From the UK-Libya is not about who Gaddafi was. It's about what America under Obama has become.

:kick:

It was nice to see it reprinted there.

Libyan Rebel Army Led by Rehabilitated al Qaeda Linked Terrorists

Sid

Where there's smoke their's work. Maybe we can misplace another 60 billion on that rebuild. It's the lest we can do for a new budding democracy.

Meanwhile back in Oakland, the brain bashers are tweaking the protesters and adjusting their civil rights and freedom to speak and assemble, with tear gas, rubber bullets, clubs and the latest electronic torture devices, paid for by the taxpaying 98%.

since Halliburton moved its corporate HQ from Houston to Dubai...

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Business/story?id=2942429&page=1

Good to see you Hubert!

Opposing violence and killing on one side does not imply endorsement of the other. It's a matter of what we do, over and over.

Gaddafi was declared reformed and a member of the global community in 2004 by Bush and Company. That didn't change until the uprising.

We have no business attacking/destroying any nation or any individual unless there is an imminent danger to the US.

in which actions done by our government in our name clearly and unmistakably define us as a nation and people and it ain't pretty. :thumbsup: :patriot:

in which actions done by our government in our name clearly and unmistakably define us as a nation and people and it ain't pretty. :thumbsup: :patriot:

Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army. Kony the the LRA have terrorized people of the sub-region of Uganda almost from the beginning of President Museveni's power starting in 1986, in the name of liberating them from Museveni's dictatorship.

"Despite the severity of the situation, both the American and Ugandan government have largely failed to bring the conflict to an end. Instead of taking action, the United States has chosen to condone Museveni's undemocratic and corrupt policies by giving his regime a substantial amount of aid and military assistance with no strings attached. While this support has and continues to make a significant difference in many Ugandans' lives, US foreign assistance has also played a complicated role during and after the conflict. At the international, national, and local level, aid and the politics that envelop aid have perpetuated the conflict and have created an environment conducive to violence rather than improve the living standards of Northern Ugandans. Articles from Ugandan newspapers and interviews with participants support this theory—many interviewees discussed the undemocratic nature of Museveni’s government, government corruption, and the extent to which they hold aid agencies accountable rather than the current regime in power." http://www.hamilton.edu/documents/Boehm%20article.pdf?du
#####
Enter 100 US special forces combat troops this month. As stated by Asst Defense Sec Vershbow, we're there to "kill or capture" Kony and LRA troops (which are said to number between 100-200 in Uganda, as most have moved on to continue massacres in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Is capture even an option? Not likely, so more killings in our name.
#####

Pentagon says military deployment to Uganda ‘will not be open-ended’
By John T. Bennett - 10/25/11 12:40 PM ET

A senior Pentagon official told a House panel Tuesday the U.S. military deployment to central Africa to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army will last months but vowed it “will not be an open-ended commitment.”
---
Obama administration and military officials envision a small U.S. deployment that “runs months,” Vershbow said, telling the lawmakers the administration will evaluate the effectiveness of the effort to boost regional forces in several months.

Vershbow first told the panel that the primary goal was to help U.S. partners in the region remove strongman Joseph Kony and other Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leaders from the battlefield or capture them. Kony and LRA forces are accused of massacring civilians, including many children.

Under questioning from Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Vershbow later acknowledged that the mission could lead to Kony being “captured or killed.”

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-sec...

Libya rebels accused of war atrocities

October 25, 2011 4:10 PM

Libya's new rulers are at risk of being accused of the same kind of abuses they fought to overthrow as international watchdog groups question whether rebel fighters executed Muammar Qaddafi. Allen Pizzey reports.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385965n#ixzz1c0YUUJEa

That's in the full cell phone video of Gaddafi's last minutes alive. It is unmistakable in the slow motion video I have seen that they sodomized him after dragging him out of that drain or whatever he was in.

I don't like anything Gaddafi did, but I certainly don't like the fact that the US government supported the people who sodomized someone...in my name.

in "rebel" detention centers.

No thanks, I pass.

This is about NATO and 50,000 air sorties slaughtering a lot of civilians.

Well done the UN (United Nincompoops)! Some civilians deserve killing - no question about that.

with the rabid anti-communist credentials that he had would have dared to establish relations with Red China without worry of being accused to coddling the commies.

