The fighting is not over yet.
Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement
- Thread starter ernestolynch
- Start date
There are parts/areas of Trippoli where it's very nasty.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
I suspect it will go on for several more pages yet.
likesfish
You can't park here sir
incompetent grossly negligent.
not even Maggie had political rivals killed their families killed and encourage the security services to get all "hostel" like on her enemies.
she may have screwed over the mining villages but nerve gas and artillery was considered going a bit too far
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Oil workers (across the whole country) were on strike from the start of the uprising in February.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Some were, some weren't You cannot say such glib comforting stuff esp given that he imported a foreign oil proletariat. He made it part of his long term rentier policy to separate the libyan w/c from the operation of any of the oil business.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I am not sure how much help they will want actually.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
The majority were both in the east and west? True about last bit. Good point.
audiotech
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So, the 'new ally against the war on terror', as described by war criminal Blair (lobbying for the Royal Dutch Shell oil company in Libya at the time), is deposed and is now no longer seen as an "ally". Instead, if he remains alive, he is to be tried as a "war criminal" at the 'International Criminal Court'. I can see now why Gadaffi threw the UN charter in the air when he addressed the UN assembly in 2009. Gaddafi blamed the United Nations for 'failing to prevent 65 wars' and called for the Security Council to be abolished. In the same speech he also mused about Western interests, specifically the Americans, coming for him one day. Wonder what will happen now to Gaddafi's all female, 'Amazonian Guard'?
likesfish
You can't park here sir
Think that guard was mostly for show.
also Diplomacy is holding your nose and shaking hands with somebody like Gadaffi when after saddam got his Qaddafi decided to play nice dismantled his underground nerve gas factory (sadly libya has no volcanoes) and stopped funding terrorists and militias. had his mitts involved with Liberian fractions
etc.
also Diplomacy is holding your nose and shaking hands with somebody like Gadaffi when after saddam got his Qaddafi decided to play nice dismantled his underground nerve gas factory (sadly libya has no volcanoes) and stopped funding terrorists and militias. had his mitts involved with Liberian fractions
etc.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
There are over 40 militias that make up the opposition, all built around different regional and ideological frameworks, all armed to the teeth and only united around the demand for the removal of Gaddafi. It is obvious that this is going to descend into a power struggle.The TNC, the west's favourite is by no means the voice of all Libyans. It is completely undemocratic and headed by members of the previous regime. TNC chairman Mahmood Jibril just fired the entire executive board of the TNC last month and it faces serious factional opposition from Islamists. If the west want their puppet government to survive they are going to have to prop it up. Libya is heading towards civil war.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Right, I've finally reached the point where I am going to call you a twat, you've sunk low in my estimations over the last 24 hours and you seem to have withdrawn to a very smelly position.
How dare you proclaim Libya a failed state. It's at a very difficult moment, and it has the potential to fail, but to give up on a nation so easily is a luxury that those that have an actual stake in the country can ill afford.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Well I'm sorry I don't live up to your high expectations of me but, unlike you, I am not prepared to stick my fingers in my ears and sing lalalalalala in the face of the facts, just to keep you happy. The facts being that the groundwork is being set for Libya's descent into civil war and factional breakup. That's how I see it and I am not going to remain silent just to share this bullshit celebration at this phoney NATO created "revolution". What you are really saying here is "how dare I piss on the party by telling the truth." How dare I not point out that the opposition is an undemocratic faction riven mess just waiting to tear itself apart in factional warfare. I take no joy in reaching these conclusions but I know my history and I see the similarities with Iraq and more chillingly with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Perhaps I shouldn't have argued that the outcome of those adventures would be civil war either?
