March 28, 2013 • 25 mins
They have become such a ubiquitous tool used by the UN and NATO to intervene in international crises, that it seems like no-fly zones have been around forever. But it was only the 1990s that the first one was enacted and they've only be used twice more since then. Learn about this peculiar military tool with Chuck and Josh.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know front House Stuffworks
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant mad as heck
and he's not gonna take it anymore. I said heck.
I revised a classic movie quote in the heck Yeah, network, Man,
(00:25):
have you ever seen that? Have you seen that recently?
I've never seen it. It was on Netflix streaming and
I hadn't mind. Some human passed it up. Well you
should watch it again because you'll watch it now and go. Man,
when was this made so far ahead of its time
as far as like how things are in the media, like, uh,
coma yeah, but when you watch network back then people
(00:47):
said things like how ridiculous, like stuff like this could
never happen. Oh, I see it's prescient, right, very much.
So yeah, I'll have to watch it then. Yeah, it's
a good one. That's uh is it? Like? Um, what
is it? What's that Aaron Sorkin show? I don't like
antwork news Hour? Yeah that just thinks? Is that what
it's called? News? News Room? Yeah? I didn't care for
(01:07):
it other than the fact that it stars our guest
starred Mr Paul Schneider, who's one of my one of
my boys. So uh, sometimes people accuse that show being preachy.
What do you think? I just I'm not a sworking guy,
so he's a little worthy for me. I liked west Twink,
I didn't watch it. You never watched West Wing, not
one episode. Guarantee you you would like it. You think
(01:27):
it was he I hate to say this, but it
was like his his masterpiece from beginning. I'm not kidding, Chuck.
I'm telling you, this is somebody who didn't like Studio sixty,
who doesn't like Newsroom. West Wing from beginning to end
was just really great. I'll try it, but I swear
the way that guy writes, I'm always just like nobody talks.
I'm with you, I'm totally with you. But this cast
(01:50):
of characters, the characters that he wrote, the actors, they
pulled it off. I've never seen a shot Paul Schneider
is not on it. I'm coming to your house this
afternoon and we're gonna watch them. Okay, okay, uh So
I guess that's the segue for no flies on. Not
a bad setup because this is political and presidential. I
(02:11):
have something, actually, I have a bit of an intro. Okay, well,
let's let's hear it. You've heard of the Wright brothers
Dayton's Pride, Orville and Wilbur Wright. Oh yeah, can joined twins? Yes, no,
they weren't. But they did fly. They did build the
first airplane that flew, and they flew it out at
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And after they had that flight,
(02:32):
actually I think before they undertook that flight, while they
were still in the development stage. Uh, they went to
the United States government and said, hey, War Department, you
want in on this action. Not once, not twice, but
thrice did the War Department turn the right brothers down,
say what good our planes in the warfare? Exactly? Luckily
there was a very smart person heading the Post Office
(02:55):
Department who said, Okay, maybe you shouldn't drop bricks out
of airplane down to people's heads, but we could use
this to deliver the mail. Martin ben Ostrin, right, to
heck with the auto gyro, We're gonna start using this
Wright Brothers plane to deliver mail. And for three years
the only aircraft that were in service under the United
(03:17):
States government was for delivering mail, and then a postal
carrier and as a pilot accidentally dropped a mail bomb
and they went, wow, that's a good idea, works very well. Yeah,
it didn't take very long for the War Department and
be like, oh, okay, maybe we should use this. And
then by nineteen fourteen the aviation section of the Signal
Corps was set up and all of a sudden, planes
(03:38):
were militarized. Within just years of their invention, they were
being used to murder people. Yeah, and this article points
out in seven Spanish Fastest dropped a bunch of bombs
on the town of Guernica. A hundred thousand pounds of
explosives killed sixteen hundred people. And yeah, well, not only
was it the explosive, people were running on a town
(04:00):
and they were gunning them down civilis. Yeah, so that's
what fascists do. As outrageous and horrible as that is,
it was definitely the beginning of what would be a
long romance in warfare with the plane. Yeah, you had
the red baron Eddie Rick and Backer. Uh. They're a
very long, bloody history associated with planes and war. Um,
(04:23):
When the fascists in Spain used planes to take out
a lot of civilians, the world was, you know, appropriately disgusted.
It wasn't a whole lot that could be done, And
it actually wasn't until the very early nineteen nineties that
people figured out a way to use planes to thwart
(04:44):
planes from being used against civilian populations by their own government. Yeah.
I thought no fly zones had been around long before that,
so this was very eye opening. I had no idea
that it was in the nineteen nineties when they first
did this. Right, no fly zones are new. They've only
been used three times. Yeah, I didn't know. Like it
just seems like there's it's something that they just commonly do,
but it's kind of a big deal to issue and
(05:05):
no flies one. And the reason why is because what
you're doing is intervening in a sovereign nation, undermining the
power of the ruler of that nation, choosing sides in
a way you're saying, at the very least, I'm not
gonna let you just slaughter these civilians. I'm not going
to cast my lot one way or the other, really,
but I'm going to protect these civilians. And uh, it
(05:26):
takes a United Nations mandate to to even get started,
that's right. So, um, you want to talk about the
first one, yes. Uh, let's harken back to the spring
of nine. I'm in college drinking a lot of beer.
