Libya, Will Gaddafi prevail?
 

For a moment I thought the rebels might have a shot at ousting Gaddafi, now I'm not so sure. I think they are well and truly hosed.

France is so far the only nation to step to the plate and acknowledge the Rebels legitimacy. Everyone else seems to be doing a lot of hand wringing and wait and see.

The French seem to like demonstrations and revolutions, they certainly pitched in when it came to ours.

It would have been a miracle for the rebels to be successful without major parts of the army defecting. Posted previously was a very important point that all should have understood. The difference between Egypt and Libya. Egyptian army had been educated by or was informed of western principles that have been standard in the US since sometime well after 1920. Libyan army has been trained in the extremist rhetoric promoted by their 40 year glorious leader. They have no concept that an army serves it people. Under Kaddafi training, the people are something that must be kept caged like wild animals in the zoo. Libyans army is trained to think like a Medieval army that only serves it king.

Same is part of recent Latin American history. Only the army was 'smart enough' to know what is good for the people. Need we cite Chile, Argentina, or most of Central America as classic examples?

Without the army, that rebellion was at risk.

2) A guerilla war means people can hide. Ambush. Do what the American colonists did to the British Army. What Vietnamese did to the French. But Libyans have a geography that is ideal only for tanks and planes. The rebels have no such equipment.

3) Worse, rebel troops want to run to the fight like firemen did in the WTC. Like British rebels did to attack a massively smaller Roman Legion only to have maybe one million massacred. These rebel soldiers have no idea of discipline or strategy. Apparently have few if any leaders who can properly lead them.

4) Kaddafi's son is wise. He let the rebels extend themselves foolishly until ambushed just outside of Sirt. Surrounded and devastated the people of Missaru (just east of Tripoli). And literally took apart rebel cities in the west only when ready. These massacres may have been grizzly. He waited for his tanks and munitions to be ready. Used desert in a 'rope a dope' strategy.

5) No nation can move in until the most responsible neighbors decide what is best. Responsibility falls firstmost on Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan. If they do not call for international intervention, then nobody has any right to intervene. Even if it does become a bloodbath. Welcome to hard reality. Only other honest way for international intervention is a full approval by the UN Security Council or General Assembly. And that will not happen.

6) Damning weeks ago were conversations heard between rebel Generals and their political leaders for more supplies. Political leaders were so concerned about Kaddafi’s so successful propaganda as to not even beg for massive military aid. (ie a British diplomat and 8 SAS soldiers 'captured' and sent home because they would feed into Kaddafi’s propaganda). So they doomed themselves.

Conclusion: the only question is whether the rebels can last long enough to finally learn basic military concepts. Until they do, they will not succeed. And since the world so much needs Libyan oil (thank you Chevy and its crap Camaro as one example), welcome to a deal with the devil.

hey don't forget ford and their mustang.

you make some good points but fuck bro....look at what you're saying

will kadafi prevail? no he wont. period. hell i;ll offer to off him if need be. i;d do it out of general principal. why? he;s a jackass. and if you disagree then step in line after him. i;ll squash you too.

I hate it, but that's about what I came here to say, too.

I read years ago the point that revolutions only succeed if a large proportion of the security forces - army, police, etc - will support it, or at least refuse to fight it, as happened in Egypt. KQGadddafffi has enough loyal troops, plus foreign mercenaries, to do the job.

Option A: Suppose we (the rest of the world) impose a no-fly zone. Then what? Gadafi still has tanks, artillery, logistics, and crucially command and control structures, troops that have trained to act together. The rebels have toyotas with machine guns on them, belief in their cause, and knowledge that they will get no mercy if they surrender or are defeated. This isn't even a fair fight. A no fly zone would merely slow the inevitable.

Option B - A no-fly zone, plus air strikes on the Libyan army. Done heavily enough, it would equalise the terms of combat, and maybe scare a lot of the mercs into going home. Then what? A protracted civil war? Whoopee. Add to that the collateral damage our airstrikes would do, the propaganda card this would hand gadafi, the friendly fire losses... Gadafi has the logistics and command structures to win, and as TW points out, the terrrain isn't too suitable for guerilla tactics.

Option C: Full scale intervention with air and ground forces. See option B, with more casualties. Replay Iraq at best, Afghanistan or Somalia at worst. Hands up who wants to do that? Now check your wallet. Still keen?

