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Jamsque posted:This precise situation, where no one country has the mandate to interfere in the internal affairs of another, but the international community as a whole does, is what the UN Security Council is supposed to be for. Good thing they haven't even met about Libya yet. They won't meet before communications through back channels have the council come to a decision on what to do or not do.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:32
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According to local news the Austrian airplane was now able to leave towards Malta, in case you wondered. http://diepresse.com/home/politik/a...&selChannel=103 E: According to the above, an Austrian eyewitness saw African mercenaries shooting at people indiscriminately, and a friend of his supposedly videotaped people being executed via headshots. SirViver fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 23:32
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Why does Gaddafi still call himself "colonel" anyway? Wouldn't he have taken the rank of general or whatever when he took over the country?
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Feb 21, 2011 23:33
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Nenonen posted:Gaddafi really is batshit crazy. There was a news some time ago of him deciding to dismantle the Libyan central government completely, leaving only regional governments. Gaddafi should be a tea party idol. If you want to see just how batshit his whole ideology is, flip through his Green Book. It's as crazy in the original Arabic as it is in the English translation. Edit: Why is he still a colonel? It's because Gaddafi is humble. So humble, in fact, that he doesn't even run the country, technically. He's merely the Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:33
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Priapist posted:They couldn't. They just don't have the military capability to project power on short notice that far from home. Nor do the EU powers on their own - even nearby countries like Italy. Only the U.S. has the ability to maintain sustained operations required to take and retain control of Libyan airspace should the U.N. call for a no-fly zone. That would involve carrier air, aerial refueling, and AWACS. I am pretty sure the European countries can reach and control airspace on their border. At least they had no trouble reaching Serbia. Awacs I think they have and carriers they don't need. That the airforces should be sufficient to deal with any air threat in Lybia. So yes, the EU certainly could intervene. But will they? Should they? I dunno.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:33
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Samurai Sanders posted:Why does Gaddafi still call himself "colonel" anyway? Wouldn't he have taken the rank of general or whatever when he took over the country? Colonel as highest ranking officer Some military forces have a colonel as their highest ranking officer, with no 'general' ranks, and no superior authority (except, perhaps, the head of state as a titular commander-in-chief) other than the respective national government. Examples include the following (arranged alphabetically by country name): * Antigua and Barbuda (170 personnel) * Benin (4,500 personnel) * Costa Rica (about 8,000 personnel) * Gambia (1,900 personnel) * Iceland (100 personnel, employed only for peacekeeping duties) * Libya * Luxembourg (has only one branch, the army, with a total of 1,500 personnel) * Monaco (two branches, with a total of about 250 personnel) * Niger (8,000 personnel) * Suriname (1,800 personnel) * Vatican City State (now consisting of a single branch, the Swiss Guard) (I know it doesn't have a small military but maybe he thinks it sounds sexier than general)
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Feb 21, 2011 23:34
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Samurai Sanders posted:Why does Gaddafi still call himself "colonel" anyway? Wouldn't he have taken the rank of general or whatever when he took over the country?  Because he wanted to seem like a man of the people, a humble leader of the Jamahiriya, rather than 'overlord for life.'I did a research paper on Qaddafi last year. It's loving crazy how fast he's gone from "rock-solid dictatorship with only minor grumblings" to "oh poo poo BOMB EVERYTHING"
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Feb 21, 2011 23:35
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Boner Slam posted:I am pretty sure the European countries can reach and control airspace on their border. At least they had no trouble reaching Serbia. Nato's airforce during the 1999 bombing campaign was mainly American though other Nato countries contributed.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:36
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German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports Libyan border guards are abandoning their posts according to "the Egyptian armys Facebook account".
