Uprising in Libya

[SCRawl]

A smart move by the UN would be to resolve that Gaddafi must move his troops back to a certain point, sufficiently distant from their current positions, or else he'll face attack. I don't know if such a resolution could make it through the UNSC, but if it could it would give them time to ramp up again should Gaddafi decide to comply and then re-advance.

[Edward Yee]

The rebels certainly didn't agree to negotiate a surrender...

Incidentally, GrandMasterTerwynn, the Wall Street Journal is claiming that Egypt has already been shipping small arms and ammunition to the rebels:

The White House has been reluctant to back calls from leaders in Congress for arming Libya's rebels directly, arguing that the U.S. must first fully assess who the fighters are and what policies they will pursue if they succeeded in toppling Col. Gadhafi. U.S. officials believe the opposition includes some Islamist elements. They fear that Islamist groups hostile to the U.S. could try to hijack the opposition and take any arms that are provided.

The Egyptian weapons transfers began "a few days ago" and are ongoing, according to a senior U.S. official. "There's no formal U.S. policy or acknowledgement that this is going on," said the senior official. But "this is something we have knowledge of."

Calls to Egypt's foreign ministry and the spokesman for the prime minister seeking comment went unanswered. There is no means of reaching Egypt's military for comment. A Egyptian official in Washington said he had no knowledge of weapon shipments.

The U.S. official also noted that the shipments appeared to come "too little, too late" to tip the military balance in favor of the rebels, who have faced an onslaught from Libyan forces backed by tanks, artillery and aircraft.

"We know the Egyptian military council is helping us, but they can't be so visible," said Hani Souflakis, a Libyan businessman in Cairo who has been acting as a rebel liaison with the Egyptian government since the uprising began.

"Weapons are getting through," said Mr. Souflakis, who says he has regular contacts with Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebel leadership in Libya. "Americans have given the green light to the Egyptians to help. The Americans don't want to be involved in a direct level, but the Egyptians wouldn't do it if they didn't get the green light."

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libya said the U.S. has wanted to avoid being seen as taking a leadership role in any military action against Mr. Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraq and Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust with Washington throughout the region.

So much for this being covert (as supposedly the new Egyptian government wanted) though...

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The rebels certainly didn't agree to negotiate a surrender...

Incidentally, GrandMasterTerwynn, the Wall Street Journal is claiming that Egypt has already been shipping small arms and ammunition to the rebels

I know about the small arms shipments. I believe that was discussed a couple of days ago. I was talking about arms that actually might help the rebels cope with Gaddafi's overwhelming combined-arms advantage. Like tanks.

[PeZook]

How can he order a ceasefire? Wouldn´t the rebels have to agree to one first?
Had the rebells ordered a ceasefire would Gaddafis troups have stoped shooting?

This ceasefire order is worth nothing.

It's not like the rebels can counterattack, so he just tells his troops to stop and wait.

[Tribun]

Well, he already broke it and attacked the cities of Zintan and Misurata.

[Sea Skimmer]

It's not like the rebels can counterattack, so he just tells his troops to stop and wait.

If UN forces blow up his tanks and artillery his forces are almost certainly considerably outnumbered in the east, and rebel moral is back to up its levels of the early days. A counter attack would become very feasible, at least back to Ras Lanuf, if that happens. The Resolution allows for attacking forces which merely threaten to attack civilians too; this can easily be interpreted to allow us to destroy any armored vehicle still loyal to Gaddafi.

[Dartzap]

The Beeb were just saying that US amphibious assault ships were inbound - I thought the whole point of the UN resolution was there weren't to be any 'boots on the ground'?

[Pelranius]

You can use the AH-1 attack helicopters on said amphibious assault ships to attack Qaddafi's mechanized forces, but they wouldn't be my first choice for the first blow.

[fgalkin]

I have not been following the situation as closely as I should have, but is there an actual reason why everybody is supporting the rebels, other than "they're anti-Gaddafi"? I mean, last I checked, a significant faction of them wants to restore the monarchy, they are using the old monarchist flag, etc.

Is the world really ready to overthrow a dictator to install a king, or am I missing something here?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Artemas]

the monarchy is the last legitimate libyan government, and easily fills the hole. i am almost certain that it'd be a constitutional monarchy anyway.

Besides, the "old monarchist flag" is also the last non-gaddafi flag. your idea that they'll revert to an autocratic monarchy is overblown.

