NATO ending 7-month mission in Libya

BRUSSELS - NATO will end Monday the seven-month bombing campaign that enabled Libyan rebels to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi's regime.

NATO operations will end at midnight Monday Libyan time (2200 GMT, 6 p.m. EDT), just days after the U.N. Security Council — which authorized the mission in March — ordered an end to all military action.

Allied air forces carried out 9,600 strike sorties in the past seven months, destroying about 5,900 military targets.

The alliance concluded its airstrikes soon after Qaddafi's capture and death on Oct. 20, but maintained regular air patrols over Libya.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has arrived in Tripoli for talks with Libya's interim government, the National Transitional Council. This is Rasmussen's first visit to Libya since the anti-Qaddafi rebellion started in February.

ICC confirms indirect talks with Saif Qaddafi
NATO announces end of Libya mission

Spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie said NATO staff temporarily seconded to the headquarters in Naples, Italy, for the operation are being reassigned to regular duties.

The mission has been hailed as a success by NATO's military and political leaders, who have argued that the bombing raids caused minimal loss of innocent lives while paralyzing Qaddafi's command and control networks and preventing his forces from carrying out reprisals against civilians.

NATO persevered during a months-long period of stalemate on the battlefields, when it appeared that Libya could become an Afghanistan-like quagmire.

"We have fully complied with the historic mandate of the United Nations," Rasmussen said Friday. "(The operation) is one of the most successful in NATO history."

But the campaign caused deep strains within the alliance, with only eight of the 28 member states agreeing to participate in the bombing. Although allied aircraft enjoyed total air supremacy after Qaddafi's weak air defenses were incapacitated early on, it took more than seven months of daily airstrikes to finally defeat his demoralized forces.

Critics — including Russia, China, the African Union, and other governments — have argued that NATO misused the limited U.N. resolution imposing a no-fly zone and authorizing the protection of civilians as a pretext to promote regime change.

[satchandra]

OCTOBER 20, 2011 GADDAFI'S CRIME: FAILURE TO USE HIS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AGAINST WASHINGTON & NEW YORK BEFORE THE U. S. OR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES DID ANY THING AGAINST LIBYA//

The crimes of successive U. S. presidents are millions of times greater than any crimes Gaddafi may have committed. His only crime was failure to use his weapons of mass destruction against Washington & New York, with a warning that additional U. S. and European cities such as London & Paris will be destroyed if there is any retaliation, BEFORE the U. S. or other western countries did any thing against Libya.//

October 22, 2011: I hope Pakistan realizes that it is not enough to say that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state and the United States will have to think ten times before attacking Pakistan; through the drone attacks and in numerous other ways the United States is already attacking Pakistan; if Pakistan waits for the United States to escalate its attacks, it will be a grievous mistake; the key to victory over the United States is in destroying Washington and New York WITHOUT WAITING, with the warning that additional U. S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation. //

The following are posts I made on September 26 '11 on the Pakistan Defence Forum:-//

Re: how to defend against a possible US invasion of Pakistan ?//

------------START OF POST------------------//
Pakistan can do what India has done; see [my] thread titled 'How India Will Win a Nuclear War With the United States Starting Now' in the India Defence forum. Briefly, India has said that its nuclear warheads have been emplaced -- by its special forces -- in various cities/countries including Washington and New York. The nuclear destruction of these two cities, with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation, is the first step in the implementation of India's National Security Doctrine. The only way the United States will be able to keep several additional cities from being destroyed is by doing nothing in return. Five years later India can finish the job with its coast-to-coast destruction. India's victory in this depends on destroying Washington and New York, with its nuclear warheads already emplaced in these cities, BEFORE the United States does any thing, with a warning that additional U. S. cities will be destroyed, with nuclear warheads already emplaced in them, if there is any retaliation. Note that only one nuclear warhead of about twenty kiloton per city is needed to do the job.// ...

The point is that India's nuclear forces obey Satish Chandra; he does not need India's conventional forces or the rest of the government or citizenry to defend India. India's prime minister Manmohan Singh, an American boot-licker until now, avoided meeting the American president Obama while in New York to attend the U. N. General Assembly session last week and met Iran's president instead -- because of the fear of Satish Chandra. The point so far as this thread is concerned is that Pakistan does not need its conventional forces -- which in fact will be worthless against the United States -- to defend against the United States; it needs only its nuclear warheads -- it does not even need missiles -- emplaced by its special forces in Washington, New York and other U. S. cities, used in the manner I have prescribed in my earlier posts in this thread, for victory over the United States.//
-----------------END OF POST----------------------//

I am India's expert in stategic defence, the father of India's strategic program including the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program, the world's greatest scientist (my biography can be found in Marquis' Who's Who in the World, 2011 and earlier editions) and India's legitimate ruler.//
For more, see GaddafiCrimeDOTblogspotDOTcom or my blog titled 'Nuclear Supremacy For India Over U. S.' which can be found by a Google/Yahoo search with the title. //

Satish Chandra

[RetiredArmy_Nurse]

It appears the President called it right on this one and we must give him credit (he would certainly be blamed had the mission failed). This Prez has had a string of successes. He ended the Iraq War, took out Osama Bin Ladin, gave us the Affordable Health Care Act, gave working America their biggest tax break in decades with the Making Work Pay credit & Payroll tax cut, staved off a worldwide recession with the Stimulus Package. He says he is only 60% done. He's done more for us than the past 4 presidents combined.

[mecanik-2009]

Another success story. Thank you NATO! On to a better world for all.

[AlFranken]

Let me get this right -- we were repeatedly told that the Iraqi war was not about oil but about WMD which were never found.

But they come right and tell us that it was dangerous for someone like Qaddafi to be in charge of an oil rich nation that is pivotal to the European economy.

And it only took 7 months.

We as Americans are chumps.

[hagar39]

NATO leaving? Their words. OK, let blood baths begin.
Along with the USA they screwed up another nation.

[jjoe57]

Critics argue "that NATO misused the limited U.N. resolution imposing a no-fly zone and authorizing the protection of civilians as a pretext to promote regime change." Actually these critics are correct. But it is hard to blame NATO in the aftermath of a highly successful outcome. Perhaps the lesson the United Nations must learn is that it lacks a clear and coherent standard for confronting and deposing oppressive regimes such as in Libya and Syria. Should the U.N. authorize military force to assist armed civilians who are attempting to overthrow a dictator? This is a thorny issue principally because international interveners must weigh the citizenry's right of self-determination against a national government's claim of sovereignty. And this world is probably not yet ready for an international police force.

[sepa2]

And how the involvement of foreign forces (Qatar has already admitted it and many other countries may have sent troops)and total destruction of a civil society Including destruction of an entire city)make this a popular revolt It was dark-ages type invasion for looting