This made me laugh:
After two airstrikes in a week on targets close to Muammar Gaddafi, NATO was on the defensive Sunday over accusations that it was overstepping its mandate by trying to kill the Libyan leader.
Russia said Sunday that the bombing of the home of Gaddafi’s youngest son raised “serious doubts” about NATO’s assertions that it is not targeting the Libyan strongman or his relatives.
Really? You think there might be some “doubt” they are going after Gaddafi after bombing his house a couple times this week with precision strikes? Ya think that might be, you know, not an accident? Think they might be lying about this?
But then again, the Arab League no-fly zone mandate is pretty elastic.
srv
McNamara logic and truthyism is alive and well in our modern leadership. Good that someone is thinking of the children.
Face
My backyard is a no-fly zone, thanks to the bug zapper.
Just Some Fuckhead
We can’t know for sure until we found out how many innocent civilians the bombings saved.
General Stuck
Might have been a good idea for the Qaddafy family to take a European Vacation this year. No tears
BGinCHI
What would Trump do?
1. Take their oil. It’s just sitting there, like a ham sandwich.
2. Bankrupt the Qaddafy family by getting them to invest in a luxury hotel complex in the desert.
3. Blame the Chinese.
Just Some Fuckhead
@BGinCHI:
You wanna do something hard? You get on the phone, dammit.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Al Jazeera headline:
They sorta buried the lede, but here’s the end of the article:
Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton, reporting from Benghazi, said there were “an awful lot” of suggestions in Libya that the news of the deaths could be fabricated.
“One of the main spokesmen for the Transitional National Council, Abdul Hafez Goga, is saying he thinks it could all be fabrication, that it may well be Gaddafi is trying to garner some sympathy,” she said.
“Back in 1986, Gaddafi once claimed that Ronald Reagan, then US president, had launched a strike on his compound in Tripoli and killed his daughter. Many journalists since then dug around and found out that the actual child that had died had nothing to do with Gaddafi, that he sort of adopted her posthumously.”
Saif al-Arab Gaddafi is the most unknown of the Libyan leader’s children, Al Jazeera’s McNaught said.
“He’s one of the low-profile of his children and has been largely invisible since the conflict began”, she said.
“He hasn’t been visible in any significant form. He hasn’t appeared on TV or made any speeches, he hasn’t been on any crowd-rallying marches.”
Martin
Army Corps of Engineers may blow up a levee on the MS river to protect Cairo, IL. It’ll flood small MO towns, and, well, they’re upset.
Not sure why – everyone was happy to trade climate change for big fat SUVs and coal plants. Now they can load all of their shit, produced with cheap electricity into that big fat SUV and haul it to higher ground. Sounds like the grand bargain is playing out just as expected.
cbear
I’m sure the usual suspects will be along shortly to explain to us all how those blown-to-shit kids were blown-to-shit in the “fog” of war.
Omnes Omnibus
Purely a question here, not an assertion of any kind. What military C3 is located in or around these homes? For example, if the US were in a full on WWIII scale war, an enemy might target the White House in its capacity as a command center, not as the residence of the President. The building gets just as bombed, but someone who said that the President was not targeted might still be accurate.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, you can make the same case as going after a head of state who’s also commanding the military, I think, as you can for going after a command and control center. Yes, there’s the fact that the head of state is a political leader, but as long as he’s part of the command structure…
Martin
@BGinCHI:
What’s stopping him? I thought the free market could solve all problems?
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): The issue in this case would be whether this Qaddafy son is in the chain of command. That is why I couched the question purely in terms of the home.
Martin
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Correct. He’s always insisted that he’s a colonel. He’s part of the military – he’s a valid target. Whether it’s wise to target him, particularly in a civilian area is an entirely different question but he is a valid target.
But, we killed Yamamoto.
Punchy
@Martin: Nobody likes Missouri. Illy hates ’em, Iowa dislikes them, Kansas REALLY REALLY REALLY dispises them….not surprising at all that this is happening.
Irregardless
This is a diplomat speaking. When translated, it would be more like, “WTF? Do we look like idiots?”
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
From the same Al Jazeera article (that I forgot to link) above:
Gaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, when it was hit by at least one missile fired by a NATO warplane late on Saturday, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said on Sunday.
BGinCHI
@Martin: I’m afraid Trump’s foreign policy strategy boils down to “Don’t worry about it, I know a guy. Lemme make a couple calls.”
Face
@Martin: Small towns in MO being flooded? That’s going to take out, like, 1,693-ish meth labs. Per town.
