ADDED: The NYT reports:
“Tonight and only a short time ago, the Western crusader aggression against the Libyan nation continued and proved again that it has no moral foundation, no legal foundation and no political foundation,” said Moussa Ibrahim, the government spokesman. “The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Seif al-Arab Muammar el-Qaddafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader’s grandchildren.”...
Footage broadcast on the satellite channel Al Jazeera showed the wreckage of the house, including a wall with an enormous hole and shattered concrete. There was no immediate reaction from NATO or independent confirmation of the attack....
The airstrike against the Qaddafis marked the most significant escalation so far in the Western air campaign intended to help push him from power. In recent days, NATO leaders have described their growing frustration at the resilience of Colonel Qaddafi’s military forces, which have begun to disguise themselves, hide equipment and otherwise evade NATO airstrikes....
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56 comments:
I cannot keep this straight. Is he a good guy or a bad guy, as far as we are concerned, today?
Wow, vw: natos
So, if Q-Daffy, targets Obama or any NATO or NATO-supporting head of state, would this be "terrorism" or legit war strategy?
I was serving in the Air Force and stationed at HQ EUCOM when we bombed Qaddafi back in 1986 and I recall his adopted daughter was killed and his two sons were wounded in that raid.
Some guys never learn . . .
A son and three grandsons were killed.
Now the question becomes, if governments can assassinate the kin of a leader, can the leader retaliate by putting a bounty of the kin of the leaders that ordered the bombings?
Gaddafi might just do what the mafia does and put a contract out for any killer in the world to collect.
The door has been opened and I doubt it can be shut.
yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.
Wake me when the war- oops- kinetic military action is over and we own all the oil in Libya.
The door has been opened and I doubt it can be shut.
Wait- you are thinking that door has not been opened, repeatedly, many times before?
Wow.
So now assassination of foreign leaders and open-ended interference in non-Western nations is official NATO policy. Reminds me of the Kennedy years, and look how that turned out.
Awww, they're not targeting Qadaffi. Obama said so himself.
As long as they are not water boarded I think we are fine with this.
Kadaffy has had it coming for years. One day, he'll get it.
D. B. Light said...
So now assassination of foreign leaders and open-ended interference in non-Western nations is official NATO policy.
When, exactly, was it not? If you're talking about Frank Church and his nonsense, that only applies to the US.
Be willing to bet the SAS doesn't worry about such things.
Reminds me of the Kennedy years, and look how that turned out.
Kennedy went around picking fights (Laos, Berlin Wall, Cuban Missle) and the Russians got sick of it. The CIA stuff was small potatoes in comparison.
WV "ronsy" What Maggie secretly called the POTUS.
So what is the strategic purpose of killing these guys (much less the legal justification for it)?
And, yes, this gives Qaddafi every legal and moral justification to respond in kind. The killing of national leaders and the indiscriminate killing of innocent children is a road that runs both ways.
Stuff like this will do little but piss him off and make him lash out in return.
And the legal justification for us doing all of this is . . . ??
About fucking time.
NATO Doesn't know what they're doing!
This attack? Bad information into headquarters.
While if Israel had done this you'd have seen the UN going absolutely ape shit.
And, YES. The UN is doing this for the OIL!
"Stuff like this will do little but piss him off and make him lash out in return."
Yeah, I mean he might do something crazy like send one of his henchmen to take down an airliner full of innocents.
It wasn't a good idea to get involved in this thing to begin with but if Obama has a brain in that head of his, he better make sure the Colonel is a stain on the wall when it's over.
Also targeted: Libyan Down's Syndrome Society.
While if Israel had done this you'd have seen the UN going absolutely ape shit.
Had Israel done it , Khaddafi would be death. And his kin ,unharmed
Kennedy went around picking fights (Laos, Berlin Wall, Cuban Missle????
So they put nuclear weapons 90 milles from you and you blame the one who defended you?
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys!
The door has been opened and I doubt it can be shut.
Opening the door of Pandora's box.
The first thing out is a horse.
No use closing it then!
Was it Uday or Qusay?
Jose_K said...
Kennedy went around picking fights (Laos, Berlin Wall, Cuban Missle????
So they put nuclear weapons 90 milles from you and you blame the one who defended you?
I'nm stating the strategic situation. Cuba was one of several places where the Russians thought he acted dangerously.
Don't forget, after the Vienna summit, where Khruschev ate his lunch. Jack tells the Gray Lady, "We have to make our power pertinent in the world and Vietnam seems to be the place".
Less than a year later, he was dead.
Bender,
I think on the subject you and I are on the same side. But when you said:
"And, yes, this gives Qaddafi every legal and moral justification to respond in kind."
Do you really think Qafaffi was holding back because he had no moral justification? That sounds very naive.
We put the French in charge; this is what happens. They may turn tail and run from Germans, but they are absolutely ruthless otherwise. Good allies if we can get along.
