Lost in Libya: The U.K. Does Not Understand Strategy
Lost in Libya: The U.K. Does Not Understand Strategy
Entry Excerpt:
Lost in Libya: The U.K. Does Not Understand Strategy by Dr. Patrick Porter, Infinity Journal (free registration required). BLUF: "The limited war of 2011 would refuse to be quarantined. After all other options were exhausted, it could culminate in a land war against Tripoli. Distressingly, we would shoulder the burden of invading, pacifying and administering this country. Occupation would probably lead to resistance – and Libya propelled more foreign-born jihadi volunteers into Iraq than any other nation. A new front in the War on Terror would open up. Idealists now calling for humanitarian rescue would discover that all along they opposed Western imperial hubris."
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Boots on the Ground in Libya
Boots on the Ground in Libya
Entry Excerpt:
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik (Ret.), a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, argues that "the Obama administration should prepare for the inevitable in Libya. To win this fight and prevent a coming anarchy, it's going to take a lot more than a no-fly zone." See his latest article, Boots on the Ground, at Foreign Policy.
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The Two Faces of Libya's Rebels
An intriguing FP article on the Libyan rebels, such as this, regarding the Toyota TV elements:
Quote:
These fighters are a ragtag bunch of men of all ages and degrees of military training riding pickup trucks around the eastern coastal desert.... What you may not have realized.... is that the vast majority of these fighters have never actually arrived at the front and are not contributing to the rebels' effective fighting strength.
Better still:
Quote:
The units with the highest degree of organization are former Libyan army battalions that were stationed in eastern Libya, also known as Cyrenaica. These units, including those led by former Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younis al-Abidi, defected en masse in mid-February, retaining their organizational structure. Bizarrely, these units are largely absent from the current fighting. It is unclear why.
The real fighters are:
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The most prevalent form of unit organization is ad hoc: a few brothers or friends sharing gas money, a few rifles, a rebel flag, and a pickup truck. Occasionally, whole villages or subsections of tribes have joined the rebels as a semicoherent unit.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...ebels?page=0,0
There is more detail within, including the Islamists (LIFG).
I did it for the money, sir...
Special Forces scandal as officers are held 'for trying to leak secrets'
Quote:
Two senior Special Forces officers suspected of leaking details of highly sensitive covert operations have been arrested under the Official Secrets Act, ...
Oh boy...