Good intellegence wins wars, but rarely in the past have we had any exposure to it, except long after the fact. Here is a good article about the the roots of the downfall of Gaddafi.

http://www.newsdaily.com/...e7853c5-us-libya-endgame/

should make a good Movie

as long as the movies not filmed in oregon, should be fine

This was definately, within the purview of what western nations did, primarily an intelligence and air war. Perhaps more importantly, western nations have largely been able to stay out of ground operations. We didn't win this war, we merely disabled the Gaddafi regime and enabled the rebels. Yeah, fascinating insight into the intelligence element of the war.

I'm not against western nations (the US) taking the lead in invading and toppling various regimes (assuming they are justified), but the results are better and the aftermath easier when the people within those regimes take command of their own destinies and do most of the fighting. Make no mistake about it, Libya is in for some rocky times ahead; rebellions are not usually fought for short term improvements, they are usually fought for improvements over the long term.

In my experience armed rebellions, especially in this region, are generally just the opposite - short term plans which result in a whole bunch of unqualified people taking control of a non-functional government that they have no idea how to repair. They usually go something like along these lines...

Step 1 - Suffer under ruthless dictator/tyrant/Monarch/etc, and rebel violently against them, replacing their entire government with (an)other ruthless dictators/tyrants/Monarch/etc.

Step 2 - ?????

Step 3 - People dancing and singing on streets of gold, celebrating their abundant happiness and peace.



Great article.

I feel that when we speak about what is happening with Libya, its hard to ingore all of the events that has been happening in the middle-east.

another bombing campaign by NATO in order to save civilians...
i still have not figured out how bombs save lives...
if they really wanted to save the 10-20K civilans that just died they should have just shot like 100 rebels....

It's not so easy. The concept of a modern nation state/republic is not really in the general population's consciousness like it is in parts of Asia, Europe, and North America. In this case, we have a combination of feudalism and tribalism and a long history under that system (in the name of "military dictatorship" or something else). Feudalism can be extremely effective but it also has its limitations. These factors are not necessarily negative but do partly explain why things are the way they are. Trying to externally usurp the natural order of things is spurious at best. Change has to come from within first. Very few countries have undergone massive systemic change which depended almost exclusively on external help (other than being conquered).

China, Russia, Japan, India, US, France, parts of South America all come to mind.
In essence you have to prove that you have the ability to be at least partly successful on your own and be driven to a common purpose first before external help/aid is meaningful..
Unfortunately I'm not sure that is the case in Libya. We will see..

http://rabble.ca/...s-oil-and-imperial-gain-0

An alternative view.