Thread: The Libyan Crisis

The Storm Shadow is a stealth cruise missile of around 1,300 kg carrying a powerful conventional warhead. Storm Shadow is an air-launched, conventionally-armed, long-range, stand-off, precision weapon, which is deployable at night or day, in most weather and operational conditions. It will be able to destroy sensitive and highly protected targets (command bunkers, communications centers, etc.) with very great accuracy, with a range of over 250 kilometres after an entirely autonomous terrain-following flight at very low altitude. It is being developed to attack and destroy a wide spectrum of static, high value targets as listed below:

Originally Posted by koman

(paying $1,000 a day apparently) to do all kinds of nasty things to people.

1000$ a day got the phone number?

FR I was thinking the same thing. Could make for a nice paycheck.

this is absolutely stupid,

you would think that the silly yanks and their Nato lackeys would have had enough wars between loosing Iraq and Afghanistan, but no, one more seems to be on the menu

I guess Cameron haven't learned anything from Tony, what a total hypocrite, but again he is British, so no surprise here

It's a French led initiative! Deal with it Butters and quit blaming the Yanks and Brits.

^ Sarko is only doing it to suck Obama cock,

I am sure the French population is against the idea,

As expected Norton, Butterfly the Frenchman running already.

Originally Posted by socal

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

Originally Posted by BobR

The poor oppressed people of Burma will feel much better knowing they'd get the same protection from Western Governments if only they had enough oil to make it worthwhile.

Is there anyone in Europe or the USA naive enough to think there is anything humanitarian about this?

Yep. There's plenty of naive {and ignorant} souls out there to fill this model.

Nobody likes Gadaffi, he has no friends.

knock him off.

Today's Bangkok Post has an article about how close he and the American CIA were until Obuma (or his puppet masters) suddenly turned on him. Of course so were Mubarak and Noriega.

Originally Posted by taxexile

lets hope they send a drone to target the lockerbie bomber and his rancid prostate.

fuckenoathh on that one mate!!! right up his poxy cakehole.....the prick

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Libya might descent into civil war hell, and that's not good for oil and our economic recovery, above all when there is no guarantee that the Libyan people will get a better deal with the new western backed owner

Yes, the "coalition" best nip this in the bud straight away before the good people of Libya figure out what they're really up to.

Originally Posted by FarangRed

Originally Posted by koman

(paying $1,000 a day apparently) to do all kinds of nasty things to people.

1000$ a day got the phone number?

I did get a number and I've been trying to sign up all day, but all I get is a god-dammed answering machine: "This is the office of President Gadaffi..."for service in English press 1. for service in French press 2. ......

To enquire about opportunities as a mercenary....press 1............

Then when you get through all the menus....they tell you the office is closed until Monday.....God is great.....fucking typical.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

^
Of course. A series of air strikes will do nothing. Now why not a couple of cruise missile "surgical strikes" into the raghead's palace over in Bahrain?

Boon Mee? Surely you'd like to see that too wouldn't you?

I don't have a dog in this fight. Other than the old Sheik used to let us boys hang out on his private beach and chat up the BA Stews on layovers, Bahrain was OK with me...

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested that outside powers hoped their intervention would be enough to turn the tide against Gaddafi and allow Libyans to force him out.

Hope is not a strategy. This is only the beginning of what will turn out to be a very long term military intervention process. Air strikes will not deter Qaddafi. He will hunker down. Move his military to safe zones such as heavily populated urban areas, hospitals, schools so air strikes will result in killing "innocents" rather than protecting them.

As proven again and again the only way to remove a tyrant is to have forces on the ground. Will arming and training the opposition be enough? Not likely IMO and it could lead to an armed opposition which may be worse than tyrant removed.

Stephen Harper is an economist, not a military tactician, but I understand what he is getting at. If they could just "tip the balance" that would be good, but I tend to agree with what you say about Gaddafi. He will try to create maximum damage to generate propaganda opportunities....its well under way already with rants about
"crusaders"....terrorist attacks on peaceful Libya etc etc. Maybe when his cocaine runs out he will settle down a bit.....