That's where I first discovered beer. I was drinking a
lot of beer too, and I wasn't in college. Well,
I'm just kidding. I was. Um So I remember sitting
(05:50):
around and watching like this stuff on CNN for the
first time, like being interested in politics really for the
first time. Oh yeah, yeah, that's kind of when I
got into stuff like that. Well, that was the first
war that was really televised. I mean, Vietnam was, but
this was the one that This is the first one
that had like twenty four hour coverage. Was the was
the first goal four and it was spectacular to watch. Uh,
(06:13):
it was pretty enthralling, especially when you're, you know, twenty
years old and you're sitting around with your friends drinking beer. Yeah,
look at that's good. Safe in Athens, Georgia. Um. So,
what happened There was a guy named Saddam Hussein he
um was not doing very nice things to the people
in Kuwait. Well, we'll put and the Curtish minority in
(06:36):
northern Iraq was encouraged by American radio broadcast to two
revolt like take a stand, and so they did, and
Sadam Hussein Um sent gunships and with napalm and chemical
weapons and helicopters, because that's that's what you do. That's
what he does when you have a civilian population that's
(06:56):
unhappy with your rule. Yeah, and so they fled, basically
hun the thousands of them, uh Curtish civilians fled Um
and sort of got wedged there at the Turkish border
because the turch were like, yeah, we feel for you,
but stay there, so don't cross over here. They didn't
have food and water. And H W. Bush President George H. W.
Bush and allies in Europe said, you know what, oh boy,
(07:20):
I don't know what to do here because we kind
of encourage these people to do this and now they're
stuck in a between a rock and a hard place.
And but we really don't think we should invade and
remove Sadam Hussein like with all of our Mike, yeah,
let's get another ten twelve years exactly. Or we could
go to the U N in NTE and say, hey,
(07:40):
how about passing a resolution against this guy? Right, they did,
but they did they said, Okay, we're gonna um deliver
humanitarian aid to these Kurds who are trapped along the
Turkish border, and Hussain, if you do anything to interfere,
we're going to bomb you. We're going to take on
your guys that you send an inner fear at the
very least, right. Um. And not only that, we're establishing
(08:03):
a safe zone for these people. It's above the thirty
six parallel. And uh, if you send any planes over there,
we're gonna take them on. So this is what we're
going to call a no fly zone. It was the
first one, and Saddam Hussein went, no fly zone. I've
never heard of such a thing. That's stupid, And the
UN said that's because this brand new jerk, right, And
he's like, oh, I'm the first one. He went first. First,
(08:25):
he's so um, they did this, and then second no
fly zone. Um. South of the thirty second parallel was
established to protect the Shiite Muslims, who also rose up
under the encouragement of the United States. If you're interested
in this kind of thing, check out three Kings. It
was a lot to do about that. It was after
the uprisings had started, and also after the time the
(08:48):
United States didn't support them. Remember the one scene where
when the guy made Markey Mark drink the oil. That
was hardcore man, a little over the ham fisted of
David O. Russey. Yeah, you don't like that guy that
you get problems with him. I like Three Kings a Lot. Okay,
what else has he done? The next thing Silver li
Ex Playbook he didn't like. I thought it was okay. Yeah, see,
(09:09):
you don't love him, but I like Three Kings a Lot.
I thought that was a good movie. Yeah, me too.
Uh So no fly zone is going on. Sidom Hussein
violates said no fly zone. He's like, yeah, well, what's
gonna happen? Let me send some jets up there. And
we responded by or the coalition I should say, responded
by shooting down these aircraft or destroying just you know,
(09:31):
military targets on the ground. Because that's, as we found out,
one of the parts of a no fly zone to
be effective is to also bomb like radar equipment stuff
on the ground that can get jets up in the
air and guide them disabled. Their force can also find
your jets, So you want to disable their force, like
you said, but you also want to protect your own force.
(09:52):
The thing was this is very new. Uh The U
N was a little squeamish at the idea of undermining
again a sab and ruler, a jerk, everyone agreed, but
still a sovereign ruler and kind of one of the
stabilizing forces of the Middle East, whether the US liked
it or not. Um So they just kind of said, yeah,
(10:13):
protect these people, but just really you got to take
it all in a case by case basis. Can't be
the least bit aggressive. You have to be completely reactive.
And even then maybe we should just kind of chase
him out of the note flies him rather than shoot
him down over time after sortie after sortie after shorty.
They started just by attrition, wearing down Hussain's defenses and
(10:34):
his um, his air force, just because he kept sting
a man and we kept shooting him down until two
thousand three when we, you know, went in in full
force and took out something using right, the northern part
and the southern part of Iraq was off limits to
Sadam Hussein for twelve years his own country. There is
a wide swath in the middle that he could move
around him, but anything else he wasn't allowed. Okay, so
(10:56):
those are the that's the first use of the not
fly zone ever. Uh. In the early nineteen nineties, when
Yugoslavia broke up, UM, NATO forces said, all right, how
about another no fly zone. We're gonna authorize this one.
It's nine over the breakaway region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It was called Operation Denied Flight, which is terrible little
(11:19):
on the nose. I just want to talk about on
the David R. Russell named said mission and it was
gonna block Bosnian Serbs who controlled all the military aircraft
in that region, right, and who were using it against
all of their neighbors that they were um going to
war against, specifically the um Muslims, Yeah, Serbian Muslims, right, yeah,
(11:41):
in a big way. Yeah. Um. So the I guess
NATO undertook that no fly zone was number two. Yeah, um,
and uh that was a little more aggressive. I believe
they went after they'd learned from you know, I guess
about eight years of the Iraqi no fly zone that
you really and I have to go after like military
(12:02):
installations and anything that can be used to violate the
no fly zone, and maybe even go a little step
further as punishment, like not only is is, are we
gonna shoot down your plane, We're gonna maybe blow up
your base and pants you right in front of everyone. Right.
