View 672 April 25 - May 1, 2011 (original) (raw)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
.In the interests of protecting the civilians of Libya from the Libyan government, NATO air strikes have killed the youngest son and three grandchildren of Col. Qadaffi, the Libyan Chief of State and Chief of Government. This is said to be in accord with the UN mission of protecting Libyan civilians without going so far as to bring about a regimes changel regime change is not an authorized objective under the UN resolution.
Qadaffi was said to have offered a partition of the country, probably along provincial lines with Tripolotania beoming Libya with its capital in Tripoli, and the border at Marble Arch, the tradition division point between Tripolotainaia and Cyrenecia. to the east, with capital in Benghazi. The Colonel has been rejected as not serious, but he seems serious enough in his offer.
In the traditional laws of war and International Rules of conflict, direct actions against civilian officials is not a usual rule of engagement, German and Japanese bombing of open cities and financial areas within cities was condemned. The Germans were condemned for the bombing of Rotterdam in 1940.
The Obama administration has not announced its objectives in Libya. The mission given by the UN resolution is to protect Libyan civilians from slaughter. It is hard to see the direct effect of attacks on the civilian family homes of Gadaffi's children and grand children as a means of saving civilian lives, unless your hope is the death of the Colonel himself.
The effect of this action on Ghaddaffi's will to hang on to power is not predictable : it could go either way, With less to lose why not fight? or with less to live for, why fight? I doubt that anyone knows him that well.
I trust that the mission planners understand that they have made legitimate targets of war out of the families of the drone controllers at Chreech, most of who commute to Las Vegas, and many of whom have had their names and faces published in the papers. They directed the fire that killed the Colonels grandchildren; in a civilized society that accepted the laws of war as they have developed since Grotius that would not matter; but the culture of the Libyan tribesman does not follow that tradition. Bloods feud and weregeld are more traditional there. I trust that the Homeland Security authorities are aware of this.
As to what this will accomplish I have not yet discerned. It will make Khaddafi take greater pains for the security of himself and his family, but surely given him even less incentive to surrender.
Some to think about, Time for bed.
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Subj: News from the Front - Saturday 30Apr2011
Good evening, all.
Today's e-mail update comes from the site of the opening scene in Taylor and Ringo's novel Von Neumann's War, which is:
(a) as far as I know, the only restaurant open in Huntsville; (b) the first place to open in Huntsville with wi-fi, and, (c) the first place I've seen in three days with sufficient outlets for all persons trying to get online there. (Imagine the nearest open Starbucks, in Athens...)
I'm pleased to report that the Huntsville Hooter's waitresses (knowing that most of you probably didn't get the joke) are helpful to someone who only graces their establishment for internet access in the emergency, and that the food has been decent. Or is graced by - one of those; Travis Taylor was quick to emphasize that the waitress who served his hapless heroes in the novel was an astrophysics graduate student (who later married one of them).
In any event, we persist. Thursday and yesterday were spent dealing with the mundane details of eating, fueling up, laundry, and trying to access the internet when power is out over a 500+ square mile area (lessons learned for future studies of EMP) due to damage to the outgoing high tension lines at Browns Ferry. TVA hopes to have those restored to Huntsville/Madison Co by Monday, though it's not certain that local service in our area will be back by then (plus, when it does come back...whether internet will be immediately accessible from home is uncertain). I did get in a six hour stint assisting the Limestone Co. response with the State Defense Force, though the nature of the emergency is such that they need strong bodies rather than strong minds (since I don't really qualify for either....) I'm not sure how much more help I'll be for the emergency.
My son has fallen into a routine of lunch on campus (provided by the university to all students for free) and evening playing board games with his cronies on campus or at off-campus houses with cookouts. The announcement at noon that the University has suspended finals leaves him cautiously optimistic that his semester is over (if he needs to improve grades, he can take an incomplete and coordinate with the instructor to retake or replace the final when power is back).
I will be out of town on personal business next week so updates may remain spotty. But the bottom line is, we have survived much better than many. The devastation of the EF-4 from Tanner to Anderson Hills is heartrending. Please keep North Alabama in your prayers.
Take care all, be safe.
Jim
Hang in there. God bless you.
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The humanitarian bombing of Libya by NATO -- probably meaning US forces -- continues. There was celebration in Benghazi. Now there is skepticism over who was killed and when and by whom. I don't see the teddy bears yet.
