Uprising in Libya

[Sea Skimmer]

A a further note, some people are saying that several of the major rebel websites got hacked today by pro gaddafi hacker who are now spreading false 'good news' information and similar bullshit, so keep an eye on what you read.

[MKSheppard]

Apparently of the 124 cruise missiles fired in the opening salvo, 122 were American. The last two were British.

This and the recent countings of sorties has got me asking the question:

If this is supposed to be an European led show, with the US in support roles, then we're doing an awful lot of support.

[Aaron]

I seem to recall the US begging, nagging and bullying NATO and others into Afghanistan and Iraq because they wanted help. Well, you can take one for the team now. And what did you honestly expect to happen?

[Lonestar]

I seem to recall the US begging, nagging and bullying NATO and others into Afghanistan and Iraq because they wanted help. Well, you can take one for the team now. And what did you honestly expect to happen?

Hold on Aaron, let's be honest here:

Forgetting for the moment that all of NATO agreed that invading Afghanistan was a legitimate response to 9/11, the US asked for help in a supporting role. There is a difference between that and "do most of the fighting".

[MKSheppard]

During the Tiananmen Square massacres the PLA shutdown the medical system in Beijing to ensure that as many students as possible died for example.

Actually, they didn't. What they did was order hospitals not to release figures. Nothing stopped them from taking in the students.

Link 1
Link 2

There were people who were taking the wounded to hospitals on Rickshaws and other bicycle variants, nobody stopped them.

[Aaron]

I seem to recall the US begging, nagging and bullying NATO and others into Afghanistan and Iraq because they wanted help. Well, you can take one for the team now. And what did you honestly expect to happen?

Hold on Aaron, let's be honest here:

Forgetting for the moment that all of NATO agreed that invading Afghanistan was a legitimate response to 9/11, the US asked for help in a supporting role. There is a difference between that and "do most of the fighting".

Right, right. Again, what did you guys expect to happen?

[Lonestar]

Right, right. Again, what did you guys expect to happen?

That the guys pushing for it(France and the UK) would be the ones doing most of the sorties. I understand that the USAFs and USN's cruise missiles are what allowed Libya's air defense network to be leveled, but if we're really planning on turning the operations over to the regional powers, then American sorties should be dropping as a percentage, not increaseing.

[Aaron]

Matt, you know the military situation of our allies better then most on this board...I can't believe that you would think that.

And you know, it doesn't seem to be bothering your President or your military that much. I'm sure the US government knew exactly what it was getting into here.

[Zinegata]

I don't think either the Brits or French have enough cruise missiles or SEAD capability anyway to have destroyed Libya's air defense network so quickly.

The moment a no-fly-zone was announced and it was clear that the world was going to be serious about enforcing it, then there was no question that - in practical terms - America was going to be taking the lead in taking out Libya's air defense. Even if the rhetoric is "America is playing a supporting role".

[MKSheppard]

Matt, you know the military situation of our allies better then most on this board...I can't believe that you would think that.

Look at a map. For christ's sake, it's only a 1500 mile trip from Southern France to Libya's coastal cities.

There are only about 100~ or so sorties each day, which should be enough for the Armee d'Air with it's 300 fighter aircraft in France to carry out.

[Zinegata]

Has the Charles De Gaulle taken up station yet? Maybe they're waiting for the carrier to be in position so they have a base to operate out of in case they need SAR.

[Lonestar]

Matt, you know the military situation of our allies better then most on this board...I can't believe that you would think that.

And you know, it doesn't seem to be bothering your President or your military that much. I'm sure the US government knew exactly what it was getting into here.

Shep's point was that the President is pitching this to the public as a limited US involvement, even as the proportion of US sorties has increased. If the Libyan Air Force and air defense network is neutralized(in other words, the immediate threat to those enforcing the no-fly zone), then I'm at a loss as to what the thought process is in the USAF still doing as much or more than all the regional partners combined.

It's 800 miles from Toulon to Tripoli. France alone could probably enforce the no fly zone at this point(if the only thing it was doing was a strict no-fly zone), but there are other European partners involved as well. So why is the proportion of US sorties increasing?

[Aaron]

Matt, you know the military situation of our allies better then most on this board...I can't believe that you would think that.

And you know, it doesn't seem to be bothering your President or your military that much. I'm sure the US government knew exactly what it was getting into here.