[Block]

I have not been following the situation as closely as I should have, but is there an actual reason why everybody is supporting the rebels, other than "they're anti-Gaddafi"? I mean, last I checked, a significant faction of them wants to restore the monarchy, they are using the old monarchist flag, etc.

Is the world really ready to overthrow a dictator to install a king, or am I missing something here?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Because Qaddafi pretty much pushed everyone over to the other side with his batshit craziness. I brought up earlier in the thread that there really hasn't been much reporting done on who exactly is leading the rebels, and what their aims are, and that's a bit worrying.

[montypython]

Seems that the allies are rejecting gaddafi's call for a ceasefire:

Allied powers reject ceasefire

[Serafina]

I have not been following the situation as closely as I should have, but is there an actual reason why everybody is supporting the rebels, other than "they're anti-Gaddafi"? I mean, last I checked, a significant faction of them wants to restore the monarchy, they are using the old monarchist flag, etc.

Is the world really ready to overthrow a dictator to install a king, or am I missing something here?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

The German flag became prominent during the 1848 revolution. Is current-day germany therefore representing 19th-century values?
If you've got some other evidence that says that they are monarchists, that's another matter - but the flag alone says nothing.

[fgalkin]

That's kinda ironic, considering everyone was more than happy to do business with him up until a few weeks ago, they invited him to speak before the UN, etc. And now, suddenly, he's a terrible terrible dictator.

That's not to say that he's not a terrible dictator, but that the hypocrisy of certain nations is astounding. In any case, from what I've understand, a lot of the rebels have ties to the Senussi movement, and a democratic Libya is not exactly a given. If true, I can actually agree with Obama's reluctance to support military intervention in Libya, given US's record of supporting random Islamic theopolitical movements in certain shithole countries.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Pelranius]

Speaking of the Senussi claimants, who has the best claim? (My understanding is that there are at least two nephews of the last king each claiming the throne).

[Aaron]

I'm not really seeing anything in that wiki entry that points to any terrible shit. In fact it says right in it that the Grand Senussi opposed fanaticism. Is there any other evidence that Libya might be swapping bad for bad?

[Artemas]

the senussi likely in this context represent a national libyan resistance group, seeing as they led resistance to italian occupation during wwii.

libyans are looking to their history for inspiration.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know. A constitutional monarchy might not be so bad, fgalkin; it worked in Spain post-Franco, for instance.

The divine right of kings is a bad thing to base a government on, but one thing the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have taught us is that it is often not as bad as the kind of government you get when the ruler appeals purely to naked force to justify remaining in power. "Obey me because of my shiny monarchical hat" can be a kinder, gentler form of rule than "obey me because otherwise I will crush you under my tank treads." Moreover, a king can serve as a focus for a national government- at a time like this, when the rebels need all the organization they can get, forming a provisional government around a monarch who still enjoys the loyalty and approval of much of the population makes more sense than forming one without him.

I'd argue this is why 'tyranny' has been a concept since classical times, even in environments where monarchy was the most common form of government. There's a difference between being ruled by a dictator whose power flows from institutions and one whose power flows from control over the military or secret police.

So yes, I wouldn't mind overthrowing a dictator to install a king, if the king is being used as a rally point for a broad front in favor of political change.

The problem is that the question of "what kind of government will succeed Qaddafi?" can't be answered without first toppling Qaddafi- or at least making sure the rebels aren't crushed out of hand. If Qaddafi overruns all the rebels of all political stripes (be they monarchist, republican, Islamic-fundie, communist, whatever) and defeats them in a single military campaign, it's irrelevant which of the rebel factions would come out on top in setting the agenda for the new government.

If we want democracy in Libya, of any kind (constitutional monarchy, 'crowned republic,' pure democracy), military aid to the rebels is a precondition. Otherwise, Qaddafi will destroy the revolt and remain in power for many years, probably until he dies of old age and his lieutenants pick a new tyrant to run the country in his stead.

The German flag became prominent during the 1848 revolution. Is current-day germany therefore representing 19th-century values?

You had some very nasty hiccups along the way, but I'd say that current-day Germany is a quite faithful descendant of the ideals of the 1848 Liberal Revolutions in Europe. Most of the differences are the product of how much the worldview of 1848 has matured in the intervening century and a half, in my opinion.

That's kinda ironic, considering everyone was more than happy to do business with him up until a few weeks ago, they invited him to speak before the UN, etc. And now, suddenly, he's a terrible terrible dictator.