Now the opposition in Benghazi now says no one was killed. The Libyan government consists that Qadaffi's youngest son and some young grandchildren were killed. Of course the Benghazi government announced that Saif al-arab Qaddafi, who commended an elite and well equipped brigade in the Benghazi area, had defected with his troops to the rebel movement. Nothing seems to have come of that, but some modern equipment appeared in rebel hands. Since Khadafi had pre-positioned ammunition and some forces in Cyrenicia, and those storehouses fell to the rebels, so that was inevitable. The rumor of Saif's defection died slowly away, but I have been unable to find any confirmed appearances of Saif either among the rebels nor anywhere in Tripolotania, nor do there seem to be many references to the elite brigade which he supposedly commanded and which supposedly defected with him.
In other words, he may have been dead for weeks; he may have defected and been interrogated to death; he may have defected and has been kept in safe houses; he may never have defected, and have been part of Gadaffi's general staff; or -- well, you can make up your own story. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence. Libyan spokespeople showed a shrouded dead body, but without identification -- indeed from what was shown there is not definitive evidence that it was a human body at all. The bottom line is that no one can say with certainty what is going on. One possible hypothesis: Saif was killed in early fighting, possibly in a way that makes certain identification impossible, and Qaddafi is using this opportunity.
NATO has made big promises but isn't accomplishing much. If they really want to take out Ghaddaffi, it would take a full coordinated strike on a number of his palaces and headquarters done all at once, each considerably more vigorous than whatever happened last night. In other words, it would take determination and a cull operation. In military operations, "efficiency" and "surgical strike" are not goals. In general, in a military operation, if it requires a company you send a regiment and if possible a division, the point being that defeat takes place in the minds of the enemy's troops: they are defeated when they think they are defeated, and visibly overwhelming force is the best way to convince troops that they are defeated. Troops seldom fight to the last man. It has happened. We have tales from classical times -- see Xenophon, or accounts of Alexander the Great, or the Roman war ending at Masada -- but it's not the usual ending of a battle or a war. The usual end of a battle comes when the loser is convinced that he has lost.
Troops do not become convinced that they have lost until they are certain the the enemy intends to win.
NATO has so far done little to convince Libyan loyalists that they have no chance and it's time to quit. A
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Regarding attacks on the chief of state: the goal of the NATO operation is supposed to be the protection of Libyan civilians from being slaughtered by their government. The operational means is described as establishing a no-fly zone, but includes air strikes by both manned aircraft and drones. We are now testing just what can be accomplished through limited air operations.
We may be there a while.
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What would it take to end the war in Libya? Decisive action that conveys in no uncertain terms that the objective is to send Ghaddaffi into a spider hole, and anyone who gets in the way is very much at risk. I don't see how to accomplish that with no-fly zones and limited air operations. Could it be done with a regiment of Marines and some helicopters? Possibly. And possibly expensive. Do not forget Black Hawk Down. In general, decisive actions are cheaper than long drawn out operations -- but failed attempts are more expensive than both. Since we don't even know who we killed in the air raids, it's hard to believe we know what opposition we actually face in Tripoli, or what it would take to convince the Libyan Loyalists that they are defeated.
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I am forced to rethink my views on Grotius and the Laws of War and Peace; just what do we mean by International Law in a world in which many of the combatants do not belong to a nation, and many of the national participants are declared no longer to be a nation? In which there is no sovereignty and nations are not allowed to defend themselves against rebels?
Is anyone who denounces the government a legitimate belligerent entitled to the protection of the Laws of War? If one rebel does not make a rebellion, how many does it take? Is a large group occupying the public square a legitimate government?
Easy enough questions to ask. Not so simple to answer. And what is "realism" in these circumstances?
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For those curious about African affairs, this 1994 Atlantic article might have been written a few weeks ago, just before Ivory Coast collapsed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/
magazine/archive/1994/02/
the-coming-anarchy/4670/
"Who seeks to plant democracy in my country plows the sea." Simon Bolivar, whose last words were "There have been three great fools in history, Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and I." Tonight on 60 Minutes we will learn more about what burns in the hearts of rebels camped in public squares. Perhaps I am unduly cynical. Or perhaps good government really is rare, we would do better to apply our resources to developing our own assets rather than to exporting our wisdom with missiles and smart bombs.
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