Somewhere Mubarak is complaining, "So the crazy dude's army fights for him?"
Brian Downing at the Agonist analyzes the military options
But yes, it begins to look more like a civil war than a popular uprising and one where the "rebels" are not well-positioned to hold on. Cyrenaica as a Kurdistan where they get part of the oil revenue rather than the central government? Maybe I guess, but it would need Egypt and US/Western Europe de facto sanction and I have no idea if it would work even then.
I've been pleased to hear Robert Gates tell the Bombs Cure Everything Brigade that a no-fly zone is "not a video game".* It's an act of war against a country that has not threatened us in any way, shape, or form and which holds no national interest for us beyond having oil reserves. Moreover, it puts us squarely on one side of a civil war in support of groups about which we know practically nothing at all (though, as Abu Muqawama has pointed out, Eastern Libya had one of the highest per capita rates of fighters going to Iraq to fight against the US occupation so, you know, caveat emptor).
As usual, Daniel Larison has been one of the sanest voices in this entire insane debate, and the Libya posts go back several pages now.
*God knows the dumb-assed FB debates I've had about this show that otherwise perfectly intelligent people apparently believe that we can just painlessly destroy Libya's air force and air defenses by remote control and deliver the country to the opposition. There weren't actual flowers and candy referenced, though there may as well have been.
Actually I suspect that we could destroy Libya's airforce, air defenses, and any concentrated conventional land forces quite easily. Tanks in the desert facing a large hostile air force with complete air superiority don't do well. The problem, as LGM and others have pointed out in recent days is 'then what'. The rebel forces are pretty clearly not al Qaeda, but I'm not at all sure they have any sort of coherent unified structure that could step in and just take over. And while it is extremely unlikely that whatever came next would be any worse than the current regime, it's far from clear that they would be even remotely democratic, yet we would know own them. All in all, while I'm far less hostile to the idea of an armed intervention (meaning airforce plus special forces teams on the ground for targeting and liason work) than others here, on the balance I lean against it. However, if any evidence emerged of Rwanda scale atrocities that would change.
Note that most of the crazy dude's army isn't fighting for him. It's his special elite forces plus foreigners.
Non-militarily, this ("Italy Seizes Control Of Banca UBAE Which Manages Libya's Oil Payments") is the most significant part of the story in the long run. Who gets the oil money?
while it is extremely unlikely that whatever came next would be any worse than the current regime
I wouldn't go so far as "extremely unlikely." I'd say there's a very good chance that what would come next would be an orgy of bloodletting against the tribes loyal to Qaddafi and the sub-Saharan population of Libya.
It's his special elite forces plus foreigners
The African mercenaries charge has been leveled a lot, but there hasn't been much verifiable proof of it, has there? I mean, it may be true, but it's also a standard propaganda move.
Flying out of Pisa yesterday, we heard a call for a flight to Tripoli. I was a little surprised that there were still scheduled flights, tbh.
Who gets the oil money?
Berlusconi. He already gets a big cut.
Like 5, I think that a NATO strike force would very easily destroy the Libyan air force. But as LG&M has been saying, it's not even an "ooh, America, so imperialist!" point to say that by removing Qaddafi's ability to hold Tripoli we're making a decision about who is going to run Libya. At least in Afghanistan there was a king and the Northern Alliance. Who do you negotiate with about a provisional government in Libya? Mohammed El Senussi?
Things are going to be super terrible in Libya if Qaddafi regains control, especially given that his entire government basically resigned to support the opposition during the initial uprising. Barring genuine genocide, which nobody is claiming, that still excuse Anna-Marie Slaughter signing us up for Foreign Occupation 3 in op-eds. It's been genuinely distressing to see that the guardians of our public discourse have learned precisely nothing since 2002.
11 should read "that still doesn't excuse".
Also, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
These situations may not explode this time around, but they aren't sustainable either, are they? What happens when the political repression in the ME actually does threaten the world's supply of oil?
Oh, wow. That was a stupid question. The world crushes poor Arabs, that's what happens. Obviously.
I wonder how long it would take to outfit a farm to be completely self-sustaining. How much time and patchouli? Related: how long would it take to train guard eagles?
Things are going to be super terrible in Libya if Qaddafi regains control
And things are going to be super terrible if he leaves, or if it settles into a stalemate. There isn't a good option here, or even one that we can reliably predict. Libya is about as imaginary a country as Yugoslavia or Afghanistan. One more reason to steer as clear of it as possible.
14 - I don't know; the Warfala tribe, which supported the rebels, represents something like 15% of the population of Libya. Hard to argue the counterfactuals here.
But hard questions be damned! The New Republic, in an explicit endorsement of the Green Lantern Theory, says that if we don't start escalating our involvement, everyone will call Obama a big ol' wimp and the Soviets will rise from their dusty grave to pants us.
Per Mark "Abu Aardvark" Lynch, Susan Rice is also very skeptical about a no-fly zone; it's nice to see what a foreign policy apparatus not staffed entirely by neo-cons (and a SecDef who isn't trying to prove a point about his awesomitude) is slightly less All War Everything than Marty Peretz's friends.
I hope nobody missed Daniel Davies' post on the no-fly zone idea.
Cyrenaica as a Kurdistan where they get part of the oil revenue rather than the central government?
"There were our own, there were the others.
Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal.
There were no gods and precious few heroes."
—Hamish Henderson. 'First Elegy: End of a Campaign,' Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica.
It's interesting that Gates's prescription became applicable so quickly after being given.
I wonder if the Bombs Cure Everything Brigade has decided we've had enough for the time being of righteous wars that we plunge into all at once and need to switch it up by starting with "assistance" and "unintentionally" scaling up into war, now that the specifics of Vietnam are lost in the mists of memory.
Lounsbury at Aqoul gives you the case for "#doing something", tho not an invasion.
