Lybia

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

Speaking of basketball Spence, O picked all the #1's to be in the FF

That's because all the time he should have spent planning Libya went into his brackets.

Duh.

-spence

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

That's because all the time he should have spent planning Libya went into his brackets.

Duh.

-spence

Ummm, His picks took no thought and less courage. FAIL

[buckman]

Mission Accomplished!!! 9 years to get Saddam out????? Clinton effed up Bosnia

[striperman36]

lots of rhetoric not alot of objective last night.

What do we the US citizen's get out of this?

Oil - no
Ally - no
Stature in the Region - no
Another Democratic being the world's police man - YES
More BS - YES

[buckman]

Originally Posted by striperman36

lots of rhetoric not alot of objective last night.

What do we the US citizen's get out of this?

Oil - no
Ally - no
Stature in the Region - no
Another Democratic being the world's police man - YES
More BS - YES

Europe gets the oil, we do the heavy lifting. Obama saved 250k lives.

[RIJIMMY]

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian state-run television says the Cabinet has resigned as the country sees the worst unrest in decades.

President Bashar Assad accepted the Cabinet's resignation following a meeting Tuesday.

Dont forget Yemen....
I think this is WWIII in the making.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

Dont forget Yemen....
I think this is WWIII in the making.

It's been only a matter of time before the Middle East and surrounding regions totally collapsed into themselves.

Most of these countries have neither the technical resources or skill to build this into a WW caliber situation.

[RIJIMMY]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

It's been only a matter of time before the Middle East and surrounding regions totally collapsed into themselves.

Most of these countries have neither the technical resources or skill to build this into a WW caliber situation.

and Serbia did in 1914?

[justplugit]

My questions still remain.

Who are these rebels and who will be in control IF this thing works out?

Who is going to be the JUDGE as to which countries we go into next to
support rebellion, Obama?

[scottw]

Originally Posted by justplugit

My questions still remain.

Who are these rebels and who will be in control IF this thing works out? former prisoners who are largely foreign mercenaries, al qaeda(the good al qaeda...kinda like the "good Taliban") members and the Muslim Brotherhood(the good Muslim Brotherhood, a well meaning offshoot of the bad Muslim Brotherhood)...the country should be in good hands
Who is going to be the JUDGE as to which countries we go into next to
support rebellion, Obama?

no...Hillary........ and the UN

[RIJIMMY]

RAS LANOUF, Libya – Libyan government tanks and rockets pounded rebel forces into a panicked full retreat Tuesday after an hourslong, back-and-forth battle that highlighted the superior might of Moammar Gadhafi's forces, even hobbled by international airstrikes.

No such strikes were launched during the fighting in Bin Jawwad, where rebels attempting to march on Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte ended up turning around and fleeing east under overcast skies. Some fleeing rebels shouted, "Sarkozy, where are you?" — a reference to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the strongest supporters of international airstrikes.

[Bronko]

This is about oil and oil only. I just want Obama to get out of this endless war he has started.


BWHAHAHAHAAA

[Bronko]

Honestly, Libya and our brave forces aside, anyone know how his brackets are shaping up?

[Piscator]

Watching the news last night and this is EXACTLY what I heard:

Our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says, “We really do not know who these rebels are just yet”

Five minutes later I hear our UN Ambassador Susan Rice say, “We need to arm these rebels”

Our people need to get on the same page here. On one hand we are saying we need to arm these people and on the other hand we are saying we don’t know who they are or what they stand for. They look foolish and need to at least get on the same page here.

I didn’t really get Obama’s speech the other night (maybe it's me). He says we are handing this cluster over to NATO. The supreme commander of NATO is a US Soldier. We are the number one country funding NATO. NATO is nothing without us. We are taking this from our right hand and moving it to our left hand and saying we handed it off. I don’t know if he is the one who is confused or if he is trying to confuse the American people. He needs to call a spade a spade. That is the least he can do.
Not sure what happens next. If this is a humanitarian effort, what happens when Gadafi’s troops dig in around Tripoli and it comes to a standstill? If the innocent killing stops, what happens next? What’s the plan? Obama’s speech sounded like a victory speech the other night and we still have 8 innings left to play………

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by Piscator

I didn’t really get Obama’s speech the other night (maybe it's me).

No, it's not you.
Like Joe Liberman said the other night,
"If your -NOT- confused, you don't understand the situation."

[UserRemoved1]

Interesting article.

Libyan rebels break into Gaddafi's secret underground tunnels | Mail Online

WTH these kids shooting at. WTF is that gun on the back of the pickup

[RIJIMMY]

Here we go.
The libs loved comparing Iraq to Vietnam however there was little in common.
This on the other hand is VERY similar......

CNN) -- On a day when opposition forces in Libya suffered battlefield losses, President Barack Obama made clear in interviews Tuesday with the three major U.S. television networks that he was open to arming the rebel fighters.

