April 15th.

Thats my bet. Anyone else want to stake a claim out?

Reasons: Beyond the obvious glaring hypocrisy of UN Res 1973, when looking at Sudan or Congo, and even several of the Gulf States that are currently gunning down peaceful protesters in the streets in broad daylight, or the fact that we don't seem too concerned with any "humanitarian deaths" the Rebels may cause as we blaze a path for them to capture cities.... there are the not-so-secret wars the US is fighting in Pakistan (drone strikes) and Yemen (cruise missiles) that the US has not bothered seeking UN endorsement for.

So why do they make such a big deal over it WRT Libya? Why did we need the French to fly ONE sortie, and the UK to launch a grand total of 12 Tomahawks compared to our nearly 200?

Why the farce of handing things over to NATO, when everyone knows the US pretty much is NATO when it comes to military action. The US is the largest single contributor by far, and the Military branches are run by Americans.

Why all this political theater? To say we have global support? China, Russia, and Brazil all abstained from voting... thats half of the world's population right there. Arab League? You mean the same group of dictators and kings that have not only repressed and murdered their people for decades, but also enjoy playing both sides of the field in hurting and helping US interests in the region? Did we get their blessings before we started bombing targets in Yemen?

I think it all adds up to an attempt at plausible denial when the time comes for a ground invasion. Lets face it, the Rebels have no chance of winning, even with the No Fly Zone. Outnumbered at least 10:1, out gunned, out trained, everything is stacked against them.

But since there is no appetite for a 3rd (4th or 5th if you count Paki/Yemen) warfront in Middle East Barrack Obama has to dance the dance of "I couldn't help it, we were dragged into this by NATO!"

Then you have SoD Bob Gates coming out very publicly and forcefully in the last month against this type of action. From "needing their head examined" if someone started another land war in the ME or N Africa, to recently when responding to a Congresswoman's question of; will we put troops on the ground? With "Not as long as i'm SoD". Really unprecedented behavior from a SoD... at least one thats going to be around for very long. (hes been planning to retire before Obama's 2nd term for some time now)

I think it all adds up to the very real possibility of a ground invasion... but quite frankly, if that step isn't taken... then what the hell was the point of taking any action at all? You're going to leave the guy behind the Lockerbie Bombing, and Disco Bombings in power, and madder than hell against the West? I highly doubt it. If that happens its almost certain these world leaders will eventually have local blood on their hands when Gadaffi carries out his revenge. He's also already retaken a couple cities despite the No Fly Zone... whatever vengeance he may have taken on Bengazi (sp?) that the UN/US rushed to stop, I can only imagine his wrath will be 10x greater after nearly 2 weeks of bombings against him.

Finally, I don't get the sense that we can wait 3 months to give the Rebels proper, basic military and weapons training so they know how to reload their guns, or to not shoot them randomly into air wasting their limited ammo. And military tactics so they don't continue to fall prey to the most basic of military strategies.

So anyway, April 15th.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Not a bad analysis there.

I would think that April 15th is probably a bit short. A slightly more likely event would be Foreign Boots(tm) on the ground in Libya by that date but NOT American ones till a few weeks or months later. That way the US will be seen to be supporting a UN/Multinational effort rather than going it alone.

F

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"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

Yeah, thats possible... but I don't know who would do it though.

Its one thing for the UK to free the Lockerbie bomber so BP can secure some oil rights, but I don't know if David Cameron is ready to end his career so soon.... IMO Blair only survived his Iraq folly because the economy was humming along so nicely.

Germany wants no part of it.

So maybe France? Seems hard to imagine that for some reason though.

Which is why I think we'll see something new, which would be "NATO" ground troops, that just so happen to be overwhelmingly American. It would fit real nicely with the rest of the bullshit they've been selling.

Oh wait... I forgot about Poland.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

So why do they make such a big deal over it WRT Libya? Why did we need the French to fly ONE sortie, and the UK to launch a grand total of 12 Tomahawks compared to our nearly 200?

