No Fly zones over Libya?

[Caustic Logic]

I had been posting lots of BBC news snippets but one interesting string I left out.

There was a group of civilian "human shields" who had gathered at the Gaddafi compound to protect him. They thought he was inside and was supposed to come out to address them all at some point. A Twitter text came in from a witness on the scene. He said that darkness was coming and no sign of Gaddafi. He would much later address the people via phone from some other location. Anyway, suddenly there was a flurry of calls to cellphones amongst the crowd and they began whispering to each other. Everybody packed their stuff and got the hell out of the compound.

Hours later when nobody was around anymore the cruise missiles hit the administration building.

The presumption was that they were warned that the compound was a ripe target and that they might die if they stayed there. The human shields fled for their own lives. Ironic!

Make no mistake - the dictator chained them there. This is Gaddafi propaganda. NONE of his people are with him, except via bribes or coercion or brute force. Certainly he wouldn't warn them, or let anyone else do so. The whole point of human shields is not to shield, but to cause civilian deaths, like Milosevic did. Give the enemy a black eye. But we aren't deterred.

Luckily these ones escaped in time. Probably the rebels snuck in there and cut them free.

 

[William Parcher]

I understand that he's a violent nutjob. But that doesn't mean that anything that could happen, did happen. We have multiple witnesses to the people leaving of their own accord. Various international reporters were brought to the scene for the purpose of publicizing it. We have videos and pictures of unchained civilians dancing around the compound waving pro-Gaddafi flags and whatnot. Nobody is shackled.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I understand that he's a violent nutjob. But that doesn't mean that anything that could happen, did happen. We have multiple witnesses to the people leaving of their own accord. Various international reporters were brought to the scene for the purpose of publicizing it. We have videos and pictures of unchained civilians dancing around the compound waving pro-Gaddafi flags and whatnot. Nobody is shackled.

Yeah, I was being sarcastic, but it reads fairly close to a lot of opinions you'll read here that are presented straightforward.

And that's not to say Gaddafi's the good guy or defend him, just, enough with the cartoons already.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Hey

Usual caveats about I'm not a Gadhafi supporter


Anyways, who thinks the term 'Citizen-Fighter' is going to take off?

Libya's rebels scrambled to try to exploit international strikes on Muammar Gadhafi's forces and go on the offensive, as some of the opposition's ragtag citizen-fighters charged ahead to fight troops besieging a rebel city Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/interna...rikes-in-tripoli-libya-state-tv-says-1.350964


Don't shoot citizen-fighters! That'd be a massacre. But unlawful combatants don't get geneva.

 

[quadraginta]

I got a feeling that "we are not targeting Gadaffi, just his C and C for the military" might be a distinction without a practical difference.

Questionable. After all it seems unlikely that he would be stupid enough to be in his compound at this point. Targetuing Gadaffi would almost certianly involve some very good human intelligance which I doubt we have.

I can see both points. It could be plausibly argued that wherever Khadaffi is certainly contains elements of his military's C & C, if for no other reason except that it's his military, and he's (theoretically) in "command".

If we were to get reliable intelligence about his exact location I suspect that some people would find such logic tempting.

 

[quadraginta]

I had been posting lots of BBC news snippets but one interesting string I left out.

There was a group of civilian "human shields" who had gathered at the Gaddafi compound to protect him. They thought he was inside and was supposed to come out to address them all at some point. A Twitter text came in from a witness on the scene. He said that darkness was coming and no sign of Gaddafi. He would much later address the people via phone from some other location. Anyway, suddenly there was a flurry of calls to cellphones amongst the crowd and they began whispering to each other. Everybody packed their stuff and got the hell out of the compound.

Hours later when nobody was around anymore the cruise missiles hit the administration building.

The presumption was that they were warned that the compound was a ripe target and that they might die if they stayed there. The human shields fled for their own lives. Ironic!

There's a certain poignancy to the idea of unprotected human bodies crowding around a building to shield it from a cruise missile attack. If it wasn't merely a photo-op stunt then the participants would be demonstrating some Darwinian self selection as well as their loyalty to their leader.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

MPs in the UK just voted overwhelmingly for the use of force: 557 to 13.

 

[JihadJane]

"If the rebels lack the military means to take these towns back, are coalition warplanes going to fight their battles for them? And if not, would the revolutionary council in Benghazi accept partition? As things stand, the answer to both questions is no. So even if Gaddafi's forces accepted the ceasefire, the rebels would keep on fighting.

Members of the council have already said they fear the result of a limited air campaign will be a military stalemate and have called for an escalation of air strikes to wipe out Gaddafi's army. This is the logic of intervention, but it is not in the remit of the UN resolution. Three days ago, air strikes launched to save innocent lives looked simple enough. Very quickly, they have become part of the war."

'Libya: Moving targets
The longer the Libyan campaign goes on, the sooner the issue will have to be confronted: where is it leading?'

 

[Thunder]

i do not suspect that the coalition will fight this war for the rebels.

if they can't win on their own, then that will be that.

 

[angrysoba]

Yeah, I was being sarcastic, but it reads fairly close to a lot of opinions you'll read here that are presented straightforward.

