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No Fly zones over Libya?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20048982-503543.html

Admiral James Stavridis, NATO supreme commander for Europe, said of Libya's rebel force: "We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah."

Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel took things a step further, telling the Hindustan Times: "There is no question that al Qaeda's Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition. It has always been Qaddafi's biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi. What is unclear is how much of the opposition is al Qaeda/Libyan Islamic Fighting Group - 2 percent or 80 percent."
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80%? And Obama is considering arming them? :rolleyes:
 
BeAChooser said:
80%? And Obama is considering arming them? :rolleyes:
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If it's 80% we can stop worry about al Qaeda since they are clearly beyond hopeless.

The convert help hinted at is unlikely to be arming. The rebels already have a reasonable amount of weapony and trying to move them beyong Technicals with ZU-23-2 is unlikely to be viable.

Nah far more likely it would be special forces spotters and CIA advisors.
 
geni said:
Eh they are civilians we guns. That they can't fight or organise is to be expected. Whats odd is they don't even seem to try.
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Semantics. Fighting badly is still fighting. After all, they have air support and they're not facing crack troops. As you say, these people don't even seem to try.

A number of towns sourounding tripoli did jump on the rebal side to start with so I wouldn't write off popular support.
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There has been some, but it was limited. I expect Gadaffi's crackdown reduced it even further.
And remember the initial uprisings in Tripolitanian towns refused help from the Cyrenaican rebels. That indicates rebels from different tribes don't regard eachother as close allies, though they share a common enemy. For now.

If that was the case we would expect them to actualy fight. People stand and fight against impossible odds for their tribe or their god. Running at the first sign of trouble? Thats more in line with fighting for vaugley defined freedom and democracy.
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Perhaps, but Libyans don't have a recent history of standing and fighting for anything.

Oh ye of little cynicism. Rebels who can't win a battle without massive air support are the ideal people run the country since they not only owe us a favor or two bit assuming they have the odd braincell will realise how easy they would be removed
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After Gadaffi is gone, the rebels first have to take control of the country and pacify it, before they can run it. Unless we do that for them too, and that would certainly require boots on the ground.
 
"Eastern Libya’s Zuwaya and Misratah tribal chieftains, who enjoyed great power before Col Gaddafi took over, sense an opportunity to seize control of oil revenues. In the west, the Warfala, under pressure from the regime since an abortive 1993 rebellion, see a chance to settle scores.

For the most part, this leadership seems to have a moral compass that points in much the same direction as that of the regime. TarekSaad Husain, a Benghazi-based rebel commander, warned the residents of Col Gaddafi’s home town: 'Either you join us, or we will finish you.'

Libya’s tribes, moreover, aren’t the only ones flying their flags on the streets. Fighters have established an Islamic emirate in Derna, 775 miles from Tripoli, while jihadists trained in Sudan and Afghanistan are said to be fighting alongside tribal rebels."

'Defeat the Libyan regime. And then?'
 
It's an interesting article.
In 1993, for example, Abdel Salam Jalloud – Libya’s long-standing second-in-command and a trusted lieutenant who had, in 1970, been dispatched to offer China £75 million for a nuclear weapon – attempted to seize power.

Mr Jalloud’s Magariha tribe backed him, along with the Warfalla and al-Zintan – much the same coalition that is fighting Col Gaddafi today. Intense fighting was seen in the BaniWalid area, 80 miles south-east of Tripoli. But the air force, packed with recruits from Col Gaddafi’s Qadhafa, held fast and the regime won.

Eight plotters were executed in January 1997. Later that year, new laws institutionalised collective punishment of tribes through the denial of entitlements as the punishment for rebellion.
So a), nothing new to see in the current rebellion, and b) eight executions plus denial of entitlements to a few tribes hardly constituted a massacre.

Last month, jihadists led by rebel military officer Adnan al-Nawisri seized hundreds of weapons and vehicles from depots in Derna and proclaimed what they are calling the Islamic Emirate of Barqa, the ancient name for western Libya.

Abdelkarim al-Hasadi, who fought with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, appears to have de facto control of the Derna Emirate.
If the rebels can't even fight Gadaffi's forces, will they fight those of the Derna Emirate to establish control of Libya?
 
dudalb said:
Sounds as if somebody is trying to talk themsleves into being a Gadaffi supporter.
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Criticism of the US's military intervention in Libya doesn't mean one has to be a Gaddafi supporter.

As I've been saying, even if we don't approve of his government (and that disapproval hasn't been apparent in recent years, even as the U.S. gave aid to Gaddafi), we don't have the right to intervene in internal affairs unless international peace is threatened.

My criticism of Obama goes further. First, he has mischaracterized and misrepresented several important facts, but more importantly, under US law the president doesn't have the authority to order this intervention with Congressional authorization. (He will doubtless get it after the fact, but that's not what the law calls for unless the U.S. is under attack.)

My criticism of Obama and his decisions says nothing about supporting Gaddafi.
 
geni said:
Strangely I don't recall him actualy saying that.
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Which is why I didn't put it in quotation marks. But the ghist of his speech was that he'd accomplished what he set out to do, that Ghaddafi was on the run, and that now he could safely turn it over to someone else (even though in reality he wasn't turning it over to someone else since the US is such a big part of NATO) to finish what *little* remains to be done. :D
 
Darth Rotor said:
JJane, should having black skin give a merc a free pass? :confused:

I am not sure what point you are trying to make here.
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Did you read this part of the article:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/rebe-m31.shtml

“Because mercenaries from Chad and Mali are presumed to be fighting for him [Gaddafi], the lives of a million African refugees and thousands of African migrants are at risk. A Turkish construction worker told the British radio station BBC: ‘We had seventy to eighty people from Chad working for our company. They were massacred with pruning shears and axes, accused by the attackers of being Gaddafi’s troops. The Sudanese people were massacred. We saw it for ourselves.’
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