Uprising in Libya

[Talk738kno]

Apparently the rebels are getting more organized.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/fe ... 54663.html

[Sea Skimmer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13166441
The US is returning to kill crap at last, after wasting three weeks. Predator drone spam is a go at last, Allah willing they will allow the rebels to finally push Qaddafi's snipers out of Misrata. That battle more then any other has shown his weakness and if the US hadn't pussed out they would have won already, as it is they've started pushing the snipers out. Qaddafi literally does not have more then 300 people attacking the city at this point, but they’ve been fortified inside heavy clad buildings protected by tanks NATO won’t bomb 99% of the time this whole time. The tallest building in the city has now been recaptured by the rebels, a month after they began begging the world to bomb the fucking thing flat.

Also the rebels in the western mountains overran a border crossing; which they have taken before and lost again, but this time Qaddafis troops fled into Tunisia to be interned rather then retreating. If they can hold this road open this time the humanitarian disaster unfolding in those mountains home to 500,000 unseen opponents of Qaddafi may be partly averted.

[Sea Skimmer]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/afric ... 94169.html

Libyan army 'to pull out' from Misurata
Libyan troops are to leave Misurata as the US approves the use of armed drones in the fight against government forces.
Last Modified: 22 Apr 2011 22:51

Khaled Kaim, Libya's deputy foreign minister, has said that pro-government forces will withdraw from Misurata, leaving the tribes to deal with the rebels.

"The situation in Misurata will be dealt with by the tribes around Misurata and Misurata's residents and not by the Libyan army," Kaim told journalists late on Friday.

"We will leave the tribes around Misrata and Misrata's people to deal with the situation, either using force or negotiation."

Kaim said the Libyan army had been given an "ultimatum" to stop the rebellion in the western city, 200km east of the capital Tripoli.

"There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misurata, then the people from (the neighbouring towns of) Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels. If they don't surrender, then they will engage them in a fight."

Kaim's announcement is a turning point for the besieged city, which has come under heavy fire from forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Fears of stalemate

It comes as John McCain, a US senator who is one of the strongest proponents in the US congress of American military intervention in Libya, said he was worried the battle between Gaddafi's troops and rebel forces was reaching a stalemate that could "open the door to radical Islamic fundamentalism".

McCain also denied during a visit to Benghazi concerns about the possibility of extremist or al-Qaeda elements fighting alongside the pro-democracy forces, telling Al Jazeera "they [opposition fighters] are my heroes".

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military's joint chiefs of staff, offered a similar assessment.

"We're watchful of it, mindful of it and I just haven't seen much of it at all. In fact, I've seen no al-Qaeda representation there at all," he said during a visit to the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Mullen acknowledged that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which waged a failed armed uprising against Gaddafi's rule in the 1990s, had "stirred a little bit".

He said air strikes had hobbled Libyan forces, but admitted the conflict was moving into "stalemate" as Gaddafi's troops pressed on with their punishing siege in the western city of Misurata.

Need for transitional government

McCain called on Washington to recognise Libyan rebels' transitional council as the true voice of the Libyan people and transfer frozen assets to them.

He also said that the NATO air campaign should be intensified, adding that Western allies should provide rebels with training, weapons and command-and-control activities to help overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's longtime leader.

"I would encourage every nation, especially the United States, to recognise the transitional national council as the legitimate voice of the Libyan people," McCain said, speaking to reporters in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Friday.

"They have earned this right and Gaddafi has forfeited it by waging war on his own people."

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Benghazi, says broader recognition "gives the transitional council a legal standing which it does not at the moment enjoy" along with "extra finance" and "greater political authenticity within Libya itself".

"If the council is recognised as the authentic voice of the Libyan people, then they could receive those funds that have been frozen abroad from the Gaddafi regime," he said.

McCain is the first from the United States to visit Benghazi since the conflict broke out in late February, made the trip to Libya on his own.

An aide said he met rebel leaders including finance chief Ali Tarhouni and armed forces head Abdel Fattah Younes.

The US senator's arrival came close on the heels of the US president approving the use of armed drones in Libya against ground forces for the first time since America handed over the military operation to NATO.

'No mission creep'

Predator drones have routinely been flying surveillance missions in Libya, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.

He said the US will provide up to two 24-hour combat air patrols each day by the unmanned Predators.

Gates rejected the notion that the approval of drone strikes means that the US will get pulled slowly back into a more active combat role, despite Barack Obama, US president, vowing to merely provide support for NATO.

