Libya is not Iraq

[mkultra]

Iraq was a war predicated on the desire of neo-con strategists to topple a mid east country and gain a foot hold. This of course ignores any of the other less obvious reasons such as revenge for baby bush and the acquisition of oil. It was sold to the public with lies of WMD, terrorist involvement and nuclear threat. It was executed in an almost completely unilateral fashion ignoring all input from the UN when they failed to fall in line.

Libya is a humanitarian mission to stop a cruel dictator from using armor and bombers against poorly armed citizens who are already fighting for their own freedom. It is being done without ground troops and with the complete approval of the UN. In fact, our role will soon be over as other major UN members will take over.

Sometimes defending the weak against tyranny has value. If you want to rationalize the lives of innocents for political hay, then perhaps you are no better than the politicians.

[rug]

1. This sounds like the opening crawl from Star Wars.

[mkultra]

3. Well, then rug. I made one just for you

http://www.starwars.com/games/playnow/crawl_creator/index.jsp?cs=jduwswjf54

[rug]

11. Lol, cool site. Thanks.

[Exilednight]

2. I find it disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to think that Libya is not about oil. France

and England pulled us into this conflict because their oil interests were at stake. Obama, Rice and Clinton willing followed knowing that if France and England had their oil supply disrupted, then in turn, our oil supply would be disrupted as England and France would have to start dipping into our suppliers in order to make up the difference.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Nevermind that the rebel leader that helped turn the anti-Kadaffi

protests into armed rebellion was trained by the CIA and lived for two decades within spitting distance of Langley, and that Libya was one of the top 4 PNAC targets.

Things are not always as they seems - or as the propagandists would have you believe.

[mkultra]

10. if your talking about Mustafa Abdul Jalil then please enlighten us

he has been known as someone in the regime open to change and cooperative with the US. he has also been know to openly speak out against civil rights abuses at home while part of the regime. He is essentially a defector of sorts. When did he live and train with the cia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Abdul_Jalil

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Not him - Hifter.

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/libya-rebel-leader-had-cia-backing-4096824

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/hift-m30.shtml

He's the guy who is responsible for turning this from being a civilian uprising a la Tunisia or Egypt into an armed rebellion.

[PurityOfEssence]

14. I don't know if it shows he's responsible for turning this to an insurrection, but it stinks anyway

Thanks for posting this.

Just the most oblique glance at the whole situation should set anyone's senses tingling: threats of nationalization, relatively small protests with comparatively few fatalities, French recognition of the rebels, a US trained exile leader; it's enough even if the specifics aren't explored.

Whether this guy "turned it into a civil war" or not, he's sure as hell a catalyst and dispels the myth that this is a wholly domestic issue.

Playing upon peoples emotions to hide kleptocorporatism is a nasty bit of soulless cynicism, and it's being done so badly that it may well not be all that easy to hide.

[BlueMTexpat]

16. I believe that you'll find that it was Gaddafi's security forces

that began the armed conflict and that Gaddafi has consistently maintained throughout that he would fight until the last man standing. No one with any real knowledge of or experience with him believes that he was merely being hyperbolic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Libyan_civil_war

I find the whole situation very troubling, but let's also keep all the facts in mind. IMO, the NGOs on the ground have called things correctly - and they were literally predicting genocide without outside intervention.

[mkultra]

17. That info itself comes from the Jamestown Foundation which is a CIA front

that group was set up by bill casey when he was director of the CIA and its doesnt say he was trained but rather that he someone the us could use. Hifter lived in the US when he was exiled by Gaddafi. He was a defector. He went back when the shit broke out just like anyone with an interest in toppling Gaddafi would do. The uprising was a direct result of Gaddafi's violent response to the peoples protests. He said himself that he would cleanse every house one at a time and if they didn't love him they didn't deserve to live. He was bombing his own people and his top military where defecting long before we ever got involved. Military that didn't obey orders to attack civilians where executed. Gaddafi claimed al-queda was poisoning him and he shut down all media and internet.

No matter what goes in when Gaddafi leaves, it will surely be better. As long as we don't go in on the ground, i see nothing wrong.

