with the issue in Afghanistan.

That said, however, I would believe that we will not sit by idly for too much longer.

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Dude, you know why Spider-Man is my favourite comic book hero (**** the movies, seriously)? He knows when right stuff has to be done, even when half the world throws **** at him. Lybia is soooooooo totally different than Afghanistan and Iraq. No occupation needed. Just tipping this ****er out of power. Or tipping his planes, so the rebels may.

America should get out of this half-guilt complex and go for it. As well as this lazy ass Europe.

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Dude, you know why Spider-Man is my favourite comic book hero (**** the movies, seriously)? He knows when right stuff has to be done, even when half the world throws **** at him. Lybia is soooooooo totally different than Afghanistan and Iraq. No occupation needed. Just tipping this ****er out of power. Or tipping his planes, so the rebels may.

America should get out of this half-guilt complex and go for it. As well as this lazy ass Europe.

I agree, but application of military force to "tip him out of power" WILL cause casualties...when we did this in Iraq, (remember regime change, against Saddam, who was much worse to his people, than Ghadaffi is to the Libyans, having even gassed his own people before) the first time a home with a child in it blows up(which WILL happen) then the same people asking for us to act, will be accusing us of acting...that said though, you are right, we SHOULD act..I just am explaining that this situation is even less reason, than was Iraq.

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I'm with Pak 43 on this one. If you start basing your foreign policy on moral outrage you're going to end up in wars all over the place. If Libya, why not Darfur? Or Zimbabwe? If the Saudis crack down further on the protests there do we bomb them also?

We definitely don't want to start handing out Stingers to people. :eek:

Don't assume Kaddaffi will be defeated without his air force. The rebel forces are outnumbered, lack heavy weapons of all types, lack command and control capabilities and military training in general. They are also not a united group politically. If you put a no-fly zone in place but Ghaddaffi doesn't fall, then what? You gonna buzz around up there for the next decade a la Iraq in the 90s, or you going to invade to finish it a la Iraq in the 00s?

We have our plate full in Afghanistan right now. If France wants to do it then more power to 'em.

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I'm with Pak 43 on this one. If you start basing your foreign policy on moral outrage you're going to end up in wars all over the place. If Libya, why not Darfur? Or Zimbabwe? If the Saudis crack down further on the protests there do we bomb them also?

We definitely don't want to start handing out Stingers to people. :eek:

Don't assume Kaddaffi will be defeated without his air force. The rebel forces are outnumbered, lack heavy weapons of all types, lack command and control capabilities and military training in general. They are also not a united group politically. If you put a no-fly zone in place but Ghaddaffi doesn't fall, then what? You gonna buzz around up there for the next decade a la Iraq in the 90s, or you going to invade to finish it a la Iraq in the 00s?

We have our plate full in Afghanistan right now. If France wants to do it then more power to 'em.

Agreed...remember the thinking in Iraq with the no fly zone, etc, was that his opposition would finish him off, as well, but he remained just as adept at staying alive and in power, even without flying his air force. If we risk the military for a "no fly zone" then we must also be prepared to use it for when that does not work.

And definitely, don't want to go passing out SAMs.

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The no fly zone is a bit like asking a rapist to wear a condom.

It falls into that Western conception that air power is always the key. This Libyan issue will not be decided by a few dozen MiG sorties dropping dumb bombs in the vicinity of the rebels. I have no doubt that the USA alone could reduce the Libyan Airforce (the working parts of it) by about 90% with a single volley of Tomahawks. It will even the odds and make everyone feel like they've done something, of course. But it's the ground elements and the civilian opinion which will win things.

The rebel rabble, if it wants to go all the way, needs some stiffening. But the issue there is that once you start committing 'advisors', it's a slippery slope and certainly allows Gadaffi to prove his point about foreign perfidy.

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And such reasoning "but then we would" is why the world takes so long to change, and often a momentum of gigantic bloodshed has to be built. I'm not saying war to all dictatorships, of course. China would be a tough nut. But what about economic sanctions and stuff? Yeah, Cuyba is quite a comfortable choice, but not enough. It's small potatoes.

And Vanir, your quote subversion is the thing I like the most in this thread.

****ing ****.

Had the money and a rifle, I'd go to Lybia myself.

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If I were a devious cunning sod one might have an aborted mission to the rebels as the British and be suitably sent home. Demonstrating your are not hand-in-pocket with the wicked West but just possibly arranging for the shipments : 0

Nothing too obvious in the way of weapons. Perhaps a link with a SAS observer but you must allow the natives ownership of the revolution. Of course this does fly against the established cock-up theory of history.

