Libya - the untold and airbrushed disaster

W

Warbler

At the Start
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
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This one has the capacity to eclipse the rise of IS in terms of the danger that it poses to us. This one is made all the more heartbreaking because it involved the removal of one of the more progressive regimes in the arab world in order to enhance the electoral prospects of Nicholas Sarkozy (which ultimately failed). A regime let us not forget who the beleaguered war on terror could actually point to as their solitary diplomatic success. The French were quickly joined by the most useless foreign seceretay this country has ever had in my living memory (William Hague) who conjured up a load of hysterical stories that transpired to be ill informed lies for us to get involved. It sent out a chilling message to the rest of the world. Don't trust the west, (and build yourself a nuclear weaopn as fast you can). Foreign policy has been one the of the great unacknowledged disasters of this government. If it isn't Osborne treating us all like muppets in pretending that he's brought the EU to their knees and extracted a 50% reduction in our surcharge, then it's Cameron trying to get sanctions instilled on Russia whilst he invites Qatar through the front door of Downing Street last week. By far and a way the biggest disaster (and it has anglo/ french DNA running all through it) is Libya

We never hear about it now do we? Yet there was a time when it was headline news every day and all the usual suspects were leaping up and down in the reactionary media egging on the so called 'national transnational council' referred to more honestly now in this article as "rebels" - (not what the Telegraph described than as at the time incidentally). In those days they were heroic pro democracy freedom fighters (even though there were plenty of warnings that they weren't)

Anyway, buried away on p32 of the Sunday Telegraph is the latest appraisal of Cameron's calamatious attempt to run a 1980's foreign policy in the 20 teens. Isn't about time he apologised for lying and a catastrophic misjudgement. When the Islamists finally triumph (and they will) we're going to have an oil rich islamist state smack on Europe's front door because of him and Sarkozy. In fact, the chances are had Cameron and the imbecilic Hague not joined the French and played on the American conscience over Rwanda, none of this would have happened

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...escended-into-faction-fighting-and-chaos.html
 
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I'm going to read the article and come back

i have always sensed that Cameron's foreign policy has tended towards the knee jerk with a background of lazy thinking. As an aside, on the issue of the eu rebate, it is in fact future credits taken early. A lot of window dressing for an issue blown cynically out of proportion. Having said that it was Cameron's sworn supposed enemy, junker, who agreed that it was an unacceptable charge. Again lazy analysis and judgement by cameron...maybe. Also as an aside, I suspect that osbourne has done a quietly good job with this
 
No offence to you Warbler because you're looking at this from a world view perspective but as someone from Northern Ireland Gadaffi was responsible for some of the darker moments of our history . He freely supplied semtex to the IRA and a lot of innocent civilians lost their lives . I was glad that he was violated and executed and I was glad that UK and french military assisted in that
 
Solerina said:
No offence to you Warbler because you're looking at this from a world view perspective but as someone from Northern Ireland Gadaffi was responsible for some of the darker moments of our history . He freely supplied semtex to the IRA and a lot of innocent civilians lost their lives . I was glad that he was violated and executed and I was glad that UK and french military assisted in that
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Do you think that all leaders who supply arms and cause the loss of innocent life should be sodomised with a knife or just the ones that you don't like.
 
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Ok Luke you don't like what I've said and please don't try to railroad me into a generalisation . I wasn't making a prescription so the answer is no but that doesn;t change my view on Gadaffi . I think he got what he deserved
 
Prisoners of Gadaffi frequently had electrodes places on their privates , electrocution was quite normal . If you were very unlucky you were also brought to a courtyard before being savaged by wild dogs and eaten alive . Luke do you still think we should have allowed him to go to the Haige ?
 
Semtex is manufactured in Czechsolvakia, sold to Libya, sold on to Northern Ireland, with money supplied from the United States, who also do a nice tasty line in electrocution and torture as Abu Graid showed. Where do you want to draw the line? Do you openly celebrate when bombs go off at the Boston Marathon? Some might if it makes them feel better.

