Friday, March 18, 2011

Libyan Shit

So the UN actually did something for a change and voted to institute a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace.  I wont post any links as it is all over the main news networks, the BBC and Al-Jazeera I find are the best.  There are just a couple of concerns I have about all of this.
Don't get me wrong, UN action against the Qaddafi regime is a good thing but as with all things in this world the good comes with the bad.
Firstly, in order to gain air superiority in Libya it will be necessary to nullify all of the regimes air defences.  This means destroying all anti aircraft batteries on the ground.  As the free Libya forces have shown us these can be loaded onto the back of a toyota hilux and transported anywhere.




This means that the regime is going to be able to move its anti aircraft batteries around as well.  And knowing the regimes traits of brutality and massacring civilians it will be moving these units into heavily built up residential areas in order to use its own citizens as human shields.  For the UN to effectively gain air superiority it is going to have to strike at this units and they will regrettably and undeniably cause innocent civilian casualties.  This is regrettable but it is the cost of removing an evil dictator.

Secondly, as the no-fly zone is enforced it is to go without saying that the regimes forces will continue to advance on the forces of the free Libyans.  So far as the Libyan regime has retaken towns they have shown an indiscriminate willingness to fire on any and all civilians that remain in those towns.  These leads to the scenario where if a town is retaken by Qaddafi forces while the no fly zone is in affect what happens when the Qaddafi forces start to take retribution on the civilian population.  Will the UN begin to fire on any forces that try to enter residential areas.  How will they know if those forces are indeed firing on civilians or on rebel forces.  They will have no ground intelligence to be able to indicate the truth.  As Qadaffi showed when retaking al Zawiyah they have the intention of exacting retribution on civilians so should the rules of engagement therefore be extended to attack any Libyan forces making any advances on any rebel held towns. 

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