UN Intervention Begins In Libya 688
maliamnon writes "US, French, and British forces began enforcing a UN resolution (1973/2011) to defend civilians in Libya today. French aircraft are attacking tanks, while the US and possibly UK are supporting the operation with cruise missiles from sea."
Update: 03/19 22:34 GMT by T :
Adds reader bloggerkg: "More than 110 Tomahawk missiles fired from American and British ships and submarines hit about 20 Libyan air and missile defense targets in western portions of the country, US Vice Adm. William Gortney said at a Pentagon briefing. The US will conduct a damage assessment of the sites, which include SA-5 missiles and communications facilities. A senior US military official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the missiles landed near Misrata and Tripoli, the capital and Gadhafi's stronghold."
Missiles for oil? (Score:0, Insightful)
I wonder how much oil we get in return for those $500K tomahawk missiles? One can't help but wonder why anybody cares about Libya when nobody gave a damn about any of the other civil wars in Africa, or Russia for that matter. Guess they didn't have oil wells at risk.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal of it is to assist the anti-Qaddafi rebels; they are the 'ground forces'.
Or so it seems based on the resolution.
Re:protests (Score:4, Insightful)
Bombing for peace... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A very sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, yer right, the nerve of the West to attempt knock over a ruthless dictator who has supported the worst sort of despots throughout Africa and who decided his people should have no right to self-determination. What were they thinking? What were you thinking?
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh BS. People like you whine when no one goes in to protect civilians and also whine when someone does.
Re:A very sad day (Score:2, Insightful)
...knock over a ruthless dictator...
We got a plate full of ruthless dictators.. Like my mother said, "Pick the one closest to you".. Is that how it goes? Once again, just like before, you are believing the lies... Incredible... Get it through your head.. We aren't wanted there...
We pull our destroyer up to the dock, "mind if we park here for a few minutes?"
You are deluded as ever if you believe for a second we are helping anybody but the money changers..
I am dismayed and shocked.. You illustrate how little hope there is.. War is the solution to everything for you people. Horrible
Re:Bombing for peace... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, Italy is letting the UN forces use their ports and airbases, Denmark and Norway have both sent fighters.
Not to mention that the first planes that went into Libyan airspace were French and British. Oh, and various shared NATO resources, and the french have the Charles de Gaulle parked off the Libyan coast and...
Oh sorry, you wanted to rant about how Amurka(!) is always called upon to play the world police only to be bashed by the world community. Feel free to continue.
Re:A very sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
We aren't wanted there? Ask the protesters. They want us there.
What, we aren't wanted there by the Libyan government? The leader who has said he has no problem killing as many people as it takes to retain control over his country? The government that has been gunning down peaceful protests with machine guns (sure, the protests aren't very peaceful now, but that's why)? The government that was sending fighter jets against chants and flags?
When innocent people are being murder by the hundreds and thousands for doing nothing more than speaking their minds...we have a responsibility as human beings to take action to help them. I can agree that military action is not always the best choice. If you have some alternative proposal, I may agree with you 100% after hearing it. But at the moment, I see no other option.
On a related note, it could be said that France wasn't wanted in the American Revolution either. But they got involved. And without their involvement, it is quite likely that the US would not exist as a nation.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
You got your history turned upside down. The UN agreed with the Afghanistan war in 2001 mission as there was a proper reason for it. Only when Bush extended it to Iraq in 2003 for no reason at all against the will of every country other than the UK (prime minister only, the population was against the war too) and a few paid off votes did the global opinion turn around.
And opening a second front in Iraq and splitting the forces is one of the main reason why Afghanistan turned into the quagmire it is now, so there's no surprise in countries like Spain and Germany wanting to pull out from there after the US fucked that one up.
Re:A very sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
War is the solution to everything for you people. Horrible
No, but sometimes the use of force is the only way to stop someone like Gaddafi from continuing to use force as he slaughters his own people. I realize that you think he should just stop doing so because several Important People have used Really Stern Language telling him that he must stop doing so. But (shockingly!) he just keeps on dropping bombs on those civilians, and using artillery to kill them. What part of that are you not actually understanding? Or when say that we're "believing lies," do you mean that the Gaddafi regime's statements about the nature of what they're doing is actually the correct body of information? That all of the international press on the ground - who are sending us video of Gaddafi's aircraft attacking people on the ground - that they're all part of the conspiracy?