"I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in," Obama told NBC in one of the separate interviews he gave the day after a nationally televised speech on the Libya situation.


and PS - I am not even going to comment on how incredibly funny this is - "I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in,"

[JohnR]

Libyan Army pulling back hundreds of klicks, rebels advance hundreds of klicks, both in just days. Rebels (with what constitution and command?) stretch well beyond what would pass for something akin to a supply line and get chewed up. Classic swaping space for extending the opposing force beyond their capabilities.

We're all doomed.

Warfare practiced by Poli-Sci majors? I hope O can pull this off but I remain unconvinced it will happen without the US holding the bag.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

[RIJIMMY]

And lets not forget who we're fighting for!

LONDON (Reuters) – Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

"For the scholars and activists of Egypt to be able to speak again freely, it would represent a great leap forward for the mujahideen," wrote Awlaki, an American of Yemeni origin who is believed to be hiding in southern Yemen.

He said it did not matter what sort of government succeeded Arab autocrats, as these were unlikely to be as repressive. Imagining that only a Taliban-style regime would benefit al Qaeda was "a too short term way" of looking at events.

"We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction," he said.

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

And lets not forget who we're fighting for!

LONDON (Reuters) – Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

"Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," he wrote, using a term that refers generally to Islamic guerrilla groups or holy warriors.

"For the scholars and activists of Egypt to be able to speak again freely, it would represent a great leap forward for the mujahideen," wrote Awlaki, an American of Yemeni origin who is believed to be hiding in southern Yemen.

He said it did not matter what sort of government succeeded Arab autocrats, as these were unlikely to be as repressive. Imagining that only a Taliban-style regime would benefit al Qaeda was "a too short term way" of looking at events.

"We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction," he said.

I think these clowns would have spun it either way. If the middle east truly were to move to a more democratic region , I think it would be harder on the Taliban. Personal opinion though and I think that is a very, very long way off.

[buckman]

By RYAN LUCAS, Associated Press Ryan Lucas, Associated Press – 1 min ago
AJDABIYA, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces recaptured a strategic oil town Wednesday and moved within striking distance of another major eastern city, nearly reversing the gains rebels made since international airstrikes began. Rebels pleaded for more help, while a U.S. official said government forces are making themselves harder to target by using civilian "battle wagons" with makeshift armaments instead of tanks.

Hmmmm, We may need to step it up a tiny bit.

[Piscator]

At this point, who cares........just do it and get it over with. Say "We (I mean NATO) pressed the wrong button."

[scottw]

brilliant stuff from VDH


March 31, 2011 12:00 A.M.

Obama’s Amazing Achievements
His military intervention prompted some stunning reversals.




By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:

(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress” in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,” fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best and brightest.”

(b) Europe first: Many Americans have long complained about the opportunistic, utopian Europeans. Under the protective U.S. defense shield, they often privately urged us to deal with dangerous foreign dictators — while staying above the fray to criticize America, at the same time seeking trade advantages and positive global PR. But now the wily Obama has outwaited even the French. He has managed to shame them into acting, with a new opossum-like U.S. strategy of playing dead until finally the Europeans were exasperated — almost as if the president were warning them, “We don’t mind the Qaddafi bloodletting if you, who are much closer to it, don’t mind.” The British Guardian and French Le Monde will be too knee-deep in the Libyan war, busy chalking up Anglo-French “wins” and worrying about European oil concessions, to charge America with the usual imperialism, colonialism, and militarism. We are almost back to the 1956 world of the Suez crisis.

(c) Iraq was just a prequel to Libya: Conservatives have complained that opposition — especially in the cases of then-senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden — to George W. Bush’s antiterrorism policies and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was more partisan than principled. Obama ended that debate by showing that not only can he embrace — or, on occasion, expand — the Bush-Cheney tribunals, preventive detentions, renditions, Predator attacks, intercepts and wiretaps, and Guantanamo Bay, but he can now preemptively attack an Arab oil-exporting country without fear of Hollywood, congressional cutoffs, MoveOn.org “General Betray Us”–type ads, Cindy Sheehan on the evening news, or Checkpoint-like novels. In short, Obama has ensured that the antiwar movement will never be quite the same.

(d) Monster-in-recovery: The Qaddafi clan has been wooing Westerners through oil money and multicultural gobbledygook. In the last few years, the British released the Lockerbie bomber, a native of Libya; Saif Qaddafi, the would-be artist and scholar and the son of Col. Moammar Qaddafi, essentially bought a Ph.D. from the prestigious London School of Economics; the creepy Harvard-connected Monitor Group hired out cash-hungry “scholars” to write tributes to Qaddafi’s achievements; and Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Beyoncé, and other entertainers earned a pile of petrodollars by crooning for the Qaddafis. Then, suddenly, Obama spoiled the fun and profits by turning Qaddafi from a rehabilitated monster back into Ronald Reagan’s old “Mad Dog of the Middle East.”

