Enforcing UN Resolution 1973 in Libya - Which military strategies will be used?

Update: Press conference is already over. Just lasted a few minutes.

It’s already gone beyond reconnaissance. French fighter jets over Benghazi are engaging Gaddafi’s troops bombing tanks and artillery positions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12776418

My faith in the power of the UN has been restored. Most important, the AU and Arab League leaders who participated in the Paris talks are behind this. The new generation of Arabs will no longer feel being let down by Western societies. Dictators now know the world will stop them once they start mass murder.

This is big.

But it’s a dangerous mission and we should be grateful to the soldiers who are risking their lives to save innocent Libyan civilians.

Very scary. I hope this will end soon, but I must admit, I feel pessimistic about a quick resolution.

My sense is that the strategy is basically to keep Qadaffi’s armored divisions away from rebel-held cities. To be fair, if tanks rolled into Benghazi, there probably would be a lot of civilian deaths.

McMullen (US general) has said the endgame is not to remove Qadaffi, but to protect civilians. While this strikes me as a little hollow since airstrikes kill a huge number of civilians, this could be achieved as long as heavy military hardware is physically separated between Qadaffi’s forces and hte rebels.

I imagine (hope, at least) that a major part of this strategy is to inspire a palace coup.

What’s got the French up in arms all of a sudden?

There seems to be a lot of confusion whether the allied forces are after Gaddafi or not. My understanding is, they are not. One of Gaddafi’s residences is close to one of the main military command centers which was hit. The Arab League’s reaction is disappointing. They demanded the no-fly zone and now seem startled because this also means taking out targets on the ground. Everyone knew this.

Sarkozy seems to be embarrassed about his own ties with Gaddafi. He also wants to send a clear signal to French voters as a defender of human rights.

Yeah the Arab League guy’s reaction seems pretty damn stupid to me. Gates spent all of last month loudly saying “You guys do realize that a no flight zone means bombing the hell out of Libya, right?”

Putin said the UN resolution resembles calls for crusades. This is nonsense. Besides, why didn’t Russia veto it? Well, Putin is a bit of a moron sometimes.

Gaddafi is a complete lunatic and dangerous crook. He announces cease fires which never happen. He announces shooting down passenger airplanes over the Mediterranean. We should really hope that the Libyan revolution is successful. Libyans have to remove him. The UN should stick to enforcing the no-fly zones and attack Gaddafi troops on the ground as long as these troops keep killing civilians.

I wonder how Gaddifi might use his Scud rockets. He might aim for Sicily. In this case it would be an attack on a NATO country. And NATO would legally be in a position to take him out.

It’s interesting that Medvedev has apparently stood up to Putin.

After Mr. Putin’s remarks, in which he also said the U.N. resolution was “defective,” were broadcast on Russian state television, Mr. Medvedev explained that his government had not used its veto in the Security Council, “for one reason: I do not consider this resolution to be wrong.” He added: “Moreover, I believe that this resolution generally reflects our understanding of what is going on in Libya,” RIA Novosti reported.

Interfax, Russia’s official news agency, reported that Mr. Medvedev appeared to take issue with Mr. Putin’s comparison of the international action in Libya to the crusades, telling reporters: “The use of expressions like ‘crusades’ and so on, which may actually lead to a clash of civilizations is unacceptable, is unacceptable. Otherwise, the end might be far worse than what is happening now.”

I don’t think Qaddafi is a “complete” lunatic, however.

Very interesting indeed.

Alright, completely unpredictable lunatic might be a better characterization of Gaddafi.

I think Qadaffi (yes I’m going with the Q spelling, it looks cooler) often sounds crazier than he is because of his rhetoric—more precisely, because his megalomania and lack of any criticism over a 40 year period has led him to speak whatever he is thinking without reflection or self-censorship.

But his rhetoric doesn’t strike me as all that more crazy-sounding than what you’d read in the Quran. The Quran is also this rambling, incoherent mess filled with bloody threats and bizarre claims. I’m told it sounds much better in Arabic than in English; perhaps the same is true with Qaddafi’s speeches.

Now, Qaddafi has made some insane-sounding claims (al-Qaeda drugging youths that sparked the revolt; the nonexistent ceasefire, no civilians killed by his forces). Does he actually believe this? I seriously doubt it. Making these claims probably seemed like a wily strategy to a man who doesn’t seem to have internalized the existence of the Internet or bodies of information and fact-checking independent of his personality cult.

Likewise, Qadaffi’s military actions are not remotely insane. He responded to a rebellion the same way any national military power would. He seems to have killed a lot of civilians, but so did Americans when we were putting down a rebellion against our illegitimate rule in Fallujah.

My impression is this: I don’t think Qadaffi realizes how fucked he is. The same thing applied to Mubarak. I don’t think he realizes that his people aren’t buying his bullshit anymore. If and when this sinks in, his behavior might change, for better or worse.

I asked a coworker who follows the financial news and he gave me a quite plausible answer. It’s three magic words: light, sweet crude.

A year ago Gaddafi called for jihad against Switzerland, because his son was arrested there. Now if this isn’t crazy I don’t know what is. He also urged the UN to abolish Switzerland and divide it between Germany, France and Italy. He accused Bulgarian nurses conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998. Initially he blamed the CIA or Mossad for plotting to carry out a deadly experiment on the Libyan children. The list of his crazy acts is actually a lot longer. Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Scotland, was a bombing ordered by Gaddafi, according to a former Libyan justice minister.

Gaddafi or Qaddafi. He’s a felon. I hope he will be caught by Libyan revolutionary forces and tried in The Hague.