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You cannot stop the movement of people or military forces on the ground with an Air Campaign alone. Its easy to move around in Cars with assault weapons and MANPADS and an Aircraft would have no idea what you are doing on the ground, so this will turn into an infantry centric counter insurgency by Qaddafi's forces. The problem will be getting good quality information to the News media so no one will know whats going on and the INTEL coming out of the country will probably only be poor quality or patchy. This has all the hallmarks of a grade A pot mess, which will result in embarassment and problems all round. Best solution an SF strike or precision strike to Kill Qaddafi or this thing will will drag along like a whores draws.

mwnciboo wrote:You cannot stop the movement of people or military forces on the ground with an Air Campaign alone. Its easy to move around in Cars with assault weapons and MANPADS and an Aircraft would have no idea what you are doing on the ground, so this will turn into an infantry centric counter insurgency by Qaddafi's forces. The problem will be getting good quality information to the News media so no one will know whats going on and the INTEL coming out of the country will probably only be poor quality or patchy. This has all the hallmarks of a grade A pot mess, which will result in embarassment and problems all round. Best solution an SF strike or precision strike to Kill Qaddafi or this thing will will drag along like a whores draws.

+1

if you want to defeat your enemy, you have to destroy them, their ability to regroup and you have to decimate their followers to the point that they either have no willingness to fight or they are erased from history. That means getting in on the ground.
Salt the mo'fing earth if you have to.

I'm not sold that Gaddafi and his regime are a legitimate target for any sanctions or military activity though.
Why don't we put more pressure on Thailand or Burma, after all their repression is fantastically well reported and yet we are still happy to mooch over there for under age hookers of all three sexes. (Maybe if Libya had a few transgendered prostitutes we wouldn't be so keen to attack them either).

Also

War were declared.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12795971

The BBC has reported that the French air force has destroyed a number of Gaddaffi tanks, the US Navy has fired cruise missiles into the country, and that British planes are flying over the country.

The Italians have offered use of their air bases which already support NATO planes.

Canadian planes have arrived in the area but need two days to prepare for combat.

Kilkrazy wrote:The BBC has reported that the French air force has destroyed a number of Gaddaffi tanks, the US Navy has fired cruise missiles into the country, and that British planes are flying over the country.

The Italians have offered use of their air bases which already support NATO planes.

Canadian planes have arrived in the area but need two days to prepare for combat.

Can't the Italians bloody well supply their own aircraft as well?


I look forwards to months of chaos. Does anyone think that the Western supported rebels will be any less corrupt than the current regime? or even more stable?

The west deserves everything it is is going to get, in spades.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lets rename this thread.

So, we have bombed Libya now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12796972

Mr. Burning wrote:The west deserves everything it is is going to get, in spades.

Well, the west has done some good things, some bad things, and some neutral things so I guess that means we'll get some good things, bad things, and neutral things in return. Seems about right, and what usually anyone gets really. Of course, being a westerner you are getting whatever the rest of us gets.

Ahtman wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:The west deserves everything it is is going to get, in spades.

Well, the west has done some good things, some bad things, and some neutral things so I guess that means we'll get some good things, bad things, and neutral things in return. Seems about right, and what usually anyone gets really. Of course, being a westerner you are getting whatever the rest of us gets.

Ah yes, you are right, of course. I believe that this current action will end up harming those of us in the west. This will not serve as any great benefit to us.

Qaddafi has committed human rights violations, but the scale the west are talking of will end up being so much yellow cake or WMD's (and we already played that joker, badly).

Gaddaffi is going down, and he deserves to.

110 cruise missiles fired into Libyan bases by USN and RN ships and submarines.

The rebels will be glad for western help. That is the big difference between this and Afghanistan/Iraq.

Had to laugh that Mr Cameron et-al had to rescind the scrapping order on 2 Nimrods, the old nimrods for use over there.

This is not going to go well for us, Gaddafi has a better AA than Saddam, after all SH had already lost the majority of his kit in the first gulf war with no resupply. Gaddafi is 'fresh' in this respect.

And why are we enforcing a no fly zone while allowing the opposition to fly? The UN charter, I thought, was about protecting civilians, not enforcing regime change?

So any bets on when we get a UN charter asking the Saudis' to leave Bahrain? Thought not.

Cheers

Andrew

He won't have any AA; what do you think we've been targetting alongside military bases etc.?

Kilkrazy wrote:Gaddaffi is going down, and he deserves to.

110 cruise missiles fired into Libyan bases by USN and RN ships and submarines.

