11th hour intervention in Libya

[tsetsefly]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

Damn straight, c1ue. The Dems have eviscerated any anti-war forces, one of their principal functions in our "2" party fandango.

It seems the dems forgot all about their anti-war stance.
Their view is that this time it's just becaue a dictator is killing his own people...
That is exactly what saddam was doing for years, killing, torturing his own people. Just because the Europeans support this action does not make it right. How many african dictators have slaughtered their people and how many times has the US intervened?

At the same time the US says nothing when Saudis are broguht into bahrain to slaughter the rebellion there...

This once again proves people will support a war as long as their party starts it, pathetic...

[chr5648]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

Translated from Polish using google

Rise of the Italians against the influx of refugees

Today, 12:34
KLE / PAP

Inhabitants of the Italian island of Lampedusa in revolt against the influx of refugees from North Africa. The next installment of the drama of illegal immigration, inform the press on Saturday, stressing that desperate people trying to block the boats with refugees.

This is a real revolt - note the Italian newspapers , which they report taking the increasingly stringent forms of protests by the population of Lampedusa. Its inhabitants block and try to push boats and small ships with refugees, seeking to Italian shores.

On Friday, several hours about a hundred people occupying the pier did not allow the ship is a small ship with 113 refugees. Every time I podpływał, people forced the unit to be dismissed. Finally after a long struggle, the ship was moored in the marina near one of the hotels.

Pressexpresses the opinion that the revolt of the inhabitants is their reaction to that island, once known as a popular resort has become a major center for illegal immigrants. Every day, they arrive more than a dozen boats and small vessels. For them the center is completely filled. While there are 800 places for refugees, currently detained them there around 3000.

Moreover, notes, "Il Giornale", residents are opposed to the device on the island towntent for refugees, because it's their opinion, even worse, and so have disastrous situation.

All the time there is a risk of clashes between the newcomers and residents - is noted.

"Time of compassion and understanding is over" - assesses the "Corriere della Sera, writing about the growing annoyance or even anger the Italians from Lampedusa. These people - the biggest Italian daily shows - do not want to live among the fencing areas where refugees are staying.

Newspaper quotes strongly protesting against the deteriorating situation of the mayor of the island Bernardino De Rubeisa: "We Guantanamo Mediterranean."

http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/bunt...wiadomosc.html

They. That's your whole problem right there.

Apparently the Italians think 'THEY' are the problem too.


Begging for help.

Italy: Europe must help us

Today, 14:19
KLE / PAP

Ignazio La Russa. Photo: Reuters
Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said on Saturday that after the country declared its readiness to participate in operations in Libya, it is expected that Europe will provide assistance in the face of the threat of a mass influx of refugees from North Africa.

Head of the Defence Ministry said in a Milan , referring to the UN Security Council resolution, authorizing the operation actually in Libya: "Yes, I believe to be just a unanimous sensitivity to European and international level and the establishment of a coalition ready to defend the population of Libya, in the same way the international community can not leave only Italy the burden of coping with the influx of immigrants, who may have biblical proportions. "

"With the same by forcewe must insist that the European Union and the international community have taken on the influx of refugees "- added the Italian Minister of Defence.

According to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Italy from the beginning of the year came to this country bysea from North Africa, nearly 12,000 refugees.

http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/swiat/wloc...wiadomosc.html

[flintlock]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

To my mind the fact that thousands and thousands of Libyans are willing to commit absolutely to overthrowing this regime is a very significant feature on an almost entirely new landscape.

Do we really know this for a fact? I'm think it may probably be true, but I still have some doubts. No doubt rebel support is strong in the east, but is this a united front across all Libya? This still seems more a civil war than any war to throw off the shackles of tyranny.

As far as a no fly zone, does this seriously impact on Qaddafi's ability to crush the rebels? From what I could tell browsing pictures on the web, the Libyan loyalists are well equipped with modern SP artillery, tanks, and other serious firepower. The rebels seem to be more lightly equipped,( with a bizarre number of AA mgs!) with older tanks, and little heavy firepower. Obviously Qaddafi would love to have his air force, but seems to me he doesn't have to have it to win. Now if the no fly zone is really more a Kosovo like bombing campaign, then all bets are off. The desert terrain of Libya leaves any force without air cover completely impotent. And my guess is that is what will eventually occur.

[oddlots]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

The next time in London I'll ask some tradesman how they feel about Poles. I will then use their comments as the basis for my argument that the entirety of Eastern Europe is a hopeless case whose efforts at reform will end in disaster because "they" - from the baltic states to Romania - are all essentially dishonest, craven, duplicitous etc...

What is your point with the above? There's a refugee crisis on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders too. Goes with the territory. And of course the upheaval in Tunisia has given an opening to economic refugees to try to enter Europe in the thousands. It is indeed a crisis.

