France Admits to Arming Libyan Rebels

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

PARIS — France confirmed on Wednesday that it has provided weapons to the Libyan rebels, the first instance of a NATO country providing direct military aid to the forces seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Col. Thierry Burkhard, a spokesman for the French military, said France responded in early June to a United Nations request, made in May, for a “humanitarian pause” to allow the delivery of essential medical supplies and other relief items to Libyan civilians in the besieged city of Misurata and in the towns and cities of the western mountain region, also under attack from loyalist forces.

“The U.N. request never actually took effect,” he said. “So we airdropped water, food and medical supplies” to Misurata and to the Nafusah Mountains south of Tripoli.

“During this operation troops also airdropped arms and ammunition several times, including assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers,” he said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/europe/30france.html

[Ice Number Nine]

1. What's to admit to? Isn't this expected?

[aquart]

2. Woulda been dumb if they didn't.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Just ignore the embargo, huh?

This whole thing is ugly.

We're out to get rid of Qaddafi so we can get a better and more predictable deal on the oil. All the sniveling about oppression and civilians is such a heap of crap. It would serve us right if the new regime turned out to be a reactionary theocracy that jacked up the rates to the moon.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Well.......

Too bad Gaddafi actually was an oppressive asshole himself. But then again, if the Muslim Brotherhood and/or one or more of their allies does manage to take advantage of the situation as they did in Egypt, then that would be unfortunate.

[JackRiddler]

13. Here's your oppressive asshole Gaddafi with his criminal associates in recent years:

So what's the point? Libya was integrated into the capitalist global market. Relations were better than ever.

This wasn't many years ago, this was yesterday. For the last 10 years, Gaddafi was a darling of the West, an ally in the "War on Terror."

Qadaffi re-privatized Libyan oil!

The uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and now almost every Arab nation spoiled that.

Kadafee's murderous reaction when the wave arrived in Libya made it impossible to sustain him as an ally.

The Libyan rebels were too sympathetic and skilled with the media (in comparison to, say, Yemen).

Suddenly the US sees an opportunity to get ahead of the Arab uprisings by supporting the fall of the one dictator the oil kingdoms won't mind seeing go.

Remember, the US tried to figure out ways to keep Mubarak until his final days. And while they try to topple Cadafy, they have until this same moment tried to prop up Yemen as it massacres its own protesters.

Humanitarian, democracy: that's not the US motivation in these countries.

A solution is being sought to re-stabilize Libya under a new regime, so that the oil can flow and so that refugees don't start hazarding a passage to Fortress Europe.

Meanwhile, humanitarian disasters (including massacres of civilians by the military) in countless countries produce no such reaction from the West. Those countries don't have oil and aren't across the Med from Europe.

Will this be better for Libyans? A lot of you are willing to risk that it will be, which is a gamble at best. That's no reason to blind yourselves to whom you are supporting.

The nations of this coalition you have been engaged in international crime for centuries. These same states, sometimes alone and sometimes in alliance, once enslaved the rest of the world. They killed millions of Algerians and Vietnamese and Iraqis and so many others. France and the US supported opposite sides as proxies in the Rwandan civil war that culminated in genocide, but the world was later sold on the lie that they didn't intervene to stop it!

Right in to the present decade, always for geostrategic interest alone, and always with some noble excuse.

In the next weeks they'll be cutting the "entitlements" you paid for and keeping the Pentagon budget untouched.

.

[Fool Count]

25. Well, according to todays NYT he was screwed by

Goldman Sachs on Libyan sovereign investments to the tune of $1 billion. So there was a definite risk of him pulling the money out, which was like
$70 billion total only with GS. I mean, should the international community has stood by and watched as Goldman Sachs is being deprived of its
profits? Who would allow such an outrage?

[Fool Count]

24. Well, the UN resolution authorizes "all means necessary",

it does not explicitly insist on those "means" being legal or conforming with international law and UN resolutions (including itself).
So there you go, they are covered no matter what they do. Curiously, it says "all means" which may be interpreted to mean that
forgoing use of some means, deemed to be "necessary" (by whom?), would in itself constitute a breach of the UN Resolution 1973.
They can even claim that by refusing to arm the rebels they would be in violation of the resolution, since it is clearly "necessary"
to arm them in order to "protect the civilians". If they later decided that it was necessary to drop a nuclear bomb on Tripoli to
protect the civilians and did just that, they would still be in full compliance with the law. And that's the most important thing -
to keep everything legal. That's like the whole point of their Western civilization.

[Bosonic]

3. I was under the impression there was an inclusive UN arms embargo

which covered both sides of the conflict. But what's a little international law breaking when you're enforcing international law? Besides Qatar/Tunisia have already set the arms supply on the QT precedent, so who cares right??

[PurityOfEssence]

5. Who cares about some candy-assed UN anyway?

They're just a beard.

Still, shouldn't the League of Nations take at least some kind of action against them?

[JackRiddler]

6. The pro-war crew love the UN whenever they can (falsely) claim it sanctioned the war.

See, to justify the war you first say, falsely, that it has UN backing (it does not).

But what if the UN complains about something? Right, then it's time to say: Who cares what the UN thinks? When did they ever get anyting done?!

Furthermore, it's not a war and it's not the USA but NATO that is engaging in the non-hostilities which are all on-budget so that makes it even more totally legal and non-hostile than ever.

And what if you say anything against that? Well obviously then you love Gaddafi and want to kill innocent Libyans because you're cruel and racist and hate freedom.

And what if that sounds all-too familiar to you? Oh, no you don't: that's a completely outrageous comparison!

