Interesting Development in the North African Campaign

[BigJKU316]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7b076c8e-5fb4 ... ab49a.html

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that it had flown 1,600 sorties since operations began on March 19 and would no longer be involved in air strikes against Libyan targets. It would continue support missions, such as aerial refuelling, and would remain on alert for emergency strike missions, if requested by Nato.

This is an interesting development moving forward with a lot of long-term ramifications for the US and Europe. Personally I think it is good for both sides. Europe to some degree needs to develop its own military capabilities, particularly for situations like this where the UK and France were the primary drivers for wanting to do something.

From the US side I have always like NATO to some degree but have thought for some time it was getting pretty ill-suited to the needs of most of its nations. I hope this leads to a re-evaluation of some things on both sides.

[Mikey]

This is possibly also a knee-jerk reaction to the release of documentation claiming that the U.S. administration was seeking to enact a regime change, and the ambivalently-conflicting public statements to the contrary.

[Tyyr]

Yeah, because obviously trying to get Ghaddafi out of power is a horrible thing. How else do you interpret the no-fly thing? Seriously, it's a huge help to the rebels and something that's hamstringing the loyalists. Then we start making targeted strikes on ground units? Does anyone actually think the goal wasn't to help the rebels?

[Captain Seafort]

This is possibly also a knee-jerk reaction to the release of documentation claiming that the U.S. administration was seeking to enact a regime change, and the ambivalently-conflicting public statements to the contrary.

Huh? Since when was this anything but official policy? There may be arguments over how to get the job done, but over here the politicians have been explicit that "get rid of Gaddaffi" is the ideal outcome.

[Mikey]

Yeah, because obviously trying to get Ghaddafi out of power is a horrible thing. How else do you interpret the no-fly thing? Seriously, it's a huge help to the rebels and something that's hamstringing the loyalists. Then we start making targeted strikes on ground units? Does anyone actually think the goal wasn't to help the rebels?

Whoa, slow your roll, road dog. I never said that removing Colonel Crazy would be a bad thing. Obviously, the administration doesn't think so either as a de facto goal of operation. I'm just talking about the attempt to publicly walk the dashed yellow line by the White House.

This is possibly also a knee-jerk reaction to the release of documentation claiming that the U.S. administration was seeking to enact a regime change, and the ambivalently-conflicting public statements to the contrary.

Huh? Since when was this anything but official policy? There may be arguments over how to get the job done, but over here the politicians have been explicit that "get rid of Gaddaffi" is the ideal outcome.

As I said above, the goal of operations seems to be fairly obvious; but the statements from the White House to attempt to "soften" or moderate the apparent aims of the response are extant, no matter how transparent.

[BigJKU316]

This is possibly also a knee-jerk reaction to the release of documentation claiming that the U.S. administration was seeking to enact a regime change, and the ambivalently-conflicting public statements to the contrary.

Huh? Since when was this anything but official policy? There may be arguments over how to get the job done, but over here the politicians have been explicit that "get rid of Gaddaffi" is the ideal outcome.

Yeah, I am not sure that one could reasonably assume there is any other objective. The White House might try to back off from it, given the earlier complaints on the concept of regime change from Obama and the fact that such statements would be used against him in elections, particularly if this thing got messy at some point which I don't think it will.

Did not realize you have to register for the FT article. Here is a free one talking about the same thing really.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ap ... raft-libya

[Tyyr]

Whoa, slow your roll, road dog. I never said that removing Colonel Crazy would be a bad thing. Obviously, the administration doesn't think so either as a de facto goal of operation. I'm just talking about the attempt to publicly walk the dashed yellow line by the White House.

I'm not getting on your case, I'm criticizing the idea that there was ever a dashed yellow line in the first place.