Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

allllllso, think the jury is somewhat out on whether the rebellion in egypt has succeeded yet.

xpost But it didn't start of as an armed rebellion - it was completely ad hoc, with protesters becoming fighters. I appreciate all the questions your posing but do you have answers to any of them? What do you think should happen when protesters pick up guns?

i think they shouldn't pick up guns. especially when it's perfectly clear they stand no chance.

I don't think it was perfectly clear at all - the early phase of the rebellion was very successful and there was a belief (wrong but not absurd) that Gaddafi's forces would abandon him, as had happened in Tunisia and Egypt.

civilian protesters were being shot in the streets and could reasonably have anticipated worse. you're saying they have bitten their tongue, said sorry, and promised never to protest again. im not sure gadaffi would have forgiven them.

should the libyan people just knuckle down and live under gadaffi? what is the next move there? they should have help from outside , and they shouldn't pick up a gun (they'll lose), and they shouldn't protest peacefully (they'll get shot), by your reckoning, so far as i can tell.

xpost

shoulN'T have help from outside

should the libyan people just knuckle down and live under gadaffi? what is the next move there?

i really don't know.

initiating an armed rebellion is one of the biggest things any political group can do, with the biggest consequences in terms of human misery and suffering and you'd better fucking know what you're doing. it seems the rebels (who i don't consider an identical category with "the protestors") didn't have a clue. would the suffering have been less if no one had picked up a gun? would other pressure have been brought to bear had the protests remained peaceful? we'll never know.

i just sort of have to boggle that we're throwing our lot in with people whose judgement has been like "gaddafi'll fold when he gets a load of our thirty toyotas"

Here's a question based on the current New Statesman cover and the general "why only Libya?" argument. Where among the following would someone who opposes the Libyan intervention be happy to see western military action?

Iran
Gaza
Sudan
Yemen
Bahrain
Ivory Coast
Zimbabwe
Burma
North Korea

i don't completely know. but i don't think that in these situations decisions are made rationally, or on the basis of very much knowledge. i've no doubt that some of the rebels are dangerous and the prospect of them carrying out reprisals is frightening. i don't think one does know what one's doing! in other 'successful' bloody revolutions of the past, i doubt they knew what they were in for: hundreds of thousands of people died in the french revolution.

so no-one knows, and the end result is still unknown. but i would say that the protests were made non-peaceful by gadaffi's forces shooting at them, on the whole. i guess he took a hard line because he thought there was risk of a real armed rebellion kicking off. that's life as a dictator.

xposts

Tracer, wouldn't you agree that a large group of people have the same right to self defence as a small group? i.e. when the early movement was under violent attack people were morally justified in taking up arms to protect themselves?

*small group or individual

xpost i have to say none. i just don't think the US has any credibility as an honest broker, especially in the middle east. i think any military step it takes in any of the countries mentioned will make things worse. i mean it sucks.

this episode - which i have every expectation will end badly, though i really hope not - kind of points up the contradictions of the westphalian concept of sovereignty. every nation is supposed to have a monopoly on the use of force inside its borders, which is contingent on the consent of its people. now we have a situation where "the international community" (i.e. the_global_north) can openly make an outside determination that this deal isn't being honored or conducted fairly. the contradiction (inherent in any treaty or war) is, from where does this determination happen? in what venue? in a country? outside all countries? when the very concept of rules depends on a state to enforce them, what do we make of rules that exist outside of any state? (EU countries have been thinking about this for some time, though there they've constructed a quasi-state or a super-state)

dowd sure they have the "right" to launch a quasi military campaign but they also have the responsibility to think it through.

ehh pretty sure 'the consent of its people' was not at the forefront of european rulers' minds when the treaty of westphalia was signed.

gadaffi sure as hell lacks it. but yes i agree, the concept of international law is pretty much horseshit. who enforces it? who writes it? im kind of hobbesian on this point.

i don't think the initial resort to arms was 'launching quasi military campaign' btw. i think it was to fend of armed assaults by gadaffi's forces on unarmed protesters.

ehh pretty sure 'the consent of its people' was not at the forefront of european rulers' minds when the treaty of westphalia was signed.

eeeeeeeeeeiouhhhh no but the concept of sovereignty now includes that. even the worst dictator claims his people love him.

well, yes, but the_west/the_global_north/the imperialist running dogs of the so-called free world can point out that it's bullshit. and i think in some cases rational people can agree! there's no impartial, neutral, honest broker out there, who can say with complete disinterest, gadaffi has to go. but im not sure what you're saying here. we should continue to uphold the westphalian concept of sovereignty? or the surely contradictory ideal of the UN? or what?

oh i'm not making any argument at all about that. we're stuck with the concept of sovereignty for awhile i think. it's just unavoidable thinking about this stuff in a situation like this.