And you're calling other people deluded? How much money are you getting from Gaddafi to astroturf on behalf of his regime, anyway? Do tell.
Re:The US shouldn't be there (Score:5, Insightful)
We are effectively playing the role of the French in the American Revolutionary War - keeping the powerful weaponry at bay so that they can liberate themselves. In the Revolutionary War, the French helped keep the British Navy at bay, something we could not do for ourselves. Similarly here we are keeping the planes/armor that the Libyans can't deal with themselves at bay.
Re:protests (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Saddam Hussein was a fucking monster who had more blood on his hands than Qaddafi has ever dreamed of.
That's beside the point - it's not a game of "who is the worst dictator?". If it was, perhaps Idi Amin - who killed hundreds of thousands of his people - would have been deposed. Oddly enough, Gaddafi gave him military support at one time, but Amin died in Saudi (I'm reading this stuff off wikipedia, naturally :)
Of course getting rid of Saddam was good in of itself; but part of the reason why it hasn't gone ... so smoothly since the actual invasion might be that the Iraqis don't feel 'liberated'. This is why the nations attacking Libya at the moment are trying to do it without landing troops. Well, except us British, who sent a diplomat with some special forces as protection, and got chucked out of the country again. Leading to the classic quote from one of the rebels "Why didn't they ask us? There is a proper way to do these things...".
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Political, military, and historical ignorance plus a gratuitous anti-French slur all in four lines! (Not counting whitespace.) You must have worked really hard to pack that much small-mindedness into such a short post. Um, congratulations, I guess.
Re:A very sad day (Score:5, Insightful)
War is the solution to everything for you people. Horrible
War is the solution to nothing for you people. Delusional.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I can't really disagree with you since Egypt and Tunisia aren't major oil players it should be noted their protests were mostly without military action and wouldn't have warranted UN intervention in any case.
Re:A very sad day (Score:3, Insightful)
For the fourth time since Vietnam, I am living through the exact same scenario as your responses show today. It is truly astounding.. Hitchcock couldn't dream this up.. Maybe some science fiction writers have, I don't know. But what I see here is getting to be spooky.
We are sticking our nose in there to ensure we have a pro western regime in place. It is why we are repressing protests in Bahrain. The protesters there are too friendly with Iran. And we need the parking space. We aren't there to help anybody but ourselves to whatever they might have.
Please, it was eight short years ago when they pulled this. Why is everybody so fast to fall for the same ruse again?
Re:A very sad day (Score:4, Insightful)
War is the solution to everything for you people. Horrible
You may not have noticed, but "we" (the West, the Arabs, everyone else) didn't start any war in Libya. A dictator was mowing down his own people. The UN getting involved isn't starting a war, it's preventing someone almost universally regarded as evil from winning. "War" is not the solution - involvement is. If the Arab League and NATO aren't welcome, the people dancing in the streets have a funny way of protesting.
Personally, I'm quite selfish and would have been perfectly content to just sit this one out. But since we're involved now, I hope that Qaddafi recognizing futility when he sees it and doesn't get his whole military killed.
Re:The US shouldn't be there (Score:5, Insightful)
It is easy to say that the US should not interfere with other countries, but: "with great power comes great responsibility".
Like it or not: the US are the world police. They have a big army and lots of fancy military equipment, and most of the time I believe they are really trying to do what is best for everybody, and prevent bloodshed etc. etc. With an army as big as theirs, they have a moral obligation to intervene when people are being killed for no apparent reason (or for "bad" reasons, whatever that means). It is however not so easy to decide when to intervene, because it is often not clear what exactly "good" and "bad" reasons are: wars and international politics are not as straightforward as movies (I wish they were. It would either make the movies more interesting or the politics easier to understand).
