Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,706
On a serious note - Libya has announced a cessation of all military action following the UN resolution
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12787739
Obviously we will have to see for how long this holds and if it forces Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi to the negotiating table
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
a shrewd piece of brinkmanship from muammar and friends, they saw this coming and planned accordingly.
how long can the united kingdom, france and others keep their aircraft on standby?
the other question must be what happens if the rebels break the ceasefire?
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Vic
Re: your post 13 I don't think I have ever made a right decision in life but have simply followed my heart, head, catholic and socialist beliefs. The difference between you and I is that I'm not standing for any ,and in your case every, vacant public position from rat catcher to MP. Sometime in the future and if you are ever elected into a position of power you may have to follow the will of the people and not your own misguided beliefs.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
That last question is a good one. The rebels have been receiving shipments of arms from the Egyptian army, according to the New York Journal.
If the rebels actually accept a cease-fire, is still open, for until now they have not done so, even though they were offered many offers by the Libyan government since the upheaval broke out in February.
They were offered talks, but they turned them all down. Also because their leader (or one of their leaders), a former top Libyan minister, did not want any talks. (!!!) As it is now, the rebels might find it hard, very hard, to continue their war and their no compromise policies; indeed, if they attack, that would put them in a position of breaking any agreement that the UN would consider essential.
If the rebels engage in desert terrain where there are no civilians, by launching an attack, or a series of attacks, then the armed forces implementing the UN resolution could not legally do anything to intervene, if the combat remains between armed forces away from civilian areas.
if the rebels attack a town, this would put them in the liability of being attacked by the armed forces implementing the UN resolution. Very unlikely!
If the UN resdolution does not envisage what would happen if rebels attack a town in Libya, then it is a one-sided resolution. If the rebels attack government forces in desert terrain, where there are no civilians, and the international forces attack Libyan government soldiers or infrastructure, then such international intervention would be illegal.
But, because Mrs. Hillary Clinton is openly publisicing that Col. Gedaffi has to go, I am wondering how long it might take before something happens that is totally out of bounds of the UN resolution.
Anyway, if the rebels had reached Tripoli, in their military offensive 2 weeks ago, we would probably have witnessed their military defeat in Tripoli. It so happened that they were defeated before reaching Sirte.
Now Barry must explain to me the difference between Libyans and Libyans each fighting with passion for their cause, and tell me why I should be in favour of Britain becoming randomly involved on one side.
Once again, a military intervention has been spun off without any cause, any logical explanation, as to why the hell our Country has to get involved in it!
Guest 672- Registered: 3 Jun 2008
- Posts: 2,119
So basicly speaking Alex, you would much rather sit back and watch the the news of thousands of people being killed for the want of a dictator and the British gov saying " sorry but it aint our problem "
We are a civilised nation Alex, stop living in the dark ages.
grass grows by the inches but dies by the feet.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Frighteningly I am sympathetic to Alex's conclusions, not his reasons. As the proposal rules out ground forces, although not air attacks on ground forces, the way is still open for Gaddafi to take extreme measures against rebel forces and enclaves.
Given his not covert support for terrorist groups in the past do we want to imagine a Gaddafi regaining full control knowing that the west have supported the bombing of his country? Based on past experience he has proven to be an elusive target for 'surgical strikes'.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Ian, what about Irak? How many people have been killed there since the war supposedly ended? Al Queda slipped in, in the mean-time, and then there was the resistence of the Sunite military groups anyway, and the Sciite army of the Mhedi, and no-one really knew which bombs went off according to whose plans.
The Mhedi's army didn't seem to be involved in setting bombs off, but they did at some point confront tha American army in a full-pitch battle that lasted for days in the Sciite areas of Baghdad.
The Sunite guerillas were fighting American soldiers, remember Faludjah? That battle that lasted days, with house to house fighting?
Never heard of it, I assume. But everyone has heard of Bengazi, Misratah and Zawihah.
Only what you want to hear and remember, Ian!
As for all those darned bombs going off in crowded streets in Irak, no-one really knows who's behind them, insurgents, may-be some insurgents but not others, or Al Quaeda fighting a private war. Who knows.
I have seen where it all can lead to, Ian, and I sincerely hope that in a few weeks or months time no Al Quaeda terrorists are going about in Libya detonating bombs among crowds of people if the Libyan government is overthrown by some Clinton style invasion.
