Qaddafi’s youngest son and three grandchildren killed by NATO blast
Do you care?
I do. Here’s the reason why:
And when bunkers get hit the occupants perish without distinction. The truth is that the families of enemy leaders die during a time of war. It is often unavoidable. But therein lies the difficulty of current Libyan operation. There is ostensibly no campaign for regime change; no enemy; there is not even a war on; not even a reference to Congress. But at the same time the armed forces of the NATO countries are being asked to achieve what amounts to war aims without either legal cover of belligerence nor the resources customarily allotted to it. They have to look for knockout blow on the cheap, not in the name of victory, but in the name of humanitarian action of all things.
This sets up a mismatch between means and consequences. The disadvantage of “kinetic military action” in the service of R2P is that it has all the consequences and gore of what used to be called war without the strategic clarity or protections of process. What happens if the Duck strikes back at the families of Western leaders? Is that an act of war? Or is that so yesterday?
This is the most muddled, confused “war” I can recall. What are its goals? What is success? When will it end? And of course, that ago-old question, who are the rebels?
But whatever the answers, I have the distinct impression that Qaddafi will live to fight another day as the head of Libya. And if I were he, I just might go back into the terrorism business. Wouldn’t you?
Qaddafi may go back into the terrorism business but he will be bombed without hesitation if he does. Will he want to make himself a sitting duck?
Humanitarian warfare is a contradiction in terms. More than in normal warfare, everything tends to become dishonest. This was also true in the Yugoslavia debacle. In war you cannot avoid taking sides and becoming a warring party.
Otherwise you are lying to yourself and everybody else.
Humanitarian warfare is playing God in war. But liberals, since they have no real concept of God, like playing God. And they fail miserably at it.
What this says is that Obama has violated the longstanding rule against assassination of foreign leaders. No matter that the attempt failed. there should be tremendous outrage.
Look, many of us have long wished that they had just assassinated Saddam, for example, and spared us all the long war – the reason we do not do this is that you open the door to open season on world leaders, including our own.
This is madness.
Qadafi can no longer go into the terrorism route, by my analysis. That’s because the reason I believe AQ is fighting him is precisely because Qadafi cut off all ties and support of Islamic terrorists in his territory. But he couldn’t get rid of all of them. They had their roots sunk deep and perhaps Qadafi was relying upon WMDs as a power balancer against all the Islamic terrorists in Libya he had invited in before. But when he scrapped that and started working with Bush against other Arabs, Qadafi made a lot of enemies. And when Bush was out of power, Qadafi lost his most important ally.
That’s why you see a UN Resolution for his destruction and that’s why you see no “negotiation” or the whole Leftist hypocritical lie about “violence being the last resort”. Violence the last resort? IT WAS THEIR FIRST RESORT. There’s a rather large difference between first and last.
The fatal airstrike came just hours after Gadhafi called for a mutual cease-fire and negotiations with NATO powers to end a six-week bombing campaign.
In a rambling pre-dawn speech Saturday, Gadhafi said “the door to peace is open.”
“You are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you. Come, France, Italy, U.K., America, come to negotiate with us. Why are you attacking us?” he asked.
He also railed against foreign intervention, saying Libyans have the right to choose their own political system, but not under the threat of NATO bombings.
In Brussels, a NATO official said before Saturday’s fatal strike that the alliance needed “to see not words but actions,” and vowed the alliance would keep up the pressure until the U.N. Security Council mandate on Libya is fulfilled. NATO has promised to continue operations until all attacks and threats against civilians have ceased, all of Gadhafi’s forces have returned to bases and full humanitarian access is granted.
Rebel leaders have said they will only lay down their arms and begin talks after Gadhafi and his sons step aside. Gadhafi has repeatedly refused to resign.
“We don’t believe that there is a solution that includes him or any member of his family. So it is well past any discussions. The only solution is for him to depart,” rebel spokesman Jalal al-Galal said.
Qadafi cannot step down because that would give AQ in Libya too much power and we all know what happens when AQ gets power and captures their enemies. He knows that just as well. Even if his family is being targeted, he at least has an army to protect them with. If he steps down and gives up his authority, he has no protection. He would have to flee. And flee where, to the nations that were bombing him? Could he trust them not to allow in some AQ assassins in a few years or two?
Btw, Britain gave back a terrorist to Libya. Now Britain is backing terrorists in Libya against Qadafi. Coincidence or just mutual interests?
