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Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

phildwyer said:
You and people like you seem to think the Western nations are staffed by bungling incompetents. They are not. We have anarchy and chaos in Libya because that is what the West wants. Just as we have it in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I still don't understand why anarchy and chaos is desired in oil-producing nations. The flow of oil is required, with profits to Western oil companies if possible. A compliant government that contracts the drilling out to those companies, coupled with a strong police/army to keep that infrastructure safe is surely better than an unpredictable mess.
phildwyer said:
No it doesn't. You just build military bases next to the oil wells.
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You can't do that. Do you have any idea how distributed a business oil drilling is? The areas drilled are absolutely vast, with hundreds of individual wellheads, all of which are vulnerable to attack or capture.

Pre-invasion, Gaddafi was quite happy selling his oil to the west, and was being brought into the fold. Saudi are similarly happy doing so and the west doesn't see a penny of the profit, as it's all drilled by the 100% state-owned Aramco. Why isn't the west invading stable, productive Saudi if a state of chaos is supposed to be more desirable?

phildwyer said:
Nope. The evidence is before your eyes. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya: Western intervention = permanent warfare and chaos.
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Let's give it a little longer before applying "permanent" to Libya

I don't credit the leaders of the world with half the intelligence that you do. Their skills for attaining power are not necessarily those required for long-term stategic thinking.
 
pk said:
Ultimately, that mad cross eyed little fucker Ahmedinejad wants to turn Tel Aviv into glass.
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No, ultimately the Iranian regime wants to survive.

If they could wipe out Israel without consequences then they well might, but Ahmedinejads anti-Israeli stuff should be taken for what it is, empty rhetoric designed to appeal to a section of the public who vote for him.
 
Crispy said:
I don't credit the leaders of the world with half the intelligence that you do. Their skills for attaining power are not necessarily those required for long-term stategic thinking.
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Who do you think is really in power? It's not Obama or Cameron.
 
Crispy said:
Why isn't the west invading stable, productive Saudi if a state of chaos is supposed to be more desirable?
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They are. The West has thousands of troops in Saudi, and more in Qatar.

But you're right to the extent that a stable, compliant state is not objectionable to the West. The problem is that such a state is unobtainable in most of the region. And permanent warfare and chaos is vastly preferable to any other kind of state.
 
phildwyer said:
They are. The West has thousands of troops in Saudi, and more in Qatar.

But you're right to the extent that a stable, compliant state is not objectionable to the West. The problem is that such a state is unobtainable in most of the region. And permanent warfare and chaos is vastly preferable to any other kind of state.
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No it doesn't. Not in Saudi anyway. They withdrew in 2003
 
dylans said:
Let's say they invade Iran ok. That decision will be the result of a well thought out policy decision, perhaps precipitated by real world events in Iran or the region, perhaps by events that are totally fabricated. Whatever, the decision is made. To support some opposition movement or another, or to replace the regime with another, or to create a safe haven here or a no fly zone there, but the logic of what happens once that decision is made is not entirely predictable.

Perhaps the opposition they have courted have their own agenda? Perhaps the resistance they meet is greater than expected. Perhaps an event, say, an atrocity, the bombing of a girls school, creates outrage in the country and across the globe and leads to attacks on US forces across the region. Perhaps a massive successful attack kills a significant number of troops as in Beirut and creates an anti war movement at home.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps. The point is, the INITIAL decision may very well be the result of a well thought out, extremely ideological policy decision (as was the attack on Iraq) but once made, the events follow a logic of their own and those events are often not predicted because the ideological lens of those who make those decisions makes it impossible for them to see such consequences. They can't. They are incapable of understanding the societies they are attacking
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They're in a win-win situation though. If possible, they'll install a compliant state. If not, they'll keep up the warfare and chaos. I think they'd prefer the latter, because any representative state would threaten Israel, and permanent warfare provides a market for the arms industry.

The future of the region is very disturbing. It's the West's blithe slaughter of conscript armies that is most despicable. My son is a citizen of a Muslim nation with universal, compulsory conscription.
 
You can buy your way out of conscription in Turkey, though.

And Turkey is not blameless. They are in NATO and their treatment of the Kurds is a disgrace. I'd also dispute the characterisation of Turkey as a Muslim state. It's a secular state in which most people are Muslim. There's a big difference – Libya, Iran and Egypt are Muslim states; Turkey is not.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
You can buy your way out of conscription in Turkey, though.
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No you cannot. You can get a reduction of time, that's all. If you live abroad, you have to return and serve your stint. The only way out is to renounce your citizenship and never visit Turkey again. They send conscripts to the front too.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
It's a big reduction, though, isn't it? To a fairly nominal two or three months.
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I think it's five months at the moment. The rules keep changing. I imagine that if the nation was ever faced with the kind of situation Iraq and Libya are facing, there would be an immediate, universal call-up.
 