(e) Stuff happens: Many supporters of the Iraq War condemned Abu Ghraib as the poorly supervised, out-of-control prison it was. Lax American oversight resulted in the sexual humiliation of detained Iraqi insurgents. It was a deplorable episode, in which, nonetheless, no one was killed, and yet it took an enormous toll on the credibility of Bush-administration officials. But while the media were covering the Libyan bombing and the Middle East uprisings, a number of Afghan civilians allegedly were executed by a few rogue American soldiers. That was a far worse transgression than anything that happened at Abu Ghraib during Bush’s tenure — but it was apparently an incident that, in the new media climate, could legitimately be ignored. Obama made “stuff happens” an acceptable defense for those doing their best to run a war from Washington.

(f) War really is tiring: The media serially blamed a supposedly lazy Ronald Reagan for napping during military operations abroad. George W. Bush was criticized for cutting brush at his Texas ranch while soldiers fought and died in Iraq. Obama rendered all such presidential criticism mere nitpicking when he started aerial bombardment in the midst of golfing, handicapping the NCAA basketball tournament, and taking his family to Rio de Janeiro.

(g) The road to Damascus? After Bush’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, many war-weary Americans believed that we would never again get involved in a Middle East war. But now, with Obama’s preemptive bombing of Libya, giddy American interventionists are again eyeing Iran, Syria — and beyond!

In short, Obama turned America upside down when he bombed Libya — and in ways we could have scarcely imagined

[JohnR]

Mr Hanson has a away of showing the hypocrisy, dunnhe.

[spence]

a) Obama has been taking a lot of heat from the Left on Libya

b) I think Obama has shown some patience that like in Egypt might have paid off. To parlay this into playing dead is a bit o spin.

c) Where again has Obama expanded controversial Bush policies like rendition and GITMO?

d) Actually, if was Qadaffi who was ordering the bombing of civilians and not Maria Carey or Fiddy Cent.

e) Funny, I first read about this on MSNBC.COM !

f) Did RIJIMMY write this one?

g) Giddy American Interventionists have never taken an eye off of Iran.

-spence

[buckman]

Originally Posted by spence

e) Funny, I first read about this on MSNBC.COM !

f-spence

You crack me up Spence

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

You crack me up Spence

I'm serious.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by spence

I'm serious.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Actually, this was broken in Rolling Stone, about a squadron from the army known as the 'kill team' which went as far as taking digits from executed kids as trophies. One of the stories was a soldier threw it in a pot during a poker game.

And it was all over MSNBC on Monday.

but of course, it's all liberal bias.

[scottw]

so it was on MSNBC and in Rolling Stone...wow, that's practically the same level of coverage as Abu G and about 4 people saw it, most of whom were smoking weed.....I apologize for VDH .... did Comedy Central or Saturday Night Live do a funny skit about it or anything?...just wondering

btw..Rolling Stone completely misrepresented the story according to an embedded reporter..combination of liberal bias and too much weed

Michael Yon
29 March 2011

Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone. Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe. The story is titled “THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY.” It should be titled: “BULL#^&#^&#^&#^&, from Rolling Stone.”

The story—not really an “article”—covers Soldiers from 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) in Afghanistan. A handful of Soldiers were accused of murder. It does in fact appear that a tiny group of rogues committed premeditated murder. I was embedded with the 5/2 SBCT and was afforded incredible access to the brigade by the Commander, Colonel Harry Tunnell, and the brigade Command Sergeant Major, Robb Prosser.
.................................

he goes on to point out the problems with the RS article, the point that VDH is making is the remarkably different handling that the mainstream media has chosen when you juxtapose this incident with Abu, one was used by the media and democrats to try to drive a president from office and soil the reputation of the entire military, the other ( far more egregious) is largely overlooked and the only difference is the party that the presidents happened to belong to....if you somehow miss the bias then there is little hope for you....

...........
Sen. Edward Kennedy "we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management''....what a patriot he was

[RIJIMMY]

and the beat goes on, la da da da di, la da da da dah....

The rebels managed to take part of the oil town of Brega the day before, aided by an international air campaign, but the rocket and artillery salvos unleashed on the rebels indicates the government's offensive capabilities remain very much intact.

"When you see this, the situation is very bad. We cannot match their weapons," said Kamal Mughrabi, 64, a retired soldier who joined the rebel army. "If the planes don't come back and hit them we'll have to keep pulling back."

Rebel attempts to fire rockets and mortars against the government forces were met with aggressive counter bombardments that sent many of the rebel forces scrambling back all the way to the town of Ajdabiya, dozens of miles (kilometers) away. There did not appear to be any immediate response from the international aircraft patrolling the skies that have aided the rebels in the past.