The US Military Is Bombing Libya? (1 Viewer)

[Klinky]

Libya is responding to insurgents exactly the same way our DHS has plans to deal with us if/when we get uncomfortable enough to revolt.

Well I am sure you'll just lie down and die rather than ask for foreign assistance?

 

[MARIS61]

Well I am sure you'll just lie down and die rather than ask for foreign assistance?

There is a more obvious alternative that you are ignoring.

 

[MrJayremmie]

We shouldn't be bombing. There is no need for us if the Euros are so eager to do it.

We shouldn't have gone into Iraq either, and we should have only done a quick Afghan invasion and kept the huge progress we made at the beginning. Yet instead, W decided to change his focus to Iraq and let Afghanistan spiral out of control which is where it is now, where the only thing to do is pull out.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-president-does-not-have-power-unde

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-president-does-not-have-power-unde

Obama is finding out, like Presidents before him, that it's easy to espouse constitutional opinions when you're not President to criticize a standing President, but yet another to be that man in the role. I'll cut him some slack here.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Um, wasn't this a UN decision? No, it's all Barack Obama's idea.

 

[jlprk]

Sadam bulldozed between 4000 and 5000 entire villages. He mass murdered 300,000+ of his people when they sought independence. You asked the question, but you don't like the answer (the truth). And if you think his past actions didn't deter many from trying again in 1991 when GHW Bush called for the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam, think again.

The revolt was fueled by the perception that the power of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was vulnerable at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at government repression and the devastation wrought by two wars in a decade, the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. United States also played a role in encouraging the uprisings, which were then controversially not aided by the U.S. forces present on Iraqi soil.
...
During the few weeks of unrest tens of thousands of people were killed. Many more died during the following months, while nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives. In the aftermath, the government intensified the forced relocating of Marsh Arabs and the draining of the Iraqi marshlands, while the Allies established the Iraqi no-fly zones.

Big Bush's plan failed. He planned to weaken Iraq in Kuwait, then fan revolution within Iraq. As you hinted, the U.S. caused thousands to be killed in a failed insurrection.

A decade later, Little Bush used the American-caused killings as one of the excuses to attack again. Another excuse was WMDs, which of course, Reagan had sold to Iraq so they could exterminate Iranians. The U.S. promotes mass killings, then uses them as an excuse to start more wars.

Then in the American sanctions, a half-milllion Iraqi children died from lack of medical supplies. Then in the unprovoked American attack by Little Bush, many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. But this was good, because Saddam was a bad guy for doing our bidding and killing people...

 

[jlprk]

CAIRO—The Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said Sunday that he would call a league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention.

Moussa said the Arab League’s approval of a no-fly zone on March 12 was based on a desire to prevent Moammar Gaddafi’s air force from attacking civilians and was not designed to endorse the intense bombing and missile attacks — including on Tripoli, the capital, and on Libyan ground forces — whose images have filled Arab television screens for two days.

“What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone,” he said in a statement on the official Middle East News Agency. “And what we want is the protection of civilians and not the shelling of more civilians.”

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. That's info kept secret even on MSNBC, which like Fox, parrots the line that the Arab League wants this.

Secretary Gates warned a week ago that enforcing a no-fly zone would mean putting troops on the ground. Obama said Britain and France can do the latter, not us. After receiving their bribes from Britain and France, the Arab League pretends for internal consumption to be surprised that the U.S. is massively bombing big city civilians. But the League knew from Gates that this long multi-year war wouldn't be confined to troops out in the desert between cities.

I expect Obama to mostly get out of this war within a week. He knows 2 extremely long wars have already irretrievably destroyed the economy. I expect Khadaffi to remain in power over his half of Libya. Libyans in the re-colonized side like him, but those who say so will be killed under the colonial flag funded by Britain and France. The colonial powers will allow a liberal lifestyle for everyone till they consolidate power and get that oil money they got before Khadaffi. Then the torture asylums open up, as the U.S. did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who are the rebels, anyway? Foreign mercenaries? The news media is always careful not to call them Libyans.

 

[Denny Crane]

Big Bush's plan failed. He planned to weaken Iraq in Kuwait, then fan revolution within Iraq. As you hinted, the U.S. caused thousands to be killed in a failed insurrection.

A decade later, Little Bush used the American-caused killings as one of the excuses to attack again. Another excuse was WMDs, which of course, Reagan had sold to Iraq so they could exterminate Iranians. The U.S. promotes mass killings, then uses them as an excuse to start more wars.