So that was the second no fly zone. The third
(12:22):
was even more aggressive, Yeah, against Kadafi just a couple
of years ago, in two thousand eleven, that's right, and
it lasted about six months, I believe. Yeah, it was
extremely effective. Yeah. Well that's because they authorized, um quote,
all necessary measures to protect the Libyan civilians. And that
was uh, you know, that meant a lot of a
(12:44):
lot of bombs being dropped, a lot of cruise missiles
taking out bases on land. And this one was named
by Angle. It was called Operation Odyssey Dawn. It was
the result of U N Security Council Resolution nine three,
which is confusing because it was carried out in two
thousand eleven, that's right. But basically it said, you guys,
(13:06):
we think Kadafi is totally not so um and he's
gonna kill a lot of his own people. Go in
there and declare all of Libya no fly zone. And
NATO said, okay, let's do it, right, So US and
British lad NATO coalition kind of took the reins and
(13:27):
turned this six hundred and eighty thousand square mile country,
which is about one point seven million square kilometers UH
into a no fly zone. All of Libya was a
no fly zone, all right. So since this is a
new thing, it's there is no as this article says playbook,
(13:47):
there's not like a exact way that these go into effect.
It sort of depends on what you're dealing with, what
countries you're dealing with. But the first thing that you
have to do, according to Chapter seven, Article forty two
of the UN Charter, is UH get the fifteen member
UN Security Council on board, right, which sounds easy, but
it's not necessarily because you have five permanent members the UK, France,
(14:09):
the US, China and Russia. And China Russia loved to
veto anything that the US, the UK, and UM, France
are all about UM, which is good, it's called a
balance of power. But UM specifically with Libya, France, or
Russia and China, they were against it, but they were
persuaded to abstain from the vote because all it takes
(14:31):
is one one permanent member nation on the Security Council
of veto and it's done. Yeah. I wonder what that
persuasion entailed. I don't know. You know, looking the other
way on human rights violations. Maybe I have no idea,
but I'm sure it wasn't just as easy as hey,
you might sitting this one out. Sure, no problem, right,
I'm drunk anyway. So, UM, the the UN resolution for
(14:53):
the Libyan uh no fly zone. UM, it's a pretty
good example of how this kind of thing can work.
So no flights in Libyan airspace bands all flying unless
it's a humanitarian mission carrying food or water or getting
out um for nationals who are in like bad places. Yeah,
you're allowed to do that. Other than that, no fly,
(15:14):
no fly, and um, it's not you don't just shoot
down any plane on site when you're patrolling the no
fly zone. If a if a plane is flying in
Libyan airspace, you want to first figure out if it
was there accidentally or if it's hostile. And if it's hostile,
you go back to the ground and say, hey, man,
can I shoot this thing down? Yeah? Well, first you
go figure out who's who's doing the shooting. You know,
(15:36):
you gotta set it all up. Who's gonna be enforcing
all this I was just jumping ahead of Okay, you
gotta figure out who's who's in charge of the operation
basically in the live in the case of Libya, it
was NATO. And um, then you established the rules of engagement,
which is partially has to do with hey, do we
shoot first and ask questions later? Do we check passports?
(15:59):
How's this gonna work? Right? And and like you said, Olivia,
it was pretty aggressive. Um. The first thing that happened
on day one was the US and I believe the
UK sailed warships off the coast Olibya and started shooting
missiles into Libya's interior, knocking out military installations, radar installations,
(16:21):
as much of the Libyan military is or at least
air force as could be destroyed. Hundred twelve Tomahawk cruise
missiles boom, Yeah, each one precisely shot. That's right. And uh,
I love the article says the goal is to shape
the battle space in quotes. Yeah, that's the euphemism. Huh yeah,
big time. So um, after this, they send in the
(16:42):
drone surveillance aircraft to check things out. You see what's
going on? And did you get the impression the US
is kind of showing off a little bit like we well,
we've got some missiles we can use. And then after
we're we'll send in our unmanned drones and make sure
everything's bombed. And then after that we're going to send
in radar jamming equipment just in case you have anything
left on the ground, we'll take care of that too. Yeah,
(17:05):
that was the first like two days. Yeah, and getafis
his air force was you know, they call them vintage
jets in this uh in this article, and that's in
that case, vintage is not a good thing. You know,
it's from the nineteen sixties. It's old gear. Basically, it's vintage,
not retro um. So it's it's still it was effective.
(17:25):
It worked even beyond the fact that, um, the jets
were vintage and we crippled the his radar system, his
air force, military installations. Um, there was still a lot
of shoulder launched rockets in Libya and estimated six hundred.
I believe that like during this time, Kadafi was handing
(17:48):
out to people who were on his side. Yeah, and
Sadam Hussein famously offered a bounty on any aircraft shotdown
of like fourteen grand which I thought, why not fifteen?
You know, Yeah, that was a weird number. I wonder
if that if that makes like a significant round number
in Iraqi money. You know, it's a lot of yes,
(18:10):
thank you. You shouldn't invest in those, by the way,
that's a big scam invest in denari. You have you
heard of people doing that? No, it's a thing where
people buy up Iraqi denari and thinking you're like, they're
gonna hit it big one day. You shouldn't do that. Why, Yeah,
it's just you do a little research and it's it's
sort of one of those scams, is it. Yeah, So
like if you bought denari from a legitimate currency broker,
(18:33):
it's still not a good investment. Huh. I know someone
who did. Oh no, is it possible it's going to
come back in ten years? A doubt it. Are they
going to go euro? I don't know. Huh. But yeah,
that's just a sidebar. Okay, that was a nice one.