Incidentally, in all the time I have debated and argued with you on here, I have never, not once sworn at or insulted you, not once. Its below you frankly. When my prediction turns out to be true, when the TNC descends into factional warfare, as it will, you can offer me an apology for your childish abuse. I can wait.
audiotech
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Think that guard was mostly for show.
also Diplomacy is holding your nose and shaking hands with somebody like Gadaffi when after saddam got his Qaddafi decided to play nice dismantled his underground nerve gas factory (sadly libya has no volcanoes) and stopped funding terrorists and militias. had his mitts involved with Liberian fractions
Gadaffi did everything the West wanted him to do, including supplying information to the CIA and MI6 and still they hung him out to dry.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Childish abuse lol, thats rich coming from the man who threw his toys out of the pram big-time last night and started shouting rude words repeatedly.
I can be accused on many things, sticking my fingers in my ears is not usually one of them, since I tend to be extremely tedious in exploring multiple possibilities and being unwilling to make absolute predictions, unlike some who are obsessed with staring at their crystal bollocks. You should know that there are few eventualities which would surprise me, so you'll never get an apology, not after the number of times I kept relatively quiet as you repeatedly made shit predictions since the arab spring began.
I question whether you have the stomach for real-world revolutions. Surely they all come with severe risk, the chance for things to get worse instead of better. They are usually flawed in some way, plenty of the actors are dodgy, and those looking for purity of political position, untainted by pesky compromise, will be let down at some point. And foreign intervention and the nature of rebel groups certainly makes Libya a poor poster-boy for revolution.
All the same, Im not about to give up, form stupidly solid conclusions, or talk about the groundwork in purely negative terms. A world of possibilities has opened up for Libyans. New dangers, new hopes. Why must all hope be eliminated from our thinking just because multiple ugly dimensions lurk?
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Not at you. At an irritating troll who doesn't seem to possess the basic ability to be civil. In fact I don't think I have ever had a cross word with you. If you disagree with my analysis then by all means explain why, just leave the sweary abuse out ok. It's beneath you.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Was sympathetic to this one, until it succeeded, now it's "phoney" and "nato-created".
The broadly composed opposition force contains divisions (never!). Of course it does. As if that makes another civil war inevitable. Again, whether or not such problems come to the fore is dependent on what happens between now and that outcome happening. At the moment I see no good reason to believe it is likely.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
I have opposed NATO intervention since it looked likely and consistantly argued that the reliance on NATO would kill any hope of a popular democratic revolution. I was right. This is not a revolution its NATO regime change. and the imposition of an unrepresentative puppet regime onto the country. A regime that shows every likelyhood of falling apart. It's Iraq all over again and you are fools to pretend it is anything else.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Nothing is beneath me, I am a human.
The reason I swore at you is because I get quite angry at a whole nation being written off. Just because the Libyan situation long ago ceased to be a great platform on which to posture here on this forum, doesn't mean its worthy of being written off. The people that deserve better are still there, and a wide range of possibilities remain open, its all still to play for. The odds on a wonderful outcome are not great, but when are they ever?
Your predictions have become repetitive and shrill since Tripoli started to fall. For sure if there was a clearly visible (in written english) side we could back that was organised and seemed to offer the best hope in terms of future policy, we may be able to avoid the sort of argument that I have now fallen into. But even without that, I find it sad to see people retreating to well-worn and unproductive positions.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Time will tell.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
It's not the Libyan people who are being "written off" at all. On the contrary, its the factional and divided and undemocratic regime that is being imposed onto that country that I predict will fail. The libyan people have had no real say in the regime that is about to take power. Noone elected the TNC, noone was asked last month when the entire executive committee was dismissed. No one was asked if they were happy to have a Benghazi based regime imposed on the country, No one was asked if they were happy to have ex regime killers leading their country. It is precisely because regime change has NOT been the action of the population of Libya that I am so dismissive of the possibilities of either democracy or stability. A revolutionary government gains its legitimacy from the popular will of a population in struggle, not by being imposed by NATO bombs
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Apples, oranges.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Actually I think anybody who has become certain that they know where the hearts and minds of Libyans, and especially the population of Tripoli, truly rest these days, is the fool.