That's the damned truth. K&R

Hypocrisy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, ideals, thoughts, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have.<1> Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie.<1>

Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches. Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14:

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.<2>

Thus, an alcoholic's advocating temperance, for example, would not be considered an act of hypocrisy as long as the alcoholic made no pretense of constant sobriety.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

so the official cover is their only choice. I can think of only a few of the 400 or so military actions overseas that
were worth support. World War II comes to mind.

One that I thought made sense was Kosovo until I late found out that the Kosovo Liberation Army was tied to heroin distribution
and Albania was a hot bet for organized crime. Go figure...

--involving getting out of Kosovo except for a few Serbian-majority enclaves. Ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Rom continues.

sad that...but, wouldn't it be a good thing if we thought more before we did these wars for "Bringing Democracy?" :shrug:

tend to get the ends they earn and deserve. Mussolini, Ceaucescu, and now Gaddafi. Some have the sense to bug out - Amin, Marcos, Ben Ali. Many do not because they see themselves as heroic figures.

Some hated tyrant die swinging from a lamp post, what separates us from savages is that we have laws. And we use those laws to manage our day to day lives.

Your post reminds me of an OP that another DU'er posted - that if it was okay for civilians and soldiers under Hitler to plot his assassination, then it is also okay to kill off Usama bin Laden, or Khaddafi, or whomever.

But that is apples to oranges thinking.

During the Third Reich, there was no way to bring down Hitler without plotting such an attempt. A civilian certainly couldn't get on the phone and ask the US Marines or special ops people to storm the bunker, as our people were already trying to off Hitler.

But there is no excuse what so ever for us killing Usama bin Laden. We had so many people available to enter his compound that day, and once he was seized, he could have easily been subdued. Then he could have been brought to court. So why wasn't he. (Possible explanations - if he was alive, he could explain how he didn't have anything to do with Nine Eleven - and that would be embarrassing. Or perhaps Usama was already dead, as Bhutto claimed in her interview with David Frost weeks before she was assassinated.)

The case for our seeing to it that Khaddafi had protection isn't as clear cut. THe people who took him perhaps didn't have the resources needed to keep him protected, or else they wanted him dead.

Vigilante justice is usually ugly. But sometimes people bring things down upon themselves. Delusional people - a category that surely includes virtually all of history's tyrants - usually have a messiah complex or see themselves as irreplaceable and heroic figures who cannot be defeated because fate or destiny is on their side. Clearly Gaddafi was one of those people.

Would an Egyptian solution been a "better" one? Almost certainly. But given Gaddafi's level of disconnection from reality that was never a likely outcome. Eight bloody months of suppressing the resistance bred a level of bloodlust in the people which wound up understandably directed at the person of their oppressor.

Gaddafi could have bailed out months ago taking his stolen loot with him just like Ben Ali or Ferdinand Marcos 25 years ago. He didn't.

I wasn't one cheering in the streets when bin Laden was taken down. Nor was I someone expressing moral outrage at the process of doing so. The Pakistanis almost certainly knew exactly where he was and intended to let him remain there as long as he wished. The world is probably a marginally better place without bin Laden in it.

But I think that the mounting of high horses should be avoided until this country acknowledges the oceans of blood on its own hands as a result of the Iraq and Afghan wars. The best way to do this would be the prosecution of virtually the entire W. Bush foreign policy staff in the Hague and their subsequent hanging for crimes against humanity and war crimes that make bin Laden's or Gaddafi's crimes pale in comparison. Until that day comes, the US has no claim to any sort of moral superiority.

Appreciate your final paragraph.

You are right. That's where to start http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/?page_id=559

Very good points, very well written, and sadly very, very true about the last paragraph.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

And now they are "free"...

Just like the Iraqi's got, all one million of them.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18765.htm

You see that picture of Sirte? Gaddhafi is responsible for that. Him and his sympathizers.

.

Snatch up certain paragraphs that seemed especially enlightening, only to find the succeeding paragraphs equally compelling.

Yes, sadly, every word of what you say is true. Our nation, and its righteous President, now allows an entire town, Sirte, to be bombed - because the town's people didn't offer Khaddafi up to the NATO forces.

