Libyan No-Fly Zone res. passed by UN

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Oberon

You'd be surprised. The freeware unit tracking doesn't work with most military jets, and the B-2s are using Tanker unit callsigns to disguise their movements from people listening into the ATC.

The guys who are monitoring the ATC are actually in some cases helping the Americans, for example this:

Duly noted.

[TLAM Strike]

Photos of the SSM site at Boussetta 6 miles from Tripoli:






And words can't begin to describe how awesome this guy is...

He has a brass flare gun, a fez, a brown coat, handcuffs, a grenade, and some kind of rifle with a bayonet.

[tater]

That looks like a "modern" bayonet, so probably an AK (the likely older weapons are probably bolt action rifles, or maybe Hakims—but I think the hakim has a mauser or enfield-like bayonet only shorter).

[Molon Labe]

Where do you get these awesome photos?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Where do you get these awesome photos?

http://militaryphotos.net/
the best intelligence site on the net!

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

http://militaryphotos.net/
the best intelligence site on the net!

Yes... very cool site...

[Freiwillige]

Who are the rebels?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenv...-to-figure-out

The part I like the best is where they admit they tell the rebels what to say so as to sell themselves to the west.

[SubV]

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Foreign forces leading an assault against his government will lose and end up in the dustbin of history, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Tuesday as he vowed to continue fighting. "We will not surrender ... We will defeat them by any means," Gaddafi said in brief remarks in the capital Tripoli broadcast live on television. "We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one."
"We will be victorious in the end."
Foreign reporters in Tripoli were told the Libyan leader spoke at his Tripoli compound and was addressing supporters forming a human shield to protect him.
"I am staying here, my home is here, I am staying in my tent," he told his supporters who waved green flags. "I am here, I am here, I am here."
The speech was followed by fireworks in the Libyan capital. Crowds could be heard cheering and shooting into the air in the city center.
"There are demonstrations everywhere against this unjustified assault, which breaches the United Nations' charter," Gaddafi said of the international attacks. "This assault ... is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110322/...gaddafi_speech

BERLIN - Germany is withdrawing ships and air crews in the Mediterranean Sea from various long-running NATO operations following the military alliance's decision to enforce a U.N. arms embargo on Libya. Berlin isn't participating in the operation to impose a no-fly zone in Libya and abstained on the U.N. resolution authorizing it.
Because of the risk of getting drawn in, the Defence Ministry said Tuesday Germany was putting two ships and two smaller boats with a total of some 550 sailors in the Mediterranean back under national command.
It also is pulling out between 60 and 70 German airmen from NATO AWACS surveillance aircraft involved in Operation Active Endeavor, in which the alliance monitors and escorts shipping across the Mediterranean to deter terrorist activity.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/germany-wit...44253-183.html

I guess the Germans don't want to be accused in fascism this time...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

One can ask if economic sanctions against a regime make sense if the leader of that regime is siad to have put 30 billion Euros, 140 tons of gold aside.


But what pisses me big time again is that when NATO finally said that it wants to enforce a naval blockade against weapon deliveries via ship, the germ,an government - apparently in great haste - immediately announced that it gave orders that the two German frigates and two German fast attack boats currently operating in the Med as part of the the standing NATO naval force there, are to return and are no longer under NATO command.

Great going, my dear Mrs Merkel.


I think this - at the latest - was it with the Berliner bigmouths' dream of getting Germany a permanent seat in the security council. If this gremium serves the idealistic purpose that it claims for itself, can be argued - but assessing it by the idealistic claims, Germany indeed has no business in the SC indeed.


I would like to see the other NATO countries simply ignoring Germany in the coming years, and NATO not picking up the new offer of Germany to send AWACS personell to Afghanistan instead. Let Berlin feel how Germany is being perceived.

Former foreign minister Joschka Fischer, a Green, who once let Rumsfeld run against a wall over the Iraq war when telling him that Rumsfeld did not convince him, has stripped foreign ministre Guido Westerwave and the German govenment of all feathers. There is little that unites me with Fischer, but like he was right back then to confront the Americans, he again is right today when attacking and sinking the German government.


That the German government still speaks of unity and how very much it is supporting it's allied "friends" and how very much the other nations understand the Germans (once again...), is simply shabby, and a lie tailored to deceive the German people in the main.


I would wish the the next election(s) to explode into the face of the CDU, unfortunately, the alternative of the SPD, the Greens or Die Linke forming the next government, is not any better. Maybe they would do better regarding this single issue now - but onlöy at the cost of messing up many others.

I must admit I'd be feeling a tad annoyed if I were a German right at this moment.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I must admit I'd be feeling a tad annoyed if I were a German right at this moment.