Save your money, folks. So we were talking about the
possibility that a NATO jet or any jet patrolling a
(18:56):
no fly zone could get shot down by some dude
on the ground. Yeah it hasn't happened, No, but it
couldn't have to be one lucky shot. It raises one
of the concerns. Uh, actually it has happened. It hasn't
happened from somebody on the ground, but it raises a concern,
a risk that, um, we're sending in people again into
a sovereign nation that maybe he has to deal with
(19:18):
his own problems, and um, we're putting our people in
danger for that. Most people, I think myself included side
on the idea of going in and protecting civilians from
certain slaughter. Um, but I do agree that there is
a risk as well in um. Scott McGrady remember him, Yeah, Yeah,
(19:41):
during the Balkan War. Uh, during that no fly zone
he was shot down I guess by a Serbian plane.
Uh it was a surface to air missile. But okay,
so somebody has shot down somebody from the ground. Well
I don't know if it was a person. Okay, Well
he was shot down patrolling a no fly zone and
h he was in very big trouble for a little while.
(20:03):
Had he not been quite the survivalist, who knows what
would have happened. Because the Serbs were hot on his
trail and he spent six days evading them. Yeah, he
did a really good job and hero. Yeah, he ate
ants and lived on collected rainwater and avoided the bad
guys and eventually got through uh A radio signal and
Gene Hackman picked up Gene Haman was like, we're going
(20:24):
to get you out of there. Yeah, uncommon Valor. Man.
That was the Gene Hackman was in the Ohen Wilson
movie too, Was he really? I'm pretty sure he was
the one that was in charge of saving him. Oh man,
well he's he's always going in and save him an
uncommon Valor. It was his son who was a Yeah,
Vietnam Pio w Right. That's good, Randall tex Cob Yeah,
(20:46):
what was his name in it? I don't remember that.
That movie came out at a great time for me though.
It was the perfect age. He wore like a live
grenade around his remember, yeah, that's the second time we
talked about Uncommon Valor and like two months When was
the other one? I remember? I don't remember. I remember
talking about it and probably when what happens if the
(21:06):
earth stops spinning? Yeah? Probably so. Um, so you got
anything else? I guess. We had the opportunity to to
really invade Libya, and in President Obama said, you know what,
let's not do that. Um, let's not do the regime
change game. Well, a lot of people are like, we
shouldn't be there in the first place. A lot of
(21:28):
other people are like, this is a half measure. If
you're gonna go do that and just wipe out somebody's military,
you might as well do a ground invasion and take
over and top all the regime. Like you said. Obama
was like, no, let's give it a shot. And he
was proven right in Libya at least, because even if
you take out their air defenses and their air offenses,
I guess they still have way better weaponry and stuff
(21:50):
on the ground than these uprising forces do. And it
worked in Libya. It didn't necessarily work in the Balkans.
A lot of people point to Um the slaughter at
um Sribrenica. Yeah, seven thousand Muslim U boys and men
(22:12):
were killed yea by the Bosnians being Yeah, who are
being tried for war crimes because of it. But the
no FLI zone didn't do anything to prison prevent it.
That's right, So I mean, is it effective? It can be.
I say that we don't have a large enough body
of work to study from here. We need to get
(22:33):
some more going, get some more enoughly sounds Remember how
creepy it was after eleven when all the planes were
shut down. Remember that. Oh yeah, it's just so odd.
You don't realize how used to the sounds and the
Kim trails and trail We did an episode on that
Calm trails or did kim trails? We did? We did
(22:53):
a con trails Kim Trails. Yeah, yeah, you know what
I mean. Okay, I guess that's about it, right. If
you want to learn more about no fly zones, you
can type no fly zone into the search bart how
stuff works dot com. Uh. And before we get the
listener mail, let's do a word from our sponsor. All right,
listener mail time. Yeah, okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this um.
(23:14):
She kid gets his way, which I try not to do.
But this is everybody loves it when pushy kids get there.
This is a shout out for a teacher. This is
Jack and Jack and I had been emailing each other
and he says, by the way, Chuck, I think I
told you in the past about my Civics teacher that
listens to the show. This week, we have a special
project in this class is to make a podcast about
one of the Supreme Court cases we've been studying for
(23:36):
some hints. We listened to tidbits of your show, and
my teacher and I just grinned from ear to ear
at each other like a really funny inside joke because
they're like the only two in the class of listen. Um.
I plan for my pseudonym to be either Chuck or
even Chuckers, if he would allow, I give me a permission,
sir uh. He says he sees himself as a younger
version of me, which is writing, although the actual content
(23:58):
in the show is more like this American life because
we are required to have Collins Son have Collins Uh?
Do they? I don't know. I don't think. I will
always think to myself that I'm sitting there in your
little studio. If you can give my spectacular teacher, Mr
Kristof a shout out, that would be mind boggling, stupendously incredible.
(24:21):
But I understand if you can't, Mr Kristof. Yep, Mr
Kristoph civics teacher. And I said, sure, Jack, I'll do that.
And then he emailed again from Washington, d C. And said,
I hate to seem demanding, Chuck, but if you could
also mention Mrs Kristof because I have her for math
and I don't want to make her feel left out.
So if it's too late, I get it. I can't complain.
(24:42):
This might be the best day of my life after all.
Have a nice long weekend. And that is Jack outside Washington,
d C. And Mr and Mrs Kristof, good job listening
to the show, and we thank you for using it
in your classroom. Yes, thank you to the Kristof's. Mr.
And Mrs Kristof's. Thank you for shaping your minds. Do
you conceive that shout out? Uh? And way to go, Jack?
