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

Wow hmmmmm...

oops!

shakey how do you reconcile this embarassing mishap with your love of the woman's music?

my what?

lol kevin

Clearly we need a no-fly zone ASAP to enforce sanctions and allow the inspectors to finish their work searching for Qaddafi's admitted WMD stores and then ... oh, wait.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, March 3, 2011 5:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

u need 2 set yr motherfucker 2 'receive'

ie this is poor analogizing

n e ways, what are you saying, that the UN shouldn't have tried to hem in saddam? because all intervention is bad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zW4AKrOIak

"Al Jazeera has been the leader in literally changing people's minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effective. In fact viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it's real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and arguments among talking heads" - Hillary Clinton

^^^ Hillary OTM

hahahahaha

awesome lol Hillary

hillin it itt

because it's real news

99 % true although even some supporters agree Al Jazeera pulls their punches re certain places like Lebanon, Syria and Iran and uh, what's the country they receive financial support from-Qatar.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1733536/al-jazeera-in-talks-with-comcast-time-warner#

And I guess she did say you might not agree with it

even some supporters agree Al Jazeera pulls their punches re certain places like Lebanon, Syria and Iran

lol like American media doesn't do this all the fucking time re: our allies/financiers

i watched a bunch of al jeezy recently like everyone else and like 95% of it was a static shot of tahrir square w/some reporter talkin out their ass over it - aka p much what our cable news looks like when something happens in a place where they have reporters - feel like a lot of the love going their way is mostly based on that a) people were under the impression it was some sort of terrorist news network b) western news presence/expertise in the region was so lame

I think it's more than that. It's a matter if programing choices. At times over the last couple of months, I've wanted realtime news about the major stories of the day. AJ provided that and msnbc CNN, etc. didn't.

Local Kebab Shop and middle eastern market which cooked my lunch today has added a massive Libyan Revolt Flag to its facade.

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government struck hard at its opponents Friday, waging fierce battles to wrest control of the town of Zawiya from rebel troops and firing on peaceful protesters after Friday prayers in Tripoli, witnesses said.

from the New York Times

a successful insurrection/rebellion requires 2 things: the support of the general populace (looks fairly certain in this case), and a steady supply of weapons (they are probably lacking on this front)

Britain is preparing to send advisers to help anti-Gaddafi forces in eastern Libya, it emerged as Nato commanders were instructed to draw up plans for a wide range of military options, including a no-fly zone.
As the situation in Libya was deteriorating rapidly, ambassadors representing Nato's 28 nations tasked military commanders to start planning for what an alliance spokesperson described as "all eventualities".

In addition to unarmed advisers deployed to Benghazi and other towns in eastern Libya - where British officials are in touch with a range of opposition figures - the government has placed on alert air, sea, and ground forces that could quickly intervene in the conflict if ordered to do so.

Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus, while 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland - the Black Watch - is on 24 hours' notice to help in evacuation and humanitarian operations, defence officials said.
An RAF airborne radar and early warning aircraft is based in Malta where the Ministry of Defence has also set up a forward joint task force headquarters. Officials yesterday declined to say what intelligence they had gathered on the quality and number of pro-Gaddafi aircraft and armour.

Not so sure this is a good idea, but it does make the british government look slightly daft for decommissioning the carriers.

Ed, the current British government is Dafty McDaft with a touch of idiot evil - you KNOW this.

Don't the Brits and the French have some kind of agreement on carriers?

I think the agreement was to argue about it when one or other of us has finished building a carrier.

Oh, and britain no longer has any aircraft capable of landing on a carrier and delayed the order for the replacements so hey arrive sometime after the new carrier does.

otm

and the thing with this

Typhoon jets would be deployed to RAF Akrotiri in one of the two sovereign base areas in Cyprus

don't think typhoons can, as it were, deploy their ordnance to the ground yet

alright for a no fly zone as long as we ask someone else to take out the anti aircraft weaponry first.

This cartoon becomes more apt every day

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/2/28/1298936813850/Steve-Bell-01.03.2011-001.jpg

x-post Just saying that there enough analogous comparisons to several aspects of Iraq (RIP) that I could easily imagine the US getting drawn into a similar spiral, should we get involved and Qaddafi survives. Then again, to get involved in Libya with the ouster or killing of Qaddafi the explicit goal has just as much potential to backfire. Hence, do what we're doing - stand back cautiously and watch the situation, helping when it comes to humanitarian logistics but keeping away from military intervention for the time being. As sad as it may be to watch Qaddafi attack his own people. in many ways we have to let this sort itself out, a la Sudan but even more so.