And it was bombed even though the reason for their "disobedience" to NATO's demands was that they didn't know where Khaddafi was.

Ah well, like Kissinger intoned on that sad day in December - what opportunities there are for Mr Obama to get the entire world behind "The New WOrld Order." (Mods: the expression New World Order was used by Kissinger - I cannot quote him without using the expression.) It was a sad day, as it indicated to everyone who it really was that we had elected with such jubilation only five weeks earlier!

I wish this post was required reading for everyone on DU.

Oh, and the spouse informed me through his research about two days ago - Khaddafi had provided every family with housing while he reigned over Libya. So what will we offer the citizens? Will they get the largesse that we have showered on the people of Iraq? <sarcasm meant>

K&R

Because it's all about liberation, and has nothing whatsoever to do with this...

"Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with. Some experts say that given a free hand, oil companies could find considerably more oil in Libya than they were able to locate under the restrictions placed by the Qaddafi government. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/business/global/the-scramble-for-access-to-libyas-oil-wealth-begins.html?pagewanted=all

I guess that creep never talked with any Lockerbie orphan...

Proud to unrec.

Try again.

I am just saying that bush and company were proud that he changed and they now loved him

And the fact that I'm not a 'natural' English-speaking person made me mis-understand the ref. to bu$h.

bu$h = paranoia (here) :rofl:

Thanks

"Hey Libyans, you aren't real people! Only Americans matter!"

And the article is complete pro-Gaddafi propaganda bullshit.

Step out of your Western privileged bubble for once and talk to some real Libyans and see their perspective. They are real, they are human, they suffered like hell under Gaddafi, and they rose up and kicked his fucking ass.

The NTC isn't perfect, but they're saints compared to Gaddafi. I've seen a lot of anger at the NTC on Twitter about the whole trial for Gaddafi's killers thing. Because to real actual Libyans, killing Gaddafi was a heroic act. Because he terrorized them for 42 years and sucked their life blood just like our 1% sucks ours, only for them it included torture and public hangings and prison massacres.

You have way fucking more in common with the average Libyan than you think. And I'm about to lose patience with this demonizing of them just because you can't stand the idea that maybe, just maybe, the UN did something fucking right for once.

And yes - I followed their revolution on Twitter starting in February, before NATO got involved. I came to care about them like I care about close friends. I spent months reading their tweets, watching their videos, sending them condolences when they lost a family member or a friend, fasting and praying with them. IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU!!!! AMERICANS ARE NOT THE CENTER OF THE GODDAMN WORLD! Seriously, not everything that happens is a play put on to dupe you.

And I have talked some "real Libyans. It's an awful situation but claiming that supporting simple human decency and
restraint in our foreign policy.

http://economicpopulist.org/content/gaddafi-regime-collapses-people-hold-line-despite-brutal-attacks

I wrote a critical article about Gaddafi which I do not retract, not a bit. But this response is not something the
rulers should have supported and made possible.

--the tribal coalition that replaced him.

The left gets its feathers ruffled so easily when we mount an incursion into another country, but when the people of that country decide that they'd rather deal their own brand of justice to a brutal regime that made them miserable for decades, suddenly we poop ourselves with impotent rage because they didn't accept those Western values we claimed that we SHOULDN'T be pushing.

They wanted Gaddafi dead. They wanted to kill him. They found him, and they killed him. Whether we think there should have been a trial is irrelevant, because it was Libya's decision to make.

SIRTE DECLARATION

1. We, the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), met at the fourth Extraordinary Session of our Assembly in Sirte, in the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, from 8 to 9 September 1999, at the invitation of the Leader of the AI Fatah Revolution, Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi, and as agreed upon during the Thirty-fifth Ordinary Session of our Summit in Algiers, Algeria, from 12 to 14 July 1999.

2. We deliberated extensively on the ways and means of strengthening our continental Organization to make it more effective so as to keep pace with the political, economical and social developments taking place within and outside our continent.

3. In this endeavour, we were inspired by the ideals which guided the Founding Fathers of our Organization and generations of Pan-Africanists in their resolve to forge unity, solidarity and cohesion, as well as cooperation, between African peoples and among African States.

4. We recall the heroic struggles waged by our peoples and our countries during the last century of this millennium for political independence, human dignity and economic emancipation.