Then in the American sanctions, a half-milllion Iraqi children died from lack of medical supplies. Then in the unprovoked American attack by Little Bush, many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. But this was good, because Saddam was a bad guy for doing our bidding and killing people...

Forensics done on soil samples from places where Saddam gassed his own people show the gas was mustard gas of the variety created by the Germans. The US didn't sell Saddam the WMDs he used against Iran or his own people. In fact, the Riegle Report mentions all kinds of bad things we sold to Saddam, but poison gas wasn't even mentioned - biological agents were mentioned, but those were dual use (e.g. for research by Iraqi universities).

You may remember our combat with Iraq. In the first Gulf War, Iraqi pilots flew their MIG fighters to Iran to seek safe haven. The missiles launched against Israel were SCUDs. Heck, the guns the Iraqis used were AK-47s. Those aren't US weapons.

 

[PapaG]

Um, wasn't this a UN decision? No, it's all Barack Obama's idea.

Does the UN now supercede our own Congress?

I must have missed that one. Otherwise, W should have just bombed the shit out of Iraq once UN Res. 1441 passed the UNSC on a 15-0 vote.

I'll never understand a partisan mind. This Libyan massacre by US bombs under a Democratic President, yet supported by liberal/anti-war people, baffles me.

 

[PapaG]

The "coalition" is already crumbling. Somebody call the CIC and get him back from his South American vacation.

Obama was right on one thing ... this would only last a few days.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...forces-NATO-Libyan-coalition-falls-apart.html

Germans Pull Forces Out of NATO as Libyan Coalition Falls Apart

Deep divisions between allied forces currently bombing Libya worsened today as the German military announced it was pulling forces out of NATO over continued disagreement on who will lead the campaign.

A German military spokesman said it was recalling two frigates and AWACS surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean, after fears they would be drawn into the conflict if NATO takes over control from the U.S.

The infighting comes as a heated meeting of NATO ambassadors yesterday failed to resolve whether the 28-nation alliance should run the operation to enforce a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone, diplomats said.

Yesterday a war of words erupted between the U.S. and Britain after the U.K. government claimed Muammar Gaddafi is a legitimate target for assassination.

 

[MARIS61]

Too many Generals in the armchair?

 

[barfo]

A German military spokesman said it was recalling two frigates and AWACS surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean, after fears they would be drawn into the conflict if NATO takes over control from the U.S.

So basically, the Germans were willing to participate just so long as they didn't have to participate.
Apparently Germany and France have swapped places.

barfo

 

[PapaG]

So basically, the Germans were willing to participate just so long as they didn't have to participate.
Apparently Germany and France have swapped places.

barfo

They are all a part of the "coalition" stronger than the Iraq War's coalition. Obama said so in a statement that he made without taking any questions, while he was on vacation in Brazil!

 

[Haakzilla]

...I love me some Freedom Sausage with my Freedom Fries!

 

[bodyman5001]

I have had enough of this crap, just return all the troops home and be done with it. All of them.

 

[jlprk]

Western companies which owned Libyan oil fields have hated Khadaffi since he nationalized them to kept the profits within Libya. Now they're paying mercenaries to play the "rebel." The Chinese people must be befuddled by their government not vetoing the colonialist UN war in Libya., since China was itself a victim of colonialism. Putin, like the rest of the world, is shocked that Russia didn't veto.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-22-06-46-40
-------
As the CIA sets up its fake rebel government, the U. of Washington economics professor whom the CIA is making the rebel Secretary of the Treasury is incompetent. But the guy says no problem, we'll get it done, with billions from US taxpayers to fund the fake rebel movement. Like him, the fake rebel President is really just an American professor.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-23-20-59-59

 

[PapaG]

So ... the "rebels" are funded by Al Qaeda?

HooBoy...

Of course, now the US claims they aren't, at least in an "organized" manner.

Nice war we've started, here.

 

[BrianFromWA]

...I love me some Freedom Sausage with my Freedom Fries!

Freedom-schitzel, nobody free-dom's like we do!

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

So basically, the Germans were willing to participate just so long as they didn't have to participate.
Apparently Germany and France have swapped places.

barfo

The favorite hymn in France is "I Surrender ALL".

