Let’s you and him fight!

Can’t see it happening. What business is it of Egypt’s anyway? And what mandate from the people would they have for it? It could be seen as an Argentine Junta type distraction to rally people behind the new rulers. The Mubarak elite’s roots run deep in Egypt and are intwined with the military.

As last night’s Radio 4 programme ‘File on 4′ programme highlighted,

Egypt’s Missing Millions

Fran Abrams reveals how banks and fraud squads around the world are preparing to trace the vast amounts of money reportedly misappropriated from the Egyptian people by members of the Mubarak regime. She explores how ministers, businessmen and members of the former president’s family deposited vast sums in Swiss bank accounts, and bought luxury properties in London, and investigates why partner’s in multinational corporations seemed not to have noticed what was happening.

Egyptian people need to keep their eyes on their own elite if they are to have a hope of unravelling some of the corruption and control of the rulling class.
An invasion of Lybia would be a distraction.

Seems an unlikely way forward- tho stranger things have happened I guess? The choice for many on the left appears to be between either doing nothing because it’s too difficult/ illegal/ start of a slippery slope, and wishful thinking that somebody else will do the right thing.

Given Egypt’s own problems, I can’t see them being in a position to intervene now. It looks increasingly likely the international community will do as it has too often in the past: nothing.

Given the UK and US are tainted by Iraq and France/Italy tainted by colonialism it does suggest that Eqypt and other Arab states should impose the No Fly Zone rather than just effectively asking NATO to do it. If you want to stop outside powers intevening you should be prepared to sort your neighbourhood out (Cameron should call it an Arab Big Society).

Eqypt has its own interests here too. When Bengazi falls there will be lots of refugees fleeing Gaddafi’s retribution. Where will they go? East to Eqypt, that’s where.

So, with Saudi intervening in Bahrain, is it time for Egypt, with our funding, to intervene in Libya?

Er, reality check. Egypt is presently a military dictatorship which undoubtedly has every interest in seeing the anti-Gaddafi rebels crushed and “stability” restored throughout the region. Likewise for the Arab League.

Saudi Arabia sending troops into Bahrain is certainly not a good precedent. It is reminiscent of the Soviet invasions of Hungary or Afghanistan. The Saudis are intervening to prop up a dictatorship to which they are closely allied, and they are doing so against the will of the Bahraini people. We should condemn the Saudi invasion unreservedly. (The fact that the Bahraini government invited the Saudis doesn’t mean it isn’t an invasion. The Soviets used to make exactly the same excuse.)

Incidentally, while there may be some truth in the statement that “whereas Iraq in the mid 90?s had few air defences, Libya is well protected”, please remember that even in Iraq’s case, enforcing the no-fly zone involved bombings of Iraqi targets, sometimes with casualties.

There is a much longer case for this by my brother over at Bright Green:

http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2011/03/libya-time-for-egypt-to-step-up/

@Richard P – yes, sorry, I by no means meant to imply that it is a good thing that Saudi intervened in Bahrain – yes, we should condemn this in the strongest terms. And well reminded about Iraqi civilians and NFZ there.

@Devonchap – yes, Egypt has its own interests. This is a good thing. They have an interest in long term reconstruction – as argued in the piece over at Bright Green…

“Whereas Iraq in the mid 90?s had few air defences, Libya is well protected. A No Fly Zone means a bombing campaign against those positions, if nothing else. We only need to look to Kosovo to see what a bombing campaign with no ground support looks like.”

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-defence-equipment.htm

By the summer of 1990, Iraq possessed 16,000 radar-guided and heatseeking surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), including the Soviet SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-7, SA-8, SA-9, SA-13, SA-14, and SA-16, and the Franco-German Roland. Additional air defense was provided by Air Force interceptors and organic Army assets, including the SA-7/14, SA-8, SA-9/13, SA-16 missile systems, and the ZSU-23/4 self-propelled AAA system. In addition, the Iraqi air defense had more than 7,500 AAA pieces protecting all targets of value, some deployed on the roofs of numerous buildings in Baghdad housing government facilities. These weapons — 57-mm and 37-mm AAA pieces, ZSU-23/4 and ZSU-57/2 self-propelled AAA systems, and hundreds of 14.5-mm and 23-mm light antiaircraft weapons — formed the backbone of the integrated air defense network. In major high value target areas (such as Baghdad, airfields, chemical agent production complexes, and nuclear facilities) the combined arms air defense could prove lethal to aircraft operating below 10,000 feet.

