US officials: Libyan operation could last months

[devils chaplain]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S.-led military action in Libya has bolstered rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi's forces, but the international operation could continue for months, the Obama administration says.

Ahead of President Barack Obama's national address Monday to explain his decision to act against the Libyan leader, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in appearances on the Sunday talk shows that the intervention had effectively rendered Gadhafi's forces defenseless against air attacks and created the conditions for opposition advances westward.

In interviews taped Saturday, Gates and Clinton also defended the narrowly defined U.N. mandate to prevent atrocities against Libyan civilians and said the U.S. had largely accomplished its goals.

"We have taken out his armor," Gates said, adding that the U.S. soon would relinquish its leading role in enforcing a no-fly zone and striking pro-Gadhafi ground targets intent on violence.

Read more: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110327/D9M7JGB00.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Funny how "optimists" think you can march into war and march out in a matter of weeks.

They shared the same delusion for the Civil War, World War I, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

[silver10]

6. +1

[undeterred]

2. Do atheists believe in the Devil?

:hi: Welcome to DU~!

[devils chaplain]

5. Thanks! :)

Not really... but I believe in Charlie's ability to turn a phrase:

"What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!"

- Charles Darwin on natural selection

[plumbob]

3. Months? Why? To give them time to gather up flowers to toss?

Will this war "pay for itself" like the current one?












Really?

[xchrom]

4. $$$$$$ -- be interesting to see what it all adds up to. nt

[dkf]

7. Well the jokes on everyone who believed this would be a two day operation.

This is just like a typical government underestimation of costs. No one ever gets it right.

Its our third war people. Or fourth or fifth depending how you count it.

[blunderbuss]

8. I seem to recall a similar situation ....

when we were told "this war could last 6 days, 6 weeks, i doubt 6 months" and we're still in that one. fool me once ah ........ shame on.......you?fool me twice a......... we wont get fooled again!

[barbtries]

9. but we won't be calling this a war.

it's an operation. :banghead:

[Igel]

17. Absolutely.

It's not a war to help one side in a civil war, a side we know little about.

It's a kinetic military operation that will last days, not weeks, intended to provide unknown actors the ability to engage in formal, armed, civilian kinetic operations in order to provide the political space to advance potentially significant, yet undefined vital American interests and rectify previous errors by advancing universal, unchanging, yet narrowly tailored moral principles of limited applicability.

It's not at all an opened-ended war that might last hundreds of days intended to provide dubious allies' rag-tag military with the ability to use its own private air force to provide cover so as to seize local power in order to both get rid of somebody we redecided we don't like and absolve some sense of lingering guilt for things we actually bore no responsibility for so that we can feel wanted and loved.

The formal is progressive. The latter is regressive.

You can tell the difference by listening to the words of the politicians involved. Whatever you do, don't look at the actions or actually expect the words to be meaningful in any more than a fuzzy, emotive sense.

[barbtries]

19. that was quite good.

do you write for a politician.
i actually steer clear of listening to them most of the time. actions tell.

[Fuddnik]

10. Meanwhile, 10 years later.....

[Scuba]

11. Dear China, can we please borrow another couple hundred billion?

...we're spending alot of money on humanitarian aid to Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, and we don't have the money to pay for it. All those bombs and missiles are expensive.

We've cut services to our own people until there is no more meat on the bone. So we need credit from you if we're going to continue providing this humanitarian aid.

The grandchildren and great grandchildren of the American people will pay you back, with interest.


Sincerely,


(on behalf of the US People)

The US Military - Industrial Complex

[Wilms]

12. Wilms: Reporting on the Libyan operation could last months.

After that, it'll slip off the page.

[davidthegnome]

13. I doubt there's any "could" about it

There will be many rationalizations as to why we need to maintain a military presence for months and - more likely, years. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see this ending soon - and I think "months" is being optimistic.

I've never been entirely clear on whether or not intervention in Libya was the right decision to make. Still, I know the American people can't afford to keep this going, no more than we can afford the other wars we're fighting... nonetheless...

[bullwinkle428]

14. What ever happened to "days and not weeks"?

[Igel]

18. We've redefined some words.

"No civilian casualties" means "civilian casualties that we don't mention." By that standard, there were no Southern civilian casualties in the US Civil War.

"Civilians" now includes active armed participants engaged in organized military operations on behalf of a government. By this standard, the US Revolutionary War was won entirely by civilians without any armed conflict.

"Days not weeks" means "numbers low enough that we can deal in days. We know what 60 or 100 days is like. We don't have good feel for how long 394 days is, so that's weeks."

"No fly zone" means "nothing fly-able zone." It includes bombing stationary, inactive planes on the ground. Or buildings in which such planes could survive.

"Only military targets" also includes dual-use buildings. Since you can put a guy with a military plan in any building with a phone and electricity, it means wiping out phone and electrical grids, as well as any building that looks like it might have a desirable non-target in it.

And above all, "fears of humanitarian disaster" means "stuff that might have happened but didn't and quite possibly wouldn't, even if preventing possible humanitarian disaster produces a humanitarian disaster--as long as we can feel good about it and blame somebody else for what we caused."

[Psephos]

15. They forgot the word "unexpectedly" in the headline.

It's quite the rage these days.

[dipsydoodle]

16. Your elections are when in 2012

:rofl:

[Vinee]

20. you think that's rollin on the floor funny? wait till you see our election lineup.

we'll be laughing so hard we'll be crying...or maybe we'll just be crying actually.

[Baclava]

21. "Days not weeks"...."weeks not months"...."months not years"

Gate's knows we've slaughtered all the easy targets out in the open.

[Arctic Dave]

22. I have been out in the field for a couple of days so I'm not quite up to speed.

When did enforcing a "no fly zone" translate in to bombing armor? If I rembember correctly, tanks can't fly.

[marasinghe]

23. you're way behind the curve brother. the "no fly zone" has now transformed -

into bombing the city of Sirte & spearheading the advance of the rebels into Tripoli.
looks like "1984" made it into the war college textbooks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4789707