I don't get it...why are people supporting taking down Qaddafi but not Saddam Hussein?

[dkf]

Or are you all for invading Iraq now? And do you want to get out of Afghanistan when the women will still be subject to abuse?

My head is spinning.

[Orrex]

1. Saddam Hussein had more tasteful fashion sense.

[PurityOfEssence]

110. Just as an aside, I completely agree.

The cut of the uniforms were stylish, and that light forest green color was quite jaunty.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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

[sabrina 1]

37. If I could rec a thousand times I would. At least someone is

thinking and asking questions. Did anyone on the Right ever do that? I don't remember. So, I guess we are slightly different in that we do have a few people still holding on to the principles they claimed to have when the PNAC started the Iraq War. Libya was on their list also, so they are still doing fine and now they have the Left on their side too.

[dkf]

68. It is odd how things are shaping up, isn't it?

You may just be right about PNAC which makes me really really sad.

I remember your great Obama threads with all the pics. The good days.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. Thousands of U.S. casualties

Trillion dollar war, maybe over one million civilian deaths.

One of these is not like the other.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

4. +1

duh, i didn't even have to think about this....

[dkf]

5. They thought Iraq would be easy.

So if they had decided to simply assassinate Saddam Hussein you would have been cool with it?

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Bush lied

And made a war that would be profitable for business partners and Saudi Arabia. If the Iraqi's had overthrown Saddamm instead, yeah - I would have been OK with that. But unfortunately for Iraq, Bush Sr. stabbed the would be revolutionaries in the back.

Are things playing out differently in some perpendicular universe?

[dkf]

14. So let's say Iraq hadn't happened, and the Shia and Kurds decide to uprise...

And Saddam starts cracking down...you would be for going after Saddam Hussein now?

[ThoughtCriminal]

19. So it is Perpendicular

Yes, in that alternate universe, we could give them the same kind of support we gave in Libya.

But are you saying the first Iraq doesn't happen (no Kuwait invasion), or are you the U.S. actually backs anti-Saddam forces after Desert Storm? Or is this an alternate 2003?

Bottom line: There is no rational way to compare the Iraq War to the overthrow of Quadaffi. There is a HUGE difference in how they were handled and President Obama's approach has proven to be superior.

[dkf]

26. No George W Bush shock and awe...

Now the Arab Spring hits Iraq and the Kurds and Shia rise...

Are you going after Saddam Hussein?

[ThoughtCriminal]

30. That would be up to the people in Alternate-Universe Iraq

If the the people in the universe where you apparently reside, decided to join the "Arab Spring", I think that alternate-universe U.S. could give the same kind of support that we did in Libya.

The alternative is to replay Bush Sr's blunder.

But that's not the way history played here. It is not hypocritical to support the policy that we followed in Libya, when one opposed a massive, stupid war that killed hundreds of thousands, based on lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

[alcibiades_mystery]

88. What do you think the no fly zones and sanctions and all the other

stuff that happened during eight years of the Clinton Presidency were?

I mean, truly, do you not have the slightest memory of the nearly ten years and much more than a billion spent on trying to depose Saddam Hussein throughout the 1990's?

Are you even serious right now?

[pampango]

112. If the UN authorizes it. No one was going to intervene in Libya without UN approval.

That's the way it should be. No one - the US, NATO, Russia, China, etc. - should intervene unilaterally but the UN should have that authority.

[joshcryer]

40. Bush not only lied, but he was going on a UN resolution from 1991. He had no unilateral support...

...and ultimately was a lying scumbag whom our congresscritters voted overwhelmingly to enable.

And yet Obama gets bashed because he had such a low key presence in Libya it's a joke. Hitting convoys of logistics is not a big deal.

[polmaven]

83. Qaddafi was not

assassinated by American troops. He was killed by Lybians. By the people he had brutalized for 4 decades. If the Iraqi people had risen up and deposed Hussein, even by assassination, That would have been their business.

[sabrina 1]

57. This war, like Iraq, is just beginning.

I remember Rummy saying something like you just said about Iraq. 'How long will it take? Oh, weeks, maybe months' and 'how much will it cost? Oh, about $40 billion'.

Do you really think this is the end of this war? Libyans have held out against the most powerful force in the world for nearly one year. Why do you think that even with the help of NATO, this war is still going on?

Seems to me that means the people there did not want this. In Egypt and Tunisia by contrast, the people were united, unarmed, and managed to topple their governments in just weeks.

