The rebels keep pleading for a supply of weapons.

[The_Casual_Observer]

What's the next "phase" of this "Humanitarian Intervention"

[The Magistrate]

1. Probably The Provision Of Weapons, Sir

Anti-armor and anti-air missiles of the sort that can be shoulder-fired or mounted quickly on a pick-up truck.

[PurityOfEssence]

8. This is quite a flim-flam, bait-and-switch bit of griftskrieg: we wept tears to "protect civilians"

not to wage war and depose Qaddafi. This is filthy.

There's a major difference between protecting civilians and protecting combatant insurgents. What right do we have to then allow arms to flow to the rebels? Does this not escalate the conflict and further imperil those civilians everyone keeps mentioning?

If we had been dealt with straight and asked for permission for a regime change, it might be a different thing, but to be cynically played to help the innocent and have that used to overthrow a government doesn't engender much trust.

It's not a simple situation, and it opens a Pandora's Box of possibilities to intervene elsewhere without even candidly expressing our true aims. The first casualty in war is traditionally the truth, and here it's the very concept of having any respect whatsoever for personal integrity.

[The Magistrate]

11. Indeed, Sir, Big Fun All Around

Much of this is probably pique at having the expected story-line altered unexpectedly. Though rapid advance by irregular bodies can be expected to lead to over-reach, and prove vulnerable to counter-stroke by even quite small regular formations equipped to reasonable standard. But making a fair fight of it, more or less, does not bother me much.

A United Nations resolution explicily listing preventing impending atrocity does strike me as having some value as a precedent in international law, however. A lot of advances in law have pretty shabby roots, after all. It is not so long ago no one would have considered anything a government did to its own populace in rebellion a matter for international law at all, let alone something to could be a grave breach of it, that an international body had a right and even a duty to prevent.

[Waiting For Everyman]

13. "permission for a regime change" ?????

Ask us for PERMISSION?

Really? You really think like that?

:wow: :wow: :wow:

(Movin' along, there's nothin' more to say after that.)

[PurityOfEssence]

16. You think playing upon emotions for positioning and then doing something different is okay?

Your emoticon intimates that I'm morally repulsive, yet you have no problem with hiding behind a noble and emotional claim to protect innocent civilians in harm's way and using that to influence a civil war between armed forces and a regime change. That's not just protecting the imperiled innocents, it's playing favorites and imposing one's will on a sovereign nation. If that's what we want to do, that's what we should ask for, instead of beating our chests and crying crocodile tears to save the civilians, when the real aim seems to be to save the armed combatants we prefer and kill somebody we don't like.

This action is to protect armed combatants we like and impose our will in a situation that really isn't our business. The numbers simply don't justify the outrage to some of us, but the flagrant willingness to prey upon sympathies and emotions to get our way has dangerous implications for further application.

If lying to get one's way and preying upon people's honest emotions doesn't bother you, then your falling jaws must be from encountering true ethics up close and being aghast at the prospect.

[Wilms]

2. No worries. Obama can seek guidance from elder statesmen who prepared for all eventualities.

[NoTimeToulouse]

3. Looks like Jr .needs a cold one in that photo. Hair of the dog perhaps.

[chill_wind]

6. The DLC has it all figured out.

(DLC/PPI/Third Way/New Dems)

"The world needs to help the rebels check Qaddafi’s momentum now, not next month or the one after. It’s hard to see how that can be done without supplying the rebels with intelligence and the heavy arms -- rockets, artillery and tanks -- they need to match Qaddafi’s better equipped and organized forces. The rebels, a mélange of military defectors and valiant but inexperienced civilians, also need weapons and tactical training."

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/149957-arm-libyas-rebels

eta - that would be the same think tanker types that recently favor raising health care premiums and deductibles on Vets and have been ranting about "entitlement reforms" and "Fixing Social Security" for over a decade. Just so we know what the priorities are of our pragmatic friends.

[Wilms]

14. Awesome link.

And the author, Will Marshall of the (sic) Progressive Policy Institute, has an informative bio.

Will Marshall is one of the founders of the New Democrat movement, which aims to steer the US Democratic Party toward a more centrist orientation. Since its founding in 1989, he has been president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Marshall

Feeling co-opted?

[chill_wind]

17. Co-opted? Oh heck no. We ARE ALL Neocons Now! (tm)

We've been hi-jacked, mugged, rolled, pockets picked clean.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Buidling A Viable Fighting Force

This is where our Arab League "friends" can help...supply the rebels with weapons and troops to make the push onto Tripoli which is the overall goal of this operation. Not US forces but those of a combination of rebels and air support from the French & British. Gadaffi was against the ropes earlier until he brought in his mercenaries so this has leveled the battlefield and gives the rebels some breathing room to resupply and prepare.

In some ways this reminds me of the actions taken in the former Yugoslavia...first with the Croats who were beating beaten badly by the Serbs until a NFZ and an arms supply and training program built up the Croatian army to oust the Serbs from their enclaves...and then what we saw in Kosovo where those rebels were fortified through the use of airstrikes and large infiltration of weapons and other supplies that forced the Serbs out.

Gadaffi's army is not very disicplined and has old weaponry. One on one against the under supplied rebels Gadaffi has had the edge...supply those rebels with more modern tanks, APCs and artillery and the game could change very quickly.

[tcaudilllg]

9. The Arab League in on the ropes... they won't be doing a thing.

But yeah duh the "game could change" quickly if the rebels get armor and tanks. It could also change quickly if Benghazi gets a strong whiff of mustard gas.

[KharmaTrain]

19. The Damn Thing About War...

It's easy to plan one...never easy to end one. After watching this morning's UN/Arab League news conference I'm not sure which organization is more inept...but the Arab League is right up there.

Regarding chemical weapons...you are right, should he let loose on his inventory it could make a bad situation far worse...and in many ways would be his real "death sentence" as this would give those who are now invading even more justification to pour more money and troops into the region. Here's hoping he's not that stupid...but then desperate people do desperate things.

[Fool Count]

5. Invasion and occupation of Libya, of course.

Supply of weapons is not going to cut it for the "rebels". Even watching an obviously sympathetic BBC report on the rebels in Benghazi,
I couldn't help to be amazed at what a micky-mouse operation that anti-Gaddafi uprising is. Even if you give those "revolutionaries"
total power over Libya tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to hold on to it for 48 hours without support of a foreign occupying force.
It is even worse than Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no way the regime change in Libya is possible without full-on military occupation
of the country. Who is going to handle that? Arab League? France? UK? Only the US has military capability and resources to conduct
such an operation. Will Obama authorize that? All the weapons you give that boastful and incompetent bunch will, at the best, end up
in the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces or, at the worst, will be sold and used to fuel other simmering conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.
That would be a good news for Hamas and Hezbollah weapons purchasing departments, the street prices for AKMs, RPGs and ammo
are about to go down.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. This seems to be the conclusion of those who have actually

thought this whole thing out.

[tcaudilllg]

12. No... not again. Not this time.

No.

[tcaudilllg]

10. The Rebels are gonna die. n/t

[Paradoxical]

15. Lucky for the rebels we are the largest producer of weapons in the World.

We have weapons out the wazoo.

[Sky Masterson]

18. We should have just let them be slaughtered by Kadoofus.

That is the "Humanitarian" thing to do. :eyes: