UN Votes 10 in favor, 5 abstaining to establish no-fly zone over Libya

[Devious]

Today the UN security council resolved to establish a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Ghadaffi from using his air power on the rebel opposition. France, Britain, the USA, Canada, Italy, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will be participating in the no-fly zone.

To enforce this the participants will have to bomb Ghadiffis airfields, supply dumps and radar emplacements. AWACS will be used to monitor for enemy aircraft along with fighters to enforce this.

External articles:

CBC
ALJ
BBC

What do you think of these developments? Those of you with military experience, what do you think? Discuss.

 

[Devious]

*UPDATE*

France has confirmed that its fighters have begun firing upon Ghadaffi's tanks and vehicles. There are reports that U.S. Tomahawk missiles have been fired on Lybian assets.

 

[Jester1014]

Obama is puttin his foo tdown on this inhumane person. But I wonder though...who has Libya's back?....That's the group I'd be worried about.

 

[ForgedReclaimer]

Im all for the advance on Ghadaffi's military, this man cannot stay in power and any man or military willing to fire on their own people like this must be taken down. Its not humane for a man to do this to thousands because HE wants power, him and his family.

He knew the risk when he didn't stop when he was threatened about the No-fly zone and he is fully aware of what will happen and is only doing this because he wants the rebels dead above all. He doesn't care for his own country or men he's sending to murder his own people.

 

[Devious]

Ghadaffi has no active allies. Early in the unrest there, he was hiring mercenaries from Ukraine, other African countries, and apparently North Korea. Right now It's Ghadaffi VS the World.

MORE NEWS:

-US Navy and Royal Navy fired over 110 tomahawk missiles at communication nodes and AA weaponry to allow for a no-fly zone.

-Countries in Coalition so far: Canada, Italy, England, France, USA, and Others

-Coalition Named "Odyssey Dawn"

-USA will hand command of the operation over to the coalition
Watch a live stream of the events from the BBC

 

[Jester1014]

Wow, So it's not jus Us out there, it's the world.

 

[Tactonyx]

Ghadaffi is a seriously bad guy and he needs to go down. But the UN is making a seriously big mistake. They don't plan on occupying the country, just bomb it into the stone age. (please correct me if I'm wrong.) Wars are not won from the air, Libya needs to be occupied by Coalition forces, who will help the Libyans set up a Coalition freindly goverment. Letting the rebels take the reins of the country is a very bad idea. Who is working with the rebels? Al-Qaeda is. Ghadaffi paraded captured Al-Qaedan rebels through the capital. Also, has anyone heard anything about Egypt in the news lately? It's total anarchy over there. What breeds in anarchy? Al-Qaeda does.
Am I a war-monger for wanting to occupy Libya? No, but if you want this to be resolved correctly and with minimal bloodshed, Libya needs to be occupied. Failing to do this will result in a mess that we may not be able to handle.*

*Applies only to the current office temp and his administration.

 

[Devious]

The UN wants to avoid occupation at all costs. The last thing they want is another Iraq or Afghanistan. I think the whole point of this air offensive is remove Ghadiffis opposition, allow the rebels to take control, and then work with them to create a stable democratic government. This operation wants to avoid coalition casualties as much as possible. I do whoever think it is likely that ground operations will happen, despite the fact the UN statement did not permit a change of regime.

UPDATES:
Spain has joined the coalition with a frigate, air refuelling plane, Surveillance plane, airbase, and several F-18's for coalition use.

 

[Templar 320]

Ghadaffi is a seriously bad guy and he needs to go down. But the UN is making a seriously big mistake. They don't plan on occupying the country, just bomb it into the stone age. (please correct me if I'm wrong.) Wars are not won from the air, Libya needs to be occupied by Coalition forces, who will help the Libyans set up a Coalition freindly goverment. Letting the rebels take the reins of the country is a very bad idea. Who is working with the rebels? Al-Qaeda is. Ghadaffi paraded captured Al-Qaedan rebels through the capital. Also, has anyone heard anything about Egypt in the news lately? It's total anarchy over there. What breeds in anarchy? Al-Qaeda does.
Am I a war-monger for wanting to occupy Libya? No, but if you want this to be resolved correctly and with minimal bloodshed, Libya needs to be occupied. Failing to do this will result in a mess that we may not be able to handle.*

*Applies only to the current office temp and his administration.

Agreed. 100%.

 

[Devious]

CORRECTION:
The UN has forbidden coalition occupation but did not ban the deployment of ground troops. So we could see coalition troops fighting alongside the rebels.

 

[Tactonyx]

Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

 

[Cirkob5477]

It's finally time they stopped Ghaddafi from bombing his own people!
Every day I've been seeing videos of bombing runs and the rebels not being able to do anything about it because their AA guns can't reach as high as the bombers are flying....
Mark my words, something huge is about to happen
As the other guy said, Al-Qaeda this Al-Qaeda that, but what if Ghaddafi's gov. just tried to pretend that the captured rebels were Al-Qaeda to incite other countries to help him fight the insurrection?
It's just a theory, but who knows.... In all other aspects, my friend, you're right

 

[Devious]

Actually Ghadaffi is telling his supporters that the rebels are Al-Queda, but no other countries believe him. The Coalition planes are taking down Ghadaffis tanks, they are being fired on by AA guns. So far no confirmed losses.