It has to be said, this thread is the only place I can find to discuss this stuff reasonably. Comment Is Free is full of Imperialism! Neocons! Links to Prison Planet!

Comment is free could do with a special 'green type' setting.

Fears that providing arms would pull the United States into a civil war, as well as concerns that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda, have spawned fierce debate

NY Times article quotes CIA guy saying he/we have no idea whether Al Queda are 2 % or 80% of the rebel force. No surprise that the CIA is not knowledgeable. Neither Juan Cole nor "Tracer Hand" quoted on the question!

France wants the US to arm the rebels. I guess they don't have the military hardware that the US does.

No expert here, but I'm going to say arming the rebels has an even greater chance of biting us on the ass than bombing Qadddafi's forces does.

Find it ruefully funny that anyone would posit the rebels were ever doing well, or ever had any real inertia. Yeah, they did well ... until Qaddafi fought back. And then they did terribly ... until we bombed Qaddafi. It's like hovering by a teetering toddler learning to walk, then lurching forward to catch him every time he tips over head-first.

pretty much agree. even on a practical level i don't get how you 'arm' people who have no idea how to fight. modern weapons are p sophisticated. bad show.

Heard an analysis on the radio that even if we (someone) supplied them RPGs, we'd still need to train them. Because after all those years in Iraq and Afghanistan, we've had such a resounding success rate training people to use these weapons. Which will inevitably be sold, stolen or passed off to someone else who will similarly inevitably point them back in our direction.

So if dictators use force against protestors you folks are basically saying protestors can never suceeed because invariably, if they need weapons they will not likely be trained already, and we can't take a chance in trying to give them weapons because such methods have failed in the past. Ugh. Logical and depressing. Maybe I can find a quote from the French(!) arguing a contrary position re providing weapons!

I think this was once discussed previously upthread, but I think under Tracer's Rules of Protest, the American Revolution would never have happened or been viewed as legitimate.

Oh, and I do wish Obama had gone early to Congress for the same authorization the UN gave even though I have read views on both sides of the constitutional argument that seemed convincing.

It's like hovering by a teetering toddler learning to walk, then lurching forward to catch him every time he tips over head-first.

Naive me wants the US to do this with the Libyans.

Maybe I can find a quote from the French(!) arguing a contrary position re providing weapons!

let's... not get into the irony there

fwiw im pretty much in favour of intervention, but i think it's imperative to ask who we'd be giving weapons to and what they'd do with them

ha, that was my position last week! A large part of my skepticism (which you mocked) rested in my ignorance about who The Rebels are. We're getting a better idea now.

curmudgeon your post reads like you're trying to extrapolate grand rules that can govern this and all future (and past!) situations. or you think that's what i'm doing. i'm not, and i doubt such a set of rules would be useful or realistic even if they could be drawn up.

Oh, I thought you were trying to come up with such rules.

So in this other NY Times article it says that Q pays his military officers well and relies on close relatives but:

And within the cities, Mr. Li argued, even a few tanks or other heavy weapons would allow Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to hold off the rebels and elude Western airstrikes. “A deadlock,” Mr. Li called it.

The wild card is the divided loyalties of the tribes who dominate the military’s upper echelons.

Although Colonel Qaddafi has surrounded himself with guards drawn from his own tribe and those close to it, a coup would not be unexpected.

A 1986 disagreement between Colonel Qaddafi and a cousin from the Qaddafa tribe who had been a top military commander ended when the cousin’s body was left at the gates of Colonel Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli.

the way tracer is arguing itt is turning me into hillary clinton.

pant suit on standby

http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110324&t=2&i=370587607&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=700&pl=390&r=2011-03-24T212528Z_01_GM1E73H082301_RTRRPP_0_LIBYA

the way tracer is arguing itt is turning me into hillary clinton.