Gates said that bringing in the Predators will give NATO a critical capability that the US uniquely can contribute.

"I think this is a very limited additional role on our part, but it does provide some additional capabilities to NATO," Gates said.

"And if we can make a modest contribution with these armed Predators, we'll do it. ... I don't think any of us see that as mission creep."

The first armed drone mission since Obama's go-ahead was flown on Thursday, but the aircraft, armed with Hellfire missiles, turned back due to poor weather conditions without firing any of its munitions.

Marine General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the drones can help counteract the pro-Gaddafi forces' tactic of travelling in civilian vehicles that make it difficult to distinguish them from rebel forces.

"What they will bring that is unique to the conflict is their ability to get down lower, therefore to be able to get better visibility on targets that have started to dig themselves into defensive positions," Cartwright said.

Gates, who publicly expressed scepticism about getting involved militarily in Libya before Obama endorsed the limited intervention, said "the real work" of overthrowing Gaddafi will have to be done by the Libyans themselves.

It looks like the rebel counter attack in Misrata has now gained so much ground Qaddafi is actually calling off the offensive in public; but it remains to be seen if this will actually bring about a pull out or if bombardments will continue from long range. Qaddafi may be trying to simply redress his lines after a mere failure to take the city of 300,000; or this may mean he's actually running out of warm bodies to throw into action. Either way it looks like the rebels will push him out of the city soon enough anyway; but this is not the same as breaking the siege or projecting any power out of the city to liberate any of the suburban towns.

[K. A. Pital]

Incidentally, why hasn't NATO attacked Syria yet? Assad has dispersed unarmed protesters using force, there are victims. Where's bombs falling on Syrian government forces?

[The Big I]

Incidentally, why hasn't NATO attacked Syria yet? Assad has dispersed unarmed protesters using force, there are victims. Where's bombs falling on Syrian government forces?

I'd say t would be a case of one at a time.

[K. A. Pital]

Incidentally, why hasn't NATO attacked Syria yet? Assad has dispersed unarmed protesters using force, there are victims. Where's bombs falling on Syrian government forces?

I'd say t would be a case of one at a time.

In my view it's a case of "we don't like anti-Western regimes, so they are on the list, but the rest can essentially do as they please so as long as they can get their shit together". See my discussion with Skimmer earlier in the thread. He admitted Saudi Arabia is basically POS, but so as long as it remains stable (no successful violent resistance) and pro-Western, nobody's going to give a shit.

[Simon_Jester]

Stas, in your opinion, is the history of Western intervention in the name of the people of a third world country successful enough to make it a good idea to invade these countries to oust their government before there is any clear sign that the populace is able or willing to organize their own resistance?

[Sea Skimmer]

Incidentally, why hasn't NATO attacked Syria yet? Assad has dispersed unarmed protesters using force, there are victims. Where's bombs falling on Syrian government forces?

Waiting for the fucking people to turn on the government, duh. As Libya, and any sane military logic clearly shows, someone has exist to win on the ground and nothing like that has appeared in Syria so any bombing campaign would be pointless. But thanks for demanding the world be simple; the same kind of one dimensional viewpoint people like you accuse the US of having. If all of Assad's 300,000+ troops are going to remain loyal then no possible air campaign could stop him anyway. But of course we all know no matter what you'll just find something else to complain about later, like why the fuck the US didn't just blow Stalin away with nuclear bombs as we so easily could have. The US already has sanctions on Syria BTW, but you complain about the US actually persisting with its sanctions on nations so what does this even matter.

But anyway on a serious note, so far we've seen signs that the Syrian army itself is reluctant to confront protesters so it may simply refuse orders at some point and start a proper rebellion. Syria unlike Libya has not run its regular military down into almost nothing. They have thousands of tanks and armored vehicles that at least mostly work and a large fraction of them are based within 50 miles of Damascus. The ruling family is so afraid of coups that all regular military units have been banned from the capital proper for decades, but they can't help the fact that the Zionists are almost within 155mm field artillery range of the capital.

Protests have only really been at the tens of thousands stage a couple times so far including this past day, which is why the body count is now suddenly rising so quickly. If that keeps scaling up further then some kind of civil war may break out very shortly that can actually be supported.

[K. A. Pital]

Stas, in your opinion, is the history of Western intervention in the name of the people of a third world country successful enough to make it a good idea to invade these countries to oust their government before there is any clear sign that the populace is able or willing to organize their own resistance?

