[Mars]

I'm wondering the same thing.  At what point do you stop being a civilian, and become a combatant?  If you help combatants, haven't you gone beyond protecting civilians?  This is one of those quagmires I keep hearing them talk about.

Typically logistics is still civilian unless you're going to a total war scenario. . . right?

[Suongadon]

This is the same Putin who couldn't stop making excuses and dismissing civilian casualties in Chechnya, right?


Civilian casualties are inescapable in this situation. Sometimes, information will be passed along about civilians in the target zone in time to call off the strike, like the British were able to, but most of the time that isn't going to happen. And when Qaddafi's army moves into cities to hide from our bombs (and then continues killing civilians), or starts trucking civilians from nearby towns to stand around their armor, calling off an attack stops really being an option (in the former case, not the latter... they're probably not going to be murdering the people they took the effort to drive to their bases). Tragic, certainly, but less tragic than packing up and going home with an 'oh, sorry, we can't help anymore because they were smart enough to move closer before shooting at you'.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/us-libya-misrata-shield-idUSTRE72K1PJ20110321?pageNumber=1

[Bobboau]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/201132681812362552.html

Ajdabiya is back in rebel hands.

[Shade]

Saw a note somewhere (I think either the BBC or Al Jazeera live feed) that Colonel Gaddafi has promoted ALL members of the Libyan army, presumably as some kind of incentive not to defect to the rebels. So, wouldn't that make him Brigadier General Gaddafi then? Also, must be damn annoying to be a newly promoted corporal, having spent years as a lowly private and being pushed around by people with chevrons or stars on their shoulder, to suddenly have not a single private left in the entire army to pull your newly acquired rank on as they all got promoted with you

[Herra Tohtori]

Reminds be of the country of San Theodoros in Tintin comics... allegedly, at one point its armed forces included 3487 colonels but only 49 corporals.

 

[Flipside]

One point that concerns me is this:

The argument made in the UN was to allow military action to protect civilians. That's fine so long as we are bombing Gadaffi's tanks and guns, but what happens if the rebels capture a Gadaffi-loyal town and start a purge? Are we prepared to turn our guns to face the other way in the name of protecting civilians?

Hopefully it won't come to that, but I can't help wondering how easy this would be to justify if it the shoe was on the other foot.

[Nuke]

nuke the site from orbit, its the only way to be sure.

[Bobboau]

One point that concerns me is this:

The argument made in the UN was to allow military action to protect civilians. That's fine so long as we are bombing Gadaffi's tanks and guns, but what happens if the rebels capture a Gadaffi-loyal town and start a purge? Are we prepared to turn our guns to face the other way in the name of protecting civilians?

Hopefully it won't come to that, but I can't help wondering how easy this would be to justify if it the shoe was on the other foot.

Well as the ones enforcing the resolution we get to make that call. You want to call it hypocritical,  that would be an accurate description, but as the ones dropping the bombs we do get to pick and choose which civilians we want to save. That said there is no reason to think this will happen.

[Bobboau]

Also, brega's back under reble controle

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/27/3174745.htm?section=world

[Nemesis6]

The map of doom has been updated to reflect, among many things, what Bobboau has said:


They could easily get to Misurata I think... IF they can get past Sirt, which of course is Gaddhafi's birthplace, meaning that it will be more than just well-defended.

[Unknown Target]

The fact that anyone could not call Libya's revolution a Civil War (referred to here on the net as a Revolution), nay, the fact that they managed to avoid answering the question altogether is as laughable as it is sad. Look at that map - the country is quite literally split in two.

[Mongoose]

It's notable how little there actually is in the southeast portion of the country.  Expected, given the geography, but notable anyway.

[achtung]

I wonder what kind of people are actually left in a town like Brega at this point?

[karajorma]

Saw a note somewhere (I think either the BBC or Al Jazeera live feed) that Colonel Gaddafi has promoted ALL members of the Libyan army, presumably as some kind of incentive not to defect to the rebels. So, wouldn't that make him Brigadier General Gaddafi then?

The fact that he didn't elevate himself to General the second he took power is one of the few things I respect Gaddafi for.

[Herra Tohtori]

Gaddafi's troops are apparently moving bodies of civilians they have killed onto locations where ground strikes by allied forces have happened.


 

[NGTM-1R]

Gaddafi's troops are apparently moving bodies of civilians they have killed onto locations where ground strikes by allied forces have happened.


 

You know, after reading up on Saddam's efforts to portray airstrikes during Desert Storm as killing large numbers of civilians I thought he was pretty sketchy. But this Libyan lunatic is a cold mother****er, assuming he's actually aware enough of reality to be behind this.

[Bobboau]

well, there is no way to tell one way or the other, but even if some people are caught in the cross fire, in the end it will provably end up with fewer people dead.

[Unknown Target]

In the end the best we can do is try to keep the flow of information out of Libya from both sides as free and open as possible. There definitely seemed to be a consensus for the air strikes amongst the net.

That being said, I feel awful for the politicians that went through the excruciating process of trying to get the air strike passed, and the governmental leaders who are going to end up ultimately responsible for the decision (looking at you right now Obama, but I bet there's quite a few others out there).

[Nemesis6]

The rebels have taken Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf.

Libyan rebels' push westwards towards Tripoli has gathered momentum as their pursuit of Muammar Gaddafi's forces saw them wrest back control of key oil town Ras Lanuf.

Their next target is Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a central coastal city, and on the way they captured Bin Jawad, a hamlet 50km west of Ras Lanuf.

The rebels, on the verge of losing their eastern stronghold city of Benghazi before the air strikes began on March 19, on Saturday seized back Ajdabiya and Brega, 160 and 240km to the west.

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Spurred on by the air war, the ragtag rebel band thrust another 100km past Brega to win back Ras Lanuf, routing Gaddafi loyalists.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/libyan-rebels-gunning-for-gaddafi-hometown-20110328-1cc4p.html

[Bobboau]

Surt is going to probably be a tipping point, it's probably the only town where the people actually like Gaddafi, if they gain control of Surt I think that will basically win them the war, but this might be were one of those morally questionable actions by the rebels takes place, it might be a good idea for the rebels to just simply bypass Surt.