But what's the takeaway? Does this mean these people need to live in an open-air prison being preyed upon by a criminal gang masquerading as a government in order for Europe to feel safe? Wouldn't it make more sense to get behind the efforts of those trying to improve these countries' prospects politically and economically? Wouldn't that mean less motivation for immigration or, indeed, make it easier for Europe to reject these refugees as being basically economic migrants?

[don]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

longtime ME journalist Robert Fisk's take:

So we are going to take "all necessary measures" to protect the civilians of Libya, are we? Pity we didn't think of that 42 years ago. Or 41 years ago. Or... well, you know the rest. And let's not be fooled by what the UN resolution really means. Yet again, it's going to be regime-change. And just as in Iraq – to use one of Tom Friedman's only memorable phrases of the time – when the latest dictator goes, who knows what kind of bats will come flying out of the box?

And after Tunisia, after Egypt, it's got to be Libya, hasn't it? The Arabs of North Africa are demanding freedom, democracy, liberation from oppression. Yes, that's what they have in common. But what these nations also have in common is that it was us, the West, that nurtured their dictatorships decade after decade after decade. The French cuddled up to Ben Ali, the Americans stroked Mubarak, while the Italians groomed Gaddafi until our own glorious leader went to resurrect him from the political dead.

Could this be, I wonder, why we have not heard from Lord Blair of Isfahan recently? Surely he should be up there, clapping his hands with glee at another humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he is just resting between parts. Or maybe, like the dragons in Spenser's Faerie Queen, he is quietly vomiting forth Catholic tracts with all the enthusiasm of a Gaddafi in full flow.

So let's twitch the curtain just a bit and look at the darkness behind it. Yes, Gaddafi is completely bonkers, flaky, a crackpot on the level of Ahmadinejad of Iran and Lieberman of Israel – who once, by the way, drivelled on about how Mubarak could "go to hell" yet quaked with fear when Mubarak was indeed hurtled in that direction. And there is a racist element in all this.

The Middle East seems to produce these ravers – as opposed to Europe, which in the past 100 years has only produced Berlusconi, Mussolini, Stalin and the little chap who used to be a corporal in the 16th List Bavarian reserve infantry, but who went really crackers when he got elected in 1933 – but now we are cleaning up the Middle East again and can forget our own colonial past in this sandpit. And why not, when Gaddafi tells the people of Benghazi that "we will come, 'zenga, zenga' (alley by alley), house by house, room by room." Surely this is a humanitarian intervention that really, really, really is a good idea. After all, there will be no "boots on the ground".

Of course, if this revolution was being violently suppressed in, say, Mauritania, I don't think we would be demanding no-fly zones. Nor in Ivory Coast, come to think of it. Nor anywhere else in Africa that didn't have oil, gas or mineral deposits or wasn't of importance in our protection of Israel, the latter being the real reason we care so much about Egypt.

So here are a few things that could go wrong, a sidelong glance at those bats still nestling in the glistening, dank interior of their box. Suppose Gaddafi clings on in Tripoli and the British and French and Americans shoot down all his aircraft, blow up all his airfields, assault his armour and missile batteries and he simply doesn't fade away. I noticed on Thursday how, just before the UN vote, the Pentagon started briefing journalists on the dangers of the whole affair; that it could take "days" just to set up a no-fly zone.

Then there is the trickery and knavery of Gaddafi himself. We saw it yesterday when his Foreign Minister announced a ceasefire and an end to "military operations" knowing full well, of course, that a Nato force committed to regime-change would not accept it, thus allowing Gaddafi to present himself as a peace-loving Arab leader who is the victim of Western aggression: Omar Mukhtar Lives Again.

And what if we are simply not in time, if Gaddafi's tanks keep on rolling? Do we then send in our mercenaries to help the "rebels". Do we set up temporary shop in Benghazi, with advisers and NGOs and the usual diplomatic flummery? Note how, at this most critical moment, we are no longer talking about the tribes of Libya, those hardy warrior people whom we invoked with such enthusiasm a couple of weeks ago.

We talk now about the need to protect "the Libyan people", no longer registering the Senoussi, the most powerful group of tribal families in Benghazi, whose men have been doing much of the fighting. King Idris, overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969, was a Senoussi. The red, black and green "rebel" flag – the old flag of pre-revolutionary Libya – is in fact the Idris flag, a Senoussi flag. Now let's suppose they get to Tripoli (the point of the whole exercise, is it not?), are they going to be welcomed there? Yes, there were protests in the capital. But many of those brave demonstrators themselves originally came from Benghazi. What will Gaddafi's supporters do? "Melt away"? Suddenly find that they hated Gaddafi after all and join the revolution? Or continue the civil war?