The UN and Kuwait say Iraq did not return extensive Kuwaiti military equipment, including one Hawk battery and 675 Russian-made surface-to-air missile batteries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Air_Force

Lavochkin SA-2 Soviet Union Air defence SAM 88
Isayev SA-3 Soviet Union Air defence SAM 10
SA-6 Soviet Union Air defence SAM 43

The SA-2 is a liquid fueled Missile from the 1960s. It was used to shoot down Gary Powers. America has moved on a bit from then. The SA-6 is not much better. All three systems features prominently in the 1972 Yom Kippur War. By my count that means that Saddam had some one hundred times more missiles than Gaddafi.

By what standard is Libya better protected?

A No Fly Zone means whatever we want it to. If we simply announce one it is unlikely any planes will fly.

Kosovo was mountainous and covered in forests. Easy to hide things. Libya could have been made for Air Forces. It is flat, there is no tree cover, it is all sand. There is not even that much water to muck up your radar. Anything that moves or parks on the surface can be seen. If it can be seen, it can be destroyed.

Egypt won’t intervene. The rebels had their chance. They might have won if we had supported them quickly enough. They won’t win now.

@so much for Subtlety:

1) hmm, you are talking about figures pre-Gulf war, and you are looking at missiles, but not planes (though with rebel forces potentially capturing planes, and things moving very fast, it’s hard to know what the situation is in Libya right now)

2) It may be more desert like, but that didn’t stop us hitting inappropriate targets in Iraq.

3) Maybe Gaddafi’s forces wouldn’t put up a fight. But we shouldn’t be getting involved in military action unless we are willing to assume that they will.

A really interesting and visionary idea. I was thinking along the same lines a while back. Is the idea coming from Egypt at all? The army came out of the revolution pretty good so far. Is anyone saying its feasible? Wouldn’t Gaddafi use what he has to launch an assault on cities in Egypt?

10. Adam Ramsay – “1) hmm, you are talking about figures pre-Gulf war, and you are looking at missiles, but not planes (though with rebel forces potentially capturing planes, and things moving very fast, it’s hard to know what the situation is in Libya right now)”

Yeah. But that would be because the original comment was:

Whereas Iraq in the mid 90?s had few air defences, Libya is well protected.

However if you look at the post-Gulf War figures, Libya is still a non-entity.

Figures are for 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2002.

SAM: + + ~2,300 ~2,000
SA-2: 160 + 150 125
SA-3: 140 + 110 100
SA-6: ~300 + 150 125
SA-9: 13 + 2,000 125
SA-7: 14 + + 1,500

But by all means, let’s look at planes. Although anyone who takes off to challenge the American Air Force is a grease-slick-on-the-ground-waiting-to-happen. Libya has some Mirage F1s. They bought 32 of them but Dassault was recently given a contract to put 12 back into flying condition. But let’s say that they have something like 32 of them. Iraq started the Gulf War with Bush Senior with 84 of them. They finished with 27 of them. So roughly about the same – in fact more to Iraq post-war as Dassault only finished 4 or of the 12 so presumably the most Libya has is 24 of them minus the two that defected.

Libya has 25 MiG-21s although how many fly no one knows. Iraq started the war with 236 of them and finished with 115.

Libya had 110 MiG-23s. They win here because Iraq started with 127 of them of different models, but ended with only 53 of them.

Libya also does well with the Su-22. They have 38 of them. Iraq started the war with 78 of them and finished with just 26.

However Iraq also finished the war with 8 Su-20s, 20 Su-25s, 8 MiG-25s, and 12 MiG-29s.

In other words even if we assume that the Libyan Air Force can fly, the Iraqis finished the war with a stronger air force.

“2) It may be more desert like, but that didn’t stop us hitting inappropriate targets in Iraq.”

It doesn’t matter if we hit inappropriate targets – and we didn’t to any real extent – it only matters if we hit all the appropriate ones. All ordinance is inaccurate to some degree.

“3) Maybe Gaddafi’s forces wouldn’t put up a fight. But we shouldn’t be getting involved in military action unless we are willing to assume that they will.”

I am not sure about that. But it is too late anyway.

Yeah – but my local LibDem council is so hard pressed for finance that it is closing its two care homes for the aged – which certainly isn’t going to help alleviate the problem of bedblocking at the local hospital.

