Thread: The Libyan Crisis

Originally Posted by Panda

The Egyptian military leaders take their orders directly from Washington.

Who in turn are directly controlled by Icke's reptillian humanoids, no doubt.

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Just an opinion,

I think they a tring to flush them out of hiding so the rebels can take the credit.

Very messy tactics....

Originally Posted by Butterfly

unbelievable, so now it's ok to kill innocent civilians to get what you want ?

don't you see the irony of all this ?

The lies are amazing; I can remember only a few month back, Obama and the rest were calling this the imposition of a "no fly zone." If that's the pretext we went in after, the bombing should be limited to places where aircraft are present on the ground.

Obama is no different than Bush, obviously takes his orders from the same people.

By the way, since when is killing a son because his father is an (alleged) asshole something to be proud of?

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Just an opinion,

I think they a tring to flush them out of hiding so the rebels can take the credit.

Very messy tactics....

They could have vaporized the whole compound and everybody in it on the first day FFS. That would have been a pretty clear message, but that's how we like to do business. If Q is so concerned about his "women and kids" what are they doing hanging around in his compound in the middle of a war, when the place would be such an obvious target? Do you somehow in your distinctly warped anti western mind think that NATO pilots are tasked to kill women and kids?

Seems that all thugs, dictators and terrorist groups share one common strategy during times of conflict; "Get some women and kids out there on the firing line"....and make dammed sure the media is there. Q could have saved his son and a lot of other sons just by stepping aside and allowing his people to hold an election. Lots of countries do this; it's not really that hard, and the same countries that are currently bombing him would have been quite happy to show him how to run an election. He does lack experience in that sort of thing so a bit of help would have been in order.

If he is such a great leader and so popular with his people, what would he have to worry about? If he won the election, he could claim legitimacy, even if he is a nut case, he would be their chosen nut case. If he did not win, he could retire gracefully to Tuscany and party with his old buddy Berlesconi.

Too late, he has blown his retirement options....the "Lion of Africa" and "Brother Leader" bullshit really went to his head. NATO is conducting strikes in Libya at the request of Libyans who are trying to free themselves from their "brother leader" ..maybe some people just missed that part.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Did you express any outrage when the Colonel and his boys blew up Pan-Am 103, or a disco in Berlin, or do you consider that sort of thing a courageous act?

Originally Posted by koman

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Just an opinion,

I think they a tring to flush them out of hiding so the rebels can take the credit.

Very messy tactics....

They could have vaporized the whole compound and everybody in it on the first day FFS. That would have been a pretty clear message

I remember everyone saying that about Saddam, then some Military lawyers said that a hit like that is a big No No. Something about you have to make it look like an accident

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Originally Posted by koman

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Dropping bombs and missiles at his residences is cowardly and of course is going to kill many innocents including children. Grow some fucking balls and send in a Seals or SAS hit squad instead. Get it over with but stop killing kids and women.

Just an opinion,

I think they a tring to flush them out of hiding so the rebels can take the credit.

Very messy tactics....

They could have vaporized the whole compound and everybody in it on the first day FFS. That would have been a pretty clear message

I remember everyone saying that about Saddam, then some Military lawyers said that a hit like that is a big No No. Something about you have to make it look like an accident

Well that would be easy enough, just get the pilots to say they were aiming for the orphanage and the hospital but the fire control systems failed to work properly....
It's what our anarchists expect anyway....

Originally Posted by Butterfly

so the cowards at NATO are going after young children and his immediate family to send him message ?

,

It seems obvious NATO was going after Gaddafi himself as he was at that location when the missiles hit. The kids were just "collateral damage", a term popularized by the US military and politicans. BTW, spare a thought for the women and kids being killed as Gaddafi's troops shell civilian neighbourhoods.

The message being sent out is that no one in Gaddafi's upper echelon of military power is safe anymore and they should consider changing sides before their own turn comes.

Best thing Gaddafi and his henchmen can do now is to stay far away from their loved ones.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by Panda

Its more to put pressure on his front line political/military commanders to swap sides. When you know that you and your family are not safe in your own beds at night its a big incentive to consider the alternative options.

By starting down this route, which Cameron has said "The targeting policy has been very closely followed, these things are very carefully put together.", you are opening up the scenario that all leaders of countries at war will put their families on the firing line.

The protection of civilians and civilian populated areas are demanded by the UNSC resolution under which the "crusader coalition" is cowering.

These guys know they are targets now. If they think they can hide behind their families and cry foul when they get hit, they are going to be out of luck.
As said in an earlier post, the best thing they can do if they care about their loved ones is to stay far away from them. Or perhaps reconsider their alliances with Gaddafi.

