Libya Again

The stalemate continues. In some ways this is a good sign for the rebels, because it indicates their military preparations allow them to stop Gaddafi's advances. In other ways it's a bad sign because it gives a canny operator the ability to play for time. Recently Gaddaifi tried to take Ajdabiya, but the rebels seem to have driven him back after losing some ground.

In terms of pointless diplomacy the African Union has a peace plan that has been accepted by Gaddafi. They are really serious, so they sent a bunch of big guns, including several presidents, to deliver the plan. The problem is that a) Gaddafi's accepted cease-fires before, so it's not exactly surprising that he says he'll go along with their plan, b) the rebels have given no indication they;d prefer elections to just killing Gaddafi, and c)the AU's biggest gun (President Zuma of South Africa) left before he could meet said rebels.

So basically nothing is happening.

War Update

A lot's going on. The Turks sent a ship in to help evacuate Misrata, which has managed to hold off Gaddafi's forces for several weeks. Conditions were so bad they had to be escorted by 10 F-16s and teo frigates, but had to retreat almost immediately. Gaddafi seems to have decided he's not gonna get the big players in the war to stop shooting at him, so he's sent somebody to Greece. It's possible he'll get a favorable hearing in Greece, as he's got money and the Greeks are desperate for it. There's widespread speculation the war is a stalemate. The rebels are organizing an army.

According to her father Eman al-Obeidy has disappeared. Gaddafi's people swear she's free, maybe at a woman's shelter, or with her family, but apparently her parents haven't seen her. They claim they were offered a substantial bribe if she'd change her story.

Overall it's good news for the rebels. Turks aren't likely to turn on them after the incident in Misrata showed them how bad Gaddafi is, and the al-Obeidy situation won't help the regime much either.

More importantly the rebels are holding, which means the trick Gaddafi used to rout them a few days back has stopped working, and they seem to be making progress building an army. If true the speculation over the stalemate is premature, and Gaddafi's regime will probably collapse in a few weeks.

Libya Again

The overall situation hasn't changed for the better. Gaddafi stormed the western-most city that was defying him, according to the opposition he destroyed it in the process, but nobody can confirm that one way or the other because Gaddafi isn't letting troops in.

There's goodish news in that the rebels have apparently (finally) made some officers. They've got an effort to retake the land Gaddafi took over the past few days that seems to be fairly organized.

Apparently we're pulling most of our jets out. In some ways that isn't a surprise -- now that the no-fly zone is established most of what the USAF is doing can be done by other countries. Specfically:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress the U.S. will “significantly ramp down our commitment” to Libya except for electronic warfare, aerial refueling and surveillance.

It's not a total withdrawal of combat aircraft. If NATO really needs an A-10 for something all they'll have to do is ask. But since 20 of the 28 NATO member states and Qatar are contributing aircraft our boys don't need to be on the front lines anymore.

More War Stupid War Criticism

Two Bushies, the torture memo guys, just wrote a paper on Libya. It's incredibly stupid. Take one of their first claims:

Obama has announced that in no circumstances will the United States introduce ground troops into Libya. Even if the United States was not planning to take that step, it was an unpardonable mistake for the president to have said so publicly. As simple international bargaining theory demonstrates, the threat of escalating a conflict by a party with superior resources should lead to a more favorable settlement.

Dudes, this is not an academic paper. It's a war. We're not a theoretical construct. We're a nation of fallible human beings. And we are Obama's boss. I believe I speak for the entire nation when I say that, thanks to the war your idiot boss started in Iraq, I really don't want any US boots on the ground anywhere. You want any sort of war with Libya you'll have to tell us upfront that there won't be boots on the ground. Period.

The anti-UN crap is equally stupid. No shit Obama's insisting on UN involvement. The last time we started a war in the Mid East without UN involvement was Iraq, and that one took a lot longer and cost a lot more then we expected. Here'sthe meat:

Considering Resolution 1973's handcuffs, it is likely that NATO will eventually either ignore it or construe it disingenuously. U.N. approval has virtually no offsetting benefits, except for a thin veneer of international legality for a no-fly zone, an embargo, and limited efforts to protect Libyan civilians. It only provides countries like Russia and China the opportunity to attack American intervention by claiming it runs beyond the writ of some amorphous "international community" whose will is expressed in a U.N. resolution -- a resolution that pretends that the goals, strategies, and tactics of war can be reduced to a clear legal document. But this imposes a straitjacket on a coalition military faced with unforeseen and constantly changing circumstances and conjures written political agreement where in fact there is none.

Have you remembered nothing about Iraq? Without the UN we had a coalition of countries whose foreign policy depends entirely on the US. Most of them didn't contribute anything, and the ones who did contributed very little. Almost all got out as soon as the going got tough. In the meantime the Chinese, Russians, etc. attacked us for thwarting the will of the international community.

Moreover where do you propose we bomb Libya from without a UN resolution? The French would be game, but their closest territory is Corsica. The Italians, Turks, Greeks, and Maltese, OTOH? Hell no. Especially the Turks.

