NATO’s war in Libya continues apace, nearly two months after it began, with no ending in site. The two factions on the ground, the rebels who dominate East Libya and the Gadhafi regime which holds Western Libya, have seen few changes in territory over the past several weeks, and the stalemate appears to be virtually unending.
This has brought NATO to an interesting “dilemma.” Officials are stuck with the status quo or considering trying to escalate the war even more and pump even more support into the rebel faction as a way of breaking the stalemate. Of course ending the war is not being considered.
Of course, even if they do escalate their aid to the largely untrained rebel faction, there is no guarantee that it will change the situation meaningfully. The rebel faction does not seem to have much support in key western areas around Gadhafi’s ancestral homeland. Rebel offensives have always stalled in this area.
The UN Security Council is in a similar position, only with Russia and China both likely to veto further escalation. The UN resolution gave NATO cover for the war, but does not authorize a ground occupation. Stalemate and partition still seems the only practical end to the conflict, but seems to be heavily resisted by a number of NATO nations.
Sorry Ditz, ,can you explain what NO FLY ZONE means to us dummies and what the differance is in ground/air war
"UN resolution gave NATO cover for the war, but does not authorize a ground occupation. "
When did UN give NATO war cover authorization, I thought it was only passed to make KooDaffy's military fighter Jets NOT FLYING?
The ragtag army of rebels was doing better when they were on their own that now that they've got all the world's firepower blanket bombing the countryside. And the cities alike. What a shameful fiasco!
NATO is not "blanket bombing" the countryside.
Libyan media would be filled with images of civilian casualties if that were true.
To anyone who studies any history, this is not a surprise.
Air power alone does not win wars. That’s been true ever since Hitler’s Blitz on London.
Yet, these wars are always sold to the people in stages. In stage one, its this clean, antiseptic airpower war where none of our people are dying.
Of course, we are paying hundreds of billions of our tax dollars for this airpower war, so it isn’t ‘free’. But, no one dies so it seems more acceptable to lay off some teachers and cancel retirement for future generations to have an airpower war.
Except, airpower doesn’t win wars. So, this always leads to this same dilemma. If you want to succeed in your war, you need infantry on the ground. Always have, always will.
This is no surprise to the people selling the wars. They are just leading you through in stages. First, the clean (but expensive) air power war is presented as the way to succeed. Then later, we are told the ‘dilmma’ that we can’t win without committing even more of our children to a far-away land as cannon-fodder infantry boots on the ground.
The answer is to cut Gordian’s knot and admit that we don’t need to win this war and we should get out fast.
"no-fly zone" is modern Orwellian for the "we want to bomb the heck out of you zone."
The war would probably be over by now if we had just minded our own business.
This is payoff methods to terrorism groups and former Libyan generals whom are fighting the Libyan Government…, this is a way negotiating the price tag that each side put on the other demanding it to be paid by certain times.., Oil companies.., US and EU governments are involved in all this…, Bill Clinton paid Talibans in Afghanistan 7 million dollars thanking them for fighting Russian occupation.., so goes the story in Libya.., it is naïve to believe that Sarkozi and others whom are supporting the Palestinians cause by saying that they might recognize the Palestinians land but not doing it shows that it all talks and no action.., is like left wing leftists without wings…, You know who you are.., bunch of thieves dressed as angels without wings.., going around in your created world of wilderness talking about peace and prosperity not knowing the peoples language nor understanding your wrongful social politics. That is why you are going backwards not getting anywhere.., close the democratic party there is no democracy nor liberalism coming out of this party nor for that matter any republic matters coming out of the republican party.., they all are about Oil companies and Goldman Sachs or Saudis Tyrants and their puppet regimes. NO to US NO to EU NO to Religious fundamentalists and absolutely NO to falsified democracy.