Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

[Tankus]

gun to your head perhaps ? ..Ive heard that sometimes happens ...but at least they will be safe in the knowledge that you say it cannot happen ! lol

 

[butchersapron]

To press the other big button that blows up all the oil wells.

Thanks for you posts btw.

 

[Streathamite]

whoever gaddafi allowed in

NO.Very Big, Powerful Oil Companies who put lotsa nasty mercenaries on guard there

 

[Streathamite]

Originally Posted by likesfish



mad dog would allow foreign military , under foreign control with combat weapons on his soil around his source of wealth ?

Yes,he would

 

[dylans]

Who the fuck do you think run the wells?

I can tell you exactly who runs the wells. There are essentially two oil basins in Libya, one in the west with an export hub near Tripoli and one in the East with facilities in a few cities including Bengazi. This is siginificant because if the country did descend into civil war or if Gadaffi somehow manages to hang on to Tripoli and the West we could see two power bases, the embryos of which we can see now. One around Gadaffi in Tripoli and the other around the opposition in Bengazi, both with the economic capacity to sustain themselves. There is a 600 kilometre space of empty desert between the two.
But
Libya has a small population and though not uneducated it doesn't have the population to provide enough highly skilled engineers and technicians etc to run the industry alone. At present this shortfall is provided by foreign employees and run by Italian energy company ENI

Those staffs are essential. At 6.5 million people, Libya’s tiny population simply cannot generate the mass of technocrats and engineers required to run a reasonably sized energy sector. As such foreign firms do most of the investing and all of the heavy lifting. The Libyans are hardly incompetent, but even if their skill sets and labor force simply were deep enough (and they are not), the political instability is keeping many workers at home. Within the past 24 hours we have seen the first reductions in output — about 100,000 bpd is now off-line — and more are sure to follow.

This will be the biggest problem for Italian energy major ENI. ENI’s relationship with Libya reflects Rome’s, which has had influence in what is currently Libya literally since the time of the Roman Empire. ENI has had boots on the ground in the North African state since the dawn of its energy industry in 1959 and has never scaled back its operations. Even in the dark days of Libya’s ostracism from the West in the 1980s, when American firms left due to Gadhafi’s backing of various militant factions and U.N. and U.S. sanctions were levied after Libyan agents downed Pam Am Flight 103 in 1988, killing 270 people, ENI drilled on. As such, ENI produces some 250,000 bpd in Libya, which accounts for 15 percent of the Italian firm’s global output. It is also the major power behind the country’s moderate piped natural gas exports.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes,he would

It's the source of his power in fact.

 

[Streathamite]

exactly.

 

[Tankus]

so he would just quietly hand it over to his successor ? when it becomes obvious to him that his position was untenable ?

 

[elbows]

Deary me.

Self-destruct buttons do not exist in many places outside the world of movies. One reason for this is that it would be too easy for a non-authorised person to press the button.

Having said that, I dont think there are many things I would utterly rule out at this stage. If Gaddafi still has control of aircraft, then in theory they could bomb certain installations.

However, he is not likely to try this option unless he is really sure that it is game over, as oil revenue is one of his main sources of funds/power.

edit - sorry some people made some of the same points as me, there was a delay to my post because my next door neighbour just came round to say his house has been broken into

 

[Tankus]

why is every one obsessed with buttons ?

 

[lopsidedbunny]

Can I press a button? seriously thou' I put my head on the block Col G' is in Libya...

 

[elbows]

why is every one obsessed with buttons ?

Because you said 'but dont you think a paranoid fuck like himself would already have demo charges wired in place'

 

[Tankus]

yeah ..blow the well heads ...maybe even using ray guns or WHATEVER ...then charge the protesters riding on a white stallion with full media coverage

thats how I would do it ... if I was in his head


what about the St Helena option by the other arab "states" ...... ?

 

[goldenecitrone]

why is every one obsessed with buttons ?

Aren't you the one claiming he wants to turn all the oil wells into a cinder hell, huh?

 

[Lock&Light]

Having said that, I dont think there are many things I would utterly rule out at this stage. If Gaddafi still has control of aircraft, then in theory they could bomb certain installations.

However, he is not likely to try this option unless he is really sure that it is game over, as oil revenue is one of his main sources of funds/power.

He could well try to bomb those oil-well installations in the East, to prevent the people there from benefiting from them.

 

[Tankus]

Aren't you the one claiming he wants to turn all the oil wells into a cinder hell, huh?

sabotage them ...yes ...one of his last actions ...where there is no other place to go ...It is a supposition ...Im not stating it as a fact

He could well try to bomb those oil-well installations in the East, to prevent the people there from benefiting from them.

sounds like a strategy

 

[teqniq]

The guy is clearly barking.

 

[dylans]

To get back to reality for a moment. BBC reporter who tried to get across the border said he was turned back by armed militias who are in a panicked state fearing that Gadaffi is about to launch something really bad against them. Given what he has done so far, I dread to think how he could do worse tbh

 

[Tankus]

give him a back door with a bit of face saving involved .....might save a more than a few lives ( unfortunately his as well, but not the Spandau option)

 

[peterkro]

The guy is clearly barking.

Dagenham Heathway i.e three stops past Barking.

 

[likesfish]

barking and prepared to use violence .
somebody had a guard job in Libya middle of nowhere platoon of Libyan troops driving up and down pipelines deterring bedu for fucking with the pipelines or stealing stuff from pumping stations going slowly mad from boredom.

 

[Tankus]

maybe the USA should say to chavez that there will be no repercussions if Mad dog was offered a place in the jungle ....

..with druggies for neighbourly love ...might open up a new world for him

 

[Giles]

The mad colonel really has lost it completely now. What's with the bizarre scenes of Gaddafi speaking from under an umbrella the other day, and then after finishing today's rant climbing into a golf buggy and being driven away? Why a golf buggy?

Giles..

 

[weltweit]

It does not seem clear that Gaddafi is on his way out yet.

Which is worrying.

 

[elbows]

I dont really get all this talk that he has suddenly gone nutty. He has been this way for a long time. The only difference now is that he is angrier and probably a lot more desperate.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

This is going to get bad, the issue with the protesters is they can't turn back now, they're fucked if they lose.

 

[Tankus]

The mad colonel really has lost it completely now. What's with the bizarre scenes of Gaddafi speaking from under an umbrella the other day, and then after finishing today's rant climbing into a golf buggy and being driven away? Why a golf buggy?

Giles..

to appear to be not afraid at being shot at

 

[HAL9000]

In case it hasn't been posted

Libyan pilots flee to Malta in armed Mirage F1s

The two Libyan Arab Air Force Dassault Mirage F1 fighters that landed at Malta international airport on 21 February were armed with unguided rocket pods and had not sought permission to arrive in the Mediterranean nation

http://www.flightglobal.com/article...yan-pilots-flee-to-malta-in-armed-mirage.html

(This is not going to make any difference because only a tiny percentage of the military will rebel)

 

[teqniq]

@elbows

No, I don't think he's suddenly flipped, I've had doubts about him for years too - it's just that they are fairly easy to put to the back of your mind when things are relatively calm. In situations such as this though as you say he's desperate and angry consequently it throws it into much sharper relief. One of the Egyptian tweeters, moftasa claims amongst other things to have experience with psychiatry and suggests that:

moftasa Mostafa Hussein
If you watched Qadafi's speech it's time to learn more about formal thought disorder http://is.gd/Zeogi4

 

[Kid_Eternity]

He's always been nuts, it's just now he's acting out with the whole world watching in real time...