 

[chiefer]

Ghadaffi is a seriously bad guy and he needs to go down. But the UN is making a seriously big mistake. They don't plan on occupying the country, just bomb it into the stone age. (please correct me if I'm wrong.) Wars are not won from the air, Libya needs to be occupied by Coalition forces, who will help the Libyans set up a Coalition freindly goverment. Letting the rebels take the reins of the country is a very bad idea. Who is working with the rebels? Al-Qaeda is. Ghadaffi paraded captured Al-Qaedan rebels through the capital. Also, has anyone heard anything about Egypt in the news lately? It's total anarchy over there. What breeds in anarchy? Al-Qaeda does.
Am I a war-monger for wanting to occupy Libya? No, but if you want this to be resolved correctly and with minimal bloodshed, Libya needs to be occupied. Failing to do this will result in a mess that we may not be able to handle.*

*Applies only to the current office temp and his administration.

I don't think pulling the U.S. into a 4th war would be a sound choice. We need to finish what we started else where and let the remaining Coalition forces handle this situation.

 

[Swift]

I don't think pulling the U.S. into a 4th war would be a sound choice. We need to finish what we started else where and let the remaining Coalition forces handle this situation.

That's a good point, but from what I've seen this one should be over relatively quickly (though, we've heard that before I'm sure). I think the main issue will be instating a proper legal system once Ghadaffi is gone. We can only hope that the UN doesn't make the same mistake America did with the Taliban and the Russians once it's over.

EDIT #2: First edit in the wrong post

 

[LongShot X]

This looks like a short term solution: Getting rid of Ghadaffi.

However, what the coalition will need to do is to figure out a long term solution. For instance, once Ghadaffi is gone:
- Who or what is going run/occupy the country?
- What steps are going to be put into place to prevent this from happening again?

This will be very interesting to see how it unfolds.

I'd love to see an army of spartans on his doorstep calling him out. (my 2 cents)

Cheers!

 

[Tactonyx]

Mistake has already been made. The first one is the UN getting involved. The UN has a history of installing/restoring ruthless leaders in power (Cambodia for example.) If anyone is to respond to a crisis, such as this, it needs to be NATO, not the UN. NATO wins wars, the UN doesn't. Not only does the UN have a history of not winning wars, they tend to make them worse, for example the Congo war.
Sending troops into a fight, and then withdrawing them after the war, is a recipe for disaster. Look at Germany after WWI, instead of occupying Germany and help rebuild their infrastructre and getting them on the right track, we pulled out and gave them the bill. These events helped bring the Nazi's to power. So when we topple Ghadaffi's goverment, whats next? Will the rebels create a new dictatorship that's worse than Ghadaffi's? It's been know to happen. Cuba comes to mind.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want the U.S. to get involved in another war, but the UN is dragging us into this one and I'm positive that they'll eventually get into something they can't handle and dump the war on us. They have done it before. (Somolia)

 

[Trando434]

^I agree partially that we don't need another war, but these countries are just incapable of finding peace, look at Iraq, they praised us for helping them rid Hussein but they turn on us and hate us now. A good quote from MW2, "We fought and bled along side the Russians, we shoulda' known they'd hate us for it."

The entire situation of the Muslim uprising over there in all of those countries is just terrible, I'd say just let them duke it out till they can do things peacefully. But we stepped into the Libya conflict too late, too many people have died so far to that freak. At least we are finally getting involved

If they want things done right, send in people as bad as Ghadaffi, call in Black Water!

 

[WrathPrime]

^I agree partially that we don't need another war, but these countries are just incapable of finding peace, look at Iraq, they praised us for helping them rid Hussein but they turn on us and hate us now. A good quote from MW2, "We fought and bled along side the Russians, we shoulda' known they'd hate us for it."

The entire situation of the Muslim uprising over there in all of those countries is just terrible, I'd say just let them duke it out till they can do things peacefully. But we stepped into the Libya conflict too late, too many people have died so far to that freak. At least we are finally getting involved

If they want things done right, send in people as bad as Ghadaffi, call in Black Water!

They are no longer Black Water, they rebranded themselves.

 

[Shade88]

Ghadaffi is a seriously bad guy and he needs to go down. But the UN is making a seriously big mistake. They don't plan on occupying the country, just bomb it into the stone age. (please correct me if I'm wrong.) Wars are not won from the air, Libya needs to be occupied by Coalition forces, who will help the Libyans set up a Coalition freindly goverment. Letting the rebels take the reins of the country is a very bad idea. Who is working with the rebels? Al-Qaeda is. Ghadaffi paraded captured Al-Qaedan rebels through the capital. Also, has anyone heard anything about Egypt in the news lately? It's total anarchy over there. What breeds in anarchy? Al-Qaeda does.
Am I a war-monger for wanting to occupy Libya? No, but if you want this to be resolved correctly and with minimal bloodshed, Libya needs to be occupied. Failing to do this will result in a mess that we may not be able to handle.*

*Applies only to the current office temp and his administration.

100% Agreed as well.