Showing posts with label Qaddafi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Qaddafi. Show all posts

Obam's Razor: "What's the Most RADICAL Explanation for Recent US Action in Libya?"

WWII Germany's Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was widely despised in diplomatic circles as well as by many leading Nazis of the day. Most considered him a vain, ill-mannered, unintelligent opportunist: Benito Mussolini's FM Count Ciano quipped "You only have to look at the shape of his head to see that he has a small brain."

Yet the charmless dullard was a favorite of Hitler's... and for one simple reason: the Fuhrer always looked well upon those who proposed the most radical solution to a given problem, even if not adopted as policy: Ribbentrop deduced this early-on, and exploited it to the fullest. Seems the boss had major transformations to bring about, and with some sense of urgency...

Today in 2011 America, political observers struggle mightily to get a grip on the fuzzy logic and towering hypocrisy in Obama purporting he was compelled to attack government assets in Libya -even if producing a stalemate insufficient to remove Gaddafi from power- in order to spare civilian lives and "Mosques"... yeah, he said that.

Moving to protect the lives of Egyptians, Kurds, Iranians, Yemenis, Syrians, Bahrainis, or any oppressed Christians and their burning churches throughout the perpetually-barbaric Middle East is different, somehow... if you're left standing there scritching yer cranium, you're surely not the only one.

But much as Occams' Razor instructs us to follow the most simple/obvious explanation to any mystery -that which assumes the least, positive or negative- let us apply Obam's Razor -'what's the most radical explanation'- to bring forth some needed  answers regarding recent US bombing of Libyan government forces. 

As for minimizing "assumptions", no worries: after watching this power-drunk regime shred American society for two years straight now, anybody with a pulse and at least one functioning eye and/or ear can tell you that extending Team Obama the benefit of the doubt is assuming way, way too much- odds far better on the dark side.

For example, what's the most sinister Leftist rationale imaginable for the Dems' insane 2008-2009 federal spending orgy? Seems only the most radical squares with reality: a stealth Cloward-Piven strategy. Sadly, much like 1940's Germany, America now finds itself saddled with our own racially-obsessed, narcissistic megalomaniac... and he's trying to ram-through sweeping changes in a real big rush, too.

Monday I found myself in rare agreement with Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) on matters of foreign policy when he said "we don't know who these people are" in Benghazi.

But does Obama? If he does, is he quietly supporting Islamist forces while he schmoozes political donors and scarfs still more lobster in Manhattan?

And are war supporters Bill Kristol and John Kerry really this naive...?

The Spectator (UK)

The unsettling truth is that the rebel leadership is dubious at best- and with this habitually dishonest White House now admitting they've detected "flickers" of an Al Qaeda presence in Libya... what's the reality?  

What if Gaddafi is right when he asserts AQ has had a significant hand in the uprising?  The head of NATO seems to think so- maybe it's a good thing the Devil-We-Know is still chasing them off the battlefield until we find out just what -and who- we're bargaining for here.

IMHO, it is possible if not probable that AQ are there, and it's hard to imagine US intelligence -and thus the President- not knowing it: Al Qaeda publicly endorsed the rebels, and reportedly already made off with a jackpot of Libyan surface-to-air missiles in the opening days of the uprising (but that's cool, now that we're on the same side and all...)

Is Obama aiding and abetting a stealth 
Islamist agenda in the Middle East? 

Just look at how it's going down- and you tell me:

-Filanofiles


"Mosques destroyed," the president said, supported his argument for air strikes. Churches are being destroyed daily in the Muslim world, but the U.S. does not intervene...

As a senator, Barack Obama had no interest in preventing Saddam Hussein from filling mass graves. He vocally opposed our going into Iraq. That was then...

It is surely laudable for the U.S. to stand against massacres. Now, however, it seems that the leader of the Libyan rebels is one who fought against the U.S. in Afghanistan. Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi was taken prisoner in Pakistan. He also recruited two dozen jihadis to fight the Americans in Iraq...

