Military Industrial Complex wins again: US + Allies Launch attack on Libya

[Bocsius]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/19/us-obama-libya-idUSTRE72I2Z520110319?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Missiles and air support, several nations involved.

 

[drew]

[youtube=560,345]V8rZWw9HE7o[/youtube]

[Phoenix Dark]

Last week: Obama is weak, y u no attack Libya?

Today: Obama is a warmonger, y u start another war?

I wish Obama stood up and made it clear bombing people doesn't equal strength and refused to offer any military support to this shit. Are we going to go to Bahraim next?

[Bocsius]

These folks are basically going to ensure that we never get our fiscal house in order. We'll be too busy putting out fires our boys probably started and, of course, buying the latest and greatest weaponry from our charitable and benevolent defense contractors.

When war is profitable, why have peace.

[Mandark]

To be fair, what's happened in Libya the last month without the US could hardly be called peace.

[Smooth Groove]

I'm no warmonger but Gaddafi is truly an uncontrollable lunatic who is an enemy of all humanity.  

[Dickie Dee]

HONK! HONK!

[Smooth Groove]

A special message to America from above:

[youtube=560,345]cRaMTosgj3k[/youtube]

PS: watch until 2:00 for max impact

[Mandark]

Smooth:  Gaddafi seems like Kim Jong Il or Saddam: a nasty dictator who's given to delusions of grandeur and long ago pissed off all his neighbors, but who is generally sane enough for the purposes of self-preservation.  Which is to say he's a bad, bad man but not enough to immediately justify any military actions against him.

A failed state is worse than a brutally enforced one, but if a civil war's already underway it might not be wrong for the big powers to put a thumb on the scale (this is my vague, uninformed opinion of the Balkans conflicts).

What scares me is that I haven't heard anyone explain what an endgame looks like.  In the former Yugoslavia you had ethnic nationalists who would stop fighting once they got their territory, in Egypt you had institutions already in place to enable or implement reforms once the ruler abdicated, but here?

Seems like it could turn into one of those African-style civil wars where you have a bunch of young men driving around in trucks killing people almost at random for a decade or so.  Blech.

[Bocsius]

We've two wars we've been fighting for the better part of 10 years. We've spent ourselves into oblivion. I'm merely requesting that somebody else be the world's bleeding heart on this one.

Tea Party, you want to "take back 'Murica," start with the defense budget.

[Joe Molotov]

Obama committing black-on-brown violence. 

[Smooth Groove]

Maybe China?  It's always talking about being a world leader but never wants to take a side.  

[fistfulofmetal]

so this is the next war? cool

[duckman2000]

Note how this President dude actually waited for UN approval. That's an international favorite for sure.

Oh yeah, and no Russian veto? 

[Mupepe]

russians and chinese are anti intervention but i think they realize its good pr points to just stay out of it for now.

aren't the french and uk taking the lead here? I'm also wondering how involved we are gonna be regarding the fallout. we have stuck our nose in so we should at least take an interest to make sure it doesn't turn to hell when we "win".  but its not really a burden i think we should be shouldering considering our current domestic and foreign clusterfucks. so yeah, I'm torn.

[pilonv1]

Obama needs a war to help his approval rating.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I think it is a bad idea.

We have no idea how these Arab revolutions will shake out and other nations stepping in can make things better or can make things much worse.  I think the idea of Libyan, Egyptian, Tunisian, etc. revolutions should be executed by their citizens, not outside forces.  What will happen once Qaddafi is overthrown?  Is there a competent opposition that can provide a competent coalition or government once these people are toppled?  I don't see the options, which makes me think it will be improvised, which doesn't sound good to me at all.

I thought Obama did the right thing by trying his best to stay out of it but what can you do?

[Phoenix Dark]

I think it is a bad idea.

We have no idea how these Arab revolutions will shake out and other nations stepping in can make things better or can make things much worse.  I think the idea of Libyan, Egyptian, Tunisian, etc. revolutions should be executed by their citizens, not outside forces.  What will happen once Qaddafi is overthrown?  Is there a competent opposition that can provide a competent coalition or government once these people are toppled?  I don't see the options, which makes me think it will be improvised, which doesn't sound good to me at all.

I thought Obama did the right thing by trying his best to stay out of it but what can you do?

Agreed.

[Madrun Badrun]

What will happen once Qaddafi is overthrown? 

If the UN gets in now it gives them a good chance of overseeing elections.

[Mandark]

What will happen once Qaddafi is overthrown? 

If the UN gets in now it gives them a good chance of overseeing elections.

