The Civil War in Libya

solarz said:

It didn't even need to be military aid. I think the most important part is that the West was once again, blinded by its ideology. Read any news article from Western media in the early days of the Libyan revolution. Every single one of them was convinced that Gaddafi was "finished". The rebels had taken over more than half the country, and the West thought that the rebels could handle Gaddafi by themselves. Unfortunately, so did the rebels.

The rebels, being a bunch of idealistic civilians, could be excused for such optimism. Western politicians and military leaders, on the other hand, are inexcusable. This kind of development should have been foreseen since the very first time Gaddafi started employing force, and contingency plans should have been made, and advisors and diplomats should have been sent to the Libyan rebels to try to forge a united and organized front.

Instead, the Libyan rebels were left largely to themselves, wallowing in their delusions of grandeur, before harsh reality brutally blind-sided them.

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If the rebel themselves refused the offers there's little can be done, and anything else would backfire very badly. Unfortunately, at that time was the golden hour to intervene. Now the momentum is with Gaddafi's forces, it's a matter of time for the rebels to be crushed and unless the west mount a full-scale military intervention themselves, it's like trying to stem a coming tsunami tide.

Of course, there is another possibility for the West's behavior: that they were only paying lip-service to supporting Libyan democracy, that what they were ultimately interested in was Libya's oil, and the stability that Gaddafi provided. Of course, if that was their intention, then it's going to work out badly for them. Nobody likes two-faces, and I seriously doubt Gaddafi is going to be very cooperative with the West once he regains power.

Then again, if Gaddafi proves reticent to work with the West, then we might actually see an armed intervention after all...

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Whoa, that's obvious is it not, thought everyone know that already. And don't think sanction would work on Gaddafi - many sanctions have been levelled at he and his regime yet they survived to this day. Remember: rulers like Gaddafi are survivor type in Darwinian scope of things, he knows too well who to work with to stay above the water...the last sanction pass by the Security Council (with full votes) is more like a spanking of sort, ultimately they'd have to make deals with Gaddafi to get Libya's oil export again ASAP to knock down the crude oil price.

France and the UK are going to put their no-fly zone resolution before the Security Council tomorrow, apparently. The US is lobbying to have language included that would allow airstrikes on ground targets (which I thought was unusual since I believed Obama wanted to sit this one out).



Intervention in Libya puts America in bit of a pickle with relation to events in Bahrain. If we want to fight Qaddafi with a straight face, we'll have to bring some serious pressure to bear on the House of Saud and get them to resolve the situation in Bahrain soon, and with minimal violence.

The Libyan news I've been seeing on various sites seems to indicate that things may get very complicated in the coming days.

I saw a letter in The Daily Telegraph yesterday that suggested this was a conflict about oil between ENI and BP, ENI being the Italian oil company with a lot of production in Libya, BP the British one, who wants more. The Biafra conflict in Nigeria some forty years ago was described, with good reason, as a conflict between Total, the French oil company that wanted to come in, and and Shell who maintained its position. The losers there were quite clearly all Nigerians and especially the unfortunate Ibo's.
This might perhaps explain the strange conduct of Dutch and British helicopters.
I find it remarkable that I have not seen any pronouncement by the Italian government on the developments in Libya.

Both sides are getting more creative as this fight wears on.

I'm too lazy to post links to my sources right now, but apparently the rebels have managed to get a few jets and helicopters operational and used them to hit government positions around Ajdabiya, although one apparently crashed on the way back to Benghazi due to mechanical difficulties (looked like an Su-22). They also managed to down 2 government aircraft that attacked Benghazi.

As for the government, they're using their Navy to good advantage. They've been using ships ( I don't know what types specifically) to shell coastal rebel positions and now have landed troops at the coastal town of Zwintina, which puts them closer to Benghazi than the already nearly surrounded rebels holding Ajdabiya, cutting the supply line.

I've seen a lot of video of government troops prepping to assault Ajdabiya recently, and I got to say they don't look very different from the rebels. They shoot celebratory gunfire in the air constantly, their uniforms are mix and match, they show terrible gun safety technique, they stand around in the open desert without at least digging foxholes, etc. etc. But there's a few key differences. The government forces had a bunch of MRLS lined up in a neat row facing the city, and about 10 T-72s (with more elsewhere off camera, undoubtedly). And to their rear, they had lined up a bunch of trucks filled with ammo and fuel and food. That stuff makes a hell of a lot of difference.