And that's not to say Gaddafi's the good guy or defend him, just, enough with the cartoons already.

I posted earlier about the "voluntary human shields". Sure you can argue that they may be genuine volunteer human shields and not paid-for or arm-twisted volunteers but in what country would a government ALLOW their civilians to crowd around military targets? And if, as the Libyans are claiming, it wasn't a military target then what were they doing crowding round it as human shields anyway?

 

[Nihilianth]

It appears to be the Mirage F1 version of the infamous goatsce.ex picture that was all the rage on the internet 10 or 12 years ago.

AHHHHAHAHAHA!! Wow! Really!? REALLY!? I can't believe you thought of that! +1 to you sir!

 

[angrysoba]

Except it was done after those people were long dead, and it was for the most American of reasons: to create a tourist attraction in the middle of nowhere.

Oh, fair enough.

Does it bring in as many tourists as this:

 

[egslim]

i do not suspect that the coalition will fight this war for the rebels.

if they can't win on their own, then that will be that.

Perhaps. But leaving Libya in an unresolved situation is tantamount to admitting defeat, at least in the eyes of your political opponents. Or it's bailing out on your allies, which isn't the most popular move either.

Mission creep is the danger here. Send the rebels logistical support, supply them with weapons. Maybe some advisers, since modern Western weapons require some training. Or special forces to help coordinate airstrikes.

 

[Caustic Logic]

i do not suspect that the coalition will fight this war for the rebels.

if they can't win on their own, then that will be that.

Umm, did you notice that we're already well past the point where that wouldbe that. It wasn't.

I posted earlier about the "voluntary human shields". Sure you can argue that they may be genuine volunteer human shields and not paid-for or arm-twisted volunteers but in what country would a government ALLOW their civilians to crowd around military targets? And if, as the Libyans are claiming, it wasn't a military target then what were they doing crowding round it as human shields anyway?

So the problem now is Gaddafi allowing things? You'd refer he repressed them from expressing themselves? For shame, good sir. (mostly kidding with ya).

It's an odd country. Revolutionary mentality is fostered, sacrifice for a goal, hardened by shared experience of sanctions and other ostracism that gives them a potent "us vs. the world" mentality, etc. And this is a chance to put it to use to show their support and willingness to (hypothetically) die protecting a government they really support. National values, etc. Really I'm guessing here, but I don't think this works well as more evidence against Gaddafi.

Hey

Usual caveats about I'm not a Gadhafi supporter


Anyways, who thinks the term 'Citizen-Fighter' is going to take off?

Libya's rebels scrambled to try to exploit international strikes on Muammar Gadhafi's forces and go on the offensive, as some of the opposition's ragtag citizen-fighters charged ahead to fight troops besieging a rebel city Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/internat...-says-1.350964


Don't shoot citizen-fighters! That'd be a massacre. But unlawful combatants don't get geneva.

I like it. Speaking of Geneva accords and so on ... Citizen-fighters in action! Actions blamed by citizen-fighters on Gaddafi. That's 130 of the dead so far, and no one over here cares that it's part of the justification for this rapidly escalating crusade against a mad tyrant.

Jihad Jane, good article, thanks.

Can anyone cite a precedent for what we're doing in Libya, forcing a one-sided cease fire in a civil war? Based on an emotional response to mostly rebel reports of the scale of their suffering and need, glossing over the huge hole in what's really (publicly) known - as opposed to believed - about the situation and the combatants? And demanding, straight-faced, that the government's forces cannot shoot at anything, even the "civilian" "protesters" that are now flying their own seized fighter jets and retaking cities with outside (mercenary?) air and missile support. It just seems a little extreme and perhaps an unsettling precedent.

 

[little grey rabbit]

A candidate for the most deranged tweet award

#
0842: ChangeInLibya tweets: "Gaddafi is blowing up buildings in Tripoli randomly to make people think its coalition jets :/ #libya #feb17."

Still it makes a change from tweets saying the center of Misrata has been leveled, three ambulances have been deliberately hit and government snipers are indiscriminantly killing civilians from the top of buildings

 

[Laeke]

perhaps an unsettling precedent.

Not to debate with the overall message you posted, but I just sometimes scratch my head about this.

National sovereignty is stomped constantly in international affairs, and we did not wait the UN for that to happen. The Holy Alliance pretty much theorised the whole thing 2 centuries ago and it probably go older.

The only real precedent there, I might think, is that we have a nice white and blue dress to do so. I do believe it is a sort of progress and that it give more leeway to other international actors to circumvent or influence the action taken. It is the whole point of the UN after all: foreign intervention and wars will happen anyway, better to have some sort of institution to ease up the conflicting effects than to leave it up to the countries themselves.

 

[little grey rabbit]

The only real precedent there, I might think, is that we have a nice white and blue dress to do so. I do believe it is a sort of progress and that it give more leeway to other international actors to circumvent or influence the action taken.

No you don't, you have a mandate to impose a ceasefire.

It is beyond dispute now that NATO interpret this as a ceasefire for the Libyan Government forces only, a journalist with the Daily Telegraph tweeted recently that the rebels were passing on targeting information for NATO in Ajdabiya.

