Posted on 03/02/2011 5:21:40 PM PST by Biggirl
BREGA, Libya – Rebel forces routed troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in a fierce battle over an oil port Wednesday, scrambling over the dunes of a Mediterranean beach through shelling and an airstrike to corner their attackers. While they thwarted the regime's first counteroffensive in eastern Libya, opposition leaders still pleaded for outside airstrikes to help them oust the longtime leader.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ahh... the rebels used airstrikes to corner their attackers? Might want to rethink that no-fly zone, then.
Wait, never mind. The wording of that sentence threw me off. Reading comprehension, my old nemesis, you win this round.
Might I suggest, then, two aircraft carriers?
Two aircraft carriers?
The Mediterranean would tip over!
Nah, it's not you --- it's that stupid news-speak.
That statement out of Gates is absolute horse crap. The object is to destroy any aircraft that defies the no-fly order, and it ain’t that hard for one carrier to provide airborne CAP. We could have, and should have had a carrier in the Gulf of Sidra as soon as Libyan unrest started to flare up.
The media is referring to Kadaffy as “the longest serving Arab leader” when he serves nobody but himself. There is no Libyan Parliament, or any other real government entity outside of the Oil Ministry. Kadaffy has been a despot for the last 41 years and we should have blown his ass to Allah a long time ago.
I know for a fact that the US Navy had long standing plans on how to help take out Kadaffy; we should have been prepared to implement a no-fly as soon as he started shooting his own civilians. It is inexcusable that we are still dicking around, and both the statements from Gates and the Hildebeest today make it clear that the regime is more interested in finding ways and excuses to do nothing as opposed to seriously intervening in Libya.
Might I suggest that a far better method is to allow the up and coming Muslim nutburger government of the day to throw as many bodies as it needs at the task of slaughtering the previous day’s Muslim nutburger government and absorb the loss all by themselves.
This is a win/win, as whichever side emerges victorious does so with fewer west hating jihadis at its disposal.
This is what KGS Nightwatch had to say about the situation in Libya this morning...they have been an interesting and accurate source of info out of the Middle East.
http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/NightWatch/NightWatch_11000047.aspx
Libya: The commander of the armored vehicle and infantry division in Benghazi announced that he and the division’s troops have joined the rebels, Al Arabiya reported on 1 March. Staff Brigadier General Mansur Muhammad Abu-Hajar said he and the soldiers denounce the killing of innocents by security brigades and hired mercenaries.
Comment: This latest defection is important for showing how pockets of loyalists can remain intact and capable of operations in support of Qadhafi in areas supposedly under the control of the anti-Qadhafi rebels. This is the case in towns west of Tripoli.
The key point is that an incomplete revolution almost always devolves into a civil war or a fragmentation scenario, also called secession. The rebels in the east profess no interest in establishing a separate state. That makes them, de facto, a challenger to the regime in Tripoli, one of the parties in a civil war. The faster they organize as a functioning government, the easier it will be for sympathetic outside states to come to their aid.
Aid is clearly in order. Tripoli is the center of power in a unified Libyan state. The rebels have failed to capture it. That creates the condition for civil war. In a head to head fight with pro-government militias and mercenaries, it is not at all clear that the rebels would win at this time. They need all kinds of aid.
Having failed to capture Tripoli when the rebellion had momentum, the most urgent priority now is to consolidate, secure and defend the areas under rebellion, offering encouragement to rebels in Tripoli and the west. One news report said the Benghazi rebels were split about their strategic priorities. One group favors advancing quickly against Tripoli. Another advocates consolidation and defense of gains already made.
A premature assault on Tripoli would not be just a tactical failure. It would expose the military weakness of the rebellion. Operationally , it would present the pro-Qadhafi forces the opportunity to counter-attack in depth all the way to Benghazi, whose defense would be weakened by a failed assault on Tripoli.