Elections to what government?  And in the meantime, who's enforcing the laws?  What laws are they enforcing?  Are foreign ground troops going to be sent in to maintain order?

This is where things get messy, and "things get messy" in this context is a nice way of saying "lots of people dying violent deaths".

[Diunx]

About damn time.

[chronovore]

We've two wars we've been fighting for the better part of 10 years. We've spent ourselves into oblivion. I'm merely requesting that somebody else be the world's bleeding heart on this one.

Tea Party, you want to "take back 'Murica," start with the defense budget.

What part of "UN joint operation" isn't clear on this. I'd say we've got more reason to be in this than we do in Iraq or Afghanistan. You gotta know the Russkies are watching our luck in Afghanistan and laughing their asses off at the irony.

[BlueTsunami]

I think its sort of damned if you do damned if you don't situation but the negatives of going in outweigh the ones of staying out. I think it'll look bad if Bahrain gets worse and the International community just turn a blind eye to whats happening there after they've gone into and assisted Libyan rebels.

[Joe Molotov]

2012 guys...

Think about it.

John Cusack will save us.

[Madrun Badrun]

What will happen once Qaddafi is overthrown? 

If the UN gets in now it gives them a good chance of overseeing elections.

Elections to what government?  And in the meantime, who's enforcing the laws?  What laws are they enforcing?  Are foreign ground troops going to be sent in to maintain order?

This is where things get messy, and "things get messy" in this context is a nice way of saying "lots of people dying violent deaths".

The point I was trying to make was action by the UN now will instill, not sure what word I want to use here, trust/good relations maybe, with the rebels and hopefully what ever goverment emergies from them.  I didn't mean to say that things wont get messy but action now will buy in the UN at a latter time.

[Mandark]

Gotcha.  I don't think it'll make much of a difference, though.  If Qaddafi's beaten and the guys who did it are out for blood, they're not going to put vengeance aside because of any ties formed with the UN or associated foreign powers over less than a year.

The problem is that without ground troops, and a fuckton of them, you can't enforce your will* on another country.  Providing air support may or may not turn the tide of a conflict, but even if it does in this case, there's massive uncertainty about who would then be in charge and how they'd act.

So it's a choice between limiting American (and French, English...) exposure and involvement but risking a Rwanda situation, or making a vast commitment in lives and money to meddle in yet another Muslim country's affairs, with probably marginally less shitty results.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*This is a nasty sounding phrase, but I mean it neutrally.  "Preventing a spiral of revenge killings and safeguarding basic rights" would still be trying to impose a set of goals/values on another country, and traditionally you can only do that with a big occupying army, and even then just sporadically.

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

We can't prevent a Rwanda situation from the air though, hence me being wary of this type of involvement. Obama says no ground troops will be involved, but when the rebels lose and Evil Carlos Santana starts his revenge killings, the same people who pressured for a NFZ will be pressuring for boots on the ground.

[Mandark]

There are two cases I know of where an airpower intervention was able to win/prevent a conflict by itself: Kosovo and Iraq between the Gulf Wars.  But I don't think those are good models for what's going on in Libya right now.

In both those cases, you had an ethnic group looking to break off a chunk of the country for their own, not to topple the current regime.  There was an equilibrium at the end: Milosevic/Hussein accepting the loss but staying in power, the Kosovars/Kurds enjoying their autonomy, NATO/UN maintaining a status quo.  Even then, it took a shit ton of bombing to get Serbia to back down, and Saddam still kept trying to mess with Kurdistan.

Libya, though?  The opposition forces are a loosely defined group that seems to exist solely to depose Qaddafi, mostly based in the east but with no major cultural or geographic divide from the rest of the country, and no reason to accept a territorial split.  Likewise, no reason to think Qaddafi would be okay ceding half his country to forces dedicated to his downfall.

From where I sit (and right now I'm totally Guy On Internet Talking Like He Knows Shit) it looks like a war that goes until someone crushes the other side, where the fundamental conflict prevents a truce.  Which means France/Britain/USA need to start thinking really goddamn hard about how far they're willing to go with this.

[Smooth Groove]

Mandark, you know your shit, bro.   Respect knuckles.  I just don't know why you're wasting it on gaming forums. 

[Phoenix Dark]

likes wasting time online, big basketball fan, intellectual liberal...wait, Mandark is Obama?

[Mandark]

Y'all are gonna make me blush.  I'm an interested amateur who retains enough information to fake being informed, and I've been blatantly using this thread to sift my thoughts on Libya.

Which, at this point, boil down to "situation is fucked either way and the US shouldn't have gotten involved, especially with no good exit plan".   Wheeeee!