[bighart]

92. According to NATO

funds directly taken from a common NATO account for Libya operations have totaled about $7.4 million per month for electronic warfare capabilities and $1.1 million per month for headquarters and command staff, a NATO spokesman said,

[Fumesucker]

6. You seem to be having a problem with simple logic..

When a Republican does it, it's really, really bad because they have evil motives.

When a Democrat does it, it's good because Democrats always have pure motives.

Don't watch what they do, listen to their rationalizations.

:evilgrin:

[Danse]

9. Tribalism

The "other team" did Iraq, "our team" did Libya. Seems simple enough.

[dkf]

10. Iokiyad.

[tblue]

24. Took me a minute.

But I get it. lol. Yes iokiyad. And iokiodi, too.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. That's about the size of it. nt

[Ignis]

108. Shh! Don't reveal the secret playbook!

[mmonk]

7. I believe in the rule of law and leadership without lies or wars of plunder

under false premise. But I am a dreamer. Any questions?

[Youth Uprising]

8. Because they're hypocrites.

[white_wolf]

11. I think hell just froze over.

Dfk said something I actually kind of agree with. Be right back, I'm going to go try and sell Satan a pair of ice skates.

[PETRUS]

16. I know, right? nt

[leftstreet]

17. ..

!!

[JVS]

38. I feel woozy too.

[sabrina 1]

58. Lol, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe s/he just expresses

HER/HIS opinions, regardless of the party, something I can respect even if I often disagree.

[inna]

61. yep! - and not the first time in my personal experience, either!

in fact, i almost posted something to that effect the other day - but then decided to wait and see if that was just a freak accident of some sorts. 7:

in all seriousness, i give dfk credit for asking questions and trying to think critically.

[devilgrrl]

90. Yes OP is definitely Concerned over this

:eyes:

[ellisonz]

13. I think Bush the Older should have finished him off in 1991.

Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened the stability of Saddam's government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi'a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly repressed.

The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions. The Iranians, despite the widespread Shi'ite rebellions, had no interest in provoking another war, while Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence, and the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an Iran-style Shi'ite revolution. Saddam, having survived the immediate crisis in the wake of defeat, was left firmly in control of Iraq, although the country never recovered either economically or militarily from the Gulf War. Saddam routinely cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won the war against the U.S. This message earned Saddam a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings. "As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America ... Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him." A shift was, therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war period "from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein, the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait to a more populist Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention and occupation."<53>

Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's handwriting, was added to the national flag. Saddam also commissioned the production of a "Blood Qur'an", written using 27 litres of his own blood, to thank God for saving him from various dangers and conspiracies.<71>

Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense following the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad 26 June 1993, citing evidence of repeated Iraqi violations of the "no fly zones" imposed after the Gulf War and for incursions into Kuwait.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein#Postwar_period

We wouldn't have needed 140,000 ground troops to have done it either...

The Bush family fucked our Iraq policy up.

[FarCenter]

91. Exactly. Had we destroyed the retreating forces the Shiite uprising would have taken care of Saddam

Instead we allowed some Iraqi units to retreat with their equipment intact into Iraq and we did not enforce a no-fly zone on helicopters.

As a result, Saddam was able to use those forces assisted with helicopters to crush the uprising after Gulf War I.

[rpannier]

129. That is because the coalition would have splintered

The countries in the Middle East that supported us (or at least turned a blind eye) made it clear that they would only support the war to push Iraq out of Kuwait.
Anything beyond that, they wouldn't support

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Lets make it 2 out of 3 when Syria is next

[Danse]

20. Agreed

Then on to Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and China.

War is a great way of solving problems, especially now that 90% of the people who die in wars are civilians.

It would appear that many "liberals" are just as supportive of war and empire as "conservatives", provided it's their "team" doing the killing.

[PurityOfEssence]

21. Ug. Bush Bad. Ug. Obama Good. With us or against us. Shut up.

By any metric, Saddam Hussein was MUCH worse than Moammar Qaddafi. It isn't even close.

The problem is that Barack Obama sanctioned the latter in his typical sideways and oblique way, whereas rubbing out Hussein was Bush's doing.

It's all very clear. It's the cult of personality, and the need to shout down any voices that might shed light on the fragile egos that need to keep the fantasy alive.

Seems pretty simple to me.

[tblue]

23. It's mind-blowing.

I really don't know how to switch my values on and off. Integrity? Bah! Who needs it?