(25:04):
You're cool, dude. Um, if you have a shout out
you want us to give. Chuck gives in on those
pretty frequently. Sometimes. You can tweek to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com, uh slash Stuff you Should Know, send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
go to our website Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(25:31):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how Stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to you stuff you should know front House Stuffworks
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant mad as heck
and he's not gonna take it anymore. I said heck.
I revised a classic movie quote in the heck Yeah, network, Man,
(00:25):
have you ever seen that? Have you seen that recently?
I've never seen it. It was on Netflix streaming and
I hadn't mind. Some human passed it up. Well you
should watch it again because you'll watch it now and go. Man,
when was this made so far ahead of its time
as far as like how things are in the media, like, uh,
coma yeah, but when you watch network back then people
(00:47):
said things like how ridiculous, like stuff like this could
never happen. Oh, I see it's prescient, right, very much.
So yeah, I'll have to watch it then. Yeah, it's
a good one. That's uh is it? Like? Um, what
is it? What's that Aaron Sorkin show? I don't like
antwork news Hour? Yeah that just thinks? Is that what
it's called? News? News Room? Yeah? I didn't care for
(01:07):
it other than the fact that it stars our guest
starred Mr Paul Schneider, who's one of my one of
my boys. So uh, sometimes people accuse that show being preachy.
What do you think? I just I'm not a sworking guy,
so he's a little worthy for me. I liked west Twink,
I didn't watch it. You never watched West Wing, not
one episode. Guarantee you you would like it. You think
(01:27):
it was he I hate to say this, but it
was like his his masterpiece from beginning. I'm not kidding, Chuck.
I'm telling you, this is somebody who didn't like Studio sixty,
who doesn't like Newsroom. West Wing from beginning to end
was just really great. I'll try it, but I swear
the way that guy writes, I'm always just like nobody talks.
I'm with you, I'm totally with you. But this cast
(01:50):
of characters, the characters that he wrote, the actors, they
pulled it off. I've never seen a shot Paul Schneider
is not on it. I'm coming to your house this
afternoon and we're gonna watch them. Okay, okay, uh So
I guess that's the segue for no flies on. Not
a bad setup because this is political and presidential. I
(02:11):
have something, actually, I have a bit of an intro. Okay, well,
let's let's hear it. You've heard of the Wright brothers
Dayton's Pride, Orville and Wilbur Wright. Oh yeah, can joined twins? Yes, no,
they weren't. But they did fly. They did build the
first airplane that flew, and they flew it out at
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And after they had that flight,
(02:32):
actually I think before they undertook that flight, while they
were still in the development stage. Uh, they went to
the United States government and said, hey, War Department, you
want in on this action. Not once, not twice, but
thrice did the War Department turn the right brothers down,
say what good our planes in the warfare? Exactly? Luckily
there was a very smart person heading the Post Office
(02:55):
Department who said, Okay, maybe you shouldn't drop bricks out
of airplane down to people's heads, but we could use
this to deliver the mail. Martin ben Ostrin, right, to
heck with the auto gyro, We're gonna start using this
Wright Brothers plane to deliver mail. And for three years
the only aircraft that were in service under the United
(03:17):
States government was for delivering mail, and then a postal
carrier and as a pilot accidentally dropped a mail bomb
and they went, wow, that's a good idea, works very well. Yeah,
it didn't take very long for the War Department and
be like, oh, okay, maybe we should use this. And
then by nineteen fourteen the aviation section of the Signal
Corps was set up and all of a sudden, planes
(03:38):
were militarized. Within just years of their invention, they were
being used to murder people. Yeah, and this article points
out in seven Spanish Fastest dropped a bunch of bombs
on the town of Guernica. A hundred thousand pounds of
explosives killed sixteen hundred people. And yeah, well, not only
was it the explosive, people were running on a town
(04:00):
and they were gunning them down civilis. Yeah, so that's
what fascists do. As outrageous and horrible as that is,
it was definitely the beginning of what would be a
long romance in warfare with the plane. Yeah, you had
the red baron Eddie Rick and Backer. Uh. They're a
very long, bloody history associated with planes and war. Um,
(04:23):
When the fascists in Spain used planes to take out
a lot of civilians, the world was, you know, appropriately disgusted.
It wasn't a whole lot that could be done, And
it actually wasn't until the very early nineteen nineties that
people figured out a way to use planes to thwart
(04:44):
planes from being used against civilian populations by their own government. Yeah.
I thought no fly zones had been around long before that,
so this was very eye opening. I had no idea
that it was in the nineteen nineties when they first
did this. Right, no fly zones are new. They've only
been used three times. Yeah, I didn't know. Like it
just seems like there's it's something that they just commonly do,
but it's kind of a big deal to issue and
(05:05):
no flies one. And the reason why is because what
you're doing is intervening in a sovereign nation, undermining the
power of the ruler of that nation, choosing sides in
a way you're saying, at the very least, I'm not
gonna let you just slaughter these civilians. I'm not going
to cast my lot one way or the other, really,
but I'm going to protect these civilians. And uh, it
(05:26):
takes a United Nations mandate to to even get started,
that's right. So, um, you want to talk about the
first one, yes. Uh, let's harken back to the spring
of nine. I'm in college drinking a lot of beer.
