Egypt (The chains are gone)

I just saw a rebel military commander say on TV (in response to the coming of the US ships):
"Let's hope Kadaffi can't use his airforce, that's all we need. We can take them then."

Journalist: "how?"

Answer: "We are with many, we have weapons."

So, apparently, the crux is to stop their airforce (with the help of these US navy ships coming through the Suez channel), and then the rebels can take on the regime.
 
Exactly. We just have to do it in such a manner that it isn't seen as foreign imperialism. No fly zone is the way to go, and a US carrier group is the way to start. Most Libyan air force craft are grounded or interned with no pilots (maybe 1/4th of the planes still are operational); Enterprise is bringing along 64 Super Hornets which can clean the clocks for sure.
 
Meanwhile more news on how Khadaffi reinforces his troops:

One a large scale he uses Toearegs from Mali. The young Africans are going en masse to Libya where they get weapons and money. Khadaffi flies them in as well. Eyewitnesses have confirmed that these desert warriors are used to fight against the Libyan people.
 
A no fly zone and air strikes at Ghadaffi's (or however you spell it) forces is all we need to do, with the possible exception of landing to deliver food, evacuating injured/foreigners/putting in advisors, we do not need to step foot on Libyan soil.  If the rebels have the force they claim and the country is ready for a change ... changing the balance of power in the air and taking out tanks and heavy artillery should be all we need to do to make that happen.


It looks like this is going to happen real soon, which is good.  The sooner the better to stabilize the country and get it's oil exports moving.
 
bearfan said:
and get it's oil exports moving.
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I have no doubt this is one of the reasons that NATO is so worried about Libya, but don't think that will happen. The new government will change a lot of things. Hard to tell what is gonna happen with oil.
 
All the more reason not to depend as much on the Middle East for oil, when you can drill domestically and build the pipeline from Alberta.
 
Don't count on that no-fly zone. They still operate > 30 Su-22M3 and same number of Mi-24s. Those fly low and will be a pain in ass to detect without permanent AWACS presence. Libya is a big country.
I can't understand Russia's role in fleet. It's either one frigate/destroyer just to have a presence (eg to monitor ops and ensure USA won't exploit this), or they bring in the battlecruiser.
 
Based on what Gates and Hillary have been saying over the past day I am also starting to question if there will be a no fly zone ... not putting one up quickly is a huge mistake IMO.  I know the Arab League/African Union has said they might put one up, but I tend to doubt their seriousness/ability to carry it out.
 
Arab League/African Union can't really handle it. Zare is right - AWACS coverage is necessary. Luckily that is possible from Malta/Gibraltar (even if the stupid Italians won't help out). But it now looks like we're going to be "waiting to see what the fuck happens".
 
Nice to see how decisive we are.  I think we have gotten ourselves into a bad spot where we will end up alienating whoever wins (rebels or Quadaffi). 

We picked our side (the rebels by freezeing Libyan assets), but are really doing nothing concrete to help them, which greatly increases the risk of these oil fields being a long term battle ground and a prolonged civil war or Quadaffi winning and doing horrible things to parts of the population and cutting and having that supply of oil cut off to us via boycott.

It seems that the NATO forces Naval and Air Forces (and in a nice gesture try to add the Arab League/African Union as partners) should be able to handle a country like Libya and if not I really question the validity of NATO as a military force. 
 
Arab League/African Union can't really handle it. Zare is right - AWACS coverage is necessary. Luckily that is possible from Malta/Gibraltar (even if the stupid Italians won't help out). But it now looks like we're going to be "waiting to see what the fuck happens".
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Sweeping someone's aerospace from international waters and operating ad-hoc is entirely different thing from maintaining an AWACS presence in someone's sky.
The former can be declared as a security measure, the latter equals military involvement. AWACS needs to be guarded with fighters.

Operating a non-fly zone with AWACS / fighters is the same thing as deploying ground troops to checkpoints, to ensure no further Lybian army reinforcements in conflict zones.
 
Looks like Quadaffi's forces are mounting a fairly major offensive.  The lack of a no fly zone really hurts the rebels in 2 ways, beyond airplanes being used on offense, it allows government troops and equipment to move via air.  Not looking good for the rebels.
 
Not quite. Unlike Mubarak, Morsi, despite unpopular, was democratically elected, and still has many supporters.
 
It seems like Egypt was not prepared for a real democracy after all. The majority must respect the interests of the minority. A majority does not mean a carte blanche to impose all your ideas on the country. Especially not when those ideas impose great restrictions on how the minority live their lives.

If Egypt avoids a civil war there might be hope that a real democracy will evolve - but it will take time. Whoever wins an election must remember to respect the loser.
 
The one thing that bothers me here the most is that it was the military that deposed Morsi, not popular pressure. In other words, Morsi should have stepped down instead of being deposed. I don't like Morsi, and I don't like the new constitution, but all this is fuel in the fire of the radicals.
 
The question is, did the military depose him using the demonstrations as an excuse, or did they depose him because they sincerely thought he was turning himself into a dictator?

Ideally, popular pressure should either cause Morsi and the Brotherhood to lose the next regular election, or - at worst - force a new election sooner than scheduled.
 
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