[PurityOfEssence]

8. For far too many of them, it's a vanity project

Look at me, I love innocent civilians! All the rest of you big meanies who don't rush to the colors at the first calling from our altruistic President want to see civilians die, whereas I am so morally superior to you that I'll risk modern mechanized warfare to make sure that the opportunists and Islamists take over.

Anyone who stands in my way is a Qaddafi-loving thug, and no matter how many real bodies get piled up, they'll never exceed the hundreds of thousands of potential dead in Benghazi had we not taken up the sword. I know this because I said this, and I'm morally better than you are.

[JackRiddler]

9. Yup. You got it...

I think the accuracy of your caricature has chased them away from this thread, though.

[PurityOfEssence]

22. Never underestimate the tenacity of vanity

One poster, who shall remain nameless due to board rules, has repeatedly fought the clear obviousness of the UN Participation Act (which REQUIRES Congressional authorization for any action under Article 42 call-ups) with barking accusations and flat-out untruths. Then there's the War Powers Resolution, which our prevaricating President likes to intimate is unconstitutional, even though it's standing law, which prohibits a President from initiating WAR on his own unless we've been attacked: it's been trampled into the ground. Then there's the NATO Treaty, which is purely DEFENSIVE: the only way NATO may attack is in response to a member nation being attacked.

The curse of the virtuecrat is to need to be loved. In the face of contrary evidence, they need to scream down any dissent.

Obama is not a hero of the left; he's a corporatist appeaser. Worse than that, he's not an executive; he's a legislator skilled in the most primitive version of political survival: getting elected by avoiding anything of substance. This is old, tired and transparent.

[sudopod]

10. OH SNAP nt

[ellisonz]

11. France did what it felt was neccessary.

[JackRiddler]

12. Of the imperialist nations in Africa, France may have the ugliest record of all.

[ellisonz]

15. The year is 2011.

[JackRiddler]

19. Same excuse in 1895. This time is different, this time we're civilized and humanitarian.

Tell it to the Rwandans, who, contrary to the false-humanitarian mythology, suffered the French intervention on behalf of the genocidaires.

And think how lucky the Tunisians would have been, if their revolution had only gone on long enough to allow the intervention the French were planning on behalf of their client dictator, Ben Ali.

Your post cannot be meant as a serious answer to the pictures I just put up (above, Post 13), one of them Sarkozy meeting Gaddafi one-to-one LAST YEAR. The French motives in Africa (and this is true of the rest of the imperialist coalition) are always for geostrategic or economic gain. Humanitarian considerations are for justification, even if sometimes incidentally served.

The overall record of Western military campaigns leaves no doubt that Africans would have been much better off without these. With what legitimacy does a country that's brought as much war, suffering and genocide to that continent as France now set itself up as the judge and enforcer of humanitarian law?

[trud]

26. I'll see you France, and raise you Italy

The former colonial oppressor of Libya being involved in this is nauseating.

All the Western powers who installed a King in Libya are just pukeable.

[PurityOfEssence]

14. for its financial interests

And so it goes.

[ellisonz]

16. Prove it.

[PurityOfEssence]

21. Here. Please be honorable and acknowledge this reality.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/libya-wikileaks/8294570/FRENCH-TOTAL-LED-CONSORTIUMS-ACCEPT-LOWER-PRODUCTION-SHARES-IN-LIBYA.html

[joshcryer]

28. Quote:

Exploration and development costs associated with increasing production capacity of the Mabruk and al-Jurf fields will be shared equally by the NOC and the consortiums.

The new production share percentage accepted by Total and its partners is still considerably larger than those obtained by other IOCs in renegotiating their existing contracts. It is also larger than the production shares of companies who won contracts in the most recent EPSA-IV bid rounds. The new agreement still guarantees Total, Wintershall and StatoilHydro longer access to existing Libyan reserves and further field development opportunities, with the potential of increasing oil production.

Translation: France got exploration and development costs offset by Libya's National Oil Company while extending their exploration rights considerably.

[joshcryer]

27. France is likely going with the "notwithstanding" clause that I believe Hillary got put in there.

It was a tough sell last I recall and almost spoiled the deal. Many people cited that clause as proof there'd be occupying forces and shortly after the Misrata siege heated up and the port was being bombarded there was a lot of talk about just that. But it never materialized (thankfully).

[trud]

17. France arms al Qaeda, lol

"What worries us is not who is giving what, but simply that weapons are being distributed by all parties and to all parties. We already have proof that these weapons are in the hands of al-Qaeda, of traffickers," said Ping.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/06/2011629234644934286.html

[Bosonic]

18. NATO: not involved in French arms aid to Libya rebels

VIENNA, June 30 (Reuters) - NATO was not involved in a French operation to airlift weapons to Libya's rebels, alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday.

Rasmussen, speaking to reporters during a visit to Vienna, also said he had no information of any other countries delivering arms to the insurgents.

But he said NATO had "successfully implemented" the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya, the no fly zone, the arms enbargo and also the effective protection of civilians in the North African country.

France on Wednesday became the first NATO country to openly acknowledge arming the rebels seeking to topple Muammar Gaddafi, who has so far resisted a three-month-old bombing campaign that has strained alliance and rebel firepower.

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE75T0TD20110630?feedType=RSS&feedName=libyaNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FAfricaLibyaNews+%28News+%2F+Africa+%2F+Libya+News%29&utm_content=Google+UK

-----------------

Successfully implemented the arms enbargo, but acknowledges that France supplied weapons outide of UN/NATO remit *and* he had no information of any other countries delivering arms to the insurgents (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13745337">BBC: Libyan rebels smuggling weapons through Tunisia). What a stellar performance.

[JackRiddler]

20. NATO: Device for war by which no one is in charge and no one will be blamed.

[daleo]

23. It wasn't NATO, it was France

Who is, ta-da, a member of NATO.