Just out of interest, it appears you're rooting in favor of Gadaffi PJ. If this is so, why?
Long live the revolution! Down with Qaddafi!![]()
This is what happens next: Sirte falls tomorrow, and the march on Tripoli begins not long after. The battle of Tripoli will be short due to defecting units dealing severe blows to the loyalists, coupled with the civil uprising of the city. Anyone dear betting against?![]()
Last edited by Viking; 03-05-2011 at 21:44.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
I think if we draw a line with:
Rebels win tomorrow effortlessly <-----1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----> Gadaffi crushes rebels and carries on
I think your prediction is about here on the spectrum:
Rebels win tomorrow effortlessly <-----1-----2-X---3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----> Gadaffi crushes rebels and carries on
I would put my own prediction nearer:
Rebels win tomorrow effortlessly <-----1-----2-----3----X-4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----> Gadaffi crushes rebels and carries on
I think it will take a while longer to muster and organise a force to go for Tripoli, and I think there may be a few more counter-offensives by Gaddafi.
"The republicans will draft your kids, poison the air and water, take away your social security and burn down black churches if elected." Gawain of Orkney
I'm rooting for no one. It is not my fight.
The extent of the folly in which many in the West engaged in is worth pointing out. You can see it in this thread. People with no understanding of the situation on the ground declared the regime all but dead and scoffed at suggestions otherwise, when it should have been clear that what the rebels had could not be accurately described as a military force. Heady talk of a grand march on Tripoli and Hitler in his bunker seem but a distant memory at this point.
The Guardian finally speaks in more sobering, realistic terms.
At the beating heart of the uprising, in Benghazi, Libya's rebels are trying to kickstart a revolution that has stalled less than halfway to the capital. Throughout the sacked city that spawned the revolt, the euphoria of victory is steadily becoming a distant memory. Routine has set into a place that two weeks ago was flush with hope and opportunity. After ousting a dictator of 42 years in less than a weekend, anything seemed possible here. For a while.
Shops are now open, streets are teeming and people are again talking about the grind of daily life. Heady predictions of a glorious march to Tripoli have been silenced.
"We didn't ask to be in this position," said Salwa Bugaigis, a leading member of Benghazi's organising committee, now trying to run the town's civil affairs. "I've said that since the beginning. I was one of the first protesters outside the courthouse. Then they attacked us. And then the revolution came. We are running something that we were not prepared for."
Benghazi's rebels were clearly not prepared for another surprise – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's ability to rally his supporters and mount an effective rear-guard action that has stopped the revolution in its tracks, at least for now.
A week is a long time in Libya's revolution. Seven days ago the narrative was of a rebel advance almost to Colonel Gaddafi's doorstep. The town of Zawiyah — reached by journalists last Sunday – was in the hands of the opposition, which had little more than two ancient tanks, a handful of armoured cars and a pair of anti-aircraft guns.
In reality, the story of "the advance" was always something of an illusion, more real on paper than on the ground. True, the opposition holds much of the east, but the towns that have been ticked off one by one in the country's west and around the capital have been a very different issue — Zawiyah foremost among them.
For these are places that have not so much been captured by an opposition motoring on Tripoli but have fallen to the part of the population opposing Gaddafi.
And while they have been presented as part of a joined-up whole, in the west these opposition centres have been largely isolated from events in the east, unable to be reinforced or resupplied from the main effort in and around Benghazi.Passing through Zawiyah in the middle of last week, it was clear a new balance of power was emerging. While last Sunday the checkpoints leading towards the city had been armoured cars and pickups, by Wednesday modern tanks, a dozen belonging to the Khamis brigade commanded by Gaddafi's son of the same name, were sitting at junctions outside the town.
Ten kilometres or so behind them was another worrying development for the 200 or so fighters within Zawiyah. First six, then eight, BM-21 missile launchers appeared in a tree-fringed meadow, their rockets pointing towards the town.
When the battle did come in earnest, it appears that those in the town were caught by surprise. For instead of attacking along the main road from the roundabout, close to the town's Martyrs Square, the government forces came from the west, through the outlying area of Harsha, catching the rebels by surprise and killing their commander early on in the fighting.
