NATO is broadening the attacks:
NATO planners say the allies are stepping up attacks on palaces, headquarters, communications centers and other prominent institutions supporting the Libyan government, a shift of targets that is intended to weaken Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power and frustrate his forces in the field.
Officials in Europe and in Washington said that the strikes were meant to reduce the government’s ability to harm civilians by eliminating, link by link, the command, communications and supply chains required for sustaining military operations.
The broadening of the alliance’s targets comes at a time when the rebels and the government in Libya have been consolidating their positions along more static front lines, raising concerns of a prolonged stalemate. Although it is too soon to assess the results of the shift, a NATO official said on Tuesday that the alliance was watching closely for early signs, like the recent reports of desertions from the Libyan Army.
Strikes on significant bulwarks of Colonel Qaddafi’s power over recent days included bombing his residential compound in the heart of the capital, Tripoli — an array of bunkers that are also home to administrative offices and a military command post — as well as knocking state television briefly off the air.
If the new approach effectively cripples Colonel Qaddafi’s ability to command his military and visibly erodes his legitimacy, NATO strategists say, it may eventually persuade him to flee into exile — or it might prompt someone in his inner circle to force him out.
The strike on Colonel Qaddafi’s palace and command center was denounced by Libyan officials as an assassination attempt, but alliance officers rejected the suggestion. Pentagon officials said the mission was mounted against a legitimate military target, and noted that it was carried out by F-16 jets from Norway — a nation hardly associated with assassination attempts against foreign leaders.
This is where the usual suspects accuse me of falsely claiming they are escalating in Libya because I feel guilty about my support for the Iraq war, when they themselves are the ones claiming they are broadening the attacks. I’m just quoting them. But then again, attacking me for quoting them is much more satisfying. I get it, I really do.
Also, I loved the last line- “Come on guys, everyone knows Norwegians don’t roll like that!” For whatever reason, that made me snicker.
Chuck Butcher
I am distinctly tired of military adventures sponsored or run by the US. Whatever point there was in Afghanistan evaporated when GWB embarked on his Iraq adventure. Libya is looking like another one when we have distinct problems with the current ones and a funding mess to boot.
wengler
That last paragraph is just plain weird.
F-16s out of Norway can kill people just as easily as those out of Israel or the US or anywhere else.
The Old Grey Lady is still in Uncle Sam’s pocket.
wengler
Also the people of Syria are in a much more precarious situation now than those in Libya. Release the cruise missiles and Predator drones!
Cermet
Colonel Qaddafi’s sole power is really money (as it is for most insane countries … very much like the US) – as that dries up, his army will vanish – it is just now, a matter of time. The bomb attacks just make it more fun for us watching (and does kill a few extra people and cause some minor hardship.) The money (oil) is everything and that, the international community has control over.
Omnes Omnibus
Norwegians were venturing out and killing long before the land that is now US was even known to Europeans. Anyone ever hear of the Vikings?
Edited slightly.
OzoneR
@Chuck Butcher:
It’s a good thing this one isn’t then
fortinbras
Norway? Associated with assassinations of foreign leaders? Unpossible!
ed
What’s good for Big Oil is good for Big Oil.
General Stuck
LOL, why even have comments when you pre answer for your commentariat in the thread post.
My guess, that most of the usual suspects you speak of, and certainly this one will say what we and I always says at such mouthbreathing claims of “escalation”, which is, that it really isn’t that until the step is taken to put boots on the ground for the purpose of creating a ground war by the US. That would be an escalation worth writing a “I’m right you are wrong” thread. Otherwise keep spanking that monkey for the other “usual” suspects your blog is becoming famous for. Moronic manic depressives who live for this shit to be moronic manic depressives.
The mission hasn’t changed until then. It is an escalation within the confines of the mission as it has been. degrade Q’s military capability, and weaken his grip on power, which are related things.
yawn, back to lurking here.
Hawes
Wasn’t Beowulf a
DaneNorwegian?To be fair, the Norwegians were dropping health care and cradle-to-grave welfare on Khaddafi, accent on the grave part.
Shock and Awe: You’re doing it wrong.
