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Analysts blame faulty assumptions for prolonged Libya war
CNN ^ | June 29, 2011 | Moni Basu

Posted on 06/29/2011 9:51:40 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

Libyan rebels carry away a comrade wounded during fighting with forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on June 7.

It was supposed to have been over in a few days. World powers would go in with fighter jets and the world's most sophisticated precision-guided weapons to render Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi powerless.

But that's not the way things happened.

As NATO's airstrikes crossed the 100-day mark, analysts blamed a host of faulty assumptions, including success based solely on surgical airstrikes, for a protracted war that some fear could drag on for more months.

"It's absolutely wrong to think that an air campaign can win this," said Andrew McGregor of the Jamestown Foundation and director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based agency specializing in security issues related to the Islamic world.

The basic problem, McGregor said, stemmed from presuppositions about the fortitude of the Libyan opposition.

Buoyed by the successful uprisings to the east in Egypt and to the west in Tunisia, Libyan rebels believed they had the mettle to bring down Gadhafi. Western powers believed that with a little help, Libya could be freed from totalitarian rule.

But rebels launched an armed insurrection against a man who had spent four long decades preparing his state for unforeseen challenges. This wasn't a peaceful revolution of the masses against a government that had no public support.

"This revolt never really had the strength to succeed," McGregor said.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: libya; nato; noflyzone; obama; obamaswar; palindoctrine

1 posted on 06/29/2011 9:51:43 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

those weren’t the only mistakes and false assumptions:

Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion
National Review Online ^ | June 23, 2011 | John Rosenthal

“A new report from two French think tanks concludes that jihadists have played a predominant role in the eastern-Libyan rebellion against the rule of Moammar Qaddafi, and that “true democrats” represent only a minority in the rebellion.
The report, furthermore, calls into question the justifications given for Western military intervention in Libya, arguing that they are largely based on media exaggerations and “outright disinformation.” “


2 posted on 06/29/2011 9:57:21 PM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Faulty Assumption #1: Gadahfi would fold like a cheap suit.


3 posted on 06/29/2011 9:57:21 PM PDT by Outlaw Woman
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To: MinorityRepublican

No war plan has ever survived past the first day of the war.


4 posted on 06/29/2011 10:03:46 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: Elendur

It was clear from the beginning that the US had no national interest at stake in this blunder and that Islamisists were behind the rebellion.

There was never justification for our getting involved.


5 posted on 06/29/2011 10:18:19 PM PDT by arrogantsob (Why do They hate her so much?)
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To: MinorityRepublican

IMHO...

This war will slow down to a trickle as funding dries up, and definitely as the Euro nations have elections. I call this M$oft $yndrome - everyone attacking you is no longer in office and the newcomers have no dogs in the hunt.

It will then be hushed out of the the news cycle as much as the idiot governments who started it can manage.

And then they’ll just play around visiting Libya, negotiating - if qdaffy doesn’t watch his back they’ll just set up a hit on him during that wind-down process. If he’s smart, waits them out, and comes back with a rally of support from many Libyans, he could make it so annoying for the Euros that they’ll just back off and go away after a few years of embarassment. And they’ll probably just pick up where they left off buying oil from him again.

If they get the terrorist / revolutionaries to actually win and take over, they may have a more difficult regime than qdaffy was.


6 posted on 06/29/2011 10:20:00 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen (Trying to rebuild America on pure conservative principles)
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To: MinorityRepublican

So what ever happens to the “War Powers Act” violation. Or do laws even apply to this POSPOTUS?


7 posted on 06/29/2011 10:26:12 PM PDT by JoSixChip (Top 10% of wage earners pay 70% of total income taxes collected. Bottom 50% pay less then 3%, fair?)
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To: Elendur

libya is obama’s Yugoslavia. False flag op exactly like clinton’s for exactly the same reason...to advance militant islam and establish a new drug corridor. Some of the nato allies, france and britain specifically, and some business partners of clinton, one of whom was marc rich, (Credit Suisse,) were to have been rewarded with the rape of Yugoslvia’s ample mineral deposits, but Russia stepped in and stopped that move dead in its tracks by meeting them head on when they landed at the airstrip.
The bombing of Yugoslavia forced European countries like Greece to take in thousands upon thousands of muslim refugees against their will, and brought MANY of them right here to the US, some of whom were convicted of planning an attack on Fort Dix.


