Libya: should anything be done?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

UK Flights Rescue Refugees From Libya

UK Father 'Killed in Libya'

New Air Strikes in Libyan Oil Town

[Atheist-Lite]

His bunker. No such thing as original thought?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Libya revolt: Gaddafi in crimes against humanity probe

[Ian]

I say we leap-frog right over this one and go straight into N. Korea.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Libya's 'Extraordinary' Archaeology under Threat

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Libya revolt: Gaddafi in crimes against humanity probe (World Court)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gaddafi troops' 'gains' disputed

Eyewitnesses and rebels say four towns which Libyan forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi claim to have retaken remain under rebel control.

[Atheist-Lite]

Gaddafi troops' 'gains' disputed

Eyewitnesses and rebels say four towns which Libyan forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi claim to have retaken remain under rebel control.

Truth is the first casualty of war although peacetime doesn't do it any favours either.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

State Dept. Asks U.S. Citizens In Libya What The Hell They Were Doing In Libya

[Seth]

State Dept. Asks U.S. Citizens In Libya What The Hell They Were Doing In Libya

I would LOVE to go to Libya, once Kadaffy is deposed and tourism is encouraged (and reasonably safe). There are some wonderful Roman ruins there I saw in Ewan McGregor's "Long Way Down" I would love to visit.

[Coito ergo sum]

Libyan rebels urge west to assassinate Gaddafi as his forces near Benghazi
Appeal to be made as G8 foreign ministers consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... i-benghazi

Scoring victories, Gadhafi tells rebels: surrender

By RYAN LUCAS and DIAA HADID
Associated Press
]TOBRUK, Libya (AP) -- Moammar Gadhafi's forces struck the rebellion's heartland with airstrikes, missiles and artillery on Tuesday, trying for the first time to take back a city that serves as a crucial gateway for the band of fighters who threatened his four-decade hold on power. Rebels rushed to the front and sent up two rickety airplanes to bomb government ships, as mosques broadcast pleas for help defending the city.

Inaction is shameful. The rebels are losing, and we in the West twiddle our thumbs. No strong leader is spearheading a push for coalition to assist the rebels.... by the time the UN gets done drafting its "strongly worded letter" the rebels will all be dead. Then Captain Hindsight will arrive with appropriate recriminations. And, nothing will be done.

[Ian]

On Libya, too many questions
By George F. Will
Tuesday, March 8, 2011

In September 1941, Japan's leaders had a question for Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto: Could he cripple the U.S. fleet in Hawaii? Yes, he said. Then he had a question for the leaders: But then what?

Following an attack, he said, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence" after that. Yamamoto knew America: He had attended Harvard and been naval attache in Japan's embassy in Washington. He knew Japan would be at war with an enraged industrial giant. The tide-turning defeat of Japan's navy at the Battle of Midway occurred June 7, 1942 - exactly six months after Pearl Harbor.

Today, some Washington voices are calling for U.S. force to be applied, somehow, on behalf of the people trying to overthrow Moammar Gaddafi. Some interventionists are Republicans, whose skepticism about government's abilities to achieve intended effects ends at the water's edge. All interventionists should answer some questions:

The world would be better without Gaddafi. But is that a vital U.S. national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought it was.

How much of Gaddafi's violence is coming from the air? Even if his aircraft are swept from his skies, would that be decisive?

What lesson should be learned from the fact that Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War - the massacre by Serbs of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica - occurred beneath a no-fly zone?

Sen. John Kerry says: "The last thing we want to think about is any kind of military intervention. And I don't consider the fly zone stepping over that line." But how is imposing a no-fly zone - the use of military force to further military and political objectives - not military intervention?

U.S. forces might ground Gaddafi's fixed-wing aircraft by destroying runways at his 13 air bases, but to keep helicopter gunships grounded would require continuing air patrols, which would require the destruction of Libya's radar and anti-aircraft installations. If collateral damage from such destruction included civilian deaths - remember those nine Afghan boys recently killed by mistake when they were gathering firewood - are we prepared for the televised pictures?

The Economist reports Gaddafi has "a huge arsenal of Russian surface-to-air missiles" and that some experts think Libya has SAMs that could threaten U.S. or allies' aircraft. If a pilot is downed and captured, are we ready for the hostage drama?

If we decide to give war supplies to the anti-Gaddafi fighters, how do we get them there?

Presumably we would coordinate aid with the leaders of the anti-Gaddafi forces. Who are they?

Libya is a tribal society. What concerning our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences justifies confidence that we understand Libyan dynamics?

Because of what seems to have been the controlling goal of avoiding U.S. and NATO casualties, the humanitarian intervention - 79 days of bombing - against Serbia in Kosovo was conducted from 15,000 feet. This marked the intervention as a project worth killing for but not worth dying for. Would intervention in Libya be similar? Are such interventions morally dubious?

Could intervention avoid "mission creep"? If grounding Gaddafi's aircraft is a humanitarian imperative, why isn't protecting his enemies from ground attacks?

In Tunisia and then in Egypt, regimes were toppled by protests. Libya is convulsed not by protests but by war. Not a war of aggression, not a war with armies violating national borders and thereby implicating the basic tenets of agreed-upon elements of international law, but a civil war. How often has intervention by nation A in nation B's civil war enlarged the welfare of nation A?

Before we intervene in Libya, do we ask the United Nations for permission? If it is refused, do we proceed anyway? If so, why ask? If we are refused permission and recede from intervention, have we not made U.S. foreign policy hostage to a hostile institution?

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton fears Libya becoming a failed state - "a giant Somalia." Speaking of which, have we not seen a cautionary movie - "Black Hawk Down" - about how humanitarian military interventions can take nasty turns?

The Egyptian crowds watched and learned from the Tunisian crowds. But the Libyan government watched and learned from the fate of the Tunisian and Egyptian governments. It has decided to fight. Would not U.S. intervention in Libya encourage other restive peoples to expect U.S. military assistance?

Would it be wise for U.S. military force to be engaged simultaneously in three Muslim nations?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03149.html

[Thumpalumpacus]

We in America should leave this alone.

[Warren Dew]

Inaction is shameful. The rebels are losing, and we in the West twiddle our thumbs. No strong leader is spearheading a push for coalition to assist the rebels.... by the time the UN gets done drafting its "strongly worded letter" the rebels will all be dead. Then Captain Hindsight will arrive with appropriate recriminations. And, nothing will be done.

So, tell us how you feel about Bahrain, where the U.S. is supporting a Saudi invasion - to help put down the protestors.

[Ian]

We in America should leave this alone.

A good general rule of thumb. If it turns into an outright genocide that might be different. But so far it looks like a violent civil war, and that's an internal matter for Libya.

As far as intervention goes, the US is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. The article I posted above gives some idea of the large variety of ways this could all go very badly for the US. And Coito points out the problem of appearing to dither and debate while Qaddafi's forces go on to crush the (democratic? who knows?) rebels. What I'd like to know is: why must so many eyes turn to the US by default? Yep, we've got one helluva military. It's also stretched thin supporting operations in Afghanistan, and with naval forces spread all over the globe. The amount of force the US could bring to bear over Libya isn't much different than what the air and naval forces of Italy, France, Greece, Britain, etc. could each bring there on short notice. And those are some countries that actually have some economic interests in stabilizing Libya through intervention. The US has virtually no interests there.

I think sometimes the strongest moves a leader can make is not to get involved in the affairs of others. When you don't have much at stake, that makes it a little bit easier. If military intervention occurs, I'd really love it if for once Europe and a coalition of Arab countries actually put some effort into it.