That's not to say that he's not a terrible dictator, but that the hypocrisy of certain nations is astounding.

When there's only one person in a country who can credibly claim to be the government, and you want to deal with the country, you deal with that person. Pretending he doesn't exist won't make him go away.

When there are two entities in a country claiming to be the government, you get to pick and choose which you prefer. Seems fair enough to me.

EDIT: The Senussi don't seem obviously bad to me either. They're an Islamic movement, sure, but they're pro-itijihad. Hardly Wahhabists, unless you know something important I don't.

It would be ridiculous to expect Middle Eastern politics to be totally secular, when the vast majority of the population is Muslim, has been for over a thousand years, remains so today, and when their cultural traditions grew up in an environment where "separation of church and state" simply wasn't a meaningful concept. I don't mind the idea that Islamic religious authorities carry weight in their government. I mind when they indulge in homicidal lunacy, but that's not the same thing.

And yes, that means reactionary dinosaur-governments by Western standards. So what? The alternative, because this has been tried, is "nationalist" governments (Nasser-type) that tend to fail because they lack deep roots in the population. A government that the people of the country will back in a crisis beats one that they won't, not least because the latter tends to get replaced by the former when things start going wrong.

[Aaron]

the senussi likely in this context represent a national libyan resistance group, seeing as they led resistance to italian occupation during wwii.

libyans are looking to their history for inspiration.

Fair enough, I imagine most people would do the same.

[xerex]

The Beeb were just saying that US amphibious assault ships were inbound - I thought the whole point of the UN resolution was there weren't to be any 'boots on the ground'?

You can use the AH-1 attack helicopters on said amphibious assault ships to attack Qaddafi's mechanized forces, but they wouldn't be my first choice for the first blow.

the Kearsage should also have 5-6 Harriers.

[xerex]

Speaking of the Senussi claimants, who has the best claim? (My understanding is that there are at least two nephews of the last king each claiming the throne).

according to wiki the two claimants are

the grandson of the last king who is the 'official' claimant.

the other one is the son of a nephew of the last king and seems more an adventurer type.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Well it seems the UN is finally going to do something, the RAF is on standby and it looks like we're not going to scrap all the Nimrods after all. Whether this turns out to be too little, too late remains to be seen.

[Gil Hamilton]

That's kinda ironic, considering everyone was more than happy to do business with him up until a few weeks ago, they invited him to speak before the UN, etc. And now, suddenly, he's a terrible terrible dictator.

People have been pretty wishy-washy with Gaddafi. He went from Evil Terrorist Supporter to Ally in the War on Terror during the Bush Administration. The coin has just flipped back, what with his response to pro-democracy movements being "Hire African mercenaries to indiscriminately shoot everyone and keeping power on top of a giant dead pile of his own people" a few weeks back, hence the whole "he's a terrible terrible dictator" thing. He's kind of earning the title.

That's not to say that he's not a terrible dictator, but that the hypocrisy of certain nations is astounding. In any case, from what I've understand, a lot of the rebels have ties to the Senussi movement, and a democratic Libya is not exactly a given. If true, I can actually agree with Obama's reluctance to support military intervention in Libya, given US's record of supporting random Islamic theopolitical movements in certain shithole countries.

Reading that link, if they actually are Senussi, that wouldn't be that bad. Back during the fifties, that king was pissing off all the Arab nationalists because of his insistence in maintaining strong ties with the West, including the US and Britain, even after the intervention at the Seuz Canal. A pro-Western republic-leaning monarch with a legit claim to actually running the place might be the best thing that we can reasonably expect Libya to produce. It's certainly better than Gaddafi.

[Artemas]

how can you be a "republic-leaning monarch"?

are you perhaps using the american definition of republic?

[Sea Skimmer]

The Beeb were just saying that US amphibious assault ships were inbound - I thought the whole point of the UN resolution was there weren't to be any 'boots on the ground'?

We need Marines in close in case we have to rescue a pilot, rescue helicopters fly slow. Setting down men for a few minutes by helicopter to pick someone up is arguably an invasion but no one is going to give a damn if it has to happen. Hell if I expect the UN to loose a plane except by flying into the ground; but something could happen and someone could pull out too low and take a Stinger up the tailpipe. I don't think Cobra's will be used over land except to defend rescue aircraft, Cobra has almost no armor and is thus not well suited to free roaming kill sprey without friendly ground forces around.