Lots of jocular comments here, but this could be the entrance to a very dark road.
So officially Obama is a mass murderer.
Think they will get a laugh over this at the WH correspondents dinner?
I missed the part of why assassinating grand children from 12,000 feet is vital to our national security.
"Lots of jocular comments here, but this could be the entrance to a very dark road."
I don't think so. Like I said his daughter was killed in the 1986 raid and it wasn't some game-changing thing regarding assassination. There's a war going on over there no matter what they call it and this kind of stuff happens. And like I said, the guy just didn't learn his lesson.
"So officially Obama is a mass murderer."
By the standards set by the left during the Bush years, that would be a yep.
Was he hot?
Ambrose, I just recently visited a WWI battle site. You forget the terrible carnage of that war. The French did not. It damaged their national being, much like Vietnam has damaged ours (for a time any way). Of course Vietnam also damaged the French. Do not forget history or history may forget you.
David said...
Lots of jocular comments here, but this could be the entrance to a very dark road.
Muammar has a lot to answer for - Lockerbie, the murder of the London policewoman. The Valkyries, when they nagged Little Zero into this - should have known the possibility for Khadaffy to do something stupid would be there, whether this particular thing happened or not. If they didn't, the whole pack should be out of work ASAP.
Khadaffy will try to get his terrorist friends to conjure up some revenge. We know it's going to happen.
Might as well get a few laughs while we can.
As a great English orator once noted, "Who among us has not had his laugh amonst the skulls?".
Browndog, I don't think the grand kids were targets. Then, remember that Q has had rockets and tanks fire willy nilly into towns, not caring who is killed. Have you been reading about the systematic rapes committed by his troops? Your outrage is misplaced.
LYNNDH-
I'm fully informed. Have been since day one. Which, is around day 30 for the MSM.
I make it a point to be.
I'll answer any of your questions, respectfully.
LYNNDH: Agree about the French, but the battle sites are not the place to see it. Go to Centre Ville of any town in the east, and look at the monument to WW-I dead. A huge percentage of the young men of that generation was wiped out. (and BTW, think about this before criticizing French behavior in the late '30s)
The US Vietnam trauma was driven, to an extent that can only be fully appreciated if you were 18 in 1972, by the draft. It's just not the same thing.
Sheesh. I skipped an opportunity to snark about my WV on the previous post, but this one does not even need any commentary:
WV: cowsrump
Try to be nice...
"With a feeling of empowerment sweeping through Arab states, there is a chance that the Benghazi protest may be the spark that ignites simmering resentment elsewhere in the country, especially among Islamic groups which have been clamped down on since Gadhafi renounced terrorism and reached out to the West in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US."
-Feb 18, 2011
This one in Libya was purely a hard-line islamists revolt against Mu'ammar Qahdafi.
Unlike in Egypt, were the islamists used their favorite use-full idiots, the leftists, to do the work for them.
Lynndh:
Point understood. I respect the French and my comment was meant to be pro-French. They are good allies, because (without generalizing too much) they understand that a fight is a thing to be won. Remember Greenpeace's confrontation with the French Navy? I do not think there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth in Paris tonight about poor Ghaddifi. Also, it seems that every time a bomb falls near him, he claims that another child, grandchild etc is killed. I take that with suspicion.
LYNNDH said...
Ambrose, I just recently visited a WWI battle site. You forget the terrible carnage of that war. The French did not. It damaged their national being, much like Vietnam has damaged ours (for a time any way). Of course Vietnam also damaged the French. Do not forget history or history may forget you.
Everybody suffered heavy casualties in WWI. It didn't stop the British (or the Russians, for that matter) from going all out in WWII. The French didn't.
'Nam OTOH was driven by Leftist, Communist-inspired propaganda. They wanted to break our will to resist the Soviets generally. People were told it was unwinnable. Some bought it.
But, with the right leadership, most saw the propaganda for what it was.
The French aren't good allies IMHO. They will do only what they want and what's in their short-term interest (during WWII, they were regarded as our least trustworthy), not what's going to help the general effort. Something they've proven on more than one occasion.
PS If you're visiting WWI battle sites, you might want to head to the Somme.
The British Army took 60,000 casualties in one day. Yet Britain didn't shrink from the hard hour in WWII.
So let me get this straight, if we send in a CIA operative and assassinate him, that is against American law and the government officials responsible can be tried and imprisoned,
but if we just drop a bomb on his head, that's not against the law and the president can go golfing with a clear conscience.
Some country we're running here.
Should we chip in for flowers or something?
Everybody suffered heavy casualties in WWI. It didn't stop the British (or the Russians, for that matter) from going all out in WWII. The French didn't.
Yes, everyone suffered but proportionally the French lost by far the most men in WWI. Truly a lost generation. Also, Britain was just as powerless as France to stop Germany and would have been overrun as well if it wasn't for the English Channel.
Maguro said...