To sum up
1) The rebels will soon lose
2) This won't mean Libya goes quiet. There'll be a insurrection and general chaos.
3) Takfiris will come, like moths to a flame.
3) If the west does nothing, the rebels will be bitter. The takfiri element will become dominant.
Not endorsing the argument, I don't have a position.
Anthony Shadid and three other NYT journalists have now gone missing in Libya.
21: Huh:
"We have talked with officials of the Libyan government in Tripoli, and they tell us they are attempting to ascertain the whereabouts of our journalists," the paper's executive editor Bill Keller said. "We are grateful to the Libyan government for their assurance that if our journalists were captured they would be released promptly and unharmed."
So, basically: "Yeah, sure, if we got 'em, we'll definitely let 'em go. If we got 'em. Which we don't know."
I don't see how the iraq invasion means no fly zones are failures. It seems like the big success of the american military in iraq was the no-fly-zone for kurdistan.
I think the point is that maintaining a no-fly zone can easily turn into an unbelievably expensive multi-year operation that doesn't in the end keep you out of an even more expensive multi-year ground operation. Too much of the debate around it seems to be of the "it's the LEAST we can do" variety.
A no fly zone isn't logistically possible before they're all conquered anyway, and Obama is very unlikely to do fuck all, so you can all relax.
very unlikely to do fuck all
Is this really hard to parse, or is it just me? It's like "never fail to miss", or something, one of those odd phrases that forces me to stop and puzzle out if the intent was to make a positive or negative statement.
U.S. interests didn't dictate supporting rebels in Cyrenaica six weeks ago, and they don't now. The U.S. didn't seriously entertain sponsoring rebellions against Gaddafi before 2003, so why is it imperative that the U.S. actually do so now? When the rebellion started, it did appear that it was proving to be something more than a regional uprising against the government in Tripoli, but that was evidently not the case. Setting up an extra-legal protectorate created on the fly with no specific purpose beyond perpetuating the existence of the protectorate is the sort of lousy, short-term "solution" that people come up with when they can't articulate why the policy serves concrete American interests. It is a good example of how some people let what the U.S. can do define what it should be doing. [...]
The editors can't know the answer to that [whether the rebels are better or worse than Gaddafi], and neither can I, which is why the sensible thing is to err on the side of caution and not provide unknown actors with a large arms cache and the training in how to use it. A de facto partition of Libya seems like a recipe for the creation of at least one and maybe two failed states, and an endless drain on U.S. resources for as long as Washington was foolish enough to keep subsidizing the rebels.
I am not a religious man, so Larison is frequently hard for me to take seriously (carefully gradiated difference between invisible skydaddies do not interest me), but he is right the fuck on here.
30: Yes. And since the U.S. is going to be blamed for whatever it does or doesn't do, we might as well be blamed for taking the less expensive choice.
{baffled look}
It doesn't matter. The loyalists took Brega, which is effectively the gateway to Cyrenaica. If you have Brega (or coming from the other direction, Tobruk), and superiority in arms, the entire province is yours for the taking. So it's over and the rebels lost, they just haven't been eliminated yet. (And the bloodbath hasn't yet begun.)
That said, a no-fly zone never made any sense. It wasn't going to stop Qaddafi if he consolidated his position, short of bombing him. Not that matters anyways - I've been keeping a hand count and as near as I can tell the loyalists can't muster more than about twelve planes at a time anyways. Stopping those planes from getting in the air wouldn't have made much difference. It's the fighting on the ground that counts.
Larison:
When the rebellion started, it did appear that it was proving to be something more than a regional uprising against the government in Tripoli, but that was evidently not the case.Nah. They got close to taking control of the situation but they couldn't quite muster the manpower. Qaddafi consolidated in the eastern coastal areas, which has the majority of the population and the majority of the weapons and loyalists. (And it's also closer to him.) He still hasn't retaken it all but it looks like he wants to starve the rest out.
The editors can't know the answer to that [whether the rebels are better or worse than Gaddafi], and neither can I, which is why the sensible thing is to err on the side of caution and not provide unknown actors with a large arms cache and the training in how to use it.The people of Libya had a referendum on Qaddafi and he lost, badly, (otherwise the rebels, starting from a position of street protests and no arms would not have gotten as far as they did) so he's overturning the results with guns. You may think the people of Libya are worse than the nutty dictator (and I admit to be fond of the nutty fuck myself - someone has to bring the whoopie cushion to the world leader meetings - but that doesn't change what he's about) but I'm not sure that's possible. Unless you think very little of Libyans. As it is the arms cache is open anyways, so I doubt additional weapons would have resulted in some kind of massive death or something.
A de facto partition of Libya seems like a recipe for the creation of at least one and maybe two failed states, and an endless drain on U.S. resources for as long as Washington was foolish enough to keep subsidizing the rebels.Well, I'm pretty sure Libya is a reasonable approximation of a failed state anyways, and if it isn't it will be shortly. While I appreciate the desire to stay out of conflicts, I'm not sure anyone has considered the fact that a Qaddafi will automatically go to the top of the neocon hit list, which means, in turn, that Sarah Palin will be blathering on about regime change in Libya. Next Republican will give us a war, I expect. Hell, there was an neocon oped in the WaPo today explaining how we need to help create 'friendly pro-American regimes', by which I take it the writer means 'puppet states'.
I very much suspect people are going to regret not doing something when it was cheap to do. (cf the 1990 Shiite rebellion in Iraq).
max
['Gonna be ugly either way.']
I very much suspect people are going to regret not doing something when it was cheap to do. (cf the 1990 Shiite rebellion in Iraq)
It isn't going to be cheap no matter when you do it, and there's an unspoken assumption in both examples that the US has not only the right but the obligation to go in and intervene in other countries' civil wars. No matter whether we understand who the other side is or not (cf 1980s Afghanistan, which has worked out so very well for us over the long haul).
