Manbird wrote: 
Sandals on the ground.

 winter wrote: 
Oh, for sure, but I think most *edit* European governments are keen on this happening, we Europeans are pretty much totally reliant on gas piped from Russia these days and they are screwing us on price and access (we, the UK, had huge amounts of gas reserves in the North Sea, but we blew them in making sure that our coal mining industry was wiped out. But that's another long and painful story.)
 
As for Italy, well UK jets are flying from Italian bases, and I do believe that there is a gas pipeline from Libya to Italy. Could be wrong, though. And old colonial ties mean old colonial connections, so there's an edge there.
 
Just speculating.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
We have plenty of covert operatives over there in all kinds of capacities... says a dude I know who has a lot family in the military assigned to Libya right now. 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
William "Foreign Secretary" Hague screwed up royally in this respect.
 
Which led to his shadow, Douglas Alexander, to ask this absolute peach of a question in the House:
 
"The British public are entitled to wonder whether, if some new neighbours moved into the foreign secretary's street, he would introduce himself by ringing the doorbell or instead choose to climb over the fence in the middle of the night,"
 
I know, not exactly Richard Prior, but we take what we can.

 hobiejoe wrote: 


Sure, but that's not what I was getting at. The French are close by, better connected than we are, and certainly better at the kind of covert action envisioned here than the Italians.

 winter wrote: 
Italy was the colonial power back in the day.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
The President has said that the US' role is limited strictly to the kind of air support that only US equipment can provide, and that the US will definitely not send in troops of any kind.

This is part of a larger event known as "Arab Spring".  Somehow I doubt that the CIA could make that happen.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
We have had "boots on the ground" everywhere since World War 2.  Those boots may be CIA, NSA, USA, USN, USMC, etc., but they've always been there, wherever there has been.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I don't think we have any advisers over there. The whole idea was to minimize our involvement. And it's the French's back yard, so surely they'd be better equipped to send in "advisers".

 MrsHobieJoe wrote: 
I'm just not convinced it's organic. Does 'boots on the ground' only mean combat troops? Because don't we have "advisors" over there? I dunno. Just speculating.

According to the news this morning, only England and France have boots on the ground.  Those are special forces.

If there are any CIA operatives in Libya, they're there to collect intelligence.  Considering that the people of Tripoli are fighting to the last man, I think it's rather doubtful that the CIA could bring about a military coup alone.  As for political, has anybody heard of a major leader who could take over after Qaddafi's ouster?  I sure haven't!

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 

huh?  am I not following this sufficiently closely?

 romeotuma wrote: 
China has one option and one only.

 Invade Russia and take their water and natural gas.
 It's only a matter of time before it happens.

 They've got money, a military, but also a huge population that cannot exist on their military-industry contaminated water for much longer.

 They will go to the worlds largest freshwater source while pillaging the other natural resources.

This is what war is all about.

...and the Colonel writes himself a sticky note to remember to turn off location sharing on his iPhone...
 
stolen joke. so sue me. 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
"Libyan rebels are now advancing on the capital city of Tripoli with the aid of NATO strikes; this is sure to result in a real bloodbath, as opposed to the one that was conjured in Benghazi this past winter. NATO is assisting rebels who are blocking food, water and medical supplies from coming into the capital city, and is stopping those who need advanced medical care from traveling to Tunisia to access it. NATO is bombing power stations, creating blackouts, and using Apache helicopters to attack Libyan police checkpoints to clear roads for rebels to advance."
—Dennis Kucinich, 8-21-2011

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 


...or MI6?! :ask:

 miamizsun wrote: 
..I believe the CIA are toasting the victory right now..

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
When Gaddafi is deleted they'll just reformat and install Windows Puppet Regime Edition 7.0

 hobiejoe wrote: 
There are reports that Qadaffy has split to Algeria.

This is good news if true.

 hobiejoe wrote: 
If I thought it was a true rebel uprising I'd probably cheer. That it's most likely a CIA coup makes me kind of say "oh boy."