I have absolutely no idea how French diplomats manage to be so convincing. Not only does it totally disprove the concept of trust building in iterative games (If you go into any multinational enterprise in partnership with the French they will screw you. Nevertheless people still do it. Repeatedly. It's painful to watch. See also under Israel.), but they are renowned throughout the civil service as wierdoes of the first water. How on earth do they do it? Do the spike the punch?

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^

Could be the basis for a new movie, I would call it Sarkozy's Revenge. Payback for the total inaction and lack of reform WRT US led global financial meltdown. Thanks for the bankruptcy, enjoy your new clusterfuck in North Africa.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

my bet, no US boots on the ground.

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Conspiracy theory, I am afraid.

What would be the US interest? As I said before, the one silver lining of the Iraq fiasco is that it had pushed Gaddafi into 'normalising' (somewhat) his behaviour. The UK, France etc were all happily (or thereabout) dealing with his regime.

To back a bunch of civilians instead of Gaddafi makes no business sense. No. The truth is that the West, as opposed to the new powers of China & co, still believe it has a somewhat humanitarian mission in righting wrongs and protecting innocents wherever they might be.

Yes, they screw it up most of the time. Yes, it's often at odds with good ol' fashioned self-interest/realpolitik and, yes, the West can't seem to get its head around this and design some kind of logical decision tree for situations such as these.

But, otoh, I kinda still prefer that to China, India or Brazil's attitude of seeing an on-going massacre and saying "Dude, no problem - that's got nothing to do with us. Keep at it" (of course, China would have a serious double standard issue. A bit like the French monarchy supporting the US colonies against the British Crown - without the self-interest aspect on top).

I just wish the West was a bit more coherent and smarter in its approach.

To note: The UK did say they would bomb the rebels if they start slaughtering pro-Gaddafi civilians.

-----------------------------------

As to how the game will end, it's a bit soon to say but the way it's going seem to be via attrition of Gaddafi's immediate entourage.

Personally I ask again: What was the split pro/against Gaddafi? However roughly. We shouldn't have intervened but, on the contrary, insist on the rebels not rebelling if they are not nearly 80% of the pop. That number is, according to some statistical studies I've read, the magic threshold at which dictatorship tend to crumble.

Also, I would ask: What about the Libyan army? 1848 has proved that armies can break nearly any amount of popular uprising. Even more so in modern times where one tank can threaten into submission a small city. So why did they appear weak at first and then came out so strong? Why couldn't they be bought out?

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I think the US interest is in paying back 9 years of UK support in sticking it out with us in Iraq/Afghan and the comical War On Terra for so long (renditions and all that jazz).

The Brits clearly see a great deal of national interests in Libya... freeing the PanAm bomber for BP oil contracts, and 85% of Libya's oil exports are sold to W. Europe. Britain and France are two places refugees might flee to if Gaddafi went on a rampage. And i'm sure theres more.

And the neat thing is Europe doesn't have the man power or political unity/will to deal with the problem, so it predictably gets pushed off on the US.

You say the Brits promised to bomb the rebels if they killed civilians. I say with what and how? If/when that happens its more likely than not that it will be at close range, inside cities. Empty promises as far as I can tell and they probably know it.

For the record I'm willing to believe that Obama doesn't actually want to do this, and that hes just another smart person making stupid decisions... really, really stupid decisions. Which does make it harder to believe, but still within the realm of possibility.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

And while I don't know what the total population split is like, I think I did mention in another thread on this that everyone keeps reporting that the size of the rebel forces is roughly 1,000 and Gadaffi's forces are 10,000+.

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

And while I don't know what the total population split is like, I think I did mention in another thread on this that everyone keeps reporting that the size of the rebel forces is roughly 1,000 and Gadaffi's forces are 10,000+.

The army size is a crucial factor, obviously and it'd be interesting to hear why we haven't seen more defections... If Fredfredson's explanation of "two armies" is correct, we kind of know why.

But the point remains that the split of pop. is the crucial factor for the West. This isn't Iraq because, here, a significant part of the pop. did request foreign help. My point is that 'significant' needs to be 75-80% rather than 55 or even 65%... And this isn't Afghanistan because there are no objectives of destroying an ennemy capabilities.

Having good reasons to go to war doesn't mean that the execution doesn't get messed-up. We do need to wrap this one fast.

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