In Libya, dear Ian, there was peace and tranquility until a bunch of rebels sounded off, probably counting on British and Americam forces, and others too, to get involved.
We should have told them there and then to buzz off!
I know a lot about people being blown up by bombs in the streets, Ian, I've seen it on TV for years in Irak! And hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their own country, Irak, because of never-ending terror!
Yes, all after a Tony Blair invasion of Irak!
Ian, the best military commanders are those who know what the consequences of their strategy will be. The UN resolution with Libya is a gamble. If it ends there, and no more fighting takes place, then that's one thing.
But if it does not, and some leader in the West (for example Mrs Clinton), tries pursuing some private policy of overthrowing Col. Gedaffi, in pure Bill Clinton style, while abusing a UN resolution (I'm saying IF), this would be illegal according to international law and an abuse of UN mandate.
It has already happened in Crajina, Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo.
I really and dearly hope that PM Cameron knows where the borders of international law are, and that he does not overstep the mark, because the potential outcome is anything between all ending peacefully now with
1) an agreement between Libyan forces to stop the war,
2) to an end to the war through one side defeating the other,
3) to a regional war, with God knows what for physical and economic consequences for all of us!
Ian, being aware of dangers and being cautious, and with an eye open to national and international law, does not equiperate me to being cynical and to sitting back "watching thousands of people being killed".
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
Wasn't that peace and tranquility in Libya only there because it was enforced by secret police?
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Ray, Libya had a record, that there was no terrorism preaching of any extremists, NOR any hatred preaching of them either!
Libya has not got involved in any terrorism against Israel, where-as the "holy Lebanon" that preaches international war against Libya is full of missiles ready to be fired off at Israel. I recently read in a paper that Hezbollah has stock-piled new long-range missiles by the thousands, and that it is only a mtter of time before the next war with Israel breaks out.
No sign of Col. Gedaffi there, he is not involved in it.
Now let's not even mention Saudi Arabia's governmental law that any protesters will be wipped and imprisoned before they can say Jack Robinson, that in Yemen some group has just shot dead 39 demonstratotrs and wounded many others, or that some American missiles yesterday blew to pieces 40 innocent people in norhern Pakistan.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
alex
the saudis are our "friends", they have oil and have money to spend on arms.
they are allowed to do what they want to their people.
libya were our "friends" too, this changed when it looked like an unknown quantity would take control of the oil(sorry i meant country).
for purely business reasons we are getting involved.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Business and oil is a very good reason too to get involved, Howard.
What people are forgetting is that Gadaffi has never been a friend of the UK
He financed the IRA terrorists, and the Lockabie bomber was Libyan and was working in behalf of Gadaffi. Let us also not forget the murder and a WPC by Gadaffi henchmen, they have been protected by this man ever since.
Gadaffi is also an enemy to his own people.
Seems good to me that we help bring an end to this monster and if it is also good business then we really do have a win-win situation....
Guest 664- Registered: 23 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,039
No Fly Zone: for a moment, I thought it was a thread about Manston Airport.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
I know that Saudi Arabia is a friendly state, and I don't have any intention haranguing the Saudis.
As for the Pan Am plane that got blown up and went down over lockabie, I have heard two different views on TV about who else might have put the bomb there.
Accoroding to people who have researched this, it may have been ordered as a retaliation for something that was done to one or other country apart from Libya.
I won't go any further than this, don't want to trigger off a dispute on it, and haven't got a clue who did it. But The Libyan government always claimed it was not them, and the two alternative possibilities that were brought up indicated two different states which each had to do with an American encounter.
The Libyan government handed over who the British courts claimed were suspects because they wanted to end isolation and embargo.
What I have written here is no State secret, it is probably common knowledge to many, and a German TV station did bring the case up in a documentary, so it is not that I am inventing this.
But again, it is something that is too delicate to bring up here, and actually, very few people in high places in Britain and America (if any at all) have brought it up officially over the past weeks, for the very reason that the whole case is disputed as to who realy did it, ie which secret service of a country that at some point previous to the fact had been at loggerheads with the USA.
But I do protest at Barry's Viking attitude about making a win-win cause out of the Libya situation, not something that would impress the ladies, who I have noted have kept well out of this thread.
Not gentleman-like of you, Barry!