 

[mook]

Obama's speech about our actions in Libya:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/03/28/exp.arena.zakaria.libya.speech.cnn?hpt=Mid

He sells it as a limited intervention along the lines of Kosovo--the middle ground between doing nothing while people are slaughtered (a la Rwanda) and dropping a trillion bucks and thousands of American lives (a la Iraq).

I've been pretty ambivalent about this venture, but I have to admit found the speech pretty convincing.

 

[Natebishop3]

Obama's speech about our actions in Libya:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/03/28/exp.arena.zakaria.libya.speech.cnn?hpt=Mid

He sells it as a limited intervention along the lines of Kosovo--the middle ground between doing nothing while people are slaughtered (a la Rwanda) and dropping a trillion bucks and thousands of American lives (a la Iraq).

I've been pretty ambivalent about this venture, but I have to admit found the speech pretty convincing.

But my question is, why the United States? Why not France, Germany, or any of the other Allies? Why does the US have to get involved in every single NATO or UN conflict? We're already committed to two major conflicts, I don't see why we need a third, regardless if it's a middle-of-the-road less expensive one.

 

[PapaG]

But my question is, why the United States? Why not France, Germany, or any of the other Allies? Why does the US have to get involved in every single NATO or UN conflict? We're already committed to two major conflicts, I don't see why we need a third, regardless if it's a middle-of-the-road less expensive one.

Well, Sarkozy and France actually took the lead on this one, until Obama stated last night that we took the lead, but the clean-up (of what, I ask?) will be for others. It was odd that he didn't even mention, let along clarify, the role of of the "rebels" in Libya, and exactly what is the source of their funding and membership. He also didn't mention Sarkozy, but doing so would have made his credit-taking even more absurd, so it was probably best that knowledge of the situation was left for the viewer, at least in terms of trying to score political points.

It was all about Barry, as always, and he even took the time to criticize Bush and Clinton (not by name, but by the conflicts they initiated).

 

[jlprk]

Renegades from the secular Khadaffi military are abandoning the movement, replaced by fanatics who hate America for religious reasons.

The reality on the ground is that the protest movement is a complex and composite body. While the intelligentsia in Benghazi talk passionately about the craving for democracy, civil rights and pluralism, a strong motivation for many on the front line is unwavering faith in Islam and the belief that Gaddafi and his henchmen are apostates. It is also the case that as the numbers of former military personnel in the rebel ranks have declined, there has been a visible increase in the number of those espousing fundamentalist doctrine.

The city of Darnah was a hotbed for volunteers to fight the US. in Afghanistan, and is now the core of fanaticism to fight the secular Khadaffi government.

Darnah, which has the reputation of being the most devoutly Muslim city in Libya, has been singled out by Gaddafi as playing a central part in the "al-Qa'ida-orchestrated plot against his rule"...The city has a tradition of sending volunteers for jihad. In 2007, US forces in Iraq found a list of foreign fighters: of the 112 from Libya, Darnah, with its population of 48,000, supplied 52.

The main militant group exists only because Khadaffi had pardoned them. Now they seek to kill him.

Yet the main militant group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, formally ended its armed struggle in 2009, leading to a number of its members being freed from jail. The compromise was partly engineered by Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, who had begun a two-year process of dialogue...

A band of fighters from Darnah at the town of Ras Lanuf were also eager to deny any dealings with terrorism. "We are Mujahedin...We know that Gaddafi is getting paid by the Jews. We know that Israel is supplying him with special guns. He is not a proper Muslim and it is our duty to fight him."

Darnah's revolutionary leader is a former bin Laden associate who fought the U.S. and now can barely stomach his new ally, America.

Abdul Hakim al-Hasidi, who took over as "chief of security" at Darnah at the start of the uprising on 17 February, spent five years in Afghanistan where he supposedly met Bin Laden and frequented, according to US intelligence briefings at the time, a training camp used by both the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. Mr Hasidi claims he has 1,200 fighters, which would make his group one of the largest contingents among the revolutionaries...

It is, however, not easy to ascertain details of Mr Hasidi's links with Islamic militancy. During a recent meeting in Darnah, he was reticent to talk about his Afghan sojourn and his alleged meetings with Bin Laden. He was not a member of al-Qa'ida, he stated, and did not follow its ethos. Mr Hasidi refused to elaborate on a previous observation that Bin Laden "had his good points" and described claims of his links with the head of al-Qa'ida as "just tales"...