That's where I first discovered beer. I was drinking a
lot of beer too, and I wasn't in college. Well,
I'm just kidding. I was. Um So I remember sitting
(05:50):
around and watching like this stuff on CNN for the
first time, like being interested in politics really for the
first time. Oh yeah, yeah, that's kind of when I
got into stuff like that. Well, that was the first
war that was really televised. I mean, Vietnam was, but
this was the one that This is the first one
that had like twenty four hour coverage. Was the was
the first goal four and it was spectacular to watch. Uh,
(06:13):
it was pretty enthralling, especially when you're, you know, twenty
years old and you're sitting around with your friends drinking beer. Yeah,
look at that's good. Safe in Athens, Georgia. Um. So,
what happened There was a guy named Saddam Hussein he
um was not doing very nice things to the people
in Kuwait. Well, we'll put and the Curtish minority in
(06:36):
northern Iraq was encouraged by American radio broadcast to two
revolt like take a stand, and so they did, and
Sadam Hussein Um sent gunships and with napalm and chemical
weapons and helicopters, because that's that's what you do. That's
what he does when you have a civilian population that's
(06:56):
unhappy with your rule. Yeah, and so they fled, basically
hun the thousands of them, uh Curtish civilians fled Um
and sort of got wedged there at the Turkish border
because the turch were like, yeah, we feel for you,
but stay there, so don't cross over here. They didn't
have food and water. And H W. Bush President George H. W.
Bush and allies in Europe said, you know what, oh boy,
(07:20):
I don't know what to do here because we kind
of encourage these people to do this and now they're
stuck in a between a rock and a hard place.
And but we really don't think we should invade and
remove Sadam Hussein like with all of our Mike, yeah,
let's get another ten twelve years exactly. Or we could
go to the U N in NTE and say, hey,
(07:40):
how about passing a resolution against this guy? Right, they did,
but they did they said, Okay, we're gonna um deliver
humanitarian aid to these Kurds who are trapped along the
Turkish border, and Hussain, if you do anything to interfere,
we're going to bomb you. We're going to take on
your guys that you send an inner fear at the
very least, right. Um. And not only that, we're establishing
(08:03):
a safe zone for these people. It's above the thirty
six parallel. And uh, if you send any planes over there,
we're gonna take them on. So this is what we're
going to call a no fly zone. It was the
first one, and Saddam Hussein went, no fly zone. I've
never heard of such a thing. That's stupid, And the
UN said that's because this brand new jerk, right, And
he's like, oh, I'm the first one. He went first. First,
(08:25):
he's so um, they did this, and then second no
fly zone. Um. South of the thirty second parallel was
established to protect the Shiite Muslims, who also rose up
under the encouragement of the United States. If you're interested
in this kind of thing, check out three Kings. It
was a lot to do about that. It was after
the uprisings had started, and also after the time the
(08:48):
United States didn't support them. Remember the one scene where
when the guy made Markey Mark drink the oil. That
was hardcore man, a little over the ham fisted of
David O. Russey. Yeah, you don't like that guy that
you get problems with him. I like Three Kings a Lot. Okay,
what else has he done? The next thing Silver li
Ex Playbook he didn't like. I thought it was okay. Yeah, see,
(09:09):
you don't love him, but I like Three Kings a Lot.
I thought that was a good movie. Yeah, me too.
Uh So no fly zone is going on. Sidom Hussein
violates said no fly zone. He's like, yeah, well, what's
gonna happen? Let me send some jets up there. And
we responded by or the coalition I should say, responded
by shooting down these aircraft or destroying just you know,
(09:31):
military targets on the ground. Because that's, as we found out,
one of the parts of a no fly zone to
be effective is to also bomb like radar equipment stuff
on the ground that can get jets up in the
air and guide them disabled. Their force can also find
your jets, So you want to disable their force, like
you said, but you also want to protect your own force.
(09:52):
The thing was this is very new. Uh The U
N was a little squeamish at the idea of undermining
again a sab and ruler, a jerk, everyone agreed, but
still a sovereign ruler and kind of one of the
stabilizing forces of the Middle East, whether the US liked
it or not. Um So they just kind of said, yeah,
(10:13):
protect these people, but just really you got to take
it all in a case by case basis. Can't be
the least bit aggressive. You have to be completely reactive.
And even then maybe we should just kind of chase
him out of the note flies him rather than shoot
him down over time after sortie after sortie after shorty.
They started just by attrition, wearing down Hussain's defenses and
(10:34):
his um, his air force, just because he kept sting
a man and we kept shooting him down until two
thousand three when we, you know, went in in full
force and took out something using right, the northern part
and the southern part of Iraq was off limits to
Sadam Hussein for twelve years his own country. There is
a wide swath in the middle that he could move
around him, but anything else he wasn't allowed. Okay, so
(10:56):
those are the that's the first use of the not
fly zone ever. Uh. In the early nineteen nineties, when
Yugoslavia broke up, UM, NATO forces said, all right, how
about another no fly zone. We're gonna authorize this one.
It's nine over the breakaway region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It was called Operation Denied Flight, which is terrible little
(11:19):
on the nose. I just want to talk about on
the David R. Russell named said mission and it was
gonna block Bosnian Serbs who controlled all the military aircraft
in that region, right, and who were using it against
all of their neighbors that they were um going to
war against, specifically the um Muslims, Yeah, Serbian Muslims, right, yeah,
(11:41):
in a big way. Yeah. Um. So the I guess
NATO undertook that no fly zone was number two. Yeah, um,
and uh that was a little more aggressive. I believe
they went after they'd learned from you know, I guess
about eight years of the Iraqi no fly zone that
you really and I have to go after like military
(12:02):
installations and anything that can be used to violate the
no fly zone, and maybe even go a little step
further as punishment, like not only is is, are we
gonna shoot down your plane, We're gonna maybe blow up
your base and pants you right in front of everyone. Right.
