Shipbucket

Having lived through the Troubles in Northern Ireland and seen the after effects of semtex and the weapons Ghadaffi supplied to the IRA, The Regan attempt to unseat him with operation eldarado canyon before the war against terrorism began. And when that began George W was more interested in going after Sadam than Ghadaffi. I hope he is now getting his commuppance.
I support the No fly zone arrangement as long as mission creep doesn't start. The Airforces will put forward the "Bomber Dream" of dislodging him through airpower alone. If we do go down the no fly route let NATO support Arab League ariforces enforcing it. If no we'll end up escalating through SEAD to Bombing then having to do CSAR then "Limited intervention".

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"There was nothing wrong with Titanic when she left the Shipyard" Tim McGarry Belfast Comedian

Well, a lot has happened since this topic began. Now we have the 'no fly zone' over Libya; which is meant to protect the populace, especially in Benghazi. So together the U.K. and France have pushed this through, and now the USA are also willing to act, and being the only power really able to, this is most important. And Gadhaffi has 'agreed' to observe a cease fire; which means he will be manouvering for advantange to help him defeat the Libyan people. Still, its a start, and we can only hope this will give hope to the Libyan People. Personally, I don't put a lot of faith in any no fly zone, untill its enforced; as in Bosnia, it will only be effective when it is hammering the bad guys.

Meanwhile, In Bharein

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 21229.html

But of course, these guys have more oil, and being Sunni, like the Saudi's we mustn't upset them; after all, we are the oil junkies, and they have the fix

He's up to something devious I'm sure. He's not a man to give up, he's buying time and thinking of ways to avoid the air attacks.

Personally I think 'no-fly zone' is hazardous, Libya unlike most other targets over the last decade has a air-defence system of sorts. Yes its Mirages and MiGs are old and probably not fit to fly but it has SAMs etc and radars and ZSUs etc, all the things that would have made hazardous of the pilots and planes shot down etc. There were losses over Bosnia/ Kosovo and even in Iraq in 2003 (including mid-air colllisions etc). The media here seemed to have a wolly view that we'd fly about and only engage enemy radars if they illuminated our planes and were a threat and meanwhile would be left unhindered to bomb and stafe the Libyan armour and men. Hmmm, really? I think the SEAD planners already have the Libyan air defence sites marked off for destroying before they even consider supporting the rebel forces. (Plus dare I say it but some trigger happy fool is going to mistake a rebel T-55 for a goverment T-55 and wack it with an precision muntion) Yoy can guess the tabloid headlines before they are even written!

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Bit more concerned about mission creep like what has happened in the past.

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"There was nothing wrong with Titanic when she left the Shipyard" Tim McGarry Belfast Comedian