Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

I still can't tell if that "wait and see" truthbomb is supposed to be a joke or note.

best to wait and see

Don't Worry Jagger (Moammar's Only Looking For Your Hand in the Snow)

I still can't tell if that "wait and see" truthbomb is supposed to be a joke or note.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:19 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

basically = 'boy im glad i didnt have to make that decision' right

i feel like NATO is helping the rebels just enough for this to go on for fucking years.

Speaking of Bosnia, their slightly odd ethno-political system still causing problems : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/12933096.stm

Coalition air strike 'killed seven civilians'

.. in rebel held territory, so assume the doctor is not pro-Gadaffi?

A small price to pay for freedom. Freedom isn't free! Had they not been killed, Qaddafi may have killed them.

An aide to one of Q's sons defected to the UK.

And since its Friday, I believe there were more protests in various parts of the world after services, in Syria:

Al-Jazeera, and other media, report that so far, the government is using only tear gas, water cannon and people in plainclothes armed with sticks to try to subdue the protesters

The new kinder and gentler Syria

http://images1.cpcache.com/product/109943681v2_480x480_Front.jpg

xp: 'killed seven civilians'

Note the airstrike hit a pro-Gaddafi ammunition truck. The secondary explosion destroyed two nearby houses. Not entirely comparable to cluster bombing Kosovo refugees by accident.

At least one dead now reported in Syria

If NATO start attacking civilians, will NATO hit NATO with aerial attacks too?

u guys should check this book 'catch 22' its rlly great

you don't have to be crazy to bomb libya, but it helps!

So author Jeremy Scahill (from the far left) is mocking the Libyan rebels as a small ragtag bunch similar to the contras that Reagan backed, while some on the far right are convinced they're all Al queda and will turn on the US next....

Scahill has a long article in the Nation on Yemen and the US battles with Al Queda there. The comment section discusses his disagreements with liberal MSNBC host Ed Schultz re Libya.

http://www.thenation.com/article/159578/dangerous-us-game-yemen?comment_sort=ASC#comments

Oh FFS North Africans don't want to start Al Q groups.

I read Scahill's book on Blackwater and admired it and him, until I peeked at his Facebook photos and saw photos of him in the late nineties hanging out with Fidel. Unironically.

US ending air combat role

Whatever that means. Directly, you mean, since I assume we will continue to supply intel and whatnot.

I think it means we aren't gonna fly planes and drop bombs

from the far left (bill o'reilly voice)

Oh FFS North Africans don't want to start Al Q groups.

It was my understanding that there were numerous Libyans w/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan though that was said to reflect the futility of operations in Libya as much as anything.

It was my understanding that "Al Qaeda is secretly running the Libyan revolution/arming them with Islamist strings attached" was basically a unsubstantiated rumor taken seriously by the likes of Alex Jones and George Noory...

yeah i mean no one besides complete idiots believes they're "secretly running" the whole thing or whatever absolute terms you'd like to use - the makeup of the_rebels is still v much unclear tho obv which is (one of the many reasons) why the US is hesitant to arm them

Oh FFS North Africans don't want to start Al Q groups.

― nights of d. cameron (suzy), Friday, April 1, 2011 5:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

eh? dunno how they feel about OG al-q, but violent islamists have been known to inhabit the region (and indeed inspired osama's merry band), and could take on the brand. don't think they are 'running tings' but it's a factor in the equation.

TS: an administration that directly and openly funded terrorism against the west vs a rebellion that may or may not (while accepting aid from the west) end up rebelling violently against the west.

i keep forgetting everything wrt libya fits into these neat binaries

Het, if the world doesn't fit into binaries then those in power acr as if it does, which is kind of the same thing. I mean, any weapons we give the rebels will be be less (or equal) to what Gaddafi would have if he wins.

The US seems more worried about the Al Queda unit (AQAP) operating in Yemen and what will happen if (when at this point, maybe) Yemen's head of state leaves. Scahill thinks that the US' single-minded focus on AQAP without any support for bread and butter economic issues there has backfired for the US.