Shep's point was that the President is pitching this to the public as a limited US involvement, even as the proportion of US sorties has increased. If the Libyan Air Force and air defense network is neutralized(in other words, the immediate threat to those enforcing the no-fly zone), then I'm at a loss as to what the thought process is in the USAF still doing as much or more than all the regional partners combined.

It's 800 miles from Toulon to Tripoli. France alone could probably enforce the no fly zone at this point(if the only thing it was doing was a strict no-fly zone), but there are other European partners involved as well. So why is the proportion of US sorties increasing?

*shrug* I've no idea then. It's obviously more then enforcing a "no fly zone" at this point, they probably want to destroy as much of Libya's forces as they can before he can massacre everyone.

[Sea Skimmer]

Has the Charles De Gaulle taken up station yet? Maybe they're waiting for the carrier to be in position so they have a base to operate out of in case they need SAR.

The French has been in position and in action, but she's Charles De Gaull not a Nimitz class and only has fourteen Rafale M and Super Etendard fighters embarked. So even on a hard day this ship is not going to generate more then perhaps 42 offensive air to ground missions each day. Most days it will be many fewer sorties and in all cases some air to ground sorties must still be SEAD sorties because mobile SA-6 could appear out of any warehouse. French strikes from land based are constrained by the nations limited fleet of refueling tankers, and the other European powers and Qatar have only a handful of aircraft based in southern Italy. I'm not totally sure if Spain has launched anything from home bases but they only sent six F/A-18s forward. If Italy and Germany would step even to the degree of the smaller contributors in the European bombing effort would go up considerably. It takes time for a fighter bomber to hunt down a tank or artillery piece in an urban area, they can't go in and destroy a dozen of them per plane if preventing collateral damage is the top priority. Also we can't use cluster bombs so we can use Sensor Fused Weapon to completely rape armor in the open.

All that means that one US CVN is pretty well the position of being able to fly as many missions as the European land based planes alone are. USAF land based aircraft add even more. Its pretty clear the US is keeping involvement limited, but our scale of limited is still very big.

[Zinegata]

I know that the CDG has a pretty limited air wing.

What I was wondering about is whether or not they deployed her near Libya to also serve as a SAR base in case some French or EU pilots are shot down. Fighters can sortie out of southern France and hit Libya, but helicopters can't.

BTW, is the CDG carrying any AWACs?

[Lord Woodlouse]

The language has always been about how America would be doing the lions share of the initial strike, as far as I see it. I think Italy was talking about asking parliament to authorise military action in the early days (as well as Spain), not sure if anything came of any of that.

[Sea Skimmer]

Spain is all in, Italy is bases only and has said at times that if NATO doesn't command the operation its support is withdrawn. If that happens I say invade Italy; its been a while.

On the good news side, the last tanks have fled from the center of Misrata, and fighting has died down enough that the German group Medeor has managed to dock an unspecified ship in the harbor to unload medical supplies. But we have every reason to believe that surviving armor has not gone away, and considering that Gaddafi troops face summary execution for not fighting the world must fully expect another attack. Any way about it though it was a good day for the godless crusader pirate air blitz.

[cosmicalstorm]

I enjoy reading the summaries of the situation that you post Sea Skimmer, thanks.

[Big Orange]

Call me cynical, while Gaddafi is a loon that's sent in snipers, machine gunners, and tanks to mow down hundreds/thousands of people, I get the impression that the British and French establishments are doing what they're doing to secure the Libyan oil and not because they're genuinely humane.

The no fly zone over Libya is less thoughtlessly aggressive and repugnant than the '03 invasion of Iraq, the military action is more ethically justified and within the bounds of international law with a proper coalition moving in, however looking at this article the Italians, French, and British have been the biggest suppliers of weapons to Libya.

The British under Labur had a sleazy strategy of placating Gaddafi in exchange for oil, but after he lost his rag, the Tories (wanting a Falklands style PR coup) have decided to double cross him. This is when Britain's military is overstretched, underfunded, and understrengthed, and other nations are in a better position to enforce a no fly zone over Libya without Britain's help.

[Sea Skimmer]

Call me cynical, while Gaddafi is a loon that's sent in snipers, machine gunners, and tanks to mow down hundreds/thousands of people, I get the impression that the British and French establishments are doing what they're doing to secure the Libyan oil and not because they're genuinely humane.