While refusing to discuss who gave him lessons in arms in Afghanistan, Mr Hasidi acknowledged: "Yes I was there. I did not like the attack by America [in 2001] because it was unjust. A lot of civilians, women and children, were killed by bombs dropped from the sky. We hated the US for what they did. We shall accept their help now against Gaddafi, but we cannot forget what happened."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...t-of-reach-after-100mile-retreat-2256771.html

 

[Haakzilla]

:wag the dog:

 

[PapaG]

I'm not sure this is the kind of humanitarian aid President Obomba meant in speech on Libya. Can't find this Reuters article in our lame US media, but at least the Aussies have some integrity. DemocraticUnderground and FreeRepublic have it, but where are FoxNews, CNN, NBC/ABC/CBS/NYT/WaPo?

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/...ans-dead-in-tripoli-strikes-vatican-official/

At Least 40 Civilians Dead In Tripoli Strikes: Vatican Official

ROME (Reuters) - At least 40 civilians have been killed in air strikes by Western forces on Tripoli, the top Vatican official in the Libyan capital told a Catholic news agency on Thursday, quoting witnesses.

"The so-called humanitarian raids have killed dozens of civilian victims in some neighborhoods of Tripoli," said Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli.

"I have collected several witness accounts from reliable people. In particular, in the Buslim neighborhood, due to the bombardments, a civilian building collapsed, causing the death of 40 people," he told Fides, the news agency of the Vatican missionary arm.

Libyan officials have taken foreign reporters to the sites of what they say were the aftermath of Western air strikes on Tripoli but evidence of civilian casualties has been inconclusive.

Western powers say they have no confirmed evidence of civilian casualties from air strikes, which they have carried out under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians caught in conflict between Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces and rebels.

"It's true that the bombardments seem pretty much on target, but it is also true that when they hit military targets, which are in the middle of civilian neighborhoods, the population is also involved," Martinelli said.

"Yesterday I said that bombardments had hit, albeit indirectly, some hospitals. To be precise, one of these hospitals is in Mizda," he said, mentioning a town about 145 km (90 miles) southwest of the capital.

Martinelli said living conditions in the Libyan capital were getting more difficult by the day, while on the ground a military stalemate appeared to be taking hold.

"That is why I say that a diplomatic solution is the principal way to put an end to the spilling of blood among Libyans, offering Gaddafi a dignified exit," he said.

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; editing by Mark Heinrich)

http://www.google.com/search?q=liby...=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=9806ae24d4306e76

 

[maxiep]

Helping a revolution with an unknown end overthrow a known dictator is simply bad strategy. I hate that murderous fuck Qaddafi more than most, but I fear what may replace him. I'm not even sure if Libya should remain one country.

 

[PapaG]

Helping a revolution with an unknown end overthrow a known dictator is simply bad strategy. I hate that murderous fuck Qaddafi more than most, but I fear what may replace him. I'm not even sure if Libya should remain one country.

The last thing O-bomb-a wants is a protracted kinetic military action, and the American people aren't dumb enough as a whole to believe that we aren't pulling the strings of any NATO mission, along with the bulk of the funding. Quite the corner he's painted himself in, here. At least MLB is starting, though. Perhaps a quick trip to Cominskey Field to watch his beloved White Sox would be a much-needed break?

I also notice that they have dropped the "kinetic military action" marketing phrase. It probably sounded fancy in the faculty lounge, but it must have been polling for shit in the real world.

 

[BrianFromWA]

well, to be fair he might have heard it from one of the generals. "Going kinetic" has been semi-code for switching from diplomacy to warheads-on-foreheads for a while.

 

[mook]

Helping a revolution with an unknown end overthrow a known dictator is simply bad strategy.

Sometimes it's a bad strategy, sometimes it isn't. The strategy worked out pretty well for us in the Panama and Kosovo. I imagine we had some agents on the ground during the Philippines revolution too.

I hate that murderous fuck Qaddafi more than most, but I fear what may replace him.

Is there a more truly insane ruler anywhere on the planet? I'm serious. I honestly can't think of one. (Ok, maybe Kim Jung Il.) Maybe I have a limited imagination, but I'm really struggling to come up with a way to have a downgrade from Gaddafi.

I'm not even sure if Libya should remain one country

I'm not sure why we would want it to remain one country. It's very name was given to it by the Italians in 1934 when they owned it as their colony. If Yugoslavia showed us anything, it's that sometimes a country is better off not being a country.