Jut posted:

Well done at ignoring the points made and going for the "you're a big poopy head" response.

quote:

Chris Stephen in Misrata says the mystery over whether Libya's pro-Gaddafi forces have abandoned Zlitan appears to have been solved – they attacked this morning, hitting the farms north of Zlitan and leaving five rebel fighters dead and 31 wounded, with casualties still coming in. The fighters are being hit hard by rockets but it is unclear who has the upper hand, Chris says. Zlitan's Fowater tribe has not agreed to let the rebels take control of the town.

Brown Moses posted:

Plastic_Gargoyle posted:

Classic Chavez. "The world is out to get me because I'm such a good leader, and the same is happening to you brother Qaddafi!"

Namarrgon posted:

This is not Kosovo. And protecting civilians is essentially the same thing as removing Gaddafi and it has been so ever since Gaddafi opened fire on the protestors.

quote:

Chris Stephen in Misrata says the mystery over whether Libya's pro-Gaddafi forces have abandoned Zlitan appears to have been solved – they attacked this morning, hitting the farms north of Zlitan and leaving five rebel fighters dead and 31 wounded, with casualties still coming in. The fighters are being hit hard by rockets but it is unclear who has the upper hand, Chris says. Zlitan's Fowater tribe has not agreed to let the rebels take control of the town.

quote:

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid has just been on with us from outside a hospital in Misrata which is dealing with the wounded from fighting in Zlitan between rebels and pro-government forces.

quote:

"[The hospital] is coping, [it's] very difficult, because there was a really [large] amount of wounded that have been coming here throughout the day. It is a little bit calmer now ... I spoke to some of the fighters who have just arrived from the front line. [...]

"Apparently, early this morning, when the fighters were off guard really, they admit to that, the Gaddafi forces, with tanks according to what they say, flanked them in a sort of a way to isolate them. And that's when they came under attack. They were taken by surprise, it was an all-out offensive according to several of the fighters I spoke to, along the entire line they had on the outskirts of Zlitan.

"At this particular moment I can't tell you how much they pulled back. Earlier, several fighters told me they had pulled back - the situation is still extremely fluid. It is also a time of the day where usually the fighting sort of slows down a bit because of the heat, and I think it's expected that in a couple of hours it will pick up again.

"It's so hard for several reasons. First of all, Zlitan is strategic. Not only for the opposition fighters but for the government forces as well. It is the last major urban area I would say before Tripoli, 150km away from Tripoli. And after that there are really small towns. So Gaddafi forces are there in big numbers. We are told that actually the 32nd Brigade of the Gaddafi forces are there, and that's a brigade that comes under direct control under one of [Muammar Gaddafi's] sons, Khamis.

"It is also very difficult for the opposition fighters for the very simple reaosn that they've been getting very mixed messages from the residents of Zlitan. Some of them clearly support Col Gaddafi, and have told the opposition fighters. Others have told them that if [they] come closer to Zlitan - the suburbs of Zlitan, which is where they had reached until this morning - then there are rebels inside Zlitan that will rise and help you. Well that did not happen. And so the fighters of Misrata are very reluctant to go into Zlitan more at this stage, because they could be perceived by many of the people inside that town as invading their town, and bringing the fight to their town. So unless they get an invitation, as they call it, from the tribes of Zlitan it's very difficult for them to go in."

Jut posted:

News from Libya seems to have taken a back seat on the BBC. The last thing they have is from the Younes killing a few days ago, and other papers have cut their Libya coverage. Are the media losing interest in this conflict?

Mr. Sunshine posted:

Now, to be fair to Jut, for NATO to aid the rebels in taking Gaddafi-loyal towns goes pretty far beyond "protecting civilians", and I can understand that someone would have a problem with that. There's also been verified reports of looting and other abuses by rebel soldiers, and no matter how much the NTC professes to adhere to human rights they might not have all that much control over the actual soldiers in the field. That should definitively be a concern for the western nations involved in this.

However, the line between "armed rebel" and "civilian" can be very blurry, and the situation is more complex than just "bomb people who might harm civilians".

Say NATO is bombing Gaddafi-loyal forces in a town that they use to launch attacks against a rebel-held city. If the rebels then advance on that town, should NATO then stop bombing the loyalist forces simply because they are now facing armed opponents - armed opponents who just previously were civilians to be protected? Should NATO maybe even start targeting the rebels instead? Sure, it would be easy to paint the world in black and white and say "Yes!", but from a tactical point of view it would be insane. If you're trying to neutralize, say, a rocket battery, why wouldn't you aid the guys on the ground trying to do the same thing?

Brown Moses posted:

Now it's just a daily grind of fighting the media seems to have lost some interest, although most major organisations do have at least one reporter in Nafusa or Misrata.