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
There's nothing "gentleman-like" about Gadaffi is there. Nor is "being civilised" in his vocabulary.
Him and his son should be taken out if at all possible. I'm sure that many of those cheering for him are doing so because they're scared not to. Like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Gadaffi has a very good internal terrorist organisation - weeding out and killing those who oppose him.
A very nasty man.
Roger
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,885
This is for Alex
I agree with your last post Roger, Gadaffi is an awful man and a proven liar, his planes are at it again.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Heres a stunning photo of a jet fighter going down in Benghazi
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
It seems that the rebels sent the plane over Bengazi, that it was flying around for an hour or more, until it developed engine problems and plumeted down near the city. There is general belief by journalists of Sky News that the rebels are waging propaganda to lure the West into attacking Libyan government forces.
This is a very dangerous situation, where President Obama might start claiming whatever the rebels say, as being facts, even though satelite technology and radar from western planes and ships know exactly when a plane would take off in Libya, where it would go and when it would land again, and therefore which side it belonged to.
I hope that propaganda lies from rebels don't start dictating the orders of western leaders now!
Roger, may-be you should know that the leader of the rebels, who went over to them at the start, was a lawer who critisesed the Libyan government in the past, and was subsequently promoted to justice minister in an attempt of the Libyan government to be open towards Libyan people.
If you read the proper analysis of Libyan policies as written by informed people whose researches are promoted on international world news web-sites, it seems that it was not at all as you have stated above.
Periodically, Libyan people who have opposed the government and imprisoned have been released from prison. They were not tortured either.
One interesting example is that of hundreds of members of an extremist group from a town in Eastern Libya who were released, not sure when but possibly a few years ago, in return for renouncing violence as a means of imposing Sharia law.
Your views as above seem to be based on a carried away statement, but not researched. And not only: if Col. Gedaffi had been running an internal terrorist organisation to kill people with opposing views, I am sure that the British, American, yes and French, and many other governments, would have made this known in the past, and wouldn't have established strong trading links with the Libyan government.
But if the imprisonment of people preaching extremist violence had not taken place, and they had been left to preach hatred in Libya, and to promote hatred and violence (putting bombs around in western countries for example), I suppose then that Col. Gedaffi would be the perfect Al Quaeda monster that everyone has a reason for hating.
Unfortunately, when a war breaks out, the enemy has to become a monster, and so any unresearched and unfair - and contradictory comment - can become the vogue of the day.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Very dramatic footage of that jet on sky news in past couple of hours Marek. It seems that it was a jet being piloted by the rebel side...not the Gaddafi side. So its not a Gaddafi loss as was first thought. But its all very confusing as to what exactly is happening.
But the latest hot news is that French Jets are already in action.
I think both Cameron and Sarkozy have come out of this very well. It is vital that both ourselves and France maintain a strong EU world voice, a strong military force too..there is no appetite for this in the US as they are war weary over there. The EU has carried some real weight on this.
We must resist further cuts to our military forces. The world is more unstable now than it ever was, even more so than in the cold war in some ways,when at least each side knew what was what..its the shear unpredicability of global affairs now that we should always be equipped to deal with.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
you mention the cold war paul, we did not realise at the time that they were the good old days.
two nasty superpowers that could all send us to smithereens, as they were equally tooled up nothing could ever happen.
i heard that the italians have sent in some aircraft, let's hope they are not like their tanks, 4 gears - 1 forward and 3 reverse.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
PaulB, the EU has not got involved in this one, they have done the very opposite.
Representing 27 countries, it was impossible for them (the official EU foreign ministers group) to have been in favour of war action against Libya, as more than one government of an EU state is against such military intervention.
Germany is one country that has said no full stop!
This is a private affair of MP Cameron and his French counter-part, and it is clear to see that the French governmental leaders had already decided to bomb Lybian objectives before the UN mandate was decided upon.
The Lybian government has asked for observers to be sent to monitor the cease-fire, and the rebels stated all along that they would not respect any cease-fire anyway, but that they would fight on.
I have already understood this morning that the UN mandate is not worth the paper it is written on. Some leaders in the West are hell-bent on over-throwing Col. Gedaffi, and they will abuse the UN mandate to try to impose this objective.
It's a shame that President Obama has not held steadfast and kept out of it.
However, this time, the official EU policy is not to blame (thus far), which does not alter my views on the EU in general, though
Marek