Panda, you come across as an hypocrite, but that's hardly surprising knowing your flawed logic on many topics you take

Originally Posted by Panda

Best thing Gaddafi and his henchmen can do now is to stay far away from their loved ones.

Wipe them all out and do everyone a favour.

BBC News - Britain to expel the Libyan ambassador to the UK

1 May 2011 Last updated at 14:37 GMT

Britain to expel the Libyan ambassador to the UK


The British government currently has no diplomatic staff based in Tripoli


Britain is expelling the Libyan ambassador to the UK, Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.

It comes after reports that supporters of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi attacked UK Embassy premises in Tripoli.

Foreign missions of other nations in the Libyan capital have also been targeted by crowds angry at the reported death of Col Gaddafi's son in a Nato air strike.

The UK currently had no diplomats in the Libyan capital.

BBC News - Death of Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi may backfire for Nato

1 May 2011 Last updated at 11:39 GMT

Death of Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi may backfire for Nato

By Shashank Joshi
Associate fellow, Royal United Services Institute



The death of Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, if confirmed, is likely to have come as a consequence of Nato's increasingly aggressive tactics, undertaken by the alliance to shake up a stalemate in the conflict.

But his killing in an air strike is a grievous strategic error - militarily insignificant but diplomatically disastrous.

Towards the end of April, Nato states made a number of operational innovations. Three member states - Britain, France, and Italy - injected military advisers into rebel-held eastern Libya. Another, the US, began continuous patrols of armed drones.

Third, and most important, air strikes began to target command, control, communications and intelligence networks (known, in military parlance, as C3I). The Bab al-Aziziya compound includes all three such networks, and it was presumed that their disruption would disorient regime soldiers on the front line, cut off field commanders from Tripoli, and sow confusion in the ranks.

But was the strike also an assassination attempt?

Assassination of a head of state is illegal under international law, and forbidden by various US presidential orders. On the other hand, the targeted killing of those woven into the enemy chain of command is shrouded in legal ambiguity.

Given the personalistic nature of the regime, and the "all means necessary" clause in UN Resolution 1973, it might be argued that killing Col Muammar Gaddafi and certain members of his family - such as his son Khamis, commander of an elite military brigade - would be permissible, even if it posed a risk to those non-combatants around the regime.

Legality, though, indicates neither legitimacy nor prudence. This strike, and the death of Saif al-Arab, have produced little military result at the greatest diplomatic and symbolic cost to Nato.

Saif al-Arab was, unlike his brothers, not a senior military commander or propagandist. His death is redolent of the 1986 US strike on the same compound.

That raid killed Col Gaddafi's adopted daughter and, in the scarred buildings and craters, furnished him with a long-lasting symbol of defiance.


Col Gaddafi could use his son's death to divide his enemies

The propaganda value of such unintended deaths is potentially severe.

In the 1991 Gulf War, a US stealth bomber directed two bombs at what was claimed to be a command-and-control bunker, but was in fact an Iraqi civilian shelter.

The result was 315 deaths, including 130 children. Col Gaddafi, like Saddam Hussein before him, will take every opportunity to exploit such errors to paint Western powers as indiscriminate aggressors.

Moreover, this is no longer a conventional war in which top-down direction is crucial. Pro-Gaddafi forces in both the besieged western city of Misrata and in the east have adapted to Nato's air power and are using increasingly unorthodox tactics.

They need not rely on a stream of detailed orders from Tripoli, and can cause considerable harm to civilians without this guidance.

Nato is understandably frustrated at the diminishing returns of air strikes, since it has destroyed most accessible targets. But killing commanders and disrupting communications is far less important than the key task of degrading heavy military equipment, such as tanks and artillery.

No silver bullet

If the strike had killed Col Gaddafi himself, would it then have been at least a military success?

One of the greatest mistakes of the Iraq war was assuming that, with the departure of Saddam Hussein, the state apparatus could simply be transferred to new ownership.

Col Gaddafi's death could see Saif al-Islam Gaddafi take the reins, galvanise supporters, and continue the war with equal intensity. It would be dangerous and short-sighted to portray even effective assassination as a silver bullet.

Perhaps, though, the demonstration to the regime that no safe haven exists, and that only capitulation would bring security, justified these risks?

There is no doubt that, along with the military aim of disrupting command-and-control hubs, Nato sought a psychological effect, conscious of the possibility of "accidental assassination".

Shifting balance

The problem is that the direction of this effect is unclear. The dramatic visual impact of this air strike, and the death of those disconnected from political and military leadership, will harden the diplomatic opposition to the war, from Russia and China amongst others.

More consequentially, it will anger the alliance's warier members, like Germany and Turkey, and inflame parts of Arab and African public opinion.

It may eventually leave Britain and France bearing the military burden alone, with modest but limited assistance from a cagey US administration eager to keep at arm's length from this European war.