Everybody suffered heavy casualties in WWI. It didn't stop the British (or the Russians, for that matter) from going all out in WWII. The French didn't.
Yes, everyone suffered but proportionally the French lost by far the most men in WWI. Truly a lost generation. Also, Britain was just as powerless as France to stop Germany and would have been overrun as well if it wasn't for the English Channel.
A fair point, as far as you go, but the French were noticeably a lot less resolute than the Limeys in the weeks before Dunkirk.
And it was Churchill's resolve, backed by the RAF that saved England. Had Chamberlain remained PM, do we doubt some arrangement might have been worked out?
WWI and II were declared conflicts. This is a NATO fit of pique and a badly executed one at that.
Only imagine if a Republican president had been involved. As my husband noted, it would have been called a "war crime".
This could have been avoided, if they would have just given us their oil.
Well there's no doubt at all that Daffi is a full on, large scale murderer.
But the UN Resolution AND the Arab League Resolution ONLY PROVIDED for a No-Fly Zone so Daffi's Air Force would no longer be able to bomb civilians.
No where is there any authorization that can be inferred nor was any implied, that it was OK for NATO to kill Daffi, much less Libyan civilians who are loyal to him. So NATO tries to assassinate Daffi by dropping bombs on him and instead kills some civilians.
And in a related story, also today, Libya disabled children school was hit hard in a different airstrike by NATO See Reuters at http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE73T0AG20110430?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0.
And all of this being done by NATO to prevent the loss of civilian life. Well Rebel Civilian Life.
That's Obama, winning the hearts and minds of people all over the World.
"Also, it seems that every time a bomb falls near him, he claims that another child, grandchild etc is killed. I take that with suspicion."
And the death of any such innocents is non his hands. He knows he's a target, just like before and yet he still sleeps with family and children close by. It's either arrogance, cowardice or stupidity. I suspect our leaders we're more concerned for them than he was.
Our involvement in the "kinetic military action" began on March 19. Our beloved President has three more weeks under the War Powers Resolution before he either has to get authorization from Congress, or quit the kineticizing. (Actually, at that time he's allowed to begin a withdrawl that can last another 30 days, but what can he withdraw from? We don't have "boots on the ground.").
So what happens then? A showdown with Congress?
He knows he's a target, just like before and yet he still sleeps with family and children close by.
The official U.S. government line is that Gadhafi is NOT a target.
Dammit, I hate seeming to take Gadhafi's side, but what we're doing violates our own self-proclaimed principles. Let's all hope we don't come to regret our actions.
Missed by that much!
- Maxwell Smart
Does anyone find that Obama is a bit light to date on addressing the involvement in Libya? I'm just sayin' - it's great to speculate that we have been managing the attrition of the various factions in some intentional way before issuing the coup de grace to Qadaffi...but that's just speculation several weeks after this all began because neither Sec. of State Clinton nor President Obama has explained much. Of anything.
If Qaddafi has earned a laser guided bomb up has ass for murdering the demonstrators, what has Assad in the Syrian police state earned...a nuke? The mood in the world today has turned murderous and Obama's Gang is the Killer vanguard. That is why having an American hating Killer as the most powerful man in our government is serious business. The American military is prohibited from arresting American civilians here, but FEMA is authorized to arrest American civilians and hold them in its newly constructed concentration camps. Why does Killer Obama work to build that capability unless he knows that civil unrest is coming fast due to his energy and food policies? Right now Texas appears to be Killer Obama's first enemy.
US murders civilians in country that has not attacked us and is no threat to us and has no strategic value to us.
US attempting to assasinate foreign leaders of a country that has not attacked us and is no threat to us.
Yay. What could go wrong?
If ... say ... a plane gets blown out of the sky ... or maybe a US Senator is killed ... and then Ron Paul says "blowback" in a debate, will he again be attacked as unpatriotic and unAmerican?
And the death of any such innocents is non his hands. He knows he's a target, just like before and yet he still sleeps with family and children close by.
Will you be so sanguine if Obama's daughters are killed in a Libyan assassination attempt? I mean, especially after this Obama must know he's a target... right?
Why we are attacking KaDaffey? He has been neutralized for many years, right?
KaDaffey ought to stay away from his family until hostilities are over.
Assassinating heads of state seems like an improvement over fighting wars because it reduces the damage immensely and (mostly) restricts the damage to the guys starting the conflicts. It is a lot cheaper, too.
Read an article about Saif when he went to the London School of Economics. Shame if he didn't have a significant operational role which he may have.
In WWI, the Germans said they weren't going to take French territory (permanently). If the BEF had stayed out, there would have been a whole lot fewer casualties all the way around. The point of the Schieffen plan was to be able to turn around and face the Russians.
I don't think this president knows any history. I think he was drunk on power and figured that this regime change business worked in Egypt, so why not?
Somebody is going to pay for this in blood if Daffy survives. It won't be the Obamas.
Remind me again about how this guy is an improvement on Bush.
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