Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

i honestly have no idea how capable other UN countries are miliarily. you guys don't have your own planes and shit? the entire rest of the UN couldn't handle LIBYA for a week without us babysitting you? better hope you stay on our good side for WW3

yeah you'd think, but no. think US commitment was necessary to get the acquiescence of russia, china, india, etc. britain is maxed out, not sure about france. but the arab league, african union?

dictators around the region would have gotten the message that violent repression "works"

Ha ha, yeah, violent repression totally fails. Granted, it typically takes decades to fail, which is longer than many "successes" last, but still. Violent repressive dictators around the globe take note: your time is running out! Very, very slowly.

In the meantime you can lend us a few Mirages to bolster our coalition cred. No, not Mazda Mirages! The planes we sold you. I don't know, where's the last place you remember seeing them?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/

The idea of humanitarian intervention begins in 1968 with the Biafran war.

really? what about the genocide convention 20 years earlier? curtis is such a bullshitter sometimes.

more questions today

- is armed rebellion the best response to living under Gaddafi in spring of 2011?

- how in the world did the rebels ever expect to win a military confrontation w/gaddafi?

- if no rebel had ever picked up a gun, and a steady drib-drab of protestors kept getting killed each week would this intervention have ever happened? should it have?

- UNR 1973 calls for "protection of civilians" - hasn't this been achieved? if not, how will we know when it's been achieved? if we continue bombing gaddafi's army after this point are we in violation of the resolution?

- if rebels harm or kill any civilians will we bomb them too? should we?

The idea of humanitarian intervention begins in 1968 with the Biafran war.

hahahahaha

no son

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/84194/Bulgarian-Horrors

those are good questions tracer but

- how in the world did the rebels ever expect to win a military confrontation w/gaddafi?

like: http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/pro-gadhafi-force-opens-fire-on-tripoli-protest-casualties-reported-1.346302

there were protests in tripoli too

this didn't start as an 'armed rebellion'

1. Not for us to judge
2. The impetus of Tunisia and Egypt - high hopes - naivete - not sure why this is a pressing question TBH
3. No, because sadly that happens all over the place. Once the stakes were raised and there was a chance of a massacre everything changed.
4. That's the big one - the general feeling is that if Gaddafi stays in power he will punish the rebels.
5. Not "any civilians" no - large numbers, ie a massacre, yes (morally), tricky (politically)

2. The impetus of Tunisia and Egypt - high hopes - naivete - not sure why this is a pressing question TBH

tunisia and egypt succeeded without armed rebellions. arguably BECAUSE they weren't armed rebellions.

it's a pressing question because once you initiate a civil war/armed rebellion/what have you, between teenagers riding on technicals vs a very big military, you guarantee massive loss of life, massive internal displacement, massive reprisal. you don't know where it's going to end, how and if it's going to escalate. and that's even if you "win". maybe wasn't for us to judge in february but now that we are their air force i think we have permission to weigh things up.

tunisia and egypt succeeded without armed rebellions. arguably BECAUSE they weren't armed rebellions.

think it's more to do with the egyptian military not firing on unarmed protesters? whereas gadaffi did fire on unarmed protesters. again for the cheap seats, what happened in libya did not begin as an armed rebellion.

allllllso, think the jury is somewhat out on whether the rebellion in egypt has succeeded yet.

xpost But it didn't start of as an armed rebellion - it was completely ad hoc, with protesters becoming fighters. I appreciate all the questions your posing but do you have answers to any of them? What do you think should happen when protesters pick up guns?

i think they shouldn't pick up guns. especially when it's perfectly clear they stand no chance.

I don't think it was perfectly clear at all - the early phase of the rebellion was very successful and there was a belief (wrong but not absurd) that Gaddafi's forces would abandon him, as had happened in Tunisia and Egypt.

civilian protesters were being shot in the streets and could reasonably have anticipated worse. you're saying they have bitten their tongue, said sorry, and promised never to protest again. im not sure gadaffi would have forgiven them.

should the libyan people just knuckle down and live under gadaffi? what is the next move there? they should have help from outside , and they shouldn't pick up a gun (they'll lose), and they shouldn't protest peacefully (they'll get shot), by your reckoning, so far as i can tell.

xpost

shoulN'T have help from outside

should the libyan people just knuckle down and live under gadaffi? what is the next move there?

i really don't know.

initiating an armed rebellion is one of the biggest things any political group can do, with the biggest consequences in terms of human misery and suffering and you'd better fucking know what you're doing. it seems the rebels (who i don't consider an identical category with "the protestors") didn't have a clue. would the suffering have been less if no one had picked up a gun? would other pressure have been brought to bear had the protests remained peaceful? we'll never know.

i just sort of have to boggle that we're throwing our lot in with people whose judgement has been like "gaddafi'll fold when he gets a load of our thirty toyotas"

Here's a question based on the current New Statesman cover and the general "why only Libya?" argument. Where among the following would someone who opposes the Libyan intervention be happy to see western military action?

