a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

p sure i didn't say US... idk, i don't even agree that's true about no-fly zones. it was maintained over iraq without a great deal of extra combat. and that worked out fine!

What do we have to lose in Libya, though, goole? No fly zone means that hardliners can't bomb or machine gun from the air. My impression is that basically Tripoli and little else is being held by pro-regime supporters and apparently through the calculated use of terror- drive-by shootings and other forms of intimidation. If we help the majority (or at least prevent them from being killed from above, we (or the UN at least) may earn some good will. Kaddafy isn't going to come out of this victorious imho and even if he does, he's not going to be terribly friendly. Even beofre all this he felt that his returning to the fold, as it were, hadn't brought him much in the way of tangible benefits.

well the u.n./u.s. would have to spend a day destroying the libyan air force first - bombing a country not usually a good look for rallying people to yr side - sidelines is the best place for the west imho

and yeah it is a bit realist for me. the US 'isn't a party to this'? don't really like this line of reasoning, as a european.

xpost

well the u.n./u.s. would have to spend a day destroying the libyan air force first - bombing a country not usually a good look for rallying people to yr side - sidelines is the best place for the west imho

― ice cr?m, Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:10 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark

letting people get bombed when you could stop it isn't a super look either... bombing some airfields isn't going to be that much of a thing is it?

what is the point of a no-fly zone? to keep other aircraft out of the air. if they fly, you shoot at them. shooting = war. it's not just legalism, it puts the US (yes it would be the US, come on) in as a violent actor in a very fluid situation. i feel like 'no-fly zone', the term, the packaging is something for media back home, look, we just sort of colored this area of the map green, like that!

xps NATO isn't involved either. look if the UN (doubtful, thx china) or the EU feel like putting something together, well, ok, it's their back yard.

That may be true, ice cr?m, I don't know. The Libyan air force ain't looking all that monolithic what with two defections and two pilots ditching their planes (including one who is a member of Muammar's own tribe, tellingly) rather than carrying out ordered bombing raids. I know the African Union is busy all over the place but an AU/UN sponsored moratorium on Libyan air force flights secured by whomever, might be just the thing to secure the success of what looks to be a quite popular revolt.

bombing some airfields isn't going to be that much of a thing is it?

― for all the fucked-up children of this world we give you 1p3 (history mayne), Thursday, 24 February 2011 23:13 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this guy

obvs idk for sure but it seems like a topic easily exploited for pr purposes 'hey now the america is bombing in support of the tripping hippie protestors sex maniacs - you w/us or them'

shooting = war

If you're threating to shoot them to prevent them from wantonly killing protesters, it doesn't exactly look the same.

my objection is really on the level of "can't" rather than "shouldn't"

yeah sure, we should do what we can to keep people alive and make life shit for tyrants

but no, we can't project air power into another country in a simple, clean, tidy, unobtrusive, legal, non-locally-political way. it's an impossibility.

what is the point of a no-fly zone? to keep other aircraft out of the air. if they fly, you shoot at them. shooting = war.

not really. the US isn't at war with pakistan. it wasn't at war with iraq 1991–2003. also in this case so what?

it's not just legalism, it puts the US (yes it would be the US, come on) in as a violent actor in a very fluid situation.

the UN is a thing imo. but also, yes? it does make the UN/US violent actor in a fluid situation. agreed. wodner where yall would have stood on spain.

i feel like 'no-fly zone', the term, the packaging is something for media back home, look, we just sort of colored this area of the map green, like that!

shrug

spain when, the 30s? i'd have been in the trenches with you and hemingway bro

but no, we can't project air power into another country in a simple, clean, tidy, unobtrusive, legal, non-locally-political way. it's an impossibility.

― goole, Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:21 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark

like, OH REALLY? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT.

obviously there's a case for pessimism, and a case for not. what you shouldn't do, though, is worry about how this plays in the US, if it looks too much like western triumphalism blah blah blah.

xpost

you me and ernie, projecting mad firepower in a simple, clean, tidy, unobtrusive, legal, non-locally-political way.

i don't really care how it plays in the US! i care how it would play in libya. ok i've laid out the nay side, so sure, there's a case for optimism. maybe they'd love it! seems like the kind of thing where you'd reaaally want your ducks in a row before trying tho.

xp idk, why bother with the 'no-fly' crap, just kill the guy

(the thing is you wouldn't necessarily have to do much. the threat would be quite potent.)

all signs point to cadafi falling v soon dont they - % of the country he controls shrinking fast - no

i could see intervening if the momentum swings and it turns into a large scale humanitarian catastrophe - but if its moving in the right direction its better from a number of perspectives to let the country do this itself

that i agree with

our foreign secretary said on sunday that the colonel was kicking it in caracas so i don't have a great amount of faith in our intelligence rly

its better from a number of perspectives to let the country do this itself

Thoroughly agreed. If the airforce continues to refrain from shooting people from the air, I think we should remain as vocally supportive of freedom of speech, of assembly and of the right to seek redress as all hell and insert ourselves as little as possible in their affairs apart from extricating our nationals or other foreigners in need.

What worries me, however, are these rumors about foreign mercenaries and the possibility of assistance from abroad for Kaddafy. Cuba has been supportive but otherwise non-commital wrt materiel. I don't know what Mugabe or Chavez have said (or done) about this but i don't think there's much that they can do.

The mercenary thing is not really classifiable as a rumor at this point. It's widely reported as fact.