[Akala]

I am so glad we didn't go this one alone.

Best-case scenario (or what I guess the ones that decided to attack thought might happen) is that Gadhafi is taken out quickly, military takes over, and path to glorious democracy is a go, right? This just seems kind of doubtful at this point...and there are many many things that could make the situation go to complete shit. There is also the worry that if Libya turns to shit, that it bleeds across the border.

The world/west was obviously against Gadhafi from the jump, and I can't help but believe that coalition airstrikes would have been much more beneficial to a 'happy' resolution before the pendulum swung back...if this was in the works, it should  have been done back when it was basically only Tripoli left to fall.

Also, not sure if it's the reporting or what, but for some reason I don't think the rebellious Libyan military will transition peacefully into some democracy as we are assuming the Egyptian one will.

[Phoenix Dark]

    A coordinated attack by Western forces targeting Libyan air capabilities and armor appears to have succeeded in damaging Libyan military installations and armor, but Arab support for the no-fly zone may be waning.

    Arab League head Amr Moussa told reporters Sunday that the Arab league thought the use of force was excessive following an overnight bombing campaign that Libya claims killed at least 48 people.

    “What we want is civilians’ protection, not shelling more civilians,” he was quoted saying by the Associated Press.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/03/libya-airstrikes-military-tripoli-kadafi.html

didn't see this coming

[Groogrux]

  It's all about the oil, man.

[Mandark]

Akala:  I think the hope is that allied bombing makes it clear that the major powers are set on removing Qaddafi, and once a sense of inevitability sets in his supporters (especially in the military) will abandon him rather than fighting to the death.  That's the one scenario where the UN bombing campaign actually reduces the length and bloodshed of the conflict.

But you're right about Libya not being Egypt.  The US has pretty deep, longstanding ties with the Egyptian military and ways of communicating that they wanted Mubarak out.  Plus the Egyptian protesters were actually asking for the army to take over in the interim, so the revolution never threatened their authority or standing in society.  If I'm a Libyan military officer right now, I figure that in the event of a revolution I'll be unemployed and a pariah at best, dead along with my family at worst.  So there could be every incentive for both sides to dig in.


PD:  Marc Lynch called it.  Apparently Arab opinion is pretty firmly against Qaddafi, and wanted intervention so long as that didn't involve a bombing campaign.  Which might be a little unrealistic, but whatyagonnado.


Kosma:  Nope, just the only one who felt it was important to let us know you don't have an opinion. 

[Mandark]

hippie

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

    A coordinated attack by Western forces targeting Libyan air capabilities and armor appears to have succeeded in damaging Libyan military installations and armor, but Arab support for the no-fly zone may be waning.

    Arab League head Amr Moussa told reporters Sunday that the Arab league thought the use of force was excessive following an overnight bombing campaign that Libya claims killed at least 48 people.

    “What we want is civilians’ protection, not shelling more civilians,” he was quoted saying by the Associated Press.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/03/libya-airstrikes-military-tripoli-kadafi.html

didn't see this coming

Not surprised at all.  Hopefully Obama can bullshit an excuse to bail out ASAP and let Europe do the work.

[Phoenix Dark]

It's a lose lose situation. They want intervention, but don't want bombing? Sooo if we put boots on the ground and our soldiers accidentally shoot up a family at a check point...yeah. It plays right into Qaddafi's hands with respect to US perception in the rest of the Arab world.

[BlueTsunami]

Apparently you can't control an air zone without a few bombings. It sounds like people wanted the UN to be deployed but not really do anything, just a show of force. But I agree, if the Arab Nations are going to cast an even more negative opinion on this it'll probably be bad in regards to how to handle things after Gaddafi is gone and having an even lower opinion in Middle East.

[etiolate]

This will probably block the 'revolution wave' if the people in power can politically align themselves against western force and gain enough cred to have time to make minor changes and claim they are listening.

[Oblivion]

What'd the miltary industrial complex ever do to YOU? 

[Mandark]

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/03/not-a-no-fly-zone\

NATO's not enforcing a no-fly zone like the ones used in northern Iraq and the Balkans, but is providing air support for the Libyan rebels' offensives.  This was posted a week ago, and seems extra obviously true now.


http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3160805.htm

The strongest pro-intervention argument I read before the UN resolution.  Namely the bit at the end: a rebel loss would likely lead to massive reprisal killings by Qaddafi's forces, big waves of war refugees (largely heading to countries with their own problems like Tunisia and especially Egypt), and a humanitarian crisis which the major powers would feel compelled to deal with at that point.


http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/3/26/in-libya-it-was-consensus-vs-clarity-im-glad-obama-went-with.html

Best pro-intervention argument I've read since the UN resolution.  Short version:  yeah, there's a ton of unanswered questions and no real exit strategy, but that's not actually so bad.  Definitely read this one.



