Foreign Policy has the situation in Lybia all sussed out and they have a new and innovative strategery to ensure ol' Moamar el-throat-clearing-sound is run outta town once and for all: Training! Don't arm 'em, the headline reads.
Yeah, let's send in military advisors! We'll train them boys up an' have them do the fighting! What could possibly go wrong? It's daring! It's innovative! It's -- dammit, haven't I seen this movie before?
(Bonus FAIL, from Wikipedia's Military Advisor article: "These soldiers live with their Afghan and Iraq counterparts, often in very austere and stoic conditions...." No! Wrong! "Stoic" is a human behavior, not a bedanged description of physical surroundings! The soldier are probably stoic -- not to mention brave and dedicated -- the conditions are prolly harsh, difficult, etc.)
Drop 'em some more Liberator pistols. Or let France give it a go (um, should we?). Stop replaying the past hoping what didn't work once will work this time.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
16 comments:
I will not send American boys to do the job that jihadi boys should be doing.
B.H.O
DOD announced that Libya gunboats have attacked US Navy vessels in the Gulf of Sidra today.
Gerry
Stoic? Heh. I'll be the word he was looking for was "spartan".
WV: pallyxo. Paladin Executive Officer? Yeah, that'd be a good start.
"I'll be" meaning "I'll bet", of course. Making a retarded typo in the process of sniping at someone else's word usage ... classic.
But the same policies will work now because the right people are attempting them!!
:)
Don't be slamming France too much. Not only has Sarkozy started the Second Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Libya, they had a little-covered by the MSM Media Flacks U.N. Security Council meeting a couple of days ago. Guess what? Another Dictator was Authorized to be taken out by the Powder Puff Blue Gang. 48 hours later, 8,000 French troops go into the Ivory Coast (gee, how long does it take to get a Battalion of U.S. Marines into a Hot Zone nowadays?), take over the U.N. Command, and blow the crap out of the Evil Bad Guy and they're replacing him with the New and U.N. Approved Evil Bad Guy even as we speak.
Who's Next on the U.N. Hit Parade?
Gerry, don't give The Dear Golfer any ideas.
Anyway, I think that the Navy already sank some Libyan patrol boats as part of enforcing the "no steam" zone. Or was it protecting Libyan civilians on the high seas? I'm confused...
Methinks you are a bit too harsh. The problem is that in the real world nothing is ever simple black/white (or for the politically correct and ethnically sensitive, red/blue) it is shades of gray. Now, with that metaphorical framework out of the way, let me simply say that American military capability has, in the past been adequate. Today it is challenged and strained. We just had a great example of virtually instantaneous results from high-tech airpower. We than had equally instantaneous incompetence with waffling, weaseling, abrogation of leadership and withdrawal of that airpower.
We can determine outcomes. But for those outcomes to persist, we also get into the "Vietnamization" role, or the "Occupied Japan" role, or the "French Resistance support" role. It's a package deal. If you don't get play both offense and defense you will lose the game in the end.
The training of Asians or Arabs or anti-Communists either overtly or covertly has carried a lot of different names. It might be COIN (counter-insurgency) or "Freedom Fighters" or simply Special Operations.
Regardless, don't throw the baby out with the Bamster. At some point these twelfth century retards will have to pick up the tasking.
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who ... oh.
Ed: You mean, "Arm 'em and see who's left standing after a year," is a bad plan? Inhumane, I could see criticism on those grounds....
Les: I'm not slamming the French military; they appear to do quire well, especially against lesser forces. But as Colonial rulers, the French make the Belgians look only a little mean. Oh, I guess they've done okay by St. Pierre and Miquelon but in general, they've tended to leave a mess.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Yeah, either we give them the weapons to do their own fighting (and have those same weapons used against us during a future conflict) or we wend in our own boys for a few thousand more dead.
I don't see why it was necessary to intervene in this particular civil war, other than maybe -- oil.
er-- "wend"-- I meant "send".
Yeah, the "oil" thing is nice. But you know, "Give a man a Tauntaun, he sleeps warm for a night; show him how to cut 'em open and he sleeps warm 'til he runs outta Tauntauns."
I found the notion of training 'em but not arming them objectionable; sure, they'd all die in the approved military fashion, but that (as Patton famously observed) is not actually a soldier's job. If we have to pick one of the other, arm 'em and let 'em fight it out. Maybe they'll gouge us on oil prices later -- fine, it's their oil.
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