The Civil War in Libya

There is very little reliable news from Libya.

SampanViking said:

For whatever reason though, the resolution is passed and the West has new headache handed to them. The US then grabs control of the early phase and unleashes an almighty missile bombardment. This is to my mind to embarrass the Saudi’s who primarily will have only wanted to humiliate Gadaffi and make him crawl to them for protection and recognise their leadership. Instead the US is acting in a way that will inflame the passions of the Arab Street and make the Saudi’s appear complicit….

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I am sure the Saudis don't mind that the whole Libya situation pushes the Saudis' crackdown in Bahrain off the front pages.

At the same time I doubt that the Saudis are that excited to potentially have more populist sentiments among the common folks of the region.

And the U.S. may not care for involvement in more civil wars and nation-building, but the French (and other Western European countries) may feel differently especially since this is in their neighborhood.

What is the West's objective in this war? The UN mandate is to prevent civilian deaths, which is vague. Who is a civilian? Who is an armed combatant? Who is a rebel? If the rebels start killing civilians, will the West bomb them? They may not have the firepower of the government army but they are more undisciplined and likely to fire rockets randomly into a town Gaddafi controls. Moreover, why can't Gaddafi dig in among the cities he controls, which is all of them except Benghazi and Tobruk (Misarata is likely to fall soon), and wait for the bombing to stop.

The West is in a pickle here. Their UN mandate only authorizes the to prevent civilian casualties, not overthrow Gaddafi. Yet the West's rhetoric has painted them into a corner where anything less than Gaddafi's removal will be a PR victory for Gaddafi. This was not well though out. It was more of a "do something" foreign policy than reasonable foreign policy.

It is certainly not well thought out. The unseemly quarrel between the murderous British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who insist that killing Qaddaffi is all right and his Chief of Defence Staff who says it is not, is a good illustration.
I suppose there was no time to think it out because the Russian and Chinese didn't use their veto, as seems to have been expected and then the military took the ball and ran.
It seems the Chinese didn't want to endanger an oil deal with Aramco Overseas Ltd, but they would have liked a No-Fly-zone to be declared, then send in 2000 military observers to protect the civilian population. In the current scheme of things no one in Libya is protected. And if the West is successful Libya will become a failed state.
However it gives China the opportunity to say next time " no UN military action unless a Chinese HQ is in overall charge, because you can't trust the US to behave themselves". If in a few years time Varyag is on anti-piracy duty in the Gulf of Aden and something similar happens nearby she might sprint to country X, collect additional staff by helicopter including liaison officers, let the USN put a container with secret communications gear on the flight deck, and be the HQ for the operation.

Geographer said:

What is the West's objective in this war? The UN mandate is to prevent civilian deaths, which is vague. Who is a civilian? Who is an armed combatant? Who is a rebel? If the rebels start killing civilians, will the West bomb them? They may not have the firepower of the government army but they are more undisciplined and likely to fire rockets randomly into a town Gaddafi controls. Moreover, why can't Gaddafi dig in among the cities he controls, which is all of them except Benghazi and Tobruk (Misarata is likely to fall soon), and wait for the bombing to stop.

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Indeed, with Gaddafi apparently missing the opportunity to enter Benghazi, his best bet right now is to hunker down in his cities. Supplies and reinforcements can also be transported using civilian vehicles. Eventually, the Western forces will mistakenly bomb civilians, or the mounting costs of constant sorties will force them to re-evaluate their strategy.

However, one crucial disadvantage for Gaddafi is the fact that the West controls access to media. They are basically able to fabricate any excuse to put ground forces, IF they are ever inclined to do so.

A Dutch radio stations writes on its web site that China demands a cease-fire.
And her are the comments from the People's Daily:

China Military News cited from voanews.com:

I think Sampan's analysis is proving to be more and more validated by the latest developments:



The "coalition" now can't even decide who has the leadership. It really does smack of unpreparedness. You can also see from the rest of the articles just how disorganized the rebels are. So far, they haven't been able to make any gains from the airstrikes.

If this is the state the rebels are in while having a common enemy, imagine what they will be like if Gaddafi is gone.

F15E down in Libya



Its quite amazing how intact some of the missiles are. I wonder how long those AIM9 seekers or even AMRAAM seekers (although I have not seen any in the video) will stay in the dirt before someone realizes how much some countries might be willing to pay for them...

plawolf said:

F15E down in Libya

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Its quite amazing how intact some of the missiles are. I wonder how long those AIM9 seekers or even AMRAAM seekers (although I have not seen any in the video) will stay in the dirt before someone realizes how much some countries might be willing to pay for them...

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How credible is the "mechanical failure" explanation? If I was the Pentagon, I would want to conceal the fact that Libya managed to shoot down my jet.