[lynne]

25. That's pretty much the way I see it, too -

- but no use in even bringing it up here as it falls on very deaf ears.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rex]

27. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Didn't anyone tell you, Saddam Hussein is dead. Hung by his own people. So what is this about Iraq again? My head is spinning. :eyes:

[dkf]

32. You are right. Yikes.

[spanone]

28. pan am flight 103 ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103

[dkf]

31. I am very curious to know what we said to the Brits about releasing the Pan Am bomber.

[Spider Jerusalem]

125. He was the *convicted* "Pan-Am bomber". He probably didn't do it.

And the proper response that the authorities in Scotland should give is "piss off, we don't tell you how to run your prisons, and you wouldn't listen if we did".

See here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8211596.stm

[sabrina 1]

59. That was never an issue when he became our new best friend

was it? We gave him back the accused perpetrator of that crime. So no, that is not the reason. We forgot and forgave him for that long ago.

[thucythucy]

119. Who is this "we"

to whom you refer? I certainly didn't give Libya back any accused perpetrator. I never forgave Ghadaffi for any crimes--nor was it my place to do so. I certainly am in no position, nor will I ever be, to "forgive" him for his many crimes against his own people.

If your argument is that foreign intervention, even as limited an intervention as this was, is never justified for any reason whatsoever at any time and in any place, well, that's an argument. Not a very good one, but an argument nonetheless, and it does have the allure of a certain rigid consistency. Lucky for us the French didn't feel that way during our own revolution in the 1770s. Unlucky for the Jewish population of Europe that so many Americans, and Brits and French, did feel that way from 1933 to 1941.

How many people who are now criticizing Obama's policy on Libya also criticized Clinton and the West for not doing more to stop the genocide in Rwanda? How many critics of Obama's policy in Libya also criticize him for not doing more in Darfur?

Sad to say, the world is a complicated place. What is justified in one circumstance might not be justified in another. Worse yet, what might work in one instance might not work in another, whether justified or not. It might not even work twice in the same place. I'm glad the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia to stop the genocide being committed by the Khmer Rouge. I wouldn't support the Vietnamese invading Cambodia today.

I've been highly critical of President Obama, on DU and elsewhere (enough to get some of my posts scrubbed by the moderators for being too disrespectful). But in this instance I think he took the right course.

And yes, I opposed our invasion and occupation of Iraq. I opposed the Contra war. I opposed the war in Vietnam (but wasn't quite old enough to oppose our invasion of the Dominican Republic). I opposed the CIA sponsored coup in Chile on that other 9-11. Had I been old enough, I would have opposed our overthrow of the democratic governments of Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s. Had I been even older, I would have supported US entry into WWII. Had I been older still, I would have supported the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Had I been yet older I would have opposed our entry into World War I, our invasion of Mexico, our occupation of the Philippines, and our attack on Spain in 1899.

I can give you what I think are cogent, consistent reasons for my support of or opposition to each of these various policies, if you're at all interested. But for now let's just say I think this idea that all progressives must oppose all intervention under all circumstances to be simplistic at best, a moral abdication at worst.

But that's just my opinion. Obviously everyone here is entitled to his or her own.

[Balbus]

29. It's easy to explain. It's not who was taken down, but who's in charge at the time of the take down.

A bad guy taken down when a Republican is president = bad take down.
A bag guy taken down when a Democrat is president = good take down.

[ThoughtCriminal]

36. Wrong - it's also about how you deal with Bad Guys

Fabricating evidence of WMDs, sending hundreds of thousands of troops, costing trillions of dollars, having thousands of U.S. casualties and killing over a million civilians.

You don't see the difference?
:eyes:

[dkf]

41. Might as well just assassinate them then.

[ThoughtCriminal]

46. I don't think so

There is also a difference between taking sides when people rise up against a tyrant and assassinating inconvenient leaders.

This is starting to remind me of people who don't think there's a difference between the American Revolution and the Civil War.

[TheKentuckian]

33. We have a sizable chunk, maybe the majority who care more about the who than the what.

Jamestown was not an outlier on drinking koolaid and neither were the Bushbots.

Many Democrats have shown they are without ideals, moral consistency, or even just some core beliefs.

Flush the Turd Way!

[ellisonz]

72. Jonestown*

Jamestown was Pocahontas ;)

[TheKentuckian]

89. Hehee, quite right

[sabrina 1]

34. This time their team is doing it.

It all depends on the letter. If it's an 'R' we don't support it. If it's a 'D' well, that's our team and so it must be right.

[SammyWinstonJack]

55. simply put with this poster, yep!

[TorchTheWitch]

35. because there is a Dem in the White House

whose decision it was to interfere in Libya. Nothing more than that.