Ghanima Atreides
Actually, I know Norweigans and they are like that. I have been yule bokking with my saami friends many times. Yule bokking is when you dress up on New Years and go house to house playing tricks and joking on your neighbors.
Norweigans : Knock Knock
Col. Qaddafi: Who’s there?
Norweigans: Side
Col. Qaddafi: Side who?
Norwegians: Sidewinder right into your hidden coms center!
OzoneR
who is saying they’re not escalating, of course they’re escalating and I’m glad they’re escalating with Norwegian jets instead of American jets.
MikeBoyScout
Won’t you help to bomb
These bombs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever have:
Freedom bombs,
Freedom bombs,
Freedom bombs.
Hawes
They may not have put “Regime Change World Tour 2011” on the bumperstickers of the F-15s, but that was always the idea. Support the rebels so that they can topple Gaddafy and France can enjoy sub $5.00 a liter gasoline.
As mentioned: Ghadaphee’s army is largely mercenary, so weakening his grip on them is logical to any plan to get out of there before Labor Day.
soonergrunt
Hey, it was the fucking Norwegians who started all that shit down in Antarctica back in ’82!
I’d believe anything about those motherfuckers after that!
Dennis SGMM
Always look on the bright side of life; the more shit that gets blown up the more we’ll have to pay Halliburton to rebuild it.
OzoneR
@Hawes:
I’m the sure the French people are mortified
General Stuck
@soonergrunt:
Great flick, and for it’s time with groundbreaking FX. They sure creeped me out, with legs popping out of body parts and shit, walking around like that.
MikeBoyScout
@11 OzoneR:
“…and I’m glad they’re escalating with Norwegian jets instead of American jets.”
Well, for Lockheed Martin shareholders it don’t matter which country owns ’em as long as somebody is buying ’em.
And this is really good PR!
Lockheed Martin, bringing freedom to Muslims one bomb at a time since 1991.
TheMightyTrowel
@fortinbras: I see what you did there.
You owe me a new laptop. this one has snot and tea all over it.
General Stuck
@General Stuck:
That should have been “manic progressives” instead
OzoneR
@MikeBoyScout:
Is that where we going with this now? It doesn’t matter who does the bombing because in the end, it was an American company who made the jets?
weak.
ActuallyGeneral
@General Stuck: it really isn’t that until the step is taken to put boots on the ground for the purpose of creating a ground war by the US
Actually General, the US has had people on the ground in Libya since before this whole kinetic military action got started:
nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/africa/31intel.html
These people may or may not have been wearing boots.
Maybe it’s time to move the “escalation” goalposts again.
cyntax
@fortinbras:
FTW.
Forget 2nd Ammendment concerns; I just don’t want anyone coming for our spoof-handles.
joes527
@OzoneR:
Hey. As long as war remains a profit centre, the perpetual war machine doesn’t give a shit about flags.
OzoneR
@joes527:
Maybe so, but the war market needs customers…if Norway is willing to buy our jets, and put their flag on them, they get the blame for what they do with them.
It’s like blaming a gun salesman for a shooting, which I suppose the left also likes to do, so ok.
Mandramas
@Hawes: Technically, Beowulf was a Geat. Noways, he could be considered Swedish. Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian, indeed.
Villago Delenda Est
“Imagine your loved ones conquered by by King Harald V and forced to live under Norwegian rule? Do you want them to eat lutefisk?”
OzoneR
@Villago Delenda Est:
For their social welfare system, I’d eat almost anything
Bob Loblaw
It’s a Westphalian world. We all just live in it.
Wars are deeply silly things.
joes527
@OzoneR: The problem is that without a shooting war, sales of stuff-to-engage-in-a-shooting-war-with would plateau and drop off pretty quick.
without perpetual war, the perpetual war machine would be fucked.
Fortunately, there is no chance of that happening.
E.D. Kain
It will only get worse before it gets better.
MikeBoyScout
@22 OzoneR:
Now? Were have you been?
Any idea which communist peacenik said this?
These planes are made for bombing, and that’s just what they’ll do
one of these days these planes are gonna bomb all over you.
Citizen_X
@soonergrunt: “Maybe we’re at war with Norway!”
Favorite line from that movie. Okay, maybe after James Cromwell’s “Now would somebody please UNTIE ME FROM THIS FUCKING CHAIR!”