I can only assume the same folks demanding a no-fly zone over Libya are even now demanding the US overthrow the monarchies in Bahrain and Yemen. Fair is fair, after all!
"The US is pushing the UN to authorise not just a no-fly zone over Libya, but also the use of air strikes to stop the advance of forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
"Washington's ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said on Wednesday that a no-fly zone would have only a limited use, and that the Obama administration was working "very hard" to pass a new resolution, which would authorise the use of aerial bombing of Libyan tanks and heavy artillery."
Looks like we'll have US authorization for air strikes, which I didn't expect.In that case, I'll go on record thinking air strikes arevery much a good thing.
But if air strikes don't stop the advance toward Benghazi, then what? Or even if they do, he's more or less gotten the rest of the country back under control. What's the goal here?
I haven't really been following domestic news lately. Who the fuck is pushing for this? I assume the right wing, but are the centrists doing their usual thing? Is there any pushback from the media?
The neo-cons have been pushing, certainly.
Apparently John Kerry came out in favor of a no-fly zone, which surprised me a bit. I didn't hear/see/read what he had to say.
Shorter 40: Has anyone learned a goddamn thing in the last decade?
In addition to neo-cons, the pro-humanitarian-interventionist folks. They keep citing Rwanda.
38, see 19. If the international community does nothing, the resistance might turn jihadist. Almost everyone hates the guide outside and inside Libya. The risk of blowback is if we do nothing.
David, forgive me, but I have a feeling I'm supposed to know who you are -- that is, you blog somewhere or are known to this blog -- but I don't remember.
That is not meant to say something obnoxious and dismissive like 'who the hell are you?' but rather that I think I should know who you are, but don't recall.
Unless I'm confused, David in this thread is David Weman from Fistful of Euros. Am I confused?
Yesterday, we didn't care if Khadafi (can we just pick one fucking spelling in English of this dude's name please) was in power, but today we're going to risk jihad if we don't start bombing people. Sounds like an awesome reason for a war.
How about just realizing that this isn't our damn problem.
Although of course I could be wrong, insert standard gripe about people posting under non-unique common first names. Grumble, crab, bitch, gripe, snarl.
Grumble, crab, bitch, gripe, snarl
It's Kraab, and she's been knighted. And bitch, well, yeah. I guess. Who are the others?
Actually, Snarl Snarlson should probably go into the pseud bank for forthcoming brave de-lurkers.
Well, according to a BBC World News (via radio) bit I just heard on the passing of the UN resolution, it contains an explicit clause which 'rules out any foreign occupation by foreign troops'.
So that's good. The entire text might be worth reading. As rendered by the BBC guy, it sounded ... reasonable. Hard to say.
I'm a little worried about this.
In my more cynical moments, I reason thus: these rebels have been fighting for, what, less than a month and they're ready to give up already. I am not impressed.
Did the Norwegians give up in June 1940? No. They went right on for years, skiing around the place shooting Germans and mining roads and blowing up atom bomb factories like extremely tall tactiturn reindeer-eating goddamn biathlete heroes.
Did Robert Bruce fight the English for four weeks and then knock it off and go home?
Did George Washington can the whole Revolution concept once he ran out of clean socks?
For that matter, did the Iraqi insurgency flare up and disappear over a single spring?
And now we're happily talking about committing ourselves to months or even years of involvement. Which means we care about the freedom of the Libyans more than the Libyans seem to.
And more, for that matter, than their fellow Arabs seem to. Egypt's right across the border with their Western-trained army and its fifteen hundred tanks and its five hundred warplanes - many of which they got given, free, by the US over the last thirty years.
Any half-arsed passed-over mediocre colonel could throw together some sort of regiment-strength armoured column from what the Egyptians have got and put it on the road to Benghazi. Even if half the tanks didn't make it all the way, you think Gaddafi's going up against Benghazi if he knows there's forty M1s waiting for him and a BARCAP of F-16s circling overhead waiting to turn his pathetic clutch of Su-22s into tinfoil confetti?
But has the Egyptian army moved an inch? It has not. Nor will it.
e extremely tall tactiturn reindeer-eating goddamn biathlete heroes
Suddenly, I have the hots for Lutherans.
54.1: I know what you mean, and the rest is amusing. [pause to admire the amusing parts] But I at least have no fucking idea what's really going on there.
I doubt the Egyptian army is in a position to do a damned thing. The Guardian piece linked in 35 says that the Arab League's plea to the UN was a significant factor in the US's shift in position.
e extremely tall tactiturn reindeer-eating goddamn biathlete heroes
Paleo diet nordics rule,
these rebels have been fighting for, what, less than a month and they're ready to give up already.
Lotus-eaters drool.
A while ago I heard the rumor that the elements of the Libyan army that had defected from Khadaffi were not actually fighting on the side of the rebels, but were sitting on the sidelines. Does any one know if this is true?
Huh. Germany abstained on the UN Security Council vote. What's that all about?
insert standard gripe about people posting under non-unique common first names
It wasn't common when I was growing up.
59: Really? I'd understood that China and Russia abstained, but France-Germany-UK-etc. were all on board.
Where are you getting your news about this kind of thing from, babe*? We might as well get used to more link-sharing since the NYT is moving to subscription at the end of the month.
* I know, I should cut out the "babe" thing. It happens when I'm tired and affectionate, I guess.
61: Here:
Ten of the Council's 15 member states voted in favor of the resolution, with Russia, China and Germany among the five that abstained. There were no votes against the resolution, which was co-sponsored by France, Britain, Lebanon and the United States.
