Civil War in Libya

[Prince Cobra]

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.

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.

[PanzerJaeger]

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.

On paper, they have 37 Hind attack helicopters, 39 SU-22s, 32 Mirages, 25 Mig 21s, 134 Mig 23s, and between 100 and 200 more support/training/transport aircraft - all of Cold War vintage. It is amazing that they've managed to get any of their fighters operational at all considering their age and the years of neglect they suffered through the 90s and 00s after the Soviet stream ran dry. I would think less than a third of those fighters are operational, but I have nothing solid to base that on. A number of planes were lost to the rebels as well.

Unless anti-aircraft units defected along with the captured AA equipment, the rebels would need Stinger-type missiles to be at all effective. Knocking jets out of the sky is difficult enough for a trained AA crew operating the kind of conventional AA guns that we've seen them riding around with on the backs of trucks, and it would be nearly impossible to jump on one with no experience and shoot down an aircraft. Luckily for the rebels, it is even more difficult to accurately bomb and strafe targets without decent training - training that Libya's pilots probably did not get much of.