DU is politics as a sport - party over policy no matter how revolting and/or stupid the policy. The R vs. D rabid divide has been completely bought into here just as The One Percent who came up with the idea wanted it to.

[pinboy3niner]

39. Looks like you're still pursuing here arguments that arose in your other thread

Insisting on harping on a point over and over again isn't helpful.

[geek tragedy]

42. Idiotic comparison.

We didn't invade, aren't occupying, spent 1/1000th the money, ZERO US deaths vs 4000+ killed and many more wounded and traumatized.

[joshcryer]

45. Plus, less people died than in Castro's Angola. It was a purely internationalist effort.

[dkf]

47. So you do support taking down Saddam Hussein. You just don't like the way we did it?

[geek tragedy]

48. I support popular uprisings against dictators.

We should have supported the uprising against Saddam in 1993, but Bush betrayed them and they were slaughtered.

[dkf]

50. They killed him you know...the Iraqis I mean.

And it seemed pretty popular.

[geek tragedy]

52. After we invaded.

Any more false/bogus equivalencies you'd like to trot out.

[sabrina 1]

114. And after we invaded Libya and according to the reports

used a drone strike, the French also dropping bombs on his convoy, 'they did it themselves'. What they did btw, is now being called a possible war crime and the UN is calling for an investigation. Demonstrations against the heroes you support are now increasing around the ME with demands for war crimes investigations.

I thought you said you oppose brutal regimes? Have you read the Human Rights organizations' reports on the people the US now intends to have replace the Gadaffi regime? Do you seriously support these people who are now accused of racial targeting of Black African Immigrants, murdering them, murdering POWs and torturing those they suspect were mercenaries many of whom were simply workers.

There is no consistency in this position. I hope the UN is serious about these investigations before any of them gain any power in Libya, for the sake of the Libyan people who were always, and still are, the main concern and who are being killed now according to reports, by the thousands, by NATO bombs, causing many in Libya to oppose the rebels.

[ldf]

120. taking out saddam was as stupid as george w bush was stupid

saddam had control. iraq was a functioning society. it had the most educated populace in the middle east. women had more rights than in most muslim countries. it wasn't a just country, but it could have been a lot worse.

saddam was of the sunni sect, and kept the majority shiite sect from turning iraq into an islamic fundamentalist state. exactly what we didn't want.

so what do we do?

eliminate the one thing that was keeping the islamic fundies from taking over.

what do you think will happen when we leave? (we sure as hell shouldn't stay.)

AND, we didn't find saddam. he was put into that "spider hole in the ground" by the iraqis, and we were told where to find him. we didn't do shit, except invade, destroy, then do nothing about protecting the stockpiles of weapons (NOT wmds) OR historical treasures. we were determined to make a show out of it (shock and awe), and then kill the one person that had that particular powder keg under control.

we should never have been there to start with because iraq had NOTHING to do with 9-11. but we completely destroyed most of its infrastructure, just so the boy bush could swagger and smirk.

and this whole charade started when american oil companies taught kuwait how to slant drill so they could steal iraq's oil. because of that saddam invaded kuwait, and hw bush said to saddam, go on, do what you have to do, we will stay out of it.

whereas we promptly jumped into the gulf war, assisting kuwait against the terrible invaders (that we trained to steal iraq's oil).

we have destroyed a country, killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens (possibly a million), and guaranteed that the islamic fundamentalists that want sharia law, will become the ones in power.

i don't think we could have fucked up a bad situation even more, if we tried. it's almost as if that is what we really wanted. continued excuses for military interventions, and sales of massive amounts of american defense industry product...

you know, like halliburton (which is synonymous with dick cheney), and kbr (headed, by the way, by a christian fundy of our own)....

[obliviously]

43. We should have a secret commitee

that decides who we should kill next!

[AngkorWot]

44. Libya was a popular revolution with no US casualties.

Doesn't take that much brains to figure out.

[killbotfactory]

122. +1. What is so hard to understand about this? nt

[greytdemocrat]

49. Simple. Bush. n/t

[dameocrat67]

51. Many dem establishment types only supported the anti-iraq war movement for

political reasons. They were never serious antiinterventionists.

[leftstreet]

54. +1 They grabbed the midterms being anti-war. Then promptly gave Bush more war $$

:puke:

[bhikkhu]

53. In Libya, we aided a popular revolution in a way that minimized civilian deaths

In Iraq, we invented a pretense to invade a country and crush all resistance...and it turned out very badly.