We take pride in the achievements made to promote and consolidate African unity and we salute the heroism and the sacrifices of our peoples, particularly during the liberation struggles.

5. As we prepare to enter the twenty-first century, and cognizant of the challenges that will confront our continent and peoples, we emphasis the imperative need and a high sense of urgency to rekindle the aspirations of our peoples for stronger unity, solidarity and cohesion in a larger community of peoples transcending cultural, ideological, ethnic and national differences.

6. In order to cope with these challenges and to effectively address the new social, political and economic realities in Africa and in the world, we are determined to fulfil our people's aspirations for greater unity in conformity with the objectives of the OAU Charter and the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (the Abuja Treaty).

It is also our conviction that our continental Organization needs to be revitalized in order to be able to play a more active role and continue to be relevant to the needs of our peoples and responsive to the demands of the prevailing circumstances.

We are also determined to eliminate the scourge of conflicts which constitutes a major impediment to the implementation of our development and integration agenda.

7. In our deliberations, we have been inspired by the important proposals submitted by Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi, Leader of the Great AI Fatah Libyan Revolution, and particularly, by his vision for a strong and united Africa, capable of meeting global challenges and in shouldering its responsibility to harness the human and natural resources of the continent in order to improve the living conditions of its peoples.

8. Having discussed frankly and extensively on how to proceed with the strengthening of the unity of our continent and its peoples, in the light of those proposals, and bearing in mind the current situation on the continent, we DECIDE TO:

(I) Establish an African Union, in conformity with the ultimate objectives of the Charter of our continental Organization and the provisions of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.

(II) Accelerate the process of implementing the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community, in particular:

(a) Shorten the implementation periods of the Abuja Treaty,

(b) Ensure the speedy establishment of all the institutions provided for in the Abuja Treaty, such as the African Central Bank, the African Monetary Union, the African Court of Justice and, in particular, the Pan-African Parliament.

We aim to establish that Parliament by the year 2000, to provide a common platform for our peoples and their grass-root organizations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing our continent.

(c) Strengthening and consolidating the Regional Economic Communities as the pillars for achieving the objectives of the African Economic Community and realizing the envisaged Union.

(III) Mandate the Council of Ministers to take the necessary measures to ensure the implementation of the above decisions and, in particular, to prepare the constitutive legal text of the Union, taking into account the Charter of the OAU and the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.

Member States should encourage the participation of Parliamentarians in that process.

The Council should submit its report to the Thirty-sixth Ordinary Session of our Assembly for appropriate action.

Member States should work towards finalizing the process of ratification, where appropriate, by December 2000, in order for a constitutive Act to be solemnly adopted in the year 2001, at an Extraordinary Summit to be convened in Sirte.

(IV) Mandate our Current Chairman, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, to engage African creditors on our behalf on the issue of Africa's external indebtedness, with a view to securing the total cancellation of Africa's debt, as a matter of urgency.

They are to coordinate their efforts with the OAU Contact Group on Africa's External Debt.

(V) Convene an African Ministerial Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in the Continent, as soon as possible.

(VI) Request the Secretary General of our Organization, as a matter of priority, to take all appropriate measures to follow up the implementation of these decisions.

Done at Sirte, Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 9.9.99

Of course, he had to go. Same for everyone who believes the Top 1-percent aren't entitled to taking everything they want.

PS: Outstanding OP, Mr. Collins.

.

If you want to criticize NATO for the way it did what the UN authorized, go right ahead, but the intervention would not have existed without UN authorization.

If the world is to have a global "policeman", it should not be individual countries or regional associations. It should be the UN. And unless the UN is to have a standing army, it will have to use appropriate military forces from elsewhere if it decides to intervene.

Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about the Libya War

http://www.juancole.com/2011/08/top-ten-myths-about-the-libya-war.html

8. The United States led the charge to war. There is no evidence for this allegation whatsoever. ... The excellent McClatchy wire service reported on the reasons for which then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the Pentagon, and Obama himself were extremely reluctant to become involved in yet another war in the Muslim world. It is obvious that the French and the British led the charge on this intervention ... Whatever Western Europe’s motivations, they were the decisive ones, and the Obama administration clearly came along as a junior partner (something Sen. John McCain is complaining bitterly about).