I think I laid it out when I discussed the matter with Skimmer. I am against intervention, because it de-legitimizes governments that arise as a result. Rebels have the full right to hang all government officials on lamp posts in case they have enough power to overthrow them. That was not the case with rebels in Libya, they were clearly going to lose the civil war before NATO intervened.

Maybe I am being callous, but the example of Iraq speaks clearly: whatever the merits of the government that Americans installed there, it suffers from a deep crisis of legitimacy and as such, undergoes a low-intensity civil war which can last for decades. Terror acts, lawlesness in many parts of the nation and defiance of this government are natural results - this government was set up by a foreign power during a destructive war and many citizens consider it an occupational government, not a national elite.

I am not sure what is worse, not interfering in the affairs of authoritarian regimes and letting them collapse or survive on their own, or smashing into these nations and setting up governments that will lack legitimacy, laying the foundations of a deeper civil conflict for many years. *shrugs*

If all of Assad's 300,000+ troops are going to remain loyal then no possible air campaign could stop him anyway.

Why? Just assasinate him using a missile, like you kill terrorists! If you were too dense to note the sarcasm, I was not calling for NATO to intervene in Syria. In fact, I think it would be best if NATO stayed the hell out of anywhere. Some of its member nations have less than a stellar record with their own civilian disturbances, e.g. Turkey.

[Pelranius]

Given Syria's closeness to Iran, doesn't it count as being part of the 'anti-Western' camp?

Though attacking the Syrian AD network will be a lot harder, I think.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think I laid it out when I discussed the matter with Skimmer. I am against intervention, because it de-legitimizes governments that arise as a result. Rebels have the full right to hang all government officials on lamp posts in case they have enough power to overthrow them. That was not the case with rebels in Libya, they were clearly going to lose the civil war before NATO intervened.

The United States was created with the help of massive military intervention, after it had established that it could do something in battle at Saratoga. I don't see this as an innate problem. The rebels can’t beat tanks, not really surprising, but they still did clear out a third of a country first. If Qaddafi really has a support base then it will never come to hanging anyone else from a lamp post because Tripoli will simply never fall.

[K. A. Pital]

The United States was created with the help of massive military intervention, after it had established that it could do something in battle at Saratoga.

Well, I don't see the US government independence having any inherent value. There is obvious value in it inspiring some anticolonialism, but if it stayed inside the British Empire, the latter's anti-slavery laws would have ended slavery in the US a century earlier. So like I said, I don't think there's any particular historical, moral or whatever value to the independence of the United States. And the massive military intervention didn't create a crisis of legitimacy because the U.S. government was pretty much a functioning national government.

If Qaddafi really has a support base then it will never come to hanging anyone else from a lamp post because Tripoli will simply never fall.

Why? You can starve Tripoli if you control the coastline. Even the most ardent supporter will start questioning his values when faced with poverty and hunger. You could starve them economically, that will require years of separation and a separate East Libya state, or you could starve them directly if you surround supply routes and wait until hunger drives people inside the city to despair and madness. The number of Gaddafi's supporters in Tripoli can be absolutely irrelevant in both cases.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Here comes the cavalry! Um... Italy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13188951

[Thanas]

The United States was created with the help of massive military intervention, after it had established that it could do something in battle at Saratoga.

Well, I don't see the US government independence having any inherent value. There is obvious value in it inspiring some anticolonialism, but if it stayed inside the British Empire, the latter's anti-slavery laws would have ended slavery in the US a century earlier.

No guarantee for that, seeing how much more support the slavers would have gotten from the colonists. We might as well see a British Empire that practices slavery well into the 1850s etc.

[K. A. Pital]

The United States was created with the help of massive military intervention, after it had established that it could do something in battle at Saratoga.

Well, I don't see the US government independence having any inherent value. There is obvious value in it inspiring some anticolonialism, but if it stayed inside the British Empire, the latter's anti-slavery laws would have ended slavery in the US a century earlier.

No guarantee for that, seeing how much more support the slavers would have gotten from the colonists. We might as well see a British Empire that practices slavery well into the 1850s etc.

*shrugs* Perhaps. Alternate history is pseudohistory, after all. On the other hand, how could colonists impact the British Parliament's decisions, when it was the latter which decided the laws?

[Zed]

*shrugs* Perhaps. Alternate history is pseudohistory, after all.