OzoneR
@MikeBoyScout: Yeah, Eisenhower…I agree with him, I’ve long been a critic of the military industrial complex.
Countries are free to stop buying our jets whenever they feel like it, but they won’t, not even Norway, so might as well use them for a noble cause instead of a hunch.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Yeah, but just the thought that they might roll like that gives Bill Kristol Norwegian Wood.
Martin
Actually, Cole, you predicted we’d be building military bases there. On the mission creep meter, we’re overwhelmingly closer to where we started than where you predicted we’d be.
OzoneR
@joes527:
Well then we know why we had to be dragged kicking and screaming to agree to a UN resolution on Libya.
I wonder what the defense companies gave to France this time that they didn’t in 2003.
mk387
Dude, no kidding. It’s clearly escalating. And raising oil prices are pushing NATO to act more broadly.
Now what do you want, Cole, e big fat hand job because you “told us so”?
Geez, chill already. It’s still ain’t the bloody decade-long affair that Iraq is.
Mike M
Cole and many others believe that it was a mistake to intervene in Libya. I disagree for humanitarian reasons, but I don’t think that Cole’s position is unreasonable. Libya is strategically important to Europe for a number of reasons, but certainly not for the US.
Still, if you are going to pursue military actions to protect civilians — a policy with which I agree — you ought to use all the tools you have available and you should select targets that will help bring an end to the conflict as soon as possible without needlessly jeopardizing more civilian lives. From my perspective, Nato is not so much escalating the conflict as moving on to the next set of targets on the list to weaken Qadaffi’s command and control.
If it chose to, Nato could cut off water, electricity, communications, and food to Tripoli, causing great hardship to the people living there, just as Qadaffi’s regime has brought great suffering to the residents of Misrata. Instead, Nato continues to be very careful in selecting its targets in order to avoid civilian casualties, but at the cost of extending the conflict.
Let’s hope that the people surrounding Qadaffi soon realize that their support of him is misplaced, and that they ought to end this crisis now.
soonergrunt
@Citizen_X: “You’ve gotta be fuckin kidding me!”
Norwonk
Clearly, they haven’t seen what we did to Charles XII of Sweden.
Just Some Fuckhead
This “civilian” bullshit will be the new standard to attack anyone, anywhere for any reason. One country’s armed rebels are another imperialist country’s innocent civilians.
Martin
And actually, this Libya situation makes me curious about where people stand on a hypothetical. Everyone from Cole to ED to everyone else:
What if the US went full-metal isolationist. Got out of our various conflicts and took a position with the UN and NATO that looked more like pre-WWII foreign policy. Except, that we didn’t tear down the mil-industrialist complex. Rather than dropping bombs bearing our flag, the US simply exported all of that crap. Still our bombs, but with Frances flag on it, or whatever. And the drones turn into another outsourced program, we build them and someone at Lockheed flies them under contract of some foreign power.
So there is no extension of US foreign policy, no US military involvement, but we maintain the engineering/R&D/manufacturing and export for economic reasons. Where does everyone stand on that? Still bad because the bombing goes on? Better because it’s not US tax dollars on the line? Better because we retain the economic benefits? Where do everyone’s objections specifically come from?
Martin
@mk387: The raising oil prices should be telling you a different lesson. 20% increase in price because 2% of the supply is at risk. That’s a suspiciously elastic market.
ActuallyGeneral
@OzoneR: so might as well use them for a noble cause
Dropping bombs on civilians to prevent The Evildoers from dropping bombs on civilians is a most noble endeavor.
MikeBoyScout
@34 OzoneR:
1) Your tax dollars & mine underwrote the development and production of the F-16.
2) Bombing in Libya is not a noble cause.
3) The attitude that owning a weapon is a premise for using a weapon is wrong no matter the side of the argument and the danger of weapons proliferation; exactly what Ike was warning against.
General Stuck
@Martin:
From the spirit of Jim Morrison
This is the end. My only friend, The End
ActuallyGeneral
@Martin: Actually, Cole, you predicted we’d be building military bases there. On the mission creep meter, we’re overwhelmingly closer to where we started than where you predicted we’d be.