Oh, and to complete the checklist of Things We Did in Iraq That Didn't Work Out And Torture Memo Guys Want Us To Do in Libya the torture memo guys want us to go after Qaddafi's chemical weapons.

Here's the most ridiculous part of their conclusion:

Instead, the United States and its allies should form a Concert of Democracies. No international bureaucracy or complicated rules on the use of force are needed. Instead, the great democracies should collectively decide, case by case, whether to intervene. A concert would allow these countries to share the costs of intervention. And it should exclude countries like Russia and China; they should have no voice until they show a corresponding desire to shoulder global responsibilities.

Great theory. In practice, however, we already have that. It's called NATO. It's just as bureaucratic and rules-obsessed as the UN. Withdrawing from the UN to set up a new NATO would have the following drawbacks:

1) Nobody would join because they're already in NATO and they don't see the point.

2) It would allow the Russians to set up their own concert, and they'd probably get Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, etc.

3) The new organization would become as bureaucratic and rules-obsessed as the UN because the only way to run an international organization of more then three nations is to have detailed rules about whether it's a snub to call the Canadian Minister of Defense (officially an honorable) your Excellency.

4) We'd lose veto-power over the Russians, Chinese, and Indians.

Bad Libya News

Gaddafi's troops have managed to protect his hometown. The rebels are retreating. The good news is that Gaddafi's not taking this as a sign he can win, so he's floated the idea of partitioning the country.

Hopefully our air support'll blow up the Libyan troops protecting the town and the advance can restart.

EDIT:
It's also apparent arming the rebels is now on the table. That'll help them a lot, because their biggest problem is a lack of heavy weapons. The drawback is the Security Council Resolutions are ambiguous about whether that's allowed. SC 1970 says no flatout, but a later resolution says you can do pretty much anything. Whether that amends SC 1970 is open for debate.

God the Libya Skeptics are getting stupid...

Here's what they don't seem to get: there are like 1,000 reasons to be in Libya and none to stay out. Proving we should not be fighting this war requires you refute each one. Here's a small list:

1) We'll win, and we need a win.

2) It's two goddamn feet from Europe.

3) If we didn't go in Gaddafi's troops would have taken Benghazi, and that would not have resulted in hugs and puppies.

4) If we didn't go in the French and British would have gone in alone. 362 Brits have died in Afghanistan. So have 53 Frenchman. Neither country was a target of any Afghan group until it sent troops there. We owe them.

etc. etc. etc.

As for the most recent flap, yes part of the reason we went in was the French wanted to go in. If you read my blog you know that already, and knew that before the administration said so. It was obvious.

I don't care if Sarkozy is an ass. He's the ass the French people elected their President. Everyone else had to deal with Bush for eight years because we picked the guy, I don't think it's very fair for us to bitch about their democratic choices in leader.

I am not surprised that Sarko was more important in this decision then Congress. Congress has exactly two powers in terms of foreign policy: it can declare war, and it can cut funding. That's it under the US Constitution. It's well-known that the ability to cut funding is a dead letter because Congress is too damn pussy to do that to our troops. It's obvious declarations of war are equally irrelevant because we only do that when it's a huge deal. This is the third time we've fought in Libya and we have never declared war. 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, and the World Wars are the only times Congress has actually used that power.

Here's William Saletan's outraged take:

In other words, morals alone won't move us to attack. We'll do it only if other nations care.

This surprises you? Where have you been? Kosovo had a coalition. Iraq had a coalition twice. Lebanon had a coalition. Afghanistan had a coalition. Korea had a coalition. The World Wars are famous for their coalitions. Grenada had a "Caribbean Peace Force." Even Vietnam had a coalition.

He makes it sound bad "We're outsourcing our standards for intervention," but it's a bit surprising somebody got a job for Slate writing about this crap and didn't know that we've always "outsourced" our standards for intervention to one extent or another.

The end is nigh

The rebels are advancing with the aid of our strikes. Qaddafi could still stop them, perhaps his best troops in the 32nd Brigade are being held back and the rebels are destroying useless conscripts.

But it looks a lot like the scenario I envisioned at the start of this:
We blow up the Libyan air force so it can't hurt us. Then we blow up the Libyan Army so it can't hurt the rebels. Finally the rebels win by default. We go home.

I hops Qaddafi's gone soon.

A counter to an anti-Libya war dude

Josh Marshall presents a fairly compelling case. I disagree with it. Here's, IMO his key point:

First, insurrections like these by poorly organized rebel forces depend hugely on momentum and the perceived weakness of the leader. Not long ago Qaddafi's authority appeared to be crumbling. Numerous members of the regime were defecting to the inchoate rebel forces. It seemed like only a matter of days. Perhaps hours. The turning point came when Qaddafi stabilized the front moving into western Libya. Once that happened, once he'd halted the momentum toward collapse, it was very bad news for the rebels because as we've seen Qaddafi had all the heavy weapons and command and control on his side. By this weekend, without massive outside intervention, it's pretty clear Qaddafi had already won.