Some 6,000 of his troops have joined the rebels, who number many thousands of volunteers but have only rudimentary equipment. Half of the deserters take orders from General Suleiman Mahmoud, based in Tobruk, north-east of Benghazi, and another 1,000 or so special forces are led by Colonel Qaddafi's former interior minister, Abdel Fatah Younis. Though both men declared their defection, they seem to be defying demands by the rebels' "national transitional council" (see article) to throw their military weight fully behind the war against their former comrades still loyal to the colonel. Perhaps they are hedging their bets. "They're playing games," says a council member.
Another 2,000-odd army defectors answer to Major Ahmed Qetrani, who sounds more whole-hearted in his support for the rebels. "He's forcing me to intervene," he says of Colonel Qaddafi from an operations room in Benghazi, after receiving the latest news of an air raid on Ras Lanuf's water tank. But even Major Qetrani seems loth to wage all-out war against Colonel Qaddafi's forces. "It would create two Libyan armies, it would make fitna [civil war], it would ruin our infrastructure and set our country back 100 years," he says.
http://www.economist.com/node/18338840
Huh. Germany abstained on the UN Security Council vote. What's that all about?
TCM knows German politics better than I do, but aside from general postwar pacifism, I suspect a lot has to do with next Sunday's reasonably-important regional Baden-Württemberg elections, where the conservative CDU + liberal FDP are currently polling a bit lower than the combined Greens + Social Democrats + Left. If the conservatives lose, this would be a crushing defeat; looking at this table, it doesn't look like the conservatives have ever come close to losing here. I suspect Merkel & Westerwelle don't want to do anything to energize the left any further; as it is, I suspect the Greens are getting a bump from the nuclear thing.
62: Thanks. My reading there is haphazard, it seems.
(The state elections in Germany don't just determine the state governments, they also determine the composition of the upper federal legislative chamber, which in fact was just tipped away from CDU/FDP control by the SDP/Green elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen. [And in fact, during the runup to those elections, Merkel was accused of delaying decisive action w.r.t. the Greece bailout precisely in order to avoid electoral backlash--though it didn't work.])
63: Thanks. Its kinda shitty that 15 year olds are getting sent to the front when supposedly pro-rebel military units are sitting around in their barracks. Makes me feel like the West is getting played.
What could possibly go wrong? I mean, the military isn't at all stressed by fighting two wars already; we have a huge surplus in the treasury, not to mention an economy that's booming; the electorate, and our representatives in Washington, are absolutely united; American interests are quite obviously at stake; our standing in the Arab world, which is more stable than it's ever been, is incredibly high: and there's absolutely no possibility of any unintended consequences whatsoever. Sarcasm aside, at least we've got a good fight song for this one.
Under potential unintended consequences, by the way, should go the fact that Libya isn't really a country, that we have no clue who the opposition is, that there's going to be one hellacious bloodletting (probably either way, but who wants to be sponsoring such a thing) when the battle is over, and that, again, we have no identifiable interests there other than oil. Still, theme song!
OTOH, it looks like la France is jumping at the bit for this one. Maybe Sarkozy can take this one for the team, as it were.
Clearly the grand solution is to airlift Qaddafi's forces to Fukushima and force them to cool the reactors while the rebels take charge back in Libya.
Christ on a cracker, in other horrible news, Duke gets Kyrie Irving back for the tournament.
It was occurring to me during the course of what I'm trying not to let become a freakout: a UN resolution is now enough license for the US to (potentially) engage in military action in another country? Well, sure, I guess it is, since no one's declaring an act of war.
I don't understand enough about international law; but it's striking that domestic pressure in Germany might keep Merkel from joining the UN resolution, while there's been no opportunity in the US for a domestic weighing in on the matter.
Digby Why not Cote D'Ivoire?
It's about the freaking oil.
They have already pissed the Qaddafis off too much to continue business, and they better not piss off whoever might be handing out the concessions and contracts next year.
Obama works for BP. I think he is probably the most coldblooded corporate flunky I have ever seen. There is nothing else to the guy. We will all bleed for him, if Wall Street gives him the order.
"Obama waited until the momentum was firmly on the side of Gadhafi and it became almost inevitable that he'll remain in power. In my opinion this move represents nothing more "noble" than a desire to prevent a vengeful dictator from turning off the oil tap. It's my belief that the oil lobby must have given him a stern talking to." ...Margaret at FDL
"The world is boiling over. The elite are being more and more brazen. We might see some serious changes in the world. The USA is nothing more than a military predator... it's not what it advertises itself to be. That fig leave is hardly working any more.
The revolution's coming to a corner near you. Be prepared." ...SanderO at FDL
I don't care about the Libyan rebels. But I love me some world revolution. Bumpty, bumpty bump, my life for you.
The nice thing about being ambivalently against intervention is that I'm not too worked up when the decision goes the other way.
Bob, you can pretend not to care about the Libyan rebels, but we all know that you're just bluffing. Each and every one of them is a person to you: a brother, husband, uncle, or son. You're such a softy.
It's times like these I wish I still believed in Hell, so I could squeeze some petty, bloody-minded comfort from the notion that the fuckers who run this country are going there.
I think there is about a 50% chance this will go well, a 20% chance of a complete fuck-up, and a 30% chance of in between.
But one thing that worries me is that, if it does go well, then it will be used as another reason that we can and should do this kind of thing in the future. Kinda like how Gulf War I went so swimmingly, it made a lot of people think Gulf War II was a good idea.
Tell me, Spike, what does "going well" mean? What will Libya look like two years from now?
I know that it sounds like I'm baiting you, or just being a dick, but I'm genuinely curious, because I can't imagine what the best-case scenario here yields: a stable Libya with a democratically elected government? Hah! A stable Libya run by some kind of totalitarian regime that has control of the nation's many factions? Maybe, but that sounds familiar somehow. A bunch of factions, loyal to who or what we don't know, serving as proxies for outside interests and killing the fucking shit out of each other? My bet's on that one, I'm afraid.