And yes, they will sometimes decide to intervene when it should not have been done. That is always easy to say afterwards. How many times have you made wrong decisions in your personal life (or in your MMORPG if you prefer)? Often enough, I bet. The consequences may be smaller in case of personal decisions, but should that be a reason for a country to sit back and do nothing? No.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree. I believe the decision is based in large part upon whether intervention stands a substantial, realistic chance to do any good. Military intervention in places like Somalia would accomplish nothing productive; it's been tried. There often is no central government oppressing and attacking people, it's dozens (or more) bands of irregulars, led by warlords working mostly from drug money, fighting each other and taking the opportunity for the occasional tribal massacre. In some cases there *is* a central government oppressing and murdering people, but the alternative would be another Somalia.
In the case of Libya, it seems clear that the citizenry wants the current regime out, and the current regime is willing to kill a substantial percentage of the population to hold onto power. It's also a fair bet that, once the smoke clears, Libyans will be willing and able to establish a new government and bring things back to some semblance of normalcy.
If the decision were based solely upon maintaining a cheap oil supply, we could just as easily help crazy-ass dictators like Gaddafi restore order and suppress the rebellion, in exchange for a few price and production promises.
Re:And... (Score:5, Insightful)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe this is for the best, but I have a queasy feeling about how it's going to turn out.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let the people of Libya sort this one out on their own. They outnumber their leaders several hundred thousand to one.
What are even several hundred thousand, or millions, of civilians going to do against just a few tanks and bombers? You can't defeat a bomber by dog piling it.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not Iraq (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very important to keep in mind that this is not Iraq.
First of all, the revolution was sparked by the people, and fought by the people before the UN intervention. In the present case, the UN is in fact offering military SUPPORT, not a full-scale military intervention and is not starting anything.
Second, one major problem with Iraq is the huge amount of civilian casualties, estimated at 100k. Whether they were killed by the Taliban, lack of medicine* or American troops doesn't matter: the war killed them, without the war they would have lived, and the war was started by the USA.
In Libya, the war is already started so it's definitely not the UN's fault if people die indirectly as a result. The UN is indeed trying to reduce the damage that will occur.
*The stats actually do not include people who died indirectly from the war, such as lack of medical treatment for injuries/diseases not caused by the war or lack of food.
Third, the UN must stick to offering military support where needed and nothing else. Air strikes on military assets are efficient - they are accurate and do not require a presence on the ground. Jets and bombers can take off from nearby countries, drop bombs on very specific military assets in Libya, then go back to where they came from. No territorial occupation, no troops spending too much time among the population (which can put the population at extra risk by drawing enemy fire or causing troops to mistake civilians for enemies). On top of that, when foreign troops are on the ground the local population may feel "invaded" even if troops are on their side, so at least air strikes avoid this and the population feels like they're leading the fight.
The Libyans must be in control or else they will resent the UN and things will not get better. Basically, the UN must offer the required help but needs also to keep their involvement to a minimum. Most of all, the UN must make sure that Libyans are happy about their help. If at any point the Libyans want to UN to leave them alone, the UN must back off not matter what help the UN believes it could provide. The moment the UN takes control, we're headed for another Iraq.
Fourth: Mistakes will happen. A bomb might hit civilian assets by mistake and kill innocent people.
This is a problem in Iraq and Afghanistan because when it happens we point the finger to the USA and say "It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't started this mess".
But if the Libyans started the revolution, if they asked for the help of the UN or at least approved of it and if the UN takes extra care to avoid errors, then the UN can't be blamed for mistakes. What I'm saying here is not that the UN must cowardly put all the responsibility on someone else. But it's important that the Libyans do not come to hate the UN's involvement or else the new government will be anti-democracy and anti-Western World. It's important that the Libyans see that the Western World is a friend and the UN must be a genuine friend.
Fifth: the USA should not have gotten involved in this. The USA have a terrible image in the Middle-East, Africa and pretty much all third-world and all Islamic countries. This is unlikely to improve the image of the USA, instead it's much more likely to make Libyans think "If the USA is involved, the UN's help might be a bad thing after all". This just makes it easier for terrorists and religious fanatics to gain support from the population and take power.
I can't believe the US government was that stupid. And frankly, I'm actually wondering if the USA really are involved because they want to help the Libyans. I'm suspecting they can't be that stupid and did this on purpose to serve whatever new megalomaniac secret plan the CIA/White House/DoD came up with.
