Libya... shit just got real

I think you may be putting the chicken before the egg here.

 

With Libya in the middle of a civil war, their oil production drops off if not ending completely. That means there's less available oil on the open market and the expected amount of world production is reduced for the foreseeable future. However the number of consumers remains the same. With that, economics 101 kicks in. Demand stays the same, yet availability declines = higher prices paid by all consumers for remaining product.

That means countries like France & Germany that do import a significant amount of oil from Libya have to import from somewhere else. Locations the US imports from. Oil is not more expensive for the US to import, so now as Nettdata stated, the US is looking out for its own best interests to get Libyan oil flowing.

I guarantee that if there were 50billion in proven oil reserves under Rwanda in 1994 the US and many other countries would've intervened in the name of "humanity".

 

Foreign Policy reports Qatar is sending 4 planes to enforce the no-fly zone.

 

I frankly have no idea why people are upset about this. We aren't putting troops on the ground and there is no indication that that's gonna happen. We're using resources that we pretty much already had in the area (except our awesome B2s which are apparently flying roundtrip bombing runs from the States) to tell the French what to do and blow some shit up on the side. Why is this bad? Obama is getting flak for not having a long-term plan for this? I think it's great that there isn't a long-term plan of action, because this doesn't need to be a long-term thing. Wreck their anti-air capability, then peace the fuck out and let the UN take care of it. Short of saying "fuck you guys we don't care" (which would be just as bad for our government's image, no?), I think we're playing this about as well as can be expected.

Besides, if we aren't putting American lives at risk, why the hell not let our bomber pilots flex their muscles a little bit and do what they signed up to do? It's been a few years since they got to drop hell and fury on bad guys' tanks and hangars and stuff.

 

Found this on Reddit a little bit ago, thought it was mildly amusing..


I couldn't post the image in an appropriate size so here's a link

Libyan conflict through rage faces

 

Oil and western intervention in internal conflict go together like pork and apples. Again.

Not that I have a problem with this. It’s much cheaper to hit a dog with a stick every now and then than train, feed and care for him. It’s the main reason colonialism “failed” on the continent, first world nations realised they could still get all the goodies without the expense and responsibility of administration.

It’s just the lame arse excuses and outright lies that give me the shits.

 

Apparently, the U.S. fired 122 Tomahawk missiles in one day. Christ, do they spoil if you don't use them?

Also, 'Operation Odyssey Dawn' is probably the coolest name for pretty much anything that has ever been.

 

If they can kill Gadhafi does this all end quickly?

Seems like it would. I think his sons are too smart to think they could retain power. Might be time to put a few more predator drones in the air.

 

Remember Super Mario Bros. 3? Before you got to Bowser, you had to kill all his kids first. In Libya, it's the other way around. Gaddafi might be bombed into dust, but he's got half a dozen progeny waiting in the wings, commanding loyal brigade-sized military units that are ready to help them seize power when the time is right. It has nothing to do with their intelligence. It has to do with how ruthlessly they are willing to act in order to retain authority. When you consider their upbringing, the possibilities are frightening.

Killing one man won't end this. Dozens and dozens of regime officials are going to have to die or be exiled for this rebellion to succeed. This could be a very long war.

 

Not to mention, uh, you can't just assassinate heads of state. Let's try to stay grounded in reality.

 

Armchair CNN-ing, it looks like the US is just throwing their token hat into the ring for good karma then backing the fuck out because they don't want another Iraq (/Afghanistan). There is no possible way this ends quickly. In fact, and I may be slightly overstating here but the comparison needs to be made, this could be eerily similar to the Iraq war's "bite off more than you can chew" for the coalition troops. A food fight starts with tater tots and you're the first to throw the jello, then all of the sudden you're left to clean up the mess.

It's a simple matter of military discipline vs. revolutionary enthusiasm. Even after Gadhafi gets turned into a crater. And he will get turned into a crater (by a bomb that "was intended to destroy a militarily strategic target of opportunity," that's where my money is, at least). This shit's gonna be going on for months, if not years.

Fighter jets... against civilians... really??? People be crazy.

 

Do we know what the capacities and troop numbers of the Libyan/rebel armies are at this point? I though part of the idea was that the west rocks up, blows the crap out of Gaddafi's armoured vehicles, planes and heavy artillery and then hangs out enforcing the no fly zone having (some what) evened up the scrap on the ground. I know there was a flood of men supposedly signing up in Benghazi but I'm not sure what their fighting ability would be.

 

Oh my god, guys, the U.S., France, England, and most of Western Europe does not pull this kind of shit. You can expect it from Israel, China, and half a dozen other world superpowers, but believe it or not the Western world is actually pretty good about adhering to the laws of warfare.

I think people have a perception that anything goes in war—that is not the case. The rules of engagement for U.S. soldiers/marines is pretty complicated, and that's at the lowest level. As you go up the ranks, people recognize that their actions set precedent and send underlying messages, and they act much more carefully. (That's why the U.S. never assassinated bin Laden before 9/11, even though it had several opportunities.)

This is a good point. The insurgency in Iraq was drawn out because the Republican Guard went underground once the U.S. announced it was dissolved and would not be recognized, so you had literally an entire army that suddenly no longer had an income or pension because of an occupying force. In Afghanistan (and Iraq), Al Qaeda imported literally thousands of insurgents from around the world (remember, Al Qaeda had an estimated 20,000 insurgents on retainer before 9/11, and that number swelled immediately afterwards; though it has decreased in recent years), not to mention Afghanistan already had the Taliban which had a stake in driving out the U.S.

Neither of these things is the case in Libya. For one, I don't think anyone is planning on dissolving its Army, so it's a lot easier to win its favor once Gaddafi is ousted. Second, Gaddafi doesn't have outside support from Al Qaeda—Iran and I think North Korea have announced that they support the cause (to an extent) but neither of them is pledging support. This won't be an overnight event but you can't compare it to Iraq or Afghanistan any more than you could compare it to Kuwait or Vietnam. Different conflicts with different factors.

 

From the point of view of an aviation enthusiast, I'm pleasantly surprised at the unusually large variety of airplanes involved in this conflict, in the last week I've seen footage of: Dassault Super Étendard, Rafale, Typhoon, F18A, Tornado, Mirage 2000, MiG-23... it's a lot less boring than the Afghan war.

 

So do I. But Stephen Walt makes me worry.

Some good points in the comments as well. I hope we get out of this thing quick.

 

Legally, this isn't necessarily true. President Ford issued a finding prohibiting the United States from carrying out "political assassinations". The finding was renewed by Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton. Clinton's renewal was altered to give the US the authority to eliminate Bin Laden, with the caveat that his capture was the primary goal. President GW Bush gave himself a slightly wider purview on that particular issue.

A "finding" is simply a document, issued and signed by the sitting President, that says the law is whatever the President says the law is.

So, while directly targeting a foreign head of state may be a remarkably bad idea in terms of geopolitics, it is legal if the President says it is.