Also, during the 2008 primaries, Samantha Power was dropped in her official capacity from the Obama campaign because she got caught calling Hillary Clinton "a monster".  Power, who is currently a Special Advisor to Obama, apparently teamed up with Clinton to lobby in favor of intervention in Libya.  Which just goes to show how awesomely relevant and informative these personality-driven micro-scandals from election season really are.

[chronovore]

Plus, Hillary is a monster.

Thanks for the linked arabist article. Reading through it now.

[Mandark]

So there's a bunch of stories on how the conflict looks ready to hit a tipping point in favor of the rebels (about to take the regime's last oil refinery and control an important supply road to Tripoli).

The last few months there's been enough waves of "the rebels are winning!" or "the rebels are losing!" stories that I'm taking it with a big grain of salt, but NATO's been grinding down the Libyan military infrastructure with constant bombing for a while now, so it's plausible that eventually they'd simply run out of stuff.

So now maybe we can look forward to the clusterfuck of a new Libyan government, rather than the clusterfuck of a semi-permanently partitioned Libya.  I'm still not sure how bad an idea this was.



PS  It says something about the US that most people probably aren't sure if we're still bombing a particular country, no?

[Mandark]

Sharia law!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

:'(

[close]

[Positive Touch]

PS  It says something about the US that most people probably aren't sure if we're still bombing a particular country, no?

yes but its been that way since before any of us were born so...

[Phoenix Dark]

Bomb within our means

[Joe Molotov]

We could save a lot of money on bombs if we just dropped smallpox blankets instead.

[Mandark]

We could save a lot of money on bombs if we just dropped smallpox blankets instead.

Not once you got through the contract bidding process!

[Phoenix Dark]

Gadhafi allegedly looking to flee Libya for Tunisia, ironically
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44192334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.Tk3faV1vaSo

[Mandark]

I think I've said this before, but I'd be completely fine with letting Qaddafi--career criminal and mass murderer though he is--skate if it meant a quicker peace and end to the violence.

[chronovore]

Sure.

Someone would probably find a way to cap him once he's an independent citizen, anyway.

[Phoenix Dark]

Rebels have taken Tripoli, and allegedly Gadaffi was shot dead today

[Mandark]

US and allies kind of lucky here, cause it really didn't look like they had a plan in case of a protracted stalemate.

Also, Obama will have been personally responsible for ordering military actions that took out Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi.  A big chunk of the country is still going to think that he's secretly Muslim or culturally Muslim or Muslim-sympathetic to the point where he's yearning to implement Sharia law.

[Stoney Mason]

My boy is going out like a souljah.

No pussying out and fleeing the country.

 

[Phoenix Dark]

So thanks to following Jay Electronica on twitter, I've been exposed to a new conspiracy
 
[youtube=560,345]GuqZfaj34nc[/youtube]
[youtube=560,345]rC1TK0BE1WE[/youtube]

I remember hearing Farrakhan complaining about Gadaffi being a good leader being picked up, but didn't expect there to be a mass conspiracy. 

[Mandark]

North Korea bans citizens working in Libya from returning home


Basically, the NK government doesn't want news of a successful rebellion giving their own citizens ideas, so they have suppressed news of Ghaddafi's death.  Part of this coverup involves not allowing 200 North Korean citizens to return home from Libya (where they were working to bring home the cash), so they won't be able to tell anyone what happened.

wtf?

[Madrun Badrun]

[Joe Molotov]

So thanks to following Jay Electronica on twitter, I've been exposed to a new conspiracy

I remember hearing Farrakhan complaining about Gadaffi being a good leader being picked up, but didn't expect there to be a mass conspiracy. 

I still think Obama was threatened into becoming a puppet. I think they told him the truth, that a shadow government run by the power elite has been in charge a loooong time, and that they'd bomb a major American city and kill his family if he didn't go along with it. I felt honesty coming from him during the campaign, but then a radical switch after the election, and suddenly he is sounding like Bush, Cheney and company...

Finally the truth comes out.

[chronovore]

North Korea bans citizens working in Libya from returning home


Basically, the NK government doesn't want news of a successful rebellion giving their own citizens ideas, so they have suppressed news of Ghaddafi's death.  Part of this coverup involves not allowing 200 North Korean citizens to return home from Libya (where they were working to bring home the cash), so they won't be able to tell anyone what happened.

wtf?

That's superb.