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[ThoseDeafMutes]

Hey guys, turns out I was wrong, the Libyan army is going to come out on top regardless of foreign intervention.

 

[cloud_sleep]

How reliable is the mirror as a source?

Take with a huge pinch of salt. That Mirror article claims to know which targets the SAS are after and that they have linked up with rebels. The MoD would never release this info so it's just speculation on their part. This always happens. Segments of the UK press have a hard-on for the SAS and frequently print wild-eyed speculation about their activities/capabilities as fact.

 

[Neo C.]

Are the rebel's the majority? If Libya is fair ground, is Bahrain? Saudi Arabia?

No, too far away, and Bahrain's and Saudi's leader are friendly to Europe+US. They are also a bit more predictable than Libya.

 

[Your Excellency]

How long do you think they can actually last when every time they mount any kind of concentrated offensive they're going to be obliterated by an air-strike? The rebels don't need tanks if they have Close Air Support from the United Nations.

If American military history in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, it's that assuming an easy win is a terrible move. Especially in a scenario when we are worried about civilian casualties and they aren't, where we are worried about appearances and they aren't, and where we are relying on untrained, unorganised civilians to do our fighting for us.

Libyan high command have nothing else to lose, they are in a fight to the death. They will put ALL of their money into this if need be, and they have a lot of allies in Africa and other places to keep their troop numbers up and their arms constantly topped up.


What I'm getting at is, we can't leave until Gaddafi leaves. And the only way to get Gaddafi out is with a ground invasion.

 

[Erico]

Is Gaddafi a legitimate target for assassination by airstrike?

I seem to recall the US trying to take him out this way during the '86 bombing of Libya, but an Italian politician tipped off Gaddafi and he got away safely.

 

[Roude Leiw]

NATO might agree in what way they'll participate in the next hours.

Arabian countries will join the operations in the next days.

 

[Veidt]

Is Gaddafi a legitimate target for assassination by airstrike?

I seem to recall the US trying to take him out this way during the '86 bombing of Libya, but an Italian politician tipped off Gaddafi and he got away safely.

hah. They did the same with war criminal Aidid, Somalia in 1993.Resulting in the deaths of some US soldiers.

 

[Your Excellency]

Is Gaddafi a legitimate target for assassination by airstrike?

I seem to recall the US trying to take him out this way during the '86 bombing of Libya, but an Italian politician tipped off Gaddafi and he got away safely.

Al Jazeera showed a video of one of his palaces, which has a bunker underneath:

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/02/20112276522858202.html


From the Wikileaks info, we know that he's really paranoid about this stuff and so probably has even more substantial bunkers under his Tripoli palace, assuming that's where he is. May be difficult to assassinate him by airstrike - but if you could just get him trapped under the rubble and unable to communicate, that's as good as being dead for now.

 

[JonCha]

Hopes this doesn't turn out to be another, prolonged war. Watched the BBC this morning and seems as Gadaffi truly does want to die.

 

[nubbe]

This is an Anglo-French war, they are the ones that have been pushing for this.
The UN resolution don't legitimize a war against the Libyan government or aid for the rebellion. Just to protect the civilians.

Now when the playing field is on level it is up to the rebellion to finish it off.
But they better get Gaddafi out or Libya will be a terrorist haven.

 

[Veidt]

This is an Anglo-French war, they are the ones that have been pushing for this.
The UN resolution don't legitimize a war against the Libyan government or aid for the rebellion. Just to protect the civilians.

Now when the playing field is on level it is up to the rebellion to finish it off.
But they better get Gaddafi out or Libya will be a terrorist haven.

It'll be a terrorist haven, if he was to be toppled too. At this point, it's too late. This civil war will go on. With terrorists finding support in Libya, after both the west and their own government has been shitting on them.

 

[Doc Evils]

I hope Gaddafi gets captured and get to meet his end in prison. But knowing how he is, he will probably try to flee somewhere with shitload of gold and cash.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

If American military history in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, it's that assuming an easy win is a terrible move. Especially in a scenario when we are worried about civilian casualties and they aren't, where we are worried about appearances and they aren't, and where we are relying on untrained, unorganised civilians to do our fighting for us.

None of those are very good analogies for the situation here. This isn't a case of America running in and SPREADING DEMOCRACY or whatever, this is a rebellion that happened organically and will continue unless it gets brutally put down by the regime. Nobody is questioning you need boots on the ground to win it, what we're questioning is that it needs to be our boots on the ground. The rebel forces are already there, and they aren't so disorganized as some are painting them. Remember that they got their equipment not from UN supply drops, but from defecting garrisons and military units. A non-trivial number of rebel forces are defected army troops who know how to fight and are using Libyan military equipment.