Actually, Martin, we need the rebels to win before we can build our bases. Once the rebels have won, we will then need to help them build a democracy. After all, we won’t just be able to abandon them. Good people like US don’t do that.
There is a process here. Steps need to be taken in the right order.
lacp
So they started out shooting a buttload of missiles, and now they’ve moved up to…uh, shooting a buttload more missiles. Quelle surprise!
Lol
Can someone explain Libya is the new Iraq or Afghanistan and not the new Bosnia?
OzoneR
@ActuallyGeneral:
yes because that’s what the Norwegian jets were doing, wantonly bombing civilian neighborhoods in Tripoli.
STUCKZILLA!
ActuallyGeneral
Actually, Cole
Actually, Martin,
AKTUALLY, WHO bROUGHT tHE rEEFER? AN SUMBODY DIAL UP THat senile Skank Sara P and T, and let’s PARDY?
BWAA HAHAHAH
Martin
@Lol: Apparently the answer to that lies somewhere between ‘Shut up, that’s why’ and ‘oil, stupid’. That’s the best I’ve been able to work out.
soonergrunt
@Lol: Because we have to keep the Balloon-Juice Angsty Thread Count ™ up.
SATSQ.
OzoneR
Gee, you would think there was something in the Constitution about using tax money to raise an army or something
I disagree
what Ike warned about were private corporations that would only turn a profit if their war machines are being used, so this war would need to be constant so those machines can be replaced and added to. He said nothing about generally selling people weapons, which he did very often as President.
Do you think we should nationalize the weapons industry? I agree.
HyperIon
@wengler:
Yes, but their dictator (much cleverer than Libya’s dictator) has never said out loud that he intends to kill lots of Syrians. In fact he claims to not understand why lots of Syrians are getting killed.
And the Syrian people have not yet shouted out for our help. So obviously Syria is a completely different case than Libya.
joes527
@OzoneR:
In 2003 the perpetual war machine was starting the biggest expansion of anything anywhere(1). The Afghanistan and Iraq franchises were projected to keep them running full throttle for the foreseeable future.
There is still lots of money in those franchises in 2011, but a deal that sweet can’t last forever. They have realized that they need to push into new markets or they run the risk of stagnating profits. (the dreaded “peace dividend”)
They didn’t need the frogs in 2003 to kick off the Iraq franchise. But _someone_ had to push the turning over of inventory in Libya. WHO pushed the business plan wasn’t important so long as the new market was opened.
(1) OK. The big bang was probably larger.
joes527
@Lol:
Because Hillary hasn’t taken sniper fire in Libya?
Bob Loblaw
@Lol:
Because people have difficulty remembering anything that happened longer than 5-10 years ago.
Uloborus
This is an escalation, John. Here is the thing, and I will try to do this without hyperbole or snark:
It is a very small escalation. That is actually important, even crucial. You are engaged in a slippery slope argument, a CLASSIC slippery slope argument. Your reasoning is that a partial military engagement is impossible (or unlikely enough to be dismissed) and the moment any kind of engagement is initiated it must be assumed that the US and the military are all-in, forever. Am I misrepresenting your reasoning? I don’t think I am.
The support for reasoning for this is almost entirely based on Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars engaged by the same administration. That neocon-led government not merely pushed two wars, one apparently based solely on pride and neocon hegemony ideals, but also waged with breathtaking stupidity. The only other war in the last century that at all resembles them is Vietnam. All other military actions, supportable or non, like Somalia and Bosnia and the first Iraq war and Reagan’s lovely little military adventures – they followed completely different patterns. I know the Bush presidency was such a nightmare that it’s hard to remember that he was an anomaly, but he was an anomaly.
So the main counterargument is that you’re engaged in ‘slippery slope’ reasoning. In doing so you grasp for any escalation of any kind, no matter how insignificant, to justify your prediction that this is a semi-permanent imbroglio. I understand that you hate war with a gut passion, and I think that’s a good thing, but you’re engaged in a logical fallacy. No, nothing about this process is inevitable. It may or may not turn out the way you want. At the moment it’s going in the opposite pattern from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we started something and we’re leaving it for NATO to worry about.