The rebels lack the capability to capture Tripoli, unless Qadhafi’s guards defect or NATO intervenes. Caution mandates defense of the revolution. NATO could consider issuing a warning to Qadhafi that NATO forces will defend the Benghazi rebels against destruction by an attack from Tripoli. The NATO umbrella could also extend to towns west of Tripoli. That would at least stabilize the situaton until the next round.
The resulting Libyan state might not look like a European democracy, but the east would not be governed by a family fiefdom. No one in a generation would forget NATO coming to the aid of anti-Qadhafi, pro-democracy rebels.
Libya-China: Four Chinese military IL-76 troop transports have been sent by the government in Beijing to help complete the evacuation of Chinese workers from Libya. The aircraft flew non-stop from Urumqi in western China to Libya. Xinhua reported the arrival on 1 March of the first Il-76 in Khartoum from Tripoli, carrying 250 passengers.
Comment: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that 30,000 Chinese workers were in Libya before the start of the uprising. Of these 2,500 have returned to China; 23,000 are in third countries and 3,400 are in transit. About 29,000 have left China, cumulatively, and the Il-76s are picking up the last 1,000.
The Chinese are completing a crisis management tour de force. A frigate from China’s Somali anti-piracy patrol will arrive off Tripoli on 2 March.
For the first time, the Chinese have deployed multiple Peoples’ Liberation Army Air Force aircraft in a civilian assist role on the far side of the world. This is a significant force projection test. Moreover, the Chinese have managed to evacuate a population equivalent to a mid-size American town without incurring the ire of Qadhafi or the rebels. In the same time frame of the Chinese evacuations, the US tried to evacuate 600 people
End of NightWatch for 1 March.
Time for Gadhafi to declare another “Line of Death”
Here’s a man (Col Gaddafi) who had the audacity to say “This is the ‘Line of Death.’ You cross it, you die.”
{Pause} “Okay, you cross this line, you die.”
{Pause} “Okay, you cross this line, you die.”
“This line, you die.”
“Okay, you’re knocking on my door, I’m not coming out. Naaaaah”
- Robin Williams
Maybe three? When I heard this whining little putz saying this I thought I was listening to some ten year-old kid trying to get out of cleaning his room. This is the Sec. DEF. of the greatest, bad-ass military in the world? Good Lord!
Pardon a little cynicism here, but this is the Middle East. Ten minutes after they get what they want the new government's enemies will be calling it a puppet and it will be spewing anti-American pap in order to restore its credibility. Diplomacy is a cash-and-carry game in the ME; the installment plan just gets us ripped off and shot at.
Naturally I might be wrong but it strikes me that we are looking at three possible outcomes: least likely, a partial resurgence of Mad Mo at the head of a posse of hired thugs, next most likely, a well-funded (by the Iranians and/or the Syrians and Saudis) Islamist despot, and most likely, a weak internationalist spouting the latest trendy UN tropes and sticking his hand out for aid. Actually I hope I am wrong, but that's how it seems at the moment.
Frankly, Gaddafi, and believe me, I cannot understand all the different spellings to his last name, is one little frie away from a “happy meal” or in other words, just simply plain EVIL and NUTS!
No, it says they scrambled over dunes through shelling and an air strike. The rebels were shelled and attacked from the air
It seems to me the loyalist forces didn’t have their heart in the fight
At the moment I have to agree with your assessment. It would not be this way had the United States not abrogated its leadership position in the Middle East. The longer the situation in Libya is allowed to fester the closer Libya gets to exactly what you describe.
They'll be looking for a painless war - an aspirin factory - to put a little Mussolini uniform on the boss and let him pose. There aren't any.
I was onboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower when we challenged the “Line of Death” in the guise of a Freedon of Navigation Exercise. We put up half of our F-14’s, and started cycling tankers, then cruised the Libyan coastline 13 miles offshore, inviting the chicken $hits to come and play, and of course they didn’t.
Kadaffy actually ordered his Air Farce to “sink the Eisenhower”, so for me this is personal....
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