People are utilizing the assumption that Qadafi still has his bridges with terrorists. Given the nature of the AQ elements in the rebels, I would state quite the opposite. If Britain gave back the terrorist, would it not be the terrorists that would benefit from a renewed vigor in Libya, not Qadafi?
Qadafi also cannot “stop attacks on civilians” because those civilians are either terrorists in hiding or human shields being used by terrorists. Leftists will even accuse Americans of being civilian murderers when AQ uses human shields. Qadafi doesn’t have nearly the same level of military professionalism to avoid civilian casualties.
So if NATO has been ordered to keep the war going until Qadafi “stops attacks on civilians”, this is the same as ordering NATO to keep the war going on regardless of what happens. Because that’s how it will end up.
There’s a significant motivation behind their refusal to “talk to Qadafi”. They will talk to Iran. They will talk to Saddam for decades. But not Qadafi. That’s because Qadafi did something really bad. He made a deal with the Big Satan. The last guy who did that in Egypt did it with the Little Satan and he got killed. COincidence?
Buraq went into this because he didn’t want to look like he was following Europe (perhaps Soros will have no strange gods before him). In so doing he ended up … looking like he was following Europe. Which, of course, he was.
Presumably some focus group or poll suggested this course of action, because it is the most ill-conceived screw up ever. I suspect that that’s why Buraq has announced no goals, or overarching rationale, to the war in Libya. Citing a focus group as your reason just isn’t tub-thumping stuff.
This could end in the worst case scenario. Qadafi could remain in power, and become a sympathetic figure in the Arab world all at the same time.
It is passing strange that the excuse for bombing Libya was to prevent an anticipated massacre to put down an armed up rising; even, as Qadafi was telling people in Benghazi to remain in their homes and they would be safe. Now we have the spectacle of Assad gunning down unarmed demonstrators, while our “Lead from Behind” Commander in Chief and the Europeans look on apathetically; or helplessly. Hillary has been strangely silent in recent days about Assad’s reform program.
On another topic. I see that Panetta hopes to cut defense spending dramatically. My suggestion for a first step is to NOT fire hundreds of $1.5m Tomahawks at a third world country.
It’s dubious that the Duck of Death lost any relatives.
For a truly Orwellian story, Google “NATO on defensive after strikes close to Gadhafi”.
Bottom line by the Canadian NATO commander is that NATO does not target individuals (even tyrants), but only command centers. By all accounts, the target was a family abode in a residential area.
I hold no brief pro or con anyone in Libya. It is the Orwellian conduct and speech of American allies and our esteemed POTUS that scares the willies out of me.
Rose at 12:16-
The “longstanding rule” against assassination of foreign leaders that you appear to hold in respect is, if memory serves, actually an Executive Order signed by Gerald Ford. A rather stupid rule, the logic of which has eluded me for decades. Kind of unilateral disarmament on a small scale.
And if I were he, I just might go back into the terrorism business. Wouldn’t you?
That was my first thought upon reading the title of the post.
After reading the comments: maybe Gaddafi’s Islamist enemies will go into the terrorism business and frame Gaddafi. I suspect that Obama and NATO would react to the frame-up at face value even if they knew it was false.
Looming civil war in Syria will dwarf “humanitarian concerns” about Libya and make all this monkey buisness an obvious travesty. Bashar now threw all his army to suppress the protests, but it looks as attempt to extinguish fire by gazoline. He will not retain power, at least part of his army is ready to turn on him. Civilian deaths will came in dozen thousands, and what exactly will Obama do?
Rose & Tom, this Hoover analysis is the best discussion of assassination as a tool of statecraft that I turned up in a quick search.
Thanks for that, gs.
The bottom line from your link is,”That is why we need to use blunt language and appreciate exactly what we are proposing. Sugarcoating the topic only hides the tough issues we need to decide as a country. But if we do need to target specific people for military attack, it is important that we get it right.”
We’re getting Orwellian doublespeak, not blunt language.
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We don’t really know who if anybody was killed. The youngest son has no children so where did the three grandchildren come from. Some photos I’ve seen of the aftermath show lots of broken up concrete. Was it a bunker?
Qadafi rules using tribalism, similar to Saddam’s Sunni supporters. Thus it wouldn’t surprise me if Qadafi had family in the “family business” working on the homeland defense.
Whether they thought they would get bombed while doing so, is a mystery.
