Libyan Warfare

[AOI_Tifa_Lockhart]

Nope it's not the latest COD installment.. Soo, some weapons are just too effective at killing, there's an outcry cluster bombs have been used. you make an effective deadly weapon that's a bit too efficient, thus we have to ban them to make it sporting for the other side. Speaking of sporting how are those weeks of air raids going bombing the shit out of a country that has no air force to retaliate?

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...0451_04_18.asp

As far as I know you join an army with the intention of fighting and killing at some point, is dying being stabbed by a bayonnet any worse than being vapourised by a bomb? Choking on poison gas? Or having your limbs blown quater of a mile away by a mortar? When you boil down to it death on a battlefield isn't going to be pretty, if you're lucky you'll get shot in the head. At least a cluster bomb can get the job done quickly. You just have to look at World War 1 to see how military technology completely overtook military tactics and human morality...didn't stop a future world war with equally horrifying methods of death and destruction did it? Or did we tone it down when we made the atom bomb? I suppose vapurising people and scarring generations with deformaties and cancer is humane? "Of course it is" Yells Uncle Sam. "It's our biggest baddest weapon we gots to keep this to show how big our military brass balls are"

Tifa

[Shattered_weasel]

I don't know if this is a post against the use of weapons all together or one supporting Qaddafi

bombing the shit out of a country that has no air force to retaliate?

but this shows me it is a post made by some uninformed hippie seeing as Libya does have an Air Force.

[Sinue_v2]

Soo, some weapons are just too effective at killing, there's an outcry cluster bombs have been used. you make an effective deadly weapon that's a bit too efficient, thus we have to ban them to make it sporting for the other side.

If you had read the article you were sourcing, the outcry isn't over the combat effectiveness of these weapons. It's their ineffectiveness, specifically, the danger of unexploded munitions which litter the landscape for generations until some kid or farmer pokes it with a stick or runs over it with their tractor.

Speaking of sporting how are those weeks of air raids going bombing the shit out of a country that has no air force to retaliate?

The fuck are talking about? Part of the reason why NATO is over there is because Qaddafi was using his air force to make strafing runs against protesters. Just who's hangars and airfields do you think we've been bombing for the last few weeks, and what would be the point in effecting a "No Fly Zone" on a nation with no air force?

I suppose vapurising people and scarring generations with deformaties and cancer is humane? "Of course it is" Yells Uncle Sam. "It's our biggest baddest weapon we gots to keep this to show how big our military brass balls are"

Yeah, that's it. It had nothing to do with fifty years of Russia sitting over there engaging in an ideological dick waving contest with the West while telling us all that they're "pumping out nuclear weapons like they were fucking sausages", banging their shoes on the UN tables screaming "We will bury you", and lighting off mega-bombs like the Tsar that make Fat Man & Little Boy look like we're tossing Whipper Snappers.

[AOI_Tifa_Lockhart]

It was written mainly in a joking fashion. i'm not pro-gadaffi at all, or an uninformed hippie (hippie being the uninformed, universal stereotype for anyone who isn't a war mongerer and possibly sees that war is futile). He's a tyrant through and through, he does however have one of the coolest dress senses going. The Cluster Bomb Treaty is hypocrticial (the point I was trying to get across with all weapon banning treaties). I read through the treaty, and it denies the use of a weapon with more than 10 submunitions. So if you use 9 it's ok because it's not a cluster bomb, also provided each submunition weighs more than 4kg then it's all fine and dandy. Thus they state using a much larger weapon and causing more damage is justifiable? (just don't call it a cluster bomb...maybe a buster comb?)...that's a great way of thinking isn't it? No matter what weapon is used a none military person can and will get hurt at times. But the disease, lack of shelter and food and supplies in civilian areas after a war is just as inhumane as an unexploded bomb, it's the result of conflict, a conflict civilians weren't trained to handle and must endure.

I found it puzzling that it took our government weeks to debate a no fly zone (granted I overlooked the blatent fact there must be an air force to implement one). However my jesting about what is sporting in war was directed at the heavy handedness of multiple countries responses against 1 country. Ok so he's a tyrant, the people wish to overthrow him, the rebels are failing at this. As previously stated, weeks to debate a no fly zone, then implementing it whilst taking the drastic measure of bombing the hell out of Libya within the space of a few days. It prooves again war is waged on whimscial decisions. Look at the Germany Russia pact in WW2, after Germany realized perhaps Russia wasn't equipped for this war, and were slow at progressing in conquering Finland they decide to wage war against them instead. War has been with us for so long people try and justify their causes, at the end of the day it's futile, and foreign intervention is far too costly and lacks any real benefit. Can't help feeling it's to secure comrades in oil rich countries, and to keep the people friendly incase a feared islamist government should step in for the leadership roll after gadaffi is removed.

But we're in the middle of a recession and we have news reports stating we're dropping bombs costing £800,000 each? For several weeks? Prooving what exactly? How humane we are? How much we care for people's rights? So this person "A" believes one way, naughty boy you support a tyrant (who only a few years ago we supported) we'll bomb you to save some rebels because blowing you up is humane for person "B" who is of a different mindset. Who are we to decide??! The very fact we supported Gadaffi less than a decade ago means nothing? It's just like the US funding the Afghans during their struggle against Russia, but now they're tyrants? Keeping up with these shifting mindsets is futile it seems.

The main news reports I heard regarding bombings was AA sites and armoured convoys and wasn't with regards to their air force. However when you have 3 countries against one it doesn't seem all that sporting to me :P Oh with the added call to arms of other countries to join in this gratuitous show of military might. You may well spend months obliterating every bit of Gadaffi's army base by base, and how grateful will the civilians be when their homes lay in ashen ruins? Or would it be more beneficial to send in ground troops to remove pro-gadaffi loyalists? Cleanse the population? Purge what you don't agree with? Yeah, very humane. I'm sure we'll cook up a lovely charity fund raiser to repair all the stuff we blew up by accident, it'll make us all feel very humane and just in our war mongering causes. I wonder just how the Libyan people will feel on the whole? We all know as soon as we dropped the first bomb we aren't shortening the length of this civil war, we've extended it, foreign intereference is risky at best, and if we were so concerned it's rather sickening how much delay there was, if our priorites really were to help the humanitarian crisis. The US has the right idea to be hesitant, their foreign intervention in 2 countries is a money pit and at the end of the day won't show any true benefit for the civilians.

The point I was trying to get across on the whole is that war is ugly, but ranking weapons in order of what's a human way to extinguish a life and what isn't is a hypocritical mindset, in fact I find it laughable. Nuclear weaponry seemingly being the most inhumane of all, and the one true weapon that could literally destory the world is stockpiled in their hundreds if not thousands by various countries, and we're ok with this? Because everyone's too scared to ever use them because they know full well if it did happen it'd spiral out of control. The cold war was just military muscle flexing on the side of America and the USSR, and this paranoia has continued, fuelling many many conflicts, but never a definitive one against Russia and the US. yet you only need to look at US films and games to see this paranoia is still rife, and the US has got a hard on for narratives involving conflicts with none capitalist countries.

No matter what weapon you use, warfare nowadays could be waged in civilian areas, civilians will get hurt, this conclusion isn't exactly rocket science. Look at the drone mishaps, the current bombing mishaps in Libya, are we going to ban all those too? How far exactly should we take it? The whole point of war is killing, whoever suffers more losses is the looser. I think categorizing and banning certain weapons is just foolish. It's like politicians see how horrid war is, but they want to make themselves more human by screaming outrage at civilian deaths, nevermind all the soldiers dying, that's their job, to fight for the politicians whimsical decisions.

Tifa