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Feb 21, 2011 23:36
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Roark posted:If you want to see just how batshit his whole ideology is, flip through his Green Book. It's as crazy in the original Arabic as it is in the English translation. Eh? The ideology is interesting, actually, it's just that he doesn't adhere to a speck of it.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:36
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Please desist from flaming each other. (And stop saying `literally' all the time.)Doccers posted:I didn't think he *HAD* any assets in western countries, didn't we already seize them back under Reagon when we blew his airforce apart the first time? He has a ton of money in London banks, supposedly.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:37
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State TV has "Tunisians" saying they've been paid to cause trouble, and other people claiming they were given powerful drugs that made them violent.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:38
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Pipski posted:He has a ton of money in London banks, supposedly. It would be good if the UNSC or NATO or the EU get their poo poo together and get them frozen before he squirrels it all away like the last two dictators
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Feb 21, 2011 23:39
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Mr.Showtime posted:Nato's airforce during the 1999 bombing campaign was mainly American though other Nato countries contributed. Well I mean are you saying there aren't enough airplanes, or that they can't reach Lybia? I'd seriously doubt both. I am not about to calculate the ranges of Eurofighter etc. but yeah
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Feb 21, 2011 23:39
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Greyhawk posted:German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports Libyan border guards are abandoning their posts according to "the Egyptian armys Facebook account". Gonna poke them for more info.  Also why would they abandon their posts? To help the revolutionaries?
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Feb 21, 2011 23:39
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Boner Slam posted:I am pretty sure the European countries can reach and control airspace on their border. At least they had no trouble reaching Serbia. Serbia was a short hop from German and Italian NATO bases - and the U.S. Air Force conducted the majority of sorties over the Balkans. I think you're underestimating the scope of operations required to forcefully take control of airspace the size of Libya. It's going to take U.S. combat power. Period. It will involve the EU, but not alone.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:39
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Boner Slam posted:So? German and British planes were participating in the bombing. No I'm saying that your example is a bad one.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:39
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Brown Moses posted:...people claiming they were given powerful drugs that made them violent.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:40
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Boner Slam posted:I am pretty sure the European countries can reach and control airspace on their border. At least they had no trouble reaching Serbia. France has a full fleet carrier last time I checked, and they're close enough their fighters have the range to fly missions there from home. Germany too I suspect, though they don't have a carrier they can park offshore. I honestly don't know the status of the Italian air force. England only has jumpjet carriers and a Harrier is not an air superiority fighter (Hello Falklands!) but they could probably make a deal with one of the closer nations to park their better poo poo closer. But yeah, when it comes to air superiority we're the undisputed king. well, technically Israel is Extraordinarily good and their F-15's have the legs but.. uh. Yeah. Right.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:40
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The Brown Menace posted:Also why would they abandon their posts? To help the revolutionaries? After the dust settles, being in a military uniform might be bad for your health.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:42
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Anyone dreaming up scenarios where the US or any EU nation will get unilaterally involved is a crazy person. They won't get involved without a security council resolution because noone will want to be responsible for what happens once Qadaffi leaves.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:42
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QuentinCompson posted:Eh? The ideology is interesting, actually, it's just that he doesn't adhere to a speck of it. It's a weird fusion of socialism and local council-democracy in theory, and in practice degenerated - as you pointed out - into a structure by which he uses the local councils as local tools for oppression. I probably should have worded what I said differently. His Green Book reads like it was written like someone with a few screws loose. It's rambling and incoherent, and the only thing that separates it (for me) from most of the other insane manifestos that you find on the internet was that it was written by a man in charge of a country.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:43
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Syphilicious! posted:It's reasonable to claim that Egyptians will move towards democracy despite them "never having it" because there's a conceivable reason for them to want to. The same does not exist for capital and allowing client states to slip away. The fact that supporting client states out of (perceived) self-interest has ended horribly is sufficient to assume a self-interested organization might rethink that approach.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:43
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Doccers posted:France has a full fleet carrier last time I checked, and they're close enough their fighters have the range to fly missions there from home. Germany too I suspect, though they don't have a carrier they can park offshore. I honestly don't know the status of the Italian air force. The EF, Gripen and Rafale should be able to handle any airplane the dictator has at his disposal. Additionally some countries like UK, hell even Greece, have dedicated awacs system. Additionally, there are many dedicated NATO Awacs systems that technically don't belong to the USA. Also I think Greece and Germany have ultra-modern submarines that could probably shoot down airplanes over Tripolis. All the countries from Holland/Germany up have modern anti-aircraft ships. But then there is this: If you involve the EU, how do you not involve NATO and by that the USA. e: also this VVV Boner Slam fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 23:44
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Boner Slam posted:So yes, the EU certainly could intervene. But will they? Should they? I dunno. I'd like to remind that most of North Africa was a colony for one or another European power at some point. There's no love for us Europeans in that area either: there wouldn't be the whole mess with Israel if not for Great Britain, for example. United States and Soviet Union waged proxy wars for forty years in the same area, so they're not really viable either. Who's left? China?