Should we be supporting people who have Americans' blood on their hands? Intelligence estimates tell us that nearly one in five of the jihadis we fought against in Iraq came from Libya.

President Obama's speech to the nation raised as many questions as it answered. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs were not consulted, but the Arab League was. 

So was the UN. This is the same UN that applauded Gaddafi's wild rants in New York just last fall. It is the same body that elected Libya to its Human Rights Council....

It was surely shocking to millions of Americans when Barack Obama bowed to Saudi King Abdullah. 

Even more shocking, however, was Mr. Obama's selection of Egypt's Al Azhar Mosque as the venue for his 2009 speech to what he called "the Muslim world." The Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, says Dr. Zuhdi Jassser, a moderate American Muslim, "has served as a platform for 'Islamism' around the world, hatching the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 20th century."

So now we have a U.S. intervention in Libya that can only benefit rebels with known ties to jihadists and whose leaders have killed Americans. This all comes from an administration that refuses even to mention radical Islam as a possible threat to our nation...



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How Gaddafi Lost the Rebellion... but is Winning the War

"War looks over but for the mass executions 
and the climb-down by EU leadership..."


As has become typical, Barack Obama's endorsement was the kiss of death... this time for Libyan rebels most thought would  be overrunning Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli by now. 

Seems serial ineptitude emanating from both US and EU 'leadership' quickly extinguished any hope the opposition initially held of conquering this vile regime: with zero effective aid to the rebels from Obama and the lilly-livered Europeans, what was "Gaddafi must step-down" supposed to mean without consequences to back it up...? That same Gaddafi then predictably told them to shove it.

Now the clueless US administration -via John Kerry- is still standing around making hawkish noises about a NFZ that will never happen while gas prices go ballistic and Gaddafi moves to roll-up what's left of the insurgency... that's right, 
Gaddafi is winning.

Aljazeera reports that the mood of the rag-tag rebels -a largely emotional and inexperienced bunch living on junk food and bottled water- swings wildly between elation and terror. But the overall level of spirit and appetite for combat after taking heavy casualties and being strafed/bombed by Sukhoi jet fighters is withering amongst many of them...
In the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, much of the euphoria and excitement that victory was close at hand had faded, said Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid.
Some feared that pro-Gaddafi forces had deliberately retreated to around Gaddafi's Sirte, drawing the inexperienced and poorly-equipped rebel fighters forward and leaving rebel-held towns exposed to a possible counter-offensive.
"Some people told me all the young people had gone to the front. There is no one left to protect the city," said Abdel-Hamid. "There is an understanding that [Gaddafi's ousting] is not going to happen so easily."  
Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Brega, said: "For a few days the rebels were making gains, but overnight it would appear that pro-Gaddafi forces took some ground. If the rebels want to capture Sirte, they will have to prepare for heavy fighting along the way.
"The rebels have been taking heavy casualties - we saw a number of ambulances on the road from the frontlines to Brega," she said.

John Bachelor's sources say the Obama Administration has been operating under a false set of assumptions... and in sharp contrast to what they -and many observers- recently thought was a pending inevitability, Gaddafi has now actually all but won the war:

Does John Kerry speak for POTUS?  Who can tell, but my guess is yes.  SecDef Gates pushed NFZ off the table last Wednesday 2; POTUS returned on Thursday 3 to say it was back on -- and David Sanger pushed me to say that it was back on the table.  How to explain Daley saying, "no," and then Kerry saying, "yes"?  

The Obama team is undisciplined, fickle, competitive, inert; and Kerry's remarks were designed to balance out the GOP hawk voices with a Democratic hawk...

The sitrep in Libya is one-sided.  The so-called rebels cannot last; the so-called rebels are a scattering of overheated goofs and their fair-weather friends; and the Qaddafi forces are inevitable.  