I’m really puzzled as to how it is possible to find the money to fund enforcing a No Fly Zone over Libya when there aren’t the public finances to keep council care homes open – especially with Southern Cross, the largest private sector provider of care homes, headed for administration because it can’t pay its way with the cuts in council funding for places.

Evidently, public finances can be found for getting involved in yet another foreign war when unprecedented “efficiency savings” are being required of the NHS and the Police. Strange that but I expect they’ll also be able to find the public finance for that network of Harold Shipman Centres as the final solution for the problem of our population ageing.

@13 Bob. B

You keep trotting this out, and it honestly doesn’t get any more convincing simply by dint of repetition.

Firstly, the cuts would be happening in much the same form whoever was in power, as none of the parties at the last general election was offering an approach significantly different; there may have been differences in degree, timing and where the axe fell but don’t try to kid yourself it would have been all that different.

If people wanted something radically different, they have to vote for it…. and they just didn’t.

Secondly, nobody sane is advocating launching a war in support of Libyan revolutionaries. Any putative costs of an intervention (which aren’t going to fall solely or even much on the UK, particularly as since the spectacularly mishandled Strategic Defence Review we now lack carried based aircraft capability) have to be set against the costs which may be attendant on NOT intervening.

Some of these costs will be direct in terms of the humanitarian crisis which will no doubt follow a Gaddafi victory, but others will be more indirect. These include the danger of having that crazed nutter back in power gunning for the West and those he sees as against him (like Egypt and Tunisia no doubt), the impact on the prospects for opposition movements in other Arab states, and the fact that we will (once again) have failed to stop a dictator butchering his own people.

Please spare us the false dichotomy that helping stop Gaddafi in Libya = killing old people at home. A civilized, advanced democracy is capable of doing both. Would you have advocated leaving the Falkland Islanders to their fate when the fascist Argentinian junta invaded the islands? Should we not have intervened (however belatedly) in Bosnia or Kossov because it cost too much?

@14: “You keep trotting this out, and it honestly doesn’t get any more convincing simply by dint of repetition.”

I’m still awaiting an answer as to how it’s possible to find the public finances to fund another foreign war when the NHS and Police are being required to find unprecedented “efficienty savings” – cuts by another name – and my local LibDem controlled council is closing its two residential care homes for the aged because of cuts to its funding by central gpvernment. And that’s not all. Compare these news reports:

Universities in England are facing cuts of 12% – before funding changes linked to student fees come in, according to figures from their funding body.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12762556

The percentage of students finishing university was below the OECD average, according to its annual Education at a Glance report, and the UK also lagged behind competitors in public investment in higher education.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/07/education-graduation-oecd-university

“[Brown] said the Iraq war had cost Britain £8bn and the total cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been £18bn, on top of what he repeatedly stressed was an increasing defence budget.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8552593.stm

OTOH, as we have come to know, starting wars is often an especially effective way of distracting attention from failings in government policy and domestic woes.

So you’re too afraid to call for the killing of Libyan civilians by British hands, so you want their blood on Egyptian hands instead? You’re a coward, Ramsay.

“I’m still awaiting an answer as to how it’s possible to find the public finances to fund another foreign war when the NHS and Police are being required to find unprecedented “efficienty savings”

You use the private finance initiative, get investors in the city to fund it in exchange for the profits that will flow from regaining access to Libyan oil.

First, I wish people would stop invoking a “bombing campaign” to discredit a no-fly zone. Simply untrue (in the form that the claim is made here).

See, for example, this: http://www.csbaonline.org/publications/2011/03/selected-options-and-costs-for-a-no-fly-zone-over-libya/ — a NFZ can be imposed without touching Libyan airspace. Moreover, the ability to (1) hide from, and (2) non-violently suppress Libyan radar has come leaps and bounds in the years since Reagan bombed Libya.

Second, the claim about Libyan versus Iraqi air defenses just isn’t correct. It also overlooks non-tangibles, like command and control. Libya’s air defenses are, simply put, rubbish. It’s air force is certainly much, much worse than Iraq’s was in the early 1990s.

Third, and last, Egypt isn’t going to do it. The India 1971 case is one in which rather massive refugee flows and the opportunity to bisect an adversary were both in play.

In any case, events have rather overtaken the NFZ debate. It would now do little in isolation, without other measures to assist the opposition.

