NATO Channels Baghdad Bob

Being a PAO is never easy - it is harder when you are trying to describe a "make it up as you go along" military effort.

This is just sad. It isn't clear, it isn't logical, and we are all a lot dumber by reading it.

NATO has defended its decision to bomb eight docked Libyan warships following fears over Gadhafi's increasing reliance on the navy. NATO asserted that its ongoing airstrikes have successfully weakened Gadhafi's regime.

NATO has defended its airstrikes on eight docked warships belonging to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's navy after the vessels were bombed in the night to Friday.

In a statement released Friday, NATO said the bombings were part of a series of coordinated precision airstrikes against pro-Gadhafi regime forces in the ports of Tripoli, Al-Khums and Sirte. This included strikes against eight warships stationed in these ports.

NATO also reported that it had intercepted an oil tanker that the alliance had reason to believe was delivering fuel to Gadhafi's military forces.
....
Defending the action, military spokesman Mike Bracken told reporters in Brussels that NATO's command in the western port of Misrata had intercepted boats laying land mines and found an inflatable boat carrying a ton of explosives, capable of sinking another ship.

"Should we have waited until somebody else had been killed or should we have taken action? I suggest we took action to enable us to stop and reduce that risk to the civilian population," Bracken said.

"Our aim was not to destroy those ships, but to remove their ability to turn their military weapons on the civilian population, humanitarian assistance or NATO vessels," he added.

Really Mike. Really? Read that again.

It is impossible to attack a ship without destroying it. That is about the same thought process that says police didn't mean to kill someone when they opened fire on them.

It is just insulting to hear. Shipmate - we'll give you a Mulligan on this one. You're better than this, I guess you just had a bad day. Go beat up on the CJ-3, he needs to give you better things to work with. They are trying to have you pound a square peg in to a round hole.

We decided those ships were a threat. We removed the threat. Is it that hard?

Well, actually in NATO it is - as some nations needs to keep their lies to their people more than others.

In a larger sense, we need to be honest about what we are trying to do in Libya.

We are not there yet. I feel intellectually insulted by it all.