BGinCHI
@Punchy: It occurs to me that if we had had the foresight to elect Trump as our governor, he would take their fucking oil and slap a 25% tax on those Show-Me motherfuckers before he flooded them.
With him and Rahm that would be some entertaining government.
Chris Wolf
I see you’re working alone this Sunday. And with a hangover.
Kudos.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): If all this is the case and Q was targeted, Nato has some hot shit intelligence.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: That doesn’t matter. The son wasn’t the target, Qaddafi was. While the military is obligated to avoid civilian casualties to the best of its ability, if a military target is in a civilian area and that’s the best opportunity for us to reach the target, that’s the fault of the target for being there, not us for striking there.
If NATO declared him a valid target, striking his son’s home is probably less risky to civilians than hitting Qaddafi’s compound, which he appear to have filled with civilians.
Bob Loblaw
@Martin:
It warms my heart to see people make judgments on laws of war from a fucking West Wing episode…
I still don’t understand what Cole’s objection is here, by the way. Why on earth would you ever entertain for a second that there wasn’t a policy of regime change by military coercion? The wording of UNSC resolutions genuinely doesn’t matter once they’re enacted. That’s half the point of them in the first place. They’re a beginning of the story, not the end.
Chuck Butcher
Ordinance starts flying around and people get killed … and somebody is surprised? This is exactly what happens when you do this stuff. Maybe you try to be careful, but it is what happens.
I always have doubts when we start breaking things (people too) and sometimes I can see why to do it. I think Gulf War I and Shock and Awe got people thinking it was something like a video game and it certainly isn’t. All I really can say is that this country finds it pretty easy to get into this stuff.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
Doesn’t work for the heartless
eemom
Um….people? Do you see what you’re doing here, actually visualizing Trump as the leader of the free world? This does not strike me as a healthy exercise.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe, but Qaddafi doesn’t seem to work very hard to disguise his actions or whereabouts. They know where his kids live. A CIA agent or paid Libyan could have tipped off his presence. A tomahawk is only 20 minutes away.
cbear
I’m sure the little bastard had it coming, but I forget, is he the one with the rape rooms or is he the one who stole the incubators? It’s hard to keep up with—-oh wait, wrong war. Nevermind.
Martin
@Bob Loblaw:
Yes, because our targeting of Yamamoto was entirely fictional.
MattF
Well, I can only reach back to my earlier, less liberal days and note that the Russkies are, after all, the experts in this sort of thing– so they would know if the rules are being broken.
BGinCHI
@eemom: Come on, I’m not omnipotent.
Yet.
Sorry, but I can’t and won’t take that fucking asshole seriously. If that didn’t come through then I’ll just keep trying. Goddamn we need a new Lenny Bruce. I’m ready for Louis CK to get political in his sitcom or somewhere other than YouTube.
Amir_Khalid
@eemom: If you come away from that mental exercise with the conclusion no fucking way, I think it’s a perfectly healthy thing to do.
General Stuck
@BGinCHI:
Good for you. Them pills ain’t cheap, I hear
Chuck Butcher
@cbear:
That does raise the question, how many soldiers in any unit “had it coming?” That sort of question doesn’t just apply to civilians or sort of civilians. Frankly, if I were to shoot someone breaking into my house, my concern has nothing to do with just deserts, it does have everything to do with my desire that what they’re doing stops. My concern isn’t whether he was trying to feed his starving kids or a meth habit – it just isn’t.
That’s the problem with going into the making things go boom game – justice isn’t the concern. For all the rules we lay on it and concerns we try to address – it is an exercise in breaking and killing and that is exactly what will happen.
Bob Loblaw
@cbear:
If your anti-war inclinations are so pronounced as to leading you to sympathize with the Qaddafi family, I think you’ve gone too far.
@Martin:
Ah, of course. It was just a coincidence that you would use the phrase “We killed Yamamoto” as shorthand then.
Gustopher
The house was violating the no fly zone.
BGinCHI
@General Stuck: I see what you did there.
eemom
@BGinCHI:
well, this is where I guess I differ from most of y’all: when you’re talking about something as bugfuck crazy, end-of-the-world unthinkable, as something like a Trump or Palin inhabiting the WH, I just lose my sense of humor.
Also, I can never get behind the “nominate them because they’re sure to lose” mindset. I just don’t want to inhabit a reality where ANYONE would be enabled to cast a vote for that madness. Because as we know all too well from bitter experience, the ability of people in this country to successfully elect the candidate most likely to fuck them in the ass AGAIN cannot be underestimated.
