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Hey, We Could Also Bomb the Rebels! | ||||||||||
2011-04-01 | ||||||||||
As NATO takes over control of airstrikes in Libya, and the Obama administration considers new steps to tip the balance of power there, the coalition has told the rebels that if they endanger civilians, they will not be shielded from possible bombardment by NATO planes and missiles, just as the governmentÂ’s forces have been punished.
The warnings, and intense consultations within the NATO-led coalition over its rules for attacking anyone who endangers innocent civilians, come at a time when the civil war in Libya is becoming ever more chaotic, and the battle lines ever less distinct. They raise a fundamental question that the military is now grappling with: who in Libya is a civilian?
That is no longer always the case. Armed rebels — some in fairly well-organized militias, others merely young men who have picked up rifles to fight alongside them — have moved out of Benghazi in an effort to take control of other population centers along the way, they hope, to seizing Tripoli. Meanwhile, fresh intelligence this week showed that Libyan government forces were supplying assault rifles to civilians in the town of Surt, which is populated largely by Qaddafi loyalists. These civilian Qaddafi sympathizers were seen chasing rebel forces in nonmilitary vehicles like sedans and trucks, accompanied by Libyan troops, according to American military officers. The increasing murkiness of the battlefield, as the freewheeling rebels advance and retreat and as fighters from both sides mingle among civilians, has prompted NATO members to issue new “rules of engagement” spelling out when the coalition may attack units on the ground in the name of protecting civilians. “This is a challenge,” said a senior alliance military officer. “The problem of discriminating between combatant and civilian is never easy, and it is compounded when you have Libyan regime forces fighting irregular forces, like the rebel militias, in urban areas populated by civilians.”
“Our goal, as mandated by the U.N.,” Ms. Lungescu said, “is to protect civilians against attacks or threats of attack, so those who target civilians will also be targets for our forces, because that resolution will be applied across the board.” But it is no simple matter to follow that logic. “Qaddafi is trying to take advantage of this mixing of combatants and noncombatants to deter NATO from striking,” said one Obama administration official who was briefed on the intelligence reports.
Calls by some NATO members to provide heavier weapons to the rebels suggest that these worries will only intensify. The deliberations about where to draw the line, going on at the highest levels of allied nations and among senior officials across the Obama administration, show how an intervention to stop a potential massacre is evolving into a much more complex, and perhaps open-ended, role in policing the Libyan chaos. The situation is as complicated legally as it is militarily. The Security Council resolution that authorized a no-fly zone and other steps in Libya makes no distinction between pro-rebel and pro-Qaddafi civilians. Senior legal advisers to the military campaign say unarmed civilians, whether living in towns or fleeing the fighting, are clearly meant to be protected by the United Nations resolution, while opposition forces taking an active part in combat away from cities are currently seen as falling outside of its protection.
At times when the rebels are gaining ground, the allies fear that the rebels will inevitably try to take loyalist cities by force,
The specifics of the warnings — like when they were conveyed, who delivered them, and to which rebel leaders — remained unclear.