A teacher in the town said that Zawiyah was now under siege from pro-Gaddafi forces. "The square is surrounded. There is smoke and many fires. They are firing at the houses around the square. Snipers are firing at anyone who moves. My friends and cousins are in the square fighting. There are explosions. Anyone who tries to go to the square is being killed."
Libyan rebels said yesterday afternoon that they had repelled the initial attack by Gaddafi's forces. "They entered Zawiyah at six in the morning with heavy forces, hundreds of soldiers with tanks. Our people fought back … We have won for now and civilians are gathering in the square," said Youssef Shagan, the rebel force spokesman in Zawiyah.
However, another rebel fighter said that Gaddafi's forces were regrouping at the town's entrance. "Gaddafi will never enter this city," said the rebel, who gave his name as Ibrahim. "He will never set foot here. The only way for him to enter the city is when we are all dead. He has to kill us all to control the city."
Earlier, the Libyan leader's forces had fired high-explosive rounds in central streets and dragged people from their homes. There were reports of many casualties among civilians, rebels and soldiers.
The fluctuating fortunes of the two sides, typified in the bloody fights for Zawiyah and the sharp, chaotic battles for towns such as Misrata and Brega, suggest Libya's conflict may endure for weeks, or even months, as neither side is able to muster enough military power to decisively defeat the other.
The opposition, despite its early, bullish pronouncements about marching on Tripoli, lacks any effective air cover, leaving it vulnerable to those in the Libyan air force still loyal to Gaddafi.Yesterday much of what was on show in Benghazi still spoke of revolution and victory. Stirring hymns, recorded in the wake of the fall of the city, blared out on constant rotation.
Independence flags that were last flown in the city 42 years ago are flying again, and local children shout their defiance as they run traffic intersections that not long ago were the sole domain of Gaddafi loyalists.
But noticeably absent was the gung-ho talk evident further along the highway where the fighting has been at its most intense. Instead people were focusing on more mundane things, like establishing a functional society and finding food. They anticipate being in for the long haul. Locals were pragmatic, not revolutionary.
"We have a lot to do here," said Fatima Marouf, as she bought meat, the first time she had left her house in a fortnight. "If we get this city working, then the rest may happen itself."
That Guardian article is out of touch with what has been going on lately. The rebels have, by force, taken towns that has been defended by loyalist troops - no stalemate on the eastern front just yet, that is certain. Also, if the rebels manage to take Cirte, then the road is almost "open" to Tripoli.
Much closer to Tripoli than Benghazi - in fact, just outside Tripoli - lies the the rebel held city of Misurata. Misurata is about the same size as Benghazi (and the third biggest city in the country it seems), and is the next major city on the road from Cirte. That rebels in Benghazi will not march on Tripoli may well be so, but there are rebels much closer that can do just that instead.
Last edited by Viking; 03-06-2011 at 10:52.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
We'll see. I've read reports claiming Westerners are on the ground buying off Gaddafi loyalists, which could change everything.
As of today though, your march on Sirte has been halted cold.
As for Misurata, it doesn't appear to be the staging ground for a grand offensive either. In fact, it seems the situation is reversed.Ground forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, backed up by warplanes, pushed rebels away from the coastal town of Bin Jawwad on Sunday to stop their advance on Kadafi's hometown of Sirte.
One fighter, returning wounded from Bin Jawwad to rebel-held Ras Lanuf further east, said Kadafi loyalists had ambushed advancing rebels with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Asked what he had seen, he replied: "Death." Distraught and bandaged, he would not say more.
Last edited by ICantSpellDawg; 03-06-2011 at 17:10.
"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-Eric "George Orwell" Blair
"If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
(Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 1861).
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
PJ, the Gaddafi regime is as good as dead. That's very obvious. His only loyalist force is consisted of mercenaries, which leads me to the point...
If this succeeds, this would be a really elegant way out of the crisis and I hope it will succeed.We'll see. I've read reports claiming Westerners are on the ground buying off Gaddafi loyalists, which could change everything.
