Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Missed this...

@ Ibn A reminder of better times? Are you having a bubble? When 80% of the population couldnt read or write? And lived in abject poverty? And was in the pocket of western powers. Al Jazerra is also run by a royal family - maybe thats why they were so quick to call Libya a kingdom. Maybe a bit too quick. ps oil has just gone down in price. Is that because the west is going to get some from Libya cheaper than before? If you're Libyan you should have more respect for yourself and your country.

Better times when people when weren't afraid of what they said for fear of being shot or imprisoned, there was a semblance of democracy, rule of law; decent education, real universities, decent health-care, streets were actually cleaned, crime wasn't rampant in the cities, there wasn't a cap on wages [e.g $200 per month for teachers]! If you think Gaddafi has done anything for the country then you are in his propaganda bubble!

[E2A: What you mentioned was changing when oil wealth poured in. Donkey was the one who made sure Libyans benefited as little as possible.]

Libyans respect themselves that's why they're ending the dictatorship...

 

[paolo]

That bloke was really on top of it as well.Great interview.

Yeah. Good that the bloke who gets the hat had good stuff to say.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Libyans respect themselves that's why they're ending the dictatorship...

Sunny Jim's motto

It's better to die upon your knees than live on your feet

 

[Baboonking]

 

[elbows]

That bloke was really on top of it as well.Great interview.

Here is a youtube clip of the interview.

edit - video removed as I was beaten to it.

At the start when it is a split screen, can see much of the scene that Sky news captured which showed tension between someone black and rebels.

There is also a report floating around that an AlJazeera reporter was shot at the compound, I don't know any more than that yet.

 

[sunny jim]

Missed this...

Better times when people when weren't afraid of what they said for fear of being shot or imprisoned, there was a semblance of democracy, rule of law; decent education, real universities, decent health-care, streets were actually cleaned, crime wasn't rampant in the cities, there wasn't a cap on wages [e.g $200 per month for teachers]! If you think Gaddafi has done anything for the country then you are in his propaganda bubble!

[E2A: What you mentioned was changing when oil wealth poured in. Donkey was the one who made sure Libyans benefited as little as possible.]

Libyans respect themselves that's why they're ending the dictatorship...

Are you talking pre 1969? If so you're talking total bollocks. 80% of the population couldnt read or write, the wealty of the country was in the hands of a very small elite, there was no infrastructure like the irrigation project called the 'Great River' which has made growing crops in the desert easy. Please dont try and argue that life in Libya was better pre 1969 under absolute rule by a royal family because you're just making yourself look stupid.

 

[audiotech]

That reporter from Sky in the clip above, with her simplistic trite about a "winning side" makes good copy for the Murdoch stable, but that's about as far as it goes. The "winning side" will not include the ordinary Libyan people, who will now become another colony of corporate greed, exploited to the max by a criminal enterprise, dressed up as "freedom". Makes my blood boil to see this guff.

 

[likesfish]

Let's wait and see gadaffi was a wanker anyone who helped arm the cunts in Liberia has to be.
They have a chance it can go wrong or it can go right it's up to the libyans.
NATO can slap anyone who thinks they can build a military threat against the rest of Libya.
the miltas have seen what an airstrike can do so might not be they keen on stArting something.

 

[dylans]

Missed this...

Better times when people when weren't afraid of what they said for fear of being shot or imprisoned, there was a semblance of democracy, rule of law; decent education, real universities, decent health-care, streets were actually cleaned, crime wasn't rampant in the cities, there wasn't a cap on wages [e.g $200 per month for teachers]! If you think Gaddafi has done anything for the country then you are in his propaganda bubble!

[E2A: What you mentioned was changing when oil wealth poured in. Donkey was the one who made sure Libyans benefited as little as possible.]

Libyans respect themselves that's why they're ending the dictatorship...