After all, they know that we tried to blow up Saddam once a twice in OIF. So it is not entirely impossible. And Qadaffi of all people, who lost a son to US bombing retaliation, should know the risks. But that doesn’t mean they knew how to mitigate those risks.
I have also noticed that once US forces engage in combat, their rate of accident decreases remarkedly. When Clinton killed the air force and navy pilot’s training budgets, it was natural that the Chinese embassy would get bombed by mistake. What do you expect when you kill people’s live training funds?
But even in OEF, a pilot error with the GPS guidance allowed a JDAM to drop right ontop of a SF A-Team and their local platoon of Afghan allies. But this was in the beginning and people hadn’t had the chance to correct their training procedures and human errors.
Whenever I would heard of a mistake in bombing, it was almost always attributed to NATO, meaning French or German, fighter pilots. That’s to be expected given their lower standard of quality across the board and how little funding they can squeeze from their anti-American, anti-war political hacks at home.
So when I hear of NATo doing this or doing, I’m hedging towards the view that if it was a mistake, it was made by NATO allied members. And if it was deliberate, it was made by US command.
From the Vietnam War until now I have heard the arguments regarding Just War: always against the current U.S. war; now there is only deafening silence. Has the pope gone silent? Has the left forgotten …..let’s rephrase that: this is the Left’s Just War.
Ymarsakar
In support of your observations was the USAF experience with the F104 Starfighter in the Sixties. The Germans crashed them with great regularity while American pilots did not. It was an unforgiving plane to fly, but the Americans had far more training flight hours allotted.
Ymarsakar
The Chinese embassy was a deliberate mistake by an USAF general flying in total blackout from Conus and back.
Strangely, the precision munitions hit the cypher room in the wee hours when only three spies were sending intel back home/ receiving orders.
That’s some mistake!
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The ordnance pictured in the WaPo appears to be uniquely American. It’s a concrete filled artillery tube with precision tacked on.
The flight profile indicates a high speed low altitude release. Since the ‘residence’ is adjacent to the coast such a profile was quite practical.
It didn’t fail to detonate since such was never intended.
Nothing would lead anyone to believe the Duck of Death’s press releases. They’ve been pure chaff so far.
Obama’s policies, NATO’s aggressive stance, the UN’s quite mysterious presence of decisiveness and quickness in intent and action, as well as the various consistent policy statements of the rebels, all are not produced by Qadaffi’s press releases.
Why would anyone believe so?
Information is not so tight that the funnels are so singular.
The only way to train flight skills is to get them up in the air and fly em. Well, I suppose that doesn’t make sense to people who think their words can cause the sea levels to lower. Too bad that didn’t work for the tsunami in Japan, eh. Then again, I guess Obama was bowing to the Japanese for that ahead of time.
Oh ya, the reason why I think so is because France and Germany were very reticent about allowing their jets to be used for …. combat in Afghanistan. I think France even denied their jets entirely for the use of NATO air support before Chirac got dumped. I’m not sure why they would unleash the dogs of war for Libya, but I presume that they would rather transfer the workload to US pilots if they could. Especially when it comes to cutting off the C3, meaning beheading command and control aka assassination. Always political issues with those and it’s just easier to dump it on America.
My personal hypothesis is that Obama hopes to bleed the military down enough that there won’t be any problems in the 2012 elections financially or politically.
It’s always easier to take funds from the military when the military needs replenishment of large scale war munitions. Like Vietnam, a lot of that money looks real juicy to Obama’s cronies. A lot of it will go into their pockets and be redistributed there, instead of to the US front lines.
Discretionary spending or surplus spending for military operations has to be voted on, yes. Maintenance for these weapon systems are already there. So if you spend them now, but don’t restock because you control Congress, then you get rid of the maintenance costs. Then you can start getting rid of the military jobs for them.
Well, that’s why I think Obama’s sitting with a big fat grin on his face as he makes our military suffer more stress and combat at least. Just a personal view and assessment, rather than a logical analysis.
njartist49 – No, if course the Pope hasn’t gone silent…
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1101210.htm
He has appealed for a suspension of the violence. Our media has gone silent about the Pope though, since it doesn’t fit their pro-Obama agenda.
One of my Cath newspapers featured the Archbishop of Libya expressing what a horrible thing this is to get involved in. He said that initially is was Libyan vs Libyan – Muslim vs Muslim. Now, it’s possible it will be seen as a Crusade… sigh…