Really? I thought the uprising started in Tripoli. Or are you suggesting that the same six-year old with the assault rifle and his dad who appear in all the government's propaganda videos make up the entire city's population? Well maybe after Gaddafi got to work killing and imprisoning everyone involved in the protests I guess Tripoli's total population might be reduced to a couple of dozen.
You have any sort of support for that rant, or is this another 'WMD smoking gun' argument?
So you are going to actually, seriously, honestly tell me that if and when the rebels take Tripoli, there won't be a lot of 'street justice' meted out to anyone who someone has accused of being a Qaddaffi supporter?
Guess you were too busy trying to collect examples of Qaddaffi's feeble propaganda ploys to notice the horrific stories of what happens to people in rebel held Libya if they had the misfortune of looking black, or have you notice the many documented instances were rebels were displaying their kills, who looked suspiciously like they had been summarily executed.
If you had seen such evidence and still think the rebels taking Tripoli does not hold the potential for a blood bath, then you are either fooling yourself or behaving exactly like the Qaddaffi propaganda squad that tries to pass off car crash babies as NATO air strike victims.
Do not make the presumption that everyone who does not sing the praises of this war are somehow Qaddaffi supporters.
I tell you what, the residents of Tripoli have a better chance of survival if the rebels win than if Gaddafi had rolled into Benghazi.
Care to explain how Qaddaffi taking Benghazi would result in a massacre in Tripoli? Maybe you want to CC your answer to NATO since their spin doctors seemed to have missed a trick as they were only suggesting there might have been a massacre at Benghazi if Qaddaffi took Benghazi.
Partly because many of them don't like Gaddafi, partly because many others just want to be left alone and partly because the rebels aren't led by a madman who thinks he's entitled to shit all over his people.
I have some news for you, a poorly controlled rampaging mob who thinks their cause is ordained by a higher power tend to hold the most terrible wrath and contempt towards those they perceive as not a believer in the divinity of their cause, or worse yet, those who dare to oppose it.
There is precious little difference between that and soldiers ordered by a madman to 'shit all over his people' if you are on the receiving end.
And if you're not happy with that, why don't you share your thoughts on how you would have dealt with Gaddafi's imminent arrival at the rebels' stronghold. I mean how you would have dealt with it, not how you would have clucked your tongue and said how awful it all was. Or maybe because the people of Benghazi dared rebel against Gaddafi they deserved what was coming to them?
If you bothered to read what I wrote instead of huffing into your rant, you would realize I have already set out exactly how I would have run this war if I was in charge of NATO forces.
I would have sent in a modest expeditionary ground force with a much bigger logistics complement deployed behind them. And I would have sent them in before I started the bombing so they would be in position to seize the initiative when air power slams Qaddaffi's defenseless ground forces and hound them all the way back to Tripoli without giving them a chance to settle and re-organize.
The NATO ground forces are just there to act as a line breaker, to punch through any defensive lines pro-Qaddaffi forces can throw up in time. The afore mentioned logistics core would truck in rebel fighters to mop up and secure areas after the main push has passed. This would also help to reduce the risks to NATO ground forces as they won't be sucked into dangerous and time-consuming street fighting, and can leave that to the rebels.
What more, with NATO ground forces present, pro-Qaddaffi forces might be more inclined to actually surrender as they would not have to worry about possible mistreatment or harm happening to them if they surrendered to NATO forces or even if there were NATO forces present to witness their surrender.
I would have also not bothered with all the ICC nonsense and left Qaddaffi a viable exit route out of the country. If the push reached Tripoli and Qaddaffi took the last flight out of the country, the city would likely be spared a devastating seize and assault.
Some people might not like it, but I say the thousands of lives saved is infinitely more important then their distaste, and they can lump it.
If Qaddaffi does choose to stay, then the blood of those who would die are on his hands alone, as he had a choice. Now we will never know if he might have chickened out at the last minute.
But if it really came down to it, NATO ground forces would make taking Tripoli a lot quicker, which would save the non-combatant civilian population no small amount of hardship, but more importantly, a NATO ground presence from the start will also help to discourage abuses from happening, or at the very least curb the worst of any excesses by rebel fighters, and can act as a makeshift peacekeeping force to maintain law and order (if any lessons were learned from Iraq) and also to allow the deployment of the logistical support in providing essential supplies and services for the civilian population.
I hold no love for Qaddaffi, but I am not blinded by propaganda or some dreamy eyed fantasies about how the rebels are saints beyond mortal emotions or motivations.
Had the war ended quickly and easily for the rebels, they might have been magnanimous in victory and entered Tripoli feeling and acting like they were liberators instead of conquerors.
The longer this war drags on and the more the rebels are made to pay in blood and sweat and tears for their victory, the greater the likelihood that their mood will turn bitter as frustration sours into anger and a desire for revenge. With little in the way of a centralised leadership system, it would be a miracle if things the ICC would happliy describe as war crimes, or even crimes against humanity had they been committed by pro-Qaddaffi forces do not occur.
Even NATO seemed to be waking up to this reality with the recent talk of a need to send in ground forces at last.
It is just an enormous pity that petty domestic political concerns and stupidly optimistic projections have squandered a golden opportunity to end this war quickly and decisively.
And one of the chief reasons why that happened is the self induced myopia you have been displaying, and the frankly childish lashing out at anyone who dares to doubt.