I think it's worth taking the risk.

al-Gaddafi vs el-Qaddafi

don't think typhoons can, as it were, deploy their ordnance to the ground yet

The UK Typhoon is ready for air-to-ground attacks. Doesn't make western planes bombing tripoli any less likely to encourage support for Gaddafi.

First para of Krauthammer's latest column:

Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the United States has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance and imperialism.

Both these sentences are objectively true.

So, you just have to love the sleazy way he insinuates that the "voices" in the first sentence are coming from the same people who did the denouncing in the second sentence. He then spends his entire column exposing the hypocrisy of... unnamed, unknown and unidentifiable shadow people.

This would be an impressive exercise in empty rhetoric, if it weren't presented to the world by the Washington Post as having some kind substance worth publishing. This misleads people into thinking he is saying something, so they jump to the conclusion that his artful insinuations are correct.

any less likely to encourage support for Gaddafi

This is an unknown. Will it play into his rhetoric? Yes, absolutely. If it were successful in aiding in his ouster and we didn't subsequently fcuk with Libyan self-determination and politics, would we come out looking better than if we let him win a war of attrition or hold out indefinitely in his present pockets of support? Quite probably.

Hypocrisy of strawmen, Aimless.

The problem is not just Gaddafi's rhetoric, which it would play into, but the wider narrative of post-colonialism in which the deciding force is never the people themselves but the Western powers. Most of the people in Libya will have lived through the '86 bombings, probably without fond memories.

http://defensetech.org/2011/03/03/nato-troops-already-in-libya/

Here's a glimpse at their air force, btw

internet shutoff?

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=LY&l=YOUTUBE&csd=1298590676998&ced=1299195476998

I was under the impresh it was shut off already.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/06/2011-03-06_obamas_chief_of_staff_bashes_nofly_zone_over_libya_a_proposal_backed_by_john_ker.html

President Obama's chief of staff had harsh words Sunday for the growing number of lawmakers who want America to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

"Some people who throw that line out have no idea what they're talking about," White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"They talk about it as though it's just a video game or something."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says imposing a no-fly zone to help the rebels would require major bombing runs to take out Libya's substantial air defenses. That would endanger American pilots and force the US into a third war in the Middle East.

But two of the strongest backers of a no-fly zone are also the Senate's most famous combat vets: Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) - hardly videogamers.

Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that he doesn't consider a no-fly zone military intervention.

He also said there are alternatives to bombing Libya's air defenses to keep Col. Moammar Khadafy's warplanes from attacking the rebels.

"That's actually not the only option," Kerry said. "One could crater the airports and the runways and leave them incapable of using them for a period of time."

McCain said action by the United States would never convince Khadafy to quit but might influence hold-out supporters of the eccentric dictator.

Muammar Gaddafi's forces are waging counterattacks on anti-government rebels along the central Libyan coast, with air raids and ground battles reported in Bin Jawad, Ras Lanuf, Az-Zawiyah and Misurata.

from Al Jazeera English

He also said there are alternatives to bombing Libya's air defenses to keep Col. Moammar Khadafy's warplanes from attacking the rebels.

"That's actually not the only option," Kerry said. "One could crater the airports and the runways and leave them incapable of using them for a period of time."

So Kerry's alternative to bombing air defences is...bombing airports and runways? What objections does he think people have to the former that wouldn't apply to the latter? (Assuming they are even different things)

you wouldn't have to go up against entrenched anti-air positions i guess.

although why there wouldn't be entrenched anti-air positions at those places i have no idea

I assumed that bombing runways was what people were talking about - after all, the Libyan govt isn't shooting down rebel planes. And it's pretty much the standard approach for a no fly zone - you disable the enemies ability to fly.

I assumed you'd have to take out their air defenses before American planes could get in close enough to "surgically" destroy the runways.

it's a matter of will. im not saying they're wrong to reject the idea, partly because the attitude of the rebels is unclear, but calling it video games is BS

x-post Well, yes, but that's a circular argument, the way Kerry presents it - you don't have to take out defences if you are not going to attack. So who was suggesting targeting their aerial defences but not their runways? (actually maybe worse than a circular argument, in that he seems to present bombing runways as an alternative to bombing air defences)

Just read that the Libyan government was just bombing some Libyan air-defense facilities that the rebels had taken over and were trying to use to take out Gadaffi's planes.

I always conceived of no-fly zones as being 'don't fly or we'll shoot you down' backed-up with routine patrols. Then, if they fly, the aircraft gets shot down. Wasn't that the arrangement in Iraqi Kurdistan?