Gaddafi is dead

[Zemra]

Agreed. That's pretty much already happening. The US is wary to go to war with Iran. As I've often stated on MAP... Iran fought the longest costliest war of the 20th century with Iraq. They're no stranger to war at all. The US getting involved in a land war in Iran would make Vietnam and Iraq look like Yogi bear picnic.

As always the people getting the shaft are your average everyday Iranian. The ones just trying to live their life and put food on the table. They're stuck between a rock and the hardliners. Sad that. Beautiful country, beautiful women, interesting culture that predates most... but sadly it's generally off limits for most westerners to do much travel there.

The US got their nose rubbed in it more than once in Iran... they'll proceed with extreme caution there again.

 

[SmoothGuy2]

This isn't true. The west like him as long as he suited their purposed in the region (notice a trend?)... that includes the Americans, The Brits and the French. So it's not like he had no friends and sat around moping. Far from it. Do your homework and you'll find out that in many ways western countries were as thick as thieves there and having a grand old time chumming about with Gaddafi.

It's shade of Iraq and Iran all over again. It takes an understanding of things that are more than 20 years old to get at that though. You're not going to find many your age who A) know B) care... sadly enough.

On top of which... like all puppet dictators in areas such as these... there tribal and clan element is huge. You can bet he was loved and adored by his clan... which is why the fighting in Sirte went on as long as it did.

 

[Jayanth]

I'll stay in camp B. I know international politics is dirty as hell but I really don't see much reason to care in this particular case. The end goal I wanted (intervention and Gaddafi removed) happened. End results the same so I'm not overly fussed what the exact motives were. Would be nice if they did it out of the goodness of their hearts but that's not how the world works and never will.

 

[Laurent]

Out of curiosity what is it that all of a sudden made you want Gaddafi removed so badly? Sound like the feature flavor of the moment. You don't see the irony in western powers setting up and maintaining tin pot dictators and then taking them out when they see fit. Then all the people cheering hurrah? Lol... willful ignorance if ever there was some.

So in essence what you're saying is you've accepted the 'official' version of events and given the old hip hip hooray even though you actually realize that the sales pitch doesn't in reality reflect what's actually being sold.

Brilliant. Go camp B.

 

[Chazo]

Around the same time everyone else. What you wanted to hear?


Not happy about it but I can get why it happens. You work in government your first job is to focus on your own country and if that means hugging some bad people then that's what's going to happen.


I accept that this is the way the world works and until there's some global epiphany of brothely love then tis the way its going to keep working. Like I said I just wanted him gone the same way I want quite a few other regimes ended. But no I generally don't care that much what the "unofficial" motives are if it achieves the same result. I wanted an intervention in Libya for humanitarian reasons but if that's not going to happen and we'll only get involved to protect oil contracts or whatever then fine, either way the intervention happened.


I find its better than looking for reasons to crap on anything good that happens.

 

[sahil]

That's about what I figured. About the time it became the cause célèbre in the western media.

I wanted to hear your answer. Which is why I asked... I thought that much would be obvious. Not happy about it but I can get why it happens. You work in government your first job is to focus on your own country and if that means hugging some bad people then that's what's going to happen.



Intervention is intervention is intervention it seems. Doesn't matter why he's there in the first place or who put him there... hurrah for the "humanitarian reasons" he was uninstalled.


Right because the parody of removing tin pot dictators is about as close as we really get to getting rid of bad guys so we should enjoy it while we can. Odd definition of good when essentially the powers that took him out are the powers that propped him up in the first place. Odd that.

 

[mansstude]

Ever tried disagreeing with someone without being condescending? Just curious.

Anyway, that was when I became interested because that was when I first learnt something about Libya. Suprisingly your average 18 year old doesn't have an in depth knowledge of every dictator on Earth and their histories.



Pretty much. To use one of my crap examples:
Lets say me and you come across a rabbit that's been runover by a bicycle or something: Its not dead yet but its not going to live. You want to kill it to put it out of its misery, I want to kill it because I can eat it for dinner. We could either leave the rabbit to carry on suffering until it dies by arguing for the next 5 hours about who has the better reason to kill it or we can just work together to achieve a common goal.



I actually didn't get any say in supporting Gaddafi. I don't get why I should be emotionally limited by decisions made by a government I couldn't influence at a time when I wasn't even alive?

 

[aeb20]

Oh the irony. You're the one that asked what I wanted to hear. So if you don't want condescending answers then you might want to ease up on the rhetorical questions.



Or apparently even the last few decades worth.



Ok. Interesting.


Emotional freedom is paramount I guess.

 

[floridasmiles74]

The question was more a reaction to your post at around midnight where you called everyone pathetic and just a general observation. I really don't think I've seen you write a post disagreeing with someone without writing in a condescending way. Maybe that's just how I read it though I dunno.


Why would I? Its a topic that's barely in the public eye in countries like the UK and aren't mentioned in education anywhere so its incredibly unlikely someone my age will know about these things before they end up in the news. Could of got off my ass and researched it myself but its rare I sit at the pc and decide I want to learn the history of dictatorial regimes. Think trying to learn the history and tribal culture of Afghanistan is the closest I've come to doing that but again I only know about that because its a current issue and there was a chance of it becoming personal.


Forget the name of the philosophical idea behind it. Pragmatism kind of fits but I'm not sure, possibly utilitarianism? Its a view anyway, I'm not asking you or anyone else to agree just explaining my reasoning.


Meh. I just don't sign on to this idea that I inherit the sins of my countrymen or my forefathers just for being born in the same country. It just feels too restrictive to say what we can't do in the future because of what we've done in the past. Not saying the past should be ignored or forgotten just that dwelling on it too much hinders progress.