8 posted on 06/29/2011 10:31:30 PM PDT by MestaMachine (Sarah Palin is the mirror by which evil reflects back upon itself until consumed out of existence)
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To: MinorityRepublican; All

This’ll be over in a week.


9 posted on 06/29/2011 10:33:25 PM PDT by TwoSwords (The Lord is a man of war, Exodus 15:3)
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To: MinorityRepublican

“Western powers believed that with a little help, Libya could be freed from totalitarian rule.”

Western powers may be duplicitous. But they are not so stupid as to think a successful revolution would free libya from totalitarian rule. Even Obama is not that stupid. He may think it’s good totalitarian rule (Islamist) as opposed to bad totalitarian rule (goofy Arab srongman). But no person with half a brain thinks this is going to free Libyans from totalitarian rule.


10 posted on 06/29/2011 10:39:41 PM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: MinorityRepublican
The facts are most of the people support daffy, not the invaders from the United States and Egypt. And anybody that thinks you can take down a country the size of Alaska with air power has forgotten Vietnam. Are they are to stupid to know it to begin with...
11 posted on 06/29/2011 10:39:54 PM PDT by org.whodat
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To: MinorityRepublican

I’m starting to wonder if Ron Paul doesn’t have the right idea.


12 posted on 06/29/2011 11:01:53 PM PDT by baa39 (If you can't take the heat, get out of FR.)
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To: ModelBreaker
“Western powers believed that with a little help, Libya could be freed from totalitarian rule.”

--------------------------

Hillary believed that with a little help, Libya could be freed from totalitarian rule.

It looks like helping the Brotherhood take over North Africa is the goal. And it's costing American taxpayers $9,421,000 a day.

Hillary

Would you trust her for advice on anything? Hijbab Clinton is a laughing-stock.

13 posted on 06/29/2011 11:16:52 PM PDT by BobP (The piss-stream media - Never to be watched again in my house)
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To: org.whodat

As Winston Churchill wrote of “The River War” in Sudan to free the people from a cruel ruler. Something along the lines of; “Never were rescuers more unwelcome.”


14 posted on 06/29/2011 11:24:44 PM PDT by Sea Parrot
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To: MinorityRepublican

You go to war with the President that you have - not the President you might want or wish to have at a later time...


15 posted on 06/29/2011 11:45:42 PM PDT by Zeppo ("Happy Pony is on - and I'm NOT missing Happy Pony")
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To: JoSixChip
So what ever happens to the “War Powers Act” violation. Or do laws even apply to this POSPOTUS?

0bungles was asked that question at his press conference today. His answer was...

"I don't have to get to that question."

I'm not kidding. He did say some nonsense about not having his "constitutional law professor hat" and something about the War Powers Act not applying. Typical 0blahblah dissembling.

16 posted on 06/30/2011 12:02:02 AM PDT by TigersEye (Wranglers not Levis. Levi Strauss is anti-2nd Amendment.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
This revolt never really had the strength to succeed," McGregor said.

This isn't rocket science. Wars may be fought from the sky, but they are won on the ground.

17 posted on 06/30/2011 12:28:46 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Check out the photo...mud huts...unpaved roads...no electricity poles.......looks like a 7th century jihadi paradise .....to go with their 7th grade education.

Bombing them back to the stone age doesn't work......it's an improvement........../sarcasm.

18 posted on 06/30/2011 1:17:16 AM PDT by spokeshave (Obamas approval ratings are so low, Kenyans are accusing him of being born in the USA.)
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To: Elendur

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don’t think I do, sir, no.
General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.


19 posted on 06/30/2011 5:52:30 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (The best is the enemy of the good!)
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To: Outlaw Woman

Faulty Assumption #1: Gadahfi would fold like a RINO Republican.


20 posted on 06/30/2011 11:32:19 AM PDT by Only1choice____Freedom (FDR had the New Deal. President 0bama has the Raw Deal.)
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