I'm tring to come up with an option D. We buy off Gadafi's mercenaries - having choked off G's supllies of cash, give money to the rebels, they can buy the Merc's services. It has happened before. Meanwhile, seditious propaganda among the regular Libyan military encourages them to defect, and discretely supplied weapons help the rebels hold their own on the battlefield.
I don't see it working. Gadafi has a Stalinesque grip on his army. The mercs are good for dirty work like killing civilians, but not that important in battle. And all this would take time, which the rebels don't have.


What really pisses me off is that this will break the momentum of the Arab revolt, which can only be sustained by popular belief that they will win. All the other Middle-eastern tyrants must be secretly very pleased by Gadafi's victories, so I expect tehy will oppose any foreign 'meddling'. The message is getting through - try a revolution, you get massacred.

Welcome to another decade or two of repression.

Fuck it, I hope I'm wrong. :(

Plthijinx ... feel free, but you'll have to take out his sons (plenty of them) and several hundred other wannabe tyrants too. And their body guards.

Better take Chuck Norris with you.

i respect you. you know this. now this.....libya needs to be taught a lesson that it forgot over 10 years ago. 2 percent of the oil? fuck em. go in and rape their ass. and at the same time why not drill more here? not gonna happen, why? because too many people think that we should not tap our recourses. hmmf. 5 dollar a gallon gas prices are in the near future. they already are in avgas.

libya forgot about being bombed before.

We - well, you guys, technically - bombed them in I think 1986.

It didn't work. Gadafi lived and stayed in power, and replied with the Lockerbie bombing.

What was the lesson again?

I like your motivations and agree with your desired outcomes, but this shouldn't be decided by emotion, but thought through so we can at least visualise some path to success before we start.

Tell me the story, that starts from where we are now, and progresses by plausible stages to a satisfactory outcome. Please.

lolwut? Horrid comparison there dude.

The purpose was not to defeat him militarily. Air power cannot create any military victory. The attack very successfully changed his international agenda from overt terrorism to trying to becoming an African power broker. At least that was his attempt.

Subpoint - notice how ineffective carriers were to a nation whose infrastructure and most all population were exposed on the coast. Most of the attack had to be launched from Britain using one of America's worst planes, the F-111. Carrier's mostly performed protection for those F-111s. This paragraph is about what everyone should have known even that long ago. Carriers are not a massive weapons. Are mostly hyped by myths to be feared.

Air power cannot defeat anyone. The Libyan attack is best considered a diplomatic foray. It successfully changed his political aspirations. Nothing more. It was a powerful diplomatic message. Nothing more should have been expected from those attacks.

I will never speak politically correct at the expense of honesty.

Emotion only appears after all conclusions are done. Then I ask how I feel about it. Well, I feel I do not like what I posted. Not for one minute. But I also understand how trivial (irrelevant) those lives are because of the situation they are all in. My feelings also say that grizzly conclusion is necessary.

BTW, anyone who does not like what I posted should be posting four letter descriptions of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Chad, Sudan, and the Arab League. That is where any international response should be coming from. Like most European nations during the Balkans, those nations should be embarrassed. But they aren't. Many of those government are / were just as guilty.

If you have any anger, that is where most of it should be directed. And also with the pathetic European response in Bosnia until Clinton kicked them in the ass. If any Europeans are insulted, I still do not care. Honesty based in hard facts that say why always trumps emotions.

Like I said, I do not like it. But a grizzly massacre may be necessary if something extraordinary is not initiated by the governments, institutions, and rebel leaders most responsible.

Yes. But again, that and the resulting chaos was a reality. A contempt for how fire fighters should operate remains a reality during 11 September. Combined with another adversarial police vs fire department relationship. I can appreciate what fire fighters did due to their emotions. But discipline must always trump emotions. Same problem exists with rebel soldiers. One reason why so many did and will die.

That is affects your emotions should be irrelevant. I posted that to make the point - bluntly. Including the part about how decisions combined with any emotion can only make situations (and death rates) worse.

We are discussing war no different then 11 Sept. Welcome to how the ruthless are so successful. And, BTW, notice how someone so ‘liberal’ (according to UG) is instead so brutally honest. How this nation's response to Libya must be; so that extremist rhetoric does not do more harm.

Provided were five points why a grizzly massacre might occur all over Libya.

With all the media focused on the earthquake in Japan, it might be a very bad couple days for the rebels in Libya...