And jolly Taliban in Afghanistan...
Can't complain either. Is there some sort of common theme about operation areas and such like. Was surprised that Scotland was still on the list.
MoD rejects Gaddafi low-flying aircraft complaint
In a serious blow to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, the Ministry of Defence has moved to prevent the tyrant whining about low-flying RAF aircraft. We understand that over the weekend the dictator attempted to complain that Brit flyboys were putting a real downer on his day, but this is what happened when he tried to input the …
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Tuesday 22nd March 2011 21:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Low flying not applicable in afghanistan
All RAF aircraft in Afghanistan will be operating at an altitude no lower than 5,000 feet ASL (except for take off and landing), and are therefore not low flying.
We are not responsible if you choose to live in a country at 4,900 feet ASL.
Yours sincerely
MoD Complaints Office
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Monday 21st March 2011 17:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Exactly
The coalition has sufficient technical and numbers superiority to operate a "do not fire until you are fired upon" doctrine there and respond with overwhelming and disproportionate force to every "fired upon" or "locked upon" incident.
The preemptive bombing and bombing of the command bunker was extremely counterproductive because it made it look in the eyes of the Arab world as an "Iraq Redux" and business as usual.
Libya is a tribal society. It was not Kadafi fighting "freedom loving people" it was Kadafi and supporting tribes fighting a couple of opposing tribes with 95% sitting on the fence. After this bombing they will no longer sit on the fence and take Kadafi's side for the sole reason that he is now seen as the one who opposes the external "invasion". And we will be dealing with Afganistan square which may also have some nuclear material (enough for a dirty bomb) stashed somewhere. We already know what happened when Kadafi gave the security services to a particularly crazy tribe for a decade or so (these are handed and taken depending on how the current power balance in that society goes).
Thanks, what a brilliant idea. As far as idiocy goes this beats Bush and Blair any day and that was something was not easy to beat.
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Monday 21st March 2011 18:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Huh?
"The preemptive bombing and bombing of the command bunker was extremely counterproductive because it made it look in the eyes of the Arab world as an "Iraq Redux" and business as usual."
Uhm... did you bother to read on how the Arab League is supporting the NATO/UN forces?
Kind of blows away your entire theme, don't it?
The fact that Gaddafi hasn't made many friends by supporting terrorism over the past couple of decades doesn't help either.
As to taking out his defenses, that's SOP. You don't want to risk any casualties to your own troops, so you take out Gaddafi's offensive capabilities.
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Monday 21st March 2011 18:51 GMT F111F
@ Exactly
Ah the Old West and it's "He drew first" rule. Nice, gentlemanly even, but stupid in war. Lessons from places like Vietnam taught us that the "wait for him to fire first" rule is a good way to die, especially with an SA-5 coming up at around Mach 4... No, if you're going to go in, do so with all guns blazing, hit first, and hit as hard as you can.
Frankly, it didn't matter what was hit, when the Western nations (where is the Arab League?) started military ops, a number of fence-sitters were going to choose sides, one way or the other. Any damage was (and is) being used by pro-Khaddafy supporters as the "Crusader and Colonialist" forces once again taking on Libya.
I do agree this is very probably a tribal war, and IMHO, a civil war we need to stay out of with exceptions for protecting humanitarian relief efforts in refugee areas only. IF the opposition forces can consolidate power, IF they give sufficient assurances of democratic intentions, and IF it looks like they have a fair chance at succeeding, only THEN should democratic nations (Western, Arab, etc) should be willing to step in and support the opposition. But, to say Oddessy Dawn is about protecting civilians as the current press releases do say, is pure horse hockey. OD is about punishing Khaddafy and supporting opposition forces in a civil war. Only, we have no idea who these opposing forces are or what they stand for (besides being opposed to Khaddafy). For all we know, it may be Al-Qaida in Northern Africa fomenting this insurrection (probably not), or they could be an opposing tribe that will be even more repressive (much more probable), and will we step in then to "protect civilians" when they start a genocide against Khaddafy's tribe?
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Monday 21st March 2011 18:51 GMT BRAINPLAN
Exactly... wrong.
The whole point in enforcing a no fly zone in Libya is to prevent more deaths at the command of Gaddafi forces.
