Middle East and North Africa Unrest

[MadCat360]

Say what you want about the US, but when shit needs blown up, we kick ass at it and we don't screw around about doing it either.

Reminds me of the Differential Theory of US Armed Forces (Snake Model) upon encountering a snake in the Area of Operations. Behold item 10.

1. Infantry: Snake smells them, leaves area.

2. Airborne: Lands on and kills the snake.

3. Armor: Runs over snake, laughs, and looks for more snakes.

4. Aviation: Has Global Positioning Satellite coordinates to snake. Can't find snake. Returns to base for refuel, crew rest and manicure.

5. Ranger: Plays with snake, then eats it.

6. Field Artillery: Kills snake with massive Time On Target barrage with three Forward Artillery Brigades in support. Kills several hundred civilians as unavoidable collateral damage. Mission is considered a success and all participants (i.e., cooks, mechanics and clerks) are awarded Silver Stars.

7. Special Forces: Makes contact with snake, ignores all State Department directives and Theater Commander Rules of Engagement by building rapport with snake and winning its heart and mind. Trains it to kill other snakes. Files enormous travel settlement upon return.

8. Combat Engineer: Studies snake. Prepares in-depth doctrinal thesis in obscure 5 series Field Manual about how to defeat snake using countermobility assets. Complains that maneuver forces don't understand how to properly conduct doctrinal counter-snake ops.

9. Navy SEAL: Expends all ammunition and calls for naval gunfire support in failed attempt to kill snake. Snake bites SEAL and retreats to safety. Hollywood makes fantasy film in which SEALS kill Muslim extremist snakes.

10. Navy: Fires off 50 cruise missiles from various types of ships, kills snake and makes presentation to Senate Appropriations Committee on how Naval forces are the most cost-effective means of anti-snake force projection. *

11. Marine: Kills snake by accident while looking for souvenirs. Local civilians demand removal of all US forces from Area of Operations.

12. Marine Recon: Follows snake, gets lost.

13. Combat Controllers: Guides snake elsewhere.

14. Para-Rescue Jumper: Wounds snake in initial encounter, then works feverishly to save snake's life.

15. Quartermaster: (NOTICE: Your anti-snake equipment is on backorder.)

16. C-17 Transport pilot: Receives call for anti-snake equipment, delivers two weeks after due date.

17. F-15 pilot: Mis-identifies snake as enemy Mil-24 Hind helicopter and engages with missiles. Crew chief paints snake kill on aircraft.

18. F-16 pilot: Finds snake, drops two CBU-87 cluster bombs, and misses snake target, but get direct hit on Embassy 100 KM East of snake due to weather (Too Hot also Too Cold, Was Clear but too overcast, Too dry with Rain, Unlimited ceiling with low cloud cover etc.) Claims that purchasing multi-million dollar, high-tech snake-killing device will enable it in the future to kill all snakes and achieve a revolution in military affairs.

19. AH-64 Apache pilot: Unable to locate snake, snakes don't show well on infra-red. Infrared only operable in desert AO's without power lines or SAM's.

20. UH-60 Blackhawk pilot: Finds snake on fourth pass after snake builds bonfire, pops smoke, lays out VS 17 to mark Landing Zone. Rotor wash blows snake into fire.

21. B-52 pilot: Pulls ARCLIGHT mission on snake, kills snake and every other living thing within two miles of target.

22. MinuteMan Missile crew: Lays in target coordinates to snake in 20seconds, but can't receive authorization from National Command Authority to use nuclear weapons.

23. Intelligence officer: Snake? What snake? Only four of 35 indicators of snake activity are currently active. We assess the potential for snake activity as LOW.

24. Judge Advocate General (JAG): Snake declines to bite, citing grounds of professional courtesy.

25. Signal: Tries to communicate with snake...fail repeated attempts. Complains that the snake did not have the correct fill or did not know how to work equipment a child could operate. Signal Officer informs the commander that he could easily communicate with the snake using just his voice. Commander insists that he NEEDS to video-conference with the snake, with real-time streaming positional and logistical data on the snake displayed on video screens to either side. Gives Signal Corps $5 Billion to make this happen. SigO abuses the 2 smart people in the corps to make it happen, while everybody else stands around, bitches, and takes credit. In the end, General Dynamics and several sub-contractors make a few billion dollars, the 2 smart people get out and go to work for them, and the commander gets what he asked for only in fiber-optic based simulations. The snake is forgotten.