Really, John, you’ve been grasping at straws. This is the only straw I’ve seen so far that wasn’t downright wishful thinking. It is merely a very weak argument.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
Interesting set of questions there, Martin. What if the US were to become the Arsenal of
DemocracyInternational Anarchy but otherwise keep to itself? Here’s my $0.02; I don’t see the pros and cons as being mutually exclusive. Specifically:Still bad because the bombing goes on? Yes
Better because it’s not US tax dollars on the line? Yes
Better because we retain the economic benefits? Yes
The thing is, aside from all the other I-want-a-pony aspects of this hypothetical, we would have to be totally amoral about who we sell weapons to in order to make it work, or else US foreign policy just creeps back in via the back door and we end up arming other people to fight our wars by proxy. Not a bad gig if you can get it I suppose, except that then the relationship between power (the ability to initiate wars) and responsibility (i.e. suffering the consequences of what you start) would be even more tenuous for the US electorate than it is now. A foreign policy of: Let’s you and him fight would be a terrible temptation for an electorate that is already pretty attention deficit oriented to begin with.
someguy
I like the way that we’re helping to redefine what it means to win a Nobel Peace Prize. In light of where you find people who hate Amurrika, at this point I think we ought to consider making new wars against Syria, Uzbekistan, and Massachusetts.
MikeBoyScout
– John Paul Vann as quoted by Halberstam in The Making of a Quagmire (1965)
OzoneR
Well we can’t all live up the scions of peace like Henry freakin’ Kissinger, Yassir Arafat, and Shimon Peres.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzoneR: TR.
Laertes
@Uloborus:
I was going to comment here, but after reading that, I’ve got nothing left to say. Well done.
El Cid
@HyperIon: Qaddafi didn’t actually say he was going to kill lots of civilians, as a quote.
Though it (in my opinion and the opinions of many on the ground) would have had that effect, Qaddafi said that he would go house to house pursuing armed rebels, and that he was ordering his forces to pursue no unarmed protesters.
So, if it’s being based on the “show no mercy” statement, he did not declare ‘that he would kill civilians’. That is a mischaracterization of his statement.
Which isn’t to say that having his forces go door to door under orders to let unarmed protesters go unpursued wouldn’t result in mass numbers of civilians killed.
But that’s different than suggesting that Qaddafi would openly announce an intention to kill civilians. He’s weird, but he’s much better in his anti-imperialist etc rhetoric than that.
Mako
War. Really, what is it good for?
RP
The irony here is rich. You’re the one moving the goalpost by claiming that you’re concerned about escalation in general rather than OUR involvement. The US =/= NATO and Norway.
Brachiator
When did the Norwegians replace their Viking long boats with fighter jets?
Meanwhile a dumbass NYT op ed piece blares
I don’t know. Seems to me that we stupidly stumbled into this and can just as stupidly stumble out.
I didn’t provide a link, cause I don’t know how people deal with the NYT paywall (or even if it is still strictly enforced).
The author, James M. Dubik, “a retired Army lieutenant general who oversaw the training of Iraqi troops from 2007 to 2008, is a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War.”
Predictably, his “solution” is the same tired crap that has not yet worked in Iraq or Afghanistan:
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Villago Delenda Est:
Technically, Beowulf was a Geat
Of course, the last person who said that to him, he ripped her arm off and then made up some tall tale about it.
catclub
@Dennis SGMM: “Always look on the bright side of life; ”
I am not sure if we can get that for the anthem at church.
… but I will still work on it.
Hypnos
Oil in France is actually around $10 gallon. It is around $12 gallon in Norway.
So yeah, Americans could at least stop complaining about the bargain they get at the pump.
Corner Stone
@Hypnos: It’s not a bargain. We’re paying over $700B a year, every year, to get that “bargain” at the pump.
More like over $1T per year, but who’s counting?
Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think you and I are pretty much on the same page here. Exporting the weapons but not the war is better domestic policy and in an imperfect world might be an acceptable compromise, but it does create some bad incentives for voters and policymakers – most notably, why shouldn’t we make a regular habit of arming both sides? Double the profit. I think that’s more-or-less where France is, however. They have a much more ‘anyone is welcome to pay’ stance than the US does whereas we prefer to sell our goods at a discount to further our policy goals.