And what if the "rebels" enter Tripoli and decide Gaddafi and his crazed son Saif al-Islam should meet their just rewards, along with their henchmen? Are we going to close our eyes to revenge killings, public hangings, the kind of treatment Gaddafi's criminals have meted out for many a long year? I wonder. Libya is not Egypt. Again, Gaddafi is a fruitcake and, given his weird performance with his Green Book on the balcony of his bombed-out house, he probably does occasionally chew carpets as well.

Then there's the danger of things "going wrong" on our side, the bombs that hit civilians, the Nato aircraft which might be shot down or crash in Gaddafi territory, the sudden suspicion among the "rebels"/"Libyan people"/democracy protesters that the West, after all, has ulterior purposes in its aid. And there's one boring, universal rule about all this: the second you employ your weapons against another government, however righteously, the thing begins to unspool. After all, the same "rebels" who were expressing their fury at French indifference on Thursday morning were waving French flags in Benghazi on Thursday night. Long live America. Until...

I know the old arguments, of course. However bad our behaviour in the past, what should we do now? It's a bit late to be asking that. We loved Gaddafi when he took over in 1969 and then, after he showed he was a chicken-head, we hated him and then we loved him again – I am referring to Lord Blair's laying on of hands – and now we hate him again. Didn't Arafat have a back-to-front but similar track record for the Israelis and Americans? First he was a super-terrorist longing to destroy Israel, then he was a super-statesman shaking hands with Yitzhak Rabin, then he became a super-terrorist again when he realised he'd been tricked over the future of "Palestine".

One thing we can do is spot the future Gaddafis and Saddams whom we are breeding right now, the future crackpot, torture-chamber sadists who are cultivating their young bats with our economic help. In Uzbekistan, for example. And in Turkmenistan. And in Tajikistan and Chechenya and other "stans". But no. These are men we have to deal with, men who will sell us oil, buy our arms and keep Muslim "terrorists" at bay.

It is all wearingly familiar. And now we are back at it again, banging our desks in spiritual unity. We don't have many options, do we, unless we want to see another Srebrenica? But hold on. Didn't that happen long after we had imposed our "no-fly" zone over Bosnia?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...t-2246415.html

[chr5648]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

The next time in London I'll ask some tradesman how they feel about Poles. I will then use their comments as the basis for my argument that the entirety of Eastern Europe is a hopeless case whose efforts at reform will end in disaster because "they" - from the baltic states to Romania - are all essentially dishonest, craven, duplicitous etc...

What is your point with the above? There's a refugee crisis on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders too. Goes with the territory. And of course the upheaval in Tunisia has given an opening to economic refugees to try to enter Europe in the thousands. It is indeed a crisis.

But what's the takeaway? Does this mean these people need to live in an open-air prison being preyed upon by a criminal gang masquerading as a government in order for Europe to feel safe? Wouldn't it make more sense to get behind the efforts of those trying to improve these countries' prospects politically and economically? Wouldn't that mean less motivation for immigration or, indeed, make it easier for Europe to reject these refugees as being basically economic migrants?

Reforms in Eastern Europe have been a disaster, thats why the EU has allowed cross border immigration. This takes alot of pressure off the politicians and allows open society/george soros propaganda which is disseminated in eastern europe.

Poles immigrate, then send transfer payments back to the Poland. This is bad for the host country and for Poland. I would agree with the Brits too if they had animosity towards an immigrant population that were taking their jobs. Poland and other eastern european countries don't have transparent and accountable governments, part of the problem is the EU subsidizing broken governments and systems with immigrant transfer payments and cash hand outs.

In the past 5-10 years, something like 2-3 million poles have immigrated since the borders have been opened, the majority being young people. This took immense pressure off the government from actually being responsible.

If you were to ask a Brit would they rather have a European/white immigrant vs a non-european/white immigrant, I am sure you would also get a nice answer. I would also ask them if they would prefer an immigrant that works (Poles, other eastern europeans) vs. one who comes as an oppressed 'refugee' and gets redistributed handouts (muslims, africans)?

[don]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

shoot down video . . .

[oddlots]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

There were uprisings all over Libya including cities encircling Tripoli. As far as I can tell the country's diplomatic corps abandoned Gadaffi wholesale and have sided with the opposition. This is also true of many of his senior military. That the opposition is based in the east but is not necessarily "eastern" in composition or outlook by virtue of this fact: it is the farthest major city from Gadaffi's power base.

I'm sure there are significant ethnic shadings to the events in Libya but I've seen nothing - in following tweets and opposition blogs as well as Al Jazeera - to suggest that these are dominant.