Once again, the general principle is that there is already an army on the ground, and we are providing air support for them. I see no reason to believe that this army is inadequate for the job, since this army has the support of the Libyan population at large and now a massive air-superiority advantage. It would be premature for me to say that I was sure they could do it or whatever, but we don't really have any idea of the relative strength of either side to make judgment calls, and it's just as premature to say that we would certainly need to launch a land invasion to evict Gadaffi.

 

[[Nintex]]

What NATO thinks:

A bunch of fig-eaters wearing towels on their heads, trying to find reverse in a Soviet tank. This is not a worthy adversary. - Walter, The Big Lebowski

What it actually is is a split country more like tribes fighting out a civil war on the streets. There's a reason why the Arab League is only given support with statements rather than actions. They know Libya is a mess. We 'assume' that the general populace of Libya is in favor of the attacks, we assume that they'll side with the rebels, we assume that the resigned minister that is the rebel leader has enough support from his people and we assume that they think of the bombings as 'help'. Honestly even with all the media coverage I don't know who the rebels are, what they fight for or what their goals ar aside from heading to Tripoli in a bloody war.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

What NATO thinks:


What it actually is is a split country more like tribes fighting out a civil war on the streets. There's a reason why the Arab League is only given support with statements rather than actions. They know Libya is a mess. We 'assume' that the general populace of Libya is in favor of the attacks, we assume that they'll side with the rebels, we assume that the resigned minister that is the rebel leader has enough support from his people and we assume that they think of the bombings as 'help'. Honestly even with all the media coverage I don't know who the rebels are, what they fight for or what their goals ar aside from heading to Tripoli in a bloody war.

It's already in a bloody civil war and has been for like a week now. We've just picked a side.

 

[dalin80]

In this thread people who don't know NATO and the UN are two different things.

 

[FoxSpirit]

The rebels were already in Tripolis more than a week ago!!

That's what it looked like almost a whole month ago.

But Tripolis was too well fortified, houses aout 30% of the population and has all the most modern military equipment while the rebels had a bit more of ragtag equipment.
And then the inertia shifted and the rebels were slowly pushed back while Gadaffi declared a "no mercy" war.

That would have been the time to move, not wait until the rebels have been pushed back all the way.

 

[Roude Leiw]

In this thread people who don't know NATO and the UN are two different things.

yes NATO isn't taking part in the operations yet. They'll decide today what exactly they will do.

military equipment destroyed after the French attack.

 

[Your Excellency]

The rebel forces are already there, and they aren't so disorganized as some are painting them.

That picture kinda speaks for itself, man. You're wrong: the rebels are the very definition of disorganised. They're a ragtag coalition of angry civilians and ex-military with no high command, no heirarchy, no communication, no training, and no plan. And at the moment, they have no funding and they have no steady supply of ammo, either.

I see no reason to believe that this army is inadequate for the job, since this army has the support of the Libyan population at large and now a massive air-superiority advantage. It would be premature for me to say that I was sure they could do it or whatever, but we don't really have any idea of the relative strength of either side to make judgment calls, and it's just as premature to say that we would certainly need to launch a land invasion to evict Gadaffi.

Do you agree that if it is, say, a 50/50 situation as to whether the rebels will secure a quick victory or not, then there is a 50% chance that we have just walked into a ground invasion?

Look, I'm elated that the West are helping take down Gaddafi, after all he has done (eg the slaughter of over 1200 prisoners - many of them political prisoners - from a prison after they had a riot over poor conditions and treatment, Lockerbie, etc etc), but the problem is that whenever we do this, it results in MORE civilian deaths, not less. It results in MORE money going into our military, rather than schools or hospitals or social care. It results in MORE domestic terrorism without our borders, because there's nothing that can radicalise a moderate muslim like an image of five dead women and children blown up by one of our missiles. And what's more, ground invasions rarely end up with a lovely secular democracy happy ending. It ends up with a destroyed country, with almost everyone knowing someone who has had a relative killed, and they are easy recruits for anti-West terrorism, and that's not to mention the potential infighting that is still yet to occur.

Take this for an example: when the US organised regime change in Guatemala in 1954, it caused fourty fucking years of political instability in the country which resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 people. They didn't plan for that to happen, they just wanted to leader gone. But you have to weigh up these worst case scenarios because they have a nasty habit of occuring.

We go into ground invasions with the best of intentions. But ground invasions in the middle east have a tendency to fuck our shit up. This one has disastrous consequences written all over it.

