NATO Jets Hit Targets in Libyan Capital Tripoli Overnight

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

NATO jets struck military targets overnight in the Libyan capital Tripoli, including what the alliance identified as “command-and-control” bunkers from which Muammar Qaddafi is carrying out a campaign against rebels.

Amid reports that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization hit at least four sites in Tripoli, the alliance repeated it wasn’t trying to kill the Libyan dictator. The raid over the Libyan capital was one of the heaviest in NATO’s seven-week air campaign, the Associated Press reported.

“NATO is not targeting individuals -- it is not in our mandate,” the mission’s chief operations officer, Brigadier Claudio Gabellini, told reporters from Naples, Italy. He said the alliance was unable to verify Libyan reports that one of the targets was a children’s center, though saw no such evidence.

The alliance’s stepped-up campaign comes after reports of advances by opposition fighters struggling to topple Qaddafi’s 42-year regime. Rebels advanced to the west of the port city of Misrata in western Libya and engaged with loyalist troops near the oil town of Brega in the east, AP said.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-10/nato-jets-hit-targets-in-libyan-capital-tripoli-overnight.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. It's time for Gaddafi to go and allow the Libyan People the right of self-determination.

Thanks for the thread, Purveyor.

[Xithras]

2. Gaddafi offered. Nato said no.

This war has nothing to do with "freedom". Libya offered last month to enact a transitional government immediately (to replace Gaddafi) and permit the UN to supervise elections to determine the fate of the country. That offer was negotiated by the African Union, and by all accounts was serious. It was rejected for three simple reasons:

1. Because Gaddafi's only request was that he not be arrested, and that he be allowed to retire. Hillary Clinton immediately slammed that requirement as "unacceptable". Apparently Gadaffi's head is more important to her than the hundreds of innocent Libyans who are dying in this war every week. It's not about peace or democracy, it's about vengeance.
   


2. It was negotiated by the African Union. Western powers don't like the African Union anyway, because an Afro-centric international alliance presents a very real threat to their neocolonialist plans for Africa. You can't push them around if they band together.
   
   If that weren't reason enough, it would look pretty bad if the AU negotiated a peaceful end to the civil war, after the UN and NATO insisted that their "burn the village to save it" mentality was the only way to "save" those civilians. Being proved wrong by a bunch of Africans would be a huge embarassment.
   


3. Because we don't WANT the Libyan people to decide their government. We want the unelected "National Transitional Council" to run the country. You know, the one that recently appointed the U.S. educated Jibril as Prime Minister...the same Jibril who has spent the last 25 years working as an internationalist businessman, and the last five years working towards privatizing Libyan state owned resources. The same council that appointed al-Isawi as their Foreign Affairs minister...al-Isawi was the Minister of Economic Expansion in the old Libyan government and is a leading proponent of privatization, and actually ran a privatization program under Gadaffi. The same council that appointed an American educated business grad as its Minister of Finance (our MBA's aren't hurting our own country enough, so we need to export them elsewhere now).
   
   With all the damage we're doing, Libya will be FORCED to take out IMF loans (they're the only country in Africa not under their thumb), so it's essential that we emplace a government that is willing to sell off its state owned assets to finance their newly acquired debt. Free elections? Not when there's money to be made!

This war has nothing do with freedom and self-determination. It's all about money and power.

[defendandprotect]

3. Since when does a dictator make the "offer" ... ?

[Uncle Joe]

4. I believe at this point it's all about the money, how many billions has Gaddafi

stashed outside of Libya and would his proposal of immunity from prosecution allow him to retain those il-begotten funds?

[LanternWaste]

7. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

"Apparently Gadaffi's head is more important to her than the hundreds of innocent Libyans who are dying in this war every week..."

equals

"Apparently Gadaffi's head is more important to Gadaffi than the hundreds of innocent Libyans who are dying in this war every week..."

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

[Arctic Dave]

5. Self determination? I hope this is a joke?

How does this have anything at all to self determination. Self determination isn't won by having other countries bomb the government while the "people" sit back and make trade deals with the countries oil supplies.

Major fail.

[Uncle Joe]

6. The people protested and forty year ruling dictator Qaddafi fired on them.

The Libyan People have the inherent right to choose their own government whether you wish to believe it or not.

What Nato or the U.S. has done in bombing Gaddafi's forces are no different than what France did in coming to our aid during the Revolutionary War.