 

[OrangeMochaFrappaccino]

Actually this isn't true. Most Govts in the West have been unhapppy with him since forever. Dislike is not going to get in the way of political expediency however, and more than that (in recent times at least) yet another Western intervantion in an Arab country might have been seen as an expedition too far.



I don't really think it's comparable to Iraq and Iran at all.

The West made moves to embrace Gadaffi in an attempt to bring him in from the cold. This wasn't nice, it wasn't easy for the West to swallow, but it was seen as a way of demilatirising him and moderating his more insane excesses eg Lockerbie. The hope was he'd be dead soon (given his age) and then a more rational leader might take power.

Obviously this didn't happen as his own people, eternally grateful for the huge social programmes that were turning the Libyan dictatorship into a land of milk and honey as suggested previously, rather ungraciously decided they didn't want to put up with disappearances, torture, oppression and executions anymore.

At this point the West had a choice. Support the attempt to overthrow this maniac or not. Thankfully for all concerned they chose to help.

The nature of the help then had to be decided. Given the tricky nature of Arab/Western relations at the moment, boots on the ground would be a bad thing. So the air campaign, crass fudge though it was, allowed the popular uprising to succeed whilst limiting the accusations of a new imperialism.

How well this will work out long term will depend largely on the National Council and here's why; despite the subtle racism of those who claim that this is all CIA sponsored or decreed by the New World Order/Gnomes of Zurich/Great Cthulhu, failing to credit the Arab peoples themselves with the rise against their oppressive regimes, it very much is the Arab people that are in control. That's why the West is so nervous, they don't know what's going to happen next. They can try and be friendly and militarily helpful, but they can't enforce military solutions and they can't control Arab public opinion.

As for people complaining that the West only address certain situations and not others, that requires an understanding of the possible and the impossible, the level of benefit and the falibility of humans.

Mitch

 

[skgsolutions]

I do find it interesting and somewhat pathetic that the western media, politicians, and public seem to think that these countries seem to be interchangeable. First Tunisia,, then Egypt, and now Libya, & then maybe Syria. This represents western naivete at it's finest.

In Egypt's case, it wasn't the people in the streets that overthrew Mubarak as much as the loss of support from the military. Mubarak was grooming his boy to succeed him. The military as not behind such a move. The Egyptian military is formidable and could have crushed the dissent if it truly wanted to. Had they done so, they would have lost the support of their western patrons.

In Libya, the easterners took advantage of the "Arab Spring" to rise up against the Gaddafi and his factions in the west. They obviously had western backing. Maybe because a lot of oil resources are in the east.

Either of these scenarios sound like Syria? There you have an Alawite minority backed by Iran governing a Sunni majority that is probably getting backed by the Saudis in a chess match with Iran for regional influence.

The media and politicians are portraying all of this as a movement by the people of these countries to overthrow despots. Don't buy what they're selling.

 

[tydos]

[No message]

 

[SpencerM]

Why our western leaders are so concerned about how Gadaffi dies is beyond me. We tried to kill him several times ourselves enforcing our "no fly zone". Does it matter someone did the right thing and put a bullet in his brain? We gave Saddam a trial. It dragged on for a bit. And wasted a tone of money. He was always going to be found guilty. In the end we sent him home to be hanged. Which the Iraqi's made an arse of and ended up decapitating him. Which western leaders then all condemned. They of course had no problem with the Americans putting a bullet in Bin Laden.

We wanted him dead and out of the way. He's dead and out of the way. Lets move on.

As for the rest. I doubt there will be any more interventions. The UK doesn't have the military assets it needs to operate in the middle east effectively and the US just aren't interested right now. Without the UK and US the rest of Europe won't get off their rear ends.

 

[jemz2185]

Could it be because these are the first years wars have been captured by amateurs so easily? With the internet, camera phones etc all you need to do is find certain sites and you can suddenly see the war up close and personal through the eyes of people fighting it and realise how very different it is to what you see on the bbc over breakfast. Gaddafi's capture for instance: The video is disturbing and I saw more than a few people who backed the war suddenly become a lot more doubtful of the rebels and Libya's future after seeing it. Its no worse than what you'd expect from a non professional army but its still going to be a shock to people who are used to the more fluffy, disconnected version of war you get from the media.

Ignoring the video evidence though I can see the west being less happy with him being captured and then executed considering our reputation in that part of the world and also the idea we were helping usher in some new great government. A capture and trial is more friendly is what I'm getting at I guess.

 

[narul]

I think Libya is a great example of how you win these kind of wars. With Iraq and Afghanistan we went in with no real popular support. The majority of the people were not particularly invested in our mission and as a result we've been fighting an uphill battle for a decade. With Libya, we waited until civil war had already broken out and then aided our preferred side to victory, leading to a much faster and less costly victory.

 

[mreed89]

The problem with Afghanistan and Iraq is that we went in to those countries to fight our own wars and the welfare of the people was a secondary concern. In both cases it was a simple case of regime change because we didn't like the governments due to the fact they weren't playing the game any longer the way they were supposed to. However the people of both countries were fine with us going in and killing the leadership. Just so long as we didn't hang around afterwards. Which we did. And we're still there.

We became victims of our own morality and impatience.

 

[ImpossibleIsNothing]

This quote makes me terribly sad , the "removal" of Gaddafi should be important to to any UK resident after the man openly backed and funded the IRA in their terror campaigns against the UK mainland through the 80's.

 

[Emms27]

I can only speak for myself but I only remember knowing about the Lockerbie Bombing after the dude got released from prison the other year.

 

[brainetrust]

Not knocking you personally , i just find it sad that a generation has grown up not not knowing this.

 

[jeriuana]

A lot of money went to all sides in that conflict from the USA. But what is it that makes the IRA terrorists and the rebels in Libya "rebels". Why aren't the various rebel groups in Libya labelled terrorists?