So that was the second no fly zone. The third
(12:22):
was even more aggressive, Yeah, against Kadafi just a couple
of years ago, in two thousand eleven, that's right, and
it lasted about six months, I believe. Yeah, it was
extremely effective. Yeah. Well that's because they authorized, um quote,
all necessary measures to protect the Libyan civilians. And that
was uh, you know, that meant a lot of a
(12:44):
lot of bombs being dropped, a lot of cruise missiles
taking out bases on land. And this one was named
by Angle. It was called Operation Odyssey Dawn. It was
the result of U N Security Council Resolution nine three,
which is confusing because it was carried out in two
thousand eleven, that's right. But basically it said, you guys,
(13:06):
we think Kadafi is totally not so um and he's
gonna kill a lot of his own people. Go in
there and declare all of Libya no fly zone. And
NATO said, okay, let's do it, right, So US and
British lad NATO coalition kind of took the reins and
(13:27):
turned this six hundred and eighty thousand square mile country,
which is about one point seven million square kilometers UH
into a no fly zone. All of Libya was a
no fly zone, all right. So since this is a
new thing, it's there is no as this article says playbook,
(13:47):
there's not like a exact way that these go into effect.
It sort of depends on what you're dealing with, what
countries you're dealing with. But the first thing that you
have to do, according to Chapter seven, Article forty two
of the UN Charter, is UH get the fifteen member
UN Security Council on board, right, which sounds easy, but
it's not necessarily because you have five permanent members the UK, France,
(14:09):
the US, China and Russia. And China Russia loved to
veto anything that the US, the UK, and UM, France
are all about UM, which is good, it's called a
balance of power. But UM specifically with Libya, France, or
Russia and China, they were against it, but they were
persuaded to abstain from the vote because all it takes
(14:31):
is one one permanent member nation on the Security Council
of veto and it's done. Yeah. I wonder what that
persuasion entailed. I don't know. You know, looking the other
way on human rights violations. Maybe I have no idea,
but I'm sure it wasn't just as easy as hey,
you might sitting this one out. Sure, no problem, right,
I'm drunk anyway. So, UM, the the UN resolution for
(14:53):
the Libyan uh no fly zone. UM, it's a pretty
good example of how this kind of thing can work.
So no flights in Libyan airspace bands all flying unless
it's a humanitarian mission carrying food or water or getting
out um for nationals who are in like bad places. Yeah,
you're allowed to do that. Other than that, no fly,
(15:14):
no fly, and um, it's not you don't just shoot
down any plane on site when you're patrolling the no
fly zone. If a if a plane is flying in
Libyan airspace, you want to first figure out if it
was there accidentally or if it's hostile. And if it's hostile,
you go back to the ground and say, hey, man,
can I shoot this thing down? Yeah? Well, first you
go figure out who's who's doing the shooting. You know,
(15:36):
you gotta set it all up. Who's gonna be enforcing
all this I was just jumping ahead of Okay, you
gotta figure out who's who's in charge of the operation
basically in the live in the case of Libya, it
was NATO. And um, then you established the rules of engagement,
which is partially has to do with hey, do we
shoot first and ask questions later? Do we check passports?
(15:59):
How's this gonna work? Right? And and like you said, Olivia,
it was pretty aggressive. Um. The first thing that happened
on day one was the US and I believe the
UK sailed warships off the coast Olibya and started shooting
missiles into Libya's interior, knocking out military installations, radar installations,
(16:21):
as much of the Libyan military is or at least
air force as could be destroyed. Hundred twelve Tomahawk cruise
missiles boom, Yeah, each one precisely shot. That's right. And uh,
I love the article says the goal is to shape
the battle space in quotes. Yeah, that's the euphemism. Huh yeah,
big time. So um, after this, they send in the
(16:42):
drone surveillance aircraft to check things out. You see what's
going on? And did you get the impression the US
is kind of showing off a little bit like we well,
we've got some missiles we can use. And then after
we're we'll send in our unmanned drones and make sure
everything's bombed. And then after that we're going to send
in radar jamming equipment just in case you have anything
left on the ground, we'll take care of that too. Yeah,
(17:05):
that was the first like two days. Yeah, and getafis
his air force was you know, they call them vintage
jets in this uh in this article, and that's in
that case, vintage is not a good thing. You know,
it's from the nineteen sixties. It's old gear. Basically, it's vintage,
not retro um. So it's it's still it was effective.
(17:25):
It worked even beyond the fact that, um, the jets
were vintage and we crippled the his radar system, his
air force, military installations. Um, there was still a lot
of shoulder launched rockets in Libya and estimated six hundred.
I believe that like during this time, Kadafi was handing
(17:48):
out to people who were on his side. Yeah, and
Sadam Hussein famously offered a bounty on any aircraft shotdown
of like fourteen grand which I thought, why not fifteen?
You know, Yeah, that was a weird number. I wonder
if that if that makes like a significant round number
in Iraqi money. You know, it's a lot of yes,
(18:10):
thank you. You shouldn't invest in those, by the way,
that's a big scam invest in denari. You have you
heard of people doing that? No, it's a thing where
people buy up Iraqi denari and thinking you're like, they're
gonna hit it big one day. You shouldn't do that. Why, Yeah,
it's just you do a little research and it's it's
sort of one of those scams, is it. Yeah, So
like if you bought denari from a legitimate currency broker,
(18:33):
it's still not a good investment. Huh. I know someone
who did. Oh no, is it possible it's going to
come back in ten years? A doubt it. Are they
going to go euro? I don't know. Huh. But yeah,
that's just a sidebar. Okay, that was a nice one.
