Torpedos Over Tripoli

BTW, Turkey's not going to seriously stand in the way. It wants EU membership too badly to go picking a fight with France and Britain.

 

So much for The French running this mission. I guess the Brits or Arab League did not get the memo. A few choice quotes from today's NYT:

"In London, Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament that the intention is to turn over command for the international force implementing a no-fly zone to NATO. “Let me explain how the coalition will work — it’s operating under U.S. command with the intention that this will transfer to NATO,” Mr. Cameron said.


Mr. Juppé said that “today the United States is coordinating the interventions in close coordination with France and Britain. "

 

NATO control is tantamount to U.S. control. NATO's command is traditionally a U.S. officer who is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50110.htm

 

First aircraft crash of the operation ... a U.S. F-15.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/22/f15-fighter-crash-libya

Fortunately, both airmen ejected safely and have been rescued.

 

So, who was the first to predict a potential "quagmire" in Libya?

Was it the Toronto Star:

Libya: Another quagmire beckons.

http://thestar.blogs.com/davidolive/2011/03/libya-another-quagmire-beckons.html

 

To reiterate, I think Obama was right to have our troops participate in military action to prevent a slaughter in Benghazi.

But, I think he blew it by not acting sooner. The rebels had momentum a week or so earlier. They held most of the country and more and more people and troops were defecting to their side.

The delay allowed Gaddafi to shift the momentum leaving the rebels holding little more than Benghazi.

The NFZ can lock in the status quo, but it doesn't look like Ghaddafi is going anywhere and the rebels don't seem organized enough to mount a military attack on Tripoli.

Ghaddafi has enough cash on hand to ride out sanctions and he's proven that he is able to in the past. Absent a strike by us that takes him out (and our military says we are not targeting him and that that is not part of their mission) or an assassination (unlikely), things won't change much.

The rebels seem content to have a liberated Benghazi.

And, since a liberated Benghazi is contingent on a NFZ, I don't see this ending any time soon.

As the crash of the F-15 demonstrated, there are risks involved with a NFZ. And, a rescue operation necessitates boots on the ground -- even if temporarily.

Will we support a prolonged NFZ just to ensure a status quo? Will France & Britain?

We had to sustain a NFZ over Iraq for years to ensure the safety of Kurdish Iraq. This is looking much more like what's going to have to happen here.

And, let's be clear, we're going to have to play a major role in any sustained NFZ, either directly or through our central role in NATO.

And, I'm not sure how Qatar or any other Arab nation will be able to participate in a NFZ. It won't be easy to incorporate a country that doesn't train with us on a regular basis.

 

I am the king of Boggle, there is none higher. I get 11 points off the word quagmire.

 

I was just in a cab and subjected, via talk radio, to some dude saying we're gonna get teh terrorisses attacking us because we bombed Libya, and that Obama was a socialist. It gets tired after a while.

 

My guess, and it's only a guess. Is that the next stage of this event will be targeting of "command and control" facilities with commanders inside of them to convince said commanders they are backing the wrong horse. Qaddafi may have human shields, but I bet a lot of his officers don't. The simplest resolution remains the army changing sides through the traditional means of assassinating those in charge.

 

Was the cabbie from Tunisia, Haiti or Algeria?