Look to the video below and consider these amateurs are as effective as paint-ballers...
   



Qaddafi forces control 599 of the 600 miles from Tripoli to the so-called "rebel forces." 

The Egyptian military, under the watchful eye of the fussbudget Ikwan, controls the supply route into Benghazi for food, fuel, rearmament; and the Egyptian military is not going to choose a winner that is contrary to the Ikhwan. 

The "rebel" forces are ill-led, undergunned, chaotic pirates who are already disorganized except as plunderers. 

To the West, Qaddafi forces control the exit from Brega (the main oil depot) to the highway around the Gulf of Sidra. 

The bulk of the country is pro-regime and waiting for a winner (strongest horse). 

The "rebels" are asking for air transport to the battle zone around Tripoli. Spoke Jonathan Schanzer, FDD (frmr Treasury); also Mike Singh, Washington Institute (frmr NSC) and they acknowledged that this is more like Somalia than not, and that pirates and other gangsters are more likely to result than is an organized governance. 

Qaddafi lost the rebellion and yet is winning the civil war... 

POTUS remarks that Qaddafi must go are a measure of passivity rivaled only by Europe. Old proverb: you'd better use that carrier battle group within about six days after you unholster the weapon, or you're risking losing it to mockery. 

Mention that a no-fly zone is unworkable, impractical, and too late. 

War looks over but for the mass executions and the climb down by EU leadership...


Now what, Barry-

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LIBYA: Pro-Gaddafi Forces Go on the Offensive, Retaking Strategic Towns and Oil Facilities near Tripoli... then Turn East


Forces loyal to embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi scored some strategic gains early today by chasing rebels from at least two towns, apparently in an effort to establish a strategic buffer-zone around the Gaddafi stronghold of Tripoli. They also retook a key coastal oil installation and bombed at least one town in the rebel-held east.

But with Gaddafi going onto the offensive, the escalating level of violence is looking more like a real civil war by the day... this one could get real, real ugly-

AP:
One of those retaken was the strategic mountain town of Gharyan, the largest in the Nafusa Mountains, which overlooks Tripoli, a resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation. The town fell after dark Friday in a surprise attack, and the government troops detained officers who defected to the rebels and drew up lists of wanted protesters and started searching for them, the resident added.

Gadhafi supporters also have said they were in control of the city of Sabratha, west of Tripoli, which has seemed to go back and forth between the two camps in the past week........

In Zintan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Tripoli, residents said an attack by pro-Gadhafi forces Monday night was the second since the city fell in rebel hands late last month. But, they added, Gadhafi's loyalists were bringing in reinforcements. 

One person in Zwara, which fell to anti-government forces days ago, said guards were posted at every sensitive building and all the entrances to the town. 

"We are threatened every day by pro-Gadhafi forces," the nervous Zwara resident said, adding that a pro-Gadhafi figure met with the town's leaders a few days ago and told them they had "a choice" to go back in to orbit "and he will forget what happened, or else he is going to attack us with military force. He even offered us money."

One sergeant in the Libyan army who is of Tuareg ethnicity and is fighting on Gadhafi's side said the military is divided: "Us foreigners, we don't have much choice. We have to support Gaddafi,".... 

"There is nothing that's going to convince Gaddafi to quit," the soldier said. "The only way Gaddafi is going to go is if someone puts a bullet in his head, and I can't imagine that. The soldiers who are close to him would never let it happen."

As noted here previously, Gaddafi's not stepping down on anybody's orders: the only way this one's going out is feet-first, just like he said from the start. The chance of a protracted, bloody civil war in Libya is now very real. The forces he's got left are loyal, able, and personally vested in the outcome: the rebels remain lightly armed, somewhat disorganized outside of Benghazi, and without a UN no-fly zone, at the mercy of savage air attacks.


