{^_^}

Best of all, it’s true.

Does NATO now stand for New Alliance of Tanning Organizations.

The NATO forces have done quite well in A’stan, particularly the Canucks and surprisingly the Danes and Dutch.This cannot be about ability to move against Qadaffy.It must be about the intent and willingness to move.

xkaydet65 on April 19, 2011 at 8:10 PM

They do quite well under the huge logistical and support arm of the US. None of those countries could conduct those operations without it. I’m not bagging on the troops. The point is most of our allies have no projection capability unless we get involved. That is a big deal. They are struggling with a country right across the pond from them.

coordinates 31°41’44.48″N 12°19’54.25″E.

Could be! There’s a lot of em, all about the same size.

In fact it kinds sorta looks like what ya see at
33deg 21′ 57.72”N
117deg 16′ 55.96”W

only not as green.

Islamic principles for someone to come and stop the killing.

That’s rich. They don’t want foreign trooops on Arab lands, now they do. Mohammed, which one is it?

And then next Obama will blame Israel for the unrest in Syria…
albill on April 19, 2011 at 5:20 PM

Only because blaming Palin, Bush or Global Warming would sound stupid.

Not so for the EU. Exit question: What’s their next move?

…..Time for another “speech” from Obama.

“We rushed into this without a plan,” a retired Army general told the LA Times. “Now we’re out in the middle, going in circles.”

Rushed? I thought there was mucho gnashing of teeth over Obama’s dithering and delaying on whether to do anything.

I just don’t see any suggestion that the pseudo-intellectuals of the Obama administration can formulate effective policies. Their leftist templates don’t fit, their silly models bear no relationship to reality and offer them no useful guidance. They are lost in the woods, clueless, and making decisions on an ad hoc basis with predictable results.

Previous debriefings: Archive

My Day 30 debrief,

with some simple statistics about the number of air strikes conducted by NATO in Libya, opened a debate with the readers of this blog and Twitter followers. Someone asked me to compare the Allied Force strike sorties breakdown with the Unified Protector trends, just to have an idea of how the alliance is performing in respect to the previous involvement in Serbia and Kosovo war. The only possible answer is “better not trying to compare” since you’ll get a clear idea of a different strategy and an overall clear vision of the aims of the air campagn and the ways to achieve them.

In 78 days of air strikes, NATO flew 38.004 sorties (of 45.935 planned ones….in that area, in that period – March – June, the weather was a factor), 14.112 of them strike sorties. On average 487 sorties were launched each day, 180 being strike sorties, even if during the beginning phases of the war and towards the end, when the air strikes against the Serbian ground forces became more intense, the alliance flew more than 700 sorties every day with roughly one third being bombing missions. Some 20.000 PGMs were used along with some dumb bombs. Regardless the figures (for sure the Serbian military was a dangerous opponent), the operation in former Jugoslavia was focused on a quick achievement of the air superiority and a subsequent instense use of the air power against the ground targets.
(more….)
==============================

Anyway, the “air strikes debate” urged me to extend the yesterday’s graphs including also the data I could recollect from the first US DoD press briefings on Odyssey Dawn, during which some figures about sorties and air strikes were released by Pentagon.
———————————-

Air Operation Sortie Count
***************************

http://cencio4.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/trends-3.jpg

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

2) Giuliano Ranieri, after checking on Google Earth the location of a NATO air strike asked me what are the shelters almost hidden in the desert around coordinates 31°41’44.48″N 12°19’54.25″E. I wonder if they could be related to the underground storage facilities I wrote about yesterday and, while I hope that some of those OSINT experts reading this blog will be able to explain me what’s stored inside those shelters, I suggest you reading another old article that Richard Clements found and brought once again to my attention: Libya’s “Secret tunnels of death”.
—————————–

http://cencio4.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/shelters-1.jpg

http://cencio4.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/shelters-2.jpg

http://cencio4.wordpress.com/

lulz.

We rushed into this without a plan,” a retired Army general told the LA Times. “Now we’re out in the middle, going in circles.”

That pretty much describes the entire Obama presidency.

amerpundit on April 19, 2011 at 5:29 PM

That pretty much describes my latest bowel movement when I discovered that we were out of toliet paper.

If there are “civilians” hanging around artillery and mortars, they’re going to get hurt.

Tough shi’ite.

It’s a war not a quilting bee.

These ROE’s are simply suicidal.

Did I miss anything?

karl9000 on April 19, 2011 at 5:32 PM
Yes. Obama’s plan to grant asylum and citizenship to 2 million Libyans by November, 2012.

Heckle on April 19, 2011 at 5:35 PM

Will they come with their own absentee ballots?

Send Samantha Power and Susan Rice to convince the supplicant “Arab world” to send in their own soldiers.

If “the whole Arab world” won’t respond, then Sam and Susie need to put on some high heeled sneakers (no boots) and deploy.

As the authors and pushers of R2P, they need to go to Libya and responsibly protect those rebels.