* It's true. That Tomahawk strike cost the government over $600 million in pure unit cost. For twenty AA targets. But it's still more cost effective than deploying 20 F/A-18s and swamping those targets with HARMs and Mk. 83s.

 

[Cowboy]

Question : If you are a Libyan soldier and you get your tank blown up by a French plane, does that count as getting beat up by a girl?

 

[MacGuffin]

Antother question: If you are a mercenary from Tchad or Niger and see the NATO flying in, do you think "Crap, that's not what I signed up for?"

 

[jetsetter]

According to the BBC B2 bombers have dropped approximately 40 bombs on targets (airports it seems) inside Libya.

 

[AiR]

Boom!

https://pic.armedcats.net/k/kn/knarkas/2011/03/20/libya8.jpg

 

[jetsetter]

The Arab League and African Union are condemning the strikes. Not terribly surprising as the AU is currently headed by a dictator who has proclaimed himself a god and it seemed that the AL wanted a chance to go at it in Libya.

 

[MacGuffin]

"Oh, we wanted you to create a no-flying zone but we didn't want you to shoot!!!"

Where's my facepalm picture? I Must have it here somwhere...

 

[narf]

In order to "safely" enforce a no-fly-zone you need to take out AA. Dunno what else they attacked though.

 

[jetsetter]

In order to "safely" enforce a no-fly-zone you need to take out AA. Dunno what else they attacked though.

Airports, armored vehicles, etc.

 

[tigger]

"Oh, we wanted you to create a no-flying zone but we didn't want you to shoot!!!"

Where's my facepalm picture? I Must have it here somwhere...

It's that or they just trolled us into getting involved in another 3rd world country we have little business in, just so they can have another reason to call us the Great Greedy Imperialist Warmonger Satan or whatever.

In order to "safely" enforce a no-fly-zone you need to take out AA. Dunno what else they attacked though.

The UN resolution gives coalition forces the authority to not only take out air defenses, but any of Gaddafi's military that they perceive to be a threat to civilians. I'm really amazed at how big of a hole he dug for himself with his hardline stance. And he just keeps saying crazy shit.

 

[narf]

The UN resolution gives coalition forces the authority to not only take out air defenses, but any of Gaddafi's military that they perceive to be threating civilians. I'm really amazed at how big of a hole he dug for himself with his hardline stance. And he just keeps saying crazy shit.

Yup, one goal is to protect the civillians. For example taking out a group of tanks rolling towards a city of civillians sounds about right.

 

[Aston Martin]

 

[Heathrow]

"Oh, we wanted you to create a no-flying zone but we didn't want you to shoot!!!"

Where's my facepalm picture? I Must have it here somwhere...

Seems like Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa is now claiming to have been misquoted.

The coalition need to get a couple of things organised quickly:

Firstly, appoint a permanent operational commander who can establish control and be introduced to the press. Should really be an American, but international politics may be better served if someone else was boss. France wasn?t involved in Iraq, so maybe a French four star, with an Arab Deputy?

Secondly, a media communications centre fully set up to mange the news flow. This will include regular briefings schedules, English and Arabic speaking press spokesmen, plus facilities for the mass of international TV, Bloggers, newspaper and Radio journalists who will descend on the place like locusts, as soon as it opens.

So far, apart from the apparent slip-up by Mr. Moussa and the initial Gaddafi propaganda, the media have been performing well. No spectacular bad news stories have happened, but this will not always be the case in future.



* * *

EDIT
18:30 GMT
A news conference is going on now from Tripoli.

They are announcing a ceasefire at 21:00 local, again.

Offering ?talks? with all the Rebel cities, talking about resolving problems and democracy. (No mention of arresting everyone who may turn up, then torturing and killing them all.)

Organising a ?Peace Walk? from Tripoli to Benghazi, to join in prayers for the dead on both sides. Sounds to me like a travelling Human Shield of loyal zealots, the Allies won?t bomb anywhere, if they know civilians are there. (Yesterday, they had a voluntary human shield around Gaddafi?s old residence, the one bombed by Regan 25 years ago.)

The coalition need some Media management to keep on top of the story, the bad guys are moving the agenda.

