Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

Is Q gonna get to live in the South of France!

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - France said Muammar Gaddafi was ready to leave power, according to emissaries, the latest sign contacts were underway between the Libyan leader and NATO members to find a way out of the crisis.

As far as France as concerned he isn't technically part of the Libyan government anymore iirc

Technicalities.

obviously Q leaving is a net positive. otoh I hate these amnesty-for-dictators deals in principle.

Yeah, but how binding are they? Chile went back on Pinochet's. I guess you just say that the agreement was made under one government, when they left, and will be broken by another afterwards, who aren't restricted by the agreement. Plus the amnesty doesn't trump international law which allows anyone else to punish them if their nation is unable or unwilling. So you need to get them out of the country. Then Thatcher can let them go again.

happy 100th, air power!

http://counterpunch.org/patrick07252011.html

(Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's camp has vowed to push on with its war against rebels whether or not NATO stops its bombing campaign,

Great.

Then there is this:

The assassination of Gen. Younis is a major challenge to the rebels – and to the strategy of the US and others who recognized the rebels as Libya's government and must stay the course.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0802/Can-US-Libya-strategy-survive-the-assassination-of-rebels-top-general

(Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's camp has vowed to push on with its war against rebels whether or not NATO stops its bombing campaign,

Great.

lol that's just him pushing the narrative that NATO had something to do with initiating the hostilities in the first place (it did not, btw)

?? has anyone ever thought that?

Q's blamed the whole conflagration on "outside agitators" and "foreign elements" since day one

hmm yeah i don't think he meant NATO

O RLY

7/25: Late on Saturday Gaddafi said in an audio message on state television that the unrest that has swept his country since a popular uprising erupted in mid-February was a "colonial plot."

He did not elaborate.

He also denied accusations by international rights groups of a brutal suppression of dissent and allegations that his regime had killed thousands of protesters.

he blames whoever's handy

TS: bombing Gaddafi's dupes in Libya or bombing Assad's dupes in Syria

I've come to hate Sarkozy & Cameron for forcing this intervention on the rest of NATO. Its pretty clear that Obama wanted no part of it from the beginning.

It's much better when the US are forcing their allies into wars of course. The US has done fairly little so far, too. But yes, of course, we should be supporting the rebels/people in Syria as well.

It's amazing how much that Racky wants no part of, he gets.

Patrick Cockbun on the Younes killing and our 'freedom fighters':

http://counterpunch.org/patrick08012011.html

Syria, as we've discussed before, because of its involvement with Iran and Lebanon (and other issues), seems more complicated than Libya (although Libya has obviously been a more complicated situation than the Brits and the French once apparently thought it would be)

x-post- I am always a bit skeptical of Cockburn's often out there views. Morbs, is anyone else saying this?

The nature of the civil war in Libya has been persistently underplayed by foreign governments and media alike. The enthusiasm in some 30 foreign capitals to recognize the mysterious self-appointed group in Benghazi as the leaders of Libya is at this stage probably motivated primarily by expectations of commercial concessions and a carve-up of oilfields.

yeah, uh... I don't really buy this

is Patrick related to Alexander?

more probably motivated by a desperate need to give an ugly civil/tribal stalemate some degree of legitimacy.

alexander, andrew and patrick cockburn, all brothers

andrew also father of olivia "wilde", importantly.

Both of them go a little too far in an extreme simplistic way for me.

was gonna read that patrick cockburn piece but i was distracted by "The Forced Drugging of America's Children"

first the drugging, then the slavery

The enthusiasm in some 30 foreign capitals to recognize the mysterious self-appointed group in Benghazi as the leaders of Libya is at this stage probably motivated primarily by expectations of commercial concessions and a carve-up of oilfields.

yeah we did all this really, didn't we? the energy companies were doing ok trading with gadaffi / who does cockburn recognizer as the leader(s) of libya? etc.

i think claud would be very disappointed in this though: is junior really complaining about a 'mysterious self-appointed group' running things? is he some kind of liberal democrat now?

but it is pretty clusterfucky over there. do 'get' why the clean-hands feeling of non-intervention / letting someone else intervene appeals.

http://www.maynereport.com/templateimages/logo.gif

i see this after all yr posts now

i think claud would be very disappointed in this though: is junior really complaining about a 'mysterious self-appointed group' running things? is he some kind of liberal democrat now?

oh, you

Juan Cole does not agree with the Cockburns either:

But logically speaking there are only four likely outcomes.

1. Qaddafi wins and conquers the East

2. The Free Libya forces over time win and take Tripoli

3. Elites in Tripoli overthrow Qaddafi and seek a national unity government with Benghazi

4. The country is partitioned

The UN allies won’t allow Qaddafi to take the east and massacre and imprison thousands, however much Alexander Cockburn, the Tea Party, and the World Socialist Web site would like to see that happen, or at least they object to practical steps to prevent it.

rebels claim Tripoli is surrounded, Qadhafi cut off

probably less than 100% true, I'm guessing

Wow, this story making the rounds now, after recent stories re rebel dissension and in-fighting

Helpful map:

http://www.twitpic.com/67nmsz

increasingly looking like Q's days are numbered, imho

we'll see

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/08/17/gaddafis-days-are-numbered/

Reuters are reporting unverified information that the Presidential Guard has surrendered to rebels in Tripoli.

Everything seems to be happening all at once now...

This war is finally starting to look like the rebels are forcing Qwudophy into his endgame, for which I am happy. Really, I am. The sooner hostilities can be over, the better off Libyans will be.

However, I do notice that NATO has given up any pretense whatsoever that it is only using force "to protect civilian lives", or whatever the formula was that Obama used to justify making war directly on Q's forces. They've been pretty skillful at allowing the rebel force not to look like a minor military appendage to NATO's air offensive, which was a political necessity, for western leaders as well as for the Libyan ones.

It will be interesting to see if the numbers of sorties and tonnage of bombs dropped ever make it into the news. I have a feeling they would be large numbers.

Final tidbit will be to see if Q gets to skip out with an Idi Amin deal, or comes to a Mussolini finish.

Gaddaffi reported dead - https://twitter.com/#!/MalikAlAbdeh/status/105384291495723012

killed by a follow friday. how sad.

also he's on the radio right now. assuming it's not recorded.

CORRECTION: Source in #Tripoli who has been v. reliable got his wires crossed. A lot of confusion out there. #Gaddafi is ALIVE. Just about.

i mis-read the original tweet & thought it was 'and was shot by @FF', as if there's a guy out there with a twitter account being all, just shot gadaffi nbd.

meanwhile: Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim says 1,300 people have been killed in Tripoli since midday and 5,000 injured

i don't know whether in this regard 'government spokesman' totally disqualifies the subsequent text from being taken as fact but like i can't even imagine?

yeah the general opinion seems to be that ibrahim is full of shit and not to be taken seriously.

al jazeera has been showing the same short loop of excitable tripolites for 45 mins, which is now quite annoying -- except for the one guy in what looks like a deathmetal T-shirt, which i call on ILX to crowd-source identify

@Reuters: ICC PROSECUTOR'S SPOKESWOMAN HAS CONFIRMATION GADDAFI HAS BEEN DETAINED

they already corrected that ed: it's his son not him

curses, social media fails again.

the correction was also on social media