Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Cheese  Lessons From Qaddafi's Last Defeat | The Root
I hope this is not too political. My guess is that most don't know about this war. I remember following it in 1987, it was spectacular how the lightly armed Chadians routed the Libyans with all of their heavy Soviet gear. |
Great article. Ghadaffi has always been a coward, but his enemies aren't united and have dubious military experience themselves. Even the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan with years of fighting experience against the Soviets and the Taliban needed US Special Forces on the ground to really have an impact.
While I believe Ghadaffi's forces are not quality by any means. I think the best outcome we are going to have without a real commitment on the ground is a stalemate. I also agree with the Root that we should find out a bit more about the rebels before we arm them. And considering the quality of our intelligence gathering (especially in that part of the world) I'm not sure we're capable of getting the info needed. We certainly don't want to see a bunch of civilian airliners shot down by Al Quada with Arms we provided.
The only thing we can hope and pray for the Libyan people is that Ghadaffi either gets religion and gives up power or gets taken out. Otherwise, I suspect it's going to be a Darfur grade tragedy for years. And even if that does happen the results may not be good.