It is possible that if Iraq blossomed right off into a happy democracy the lies that were used to justify the war would have been swept under the rug. Naysayers would have been left with little to say if it all worked out...but the odds were pretty poor with the idiots running the show.

One difference is that Obama and the administration seem to have an idea of what good government and diplomacy is, and how to gain good results from good policies.

[dameocrat67]

56. The transitional council apparently made a deal for Libyas oil profits

my prediction is that they will be overthrown themselves with in the year because people will get much poorer.

[ellisonz]

73. lol...Got a link?

Or just spewing lies?

[dameocrat67]

82. yep

http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicsite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2187857&language=en

[bhikkhu]

93. Oh - an "alleged secret deal"

...one of those!

[Javaman]

96. Well the oil wells are back working as of today, it was reported on MSNBC

that doesn't happen by magic.

someone has to work the fields and pump the oil. Do you think a once formerly governmental run oil industry just starts up again after a war when the government collapses?

Yeah, all those rebels know how to work the oil fields just like they knew how to use the artillery that the former Libyan army left behind.

come on. you know better than that. Hell, shell and exxon were already cutting deals with the Iraqi's before a single US soldier set foot on their soil.

[bhikkhu]

97. Much of Libyan production was leased out in 2004-2006

...that's when sanctions were lifted and the country was opened up for exploration and production. Many of the world's biggest oil companies got involved, and work there under contracts which specify how much goes to the government and how much goes to the state. The companies do their own maintenance, and make nothing if the fields sit idle.

One of the main promises the NTC made from the beginning was that all existing contracts would be honored, so that the oil producers were reassured, and prepared to repair whatever they needed to as soon as hostilities were done, and resume production.

The internet is a handy thing - two minutes with google and you don't have to guess or speculate!

[Javaman]

98. It was leased out under gaddafi...

there's a new sheriff in town.

while there will be skirmish wars among the various owners of the old leases against those who want them now, the bottom line is: the oil corps got the oil fields up and going.

it's about oil.

They Libyan people might think it's about something else, the media force feeding the American public a story about it being about something else, but in the end, it has always been about maintaining the flow of Libyan oil to Europe, especially Italy.

[bhikkhu]

104. Nevertheless, the contracts stay the same

And the NTC has wisely, from the beginning, guaranteed that they will continue to honor the oil contracts. Why would they do otherwise?

Libya is actually a fairly rich Mediterranean nation, with the huge money-sucking oligarchy of the Gadhafi's gone.

[Javaman]

106. Why would they change? It all depends on who becomes the new leader.

the oil corps loved gaddafi. I'm sure more than a few people in Libya are aware of that.

As to whom becomes the new leader and how they deal with the oil corps that has yet to be seen.

But if Iraq is any indication of how oil contracts will be dealt with, I think the bigger issue will be with the oil corps themselves trying to take up a bigger share. Doing this under the turmoil of a government unsettled.

And yes, they are a rich nation both in moneys and in resources of a number of kinds, but given the fact that it was and still is a tribal nation, it will be interesting to witness the vying for power of the nations leadership.

There is a lot of money to go around and frankly, like in most situations, very few people will want to share it.

There will be a lot of tribal warfare, most of which will go unreported, to take their share or keep their share or bargain their share for a larger share.

It will be a good year before the dust finally settles.

[ellisonz]

115. " There will be a lot of tribal warfare, most of which will go unreported, to take their share..."

Speculate, bullshit, speculate, bullshit...repeat. ;-)

[Javaman]

127. No, I have read extensively about that part of the world.

I don't speculate. I make observations based on knowledge.

[pampango]

131. Juan Cole: Those who expect Libya now to fragment ... are likely to be disappointed.

Those who expect Libya now to fragment, or to turn into a North African Baghdad, are likely to be disappointed. It is improbable that Qaddafi’s cult will long survive him, at least on any significant scale. Libya has no sectarian divides of the Sunni-Shiite sort. Almost everyone is a Sunni Muslim. It does have an ethnic divide, as between Arabs and Berbers. But the Berbers are bilingual in Arabic, and are in no doubt as to their Libyan identity. The Berbers vigorously joined in the revolution and more or less saved it, and are very likely to be richly rewarded by the new state.

The east-west divide only became dire because Qaddafi increasingly showed favoritism toward the west. A more or less democratic government that spreads around the oil largesse more equitably could easily overcome this divide, which is contingent and not structural.

Libyan identity is not in doubt, and most Libyans are literate and have been through state schools. Most Libyans live in cities where tribal loyalties have attenuated.