 

[Luckyman]

Gadhafi giving millions of weapons to people of Libya. lol

 

[Bulbo Urethral Baggins]

If it only weren't for those evil women and neocons....

http://www.thenation.com/blog/159346/obamas-women-pushed-war-against-libya

We’d like to think that women in power would somehow be less prowar, but in the Obama administration at least it appears that the bellicosity is worst among Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. All three are liberal interventionists, and all three seem to believe that when the United States exercises military force it has some profound, moral, life-saving character to it. Far from it. Unless President Obama’s better instincts manage to reign in his warrior women—and happily, there’s a chance of that—the United States could find itself engaged in open war in Libya, and soon. The troika pushed Obama into accepting the demands of neoconservatives, such as Joe Lieberman, John McCain and The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, along with various other liberal interventionists outside the administration, such as John Kerry. The rode roughshod over the realists in the administration.

 

[mclaren777]

summary of day 1:
http://cencio4.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/operation-odyssey-dawn-explained/

Thank you for this and the tank pictures.

 

[Doc Evils]

Gadhafi giving millions of weapons to people of Libya. lol

From the telephone interviews the BBC has had with people in Tripoli, a lot of the people there are against him. Gaddafi arming his own enemies would be hilarious and the result of his own paranoia.

 

[dalin80]

Gadhafi giving millions of weapons to people of Libya. lol

People who arent trained to use them and with very little in the way of a supply line, an AK47 will burn through a clip in a few seconds with almost no accuracy. Those people who have been armed by gaddafi will be of little concern once they have used up the ammo and get no support from the rear.

Hopefully some ammo stockpiles and caches have been targeted already.

 

[theignoramus]

Gadaffi forces under attack

 

[Joel Was Right]

It would be ironic if Saudi Arabia were one of the Arab states that backed resolution to protect the Libyan rebels, whilst sending their own soldiers to crush the Shia uprising in Bahrain

 

[Furoba]

yes NATO isn't taking part in the operations yet. They'll decide today what exactly they will do.

military equipment destroyed after the French attack.

I hope for those people's sake, they didn't use DU shells on those vehicles...

 

[CHEEZMO™]

I hope for those people's sake, they didn't use DU shells on those vehicles...

Isn't the use of DU prohibited under EU law?

Also, I dont think DU has quite that effect on vehicles.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

Isn't the use of DU prohibited under EU law?

Also, I dont think DU has quite that effect on vehicles.

NATO really doesn't care about law. They used DU shells during Yugoslav bombing. They also used cluster bombs and slaughtered civilians.

 

[RustyNails]

I wake up and find out that Gaddafi godwinned the war already. There's nowhere to go but down from here on.

 

[Arcipello]

was out last night in Cambridge UK and saw a HUGE air armada of what i presume were bombers and jets, about 10 of them flying in formation, theres a large American airbase nearby so they obviously took off from there. wish id seen it during the day.

 

[Roude Leiw]

Secretary of the Arab league is already criticizing the air strikes. he says that they only wanted a no fly zone but no air strikes. they wanna protect civilians and not bombing them.

it baffles me that guys like him and media are talking about dead civilians even though they know the only reports we have so far are coming from gaddafis propaganda channel. the same channel spread a lot of bullshit over the last few weeks.

more pics:

BBC reports Typhoons taking off from RAF Coningsby. The jets shown were armed with 4 ASRAAMs and 4 AMRAAMs and a pair of droptanks.

Qatar will join the bombardment in a few hours. Their jets are getting ready

 

[Evlar]

It's impossible to have a no-fly zone without airstrikes, as anyone with even rudimentary understanding of military technology understands.

 

[RustyNails]

Secretary of the Arab league is already criticizing the air strikes. he says that they only wanted a no fly zone but no air strikes. they wanna protect civilians and not bombing them.

it baffles me that guys like him and media are talking about dead civilians even though they know the only reports we have so far are coming from gaddafis propaganda channel. the same channel spread a lot of bullshit over the last few weeks.

Which is really surprising. Even Russians and Saudis are doing this. It's looking like they want an excuse to pile on the west. I hope France comes out with its satellite footage and disproves this myth.

 

[bistromathics]

Secretary of the Arab league is already criticizing the air strikes. he says that they only wanted a no fly zone but no air strikes. they wanna protect civilians and not bombing them.

it baffles me that guys like him and media are talking about dead civilians even though they know the only reports we have so far are coming from gaddafis propaganda channel. the same channel spread a lot of bullshit over the last few weeks.

it was stated over and over that a NFZ means air-strikes to take out comm stations and AA equipment. Or did france go after ground troops already? Even so, it was also stated over and over that civilians would be protected from Gaddafi's troops by "any means necessary".