The bottom line is a lot more Libyans are going to be killed now, (have been and will continue to be) than Irish were in the Troubles, and a lot more than if Gadaffi had stayed in power. Libya is on a different scale to Northern Ireland, and the threat that could ultimatelty be posed to us (all of us) is much bigger than anything Irish Republicanism would contemplate

Death by wild dogs is a new one on me I must admit. I've heard it used before regarding North Korea recently, but that was exposed as Chinese propoganda. These claims tend to be made by dissident groups based in Europe on flimsy heresay evidence (as Alistair Campbell will tell you). You might like to recall for instance that the same academics from the London School of African and Oriental Studies who'd instilled themselves as NTC cheerleaders in exile, and for the most part not been anywhere near Libya for decades, were assuring us that mass genocide would be committed, and had been committed, and we had to act. As the rebels retook ground from Gadaffi did they uncover the mass graves that we were assured would be there aka Rwanda? No. The simple fact is the Libyans weren't executing dissidents and members of the public on anything like the scale that William Hague assured us they were doing. It doesn't have any of hallmarks of a murderous regime out of control

Prisoners might get executed now and then as combatants, but that's been going on in warfare for centuries. In this case both sides were doing it.
 
Horrific regime Luke is gonna make his own mind up but from what he's said I should worry that I might be biased :)
 
The thing is I am 43 yrs old . You all strike me as if you're playing war-games , safe in surrey , I've lived through the troubles for real .from start to finish I've seen body parts .I've known the grief that terrorism causes . I've seen it first hand Your next door neighbour happens to be a policeman and he gets blown up . What do you say to his wife and kids who you usually play with
 
So Warbler you deny my assertions . Human rights watch are thankfully on the case . Not sure why you want to defend the Libyan government .
 
Human Rights Watch I'd forgotten about. They're an appallingly unreliable neo conservative American group Solerina with some highly dubious funding arrangements and clashes of interest which are in stark contradiction to their terms of supposed constitution. They even gave Saudi Arabia a clean bill of health in return for a significant donation.

Human Rights Watch are increasingly the 'go to' right wing justification arm that American conservatives turn to when they need some supposed neutral opinion as to a reason for war. They were given an international audit a few years ago and got absolutely slaughtered for malpractice, misreporting and exaggeration. I think I'm right in saying the UN don't take their reports any longer?. Some international watchdog for NGO's struck them off as well for similar reasons not the least of which was concealing who they were taking their funding from.

Human Rights Watch have quite a bad track record for basically being wrong! Got a feeling they took significant off Shell too and managed to give them a clean bill of health for shooting Nigerian environmental protestors (something Shell later admitted that they'd paid the police too much money to do and effectively corrupted them into becoming a law enforcement branch for Shell)
 
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Solerina is right on a humanist level, he was a man who did terrible things.
Warbler has a strong argument in the geo-political and Western foreign policy aspect that he is arguing.
Your essentially debating apples and oranges so this should be a drawn out debate :).

The saddest thing I find is that this is turning into another foreign policy error (disaster?) which stops the West going after the chemical weapon dropping mass murderer who was and still should be a legitimate target in Bashir Al Assad. The Syrian leader that we were once going to knight.
He's gotten away with his crimes, Gaddafi wasn't as fortunate.
 
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Saying gadafi was the most progressive Arab leader is like saying he was the least dangerous man in broadmoor
 
Ok Luke I think you crossed the line . Denegrating attitudes don't fare well anywhere . Poor boy bad attitude , you denigrate me I report you to the moderator. Your behaviour is totally unacceptable
 
Solerina said:
Ok Luke I think you crossed the line . Denegrating attitudes don't fare well anywhere . Poor boy bad attitude , you denigrate me I report you to the moderator. Your behaviour is totally unacceptable
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Am I simple ? Thats nice ,I'm gonna bring the law to you
 
Solerina said:
Ok Luke I think you crossed the line . Denegrating attitudes don't fare well anywhere . Poor boy bad attitude , you denigrate me I report you to the moderator. Your behaviour is totally unacceptable
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It's ok to approve of rape with a knife but to ask if someone is naive or simple isn't.
 
If Colin is here please can you intercede. Hateful opinions . Not what I signed up for here . Luke seems to think that women are weak . Luke I've reported you .
 
Sol has every right to despise gadafi, especially when her life has been affected by actions of the ira who he unequivocally supported . The "whatabout" nonsense is neither here nor there. You don't say to families of Lockerbie victims, ah yes but whatabout Rwanda

there are not many so called leaders who have ordered the blowing up of a plane of civilians who had absolutely nothing to so with his wars or his nation

im glad he's dead
 
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