Tuesday - March 22, 2011

newspaper here writes like the raf is flying against the luftwaffe,, and other bombasts

Ok, I agree the world would be better minus Gaddafi.
But I’m having a bit of a problem with the reportage and over hyped rah-rah school boy stuff in, of all papers, The Telegraph. I expect it of other but gosh and golly.

There’s a huge photo on the front page of the paper showing a Typhoon Eurofighter.
It’s a great photo close up as it takes to the air like a large bird of prey.  It has all sorts of stuff hanging below, rockets and fuel tanks and the latest war game toys and as it leaves the ground there’s a billowing cloud of grey black exhaust spewing out it’s backside as it flies off into the wild blue yonder to do battle with, Who?  Certainly not the Luftwaffe.

The paper informs us that:

Capable of flying at twice the speed of sound at 65,000ft, the Typhoon is designed as a specialist in mid-air “dogfights”.
Equipped with long-range and short-range missiles for use in air-to-air combat, its role will not be to bomb targets on the ground.

And the headline tells us that this “plane is used in combat for the first time.”

Mozzle Tov! So, where’s the combat?  I mean come on people. They aren’t up against anyone with any kind of air power, what planes they do have are out of date, there hasn’t been and is unlikely to be any engagement so …. why the bombast as tho the coalition of the confused, as some are calling it, act as though they are up against a first rate power?
It’s damned embarrassing.

We are further informed that the jets took off from a field in Italy. Right. Must mention this.

There’s seems to be a bit of confusion over just how the UN mission is being understood by some.  Italy threatened to close it’s airspace if the thrust is to target Gaddafi, which it doesn’t believe the mandate calls for. Then once Italian fur was smoothed and combed, two members of the Arab League which is less of a league then the word implies, were critical of the attack on Gadaffi’s compound AND, the UAE is not sending planes or war making means. Their role will be “confined to humanitarian assistance.”

Yeah, those folks are right behind us okay.

In an editorial comment the Telegraph says that RAF pilots are in “harm’s way over the skies of Libya.” Oh?  So, who’s shooting at them?  So far the only plane down we’re informed of is a US plane, and it had a mechanical malfunction we are told.
Pilots are safe, thankfully.

In another headline we are told:

Libya: Targeting Gaddafi ‘risks alienating Arab nations’
Military attacks targeting Colonel Gaddafi risk alienating Arab nations and splitting the international coalition on Libya, ministers have been warned.

TARGETING GADDAFI

A former Brit Ambassador to the United States, writing in the Daily Mail advises, “we must leave the Arabs to sort out Libya.” I’ll drink to that but doubt very much they would try.  They could. They have a larger and better trained air force. Their planes are up to date for the most part and more then a match for anything Gaddafi’s force could put in the air. The Saudis have 349 combat aircraft.

Britain could soon be dangerously exposed. We must leave the Arabs to sort out Libya
By CHRISTOPHER MEYER

Only four days into the UN coalition’s attack on Gaddafi’s murderous armed forces — and already it appears to be standing on the cusp of either success or disaster. It calls for the most rigorous clarity in defining Britain’s role and objectives.
Without this, our country will find itself dangerously exposed at a time when we simply cannot afford an open-ended military commitment. But it is not obvious that all our ministers understand this.
There are two dangers that especially affect us. The first is what is known in the trade as mission-creep — that we get sucked into doing things militarily that were not originally intended.
The second is that we find ourselves, with the French, holding the Libyan baby, while the U.S. under Obama slips into the background.
Let us be absolutely clear: the UN coalition’s operations are governed by UN Security Council Resolution 1973. This authorises a no-fly zone and ‘all necessary measures’ to protect the civilian population of Benghazi and other Libyan towns.
It does not authorise regime-change or the targeting of Gaddafi himself, as Chief of the Defence Staff Sir David Richards pointed out last night. Yet on Sunday the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, appeared to suggest that Gaddafi was a legitimate target, while yesterday the Foreign Secretary was notably woolly on the subject.
It is by and large not a good idea to get involved in other people’s civil wars,

So there’s no coming together on the issue among the folks in govt.? I think I’m asking if the left hand knows what the right is doing. You might want to read all he has to say at the link HERE

And amid all this our old and new adversary Mr. Putin says …

UN decision was like a medieval call to crusade

RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said a United Nations resolution authorizing military action in Libya resembled “medieval calls for crusades” after Western forces launched a second wave of airstrikes.

PUTIN

Posted by peiper     on 03/22/2011 at 02:15 PM   
Filed Under: • War-Stories •  
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