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Feb 21, 2011 23:45
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Brown Moses posted:State TV has "Tunisians" saying they've been paid to cause trouble, and other people claiming they were given powerful drugs that made them violent. Those two looked like they had the ever living poo poo beaten out of them before being forced to go on air and 'confess'.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:45
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Doccers posted:France has a full fleet carrier last time I checked, and they're close enough their fighters have the range to fly missions there from home. Germany too I suspect, though they don't have a carrier they can park offshore. I honestly don't know the status of the Italian air force. They have a perfectly good RAF base in Cyprus
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Feb 21, 2011 23:46
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Daeren posted:
Wasn't he a junior officer in the (original) revolution? I forget what rank he had prior.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:47
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thiswayliesmadness posted:Those two looked like they had the ever living poo poo beaten out of them before being forced to go on air and 'confess'. No, that's just what you look like if you've been mainlining Tunisian rage drugs.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:47
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Boner Slam posted:The EF, Gripen and Rafale should be able to handle any airplane the dictator has at his disposal. Additionally some countries like UK, hell even Greece, have dedicated awacs system. Additionally, there are many dedicated NATO Awacs systems that technically don't belong to the USA. Theoretically by calling it an EU action and not a NATO action... France isn't part of NATO IIRC, for example.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:47
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Slave posted:They have a perfectly good RAF base in Cyprus That's right, I didn't think about that. Come to think of it, Gibraltar isn't too far either, is it?
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Feb 21, 2011 23:48
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Young Freud posted:Wasn't he a junior officer in the (original) revolution? I forget what rank he had prior. He was a captain.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:49
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Doccers posted:Theoretically by calling it an EU action and not a NATO action...
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Feb 21, 2011 23:50
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Doccers posted:That's right, I didn't think about that. nah but Italy, Malta and Greece are closer and it shouldn't be hard to quickly cross the alps, refuel somewhere in Italy etc.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:51
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Doccers posted:France isn't part of NATO IIRC, for example. drat son. Also you can just not involve the NATO/the US because there's no justification to do so? The NATO is mostly a defensive treaty, so unless the US doesn't want to join the EU, there's nothing forcing them to do so.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:51
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Ewan posted:France are part of NATO. Kind of. France is technically part of it, but in practice it doesn't participate. quote:Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defence by removing France's Atlantic and Channel fleets from NATO command. In 1966, all French armed forces were removed from NATO's integrated military command, and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France. edit: I guess that changed in 2009, my bad http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100547.html Xandu fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 23:52
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Ewan posted:France are part of NATO. I'd thought they dropped out in 1966, but reading Wiki it looks like they just kicked all nato troops out of france and pulled all of their troops out of nato command. interesting.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:53
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Xandu posted:Kind of. France is technically part of it, but in practice it doesn't participate. Sarko reversed this recently http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7948133.stm
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Feb 21, 2011 23:54
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Just saw this on the Guardian:quote:Another potentially massive development, if true. Sultan Al Qassemi has just tweeted that Al Jazeera are reporting on a statement by Libyan Military Officers which asks all members of the Libyan army to head to Tripoli and remove Gaddafi.
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Feb 21, 2011 23:54
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Does the Guardian not have an arabic speaker that can just watch al-Jazeera?
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Feb 21, 2011 23:55
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