Mubarak went away or quit when he was pressured to and apparently has been allowed to live in exile in Germany (I think). I wonder if kadaffe had the same opportunity? If so, his last few weeks of power are going to cost him dearly.

I wonder about the dynamics of this; was he offered the chance to live a good life in exile like Mubarak?

Libya Live Blog - March 20 | Al Jazeera Blogs


Source: US Defence Department

12:09pm

The US Defense Department released this photo of briefing on Odyssey Dawn that shows approximate coalition target areas in Libya. One appears to be an airfield around 120km west of Tripoli (or roughly 30km east of the Tunisian border). Here's a Google satellite map image of the airfield:


11:49am

Gaddafi spoke for about 15 minutes, a comparatively short address by his standards. During his remarks, Libyan state TV showed a static image of monument at the Bab al-Azizia - a giant gold fist crushing a fighter jet with "USA" written on the tail. Gaddafi was never shown, perhaps out of fear that he would reveal his location and expose himself to a coalition attack.

The Libyan leader was characteristically pugnacious, promising an endless war against the "Christian" enemy - France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and others.

"There is no justification for this cold war against Islam," he said.

Gaddafi also pointed to the wars in Vietnam and Iraq as well as US military efforts against Osama bin Laden and armed militias in Somalia as examples of the fate that awaits foreign military intervention in his country.

9:31am

Women have often stayed off the streets of east Libya during the uprising against Gaddafi for reasons of safety and religion, but this lady is most definitely not hiding indoors:

According to Reuters, she is a rebel fighter celebrating the withdrawal of Gaddafi troops from Benghazi on Saturday.

8:35am

Issandr el-Amrani gives a critical, some might say pessimistic, analysis of the international intervention on his Arabist blog, wondering how the coalition will topple Gaddafi's regime while avoiding the side effects of a prolonged civil war.

Amrani predicts that the coalition's mission will move from air strikes to ground attacks and wonders how the rebels - whom he refers to as "insurgents" - will treat pro-Gaddafi civilians and the remnants of the regime.

It gets more complicated [if] the Qadhafis are gone, both Westerners and Arabs may be ready to deal with regime remnants (particularly if they play a role in getting rid of the Qadhafis) but the insurgents may not want anyone associated with the former regime in place. So prolonged civil war is one possible outcome, yet again. This is why some kind of recognized leadership for the insurgency that is able to negotiate with whoever comes after Qadhafi is necessary.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

^ Sarko is only doing it to suck Obama cock,

I am sure the French population is against the idea,

I would have thought they are wholly behind it, given the alternative possibility of thousands of Libyans to add to their already unwelcome North African immigrant problem.

One of the clear advantages you have when invading middle eastern countries is that by simply waiting a while you can make it a lot easier on your own troops Let them think they have "won". Then the Arabs will kill large numbers of each other by firing all their ammo into the air. This kind of celebration often kills more people than any actual conflict. Shooting full magazines into the air became especially popular when the PLO performed for the cameras in Lebanon years ago, and remains in vogue until this day. It really is quite a fashion statement.

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

Gadaffi, the despotic ruler he may be, was simply fighting back and asking for assistance to put an end to it

least you have an apt nic ,

lay of the drugs .

^so you think the west has just cause to attack? Considering how much news you post on this forum your extremely naive.

How long have you been reading about this subject, since the mainstream started to print?

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

^so you think the west has just cause to attack?

wow , an expert in straw men also

what I think is that your assertion of

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

Gadaffi, the despotic ruler he may be, was simply fighting back and asking for assistance to put an end to it.

is ridiculous .

ridiculous : Deserving or inviting derision or mockery; absurd

Jeasus what planet do you live on?

Given that Russia and china will generally veto any meaningful action against the worlds despots. Given the broad wording of the un resolution, the absence of a Chinese or Russian veto is exstreamly surprising and speaks volumes regarding the seriousness of the situation.

A couple of very recent Tweets....both use Reuters as the source...

Reuters: FLASH: Libyan government will distribute weapons to more than 1 million men and women within hours - Libyan state news agency

BreakingNews Breaking News
Russia calls on Britain, Frances, US to 'stop non-selective use of force' in Libya - Reuters