They can't do this by dog-tailing his fighters 'just in case' they decide to drop a bomb or fire a missile or two... It has to be a pre-emptive strike on ground-to-air positions and related command centres.
Unfortunately yes, there will be loss of life but so far it appears the operation has been executed with as must precision as possible.
Now most of those targets are defeated the forces should just be moving on to patrolling the airspace.
Personally I'm glad the world stepped in on this one, however, I to hope they don't screw it up.
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Monday 21st March 2011 18:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Page hasn't changed since 2009 actually.
And libya wasn't on it even then:
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090902080511/http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/ContactUs/LowFlyingComplaints.htm
If you look in the source code of the current page, you'll find:
<meta name="DC.date.modified" content="2010-04-27T10:11:00-00:00" />
so even the backend asp.net scripts behind the page haven't been changed recently as far as I can see.
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Monday 21st March 2011 21:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Interesting
That when Israel attacked and killed civilians there was no action by the UN. When the "allied" force invaded Iraq, civilians were "collateral" and the UN did nothing. When Gadafi attacks what he considers terrorists it's a different matter.
I'm not saying Gadafi is right, or good but there do seem to be different standards in operation here.
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Monday 21st March 2011 23:11 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
@Interesting
There are subtle difference that aren't immediately obvious to the untrained eye.
You have to look for the "Made in ..." sticker on the bottom of the jet fighter.
If it starts with the word "United" then it's part of a necessary show of force to defeat terrorists in which there may be inevitable collateral damage. If it starts with "Union of" or "People's Republic of" then it's a tool of a murderous dictator intent on crushing freedom and democracy.
If it says "Made in France" then it's anyone's guess.
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Tuesday 22nd March 2011 10:32 GMT Gulfie
Re: French jet fighters
If it says "Made in France" you can bet it won't be carrying any weapons, be one of the few aircraft built with a reverse gear and definitely won't be flying a non-stop mission to Libya unless the pilot can stop several times for coffee en route.
This whole situation reminds me of a t-shirt I bought at the Mildenhall airshow in the late 1980's. It had a picture of a US jet with the slogan "F-111's fly low and fast - ask any Libyan". I didn't keep it for long, one of the foreign students in my postgrad halls made it disappear while it was in the wash...
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Tuesday 22nd March 2011 04:11 GMT Peter 39
a title is required
it seems to me that there are several reasons for the sequence so far. Obviously, removing surface-to-air capability is crucial, and severing command-and-control links is high up on the list.
Taking out an armoured column clearly removes that as a threat but also says "who's next" to the mercenaries. They're not part of the tribes and peeling them off is essential so that the Libyans can solve their own problem. Given the results of the past day or so, I would expect that many will be heading out very soon.
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Tuesday 22nd March 2011 10:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Face it guys
It's been a while since the last time our Führers dropped bombs on people and they seem to get withdrawal symptoms if they haven't gone out "liberating Poland" for more then about 18 months. This state of affairs is about as likely to change as a Germanic people rising up against a militant government.
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Tuesday 22nd March 2011 14:01 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
@Nothing much wrong with French jets
No there is nothing wrong with Fench jets it's just that it's hard to tell if their users are a stalwart bulkhead against communism (Galtieri, before the Falklands) or a murderous dictator (Galtieri, after the Falklands)
Mind you it used to be even more confusing. The last combat use of the Spitfire was in the Egyption airforce against the ME109 of the Isreali airforce.
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Wednesday 30th March 2011 23:47 GMT James 100
Data representation
Not necessarily that easy ... behind the scenes, the database could well have, say, an integer for each country in the list. If Liberia is 17 and Liechtenstein is 94, what do you plug in for Libya? Putting text will just get you an error, putting any valid integer will just associate with some random country.
It does make me wonder where they get that list from, though, to miss out Libya and Afghanistan ... did someone pinch the registration dropdown from another website a few years ago, when both countries were off-limits to enough trade to stop them appearing on order forms?
The worst I've had recently, though, was some German website offering free subdomains. Lots of countries listed, but not the UK - nor GB, nor Scotland or England. The site was in English, though, and seemed to list every other country I could think of!
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