Save your money, folks. So we were talking about the
possibility that a NATO jet or any jet patrolling a
(18:56):
no fly zone could get shot down by some dude
on the ground. Yeah it hasn't happened, No, but it
couldn't have to be one lucky shot. It raises one
of the concerns. Uh, actually it has happened. It hasn't
happened from somebody on the ground, but it raises a concern,
a risk that, um, we're sending in people again into
a sovereign nation that maybe he has to deal with
(19:18):
his own problems, and um, we're putting our people in
danger for that. Most people, I think myself included side
on the idea of going in and protecting civilians from
certain slaughter. Um, but I do agree that there is
a risk as well in um. Scott McGrady remember him, Yeah, Yeah,
(19:41):
during the Balkan War. Uh, during that no fly zone
he was shot down I guess by a Serbian plane.
Uh it was a surface to air missile. But okay,
so somebody has shot down somebody from the ground. Well
I don't know if it was a person. Okay, Well
he was shot down patrolling a no fly zone and
h he was in very big trouble for a little while.
(20:03):
Had he not been quite the survivalist, who knows what
would have happened. Because the Serbs were hot on his
trail and he spent six days evading them. Yeah, he
did a really good job and hero. Yeah, he ate
ants and lived on collected rainwater and avoided the bad
guys and eventually got through uh A radio signal and
Gene Hackman picked up Gene Haman was like, we're going
(20:24):
to get you out of there. Yeah, uncommon Valor. Man.
That was the Gene Hackman was in the Ohen Wilson
movie too, Was he really? I'm pretty sure he was
the one that was in charge of saving him. Oh man,
well he's he's always going in and save him an
uncommon Valor. It was his son who was a Yeah,
Vietnam Pio w Right. That's good, Randall tex Cob Yeah,
(20:46):
what was his name in it? I don't remember that.
That movie came out at a great time for me though.
It was the perfect age. He wore like a live
grenade around his remember, yeah, that's the second time we
talked about Uncommon Valor and like two months When was
the other one? I remember? I don't remember. I remember
talking about it and probably when what happens if the
(21:06):
earth stops spinning? Yeah? Probably so. Um, so you got
anything else? I guess. We had the opportunity to to
really invade Libya, and in President Obama said, you know what,
let's not do that. Um, let's not do the regime
change game. Well, a lot of people are like, we
shouldn't be there in the first place. A lot of
(21:28):
other people are like, this is a half measure. If
you're gonna go do that and just wipe out somebody's military,
you might as well do a ground invasion and take
over and top all the regime. Like you said. Obama
was like, no, let's give it a shot. And he
was proven right in Libya at least, because even if
you take out their air defenses and their air offenses,
I guess they still have way better weaponry and stuff
(21:50):
on the ground than these uprising forces do. And it
worked in Libya. It didn't necessarily work in the Balkans.
A lot of people point to Um the slaughter at
um Sribrenica. Yeah, seven thousand Muslim U boys and men
(22:12):
were killed yea by the Bosnians being Yeah, who are
being tried for war crimes because of it. But the
no FLI zone didn't do anything to prison prevent it.
That's right, So I mean, is it effective? It can be.
I say that we don't have a large enough body
of work to study from here. We need to get
(22:33):
some more going, get some more enoughly sounds Remember how
creepy it was after eleven when all the planes were
shut down. Remember that. Oh yeah, it's just so odd.
You don't realize how used to the sounds and the
Kim trails and trail We did an episode on that
Calm trails or did kim trails? We did? We did
(22:53):
a con trails Kim Trails. Yeah, yeah, you know what
I mean. Okay, I guess that's about it, right. If
you want to learn more about no fly zones, you
can type no fly zone into the search bart how
stuff works dot com. Uh. And before we get the
listener mail, let's do a word from our sponsor. All right,
listener mail time. Yeah, okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this um.
(23:14):
She kid gets his way, which I try not to do.
But this is everybody loves it when pushy kids get there.
This is a shout out for a teacher. This is
Jack and Jack and I had been emailing each other
and he says, by the way, Chuck, I think I
told you in the past about my Civics teacher that
listens to the show. This week, we have a special
project in this class is to make a podcast about
one of the Supreme Court cases we've been studying for
(23:36):
some hints. We listened to tidbits of your show, and
my teacher and I just grinned from ear to ear
at each other like a really funny inside joke because
they're like the only two in the class of listen. Um.
I plan for my pseudonym to be either Chuck or
even Chuckers, if he would allow, I give me a permission,
sir uh. He says he sees himself as a younger
version of me, which is writing, although the actual content
(23:58):
in the show is more like this American life because
we are required to have Collins Son have Collins Uh?
Do they? I don't know. I don't think. I will
always think to myself that I'm sitting there in your
little studio. If you can give my spectacular teacher, Mr
Kristof a shout out, that would be mind boggling, stupendously incredible.
(24:21):
But I understand if you can't, Mr Kristof. Yep, Mr
Kristoph civics teacher. And I said, sure, Jack, I'll do that.
And then he emailed again from Washington, d C. And said,
I hate to seem demanding, Chuck, but if you could
also mention Mrs Kristof because I have her for math
and I don't want to make her feel left out.
So if it's too late, I get it. I can't complain.
(24:42):
This might be the best day of my life after all.
Have a nice long weekend. And that is Jack outside Washington,
d C. And Mr and Mrs Kristof, good job listening
to the show, and we thank you for using it
in your classroom. Yes, thank you to the Kristof's. Mr.
And Mrs Kristof's. Thank you for shaping your minds. Do
you conceive that shout out? Uh? And way to go, Jack?
(25:04):
You're cool, dude. Um, if you have a shout out
you want us to give. Chuck gives in on those
pretty frequently. Sometimes. You can tweek to us at s
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com, uh slash Stuff you Should Know, send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and
go to our website Stuff you Should Know dot com.
(25:31):
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