The Allies go in !

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Pardon me for posting - but this is exciting news !!!

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/US-Allies-Attack-Libya-118304704.html

The airstrikes have gone in against Libya. For once, the UK, USa and the rest of the world seem to be doing the right thing. I was shocked when i heard that cameron had tried to get the SAS involved in Libya. I want to make it clear that I have never liked Gaddaffi , even if I had never posted on that subject until recently in this forum. Iin fact, i don't like the idea of any dictator oppressing their own people and getting backing from the business community to do so.

So, to herar that the Libyan rebels are getting air support and even air strikes against gaddaffian positions is welcome news.

I just hope it isn't too late. governments never do this sort of thing without wantng some kind of pay back. i still hope that there will be free elections in libya, and that this will mean more demands for freedom there and elsewhere and not a rolling back of freedom to secure ' national interests'.

ii don't want gaddaffi replaced by a puppet of UK or US choosing , I want the Libyans to be able to set their own course as a nation . And if that means that we in the west have to lower our dependence on foriegn oil, so be it.

but we must ask ourselves -
what is the UN for?
if we don't want the USA to be the world's policeman , who else is up for the job ?
how can the democratic voters in democratic nations secure the freedoms of everyone - for untill we are all free, no one really is.

I am overjoyed, not in the death and destruction that now rains down upon Gaddaffis henchmen, but the opportunity that this may open up for democracy and freedom in a land that has been denied it for so long. wee are going in on the terms asked, the only terms the libyan opposition wants. I hope that they will have enough space to build their own nation on their own terms as a result.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42164455/ns/world_news-mideast/n_africa/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12776418

Comments

Huge difference.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Korea and Vietnam happened in the context of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Somalia and Afghanistan had boots on the ground from day one.

This is US command + control, electronic warfare, drone surveillance, and cruise missiles. Period. With the French and English flying strike missions against aircraft, armor, and Gadhafi loyalist troops to enable opposition a chance at defending themselves.

That's what they have the UN resolution backing them to do, nothing else.

We neither have the desire nor the capability to expand much beyond that, and the Libyans don't want foreign troops on their soil anyway, as evidenced by the reception the SAS and UK diplomat recieved.

Re: Huge difference.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Only in the context of the Cold War.

In reality the Korean War was the result of two rival nationalists representing two very different views of Korea, with the guy with the better nationalist cred, Kim Il Sung, the undisputed loser of the war. He had better nationalist cred in that while Syngman Rhee was busy fighting Japanese from the safety of Los Angeles, Il Sung and others who'd go on to found North Korea were fighting them *in Korea.*

Rhee's government would go on to have a lot of the people who collaborated with Imperial Japan (y'know, the guys responsible for Nanking and Unit 731) while Sung's government found a lot of Stalinists, who were very much disliked by the pro-Chinese faction.

Everything goes to shit in 1950 and the solution satisfied nobody.

In Vietnam, similar process, the RVN collaborated with the local imperialist power (France instead of Japan), Ho and his cohorts had fought both France *and* Imperial Japan (when they realized "Asia for the Asiatics" really meant "Japan Uber Alles"), the USA got involved for no real reason at all, and the resolution even moreso was unable to satisfy anyone.

The USA commanded the UN forces in the Korean War, which is such a marvelous success that we've got half that peninusla divided between the Last Stalinist Regime On the Planet and the other half with said People's Republic of Tyranny holding 50 years of accumulated artillery at its capital, the 9th largest financial center in the world.

Now in Operation: Not A War we're lobbing cruise missiles directly at He Of Many Spellings, missing him, and proving that the same process whereby Korea transformed from a simple military exercise to the closest the two superpowers ever got to atomic warfare in the Cold War applies in the 2010s, from another UN intervention in other peoples' civil war.

Re: Huge difference.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

underlankers already addressed Korea and Vietnam, so I'll take Somalia and Afghanistan.

Somalia and Afghanistan had boots on the ground from day one.

That wasn't my point. My point was that in both cases the goals of the military mission were altered and expanded significantly over the course of the conflicts. At the same time, the forces tasked with achieving those aims grew in size and strength. That is the definition of "escalation." In Somalia, the mission went from protecting humanitarian aid trucks to nation-building and hunting rogue warlords. In Afghanistan the mission went from taking out bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders to nation-building and hunting the remnants of the Taliban regime. In both conflicts the task forces went from a few special operations units to battalion-strength units using armor, attack helicopters, and other things used in combined-arms tactics. Don't try and tell me that this was their intention all along. It is very clear that both missions had an ad-hoc making-shit-up-as-we-go-along approach.

I'm saying that I'm worried that in Libya, the mission is going to go from "stop the Libyan Air Force from performing air strikes" to "destroy the Gaddafi regime by any means necessary" to "stabilize the country and do so more nation-building." The US, UK and France clearly have the capability to at least make the attempt. While they may not have the desire now, that may change if the rebels still keep losing or worse, a stalemate forms.

Re: Huge difference.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Might. I find it unlikely.
Too many other issues to deal with.

Re: Huge difference.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

I hope that you are right. I really do.

Re: Huge difference.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Me too. =/