There's plenty of literature on counterfactual history in journals of historical theory. It's not always pseudohistory - its status is determined by the form of arguments employed.

[Thanas]

*shrugs* Perhaps. Alternate history is pseudohistory, after all. On the other hand, how could colonists impact the British Parliament's decisions, when it was the latter which decided the laws?

The same way the west indies sugar barons did? Spend massive sums and outspend the abolitionists?

*shrugs* Perhaps. Alternate history is pseudohistory, after all.

There's plenty of literature on counterfactual history in journals of historical theory. It's not always pseudohistory - its status is determined by the form of arguments employed.

Really now? Which journals are you talking about?

[Zed]

History and Theory, primarily.

[Thanas]

That hardly qualifies as counterfactual history.

[Zed]

Bulhof Johannes (1999), ‘What if? Modality and History’, in History and Theory 38, pp. 145-168.
De Mey Tim & Weber Erik (2003), ‘Explanation and Thought Experiments in History’, History and Theory 42, pp. 28-38.

If you need other serious sources concerning counterfactuals in history, here's more:
Fearon James D. (1996), ‘Causes and Counterfactuals in Social Science: Exploring an Analogy between Cellular Automata and Historical Processes’, in Tetlock.& Belkin (1996), pp. 39-67.
Tetlock Philip E. & Belkin Aaron (eds.) (1996), Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


I'd need to dig deeper to find more examples, but I think these suffice as an indication that counterfactual history has a presence with respectable presses and in respectable journals.

[Thanas]

I'd need to dig deeper to find more examples, but I think these suffice as an indication that counterfactual history has a presence with respectable presses and in respectable journals.

Not really. For once, History and Theory is hardly what I would call one of the "large" journals. You can call me back if articles like that appear in respectable publications like the JRS. A rather small-scale journal published by one university is no indication of that, nor does it speak to counterfactual history having a place among history. Were are the articles by Peter Brown, Alexander Demandt, Manfred Clauss just to name a few exploring it in a field of study? Where are the followups, the citations, the valuable research gained?

So far all I see are a few thought experiments published in one negligible journal and a single book....which is printed at a university press, which so far is not an indication of quality.

[Serafina]

General guideline: A scientific article that doesn't get cited by other scientific articles is worthless.
Therefore, same question as Thanas: Are any of these articles cited by other articles by other researchers, preferably in other journals?

[Zed]

I'd need to dig deeper to find more examples, but I think these suffice as an indication that counterfactual history has a presence with respectable presses and in respectable journals.

Not really. For once, History and Theory is hardly what I would call one of the "large" journals. You can call me back if articles like that appear in respectable publications like the JRS. A rather small-scale journal published by one university is no indication of that, nor does it speak to counterfactual history having a place among history. Were are the articles by Peter Brown, Alexander Demandt, Manfred Clauss just to name a few exploring it in a field of study? Where are the followups, the citations, the valuable research gained?

So far all I see are a few thought experiments published in one negligible journal and a single book....which is printed at a university press, which so far is not an indication of quality.

I've provided resources that argue for the validity of thought experiments in historiography. Do with them whatever you want.

[thejester]

General guideline: A scientific article that doesn't get cited by other scientific articles is worthless.
Therefore, same question as Thanas: Are any of these articles cited by other articles by other researchers, preferably in other journals?

Quite apart from the fact that history isn't science, it took me all of 30 seconds to figure out that yes they have been cited. Not by many but frankly volume of citations is a daft way to figure out the worth of a piece of historical research - Lewis Sorley's A Better War get turned up 93 times by Google Scholar but that does not change the fact it is a pretty shonky bit of a work with some extremely dubious conclusions.

[Thanas]

General guideline: A scientific article that doesn't get cited by other scientific articles is worthless.
Therefore, same question as Thanas: Are any of these articles cited by other articles by other researchers, preferably in other journals?

Quite apart from the fact that history isn't science, it took me all of 30 seconds to figure out that yes they have been cited.

All the citations are in works that have pretty much nothing to do with the practice of history, most of them are in either non-related fields of study, the same journal and/or highly speculative articles about theoretical applications.

Not by many but frankly volume of citations is a daft way to figure out the worth of a piece of historical research - Lewis Sorley's A Better War get turned up 93 times by Google Scholar but that does not change the fact it is a pretty shonky bit of a work with some extremely dubious conclusions.

I am sure nobody here was just going to look up the volume of citations, but rather, as Serafina said in her quote, look at the journals and authors.