 

[Alx]

Call me cynical, but all those operations sometimes sound like commercials for plane builders... it's all Rafale here, Typhoon there...
Of course I may be influenced by my recent reading of "the Gun Seller", but still.

 

[Roude Leiw]

it was stated over and over that a NFZ means air-strikes to take out comm stations and AA equipment. Or did france go after ground troops already? Even so, it was also stated over and over that civilians would be protected from Gaddafi's troops by "any means necessary".

france already destroyed a number of vehicles around bengazi.

 

[Magni]

Call me cynical, but all those operations sometimes sound like commercials for plane builders... it's all Rafale here, Typhoon there...
Of course I may be influenced by my recent reading of "the Gun Seller", but still.

Of course, this is all a big commercial by Dassault to get YOU to buy their fighter jets! It's just precision, not a commercial. Do you really think you are the target of commercials by the different aircraft manufacturers?

 

[Your Excellency]

it baffles me that guys like him and media are talking about dead civilians even though they know the only reports we have so far are coming from gaddafis propaganda channel. the same channel spread a lot of bullshit over the last few weeks.

It's rare to have air strikes without dead civilians. Yes, the current reports are probably bullshit, but the longer this goes on, the more real dead civilians there will be.

Dead civilians are crucial for two reasons:

1. They were innocent, and we killed them.
2. For every 1 dead civilian, you create a couple anti-american terrorists/suicide-bombers.

[And then there's the issue of 'semi-civilians'. Like, you can blow up Gaddafi's house, and you end up killing 1 dictator, but you also killed 30 servants/cleaners/doormen/poolboys/cooks/gardeners too. I would personally say those people deserve it though]


Do you know how many innocent civilians are killed by U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan per year? It's fourteen times the number of people who were killed in the London Tube Bombings in 2005. In fact, we killed 40 innocent civilians just this week!

 

[Roude Leiw]

^i know, but officials and the press shouldnt fall for gaddafis propaganda.

 

[Furoba]

Call me cynical, but all those operations sometimes sound like commercials for plane builders... it's all Rafale here, Typhoon there...
Of course I may be influenced by my recent reading of "the Gun Seller", but still.

BAE sure wants to sell those Eurofighters to Japan... good publicity.

 

[nubbe]

I don't get why anyone cares about what the state tv says

 

[Joel Was Right]

I don't get why anyone cares about what the state tv says

Which, ours or there's?

 

[RustyNails]

UGH, meus.

 

[Alx]

Of course, this is all a big commercial by Dassault to get YOU to buy their fighter jets! It's just precision, not a commercial. Do you really think you are the target of commercials by the different aircraft manufacturers?

Of course not. But the target of those companies will watch just the same images of the planes in action.
As for the population, it can be the focus of another communication campaign, in the line of "see ? those expensive aircrafts were not useless after all".

Not that it's a big surprise. Armed conflicts are the only moment when gun sellers can demonstrate their products. It wasn't really different in previous conflicts, maybe I'm just more aware of it now.

 

[Roude Leiw]

Of course not. But the target of those companies will watch just the same images of the planes in action.
As for the population, it can be the focus of another communication campaign, in the line of "see ? those expensive aircrafts were not useless after all".

Not that it's a big surprise. Armed conflicts are the only moment when gun sellers can demonstrate their products. It wasn't really different in previous conflicts, maybe I'm just more aware of it now.

of course this is also a good publicity for the aircrafts sellers. they want to sell f-18's, rafales and eurofighters to india and brazil.

 

[Joel Was Right]

UGH, meus.

What? Is it wrong for me to be sceptical and wary of how the media portray and convey the reporting of this conflict?

 

[The_Squirrel_Menace]

How's that cease fire going?


oh wait.

 

[Roude Leiw]

western reporters asked the Libyan government to show them the destroyed hospitals and let them visit hospitals. all of those requests were denied.
the al jazira reporter, who is in tripolis at the moment, says thats its unbelievable that russia, china and the arab league base their criticism on unverified Libyan state tv reports.

 

[RustyNails]

What? Is it wrong for me to be sceptical and wary of how the media portray and convey the reporting of this conflict?

Do you know what a state run TV even is? You get "news" every couple of hours which is nothing but propaganda machine. There are not even reporters anywhere "reporting". It's just straight BS feed. After the news, it's time for Children Singing Songs About Great Leader again.