That must be the world-famous British tendency for polite understatement.

[Freiwillige]

Germany, If England and France jumped off a bridge would you follow?

Like drugs, Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't make it cool.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Germany, If England and France jumped off a bridge would you follow?

Like drugs, Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't make it cool.

Germany did not follow the madness in 2003, and right it was. It allowed to get needlessly pulled into the Afghan swamp, however. But in 2011, I think it should have been one of the forerunners amongst Europeans to lead a more aggressive policy against Lybia, and much earlier then just one week ago, because it is in our best European interest that the rebels remain a chance to kill the Gaddafi regime and -clan. I again refer to the activities of Gazproim in Lybia, and it'S attempt to eliminate the European effort to become less depending on Russian gas via Eastern pipelines. (This is also the main reason why Putin is so upset about the airstrikes, he sees his Gazprom strategy - to freeze Europe in a potentially vulnerable and depending position that leaves it prone to blackmailing - in danger).

Both situations do not compare. But still they have something in common.

Schroeder back then, maybe different from Fischer, acted on behalf of calulations aimed at the appreciation by the wide public; Schroeder - different to Fischer - has not had any idealistic reasoning, he was and is the born opportunist.

Merkel today also aimed at the wide German public's opinion. But she probabaly miscalculated it - a majority on the street, in parliament, amongst parties, and maybe even inside her own coalition and party, is against this German policy.

Westerwelle takes nothing but fire over his incompetence over here. He is easily the biggest disaster of a foreign minister Germany has ever had, not just because of this story now, but a long display of naivety and incompetence and bigmouthed attitude nevertheless. He simply does not know his stuff, and has zero linkage to the realities in his ressort.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Germany, If England and France jumped off a bridge would you follow?

Like drugs, Just because everybody else is doing it doesn't make it cool.

It's very easy to fall back on the 19th century notion that one State should not interfere in the internal affairs of another to justify doing nothing and letting Khadafi massacre his own people.

But in the 21st century, where everyone is wired in to everyone else on earth and we all know in real time what is happening, you can't on the one hand encourage democratic reforms and aspirations and on the other, just stand by on the sidelines when the whole thing goes south and say "well, it's really none of our business" or "well, the replacement will probably be worse".

We have had many situations in the past, Irak 1991, Rwanda, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Sudan, where long afterwards, people have said that they should have done something.

Well the time is now and the place is Libya: Do you let Khadafi reconquer the whole of Libya and put to death ten of thousands of opponents or do you say, enough is enough, we are not going to stand by and let another tinpot dictator get away with murder.

Khadafi has got to go!

We'll worry about the replacement when he's gone.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Germany did not follow the madness in 2003

Madness is only a point of view, many, many people saw it as necessary. And that is all I will say about that.

Considered that the world famous Texan habit of biting down hard on ones tongue.

[Freiwillige]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

It's very easy to fall back on the 19th century notion that one State should not interfere in the internal affairs of another to justify doing nothing and letting Khadafi massacre his own people.

But in the 21st century, where everyone is wired in to everyone else on earth and we all know in real time what is happening, you can't on the one hand encourage democratic reforms and aspirations and on the other, just stand by on the sidelines when the whole thing goes south and say "well, it's really none of our business" or "well, the replacement will probably be worse".

We have had many situations in the past, Irak 1991, Rwanda, Bosnia, Ethiopia, Sudan, where long afterwards, people have said that they should have done something.

Well the time is now and the place is Libya: Do you let Khadafi reconquer the whole of Libya and put to death ten of thousands of opponents or do you say, enough is enough, we are not going to stand by and let another tinpot dictator get away with murder.

Khadafi has got to go!

We'll worry about the replacement when he's gone.

The problem I have with this whole ordeal is it is not based on fact but on pure speculation and conjecture. Proof of mass slayings has not surfaced, In fact the opposite has. People are dying in this civil war but massive civilian targeting is not. I have followed this thing quite closely and it appears that the majority of death's are Rebels who are armed and in a civil war or Ghadaffi's forces. Everything else reaks of propaganda. And the same arguments for this conflict sound familiar to arguments for our recent conflicts.

Now if they actually showed proof of execution squads etc I might be more apt to agree with the current direction but the Facts point out differently, Ghadaffi's forces have actually shown great restraint even before our attack surounding cities and attacking rebel positions instead of indescrimanatly marching over the civilian population. I haven't even seen evidance that his air force attacked and bombed anybody but rebel positions.

There are people loyal to both sides and causes and that is what makes it a civil war and an insurrection. It isn't ghadaffi vs the people of Libya its half of Libya vs the other half.