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. I don't totally disagree - I just say that Kadaffi being a bad guy

does not make everyone who opposes him a good guy - and we just don't know who the players are so we need to be a little more circumspect about our support.

Wasn't Bill Casey in charge of the CIA back when Bin Laden was a good guy?

[mkultra]

23. I dont think anyone is saying that

at least not anyone reasonable. Ghaddafi being a bad guy alone isn't enough to justify invasion or intervention. The world is full of bad guys and its not our job to police the world. In fact, its damaging to us and to them to take such an approach. If, however, we are on the precipice of civilian genocide, then im good with intervention.

Yes, Casey was CIA director in the 80's when we where helping the Afghans fight off the soviets and Bin Laden was in Peshawar. I wouldn't necessarily put Bin Laden on the evil list then. Our continued interference in that region for the sake of Israel eventually lead to the culmination of anti-western sentiment.

I can guarantee you that if Ghaddafi is evil(which is pretty probably) and there is an uprising against him, not everyone on the other side will be puritanical. Crazy people gravitate to war because it gives them a chance to kill.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lurks Often]

6. That is a very pretty post

of course I have to wonder if you have made the same impassioned defense of our intervention in Libya if the President had an R behind his name. Hmmm, probably not.

Edit for grammar

[mkultra]

9. it would depend

If it is clear the president is lying to us regarding the reasons then i certainly wouldn't. In general, i don't trust Republicans in regard to war to any degree. So i guess the answer is no.

[elleng]

7. Thanks

:thumbsup:
:hi:

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

8. it's sad. some folks who talk all day about helping people, don't really want to help people at all.

Especially if Obama is somehow involved.

Then all of the sudden Libya becomes Iraq.

[ReggieVeggie]

12. you keep believing that

I'm sure it makes you feel better

[stevenleser]

18. You keep believing its the same.

I'm sure that makes you feel better.

[ReggieVeggie]

22. It's more similar than not

but you war cheerleaders don't seem to see that

[mkultra]

24. and you pro-genocide cheerleaders dont either

[ReggieVeggie]

26. is that what you were saying when Bill Clinton was ignoring Rwanda?

[mkultra]

27. No, i was pissed.

And its the same thing i felt about Darfur. What were you saying? "GOOOOoooooo GENOCIDE!"

[mkultra]

19. being right always does

[BlueMTexpat]

15. True, Libya is not Iraq.

Nor is it Bahrein or Yemen ... or even Tunisia or Egypt - other inapt analogies.

But the false equivalencies keep popping up on DU - over and over again.

[zipplewrath]

21. It's not a humanitarian effort either

"Libya is a humanitarian mission to stop a cruel dictator from using armor and bombers against poorly armed citizens who are already fighting for their own freedom."

It may not be Iraq, but it's not this either. It is interesting that our humanitarian principals typically seem to become important for people who are being threatened by a dictator, with oil under his feet.

There are actually fairly defensible reasons for this fight, but it has very little to do with humanitarian aid. It is far more similar to Kosovo and/or Croatia. It was grounded to a great extent in a concern that this conflict could destabilize neighboring countries, and actually result in rolling back progress in places like Egypt. This isn't about saving anyone, and all you have to do is watch what happens before this is all over and figure out how many innocent people we had to bomb at their "wedding parties" in order to "save" them.

This is a dangerous strategy, one that has "blown back" before on us. Kosovo hasn't been nearly the success story we were sold, and alot of innocent people died anyway. We did something similar in Croatia and had to kill innocent people in order to save them. We tried something like this in Afghanistan, only to create the Taliban and Al Queda. We have tried this approach in Haiti, Columbia, and more historically in Mexico and Cuba. It rarely works out well, when it works out at all. We are going to prolong a war by preventing either side from being able to win. How many innocents will that kill? And even if one side manages to win anyway, we not only don't know who they are, or what it will produce, but the odds are that it won't be anyone that we will particularly want to support. And they may try to influence Egypt and other neighbors in unattractive directions.

This isn't Iraq, but it's still combat, war, and killing. Let's not try to put alot of lipstick on this pig.

[Mimosa]

25. +1,000 n/t