Uggh, diehards using paid killers for a regime that won't make it just make me feel a mixture of sadness and white-knuckled rage.

i probably wouldnt have gone to spain, seems like it was kind of a messy time in that countrys history, plus there was some rad shit going on stateside, jazz and marijuana and so on

Can't believe anyone, Libyan or not, would be so deluded as to think the US would blindly back an inchoate revolution. I'm really at a loss as to what other than a wait-and-see position we should be taking. This region is being reorganized and unbalanced on a daily basis. The last thing it needs is the US to move in and ... what? Take out Gaddafi? If it were that simple we likely would have done it decades ago. It's the subsequent political vacuum that holds the mystery and menace.

It's the subsequent political vacuum that holds the mystery and menace.

well, yes. but that's going to happen whatever the US/UN does now. all the king's horses cannot put gaddafi's regime back together again, so stopping his forces bombing people wouldn't hurt. for an outfit as well-resourced as the US government, though, none of this ought to be as mysterious as it apparently is. it shouldn't be 'blindly' backing anything, it shouldn't be blind at all. most of those provisos apply to every instance where the UN has had to consider getting involved. is this the insidious influence of pj harvey at work?

Ha. Harvey fucking shit up again for everyone. Anyway the UN tends to get involved as a neutral party - which would mean, in either case, after the fighting is done. But stepping into the middle of an active civil war, on principle? When has the UN ever done that? Why should the UN do that? Why would the US do that? Help the refugees, by all means. The US can help with that (and likely is, to some degree). But trying to "stop the bombing?" How? With bombs? Yeah, that'd do some good.

What Libya (and the rest of region) needs is the Wolf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANPsHKpti48

isn't that kind of what britain did in sierra leone?

That's a like a one-off where everything that could go right did go right

Even then, the particular block dynamics of the middle east, especially as pertains to the US (and especially as it pertains to Libya, with whom we have a, er, long history) makes this situation particularly sticky. Not least because it comes so soon after renewed diplomatic ties with this specific monster, and on that front we're all guilty of coddling and encouraging him.

... it's kicking off in Tripoli by the way

has anyone written a decent counterfactual as to how things would be looking in iraq if saddam were still in charge? clearly not a man who'd hold back on the massacres but would there be any possibility that the right interest groups would turn on him?

Unlikely that the Sunnis would have turned on Saddam and the Kurds and Shi'ites probably wouldn't have been able to oust him. He kicked the shit out of them after the Gulf War.

he wouldve detonated a nuclear warhead in times square by now and be president of the world duh

I don't know about the Sunnis not turning on Saddam Hussein. I understand that in Bahrain the Sunni minority (or at least some of them) have come out for democracy, so these protests do not work on rigidly sectarian lines.

But maybe Iraq would have stayed quiet like Syria has, thus far, for whatever reasons.

There is an unconfirmed report that sub-saharan africans in Libya are being attacked as 'Qaddafi mercenaries' on the basis of their skin. Rly rly hope this is unfounded. Too depressing.

Also a Tripoli resident tells the BBC that in the most recent massacre they were using ambulances to fire machine guns from...

My take on the no-fly zone-- Q's forces ain't attacking anybody from planes anyway, just helicopters in Tripoli. So at the moment it's a moot point.

I saw that. It is depressing, but I was wondering whether this would start happening.

I suspect that people from the far south of Libya probably have a "sub saharan" appearence.

I believe no-fly zones apply to helicopters as well.

xpost

Well, hasn't one rationalization of these strong-arm dictators been that without them, their respective countries would fall into sectarian violence as old tribal grievances are aired? No reason to believe that won't happen.

I guess shooting down a helicopter hovering 50 ft above a crowd in Tripoli pretty much = fucking mess.

well shooting down helicopter at any point is a mess
it being hovering 50ft above a crowd is even worse
it happening in Libya just makes it Tripoli so.

Guilty laugh. Also at Gaddafi turning up today looking like a human statue.

so his transformation into Michael Jackson is complete

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/25/us-korea-north-campaign-idUSTRE71O0SM20110225

^^NK won't rise up. This is just more of the regular, ongoing chaffing betwen SK and NK, nothing more.

I suspect that people from the far south of Libya probably have a "sub saharan" appearence.

Toubou ppl from the Southeast part of Libya are black.

Hitchens hamstrung here by his neocon past: USA! USA!

http://www.slate.com/id/2286522/

This commenter OTM:

Perhaps Obama is a little reluctant to meddle in any way since precisely zero percent of our past meddlings in Arab/Middle-Eastern government affairs have led to beneficial results and there's nothing to indicate things will be different this time. As for our vaunted sea/air power, 1) just how fast does Hitch think warships move? and 2) put them within 12 miles of Libyan coastline, or form a blockade, and you've just invaded Libya and 3) enter Libyan airspace without permission, even with humanitarian supplies, and you've just invaded Libya. At least that's what Moammar will say and then he'll start shooting at us, and things won't go much better for the people on the ground who get to be recast from patriotic protesters to the fifth column of the American invaders.

Someone from White House announcing that the US is imposing sanctions on Libya.

The sanctions themselves are still being finalized.

Meanwhile Libyan State TV says the whole crisis is over LOL

Libyan TV reports that the regime has been in talks with "the misguided youth", who "have been handing over their weapons and joining the mass marches alongside the brother and leader of the revolution".

smh

Hey, it was worth a try, y'know. Costs nothing to try.

Kahdahfy