Are we at war with Libya?

[johncocker]

I worry that the decision to pursue a no fly zone might have been made hastily. That there has been little strategic thought into what might happen next. That civilian casualties might increase under the continued barrage. That engagement might last many years. That what felt like the right thing to do to the average man in the street, myself included, might, behind the scenes have been an military engagement with very different goals to the humanitarian basis it was sold to us on.

 

 

you can't win with people like you. If we had'nt have stopped them from going into to benghazi and slaughtering the people there you'd have been one of the first to start shouting "why did'nt we do something instead of sitting on our hands" "the UN's useless " "we've got to do something to stop the genocide"...what would you have done, parachuted into daffis compound and say to him "stop it''

[sharrowman]

Hey JC, people like me are so infuriating!

 

"what would you have done, parachuted into daffis compound and say to him "stop it''

 

Well, that would have been a start. 53 Nations in the African Union wanted to negotiate. many of whom will now be free - if not positively motivated - to offer support to muamar.

 

Mission Creep, friendly fire, collateral damage, civilian deaths all might add up to more civilian deaths than Gadaffi had the capacity for. "Humanitarian intervention" is always a euphemism for 'we don't know what the f**k will happen, but we better do something'. Current activity seems to be a disorganised scramble without objective.

 

We don't even know who the current rebels are? Gun toting militias are not what one would normally consider as civilians, in Afghanistan they are insurgents, elsewhere terrorists.

 

My analysis is definitely flawed - there is not enough evidence in the public sphere to form a solid point of view. But gung ho bomb first sort it out later attitudes are over and over again a recipe for disaster.

 

I believe that this action will open up a new theatre of war in the region. Not very good for civilians anywhere.

[johncocker]

Hey JC, people like me are so infuriating!

 

"what would you have done, parachuted into daffis compound and say to him "stop it''

 

Well, that would have been a start. 53 Nations in the African Union wanted to negotiate. many of whom will now be free - if not positively motivated - to offer support to muamar.

 

Mission Creep, friendly fire, collateral damage, civilian deaths all might add up to more civilian deaths than Gadaffi had the capacity for. "Humanitarian intervention" is always a euphemism for 'we don't know what the f**k will happen, but we better do something'. Current activity seems to be a disorganised scramble without objective.

 

We don't even know who the current rebels are? Gun toting militias are not what one would normally consider as civilians, in Afghanistan they are insurgents, elsewhere terrorists.

 

My analysis is definitely flawed - there is not enough evidence in the public sphere to form a solid point of view. But gung ho bomb first sort it out later attitudes are over and over again a recipe for disaster.

 

I believe that this action will open up a new theatre of war in the region. Not very good for civilians anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the african union :hihi: where do you think he gets is merceneries from:loopy:

[sharrowman]

"the african union where do you think he gets is merceneries from "

 

John, I stated that member states of the AU will be free to offer support to the errant colonel. Mad as you might think I am you didn't read the post.

 

Besides reading leads me to believe that the humanitarian angle is

promoted by our leaders is a useful marketing strategy and cover for a resource war to support exploration investment made by BP in 2007.

 

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7033600

 

The largest exploration commitment BP has ever made -

 

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9010050&contentId=7028208

 

Currently a large percentage of any discovered oil goes to our man gadaffi, 77% I have read. A jolly bit of warring abroad would likely be able to lessen the claim Gadaffi has over these profits.

 

Humanitarian and R2P coincide nicely with a regime change agenda to support oil exploration.

[alchresearch]

Gaddafi is no threat to Britain so we should keep out of it. Gaddafi isn't killing British people so I don't understand why our government is bothered. Same with the first Gulf war, Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait not Britain we should not have got involved.

 

The threat is if he uses Lockerbie bombers.

 

Why can't we be like the US in the 80's and secretly arm and train the Taliban rather than fight ourselves?

[sharrowman]

"Why can't we be like the US in the 80's and secretly arm and train the Taliban rather than fight ourselves? "

 

You don't already see why that is a poor strategy?

[alchresearch]

Yep, it was meant to be a joke. It seems lessons will never be learnt from Vietnam, Afghanistan (Vs USSR), Iraq, and Afghanistan 2.

[mj.scuba]

There's a number of Libya threads but I though this would be the most appropriate for my question. Hopefully somebody with a bit of military knowledge can answer.

 

Why do we need aircraft at all to enforce a no fly zone?

Afaik, most of the fighting is happening in coastal towns and cities. Don't the surface to air missles carried by ships have a range of hundreds of miles? So why not just anchor a few ships off the coast of Libya with loads of SAMS firing into Libya if anything takes to the air? That would have saved the expense of taking out the whole air defence infrastructure.

 

Thanks in advance.

[alchresearch]

I think they're trying to justify the role of the Eurofighter, give it a bit of "live" combat experience and testing.

[Noob]

Who is the leader or the leaders of these rebels?

 

The media never "investigate". I want Assange to unleash his wikileak magic and spill the secrets about this.