A stable Libya run by some kind of totalitarian regime that has control of the nation's many factions? Maybe, but that sounds familiar somehow.
"Some kind of totalitarian regime" encompasses a wide spectrum of regime quality.
79 - A restoration of the Senussi dynasty, a transformation to a a liberal constitutional monarchy on the Spanish model, and free Libyan ponies for everyone!
"Going well" means we (or better yet, somebody else) bomb the crap out of Khadaffi, and his regime collapses fairly quickly, to be replaced by something at least marginally better, and major ethnic bloodbaths averted. That seems to be the goal, and I don't think its outlandish.
I also don't think its worth the risk of a total fuck-up - as you describe - or that its a roll that the United States should be playing. But I don't see certain doom, here, either.
This no fly zone looks to me like a tactic in search of a strategy.
something at least marginally better
Fair enough, but nobody I trust seems to be able to be more specific than that. I mean, "better than QKKKhadaffiye" encompasses a pretty broad spectrum, but until someone can say to me, "This guy or these people will be in charge. And here's what their regime will look like. And here's how they're going to keep the country from going to shit." I'm going to remain really skeptical. Not to mention everything I said above about how this isn't our business, how divided we are, how broke we are, how Libya is a fictional country, etc.
Christ, there are days that I think the US is a fictional country. It often feels unlike a nation.
Meanwhile, some of the same "allies" pressing us to bomb Libya are shooting protesters in Bahrain.
bomb the crap out of Khadaffi, and his regime collapses fairly quickly
See, this just baffles me. Bomb the crap out of what? Tripoli? All the anti-aircraft positions that are surely located in residential areas? Should we destroy their national highway and communications systems? Bridges? How much death and destruction are we willing to inflict to get a different autocrat in charge?
Qaddafi's been bombed before, and he doesn't look to be in particular danger of collapsing. Maybe if you get lucky and land one right on him, I guess.
Fair enough, but nobody I trust seems to be able to be more specific than that
Well, thats because nobody has any fucking clue. We've decided to pick Door #2. Ain't nobody knows whats behind it.
Qaddafi's been bombed before, and he doesn't look to be in particular danger of collapsing.
I think you are overestimating him. This is a guy who lost a war against Chad.
We've decided to pick Door #2.
I hope we win a new car.
But who stayed in charge after losing that war. And is pretty likely to stay in charge of at least the capital unless NATO's sending in ground troops.
The UN authorization says no ground troops, although, yeah, I can see they might be needed to finish this off.
I guess it depends on how good the rebel army is. They were doing pretty well at the beginning of this war; unfortunately, nobody told them that they needed to dig trenches in order to hold their captured ground. Presumably they will be getting better military advice from this point on.
I'm really surprised by some of the people who are filling my Facebook feed with pro-bombing messages. I thought my liberal-ish vegetarian hippie-type friends had a healthy amount of skepticism about our military. (In particular, I'm seeing the sentiment "it doesn't matter if they greet us as liberators, at least they'll still be alive", which, um, maybe?)
I think you are overestimating him. This is a guy who lost a war against Chad France
The French sent in the air force plus troops and armor. The ground stuff was mainly to hold places, but the planes were to bomb the fuck out of Libyan forces while France's Chadian clients hit them on the ground.
As an aside: between the Cameron, Sarkozy, and Obama governments, I'm not sure whose intentions I trust the least.
The French hawkishness may be partly explained by the fact that the Francafrique lobby within the French military industrial complex utterly loathes Qaddafi and has been quietly fighting his proxies in their client states for decades. Our relations with Libya over the past thirty years have been positively wonderful compared with the French. Think eighties era cold warriors views on Cuba and its role in Latin America and you'll be on the right track.
69 OTOH, it looks like la France is jumping at the bit for this one. Maybe Sarkozy can take this one for the team, as it were.
Well, France has a glorious and unblemished record of action in North Africa, so you can see why they would be the natural ones to intervene.
Is Berlusconi not putting up any planes/personnel for this gambit? I'd think he of all people would welcome a distraction right about now. Um, laydeez.
80 Why strangely? This is a guy who flirted with supporting the Iraq war and only didn't because he felt that you needed UN approval and a broad international consensus. In the end he opposed it strongly but in an exchange with Helena Cobban, rejected those who were 'marching for Saddam'. Cole also very strongly approved the Afghan war to the point of saying he would have volunteered for the army if he were younger. The dude is neither a pacifist nor particularly fond of highly repressive Muslim regimes.
100. Up till a month ago Berlisconi was K(H)GQadd(h)af(f)i(ye)'s bbf in Europe and made squillions in sweetheart deals on Libyan oil. He may well be playing silly buggers on the off chance that his old buddy survives.
Well, one reason I only use my first name now is I want a greater disctinction between shooting my mouth off on Unfogged and going on record for real. I wouldn't post on Fistful in suopport of air strikes, I don't feel nearly confident enough about being right.
I'll just quote this in full.
"his from a fellow who full-throatedly backed the Iraq war. Insofar as I can tell the US has merely voted support for the UN resolution (and never mind how comical it would be to bring the Congress to debate in the closing hours of Benghazi over the theatre of the No Fly). Really, Sullivan is over compensating for his idiocy over the Iraq war, with deeper stupidity about the No Fly.
The most important part of the UN vote last night was no the actual No Fly (although France resuming its old war with Qadhdhafi has an interesting side to it), but the effect of stiffening the spines of the Rebellion. Morale effect. And worth an effort.
Unless of course Sullivan and the others can advance a scenario where Libya reconquered by Qadhdhafi, but awash in weapons 'liberated' from Government depots and filled with embittered rebels does not turn into a Chechnya or an Algeria c. 1993 (except next to Tunisia and Egypt, themselves struggling to establish stability) with the rebels turning to the hard-core Takfiri Jihad wing as their point of reference....