Of course I was enraged at the heading to Lybia!

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And Vanir, your quote subversion is the thing I like the most in this thread.

Well, thank you. I think... :confused:

BTW, if you can find a way to get there they probably could find a gun for you if you're not picky about quality. AKs are a dime a dozen in that part of the world.

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In the end, a no-fly-zone is not in the actual interests of the big nations. Would Russia ever give up their right to bomb Chechen rebels? Would USA ever forfeit their right to bomb Afghan rebels? If not, it would be very double standardy of them to scold Libya for doing the exact same thing.

Besides, the rebels already have Strelas and all other kinds of AA weaponry, meaning that the Libyan fighter jockeys can't just casually strafe them all day long. Now, to actually change the situation on ground the rebels would need more ATGM's and of more modern make. Libya has some old MILANs so it wouldn't be much of a security risk if France/Germany gave the rebels some more MILAN launchers and tandem missiles. This would nerf Gaddafi's tank force. He'd still have his artillery, though.

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I think the entire Libya mess is a good example of how the people in government screw up, they do not know everything, their intelligence is not perfect, and even though they tell us otherwise sometimes events can get way ahead of their decision processes.

If you go back to the beginning of this thing, the standard NATO/Western line was "we don't want to get involved" "for the Libyan people to sort out" and so on. A bit of time passes, and the rebels get overt control of several towns, or at least they demonstrate that to whatever TV teams have got there. So the mighty and powerful start dimly thinking, hey, we better think about supporting the rebels, they're winning. And we never like Gadaffi anyway.

A bit more time passes. Gadaffi starts getting his act together and the most overt sign of that is he gets the air force to bomb the rebels, who of course are getting all the press as the media has access to them and no Gadaffi-controlled terrain. The rebels, being rebels, have little equipment and less staying power. Gadaffi meanwhile is at least in part employing mercenaries which gives his attacks at least a minimum of competence, and even better, as long as the money keeps coming he doesn't have to worry about the rebels convincing pro-government forces to betray him. So pretty much systematically the Libyan military starts marching up to rebel "concentrations" such as they are, and hitting them with enough firepower to make them run - and as Affie pointed out it doesn't take make, these are Arab rebels fighting mostly African mercenaries.

Meanwhile, the high and mighty in the West and NATO have a problem, they took sides and now their side is losing. The images of why are of course the air raids, although even a superficial reading of the news makes clear it's not that nearly so much as just government forces using conventional arms to bash rebels. Tanks, artillery, find the opposition and unload fire upon them, very basic. Planes are just a part of that, albeit by far the most internationally visible, again because the TV crews are with the rebels in the rebel rear area, and the only shooting going on their is Libyan air force strikes.

OK, a bit more time passes, the rebels are losing steam, the West has backed the wrong horse, but these are government employees whose careers can suffer if they admit it. So, instead, they announce sanctions against Gadaffi for his inhuman attacks against his own population, and talk big about a no-fly zone. As if a no fly zone would stop Gadaffi's mercenaries.

Eventually, barring outside intervention, Gadaffi will win. That's not quite as bad a result as it might seem as he needs the West to buy his oil, and the West needs his oil, so both sides are going to overlook the fact that during the Libyan civil war of 2011 the customer at least was thinking about ways to get some one else to sell them Libyan oil.

But all in all it has been a tour de force of trans-Atlantic policy-making incompetence. All that needed to be done was say something along the lines of "First we don't have the wherewithal to intervene in Libya meaningfully, second even if we did this is NATO and getting something like that organized on short order is ludicrous, NATO does nothing quickly, and three if the Libyans want freedom let them fight for it." In other words, admit that the best policy was do nothing. But no, because of reasons best known to them a bunch of government paid (and rather well, most of them) to make intelligent foreign policy, chose to make stupid foreign policy. Something about the water in Brussels I guess.

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Take out Gadaffi and what do "we" get ?

The violent , anti-Israel , ant-America , anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood ... Gaddafi may well be the lesser of two evils ... just sayin ...

You're saying that Gaddafi is not violent, anti-Israel, anti-America and anti-Western? I don't understand.

There's no guarantee that things will change for better. But at least they can't change for worse.

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You're saying that Gaddafi is not violent, anti-Israel, anti-America and anti-Western? I don't understand.

He may be all those things, but he has a history of pulling back when he is stood up to. He has tried military adventures all over the North African continent and each time had his ass handed to him. Would the people replacing him be so "reasonable"?

Michael

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