So does that mean you consider Putin leftwing in the American meaning of the word?
No. Russians have their own brand of useless, hypocritical, finger-pointing leftism. I was simply pointing out Putin's apparent inability to read a U.N. resolution with comprehension.
Of course the belief that you're minimizing civilian casualties by killing civilians is not supported by any evidence. That's merely a hypothetical.
I have no belief that killing civilians, in and of itself, serves any such purpose. I do think it is reasonable to expect that the destruction of The Duck's ability to kill civilians and ending The Duck's rule will minimize civilian casualties.
And your arguments are founded on the bare assumption that NATO strikes have killed an unacceptable number of civilians. An unsupported assumption, to put the most charitable face on it.
Like residential homes? Because that's where his grandchildren were killed.
The Duck Of Death rolls the dice and takes his chances. Unfortunately his relatives are always clustered around him. So far, The Duck has been lucky. His relatives, not so much.
None of which means The Duck, master and commander of the forces he has sworn to use in a wanton, wholesale slaughter of anyone and everyone who might at some point become an inconvenience to him, should be exempt from targeting. The Duck himself is the "brain" of the C&C apparatus NATO is seeking to lobotomize.
Cities in Libya are seperated by long stretches of desert. When one city is held by Gadaffi's forces and another by the rebels, announce the area in between is off-limits to everyone. Everything that moves in between can be either ordered back to its point of origin, or destroyed.
How convenient. So, If I were The Duck Of Death and you were NATO, I could paralyze NATO and the rebels by simply digging into every civilian-populated area I control, secure in the knowledge that you will prevent the rebels from coming anywhere near my forces. Of course, I would also be seeking to infiltrate into rebel-held populated areas. Especially with snipers.
Your strategy appears to be tailored to insure continued Duck rule. No doubt the recriminations in your status-quo Libya will be bloody and will take a long time. We will all have to watch The Duck exact his quacking revenge.
It's quite ironic that you say my prescription is for paralysis, since the conflict is already in stalemate.
So why not at least try to do something to break the stalemate, like killing The Duck?
And 'minimizing civilian casualties' is such a vague objective, victory or defeat will be impossible to determine.
Vague in your eyes, perhaps. Impossible for you to determine, perhaps. Others may have far less difficulty making such assessments.
But as I said before, tribal wars are so messy that it's best to not get involved in the first place.
I see. So, if you were NATO, you could be paralyzed into inaction by the simple expedients of holing up in the civilians and being very "messy". Which is pretty much what The Duck Of Death has been doing. The Duck even telegraphed his intended NATO-paralyzing tactics when he screamed "We will get CRAZY!!"
But the old standard hole-up-in-the-civvies-and-get-messy tactics haven't completely paralyzed NATO, because you are not NATO.
At any rate, the entire "best to not get involved in the first place" sidetrack is not anything I was talking about. I simply set out to show and explain what the so-called "no fly" resolution actually says and means. Not to get caught up in all this stickiness.