Ajdabiya is being defended mainly by defected army units, and they have some tanks and artillery. So it will be a more serious fight than the farce we saw at Ras Lanuf, not to mention the fact that the rebels might be surrounded soon and thus will have nowhere to retreat to. And we've seen in Zawiya that they can fight to the end if they have nowhere to run to.

This isn't over. The rebels have some fight in them yet. Indeed they have only just committed some of their best units, the Army defectors. There are some more in Benghazi too I believe. Furthermore, Benghazi offers all the defensive advantages of urban terrain that were lacking in the desert battles. And there's lots of civilians there to get blasted and apply more political pressure to the West through CNN cameras. Also the rebels have men in Benghazi that have actually been trained for a week or two and organized into units by ex-military instructors at the former military base there. Of course, none of this would mean anything if the situation was confined to just Libya. But it isn't. The rebels have a chance of holding Benghazi and some other areas long enough for the US and France/UK to intervene.

So for Qaddafi it's a race against time. He'd probably prefer to starve Benghazi out. But that would take weeks and would mean there was lots of civilian deaths and plenty of time for reporters to camp out and make a big deal out of "Benghazi Siege Coverage Day 4", it would remind everyone of Sarajevo, etc. It's better to try to take the city quickly, before the UN can pass a resolution and bombing can begin.

does anyone know what EXACTLY a No-Fly-Zone mean specifically? does it mean only anti air access or can NFZ aircrafts take out ground forces or naval assets offensively as well within a specified area?

The UN just passed a resolution allowing air strikes. However, it seems no one has the stomach for a ground war, so it remains to be seen what exactly will happen.

The Egyptians have started shipping weapons and material to the rebels. French and UK planes are apparently in position to begin strikes. I'm interested to see the Armee d'Air, French Naval Air units, the RAF and FAA in action. Also, I've read a lot of things that indicate in Misrata and Ajdabiya the rebels are fighting much better. Tough to see how Qaddafi can survive this now.

Also, I've read reports that more Libyan Air Force defections have occurred and that a rebel aircraft kamikazied itself into Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli! I will try as hard as I can to confirm this. If it's true that's two crazy operations the "Free Libyan Air Force" has pulled off lately (the first being strikes against the Libyan Navy ships in the Gulf of Sidra). Even without the problems of Western intervention (those cruise missiles should be hitting any minute now...) the Libyan Air Force has to be having problems. Between defection losses, combat losses and losses due to mechanical problems, and the lack of reliable pilots, they must be having a hard time keeping their sortie rate up.

In Ajdabiya, Al Jazerra's live blog and other sources state that the city was bombarded heavily at long range. The rebels waited to open fire until the pro-Qaddafi armor and mech infantry in APCs and technicals had entered into built up areas then ambushed them. Surrender and defections happened quickly. Similar stories are coming out of Misrata.

keep in mind the UN resolution authorized any action deemed necessary to prevent civilian casualty. this means UN can go as far as bombing libyan ground fleets if it marches on benghazi. the window of opportunity is closing for gadaffi, unless he makes a miraculous breakthrough like tonight...but that is no longer possible since morale of the rebels has been restored by the prospect of foreign intervention.

so if things work out for the rebels, gadaffi's advance should be halted and things will settle in the current state. however since there is a sanction on libyan arm acquisition, which financial and military assistance are due to be flooding in for the rebels, it would eventually overpower the libyan government force. on the other hand, the ideal situation for gadaffi is that the scope of UN operation is constricted to denial of air access, in which case they can still take down the rebels with their ground force.

so the big variable right now is when and how the intervention will take place, and how effective it might be. if its just no-fly zone, then it might score a political point for the rebels and be a morale booster, but it might not be enough to turn things around for them. however if things are turned around then gadaffi will prolly have to agree to negotiations.

personally i am inclined to think that participants of UN forces will use the full extent of power granted by the resolution because passing a UN resolution and then failing to achieve the objective after a military intervention would be a HUGE embarrassment.

While it was said that NATO and US have drawn up contingencies for something like this, from actual mobilization to set up effective no-fly zone would take a week at best, while things can still go against the rebels in such time frame -they've ballistic missiles and artillery rockets to flatten the city if choose to (MOUT is nightmare even for US military, just flatten it and starve the rebels to death or suicide charges fares better as options), and such Gaddafi's troops lay siege to the city, push the battlefront close enough to the rebels, any airstrike would've to risk collateral damage, which could go bad for the France and NATO...

No-fly zone won't necessary be the saving grace for the rebels, without further intervention it's more like damned them to a slow and painful death. To really turn things around for the rebel, things like arms and manpower support (spec op detachment, instructor to train the rebel forces to better standard, those are for starters) would be needed, badly needed.