The rebels will be glad for western help. That is the big difference between this and Afghanistan/Iraq.

he may deserve to go down but lets be even handed about who we take down eh?

The Eritreans
The Sauds
The Burmese
Thailand
Pakistan

For not allowing free and fair elections hows about putting a Stormshadow through Bushes window as well.

what other rebels will be glad of western help?

The Kurds in Turkey?

Chechens against the CIS (Russia) or maybe if we class the Chechens terrorists we should bomb the gak out of them too?

The Libyan rebels will not be democratically elected they will have been helped into power by western powers , this is something the Arabs will fight against.

From news reports, civilian targets it appears....

I say again this will not end well, we're supposedly enforcing a no fly zone, why are we destroying tanks, and attacking supply lines? Why are we destroying fuel depots? Why are we destroying transportation methods/routes?

Are we working on third time lucky here? Okay we failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so we'll get it right in Libya?

If we do this there, then we have to support the Sunnis' in Bahrain, if we don't then we are nothing more than a bunch of bullies in the school playground.

Cheers

Andrew

According to the BBC, the only reports of civillian attacks have, surprisingly, come from Libyan State TV. I believe there's a large risk of bias here...

Suspected military bases in civilian areas have been targeted.

You still have to wonder what targeting the ground has to do with policing a no fly zone. Unless the aircraft were being 'locked up'.

@ Avatar; Agreed but then again they also said that there were no civilian casualties on the 'precision' bombing strikes in Iraq/Afghan, full/final/true figures have never been publicised.

I'm not arguing that this is not morally justified, I'm just fed up of being lied to. If this is regime change say so, not a humanitarian crisis. What are these 'rebels' going to do to 'loyalist' forces if they win? I don't think it will be a group hug.

Cheers

Andrew

Suspected military bases in civilian areas have been targeted.

Even so, they are tagretting what they believe to be military bases; they are not going out of their way to kill civillians.

Avatar 720 wrote:

Suspected military bases in civilian areas have been targeted.

Even so, they are tagretting what they believe to be military bases; they are not going out of their way to kill civillians.

That's what I said, just quoting the beeb website.

Avatar, what is Gadaffi going to target? The rebels are mainly civilians.

Believing something to be a military base does not make it one, mistakes will be made.

Cheers

Andrew

Any day now I expect French Rafales to Target the Ivory coast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12787015

DO not compare Iraq or Afghanistan with this, it shows a great lack of knowledge of well, anything.

Lets take Iraq, Their country wasn't on the brink of civil war, Their leader wasn't killing civies They were pretty stable, wern't asking for help, and the world was against it. It was a bad war based on lies. You see how this is different? The war in Afghanistan was lost because we spit our forces for the above mentioned war. Well you know what Bush and his mad men are gone. Yeah we screwed up but that doesn't mean we give up. For every Image of an Flag burning, there is a hundred people who were saved from ethic cleansing by America and it's Allies.

We can either cry over past mistakes pick up our ball and sell our army on ebay. Or pick ourselves up, man up and do the right thing.

See I told you they had oil over there. They planned the 911 so they could accuse the "terrorists". But really they wanted the oil!! So soldiers are dying out there so some old geezers could get rich. Now they are allowing the French to profit. Scumbags!!

Some of you people didn't think they had oil too.

Guys, it's pretty obvious now that behind the scenes there has been a lot of dickering around the issue that this popular uprising is a good chance to nail Gaddaffi.

We waited for the UN resolution to put the imprimatur of legality on the whole deal.

Warboss Narznok wrote:See I told you they had oil over there. They planned the 911 so they could accuse the "terrorists". But really they wanted the oil!! So soldiers are dying out there so some old geezers could get rich. Now they are allowing the French to profit. Scumbags!!

Some of you people didn't think they had oil too.

Never mind, all of you are brainwashed like the other 83% of the people in the US. All wanting to believe the people on the other side of the world are the enemy.

What is the likely hood of 15 year old foreign kids flying giant airplanes into the buildings and making their targets??

Lets say they aren't kids. They were full grown adults. Where did they receive the training to fly these giant airplanes??

Also this would probably be the first time in world history that fire has ever melted steel. It is not physically possible.These buildings are made to withstand hard impacts. It would take barrages upon barrages of planes to bring these building down. These building designers think about this before building it!!

Warboss Narznok wrote:Never mind, all of you are brainwashed like the other 83% of the people in the US. All wanting to believe the people on the other side of the world are the enemy.

What is the likely hood of 15 year old foreign kids flying giant airplanes into the buildings and making their targets??

