I, as an European, just want to make some remarks:
- "Rebels" know marketing: suddenly they want "democracy":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_af/af_libya, this is for fun, they want assistance (air strike) from Europe, so they use the wording of the Europe media. Everyone wants the power that the oil gives, no one need democray, and these low-educated people want to support their tribe, not sharing power, what a stupid occidental dream...
- Why has anyone forgot the people of the Ivory coast? Now that "everybody" (I mean the media) knows that the Lybian proble is "solved" (this is the same wording the media had just afer the bombarding of the Taliban in Afghanistan, just a "cut and paste"), the media come back to the Ivory Coast, but no tomahawk in sight... Why? don't these people don't want "oil-democracy"? Are no humanitarian problem?
- No one in the European media knows Lybia, we are clearly misinformed. The joke is the "arab spring", as if we could compare the actual arab situation with 1968??? Journalists are stupid enough to compare situation which canot be compared, I'm getting upset.
- Europe is in a big mess:
-a- no one knows who the Rebels are,
-b- Even if Gadhafi is killed, it doesn't mean that Tripolitan are going to give up, and if they hold on their towns there is only one solution: partitioning Lybia, nice isn't it? But wait one year and the 2 countries should enter into war (they have very different history, and I don't see ANY reason why they should agree to live peacefuly side by side).
-c-This was an unlimited war, how can you handle that without a man on the Lybian ground (there are already a lot of military counsulants, but not too many soldiers). If Europe put soldiers on arabe's ground where will it stop? And what about the US with the crazy man who burned Coran and put it on Internet.
-d-If Gadhafi holds on, is he going to be happy and not searching for revenge? does anyone thinks that?
-e-if Gadhafi is killed AND Tripolitan agree to share the power, do you believe the new government will be European friendly?
-f- Now if Gadhafi is clever he just have to stay inside the main towns with its tanks and fire on anyone who approachs, the West can do nothing because it would mean killing a LOT of civilian, until now Gadhafi is quite stupid (hopefully for us) and just tries to fight, so he is easy to destroy, but wait just a while, and then??? Is there a pilot in the plane???
- There was no clear goal in this conflict, just a sudden agitation from Sarkozy, a friend from Gadhafi, suddenly against him, on what purpose? Can it be only on purpose of the 2012 election? may be, may be not.
Now the good point is that, on a military point of view, no-one can compare the situation in Lybia with the situation in Afganistan or in Vietnam. Lybia is flat with no forest ou mountains to hide into. The population is mostly on the sea side, there is no inland, so if the situation gets bad, it is easy to fire from the sea side.
The population is very small.
Another good new (indirect): Russia realizes its military power is in a very bad state. So it is an new oppotunity for Russia which tries to come by Europe AND Japan, BUT the russian population doen't want to accept that, but I gree with John, this is, I believe, the direction of the history. Let's see how it moves on the next years.
By the way the change of direction of such a large country as Russia takes time, so I do not see any risk of war within the next 5 years (my main opinion is that the world is in a nice state for the next 10 years, we'll see) The points to follow on are (on my point of view) Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, European debt, the link between Japan and China, South China sea. Any other point looks to me secondary (even the value of the dollar).
I mean by that, that Lybia is NOT an important point at the world level, BUT it is at the European level (for political reason and terrorism and over-stupidity about electoralism)
My new slogan is:
FIGHT FOR
the
TOTAL dem
Ocrat
Ic
Life of the
Best
People
fight on the earth
Remarks?