The idea that this is a civil war is an interesting idea to unpack. What's at stake in making this judgement? It seems to me that a civil war involves two sides who are divided in ways that are not morally significant or resolvable. Protestants versus catholic for instance. Or ethic allegiances would be another. There is no way to rationally choose a side in such a conflict. I don't think that's the case here. The evidence is that when Gadaffi's forces regain territory they basically go house to house and kidnap the young men suspected in taking part in the uprising (and I shudder to think what comes next.) He rules through terror for the most part and bought loyalty. In contrast, the allegiance given to the opposition council does not need enforcement. It is clearly given freely. That makes all the difference in the world to my mind.

Regarding the issue of the no fly zone I think people are fixating on the formal notion and not reading between the lines. 1973 is intentionally vague about what constitutes protecting civilians and the latitude given there I think is designed to allow it to be used to thumb the scales heavily in the opposition's favour. The coalition is clearly throwing its weight behind the Opposition so that Gadaffi's loyalists can be defeated or can be convinced that there's no future with him and that they need to abandon him. This is a key difference between, for instance, the no-fly-zone imposed on Iraq to "protect" civilians and this situation: there is an active military campaign on the ground that it is supporting.

[gnk]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

From the BBC:

The UN Security Council has backed a no-fly zone over Libya and "all necessary measures" short of an invasion "to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas".

The UK, France and Lebanon proposed the council resolution, with US support.

Meeting in New York, the 15-member body voted 10-0 in favour, with five abstentions.

I say let's take a really MACRO perspective, the way a historian will look at the events of the past 10 years, 50 years from now.

We are destroying the environment, and engaging in wars, to satisfy our growing global energy requirements. Let's be honest with ourselves. Directly or indirectly, Iraq, and Afghanistan are about energy. Libya and the others are about energy. The BP oil spill is about energy. The Fukushima Nuclear disaster is about energy.

War and catastrophic environmental degradation.

Welcome to Neo-Malthusian economics. We are in the midst of WWIII.

We just don't know it yet.

[flintlock]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

Yes, Tomahawk missiles are flying now, so the idea this is simply a "no-fly zone" is probably already outdated. Makes it sound so much less serious though don't you think?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=13174246

U.S. military officials have confirmed the first American tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired at targets inside Libya from ships in the Mediterranean Sea.

[flintlock]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

I agree. And things are just starting to heat up. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. All just waiting to kick off. What worries me is what happens when an actual real threat to US security pops up. We are now fighting at least three wars scattered over thousands of miles. Lets hope this gets resolved quickly as we simply cannot afford to do this all over the middle east indefinitely.

[don]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

I say let's take a really MACRO perspective, the way a historian will look at the events of the past 10 years, 50 years from now.

We are destroying the environment, and engaging in wars, to satisfy our growing global energy requirements. Let's be honest with ourselves. Directly or indirectly, Iraq, and Afghanistan are about energy. Libya and the others are about energy. The BP oil spill is about energy. The Fukushima Nuclear disaster is about energy.

War and catastrophic environmental degradation.

Welcome to Neo-Malthusian economics. We are in the midst of WWIII.

We just don't know it yet.

Layered on the top of that cake is the frosting, a co-mixture of endless wars to support the bonar and endless bonars to support the wars. This OPs name:

"Odyssey Dawn"

[flintlock]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

Great column there Don. That guy gets it.

Especially this

We talk now about the need to protect "the Libyan people", no longer registering the Senoussi, the most powerful group of tribal families in Benghazi, whose men have been doing much of the fighting. King Idris, overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969, was a Senoussi. The red, black and green "rebel" flag – the old flag of pre-revolutionary Libya – is in fact the Idris flag, a Senoussi flag. Now let's suppose they get to Tripoli (the point of the whole exercise, is it not?), are they going to be welcomed there? Yes, there were protests in the capital. But many of those brave demonstrators themselves originally came from Benghazi. What will Gaddafi's supporters do? "Melt away"? Suddenly find that they hated Gaddafi after all and join the revolution? Or continue the civil war?

Qaddafi obviously has some real support or he wouldn't still be there after so long. This IS a civil war despite the romantic notions some have of a unanimous "people's revolt." Sure a lot of people hate living under the guy. That's what a Civil War requires. SOME like him and SOME don't. They fight it out. It probably has as much to do with who signs their check as any particular ideology. I saw a guy with Qaddfi's likeness tattoed on his body! My guess is Qaddafi been bery bery good to him. And probably not that good to those darn easterners.

And how hypocritical can Europe be? They sell the guy weapons then go on about how bad a dude he is.

I wish this wasn't happening. I wish guys like Qaddafi didn't run most countries around the world. But its their business. Having little to do with a nation on the other side of the earth. If the rebels want our help then let them come to us, show us how they will repay us for our help, and at least pretend not to kick us in the balls the first chance they get once Qaddafi is out. US foreign policy is a mess.

[flintlock]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

Ha. Just saw this on Drudge

MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: 'Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world'...

MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: 'American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger...

[don]

Re: 11th hour intervention in Libya

The White Man's Burden