Iran
Gaza
Sudan
Yemen
Bahrain
Ivory Coast
Zimbabwe
Burma
North Korea

i don't completely know. but i don't think that in these situations decisions are made rationally, or on the basis of very much knowledge. i've no doubt that some of the rebels are dangerous and the prospect of them carrying out reprisals is frightening. i don't think one does know what one's doing! in other 'successful' bloody revolutions of the past, i doubt they knew what they were in for: hundreds of thousands of people died in the french revolution.

so no-one knows, and the end result is still unknown. but i would say that the protests were made non-peaceful by gadaffi's forces shooting at them, on the whole. i guess he took a hard line because he thought there was risk of a real armed rebellion kicking off. that's life as a dictator.

xposts

Tracer, wouldn't you agree that a large group of people have the same right to self defence as a small group? i.e. when the early movement was under violent attack people were morally justified in taking up arms to protect themselves?

*small group or individual

xpost i have to say none. i just don't think the US has any credibility as an honest broker, especially in the middle east. i think any military step it takes in any of the countries mentioned will make things worse. i mean it sucks.

this episode - which i have every expectation will end badly, though i really hope not - kind of points up the contradictions of the westphalian concept of sovereignty. every nation is supposed to have a monopoly on the use of force inside its borders, which is contingent on the consent of its people. now we have a situation where "the international community" (i.e. the_global_north) can openly make an outside determination that this deal isn't being honored or conducted fairly. the contradiction (inherent in any treaty or war) is, from where does this determination happen? in what venue? in a country? outside all countries? when the very concept of rules depends on a state to enforce them, what do we make of rules that exist outside of any state? (EU countries have been thinking about this for some time, though there they've constructed a quasi-state or a super-state)

dowd sure they have the "right" to launch a quasi military campaign but they also have the responsibility to think it through.

ehh pretty sure 'the consent of its people' was not at the forefront of european rulers' minds when the treaty of westphalia was signed.

gadaffi sure as hell lacks it. but yes i agree, the concept of international law is pretty much horseshit. who enforces it? who writes it? im kind of hobbesian on this point.

i don't think the initial resort to arms was 'launching quasi military campaign' btw. i think it was to fend of armed assaults by gadaffi's forces on unarmed protesters.

ehh pretty sure 'the consent of its people' was not at the forefront of european rulers' minds when the treaty of westphalia was signed.

eeeeeeeeeeiouhhhh no but the concept of sovereignty now includes that. even the worst dictator claims his people love him.

well, yes, but the_west/the_global_north/the imperialist running dogs of the so-called free world can point out that it's bullshit. and i think in some cases rational people can agree! there's no impartial, neutral, honest broker out there, who can say with complete disinterest, gadaffi has to go. but im not sure what you're saying here. we should continue to uphold the westphalian concept of sovereignty? or the surely contradictory ideal of the UN? or what?

oh i'm not making any argument at all about that. we're stuck with the concept of sovereignty for awhile i think. it's just unavoidable thinking about this stuff in a situation like this.

It has to be said, this thread is the only place I can find to discuss this stuff reasonably. Comment Is Free is full of Imperialism! Neocons! Links to Prison Planet!

Comment is free could do with a special 'green type' setting.

Fears that providing arms would pull the United States into a civil war, as well as concerns that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda, have spawned fierce debate

NY Times article quotes CIA guy saying he/we have no idea whether Al Queda are 2 % or 80% of the rebel force. No surprise that the CIA is not knowledgeable. Neither Juan Cole nor "Tracer Hand" quoted on the question!

France wants the US to arm the rebels. I guess they don't have the military hardware that the US does.

No expert here, but I'm going to say arming the rebels has an even greater chance of biting us on the ass than bombing Qadddafi's forces does.