We know that Gaddafi had enough support to cling on until now, and we know that there were not enough people in Tripoli to overthrown him without much in the way of weapons or broad and deep organisation back near the start of things. W know they got squished and that they only lost their fear of the regime for a short period of time in Tripoli. We know Gaddafi managed at least one rally that featured hefty numbers. We've also seen many of the forms of coercion that Gaddafi had available, and we have learnt something about the nature of the regime propaganda that several generations have grown up with.
As for NATO, somehow they seem to have killed far less civilians than I thought likely, to the extent that the regime has still felt it necessary to fake it on occasions. This, combined with no massive numbers of boots on the ground, mean that comparisons with Iraq should not be overdone.
Considering that one of Gaddafi's main cards he could play was 'fight the imperialists', and he wasted few opportunities to do so, I find it interesting that Tripoli has gone pear shaped for him so easily.
All of this has meant that one of my hopes has stubbornly refused to die. Until I can get a better sense of how many Libyans are sorry to see Gaddafi go, I retain the hope that there may be quite an outpouring of joy, which in itself can help national unity at a very delicate moment.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
What about Konrad Adenauer's election in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949? Why couldn't that be a model to impose on Libya?
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
Just how the fuck could the people have been given any say?
Are you suggesting they should have held an election?
Because I can see I slight problem there.
elbows
Well-Known Member
What percentage of a population tends to get involved in popular revolutions that are legitimate and succeed?
Its pretty hard to tell how much support has been lost amongst those who were in Libya and backed revolution until NATO got involved.
The TNC has some pretty hefty flaws, although when people are finding every possible avenue of negativity towards it there are some real glaring contradictions. For example, how can it be criticised as being full of ex-regime people, and at the same time for being something alien to Tripoli, being Benghazi based. Surely one of those aspects must override the other, how can it be both? Yes I know that leads to a discussion about the probabilities of splits within the rebel ranks, which is a huge issue in itself, but my point remains.
Personally I started moaning about the 'exile mentality' that oozed from many english-language tweets quite early on, and yes most of the other criticisms of the TNC and other groups have merit and do concern me. But I don't see this as being the time for judgement, Libyans have choices to make, I do not.
Will Libyans get a chance to organise themselves into groups with clear ideals, and struggle in a less bloody manner? Will it be a complete sham, another strongman setup, a weak thing imposed from outside, or something dominated by the tribal aspect? Time will tell.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Well you have kind of answered your own point. The opposition is broadly based around the TNC but the relationship between it and the myriad of militias and armed groups of varying degrees of autonomy is not homogenous. There are varying factions within what we call the opposition ranging from liberals, ex regime opportunists, monarchists, democrats, liberals, communists, regional separatists, and most importantly of all Islamists. They are united by their determination to overthrow Gaddafi (though even that unity is in question- it is interesting that factional purges, ie Younis, took place even before the regime was overthrown as opposed to after) The similarity here with the Northern Alliance is striking.
The important point here is that all these factions are not equal and there is not and cannot be the space for the expression of these differing factional positions, the kind of space that may allow for democratic governance, for one simple reason. That is that NATO has its own agenda and its own preferred blueprint for a post Gaddafi regime. NATO wants a puppet and it intends to get one, NATO wants a regime that is conducive to Western geopolitical interests and one committed to neo liberal economics. The TNC under Mustafa Abdul Jalil is NATOs choice and that is the price that Libya will pay for NATO intervention. They are getting Jalil whether they like it or not.It is this, the price that is being enacted by NATO that will kill any hope for democracy, not only that Libyans didn't do it for themselves but that precisely because they didn't they have already been excluded from the post Gaddafi future. The danger then of factional conflicts exploding violently into the open should be obvious
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Mohammed Gaddafi escapes 'house arrest'. How!
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
Well his people didn't want him anymore.Time to settle some scores
.Paid a bribe or they really want to hunt him down like a dog.
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