R.I.P. Tosa...
I say we get the CIA into Libya to smuggle arms to the Rebels. Antitank weapons, antiaircraft weapons, and assault rifles could transform them from an angry mob to an effective killing machine.
That's what I'm talkin' bout.
"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-Eric "George Orwell" Blair
"If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
(Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 1861).
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Last edited by Greyblades; 03-06-2011 at 21:48. Reason: Ffixed link.
Yeah, the british are about to ruin this for all of us again and make sure that the Libyans will hate the west even more once this is over...![]()
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"Topic is tired and needs a nap." - Tosa Inu
And some training would be helpful.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7251E720110306
From the look of the article, it seems they definitely have morale but their lack of training and tactics seems like it could seriously undermine them.
Indeed, let's dump a bunch of weapons in to Africa and try to play God in a small third world conflict. And when those weapons end up killing babies in the Congo in 10 years, I'm sure we'll all be suitably outraged. Have we learned nothing? At least when we did this in the Cold War it was based on broader strategic concerns and not pure emotion.
Thankfully, the Obama administration seems to at least understand the concept of plausible deniability. However, the blood and violence wrought with these weapons will always be, in part, on our hands. The service life on a decent AK build can be in excess of 50,000 rounds and/or 40 years. That's a huge liability just to sway the outcome of some marginal North African conflict.
Also, SOCOM is going to have a field day with this. SAS boys getting captured by the very people they were trying to help!![]()
Last edited by PanzerJaeger; 03-07-2011 at 08:48.
Rebel fighters seem unable to advance past Bin Jawad at present. Though, given the volatile situation as well as little information, no one seems able to predict what's next. The pendulum could swing either way, I suppose.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
Ah that is how I know our much beloved royal family, what do you do when people are rising up against oppresion? You hail in contracts for the sales of high-tech weaponry to the oppressors of course, what else. Of course it's just a private dinner. Her SS-serving daddy would be proud of her.
That could have been staged. It leaves the opposition untainted by foreign aid, even though they met with the diplomats.
I honestly don't care about the national sovereignty of dictatorships. I believe that it is our duty to help free everyone, everywhere. We've got soldiers, they signed up to fight - let them fight. I support perpetual coalition wars around the globe until people have control of their own destinies. I wish more nations would link up to help fight these wars.
"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-Eric "George Orwell" Blair
"If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
(Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 1861).
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
This is a very delicate issue. If you launch such a campaign, you will give much evidence to those who claim the West is Imperialistic threat and should not be trusted. You can also undermine the influence of those politicians who want good relations with the West. It is also not very certain what will happen in Libya and whether the West will look as the occupator... In addition, I am not very sure whether the oppostion in Lybia really wants a foreign military help and how people will react to that (despite the information (?) that the government in Benghazi asked for help... ) For now, the best strategy would be to locate forces around but not to interfere in the conflict... Sit and wait and provide humanitarian aid... And do everything you can with non-military means... (bribing the mercenaries is OK)
And yes, I believe the Lybians will manage to crush the Gadafi regime alone. Really. The loss of Bin Jawad was probably a tactical retreat, the real battle is now for Ras Lanuf and I believe that the mercenaries will be repelled. After all, all of the East became rebel and that includes all the tanks and munitions under the local army. Yes, the Gaddafi army is better armed but the rebels still have sharp teeth + numbers and high morale. And support of the international community.
Does anybody knows something about the Gaddafi airforce? As far as I know, the rebels have a good anti airforce weapons so the threat from the sky might be a bit exaggerated.
Last edited by Prince Cobra; 03-07-2011 at 18:00.
R.I.P. Tosa...
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
- Tellos Athenaios
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“ὁ δ᾽ ἠλίθιος ὣσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει” – Kratinos in Dionysalexandros.
I say we give the opposition Stingers.
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EDIT: @Tellos
No, it isn't. The support given the most consideration at present is airstrikes and airborne support in general.
Last edited by Viking; 03-07-2011 at 15:37.
Runes for good luck:
[1 - exp(i*2π)]^-1
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