"Libya: Key airbase recaptured by Tripoli forces." Topic

Well hot damn, I thought General Khalifa Haftar had the Libyan Civil War in his bag but it seems he's lost a lot of steam and now lost a key airbase to Tripoli based forces.

link

Hafter has some major level support including not just supplies from Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France and UAE but also UAE and Egyptian air support and French special forces.

The UN backed government in Tripoli were relatively isolated with limited support from Italy* but now increased massively courtesy of Turkey

link

link

The Libyan adventure has turned out to be a disaster for every one- the Libyans, NATO, the EU (courtesy of immigrant inflows from Libya) and now even UAE (the Arab Spartans as the Americans call them), Egypt and SA are embroilled in a no-win situation.

Maybe Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron would have been better off letting Gaddafhi crush the Benghazi insurgency. One single blood bath is better than a decade of bloodbaths.

It sums up the general stupidity of western policy makers and their inability to comprehend the wider world.

*The situation in Libya has helped exacerbate issues between France and Italy which were already strained due to migrant crisis

link

Gaddafhi had given up any pursuit of a WMD program; he was contained. He didn't want what the US did to Saddam happen to him. What did to one of Africa's richest and most stable countries is a disgrace. Libya is in chaos because of western powers' greed and incompetence. Yes, US isolationism in regard to Libya would have worked much better for all involved.

Have to agree with USAFpilot,

Tally Ho!

Well I guess that USAF Pilot forgot that we lost a US Ambassador there, thanks to the State Dept. just prior to an election that would have nixed the incumbant's chances for a second term. The real question to ask is why was that ambassador where he was, when he was and for what State Dept. mission was he fulfilling that was so important to risk the Ambassador in such an insecure setting?

Had Jack Squat to do with anything WMD! Possible cover-up for selling the wrong folks weapons perhaps?……hummmm?

The Libyan fiasco was but another shining example of western (not just American) hubris inspired by Idealpolitik, plain and simple. Gaddafi posed no threat, but because he was a brutal dictator who carried out terrorist attacks back in the 80's, the US went along with the western European coalition in passing the UN resolution to oust him through a no-fly zone.

Even Russia and China did not object, opting to abstain instead of veto-ing the resolution. In hindsight they realized their mistake.

Dye4, since i was serving a in position to know a little about the Libya situation, I can say that you are wrong. The AMB was doing a valid diplomatic mission to bring the factions in Bengazi into the political process. What other government agencies may or may not have been doing, I cannot confirm. The security was for the total mission was inadequate due to systemic State Department issues that were not related to the administration or the secretary of state at that time. The secretary's actions post-attack are a different matter.

Wouldn't apply an overly rose tinted gloss to Gaddafi, who unlike some so accused, actually did supply weapons to various terrorist organisations and was generally a destabilising force in the international arena. And that's without getting into what he did to his own people. Despite the stonkingly high GDP, unemployment was rampant, goods in short supply and medical services lacking. As for his rapprochement with the west that seems to have more to do with the failure of his grandiose Arab political projects and may be the changing religious-political landscape in the region. But even after he was still willing to go off on anti-Western tirades – I don't doubt had he still been in power he'd have been meddling in Venezuela for example!

Having had some dealings with Libyans prior to the Gaddafi's death I personally would have said that Libyan civil society would survive his fall – clearly tribalism, with a sprinkle of fundamentalist Islam, and a dose of warlordism, and a total failure of 'Western' foreign policy to follow through have contributed to the pretty much failed state that has resulted.

Well I guess that USAF Pilot forgot that we lost a US Ambassador there

I didn't forget. That is the source of my anger toward that which apparently can't be named less it be censored. The ambassador's life would never have been in danger if we hadn't helped to destabilize the country with our air strikes. You need to get the chronology of events in the correct order. Gaddafi was no threat to world and we had a hand in his death. What happened in Libya is a national disgrace.

Wouldn't apply an overly rose tinted gloss to Gaddafi, who unlike some so accused, actually did supply weapons to various terrorist organisations and was generally a destabilising force in the international arena.

All true for 1970s and 1980s. By 1990s he had run out of puff (sanctions and loss of Soviets helped) and by 2000s he was trying to "rehabilitate" himself in western eyes (basically regime survival).