Regarding Zlitan, it'll be interesting to see what the route from Zlitan to Al Khums is like, and whether or not it's been heavily mined like Brega.

quote:

Russia's foreign ministry said today that it would not oppose a United Nations resolution to condemn violence in Syria as long as it did not include sanctions and other such "pressures".

The security council is to announce today what action – if any – to take against Syria after the government's escalation of violence against protesters.

Russia has a veto in the UN security council.

The foreign minister's Middle East and North Africa department chief, Sergei Vershinin, said Russia was not "categorically" against adopting a resolution on Syria:

[quote] We are not formalists, we are not categorically against anything in particular. If there are some unbalanced items, sanctions, pressure, I think that kind of pressure is bad because we want less bloodshed and more democracy.

Jut posted:

Well done at ignoring the points made and going for the "you're a big poopy head" response.

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

He's ignoring your points because you've just been repeating the same thoroughly-debunked de facto pro-Qaddafi talking points for the last five months. There's nothing insightful left to say about them.

shotgunbadger posted:

Can we not call a position of 'NATO shouldn't be taking sides in a civil war and we shouldn't be acting like the rebels are some pure and saintly force immune from their flaws being pointed out' one that's 'pro-Qaddafi'? Unless I missed something Jut has never said 'yea, go CQ!' or something.

shotgunbadger posted:

Can we not call a position of 'NATO shouldn't be taking sides in a civil war and we shouldn't be acting like the rebels are some pure and saintly force immune from their flaws being pointed out' one that's 'pro-Qaddafi'? Unless I missed something Jut has never said 'yea, go CQ!' or something.

Golbez posted:

Had they not taken sides, Gaddafi would have won. Therefore, non-action was essentially pro-Gaddafi.

pylb posted:

I don't think Jut is calling for total inaction though. He's asking for diplomatic discussions to go along with a peace keeping force in charge of making sure nobody (soldiers or rebels) causes harm to neutral parties.

Namarrgon posted:

I believe Jut has been against intervention from the start and has consistently given Gaddafi the benefit of the doubt so he's lost mine regarding possible interpretations of his posts.

quote:

I don't think Jut is calling for total inaction though. He's asking for diplomatic discussions to go along with a peace keeping force in charge of making sure nobody (soldiers or rebels) causes harm to neutral parties.

quote:

And asking a pyscho genocidal dictator to go along with that plan.

quote:

I called his position exactly what it is.

He's de facto pro-Qaddafi because his strict letter-of-the-law-not-spirit-of-the-law interpretation means Qaddafi would remain in power.

Brown Moses posted:

Some Syria News:

Two months ago a draft resolution criticising Syria was dropped when it became clear Russia and China would veto it.

Jut posted:

Being in power is not a binary option and a diplomatic solution doesn't have to end with CQ remaining 100% in control. Milosevic was weakened so much by the Kosovo war that he pretty much lost most of the power he had. Do you not remember the clusterfuck that occurred in Iraq after the US refused to incorporate the remainder of Saddam's regime into the new Iraq? Like it or not CQ's regime has support in some areas of Libya and needs to be included in whatever deal is hammered out.
With the country divided into two, I would imagine a diplomatic solution could take the form of either autonomy or powersharing backed by UN peacekeepers on the ground.

Jut posted:

I don't buy this excuse that keeps coming up as an excuse for inaction. Resolutions are submitted on Israel/Palestine even though it's clear the US will veto them, but it doesn't stop them being submitted.
If the Russians or Chinese are going to veto a resolution then put it to the vote regardless and let them look like cunts. Don't pull the "nah no point the reds and chinks will just say no".
Now that the Russians have came out and publicly said they will not veto a resolution condemning the Syrian action then I would expect one to be submitted ASAP.

Jut posted:

Milosevic did, and he was actually committing genocide instead of what you think genocide is.

Nenonen posted:

Milosevic was a dorky looking little man instead of a murderous dictator like Gaddafi is. Milosevic was in power for a decade and was ousted by peaceful demonstrators. Gaddafi has been in power for four decades and after a long civil war has shown no signs of giving up. Don't try to compare the two, you'll only end up making Milosevic look like a sweetheart which he wasn't.

Nenonen posted:

Milosevic was a dorky looking little man instead of a murderous dictator like Gaddafi is. Milosevic was in power for a decade and was ousted by peaceful demonstrators. Gaddafi has been in power for four decades and after a long civil war has shown no signs of giving up. Don't try to compare the two, you'll only end up making Milosevic look like a sweetheart which he wasn't.

Jut posted:

Probably because I consider protecting civilians more important than removing a bad man.