There will be conflicts, and factionalism is a given. The government is a mess, with only a small bureaucracy and limited pools of persons with management skills. But oil states in the Gulf facing similar problems back in the 1960s and 1970s just imported Egyptian bureaucrats and managers, and Egypt and Tunisia have a surplus of educated potential managers who face under-employment of their skills at home. Oil states most often generate enough employment not only for their own populations but for a large expatriate work force as well. Just as the pessimists were surprised to find that post-Qaddafi Tripoli was relatively calm and quickly overcame initial problems of food, water and services, so they are likely to discover that the country as a whole muddles through.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/qaddafis-peoples-temple.html

[Javaman]

132. did I ever say fragment?

no. don't put words in my mouth.

I said it's based on tribalism. Vastly different. And it's glaringly apparent you don't know what that even means.

We're done. You have nothing.

[sabrina 1]

60. Um, we went to Iraq initially based on lies. But we also went

'to save the Iraqis from a Brutal Dictator'. Bush neglected to tell his loyal, though ignorant of history, supporters, that like Gadaffi, the 'brutal dictator' of Iraq was also originally our 'friend'.

Libya was no more about 'saving civilians' than Iraq ever was. Civilians are being brutalized in Libya right now, especially Black Africans, why is NATO supporting the brutalizers?

The truth will reach the supporters of this war, just as it eventually reached the supporters of the Iraq war, hopefully sooner rather than later. But anyone who believes that the Western Imperial Powers ever go anywhere to protect civilians, must not know what is going on in this world. Why did they pick Libya rather than Bahrain, or Syria, or Yemen, or The Congo, or any number of places where there is far more threat to civilians than there ever was in Libya?

The answer is pretty simple actually. The same answer to the question 'why did we go to Iraq when there are so many other places where civilians are threatened'? There IS a common denominator to all our wars. We do NOT do things for altruistic reasons.

[inna]

62. "we aided a popular revolution in a way that minimized civilian deaths "

absolutely ludicrous and intelligence-insulting mythology.

puh-fucking-leez.

[joshcryer]

66. Less deaths than Castro comitted in Angola. He called it an internationalist war.

Was this?

[inna]

71. Oy. Fucking. Vey.

Josh. Facepalm.

[unionworks]

63. funny thing...

That is what all my republican "ffriends" are saying to me

[BlueCheese]

64. I don't understand where we got the justification for continuing the conflict.

As I understand it, the UN resolution authorized intervention to protect civilians from government forces. Surely that was achieved months ago. By the end, when the rebels controlled almost all of Libya, we were still aiming at Qaddafi. Our continued operations could only be described as a war, not a protective action. What was the basis for our doing this? Do we need reasons anymore?

[Confusious]

65. Because the people of libya rose up

and started to force him out.

Don't really see what is so hard to understand.

[BlueCheese]

69. The Iraqi people were certainly overjoyed to have Saddam gone.

There are lots of brutal governments around the world whose people deserve better. I think the OP's question is when we have the right to help them. Why was it okay in Libya and not Iraq? In both cases we eliminated deeply unpopular dictators. Can we bomb Syria too? Burma? Apartheid-era South Africa? North Korea?

[CJCRANE]

85. _

[bhikkhu]

99. I think the answer is obvious

...there was no revolution in Iraq, and nothing particular going on when we invaded. Saddam had done nothing out of the ordinary and seemed to be going out of his way to not react to the daily bombing runs that led up to the invasion.

Gadhafi, on the other hand, had lost the bulk of his country to revolution, and was involved in ruthlessly regaining the bulk of it. The last large rebel stronghold was Benghazi, and his armored columns were sitting at the gates, quite vulnerable to airstrikes. In Libya, there was an organized revolution with an organized group to support, they asked for our limited help, and there was the strong possibility that our help would lead them to success.

[Confusious]

109. I gave you the answer already

The people of Libya rose up to remove a dictator and they asked for our limited help.

The Iraqi people did not.

See the difference? Or shall I repeat it again?

[BlueCheese]

113. I see.

So if a dictator can keep the population completely oppressed to the point that any dissent is impossible, then we have no moral right to intervene. But if a few people get together and rebel, then we can decide they speak for the entire people and we can come in and knock over the entire government.

Sounds a lot like a convenient excuse made up after the fact to support a political conclusion. Thanks also for your condescending last line.

[Confusious]

116. They asked for help, what don't you get about that?

The people controlling irag were a small minority of a minority. They only control through fear. If the people aren't afraid anymore, they have no control.

