From Al-Jazeera:
The most amazing turn of events would be to see the Egyptian air force intervene and enforce a no-fly zone to protect those protesters.
Also from that article:
I think he trying to find a pilot he can trust.
I wasn’t saying you’re racist bloody hell, I was saying the Libyans are and we needn’t buy into their claims that anyone black is not a Libyan.
Libyan U.N. mission declares allegiance to people
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 21 (Reuters) - The staff of Libya’s mission to the United Nations declared allegiance to the people of Libya, instead of to its government led by Muammar Gaddafi, a mission spokesman said on Monday.
That’d more likely fuel some kind of nationalist air war I suspect.
I don’t think so, how could he trust so long a flight? The crazy bastard is going down fighting I think.
Huffpo says there is a report that military jets have fired on the protesters. It gets uglier and uglier.
My understanding is that Egypt’s air force is fairly modern and up to date. Libya supposedly has about the same number of jets, but I doubt many/most are airworthy. I think any air war would be over pretty damn quick and in Egypts favor.
Side note: where is our nearest carrier?
He used to be a pilot, but who knows when was the last time he flew. But, yeah, I think he is going out Ceaușescu-style.
I wonder what his battalion of female bodyguards is up to.
Sixth Fleet should be in the Med.
I believe the Enterprise was in the Gulf of Aden (as of Feb. 18; which way were they going?); the Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea (as of Feb. 16).
Just checked the navy’s site. Looks like the Enterprise just sailed through the Med, and is liking heading to Bahrain or patrol the Somali coast. I think they may be busy with the hostage crisis there.
Look like we could deploy an air wing pretty fast if we needed to. Do we have permission to fly over Egyptian air space?
Italian airbases ought to be in reasonable range, carrier group shouldn’t be necessary. Seems to me that either the Security Council, the Arab League, or NATO needs to tell Qaddafi that one way or another all his air assets will be on the ground for the foreseeable future. Not that ground forces can’t massacre civilians I guess. :mad:
To be honest, I think the best thing we can do here is essentially what we did with Egypt… stay far away, try not to shove our noses into this one.
And stand by with humanitarian aid as fast as possible. I think a hospital ship docking at Tripoli might do more good for both Libya and PR about the US in the region than knocking down Libyan aircraft, as tempting as that is.
Khaddafi is a monster.
Agreed, Americans or others blundering into this (without necessarily knowing who is who) is only going to give Gaddafi support - he’s arleady per BBC running the propaganda line that this is all a Western plot to provoke a re-colonisation of Libya.
NSFW
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=203209353028633&oid=197898230226131&comments&ref=mf
NSFW
This is the video I mentioned.
Al-Jazeera reports several military aircraft sent to bomb Benghazi have instead landed their planes and the pilots defected there.
They’re using ZSU-23s on people.
Libyan city of Misratah, east of Tripoli, is latest to be attacked by airstrikes. Heavy artillery fire devastates buildings as tanks roll into the city.
But, whose aircraft, artillery and tanks? (It is no longer safe to make assumptions on that point.)
:smack: Dammit! He’s on to us!
What countries are big users (or receivers) of Libyan oil?
Oil is a fungible commodity, which means that any country may be receiving specifically Libyan oil, but in general it’s just sold on the open market.