Martin
@Bob Loblaw: No, I thought of it, then it dawned on me that it might have been a WW title so I modified the line a bit to match. Forgive me for trying to be cute.
But of course causation could never go the other way around when you have a point you’re trying to make.
BGinCHI
@eemom: Did you live through Reagan? It’s actually thinkable that it will happen again. Look how much further to the right one half of the American political parties has gone. I know they theoretically can’t win a national majority with whacko candidates, but if some kind of scandal or event torpedoes the Dem candidate, then there you go.
Laughing to keep from crying is an old and venerable defense. Don’t mistake humor for glibness.
General Stuck
@Martin:
The only point loblaw ever tries to make, is that he is all asshole and no ass. And does a pretty darn good job making his point. If you ask me, and even if you don’t.
lawguy
I thought the most interesting thing in the article was that the UK is really upset that their embassy has been vandilized.
They are apparently shocked, shocked I tells you.
Chuck Butcher
@eemom:
I assume you’ve noticed the US Congress? I strongly doubt any of us have any effect on who the GOP nominates. Caz still seems to love him some Trump in the face of all the mockery around here. Actually I can see some use in engaging in Trumpery – voting for the less than ideal candidate seems more reasonable if the opposition’s actions are laid out – mockingly or not.
cbear
@Bob Loblaw:
Oh, I’m pretty fucking far from “anti-war”, Bob.
I am, however, very anti-the-wrong-war(s) and I’m very anti-listening to dumbasses who stupidly parrot the talking points of pro-war neocon asswipes who endlessly recycle the same rationales for enbroiling this country in a neverending series of conflicts which have very little, if not nothing, to do with our national security or interests.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@BGinCHI: they are like terrorists they only have to win once.
Svensker
@Bob Loblaw:
Because Qaddafi’s kids and grandkids bear his genes so kill the little vermin?
Chuck Butcher
@cbear:
I’m actually anti-war as a first reaction. I want to be persuaded that there is a reason I shouldn’t be against one rather than give the benefit of doubt. In regard to Afghanistan I went pretty quickly from “nope” to “don’t you dare half-step this.” I’ve never gotten on board with Iraq. I learned about this with Vietnam, since when it started I was still playing “cowboys and indians” with cap guns and had to learn the politics, economics, and reality of this blowing people and things up. I didn’t like it at all.
Mike M
I guess it is no surprise that those opposed to the UN intervention in Libya are so quick to accept claims by the Libyan government as fact. Perhaps Qaddafi’s son did die in the Nato air raid, and perhaps three of his grandchildren were killed as well, but I am skeptical.
Since the beginning of this conflict, the Libyan government has been claiming widespread civilian casualties at Nato’s hand, but international reporters on the ground have been unable to verify any of those claims, and in fact, have reported that many of those claims have been transparently false.
In contrast, Libyan forces have targeted civilians in Misrata and other cities, and every day we have seen eyewitness accounts of those killings from a wide number of independent sources. There is no doubt that the Libyan government is killing its own people including small children, and not just the armed opposition, by the hundreds.
According to reporters who visited the bombed structure in Tripoli, the structure appeared to go very deep into the ground, something unusual for what the government claims was a private residence. In light of the government’s claim that Qaddafi and his wife had survived the attack, the BBC’s reporter expressed doubt that anyone in the building could have lived, given the extent of the destruction.
I regret any loss of life in this conflict, but Qaddafi clearly is in a position to end the conflict if he wants by pulling back his forces and ceasing hostilities. So far, he has taken no action to do so.
Fuzz
@Svensker:
More like because Qaddafi’s sons each command army units which have committed untold amounts of atrocities before and during the rebellion, like shelling the port of Misrata where boats are transporting food and medicine (as well as evacuating migrant workers from Africa), and recently firing on civilians in the Tunisian border area. Look up the Khamis Brigade, it’s commanded by his 27 year old son, and the two Saifs have been very active in commanding and making tactical decisions as well.
eemom
this is an interesting thread.
Started with Cole setting out his usual flame bait. A few sparks kindled…..but then they fizzled.
It’s just not igniting the way these threads usually do.
Hmmm. Perhaps the damp wood from the rain.
Chuck Butcher
@eemom:
Maybe because there are so many ambiguities in the situation, it’s difficult to get real amped up when sureness is lacking.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chuck Butcher: That hasn’t stopped previous Libya threads from catching fire.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Whatever you do, you dasn’t turn those “serious doubts” upon President Obama.
.
.
General Stuck
@eemom:
Or perhaps pissing down our wood and telling us it’s raining.