I certainly do not see any scenario where Libya goes back to its slumber under Qadhdhafi (never mind the behaviour one can expect from him vis-a-vis Egypt and Tunisia, and the oil money to spend on that - yes Sullivan seems to see this in isolation, but as Shaheen has pointed out, pre-Rebellion in Libya, there were already signs of Qadhdhafi mucking round to support the anciens de Ben Ali, for negative effects to stability in Tunisia).
Putting Western 'boots on the ground' in Libya is madness. Providing logistical support and the morale boosting of giving at least Eastern Libya air cover is worth a shot. Sullivan on his blog rightly asks about Afghanistan - I'd say that Afghanistan is not worth American, British, French, German, other Nato soldiers lives. Wind it up.
Libya with vast petrol reserves, the potential to destabilize - by direct and indirect action - both Tunisia and Egypt, and also become a Somalia on the Med, well that is rather more of interest to both EU (well, US, France, UK, after the recent EU performance it's silly to talk of EU as an interest entity...). Were Libya say located where The Sudan is, I'd shrug and say "ah fuck it." However, it is not. It is smack dab between the two more-or-less successful regime change countries (Tun, Egp [I maintain my Egypt-skepticism, but comparatively), with enormous direct economic impact on each (literally millions of expat workers, for Tunisia substantial business/trade ties). In the real world, outside blogging and hand-waving, this has real impacts on those economies that have real impacts on their stability and ability to have a real shot at democracy.
There are various commentators also wringing their hands about the real character of the Rebels in the East. Not without a basis worrying of Al Qaeda ties and whether the 'real goals' of the Rebellion is democracy. I say, "Fine but rather bloody theoretical and precious at this stage." Again the choice is not between supporting a Rebellion and say a Stable Regime. No, it is between bloody chaos, à la Chechnya, only this time on the Med and not safely tucked away in the remote Caucuses, and... a chance at not so much chaos. So again: the vote needs to be placed not in contrast with some theoretical situation of stable Guide rule, but between likely end-result of The Guide winning (i.e. various levels of insurgency possible and Guide lashing out via support to radicals in neighbouring countries) and the potential to stop that.
I do hope the Western policy makers and the Egyptians now reported to be passing arms to the Rebels in the West (I hope that is true), are making realistic plans about giving logistical and practical support as touched on in earlier posts."
I was, not quite supportive of the Iraq war, but far too optimistic about it based on Juan Cole's writings and my high estimation of him. Not my area of expertise, this.
Perfectly reasonable. The issue, insofar as there is one, isn't wanting to be pseudonymous, it's maintaining continuity of persona, if you see what I mean. "David" is a common enough name that seeing someone post as "David" isn't terribly strong evidence that he's the same "David" as was posting last week. (There's actually a troll with a history going back to Usenet who's shown up here being irritatingly loony on occasion who posts as 'TheDavid' or variants -- I do look at a "David" who I don't otherwise know fairly carefully for evidence of being that guy, or of being otherwise insane.)
If you wanted to cater to my whims, you could pick a unique pseud and use it for stuff you didn't want to say under your real name, and then we'd be able to keep track of the persona. Or you could just keep posting as David and not worry about it. (Given your concerns, do you want the references to your real name in this thread redacted, or are you okay with leaving them?)
Uh, I'll quote the bits I quote in full.
On the substance, I'm torn. On the one hand, a no-fly zone did seem to work very well in the Kurdish parts of Iraq. On the other hand, I have no idea first hand how to differentiate a situation where a no-fly zone is a minimal intervention that can be effective in protecting people on the ground without escalating the situation, from one where we're just getting into another full-scale war (that is, I think d-squared's post on being a little bit pregnant doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- there are meaningful gradations between levels of military intervention), and I systematically distrust anyone in a decision-making capacity who does have that expertise.
So on this one, I'm kind of glad that my opinion has no effect on anything.
On the one hand, a no-fly zone did seem to work very well in the Kurdish parts of Iraq.
Um... Could you elaborate on that, please.
During the period between the two Gulf Wars, it's my understanding that conditions for the locals in the Kurdish parts of Iraq were much better than elsewhere in Iraq, largely because of the maintenance of the no-fly zone. It didn't prevent the second war, obviously, but ten years of better conditions without significant bloodshed is worth something.
109: success = there are still some Kurds left in the Kurdish parts of Iraq.
Basically it enabled the Kurds to set up a self-governing state that was left alone by Baghdad for most of the 1990s - except in 1996 when the CIA tried to use it as a staging ground for a coup, and, being the CIA, screwed it up completely and got a lot of people killed when Saddam sent the tanks north. But that aside it had definite positive effects.
(It's not absolutely impossible to overthrow a despotic ruler through covert action, replace him with someone better, and have as a result a more prosperous and happier state that's better disposed towards you. It's been done. But AFAIK it's only been done once in recent history.)
Yes, but it was open ended. It would still be going on today if the neocons hadn't decided to launch a land war in 2003. There was no reason for it to stop. You shouldn't start a war without a set of objectives to end it, but the allies were bounced into the no-fly policy in Iraq very much as they've been bounced into this one. What happens if the upshot is stalemate, and Libya ends up partitioned de facto into two or three areas whose security depends on NATO air forces forever? Why should that not happen?
Thusly:
Libyan government calls an immediate ceasefire, saying it is acting to protect civilians in acordance with the UN Security Council resolution.
What happens if the upshot is stalemate, and Libya ends up partitioned de facto into two or three areas whose security depends on NATO air forces forever?
That sounds like a pretty good outcome, given the likely alternatives.
Lynch expresses my concerns better than I could.
Was the no-fly zone over Iraq expensive to maintain?
So, practically speaking, what does this resolution call for? Bombing things on the ground? Intercepting and bombing airplanes?
116: $1.5 billion a year, according to RUSI, which argues that an Libyan NFZ would be cheaper and easier.