The pro-Gaddafi forces' offensive capabilities may appear feeble, yet it is hard to envision the opposition taking the capitol anytime soon, either.  But time is largely on the rebels' side if they can hold territorial gains, take some outside assistance, then start to collect oil revenues from their territory (they currently hold 80% of the oilfields)... thus the sense of urgency and increasingly aggressive strategy of the pro-Gaddafi troops as they aim to put an end to all that while they still can.

Even though things continue to look on-the-balance grim for the regime, almost any outcome is still possible in Libya... up to and including an against-all-odds comeback Gaddafi victory.

Besides expanding territory around Tripoli, pro-Gaddafi forces also pushed east for the first time today, taking a small town and advancing on a large arms depot in rebel-held territory-

BBC:
Forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are moving into rebel territory in the east, taking the small town of Brega.

The BBC's John Simpson in the nearby city of Ajdabiya says the 100-vehicle convoy is expected to advance towards it, and have bombed an arms dump there.......

It has a large arms dump which has been bombed several times by pro-Gaddafi forces.

The loyalists are now only a couple of miles from Ajdabiya, the defenders say.

The rebels are determined to put up a fight but it remains to be seen whether this translates into an organised defence of the city, our correspondent says.

Interestingly, a British Special Air Service (SAS) unit has already been operating quietly in Libya for over a week, playing a part in evacuating foreign oil workers. But the elite commandos are reportedly now poised to seize Col Gaddafi's 10-ton mustard gas stash out in the Libyan desert... probably not a bad idea at this point.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a couple ships to the area yesterday, but what the Libyan resistance really needs from the international community -a no-fly zone established over Libya- seems now a non-starter: while the idea's been bounced around the UN Security Council, reality quickly set-in as to just what they'd be undertaking in attempting to control the airspace of a country twice the size of France while facing substantial Libyan AA defenses.


The Russians have called Gaddafi a "living political corpse", but they sure don't seem to have any interest in contributing to such a UN no-fly zone operation, suggesting "sanctions" instead... you know, like the ones that worked so well in Iran. But nobody else down there at the UN has got the backbone to do anything either, while the US and UK's armed forces are already stretched to the limit with other commitments... not to mention our own leadership issues.

As for the embattled Gaddafi regime,  they could care less, anyway: until a recent reconciliation with the West, they've rarely not been under sanctions for as long as anybody can remember... and will continue to do pretty much as they please.


Updates as they come here at Reaganite Republican


UPDATE 7:34am EST: Gaddafi swears to fight 
"to the last man and woman in Libya" -here-

Live streaming coverage of developments in Libya -here-
____________________________________________
The Telegraph   BBC   Pookie's Toons   Aljazeera   
AP via MyWay   ABC
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What Libya's 'Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution' Does in His Spare Time...

When he's not trying on new outfits  
or shelling protesters with naval artillery, 
Moammar Gaddafi likes to design cars...


Seriously: meet the Libyan Rocket... 
billed as "World's Safest Car"...


Your author is a lifetime car nut and student of automotive design, so fwiw: although a bit busy and sci-fi for my taste... 
hey, there's been worse. 

Very pointy, if you're into that- lol:


Looks kinda like a 2025 Honda Civic or something...


The appalling fatality rates on Libyan roads supposedly inspired Gaddafi to offer his ideas on how to best save lives, thus the safety theme -replete with zillions of airbags and "active defense system"- of the Libyan Rocket.  Powered by a 3.0L V-6 engine, a 7-second 0-60mph figure is claimed for the large-ish 217" sedan.

Although slated for production in 2009, the project was stillborn: only these two prototypes have been built by Italian engineering firm Tesco TS and the Tripoli factory that was to produce the car was never completed...


And if you didn't catch the ABC/BBC interview yesterday: Gaddafi makes Baghdad Bob look like a piker- but do note the laughter when asked if he'll step down because Obama and others told him to- as stated here yesterday, the only way this one's going out is feet-first...


Any chance he still wins this, though? Analysis -here-


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