I understand there are a lot of people that object to these military actions, but they often come from vastly different vantage points. Some moral, some economic, some policy. ED seems to object more along moral grounds (bombing is evil). Cole more on policy grounds (this shit always backfires). Generally, though, a lot of Dems object on economic grounds (why buy bombs instead of healthcare?). Mostly just curious where everyone is.
Corner Stone
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’m not denying it. I lulzed.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck:
You’re just pissed you couldn’t get in there in time to pre poison the thread the way you wanted.
Corner Stone
@ActuallyGeneral:
Bwah ha ha ha ha!
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
I thought the thread turned out pretty good myself. Though i am much too modest to take any credit for such things.
Corner Stone
@someguy:
Just like when Pulitzer gave their panties to whats his face, obviously the NPP comt needs to be fish slapped with a big fucking spicy tuna.
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m non-violent type people myself, but I would throw the switch and blow ’em all up before I left them alive to be forced lutefisk.
cynickal
@ John
Obviously they’re not familiar with Roland the headless thompson gunner.
youtube.com/watch?v=WhRRWwH3Fro
Ghanima Atreides
@Martin:
we already bought those bombs. they are a sunk cost. we are already paying for the carriers, jets and pilots to be somewhere, and the drones (more sunk costs) are better utilized against Qaddafis chad mercs than against Afghan and Pak kids.
;)
Gus
@OzoneR: You’ve obviously never tasted (or smelled) lutefisk.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: When Cole comes in and sets the hard parameters for firebagging it’s difficult for you to do much more than show up and trip over your own dick. Which, despite Harvey Korman’s ghost you seem to have a unique talent for.
Ghanima Atreides
@E.D. Kain:
/points and laffs at EDK
Do you want Obama to fail, Erik?
;)
dmbeaster
Uloborus at 61
This is straw man argumentation. The argument has never been that partial military engagement is impossible. The argument is that it is unwise and typically folly since escalation usually follows. And the argument to justify the “partial military engagement” (wtf is that, really?) usually assumes a rosy prediction and that escalation is unlikely. So therefore we do not have to take into account the ugly possibilities and risks of escalation and mission creep because we have magic bombs and military invincibility.
The “mission” is now floundering around trying to figure out a way to make something happen, by continuing to use inadequate means to end the war. That is another feature of the oxymoronic quality of “partial military engagement.” You would think that fighting wars half-assed was something we would stop doing after Vietnam.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Gawd, you are dumb
Brachiator
@Martin:
I’m not sure what the point of this would be. Wouldn’t full-metal isolationism mean something like this: withdrawal from the UN and all other international bodies. Withdrawal from all foreign bases and ports. Withdrawal from the international arms markets.
The US often tries to make arms sales contingent recognition of US interests. Advisors end up being part of the deal. Do you really see a viable form of isolationism being tied to a “we sell you arms, no questions asked” policy?
Of course, on the other hand, the military industrial complex is mighty hard to maintain if you only produce weapons for domestic use.
General Stuck
@ActuallyGeneral:
Oh please, not with this nonsense again. I am talking about an actual contingent of ground combat troops to escalate to a ground war in Libya. I hope this clears up what I mean. Not CIA or Special Forces doing things to coordinate the air strikes.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck:
No doubt. You’re talking about the 10th Mountain and KBR installing KFCs in Libya before you’ll consider recanting.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Gawd, you are dumb
edit – or more likely just basically dishonest
slightly_peeved
@RP:
This. From the article:
NATO is escalating while the US is de-escalating. Claiming ‘I was right’ without addressing this major hole in your assumptions is goalpost-shifting.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Kid, we all know the truth. You will pretzel yourself into all kinds of rhetorical knots when the time comes.
You’re an Obama fluffer. That’s just what it is.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
You got homophobic oral fixations son, talk to the doctor about it, nothing we can do from here.
DPirate
lol Norway’s munitions are just filled with Nobel Peace Prize medals. One per combatant – please, no pushing.
Prasad
NATO forces should target Libyan forces not Libyans so finally Libyan forces will defeat they do not target their people.
DPirate
@Prasad: There just aren’t enough Libyan forces to use up our munition stockpiles on. Can’t be helped. Sorry, Libya.