A week ago a relatively limited intervention probably could have sealed the rebels' victory, preventing a reeling Qaddafi from fully mobilizing his heavy armaments. But where do we expect to get from this now? It's not clear to me how the best case scenario can be anything more than our maintaining a safe haven in Benghazi for the people who were about to be crushed because they'd participated in a failed rebellion. So Qaddafi reclaims his rule over all of Libya except this one city which has no government or apparent hope of anything better than permanent limbo. Where do we go with that?

We're calling a time out on a really ugly situation the fundamental dynamics of which we aren't in any position to change. That sounds like a mess.

My main point is that we are, in fact, in a situation where we can change the fundamental dynamics. Gaddafi managed to stabilize the situation by using high tech weapons. He doesn't have many of them, and he can't replace. OTOH we have a virtually unlimited supply of weaponry and an unparalleled ability to destroy other people's high tech weapons. We did it to Saddam twice, and Saddam's high-tech weapons were a bit more potent then the Libyan examples.

So in the first stage we destroy as many of those weapons as possible. In the second stage we give the rebels direct ground support. That allows them to physically take most of the country back. If we're incredibly lucky this includes Tripoli. If we aren't lucky we give the rebels the weapons they need to take Tripoli.

When Gaddafi loses the capital he stops being the government, and he starts being the rebels. Sounds like the perfect time for us to declare victory and go home.

One of Marshall's minor points makes me wonder how much he knows about wars, especially African wars like this one:

Lots of countries have jet fighters and navies and missiles. But the kind of modern warfare we tend to take for granted in the US these days requires getting all those different things operating together, with all the right hardware in all the right places all at the same time, keeping everything in communication over vast distances. One key to understanding the contemporary world system is that the US is really the only military able to do that. With the semi-exception of the UK, even the modern NATO militaries operate more like auxiliaries to the US legions.

France fights African adventures alone all the time. They tend to side with the bad guys and then act really surprised when that doesn't work out strategically, but tactically the guys they back always seem to win. The reason Gbgabo has power in Cote d'Iviore today is a French intervention. The reason there was a Civil War in the DRCongo is the French covered the genocidaires retreat from Rwanda. The Brits tend to have more ethical interventions, and fewer, but they still do both. "Blood Diamonds," for example, are a thing of the past because Tony Blair said so.

That's a huge problem with Marshall's argument because it ignores one simple fact: the question Obama actually faced was not "does the west fight a war in Libya?" The question was "Do the British and French fight alone?"

Libyan War Should be Easy

According to wikipedia the Libyans just don't have much modern hardware capable of seriously threatening a 4th-generation western combat aircraft. Their ground attack units use the Su-22/24, which is not a bad ground attack aircraft but was never designed to stop other planes. Their air-to-air units all use 70s era Migs like the Mig-23, and French Mirage F1s. Back in the day Mig-23s were complete turkeys against the Israelis.

The Mirage did much better, but the French themselves replaced it with the Rafale. With miodern avionics they could probably do fine, but I somehow doubt an Air Force that still uses the Mig-23 has a couple $billion to blow on avionics. The rest of their air force seems to be advanced jet trainers. Those are useful, and they wouldn't be very good for training if you couldn't slap a couple sidewinders on them, but against the French Armee del Air, RAF and USAF?

Gaddafi is so dead.

A Libyan Explanation

Given the President's latest announcement many are wondering why we're getting into Libya.

The answer is pretty simple: our policy since before Harry Truman has been to be the leaders of the free world. Other countries can do some things on their own, largely in their former colonial empires, but mostly France/the UK/etc. have to defer to us. If we ask them to stay out of Libya they'll say no. If we don't ask them to do sop, and they go in alone, they're likely to stop deferring to us completely because they no longer need us. And they will go in alone.

Militarily this is an easy win. Libya's not landlocked, it's within easy flying distance of several major NATO countries. Even back when the Republic was new we could fight in Libya. Every officer of the USMC carries a replica of the sword Lt. Pressley O'Bannon won fighting in eastern Libya. Compare this to landlocked Darfur. It's also easy militarily. The objective right now is to destroy Qadafi's tanks and planes with the USAF. We can do that. Did it for 10 years in Iraq with no problems. And, unlike Iraq, there's an alternative to Qadafi we can at least tolerate. If the rebels have tanks and planes, but the government doesn't the rebels win and become the government basically by default. And at that point we can declare victory and go home.

People are worried the war could turn into Iraq. To be blunt that's an incredibly stupid fear. We were enforcing a no-fly-zone over Iraq for more then a decade when Bush decided to send ground troops in, and he still had to lie his ass off to get ground troops authorized. Worry that there will be a PR nightmare if the USAF misses. Worry that the stable-seeming anti-Qadafi group will collapse into fratricide before we can officially declare victory. Do not worry that Obama will send our ground troops there. It's not happening.

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