Will Syria eventually succeed Iran-style in supressing dissent?
From the NY Times:
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities around Syria on Friday to chants of “We want freedom” and security forces responded with tear gas, electrified batons, clubs and bullets, killing at least seven people, according to activists, residents and a Syrian human rights group.

demonstrators had chanted “Freedom is not a foreign conspiracy or call to sectarian division,” in response to the Wednesday speech in which President Assad accused protesters of advancing “an Israeli agenda” against Syria and said they had been “duped” or were conspiring to destroy the nation.

Syrian state media on Friday reported that imams and prayer leaders had repeated President Assad’s warning about foreign conspiracies.

demonstrators had chanted “Freedom is not a foreign conspiracy or call to sectarian division,” i

It probably flows better in Arabic

haha

Do the Libyan rebels want a ceasefire now because they don't expect NATO to be as agressive as the US in bombing?

ABC news:

Coalition forces "captured all of what we may call the low-hanging fruit, the armored columns, those targets in obvious positions on open roads, sitting on open terrain," Shashank Joshi of the British think tank Royal United Services Institute told Reuters.

"What we may now be left with is heavy weaponry on the ground that's more difficult to find and isolate because it is next to urban targets," he said.

Cordesman said the dynamic could pose a challenge for NATO and European militaries which are not as well equipped as the U.S. with aerial surveillance technologies

NATO may have accidentally bombed the rebels. Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-democracy rebels in Ivory Coast massacred for trying to take down their own democracy-resisting strongman. Better keep those jet engines running, right? Especially if we want to keep global cocoa prices down.

All in all, i think it's going pretty well over there.

so: seif qaddafi leading libya during a transition to constitutional democracy?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/africa/04libya.html?hp

seems kinda... counterintuitive.

The idea also touches on longstanding differences among his sons. While Seif and Saadi have leaned toward Western-style economic and political openings, Colonel Qaddafi’s sons Khamis and Mutuassim are considered hard-liners. Khamis leads a fearsome militia focused on repressing internal unrest.

And Mutuassim, a national security adviser who also commands his own militia, has been considered a rival to Seif in the competition to succeed their father. But Saadi, who has drifted through careers as a professional soccer player, a military officer and a businessman, firmly backs the plan, an associate said

Can't someone just offer the whole family a reality tv show instead?

They already have a reality show, and we're watching it right now. It's called ... reality.

doh!

So the US is now sorta saying that Yemen's prez for life should go.

Speaking of reality shows, they should just have Yemen dude and Qaddafi swap countries. Like, Nation Swap. Just to shake things up, see what happens.

The UK is gonna give rebels fancy communication equipment. This is to help prevent further air strikes on the wrong people as well as to allow communication among the rebels. But the UK is not ready to give them weapons yet either.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pro-democracy rebels in Ivory Coast massacred for trying to take down their own democracy-resisting strongman. Better keep those jet engines running, right? Especially if we want to keep global cocoa prices down.

UN and French troops are shooting people there too if it makes you feel any better

lol france is pissed these days

Libyan rebels near Brega and Libyan civilians are pissed that NATO is not doing enough to help them.

Those Libyans don't understand the delicate intricacies of not-wars. We are at not-war in Libya. If we were at war, they'd be super-pissed at us for coming in, steamrolling the country, flattening the infrastructure, taking over the government and trying to build schools for girls.

What do the "why Libya, why not Ivory Coast?" people make of the Ivory Coast intervention? Do they like this one? Seems to be working.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/2011/04/110405_jj_latest.shtml

I dunno what those guys think, but the tide was already against Gbagbo, and has been for months. The UN intervention has (hopefully) reduced the cost in life and time before a solution. But it was still different from Libya where those holding power had the upper hand.

What do the "why Libya, why not Ivory Coast?" people make of the Ivory Coast intervention? Do they like this one? Seems to be working.

well i'm confused as to why intervention in ivory coast is so easy to do and get away with, whereas libya requires a whole host of subterranean diplomatic agreements, quid-pro-quos, resolutions etc etc. is it because libya is closer to europe as the crow flies?

Arab countries have much more global political influence than African ones.