In otherwords you are doing what the UN resolution did not authorise, you are providing tactical air support to an advancing military force.
Chris McGeal in the Guardian makes that very clear.

The planes were barely out of earshot when the charge of the ad hoc motorised cavalry began.

The young fighters, the "shabab" as they proudly proclaim themselves, piled on to scores of pick up trucks with mounted machine guns and squeezed in to saloon cars with their Kalashnikovs hanging out of the windows. Some had no more than old hunting rifles. One man was waving a bayonet as his only weapon.....
The rebels watched apprehensively as incoming shells dropped short in the desert with a flash of fire and a large puff of sand, further evidence that the Libyan leader's twice announced ceasefire means little on the frontline.

Then planes were heard, but not seen, overhead. Spotters with binoculars watched from the top of sand dunes, trying to assess the effect of the air strikes as black plumes rose above the town.

The sound of several deep explosions in the direction of Gaddafi's forces persuaded the rebels that the aircraft had knocked out the enemy's tanks and rockets. A cry went up to charge forward. The mechanical cavalry surged along the road certain that the planes had done the job and the government soldiers would be dead or fleeing in terror of more missiles.
....
Some of the rebels mistake the air strikes for their own victories. They dance on the burned out tanks, wave V for victory signs and declare that they are beating Gaddafi.

But the revolutionaries outside Ajdabiya only advanced because they expected to move into the town with little resistance.

The rebel leadership frankly admits that it cannot defeat the government militarily on its own and acknowledges that if it cannot take a relatively small town unaided, its forces are unlikely to be able to seize the better defended cities further west – leaving France, Britain and the US to decide if they are going to fight the insurgents' war for them by clearing the way for the revolutionaries to advance.

Having failed yesterday to sufficiently the damage Government forces (ceasefire here is code for dead) to allow the opposition to take the town they have unleashed another attack

9.16am: There have been fresh air strikes on Ajdabiya, the Guardian's Chris McGreal reports. Chris says he saw four large plumes of smoke coming from Ajdabiya, which is under control of Gaddafi's forces, a short while after hearing aircraft overhead.

In otherwords, no matter how weak the opposition is, the Coalition are determined to kill as many Libyan Government soldiers as necessary to allow them to win.

You have to feel sorry for the Libyan Government soldiers - attacked with overwhelming force from the air, knowing that if they surrender they will likely be killed by the jihadists (obviously because they are all African mercenaries) and if they try to retreat back to Ras Lanouf gleeful French pilots will joyfully hunt them down and show the Ameroguns that they too can do a successful turkey shoot.

Hurrah for us!

 

[Laeke]

No you don't, you have a mandate to impose a ceasefire.

I am not sure what part of my message you are disagreeing with here?
There is an UN mandate to enforce a cease fire, indeed. And to protect civilians. And enforce a NFZ.
The intervention, in itself, is in favor of the insurgency and hostile to the regime. This is evident.
However, doing this on an UN mandate do allow the UN and its members to have a more influence on how it is conducted.

Do the rebels observe a cease-fire? No they don't indeed. Your willingness to believe that the Libyan army is respecting its own cease-fire, even though the regime is using war rhetoric and there were still fights going on at Misrata those past few days (you know, despite the double cease fire announced) kind of baffles me though.

I can even read this today:
A Libyan government spokesman, Mussa Ibrahim, told a Tripoli news conference coalition warplanes on Monday bombarded the southern town of Sebha, bastion of Gadhafi's Guededfa tribe. Ibrahim also claimed that Misrata, a city 214 kilometres east of Tripoli, was "liberated three days ago" and that Gadhafi's forces were hunting "terrorist elements."
(emphasis mine). source

But "hunting down terrorist elements" falls under police action I suppose.

There will be no realistic ceasefire issued in the current situation, indeed. If this is the goal of the Libyan regime though, it is not impossible for them to go to the Arab League or the African Union, or Russia, or... and work out a realistic proposal, with a buffer zone, an interposition force, and talks to how settle the issue. Would probably do them a lot more good in discrediting imperialists dog than what they are currently doing.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Laete, people claim to be tweeting from Misrata, ergo they have internet access.

A month ago Libya was the African country with the highest standard of living, admittedly not a massive claim, but still something to consider while we all slap ourselves on the back while we watch it slide into becoming the next Somalia.
The point of this is that there are probably (very conservative estimate) 10 000 cell phones with video capacity in Misrata - it was after all, the third largest city

Aside from a short clip of two unexplained explosions four days ago, I know of not one clip of shelled ambulances, overflowing casualty wards, desperate street fighting, flattened city center. All of which have been in recent days tweeted or phoned in by a "doctor" in Misrata.
No clips of rebel check points, no clips of rebel fighters parading weapons. Nothing.

You surely are aware that the opposition are well aware of the value of the information war, the value of images and the value of controlling the media narrative?

Does not the absence of tangible evidence not suggest you are being conned?

 

[JihadJane]

'Odyssey Dawn' can be accurately translated as "Here comes trouble".