 

[MacGuffin]

Hmmm... do travelling loyal zealots, who are using their bodies as shields, still have to be considered civilians? What does the Geneva Conventions have to say to that? How long are civilians civilians, when they've openly taken sides and use themselves passively as a kind of living armour for a dictatorship?

Didn't Gaddafi say something about opening the weapons storage and fitting all his followers with guns? They should "thank" him for making them legitimate targets then.

 

[narf]

Carrying an AK-47 would be a decent argument for disqualification as a civillian.

 

[tigger]

What does the Geneva Conventions have to say to that?

Civilians are civilians are civilians. That pretty much sums it up. Even though they're a (voluntary?) human shield, if they're unarmed they're still civilians and they can't be targeted intentionally.

Carrying an AK-47 would be a decent argument for disqualification as a civillian.

Yeah, an armed Libyan national fighting for Gaddafi is a civilian no more.

 

[nomix]

Yeah, I'm not pro-deat penalty, but sometimes...

I really won't miss Gaddafi when he passes...

In 1989, the people of Romania decided to get rid of their, ehm, leader. They killed him after a shamble of a trial. There are times when those sorts of actions are impossible to stop. Nothing to do with it.

Question : If you are a Libyan soldier and you get your tank blown up by a French plane, does that count as getting beat up by a girl?

Fighter pilots are generally short and stuffy. But they're well trained, so I wouldn't call them girls. Especially not if they're French. I know you're joking, but I think it would be a very bad idea to do that joke to ie. drunk foreign legioneres.

It would probably have the same effect as walking into a bar in Northern Finland and calling each and every one of the male customers a "hurri".

 

[vikiradTG2007]

In 1989, the people of Romania decided to get rid of their, ehm, leader. They killed him after a shamble of a trial. There are times when those sorts of actions are impossible to stop. Nothing to do with it.

There's a bit of a difference in this case, Gaddafi doesn't have a mad, barmy wife that controls the country alongside him and is deified by the propaganda machine.

 

[jetsetter]

Israel Navy Snags Another Smuggling Ship
By BARBARA OPALL-ROME
Published: 18 Mar 2011 20:31

Tel Aviv - The Israel Navy's seizure last week of Iranian C704 anti-ship missiles and other munitions marked the latest in the escalating, yet still indirect, tit-for-tat confrontations between Jerusalem and Tehran.

The nonviolent intercept of the Liberian-flagged Victoria container ship, and its estimated 50-ton concealed arms cache, occurred some 380 kilometers off Israel's southern coast. The incident again demonstrated the long arm of Israeli intelligence and Israel's readiness for maritime operations following the bloody, botched takeover of a Gaza-bound Turkish ship last May.
Related Topics

The successful seizure of Iranian weaponry - Israel's fourth in a decade - also was a sweet reward for security officials here, who stood by in frustration as the Iranian Navy tested the post-Mubarak Egyptian waters with its first Suez Canal passage in more than 30 years.

Israeli officials said the ship carrying Iranian-produced, Chinese-designed C704 missiles, 120mm mortars and other munitions was headed for the Egyptian port city of Alexandria. From there, the cache was to have been transported through the Sinai and into Gaza via underground tunnels along the Gaza-Egyptian border.

Israeli intelligence said the cargo was loaded at the Syrian port city of Latakia, sailed to Cyprus, then Beirut and then to a port in southern Turkey before Israel Navy commandos intercepted it en route to Alexandria.

"Iranian arms flowing into Gaza are not coming in drip by drip but wave by wave," Danny Ayalon, Israeli deputy foreign minister, told diplomats invited to Israel's Ashdod port to view the confiscated contraband.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel's battle against the axis of Iran, Syria and Lebanon-based Hezbollah - each working to support terror groups in the Gaza Strip - would continue "by air, sea and land in every place and from every direction, both near and far."

The C704s would have introduced a new capability into the Gaza theater of operations that would have required the Israeli military to modify its operating and protective procedures, given the missile's 35-kilometer range.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=5996923&c=MID&s=TOP

 

[nomix]

There's a bit of a difference in this case, Gaddafi doesn't have a mad, barmy wife that controls the country alongside him and is deified by the propaganda machine.

But he's still a despotic leader, and while I realize that Elena was a very hated figure in Romania, there's no doubt that they'd do much the same to Nicolae Ceau?escu if Elena wasn't there.