Zeroisanumber posted:

I don't think that one will be possible without the other in this case. CQ and his clique aren't going to settle for a cease-fire that leaves them in control of the Tripoli and Sirt area, and the rebels in control of the rest of the country. And the rebels aren't strong enough to hold back the tide of CQ's forces if NATO isn't there to provide air support.

quote:

Honestly, if protecting civilians is your goal, then I'm surprised that you aren't in favor of NATO using much more force than they are now to bring a quick end to the fighting. A brigade of Royal Marines or the French Foreign Legion, or perhaps even a few sorties by the carriers of the 6th Fleet would crumple Quaddafi's forces like cheap cardboard. Even the threat might be enough to make him give up power.

shotgunbadger posted:

Milosevic did literal genocide. Like, the real kind not the "this is a horrible killing" kind. If we were willing to work with him and not overtly call for his death (that's actually a huge thing not done) we could have at least tried with CQ.

karthun posted:

I don't know why you get to decide that the country should be divided in two and not say the Libyans.

Golbez posted:

Edit: Also, people keep saying "we could have tried". Did Gaddafi give any indication whatsoever that he was open to such attempts? At all? Especially after never ceasing fire when he promised to cease fire?

quote:

Chris Stevens, the US envoy to the Libyan opposition in Benghazi, has voiced confidence that the rebels will prevent human rights abuses.

Stevens says that he has discussed allegations of rights abuses leveled by Human Rights Watch, and that there was "extra political motivation" to prevent any further abuses.

The rebels are "very sensitive to wanting to appear different from the Gaddafi forces and the abuses that those forces make in the field," Stevens told a news conference in Washington, where he was back for consultations.

"They got the message and I'm sure they're looking carefully at it and making sure it doesn't happen."

Stevens currently leads a US government team of eight people based out Benghazi.

quote:

The tribe of assassinated rebel commander Abdel-Fattah Younes has vowed to find justice for themselves if those responsible for his death are not quickly found.

"The way he was killed looks like a betrayal, so until now we are trying to calm and control the youth of the tribe, but we
don't know what could happen," one of Younes's sons told foreign reporters when asked if rifts within the rebel ranks could turn violent.

He was speaking after an emergency meeting of 90 leaders of the Ubaideyat tribe, one of the biggest in Libya.

"They [the tribal committee] will investigate who issued the arrest warrant and who sent whom to arrest him, how was he lost. They said he was dead but they couldn't find the body, so how did they know he was dead if there was no body?" the son said.

"If the [NTC] doesn't bring us justice, and if the [international] judiciary don't bring us justice, then we will leave it to the tribe to bring us justice," he said.

Mohammed Hamed Younes, one of the general's nephews, opined that there was never any intention to question General Younes over his links to Gaddafi, as the rebel council says was the objective of an arrest warrant.

"If there was an intention to investigate him, they could have called him and he would have followed orders, but there was
no intention of that. From the start, there was an intention of betrayal and treason."

quote:

AFP reports that Libya's rebels have uncovered a 'hit list' of 60 rebel leaders that a pro-Gaddafi militia was keeping on hand in Benghazi.


"There were around 60 people (on the list)," deputy interior minister Mustafa al-Sagazly told AFP, including "members of the (National Transitional Council), the military council, the cabinet of the NTC executive."

"There were names and addresses," he said, "some of the addresses were correct."

The list was found during an operation against the al-Nidaa Brigade

quote:

Hosni Mubarak on way to face trial, says Egyptian official
An Egyptian security official says former President Hosni Mubarak has left the hospital in a Red Sea resort and is on his way to trial in Cairo.

The official says Mubarak has been taken from the hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh to the airport in the Red Sea resort, from where he is to be flown to the Egyptian capital for trial.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Outside the police academy in Cairo, where the trial is to take place, hundreds of police and army troops backed by armoured personnel carriers are keeping about 50 Mubarak supporters at bay.

The ailing, 83-year-old former president has lived in Sharm since he was toppled in February and has been under arrest in a hospital there since April. Doctors say he suffers from heart problems.

There had been scepticism up to the moment Mubarak left the hospital that he would actually appear for the opening of his trial in the capital.

The trial answers, at least partially, the growing cries in Egypt for justice not only for the wrongs of Mubarak's authoritarian regime that ruled Egypt for three decades but also for the violent suppression of largely peaceful protests during the 18-day uprising.

Mubarak, who ruled with unquestioned power for 29 years, is expected to appear during the trial sitting in a cage set up for him and his co-defendants, including his two sons and his former interior minister. The charges could bring a death sentence, traditionally carried out by hanging.

The courtroom has been set up in what was once the Mubarak Police Academy – one of the multiple security, military and other civil buildings named after the president, though since his exit, his name has been dropped.

Security is very heavy, with barbed wire and hundreds of troops around the compound. Efforts have been made to ensure spectators in the court can't get close enough to the defendants' case to yell and throw objects at them, the interior ministry said.