But the laws of war are vague about how to categorize internal rebels, rather than external enemies. And the recognized government of a country — even an internationally despised one like the Qaddafi government — is generally seen to have a right to use force to put down an armed insurrection, said David Glazier, a professor of national security law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
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Posted by:Steve White |
#12 If we are pulling out then the French and Brits will end up bombing both sides. Good ol colonialism. Which side are they on? Doesn't matter, Nigel, drop the bombs, they're all wogs. |
Posted by: OldSpook 2011-04-01 19:34 |
#11 Maybe we will arm the rebels...and maybe we won't...we haven't decided yet. Then again, maybe at some point we may decide to bomb 'em...or not. Who knows we may even do both...or for that matter...we may do neither. Look...what part of "take all necessary measures" don't you understand? |
Posted by: DepotGuy 2011-04-01 11:56 |
#10 Other rogue look-alike rebel units will be tasked with conducting adhoc rebel link-ups for the obstensive purpose of conducting weapons and ammunition re-supply and medical support. These rogue units will actually conduct assassination, prisoner snatche, photographic, screening, surveillance, and intelligence reporting missions. Not disagreeing, but being mercenary type elements the other side of the knife says that they, too, could be bought by Daffy with their very own semi-autonomous (more so than before, perhaps waiving the I Don't See You Tax) south to conduct exercises against economic regions outside Daffy's direct control. Daffy said as much. |
Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-04-01 10:53 |
#9 Besoeker, Gaddafi will end up fighting his own rebellion against himself going down that route. I give up, everything I've said about this war has been either wishful thinking or wrong. It's a total trainwreck. He's going to end up dying of a heart attack in twenty years, schtupping a Bulgarian "nurse". They've systemically proven that you can't pull off a regime change with aerial bombardment. *Some* sort of organized ground force is required. |
Posted by: Mitch H. 2011-04-01 08:24 |
#8 No one seemed to have considered the Daffy wins scenario. If the Duck of Death wins he will massacre his foes in Libya and after he's done with them he will attack the West by sponsoring terror attacks. After a couple of new Lockerbies (or something much worse if the Duck did some shopping in North Korea) Western forces would have to take him out anyway. |
Posted by: Captain Omavising2428 2011-04-01 06:52 |
#7 The French not considering a 'Daffy wins' scenario being the first movement in this avalanche. |
Posted by: Bobby 2011-04-01 06:49 |
#6 No one seemed to have considered the Daffy wins scenario. |
Posted by: phil_b 2011-04-01 04:47 |
#5 Bomb these guys now, bomb those guys later. It's all good. Let's face it. There are only a few places in the ME that would not be improved by a good strategic bombing. |
Posted by: SteveS 2011-04-01 01:37 |
#4 “Qaddafi is trying to take advantage of this mixing of combatants and noncombatants to deter NATO from striking,” said one Obama administration official who was briefed on the intelligence reports. A Please amend "trying to take advantage" to successfully employing anti-kenetic defensive tactics and manuevers. Coming soon: As a test of NATO's new...."we'll end this if we have to kill them all" ...resolve, Qaddafi authorizes relaxed grooming standards, mufti, and Toyota pickup trucks to select army (rebel look-alike) elements for the purpose of terrorizing and conducting UN comdemnation worthy atrocities among selected segments of the civilian population. Other rogue look-alike rebel units will be tasked with conducting adhoc rebel link-ups for the obstensive purpose of conducting weapons and ammunition re-supply and medical support. These rogue units will actually conduct assassination, prisoner snatche, photographic, screening, surveillance, and intelligence reporting missions. |
Posted by: Besoeker 2011-04-01 01:19 |
#3 OTOH BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Debka] LIBYA REBELS SOLD HIZBULLAH + HAMAS [000's of] CHEMICAL SHELLS, from captured Gaddafi arms stocks in return for several Milyuhn dollars. Approxi 2000 ea. Mustard Gas + 1200 ea. Nerve Gas Arty shells. Iran + regional MilTerrs repor rushing to be first in line to purchase??? |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-01 01:14 |
#2 This could go very bad for us. If Al Qaeda has anything at all, they just need one murderous bastard like Zarkawi with fifty loyal men. Something like that and all hell breaks loose. AQ pulled off a good massacre in Tikrit earlier in the week. It's a very dangerous thing this freedom fighting. It's got to be up to the Arabs to save themselves from murderous extremists. We're anchored on the west by Libya and Tunis, on the east by Iraq and Bahrain, and Jordan, the Saudis, and Syria in the middle. Shit's happening all over. This is clearly the start of something big. |
Posted by: Penguin 2011-04-01 00:41 |
#1 Apparently none of the elite bothers to read history, like the Spanish Civil War, WWII and postwar Yugoslavia, or the Congo. |
Posted by: Pappy 2011-04-01 00:25 |