Ya rly

how am i arguin, idgi

several posts in a row questioning not only the efficacy (fair enough) but the legitimacy of armed resistance against Qdf -- plus a really weird statement that we couldn't/shouldn't judge them at the time, but now that american planes are over the country, we can say that that anti-regime dudes should have just stayed indoors anyway. and nothing at all about the legitimacy of Qdf's violence against the protesters. whatever conclusions you can make about the situation, Qdf is the first actor here. he shot first and he's still shooting most.

i really don't get your whole orientation. either intervention in libya will work or it won't, but second-guessing the moral basis of the uprising is really rubbing me the wrong way

yeah me too

like there's this weird subtext of somehow painting the rebels as the aggressors/in the wrong, you're giving the impression that you think they should have just continued peacefully protesting until Qudhaffy shot, tortured, imprisoned, "disappeared" all of them. because that would have been the "right" thing to do. How that is any less offensive/patronizing/morally invalid than Western intervention is kinda beyond me.

goole do you really need to hear me say that shooting and killing peaceful protestors is reprehensible??

i'm not sure where i questioned the legitimacy of the armed uprising. i don't know what that means, actually - moral legitimacy? legal legitimacy? at any rate, i didn't mean to imply that the rebels were "illegitimate" by choosing to fight gaddafi militarily.

initiating an armed rebellion is one of the biggest things any political group can do, with the biggest consequences in terms of human misery and suffering and you'd better fucking know what you're doing. i

^^^this is not how these things happen in real-time. there is no centralized decision-making process, no time for long-term strategizing or cost-benefit analysis. it's more like "holy shit they're shooting everybody! what am I gonna do! hey those guys over there have some molotov cocktails, I'm going with them"

like even categorizing them as a political group is just wrong.

initiating an armed rebellion is one of the biggest things any political group can do, with the biggest consequences in terms of human misery and suffering and you'd better fucking know what you're doing. it seems the rebels (who i don't consider an identical category with "the protestors") didn't have a clue. would the suffering have been less if no one had picked up a gun? would other pressure have been brought to bear had the protests remained peaceful? we'll never know.

tracer this whole paragraph is very "who is the real war criminal? well never know!"

no it's not

if it were, that's what i would have written

The difference between Egypt and Libya in this respect is that, while Mubarak had thugs, the bulk of the military in a passive coup refused to fire on the ppl while they demonstrated and dismantled the police force. Qaddafi and his military, otoh, have never flinched from using gunfire, including aerial gunfire, and beatings, arrest and torture to repress the demonstations. It's worth noting that many of the insurgents are ex-military who decided against propping up the regime.

would other pressure have been brought to bear had the protests remained peaceful?

In other words, I assert that the primary responsibility for the protests not remaining peaceful was Qadaffi's.

Uh, Tracer you said:

i think they shouldn't pick up guns. especially when it's perfectly clear they stand no chance.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Plus countless other postings repeatedly critiquing these rebels and how apparently despite the facts showing Q shooting at protestors, you seem to think rebelling with weapons was wrong. That's why I said "Tracer's Rules of Protest"

guys i apologise i must be even more unclear than usual.

primary responsibility for the protests not remaining peaceful was Qadaffi's

obviously. i'm talking about AFTER this, when rebels decided to mobilize technicals, tanks and militias.

i think they shouldn't pick up guns. especially when it's perfectly clear they stand no chance.

this isn't questioning the legitimacy of organized violence against the gaddafi regime. it's questioning whether it will work. it's also questioning whether such a move would lead to MORE death, displacement and suffering than a different move (or no move).

with the biggest consequences in terms of human misery and suffering and you'd better fucking know what you're doing.

The American revolution almost failed. The French revolution can be said to have failed (or to have essentially taken the better part of a century to 'take'). The Russian revolutions can be said to have failed and you could certainly say that of the Iranian revolution, too. None of that changes the fact that the very nature of the start of the revolt in Tunisia and its spread elsewhere is that disparate people of all stripes without much forethought or strategy simply were more willing to endure the the threat of violence from their regimes than to continue to bow down and remain silent.

well to be fair, the initial phase (forgetting the dates here) of the armed part of the rebellion looked to be going pretty well too! key oil towns fell, Qdf's hold on the country looked like it was down to his 'base' support areas. it was not 'perfectly clear' they stood no chance, when they started, or even a week or so into the effort.

the_west's hands-off approach looked to be a win-win at the time. but Qdf managed to re-organize and rally, and with better equipment and trained soldiers swept back the rebellion very quickly.

Plus Al-Qaeda's LSD strategy didn't work as well as planned.