By Steve Sailer
03/18/2011
From the NYT:Diplomats said the resolution — which passed with 10 votes, including the United States, and abstentions from Russia, China, Germany, Brazil and India — was written in sweeping terms to allow for a wide range of actions, including strikes on air-defense systems and missile attacks from ships. Military activity could get under way within a matter of hours, they said.In theory, this shouldn’t be all that hard to blast Gadaffi’s air force and tanks in open desert. There’s a difference between a land war in Asia and a land war in North Africa. We already won one of those 68 years ago, against a better general than anybody working for Gadaffi.
But, then what happens? I don’t know.
Let’s say, best case scenario, there’s immediately a military coup in Tripoli and the Colonel goes away. Whoo-hoo!
Except, then, whose side are we on? Two weeks ago, the Eastern rebels would have likely taken over following the U.S. Air Force’s arrival because they were sort of winning at the moment and they held the oil fields, which is the whole point of Libya, anyway. They had momentum.
So, that would have been a simple solution, except that the rebels would have started fighting amongst themselves over the oil.
But since then, the Eastern rebels have proven pretty incompetent. So, are we going to back the member of Gadaffi’s inner circle who tells Gadaffi to go, yet then continues to hold onto the oilfields against the rebels? The promise of oil can motivate a lot of fighting as we saw in Iraq.
Or is this just to save the rebels in Eastern Libya? But what good are they without the oilfields on the east central Libyan coast?
Further, as a commenter notes, if the rebels win, the Libyan people will likely try to ethnically cleanse from Libya the sub-Saharan black immigrants Gadaffi invited in and is using as mercenaries.
And what does this imply for Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered? And what does Bahrain imply for Saudi Arabia?
Should be interesting.
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