I think there were more people then a few who wanted Qaddafi gone. They controlled part of the country. They weren't just some little dissent group. and they also did most of the work. We just kept the Libyan air force on the ground.
You make it seem we did all the work, which is patently FALSE.

Hell, during the revolution, England was the world's superpower and we defeated them with French help. Should they have not, even though we asked?

If enough people rise up, they can't be put down. Need I give you a list?

I'm only condescending to people who don't seem to listen.

[BlueCheese]

123. Last word from me. Tired of all the fighting on DU.

The point I see you making is that it's okay for us to go to war to help an active rebellion against a brutal dictator, but not to overthrow a dictator when there's no active rebellion, even if he is deeply unpopular and brutal. This seems to me to be a convenient policy made up chiefly for its ability to distinguish between Libya and Iraq, and not something that would have been articulated before Libya happened. Indeed, one could claim that groups such as the Kurds and Iraqi dissident groups were in fact revolting against Saddam, if not successfully.

Also, we did a lot more than keep the air force on the ground. We did a heck of a lot of bombing. In fact, Qaddafi's death was preceded by a French attack on his convoy.

[Confusious]

128. Nice timing

did you see the front page on DU?

maybe if some got it through their heads that reality doesn't fit into neat little boxes there would be less fighting on DU.

I don't really like some of the policies of Obama, and have been on many I threads criticizing him.

but the thing I do stand firm on is " revolution comes from within." if there is a country that decides its time to overthrow its brutal dictator, has significant support, and they ask for our help, republican or democrat, I support it. you may think it convenient, but I stand by it. not understanding the difference shows a total rejection of reality on your part.

As far as groups in Iraq go, there was a point a point where they rebelled, during the first gulf war, which was a lie, but the rebellion wasn't. we offered help if they rebelled, and when they did, we did nothing. That was a crime on our part.

"What better way to turn people off / Than to twist ideas for change / Into one more church / That forgets we're all human beings"

P.S. If you don't understand the last line, which I think you will, which is why I'm writing this, you can twist anti-war into "no war", even for the right reasons, such as freedom. See any Wikipedia page on the Nazis for a clarification for that one. And that's something I just can't agree with. There are bullies in this world, and they need to stood up to, or else we all suffer.

[eridani]

70. Some of the people of Libya rose up and slaughtered some other people

--in Libya. Cheerleaders for mass murder ignored those who said "Saddam is not the only person living in Iraq," just like they are now ignoring those who say "Ghadaffi isn't the only person living in Libya."

[Confusious]

117. You make no sense. eom

[loyalsister]

74. Exactly

Lybian rebels disrupted their own country. We are responsible for uninvited damage in Iraq.
Despite the horrors of Sadaam's most sadistic practices, most people living under that dictatorship had relatively stable lives- until we invaded.

[99th_Monkey]

67. It's the price tag: in terms of the number of our youth killed or maimed,

and in terms of monetarily as well, not to mention "collatoral damage" of 1 million Iraqis.

[pnwmom]

75. 200 American civilians died in Qaddafi's attack on the Pan Am flight. How many Americans did

Hussein kill? And we had a genuine International coalition going after Qaddafi, and no U.S. boots on the ground.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, we're still trying to fix the mess we made.

[a la izquierda]

76. I actually never supported our involvement in...

any of it.
Then again, I'm an historian. I know what happens when imperialists attempt to foment democracy on tribal societies, or when imperialists start trying to change governments.

[The Traveler]

77. Then set your head at ease

Libya was, by the time we intervened, in active revolt, and its military was being turned on its civilian population.

So there was both a humanitarian need, and an opportunity, and time was of the essence. The opportunity was to rid the world of a problematic leader, and establish a positive relationship with a movement that rose to sweep him from power.

The Iraq war situation was entirely different ... Iraq was not in a state of revolt. Saddam posed no credible threat. Hell, the Iraqis were still cleaning up after our last visit. If we were going to take down Saddam, we should have done it at the end of the first gulf war. Then we wouldn't have had to bomb the crap out of those poor people again. That's the other difference ... the body count is a lot lower.

The only thing that concerns me about the Libyan matter is the question of legality ... did our President act beyond his legal authority? It seems to me legitimate questions have been raised on that topic. While it is my own opinion that it was a good and wise thing to do, that doesn't make it legal. And I am not sufficiently well versed in the details of law to form a firm conviction on the subject. But ... Dennis Kucinich is usually right about these things.