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4D6F85386C4DA/
The US is happy to pay $4 billion or so every year forever to keep the Sinai quiet, so another $1 billion or so to pacify Cyrenaica might not be noticed.
117. If you can understand it, best of luck to you. I thought parliamentary bills were full of jargon.
I think paras. 4, 8 and 13 are the crux of the matter.
Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights imposed by paragraph 6 above, as necessary, and requests the States concerned in cooperation with the League of Arab States to coordinate closely with the Secretary General on the measures they are taking to implement this ban, including by establishing an appropriate mechanism for implementing the provisions of paragraphs 6 and 7 above,Yes, that and the authorization to intercept vessels to enforce the arms embargo would seem to be the crux.
"All necessary measures" is rather vague.
"All necessary measures" is rather vague.
On the contrary, it's the Huge Big Red Flashing Light of UN language. That and the "Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations" bit.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter7.shtml
Yeah, I sort of meant "vague" in the sense of "encompasses a wide range of possible scary things."
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says: "This resolution is an important step, but the US and its partners will continue to explore other ways of ending the Libyan crisis."Why am I not comforted by this?
I will simply never understand the view that the Constitution allows the President unilaterally to commit the nation to prolonged military conflict in another country -- especially in non-emergency matters having little to do with self-defense -- but just consider what candidate Barack Obama said about this matter when -- during the campaign -- he responded in writing to a series of questions regarding executive power from Charlie Savage, then of The Boston Globe:
Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)
OBAMA: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.
Obama's answer seems dispositive to me on the Libya question: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." And he went on to say that the President could constitutionally deploy the military only "in instances of self-defense." Nobody is arguing -- nor can one rationally argue -- that the situation in Libya constitutes either an act of "self-defense" or the "stopping of an actual or imminent threat to the nation." How, then, can Obama's campaign position possibly be reconciled with his ordering military action in Libya without Congressional approval (something, it should be said, he has not yet done)?
Let me just say that our supposed professor-of-constitutional-law president is doing an amazingly shitty job of living up to that title. God help me, I'm starting to understand the Ron Paul attraction.
123: oh, you got that dead right.
125: but has Obama actually ordered military action in Libya yet? As in, have specific orders gone out to specific US units to attack specific targets?
Can I be the first to suggest that David adopt "Snarl Snarlson" as his nom d'Unfogged?
has Obama actually ordered military action in Libya yet?
Who knows? But his Secretary of State appears to be advocating as hard as she can for it.
I'm with saiselgy on this one: let's not add Libya to our dance card.
has Obama actually ordered military action in Libya yet?
Seems pointless, when Sarkozy is straining at the leash to get stuck in (also Cameron, apparently to prove he's a big boy).
131.2: well, we've got all these shiny new Typhoons that are pretty much useless for anything other than air-to-air combat, and now we finally, finally manage to find a reasonably bad-looking enemy who actually has an air force... it'd be a shame not to really.
(It's not absolutely impossible to overthrow a despotic ruler through covert action, replace him with someone better, and have as a result a more prosperous and happier state that's better disposed towards you. It's been done. But AFAIK it's only been done once in recent history.)
If only we had the diplomatic canniness and subtlety of Imperial Germany, surely we could pull a Lenin.
"President Obama to make statement on Libya at 2 P.M. EDT after meeting with Congressional leadership." - Beeb.
"We bomb Libya in five minutes..."
(It's not absolutely impossible to overthrow a despotic ruler through covert action, replace him with someone better, and have as a result a more prosperous and happier state that's better disposed towards you. It's been done. But AFAIK it's only been done once in recent history.)
When was that?
Hmm, I suppose so. For certain values of recent.
Hey, where I studied, "modern history" started in 322 AD. 1970 is "recent".
Apparently John Kerry came out in favor of a no-fly zone, which surprised me a bit. I didn't hear/see/read what he had to say.
John Kerry has learned nothing. It really depresses me. I'm sick of his, "I am a very serious foreign policy person" schtick.
I'm wondering whether I should bother sending an e-mail.
Obama has explicitly ruled out ground troops, which is one thing. I got the impression he's planning to try to get the French (and possibly Brits) to do most of the work here, with some cosmetic Arabic forces. Clinton is going to Paris tomorrow.
Obama says "no" to ground troops in Libya.
So, air strikes it is, then.
This is an awesomely insane comment from Crooked Timber:
One wonders whether this is a wag-the-dog response, much like Clinton's bellicosity at the time the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. If the reports in mainstream Indian and Pakistani media are correct, Obama could be implicated in plots to commit terrorist acts against civilians in Pakistan, and his role in the HBGary scandal remains to be seen.
The code has been cracked.
Juan Cole's seemingly being cool with this has kind of chilled me out, as well.
"Several thousand" protesting in Syria. Wow. The first two days, wasn't it around 30? Just: wow.
There was a question recently on what the NYTimes is good for, and my answer is this kind of thing: day-by-day graphic summary of Libya since the protests began in February.
Normally I love the Guardian much more than the NYT, but lately it seems like every article is a reverse-chronology liveblog and I hate it. The NYT has been doing a lot more stuff in better formats that don't make me cry when I try to read them.
reverse-chronology liveblog
Egad, I hate that shit.
Although I will treasure the Guardian liveblog of the ridiculously extended tennis match at Wimbleton last year forever.
Regular-chronology liveblogging is okay with me. Actually the Wimbleton one might have been okay either way, but that's due to its breakout excellence in content rather than anything acceptable about the form.
That dramatic fighter jet crash on the front page of the NYT looks to me like a Mirage F1. According to wikipedia Libya had 4- two defected to Malta, one was shot down earlier this month, so they have one more. They make up the bulk of the French air force. So could be a casualty for either side, but if it was Libya's it was pretty much their only advanced fighter, the rest of their air force is old MiGs.