S

@16 Roger

What about the blood of the innocent Libyan civilians being killed by Gaddafi? Do the relatively samller number of people who might die as a result of intervention (whether by Egypt, Britain, NATO, the UN…) somehow trump the larger number who have already died, and the even larger number who will doubtless die in Benghazi should Gaddafi’s forces re-take the city?

You’re going to need a rather better argument to use before you accuse anyone of cowardice.

Bob B: Wars are like Cockney weddings and funerals, whether you’ve no money to feed granny and the kids, you’ve got to have a big, showy one.

+++++++++++++

Re Kosovo: this ‘successful’ military intervention resulted directly in a bunch of very nasty gangsters taking power in this dwarf state, the institutionalisation of heavy criminal activity including drug-smuggling and people-smuggling and quite possibly organ-harvesting, and the expulsion of large numbers of non-Albanians from the province. Brilliant.

+++++++++++++

I think that the official talk about no-fly zones, intervention, etc, is just verbiage to cover for the fact that the Western big powers thought that Gadaffi would rapidly roll over like Ben Ali and Mubarak, and they are flummoxed now that the Colonel not only has stood fast, but might actually win. Having had their fingers burnt in other interventions in the Arab/Islamic world, only crazed neo-cons and their ‘Decent Left’ fan club want another war.

Taking it to the UN Security Council is a way of getting out without losing face: Russia and China will veto it, but at least it looks like the USA, Britain and France were trying to do something. Winding it up this way will also allow these powers to stop whipping up rebellious sentiments in an Arab country, as the consequences of this is a little embarrassing as protests erupt in the Gulf and even Saudi Arabia.

The rehabilitation of Gadaffi will then be on the cards. It’s been done before; there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen again: ‘Oceania was at war with Eastasia; Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.’

Wow, so many people sytematically wrong on this thread

AS SMFS has pointed out, (thanks for the Dassault service info) Libyan air defences are weak. In any case we operated Operation Northern Warch over Iraqi Kurdistan without losing a single plane, only taking out those SAM sites that had the temerity to actually shoot at us.

Western journalists in Libya have been pretty useless, feeding us the disinformation pumped out by Gadafi’s state TV. For instance there are huge anti-Gadafi demos IN TRIPOLI, RIGHT NOW! None of the journos are covering it, because they’re too chicken. Similarly, they were saying that Adjebiya had fallen 2 days ago, Also wrong, despite the massive bombardment as heavy death toll the city has suffered.

The rebels have NOT lost. They’re the great majority of the Libyan people. They’ve held their positions agains tough odds. And now, we’re going to help them, not just with a NFZ but with the targetted air strikes France has been callinng for right from the start.

@15 Bob. B

I happen to agree that the money spent on Iraq should never have been spent, but that doesn’t really help us now does it?

It is simplistic to say that because we are having to make cuts due to a global economic crisis, we therefore cannot afford to do anything else. Where would it stop?

If we want properly funded public services we have to pay for them, and there are various ways of doing it. In the example of your local authority, once they know their budget, they need to figure out what things to cut, and what things to protect. By all means, make the argument that taxes ought to be higher, or that the cuts should be in other areas…… but don’t try and come out with the cop out that because you are upset with your local council spending, we should stand by and watch Libyan civilians slaughtered.

22. Galen10 – “If we want properly funded public services we have to pay for them, and there are various ways of doing it.”

Actually that has long ceased to be the real problem. It is not that we don’t have the money for these programmes. We do. The problem is that the government is unable to get value for money. You can see this best with defence procurement. We are forced to buy grossly over priced things we often don’t need because we need to support what defence industry we have left or be good Europeans or some such nonsense. We cannot manage projects properly. We cannot control costs. We cannot sack the incompetent or lazy. So we spend more and more money with less and less result.

We have enough money to pay for anything anyone could want. And the war in Libya. If only we had the discipline to make every penny count.

@23 SMFS

Although you are correct that defence procurement is often pretty shambolic, the real problems are to do with high politics, and how successive governments have mishandled strategic decisions. Thus the reasons we don’t get value for money on given weapons systems or programmes is not so much a lack of project management experience, it’s down to areas of high politics.

Deciding to build your own complex systems doesn’t come cheap of course, but if you decide not to you are then totally reliant on the supplier (usually the USA), and are basically exporting jobs. The problem (particularly in Europe) is that the governments could never get their acts together to co-operate more effectively, standardise and reduce costs.

I agree that we have the resources to to both things, the issue is that successive governments of both parties have signally failed to make the hard decisions required. Situation normal then……..