Lets say they aren't kids. They were full grown adults. Where did they receive the training to fly these giant airplanes??

Also this would probably be the first time in world history that fire has ever melted steel. It is not physically possible.These buildings are made to withstand hard impacts. It would take barrages upon barrages of planes to bring these building down. These building designers think about this before building it!!

... ...Exactly how did we make the jump from military actions in Libya to 911 conspiracies??

sexiest_hero wrote:DO not compare Iraq or Afghanistan with this, it shows a great lack of knowledge of well, anything.

Lets take Iraq, Their country wasn't on the brink of civil war, Their leader wasn't killing civies

Good news for the Kurds then. They weren't fighting for independence and Saddam didn't use the WMDs sold to him by the Americans against them.

They were pretty stable, wern't asking for help

Neither are the Sunnis in Bahrain. oh wait....

and the world was against it

Means nothing. There are other regimes out there with worse track records.

It was a bad war based on lies.

And this isn't?

You see how this is different? The war in Afghanistan was lost because we spit our forces for the above mentioned war. Well you know what Bush and his mad men are gone. Yeah we screwed up but that doesn't mean we give up. For every Image of an Flag burning, there is a hundred people who were saved from ethic cleansing by America and it's Allies.

How to answer this? No this is not any different from any of the other wars. Afghanistan was never going to be won. The Colonial British tried, failed. Russia tried, failed. America/Britian/Allies tried, failed. Taliban tried, suceeded. The Afghans are so busy fighting each other the only time they stop is to fight whoever is invading them, our version of democracy will not work for them, and we do not have the ruthlesness of the Taliban regime to impose our will, because, at that point, democracy is a dictatorship. Ethnic cleansing has nothing to do with it, it's religeous.

We can either cry over past mistakes pick up our ball and sell our army on ebay.

Did you do the search on ebay for the Ark Royal or the Nimrods?

Or pick ourselves up, man up and do the right thing.

Unfortunately this isn't.

Cheers

Andrew

I think I have said enough

Just to humor the 'Truther'...

Warboss Narznok wrote:Never mind, all of you are brainwashed like the other 83% of the people in the US. All wanting to believe the people on the other side of the world are the enemy.

Yes. Because Americans consider Libya "The Enemy". Not a country that, while providing oil--is also in the midst of a civil war which was inspired by the populace demanding their dictator to step down.

Clearly, not the case at all!

What is the likelihood of 15 year old foreign kids flying giant airplanes into the buildings and making their targets??

So you're saying it was a teenage conspiracy? Blast! How'd you find out? Damn those WikiLeaks!
Most of the hijackers were in the 18-25 range if I'm remembering right.

Lets say they aren't kids. They were full grown adults. Where did they receive the training to fly these giant airplanes??

Same place anyone else does. Flight school.
As for your question of "and making their targets?": flying a plane on a steady course and aiming for two big honking buildings? It's really not that hard.
Ask any licensed pilot. Flying planes today isn't actually that difficult. It's landing them that's the hard part.

Also this would probably be the first time in world history that fire has ever melted steel. It is not physically possible.

...You do know what 'tempered steel' is, right?
And for that matter: it wasn't just "a fire". We're talking about a fire with a steady supply of air to feed the flames and jet fuel to burn.
The force of the impact shook loose a lot of the protections that the structure would have had for the supports, allowing the fire to work on just the steel structure.

These buildings are made to withstand hard impacts.

No, they're not.

It would take barrages upon barrages of planes to bring these building down.

No, it wouldn't.

These building designers think about this before building it!!

No, they don't. They take into consideration common things like maybe a small passenger craft like a Cessna impacting, but something the size of a 747 is supposed to be at a much higher altitude and the airspace around cities is pretty closed to air traffic of that size.
Simply put: it wouldn't happen, unless it was intentional--and that was unthinkable when the Twin Towers were built.



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Warboss Narznok wrote:I think I have said enough

Clearly. Do you need your tinfoil hat back? I hear Jesse Ventura needs a sidekick.

Saddam gassed the kurds years before. And yes his arms came from America. Russia was an ally of the US before too. Bin Ladin as well. Things change, belive it or not. Iraq was not unstable or had WMD, at the time of our attack.

Afghanistan was a war to catch and kill Bin Ladin. And was well on it's way till the Iraq war disaster. I know, I was there.

In closing if you can't see how this is different than ANYTHING that happened in Iraq, then there is a lack of recent history, on your part. That is not a slam please look up the lead up to the war and all the crazy things that went on like the "Mission accomplished banner.

Warboss Narznok wrote:I think I have said enough

I concur.