Do you realize how incredibly short sighted that thinking is? The west already had extensive oil contracts with Gaddafi, oil prices have only risen since the UN got involved, driving up the price of any and all oil in the world, not just what comes out of Libya. Air strikes present a massive risk of exploding oil facilities. No ground troops are allowed. A new rebel government will be able to suspend all previous contracts as illegitimate. How exactly is anyone ‘securing’ the oil? If anyone wanted the oil secure they would have just allowed Gaddafi to crush the rebellion, resume full scale oil production and general not give a fuck.. Never mind that the cost of intervention could run into the billions, a rather hard investment to recoup when you have no direct control of the oil outflow at all, and a world paying absurdly close attention to anyone trying to do so. Even in Iraq the largest single oil contract handed out since the invasion was given to a Chinese company. No the US, not the UK, not France, not Italy.

looking at this article the Italians, French, and British have been the biggest suppliers of weapons to Libya.

No they have been the biggest EU supplies of weapons to Libya in the last five years, did you even read that article or just the title? Almost all that stuff has been relatively light weapons and equipment too, which is why you will not see anything but Soviet bloc tanks exploding people. Gaddafi does have some Italian self propelled howitzers, but those were sold back in the 1980s before Gaddafi bombed the Berlin Disco and before most of the line of death confrontations ever took place. I do believe Italy embargoed the end of that deal too because of the 1986 bombing. Now meanwhile Russia currently has something like 4 billion dollars of weapons under contract to Gaddafi, including S-300 SAM systems… but keep being deluded into thinking an international coalition that includes other Arab oil powers is trying to steal all the Libyan oil. That makes so much sense its painful.

[Serafina]

If i recall correctly, Gaddafi also got a lot of US-support during the Bush administration, as an "ally on the war on terror". I could be wrong, so please correct me if i am.

[Duckie]

They took him off the 'states that support terrorism list', which doubles (besides being a tool of US propaganda and foreign policy like how Cuba's still on there or ever was really) as a US arms embargo list. Which implies yeah, considering they went to send Condaleeza Rice to shake his hand and then took him off the list, that there were plans for some kind of military equipment sale or something.

[Sea Skimmer]

If i recall correctly, Gaddafi also got a lot of US-support during the Bush administration, as an "ally on the war on terror". I could be wrong, so please correct me if i am.

Well what happened first was Gaddafi came to the US in 2002, and offered to give up his chemical weapons and his nuclear program, which then did, physically loading the stuff onto US planes to be taken away. That was all his initiative. Then after a while more he offered up the 2 billion for Lockerbie and after years of negotiations this led to the end of sanctions, and only then did the US and UK begin to get involved militarily. Mainly because A-Q has been a real and growing presence in Libya, and we agreed to train (only the British directly helped with training) and allow him to buy equipment for a special counter terrorism air mobile battalion to patrol the desert. This is also related to the fact that with the opening up of trade relations, thousands of western workers were in that same empty desert with precious little to prevent A-Q from kidnapping some of them. As we have seen the regular Libyan military is worthless, and the regular regime protection squads don’t have the numbers to cover the whole country, even if Gaddafi had any desire to disperse them away from Tripoli. So helping him form a special unit to protect our people, and gaining a chance to impress western ideas on it, hardly the worst move ever. That unit is still at least partly loyal to Gaddafi mind you; or at least some of its helicopter crews are.

So yeah, he got significant support, and I was not very pleased with it, but the fact is how long should we keep a guy isolated if his own people tolerate it? People have condemned the Us for decades for keeping sanctions on Cuba and other nations… but nothing fucking changed about Castro, so why should we change? The fact is everyone wants ot make the US look bad no matter the cost. Our greatest weapon in the world in the west is the ability to spread our values, our thinking and ideas to other nations. Let the west into the country could do that, isolation could not. If not for the Bush era engagement of Libya, Gaddafi right now would have slightly fewer rifles and machine guns…. and at least 4,600 mustard gas bombs. Would that really be better?

In any case, to have rebuked Gaddafis veryreal attempts to open his country up and make amends in international relations, the US would have been blowing off its own feet with regard to its long ability to get people like North Korea or Syria to make concessions of WMDs.

[Serafina]

Not trying to point any fingers here. Well, okay, perhaps a bit - i am generally not in favor of supporting dictators. That doesn't mean that it absolutely wrong to do so no matter what, if your account in accurate then it certainly worked well in this case (because it's really quite good if he has no more chemical weapons due to it). It's just something you have to be very careful about, but that's pretty much a given if you look at how it turned out historically (way to many former "allies" are not enemies to the USA).

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, the UAE just announced its sending a dozen fighters to help us steal the oil. Course it may be hard hauling it all back home in 480 gallon drop tanks.