149. Actually, how many old MiGs? I get the impression they don't have much of an airforce, really. Certainlt nothing a flight of Rafales shouldn't dispose of in short order.
The Guardian says it was the rebels' only plane.
Um. Are they still all like, no no, we don't want any foreign intervention, we'll handle it ourselves?
They make up the bulk of the French air force.
Not any more. According to Wiki the F1's only make up a fifth of France's combat planes with Mirage 2000's making up the bulk with a fair number of Rafales (the newest of France's fighters) as well. If an F1, which made its first test flights in the mid sixties and ended production a quarter century ago is your most modern aircraft, you don't have a particularly modern air force.
Hmmm, I would have thought this thread would have heated up again now that Hillary's* war has gone hot.
It's too far down the page. No one can remember how to get here anymore.
Hillary's* war
I was just mulling over the oversimplification: State talks Defense into war; France talks US into war.
NPR: "U.S. launches missile strikes on Libya"
NYT: "American missiles strike Libyan air defense targets"
BBC: "Coalition launches Libya attacks"
Guardian: "Allied forces launch missiles into Libya"
AlJ: "Airstrikes begin on Libya targets"
I probably should have expected it, but I'm still taken aback by the American media's focus on America here.
"Operation Odyssey Dawn"? Really, guys? Shouldn't we have a reserve pile of not-totally-dumb-sounding names for these sorts of things?
I'm really disgusted with some of the Facebook commentary I've been seeing from people who I usually think of as being on my side in political arguments. I mean, even if you think this is a case where military action is warranted, actively cheering on bombing as if it's a sporting event is pretty gross.
Apparently failed public relations executives are responsible for operation names.
I think in the interests of honest/transparency and fiscal responsibility we could start a sponsor program. Like "Absolute: Regime Change" etc.
Do defense contractors have slogans? They really should.
161: Operation Odyssey Dawn
You think you're on your way home form one war and you wake up one morning and find foul winds have blown you on to a distant shore.
Although the proposal in 163 would probably not help the trend identified in 162.
Possibly there's an editor at the BBC who could help craft better operation names.
Operation Odyssey Dawn
Ten more years of fucking up.
There was a disastrous and almost insanely stupid Border Patrol program -- the feds intentionally shipped guns to Mexico with tracking numbers supposedly to track smuggling back into the US, and of course the guns got lost in Mexico and ended up killing people -- called "Operation Fast and Furious." I just assumed that "Operation: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" was taken.
You think you're on your way home form one war and you wake up one morning and find foul winds have blown you on to a distant shore.
Stop! Don't eat that lotus!
I love fucking Wikipedia. I thought I was hot shit for knowing maybe 10% of these.
Favorite: Operation Frequent Wind - evacuation of Saigon.
I love fucking Wikipedia.
I tend to stick with just reading it, myself.
Operation Fast and Furious
Operation Sexually Inexperienced? Wtf?
168: I finally got it! Fossil fuels are the lotus plants! We've turned into a bunch of big fucking softies. It's the mother of all mega-analogies.
cheering on bombing as if it's a sporting event is pretty gross
It makes me think that America needs to undergo a month or so of wanton destruction from the skies, to help restore a bit of perspective.
170:I tend to stick with just reading it, myself.
That's pretty good , too.
I disagree. I think Operation Productive Effort was much better than Sea Angel.
That quote/link should be in quotes or italics or something. Because it's a quote.
163: sure. Palantirs is "take your data for a ride" or something like that. Northrup is "we never forget who we work for" I think. Boeings should be "congressmen are less pricey than you'd think."
176: YEAH. WHAT I'D GIVE.
169: Operation Eager Glacier? See, it's like a glacier that's, um, eager. For something. Wait, what?
"Paul Bunyan" sounds like it was pretty amazing: UN forces removed a tree from the DMZ.
Meanwhile in the Maghreb, this post from Tom Levenson at Balloon Juice is interesting. You may have heard that Qaddafi (spell however you like) has opened arms depots to those civilians interested in defending him. What's that about? It launches a truly civil war, no?
And, a million of them?
At some point a fresh thread on Libya may be worth it.
185:At some point a fresh thread on Libya may be worth it.
And maybe this thread at Crooked Timber could be the basis for a post. The comments are where the action is. Let the brilliant minds here at Fogged U have at it.
I'm serious and sincere. I have long considered the best neo-liberals, Samantha Power, DeLong, Clemons, Lynch and the minds on that CT thread like Conor, Zack, and Henry far more dangerous and frightening than the obvious thugs like Cheney, Perle, Ledeen, and the other neo-cons. But usefully explaining why is a step over my paygrade and skills.
Just that it is pretty obvious that freedom and democracy don't have a chance, like ever, in places like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and did, just as obviously, have a chance in Egypt and Libya even though the "ruthless brutal tyrants were merciless."
My guess is that Power and Farrell and Foley don't even realize that they are serving inverted totalitarianism and that velvet boot stomping forever.
Nevertheless, they also serve. Enthusiastically.
Digby quoted the "money speech" from Network the other day
Jensen:We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
To resist "God" you must choose to be "evil"
Or maybe they do understand. John Quiggin said "Fukuyama, fuck ya"
"Daddy, in history class today they talked about the olden days when there was revolution. I don't understand why people would ever be so ungrateful toward their Gentle Protectors that provide us with food, work, shelter and healthcare and keep disease, famine, and war forever away. Of course the Gentle Protectors must have all the money and power, and live nice to escape from their terrible responsibilities"
Mustapha Mond:"Too much information confused them, my dear. And I will have to speak to your school about their curriculum."
And this thread is about to roll off the front page and become invisible forever, and I don't give a fuck.
A relevant section of Kurt Raaflaub The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece on the justifications the Athenians gave for their Imperialism.