Conspiraloons are not the only ones who make the mistake of oversimplification.

Power exists in a variety of forms and is harnessed by a variety of actors. Even if one thing is the source of the majority of power, other powers still influence the way things turn out somewhat. For example a president with a particular determination and the ability to harness a variety of powers of his own, can take on and beat the agenda of some other powerful types, in ways that may be temporary or may set a new direction for the deeds the powerful commit in future.

Money talks, but other voices can sometimes be heard.

Conflicts, contradictions etc occur at all levels, necessary struggle muddies the waters. And so I am suspicious of anyone who claims to see clearly now the simple truth of the matter. There are a thousand simple truths which add up to a complex and far from simple reality.
 
That's true, elbows, and the president of the US is the best example of this. It's been a truism for decades that a weak president does what he is told, but a strong president can make his mark. But which is Obama? He strikes me as particularly weak when it comes to foreign affairs.
 
Well when it comes to Obama, he's walking a very fine line. He inherited a country with 'weakened international prestige' and it could be said that he got the nobel peace prize simply because he was not George Bush. The collective sigh of relief echod round the world, and had an encore when he reversed the most dangerous aspects of the Bush missile shield plan, somewhat reset relations with Russia and made some of the right noises towards muslim countries. But now he suffers in a way that is hardly unique to democrat presidents, when events happen and the US response is stuck firmly in a 'outcome must serve our interests at almost any cost' mode of thinking that the power of empire can turn, almost unmoderated, into reality. And the policies and military actions that result are somewhat less compatible with democrat ideologies than republican ones, so they dont deliver the war lines with such gusto. Anyway this leaves him with little wiggle room really, now that the arab world has woken, its going to take a lot of skill and luck for all the outcomes to go Obamas way. Him looking weak at various moments is not a complete guide to how well they are managing this task, for certain situations will dictate that he makes extra effort to be the anti-bush, even if it makes him look weak at the time in some ways. However as there are also signs that Obama really might be weak in a variety of other areas, and a certain aloofness has lead to his public performances not going down as well as people would have hoped back in the giddy days of his election campaign, it may be quite hard to spot the difference between sane and sensible ways that the USA is playing things, and Obama & Co making a complete pigs ear of it.

Whatever, the interests of the USA arent going to change in a hurry and even a superhero comicbook president would struggle to change that. Circumstance and decay may mean that some of us live to see a day when the world is different, where US interests do not hold such sway over so many regions of the world, but I rather fear that the joy of witnessing an end to the worst excesses and horrors that the US have given us, is severely tempered by the likely scenario that some other country will have taken over the role of chief horror bringer to the globe.
 
Apparently Turkey have now had discussions with NATO and the way is clear for NATO to take over command and control of the no-fly mission from as early as this weekend. There will be an announcement later.
 
elbows said:
Whatever, the interests of the USA arent going to change in a hurry and even a superhero comicbook president would struggle to change that. Circumstance and decay may mean that some of us live to see a day when the world is different, where US interests do not hold such sway over so many regions of the world, but I rather fear that the joy of witnessing an end to the worst excesses and horrors that the US have given us, is severely tempered by the likely scenario that some other country will have taken over the role of chief horror bringer to the globe.
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It is not "the US" that is carrying out the slaughter in Libya, is it? The problem is not any particular nation, the problem is international capital.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
That's true, elbows, and the president of the US is the best example of this. It's been a truism for decades that a weak president does what he is told, but a strong president can make his mark. But which is Obama? He strikes me as particularly weak when it comes to foreign affairs.
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He's weak. hence the veto on the israeli settlements 2 weeks back and his backing down on every other issue of initial importance to him. He is being dictated to or as outlined in the article in the link below, he is allowing himself to be guided.

Interesting article here from AJ on how Obama feels pressured by Zionist lobby.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201131784045745152.html

A paragraph from it.

For decades, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and other such right-leaning groups have played an outsized role in American politics, pressuring members of congress and presidents with their capacity to raise money and swing elections.
But democratic presidents in particular should recognize that these groups are hardly representative and should be met head on.
Obama won seventy-eight per cent of the Jewish vote; he is more likely to lose some of that vote if he reverses his position on, say, abortion than if he tries to organise international opinion on the Israeli-Arab conflict.
However, some senior members of the administration have internalised the political restraints that they believe they are under, and cannot think beyond them. Some, like Dennis Ross, who has served five presidents, can think only in incremental terms.
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Libya: net closes on Yvonne Fletcher's killers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...a-net-closes-on-Yvonne-Fletchers-killers.html
telegraph said:
Omar Ahmed Sodani was paraded before journalists by rebels who seized him from a Benghazi bolt-hole where he had been hiding.

Sodani has been described as one of the prime suspects in the murder of WPc Fletcher 27 years ago outside the Libyan embassy in central London. She was killed in April 1984 from a single round among a hail of bullets fired from a first floor window of the embassy.
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