Find it ruefully funny that anyone would posit the rebels were ever doing well, or ever had any real inertia. Yeah, they did well ... until Qaddafi fought back. And then they did terribly ... until we bombed Qaddafi. It's like hovering by a teetering toddler learning to walk, then lurching forward to catch him every time he tips over head-first.

pretty much agree. even on a practical level i don't get how you 'arm' people who have no idea how to fight. modern weapons are p sophisticated. bad show.

Heard an analysis on the radio that even if we (someone) supplied them RPGs, we'd still need to train them. Because after all those years in Iraq and Afghanistan, we've had such a resounding success rate training people to use these weapons. Which will inevitably be sold, stolen or passed off to someone else who will similarly inevitably point them back in our direction.

So if dictators use force against protestors you folks are basically saying protestors can never suceeed because invariably, if they need weapons they will not likely be trained already, and we can't take a chance in trying to give them weapons because such methods have failed in the past. Ugh. Logical and depressing. Maybe I can find a quote from the French(!) arguing a contrary position re providing weapons!

I think this was once discussed previously upthread, but I think under Tracer's Rules of Protest, the American Revolution would never have happened or been viewed as legitimate.

Oh, and I do wish Obama had gone early to Congress for the same authorization the UN gave even though I have read views on both sides of the constitutional argument that seemed convincing.

It's like hovering by a teetering toddler learning to walk, then lurching forward to catch him every time he tips over head-first.

Naive me wants the US to do this with the Libyans.

Maybe I can find a quote from the French(!) arguing a contrary position re providing weapons!

let's... not get into the irony there

fwiw im pretty much in favour of intervention, but i think it's imperative to ask who we'd be giving weapons to and what they'd do with them

ha, that was my position last week! A large part of my skepticism (which you mocked) rested in my ignorance about who The Rebels are. We're getting a better idea now.

curmudgeon your post reads like you're trying to extrapolate grand rules that can govern this and all future (and past!) situations. or you think that's what i'm doing. i'm not, and i doubt such a set of rules would be useful or realistic even if they could be drawn up.

Oh, I thought you were trying to come up with such rules.

So in this other NY Times article it says that Q pays his military officers well and relies on close relatives but:

And within the cities, Mr. Li argued, even a few tanks or other heavy weapons would allow Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to hold off the rebels and elude Western airstrikes. “A deadlock,” Mr. Li called it.

The wild card is the divided loyalties of the tribes who dominate the military’s upper echelons.

Although Colonel Qaddafi has surrounded himself with guards drawn from his own tribe and those close to it, a coup would not be unexpected.

A 1986 disagreement between Colonel Qaddafi and a cousin from the Qaddafa tribe who had been a top military commander ended when the cousin’s body was left at the gates of Colonel Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli.

the way tracer is arguing itt is turning me into hillary clinton.

pant suit on standby

http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110324&t=2&i=370587607&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=390&r=2011-03-24T212528Z_01_GM1E73H082301_RTRRPP_0_LIBYA

the way tracer is arguing itt is turning me into hillary clinton.

Ya rly

how am i arguin, idgi

several posts in a row questioning not only the efficacy (fair enough) but the legitimacy of armed resistance against Qdf -- plus a really weird statement that we couldn't/shouldn't judge them at the time, but now that american planes are over the country, we can say that that anti-regime dudes should have just stayed indoors anyway. and nothing at all about the legitimacy of Qdf's violence against the protesters. whatever conclusions you can make about the situation, Qdf is the first actor here. he shot first and he's still shooting most.

i really don't get your whole orientation. either intervention in libya will work or it won't, but second-guessing the moral basis of the uprising is really rubbing me the wrong way

yeah me too

like there's this weird subtext of somehow painting the rebels as the aggressors/in the wrong, you're giving the impression that you think they should have just continued peacefully protesting until Qudhaffy shot, tortured, imprisoned, "disappeared" all of them. because that would have been the "right" thing to do. How that is any less offensive/patronizing/morally invalid than Western intervention is kinda beyond me.

goole do you really need to hear me say that shooting and killing peaceful protestors is reprehensible??

i'm not sure where i questioned the legitimacy of the armed uprising. i don't know what that means, actually - moral legitimacy? legal legitimacy? at any rate, i didn't mean to imply that the rebels were "illegitimate" by choosing to fight gaddafi militarily.