Col Gaddafi's overarching strategy has never been to win a conventional war, but to induce symbolically prominent casualties, drive a wedge between more committed and more ambivalent members of the coalition, and knock away the pillars of political support on which this intervention was built.

Thus far, the coalition had sought, rightly, to purchase coalition longevity at the price of campaign intensity. If that balance continues to shift towards the latter, Nato runs the risk of playing into the regime's hands.

Shashank Joshi is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence think-tank in London, and a doctoral student of international relations at Harvard University.

Russia doubts statement that NATO not targeting Libya's Gaddafi - Foreign Ministry | Russia | RIA Novosti

"Russia doubts the statements by the NATO coalition that NATO airstrikes are not targeting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
"Moscow perceives with growing alarm the reports about victims among civilians. The statements by the coalition members that the airstrikes against Libya are not aimed at physically destroying Muammar Gaddafi and members of his family cause serious doubts," the ministry said in a statement.
The NATO airstrike on a wealthy residential area in Tripoli on Saturday killed Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab, 29, who was a postgraduate student majoring in economy. The airstrike on Gaddafi's house also killed three of his grandchildren as well as several friends and neighbors, Libyan state-run JANA news agency earlier reported.
"The disproportional use of force, all the more so, beyond the mandate of UN Security Council Resolution No. 1973, which in no way stipulates the replacement of the Libyan leadership, is leading to harmful consequences and the death of civilians," the statement said.
"We are again calling for strict compliance with the provisions of the decisions made by the international community on the Libyan conflict, for an immediate ceasefire and the start of a political settlement without any preconditions," the statement said.
A total of 14 of the 28 NATO countries are taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes airstrikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya on March 17, paving the way for a military operation against Gaddafi which began two days later. The command of the operation was shifted from a U.S.-led international coalition to NATO in late March.
MOSCOW, May 1 (RIA Novosti)"

It's a time honoured tradition that heads of state are not specifically targetted in wars. From before the middle ages.

I don't know what NATO hopes to achieve by trying to kill Gaddafi.

Not that his son didn't desrve it.

Originally Posted by OhOh

"Russia doubts the statements by the NATO coalition that NATO airstrikes are not targeting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

A few of the reluctantly willing allies like Germany and a couple others will not find the targeting of family members amusing. Expect to see it being used as a reason for dropping their support.

Originally Posted by Norton

A few of the reluctantly willing allies like Germany and a couple others will not find the targeting of family members amusing. Expect to see it being used as a reason for dropping their support.

yep, that's what I suspect too, will see in the next few days. I expect NATO coalition to collapse eventually over this,

China urges immediate end to Libya conflict | Reuters

China urges "immediate" end to Libya conflict
BEIJING | Mon May 2, 2011 11:37am BST

(Reuters) - China again urged an end to fighting in Libya on Monday, saying it has "always opposed" any action not authorised by the U.N. Security Council, after Libya said Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son and three grandchildren were killed in a NATO airstrike.

"We hope all parties can cease fire immediately and solve the current crisis in a peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation," Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in a statement on the website.

She added that China was concerned about the rising number of civilian casualties from the conflict.

The deaths of Gaddafi's family members are sensitive as they will likely feed accusations that NATO has over-stepped its U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

Libyan officials have said the deaths were part of an attempt to assassinate Gaddafi.

China's government has been critical of the West's airstrikes on Libya from the start, having abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote that authorised intervention.

Some analysts said China's strident opposition arises in part from a fear that it may some day see its own power challenged by demands for human rights and democracy.

Gaddafi, who is fighting a rebellion against his authoritarian rule, has pressed an offensive against rebel forces after his son was killed, with his supporters burning Western embassies in Tripoli.

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

"We have reports that Gadhafi troops are loading fish boats with weapons in Tripoli and may be coming to Misrata," he said.

NATO personnel Friday stopped small boats carrying pro-Gadhafi forces who were laying anti-ship mines in Misrata's harbor, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Rob Weighill told reporters during a briefing in Brussels, Belgium.

If you listen to the NATO press conference on their web site the "identity" of the people who were doing the mining was NOT established.

Press Briefing on Libya
29 April 2011

NATOchannel.tv - NATO's official online video channel

so at the end, NATO under the UN resolution killed more civilians than Gadaffi ever could, created cahos and is about to enter another illegal ground war

thank god they have killed OBL today, maybe they were expecting a double kill with Gadaffi

Meanwhile the Royal Prince William, after his months leave preparing for his wedding, has returned to his RAF base in Wales. This must be the RAF station in Holyhead - RAF valley.

Once upon a time the Royal princes led their armies into battle. When will he be leading the cannon fodder in Libya?