There was no rational reason for any action in Libya.

And that's without getting into what he did to his own people.

An irrelevance n international affairs. Indeed we care not for how Israel treats the Palestinians, nor how the Saudis treat their own citizens or Yemenis (war crimes galore).

Idealpolitik,

Perhaps one of the stupidest concepts devised by western thinkers – the Responsibility To Protect doctrine. Ideally it's the notion that the world needs to help protect against warcrimes.

In reality it's just an excuse to meddle in affairs of small countries and usually causes far more problems than it solves as Libya and confused and ineffectual American interventionism in Syria shows.

And the big countries get away with atrocities- look at Saudi Arabia in Yemen or arguably the US invasion of Iraq which was technically a war crime.

"The security was for the total mission was inadequate due to systemic State Department issues that were not related to the administration or the secretary of state at that time".

Sorry, but they don't get off that easy, AND they are/were "responsible".

Aid was available from a variety of sources, but was waived off, and/or not permitted to respond. People died needlessly because of that.

By 1990s he had run out of puff (sanctions and loss of Soviets helped) and by 2000s he was trying to "rehabilitate" himself in western eyes (basically regime survival).

Gaddafi bent over backwards to please the West, renouncing terrorism and giving up WMD's. All he got was getting stabbed in the back for his troubles.

You don't think Kim Jong-Un and the Ayatollah took lesson from that?

Yep.
Say you're some random country's leader.
Which country is your biggest danger?
The one most likely to meddle to disaster. Ot take over and leave your previously fairly stable country totally messed up.

Not that isolationism is ideal neither.

Rakkasan; So was I in a position at that time that allowed me to monitor events at the COCOM level. It's the State Dept. that prevented any attempts to rescue the ambassador (even from within the AO) that busted my chops! (Read Thresher01, coment above.) I knew that the security measures were very poor there but why wasn't there an organized effort to rescue the boss? Even the contractors who did try did so against orders to stand down! Think on that for a while and wonder just who's side the person who ordered that was on?

Regarding Kadaffi: Just listen to his two hour, incoherent rant while addressing the UN as head of the security council before he died. After doing so, would YOU have wanted to follow that guy into war?

….where's my Rolaids….

Hollywood made a movie on the fubar called '13 Hours.' Good movie.

The foreign policy honchos in the Administration foolishly believed that post-Gaddafi Libya can be pacified and the people would welcome their American saviors with open arms.

They were dead wrong.

Fanatic totally agree. The action also neutered the UN even more because Russia no longer trusted the Americans and their supposed no fly zones.

We helped turn one of Africa's wealthiest nations into a terrorist hotbed. The foreign policy honchos should have known better after our recent experience in Iraq. Instead they went on Sunday morning news shows and lied about the disaster they helped create. Disgrace.

The ironic thing was the Gaddafhi was helping the west combat islamist terrorism for which Benghazi was a known hotbed.

And then the international ramifications of Gaddafhi's fall which saw weapons flood sub Saharan Africa and groups such as AQIM and Boko Haram heavily rearmed and emboldened. In fact the Mali partnering of Tuaregs with Islamists is the direct result of the fall of Gaddafhi.

So now the stupid west spends millions trying to counter an Islamist revolution in Mali!

As for stopping Gaddafhi from committing warcrimes, the war created many more war crimes. The most famous of these is Tawergha, which was once a town of 30,000 people which was ethnically cleansed by Misratan militias in 2011 (apparently resettlement was only allowed in 2018!).

Even the need to stop Gaddafhi on humanitarian grounds is a hypocrisy as the west turned a blind eye to violent suppression of Shiite majority protesters in Bahrain including a Saudi/UAE military intervention to ensure the survival of the Sunni regime there as well as as not just turning a blind eye but actively supporting Saudi intervention and warcrimes in Yemen.

Also note NATO refused to allow any investigation of alleged bombings of civilian targets. According to several notable agencies, NATO killed dozens in accidental bombings of civilian targets. NATO wrote it off as regrettable and refused to investigate.

The whole thing is a cluster$%^& and one can't feel sorry for Europe and its migrant problem given its leaders were so eager to create the mess. Reap what you sow.

It's a great example of how the west has become corrupted and how intrinsically hypocritical and also stupid western countries have become.