[baldguy]

78. Was Saddam worth $2 trillion & 5000 American lives?

[MrDiaz]

79. Simple really

Obama is in office now for the killing of qaddafi, and Bush was in office for the killing of Saddam Hussein

[Douglas Carpenter]

80. Iraq is too big to fail. In Iraq the U.S. has put itself in permanent no win situation

From the point of view of strategic planners - militarily supporting a popular uprising in Libya was a lot less dangerous with a lot less long term complications than unilaterally and in contemptuous disregard for world opinion invading the much more populated, much more politically strategic, much more oil rich and much more geographically strategically sensitive Iraq.

Although the Libyan intervention had considerably more international support - I would agree that its legality and perhaps its morality is questionable. But right or wrong, good or bad - in terms of strategic blunders that might undermine America's national interest - I doubt there will be that many long term negative consequences for America in regards to the Libyan intervention. America will perhaps never recover from the catastrophic strategic blunder of invading Iraq.

[trumad]

81. Fantastically dumb comparison.

[malaise]

84. Saddam had never attacked the US, but a significant percentage of Americans

are convinced that Gadaffi was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and the night club bombing in Germany.

I don't support either.

[eShirl]

86. How much US effort went into (and is still going into) taking down Saddam, vs. Qaddafi?

[JoePhilly]

87. Because Invading Iraq was not the right way to acheive the removal of Saddam.

You are presenting a false right wing framing.

When we opposed the invasion of Iraq, they (the right wing) would claim that we wanted Saddam to stay in power ... that we loved him (and by extension we loved the terrorists they claimed Saddam supported). Of course that was total bullshit.

I doubt there were many here who wanted Saddam the dictator to stay in power in Iraq. Most would have supported his ouster, if it was driven by the Iraqi people. What we opposed was a full scale invasion of Iraq to achieve that end.

Pretty simple.

[Greybnk48]

94. For me, it's Lockerbie and the murder of all those people. n/t

[Township75]

95. Because those fucking phony's don't care about war, only what they can use as a moral soapbox.

It was great to point the finger at conservatives for starting a war, yelling "Give Peace A Chance", and War Is Not The Answer. That made them feel so moral and above the common masses...they were so smart that they cut through the media campaign that others were blind to see.

Now that they support the one in office, there is political opportunity to be had, so they need to beat their chests and celebrate around a corpse to show they are just as macho as any republican.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

100. Who is "people"?

A lot of the DUers who objected to the invasion of Iraq are no longer here.

A lot more (cough-cough) "moderates" have moved in to take their place.

Count me as one who hates it when the U.S. meddles in other countries at all.

[dkf]

121. Yes too much downside when we are involved in changing other country's leaders.

And we become responsible for their well being.

[dawg]

101. It's the occupation of Iraq that I opposed.

I would not have had a major problem with a series of air-strikes against the Hussein regime. Such strikes were, in fact, carried out by the Clinton administration. The only vocal opposition was from Republicans who claimed the strikes were an attempt to distract the public from the Lewinsky affair.

Had the strikes succeded in toppling the regime, countless lives could have been spared that were later lost in the Bush administration's attempt to occupy and pacify a divided nation on the other side of the Earth.

I have mixed feelings about Libya. But Iraq was a terrible idea from the start.

[Puzzledtraveller]

102. because it's convenient

[Codeine]

103. I must have missed our enormous invasion of Libya. nt

[Name removed]

105. Deleted message

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

[LanternWaste]

107. I would guess that many other people see additional perspectives

I would guess that many other people see additional perspectives, options and/or contexts other than than the absolute statement of A=B.

Having said that, I do understand how that would indeed be incomprehensible to many people and hence, force their heads to spin.

[sibelian]

111. Because 9-11 changed everything

From "war is bad" to "THEIR war is bad".

[Motown_Johnny]

118. Libya was a rebellion we supported, not an invasion

[Spider Jerusalem]

124. I don't get why people are apparently too thick to see the difference...

between the leaders of a popular rebellion asking...no, begging...for NATO assistance in the face of an armoured column advancing on a rebel-held city, and the US invading Iraq on the basis of trumped-up lies about weapons of mass destruction. The two aren't remotely similar.

[Telly Savalas]

126. It's easier to intentionally blur the distinction between Obama and Bush

if one chooses to ignore these facts.

There are a lot of people here who have a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. They acknowledge the large differences between Iraq and Libya, but are opposed to both actions on general principles. By presenting honest arguments, they contribute to spirited discussion.

The folks who choose to ignore the obvious differences however...you gotta wonder what they're up to.

[liberal N proud]

130. Oppression vs. liberation

The US targeted Saddam - Gaddafi was killed by his own countrymen