The Middle East Explodes...

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:48 pm

What I like about this is that.. The UK, France and *hee* Lebanon are the ones who proposed it. With support from the US admitedly, but it's nice to see other countries proposing global police actions, and not just the US.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 12:54 pm

To me, the real shocker is that China and Russia abstained.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:07 pm

You think China obstaining is a shocker? Oh I guess you expected them to vote against it and veto it. Sure, from that point of view it is surprising.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:17 pm

At the minimum I expected a vote against it. China/Russia rarely invokes the veto, but for them to stand aside is pretty much saying "Even we think it's Gadafi's time to go".

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:26 pm

Zinegata wrote:At the minimum I expected a vote against it. China/Russia rarely invokes the veto, but for them to stand aside is pretty much saying "Even we think it's Gadafi's time to go".

Zingegata, for a permanent member, there are only three options; they can vote for, they can abstain, or they can vote against which automatically invokes the veto power.

The United Nations Security Council 'power of veto' refers to the veto power wielded solely by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States), enabling them to prevent the adoption of any 'substantive' draft Council resolution, regardless of the level of international support for the draft. The veto does not apply to procedural votes, which is significant in that the Security Council's permanent membership can vote against a 'procedural' draft resolution, without necessarily blocking its adoption by the Council.

The veto is exercised when any permanent member — the so-called 'P5' — casts a "negative" vote on a 'substantive' draft resolution. Abstention, or absence from the vote by a permanent member does not prevent a draft resolution from being adopted.

Article 27 of the United Nations Charter states:

1) Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.

2) Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.

3) Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

Although the 'power of veto' is not explicitly mentioned in the UN Charter, the fact that 'substantive' decisions by the UNSC require "the concurring votes of the permanent members", means that any of those permanent members can prevent the adoption, by the Council, of any draft resolutions on 'substantive' matters. For this reason, the 'power of veto' is also referred to as the principle of 'great Power unanimity'.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:31 pm

What's interesting is that CNN has very sketchy details about Military stuff goign on in Lybia. They spent all weekend whining about the French shooting first.

Yet, when I go to lemonde.fr they have a map of Lybia with military actions highlighted. Troop movements, bases of operations. It's amazing.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:47 pm

Reading reports of the bombings/missile strikes, and the UK aborting a run because there were civilians in the target zone, I am reminded of something my grandmother used to say.

During WWII when ever the air raid sirens ran, and they heard planes flying low, they would stay in the house and wait out the bombings. Because those were French and English pilots, who basically never missed. If on the other hand the planes sounded like they were flying high, they would run to the bomb shelters. Because those were American pilots, who tended to fly really high and drop their bombs kinda anywhere.

There's a picture I remember well. The Nazi's had built a manufacturing complex around a Church/Cathedral in Bordeaux. The brits did a bombing run on it. Every single building in the manufacturing complex is leveled, but the Church is still there, and it's not clear whether any of the windows even got blown in.

Hearing about the French flying in, and bombing military targets with fighters, vs the US launching 124 Missiles at targets reminds me very much about the different philosophies of the Militaries.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:44 pm

Eh, I wouldn't draw much of a conclusion from that. Tomahawks are very accurate. Besides, the initial strikes were apparently under US command for reasons relating to equipment and experience for this sort of thing, plus the US contributed the cruise missiles to hit air defense centers that would obviously not have been particularly easy to hit with air strikes.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:27 am

sabs wrote:There's a picture I remember well. The Nazi's had built a manufacturing complex around a Church/Cathedral in Bordeaux. The brits did a bombing run on it. Every single building in the manufacturing complex is leveled, but the Church is still there, and it's not clear whether any of the windows even got blown in.

That would've been 617 Squadron. The rest of the UK bomber wing was inaccurate just like the USAAF. There was an understandable tendency for most crews to drop their bombs a little early so they could get the hell away from the Germans. That ad working at night made it hard to precision bomb anything.