I won't say the USA should back out, it's too late anyway, the harm is done. The UN intervention has been tainted with the mark of conquest by the USA now.
Sixth: the UN must back out once their role of offering military support is done. They have to let the Libyans choose the
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because the decision to protect or not protect civilians is essentially 100% correlated with either oil or some sort of important political motive
If oil were the motivation here, Western powers would be fully committed to support Gaddafi, like they do with the regime in Saudi Arabia.
Re:A very sad day (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that the people there are actually having a revolution there.
It may be surprising, but people can manage to live pretty well under a dictator. For many people a dictator doesn't mean that much in practice. They still go on with living their lives, and it generally works OK even without freedom of speech or justice. If you remove a dictator in a place like that a lot of people won't be sure where to go next. So chaos is near guaranteed.
Now where there is an outright civil war it's different. It's clear the people want somebody else in the ruling position and that they will fight to get there. And that they have some sort of plan for when they do that. Of course it's not a guarantee, but the chances of something good coming out of that is much higher.
Re:A very sad day (Score:4, Insightful)
You conveniently remember Vietnam, but why do you forget Korea?
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tried this once. Remember Somalia? [wikipedia.org]
Military humanitarian interventions when aligned with economic interests seem to be pragmatic in comparison.
And this is a truly internationally sanctioned intervention quite different from the (incredibly stupid) Iraq war of aggression.
The goal is to reduce Gaddafi's military capabilities and assets to a point that allows the rebels to survive and hopefully regroup.
Peacekeeping vs picking sides (Score:5, Insightful)
I fully support the military action in Libya, because nothing short of that is going to stop mass murder of civilian population that is perpetrated by Gaddafi forces in rebelling parts of the country. Good for them that they've acted swiftly enough, too (one month sounds like a lot, but when it comes to world diplomacy it is remarkably fast).
However, I'm afraid that UN forces will make the same mistake that NATO did in Bosnia and especially Kosovo - acting as peacekeepers in name, but picking a side and sticking with it in reality. In Kosovo this was most prominent - when Serbs were burning down mosques, killing Albanians and driving them out into Albanian, NATO was quick to intervene. But when Serbian army and paramilitaries withdrew, and the only force remaining in the province was KLA, the latter started burning down churches, killing Serbs, and driving them out into Serbia - and KFOR stood aside and watched.
Now, if the rebels prevail, I don't think anyone is going to shed tears if the "colonel" hangs, trial or no trial. But the sides in this civil war are largely arranged around tribal identity - Qadhadfa vs the rest of them. We say that the rebels are "pro-West", but so was KLA, by their own words - which did not stop them to partake in genocide themselves when they had the upper hand. So if the rebels win, and start massacring Qadhadfa - would the West also intervene militarily to stop that? Somehow, I doubt it, which is too bad, and would discredit the whole operation. I hope I'm wrong.
Re:A very sad day (Score:3, Insightful)
you are a fucking idiot if you can't see the difference between a colonial intervention (Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq) and a supportive intervention where the rebels want democracy, have fought hard and made huge gains on their own and with a little air support, can topple their despot on their own and get to work setting up their own government on their own terms.
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you seriously suggesting you don't know why the US got involved there?
Re:What's the goal of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
you still aren't fixing the shit conditions that allow one to take power in the first place.
Absolutely! Before the UN or anybody else intervenes, there should be some clear sign that the people are ready for change! Maybe a mass uprising or something...
we got too many of our own problems to go around playing world police.
That's why we have several people, in several places, each doing their own jobs. The Department of Labor doesn't give a damn about Libya. Likewise, the Department of Defense doesn't care if you have a job right now. Government is a part of society, which is a group of people who have realized that people can work together, each doing their own jobs, to accomplish many things at once.
Do you also expect the President to not sleep tonight, because some kid in Oregon broke his leg?
Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
In WW2, there were a lot of french people in Great Brittain and some have memories of wanting to pay in say a restaurant and being told "the bill has been paid" referring to the French soldiers protecting the British retreat at Dunkirk.
Now cowardly comedians who never fought for anything and would shit themselves if asked to defend their country claim the French are cowards.
But then we have taken coward actors over real heroes for a long time.