While I think it is a tragedy that in Libya, (like most post independance Arab states, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Iraq etc,) modernism has also been accompanied by fierce political repression and while I think Gaddafi regime has been a police state with brutal political repression, it is a distortion of history to paint the pre 69 Kingdom of Libya as some golden age. It wasn't and it should be noted that the 69 coup that brought Gaddafi to power was greeted with popular support and for good reason. Libya under Idris was a colonial pawn with foreign military bases,(British and American) a colonial elite population (Italian) owned the best land and most of the businesses. Wealth was highly concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, oil profits were exported, education was none existent. On independance in 51 it was estimated that only 250,000 Libyans were literate. 5% of the population was Blind. Most of the civil service was foreigners and not a single doctor was Libyan and the country was an absolute Monarchy which banned all political parties.

By all means attack Gaddafi for corruption and for vicious political repression. On this I agree but it is patently absurd to pretend that pre Gaddafi Libya was some kind of golden age of freedom, it wasn't.

 

[audiotech]

Let's wait and see gadaffi was a wanker anyone who helped arm the cunts in Liberia has to be.
They have a chance it can go wrong or it can go right it's up to the libyans.
NATO can slap anyone who thinks they can build a military threat against the rest of Libya.
the miltas have seen what an airstrike can do so might not be they keen on stArting something.

When Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia, met with NATO representatives he asked what would happen if he didn't sign an agreement on their terms. There was a table between the two sides and the leading NATO representative swept his arm across it and said if he didn't sign Belgrade would be carpet bombed, leading to half a million dead. The NATO representative who uttered this ominous threat, far removed from any notion of "humanitarian intervention", went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The goal, as in former Yugoslavia and everwhere else, is to create an enabling role for foreign predatory capitalism. The privatisation of socially owned enterprises, without any regard to legal ownership. Theft is what will happen pure and simple. What's the betting that in the not too distant future the Libyan people will be looking back to the rule of Gaddafi with some nostalgia for the 'good old days'?

Here's a link to a documentary that makes clear that anyone who goes against NATO and predatory Western capital interests will be taken out one way, or another.

http://www.oneclickwatch.com/2011/05/weight-of-chains-2010-watch-online.html

 

[likesfish]

or maybe stopping a fucking pysco who'd started more wars than is seemly

 

[paolo]

No choice but to sit it out at the Rixos...

 

[IC3D]

Gaddafi also built The Great Man-Made River, across the Sahara, not a bad thing to inherit maybe the rebels were waiting til he finished it

 

[paolo]

Gaddafi also built The Great Man-Made River, across the Sahara, not a bad thing to inherit maybe the rebels were waiting til he finished it

Looks a bit like SimCity.

 

[audiotech]

or maybe stopping a fucking pysco who'd started more wars than is seemly

Threatening to carpet bomb a modern European city, killing half a million is more than psychotic. Those who ignore this madness done in their name I find difficult to express in words.

 

[likesfish]

difference is it was a threat making that fucker realize he was never going to have another crack at greater serbia.

considering that cunt had destroyed several modern European cities and was responsible for the largest massacre since ww2 in Europe tough shit

 

[butchersapron]

Two clowns cracking. That's the sound.

The tnc people not been savages, not the bloodthirsty eastern apes. How easy this game is.

 

[butchersapron]

The TNC people seem more in control of their area than anyone else.

 

[Pickman's model]

The NATO representative who uttered this ominous threat, far removed from any notion of "humanitarian intervention", went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

i don't see anything wrong with that.

 

[scooter]

Hmm Gaddafi has just done a radio interview saying the withdrawal from the compound was a tactical move and he will address the Libyan people shortly

 

[bendeus]

Can I just ask: why the hell did China and Russia agree to a mandate that has effectively allowed NATO to execute its agenda under UN auspices? I would have thought that their abstention has worked directly against the interests of both countries, unless, that is, some kind of tradeoff has taken place that I'm too thick to have noticed.

 

[rekil]

Hmm Gaddafi has just done a radio interview saying the withdrawal from the compound was a tactical move and he will address the Libyan people shortly

It'll go uncomfortably close to something like this.

 

[audiotech]

difference is it was a threat making that fucker realize he was never going to have another crack at greater serbia.

considering that cunt had destroyed several modern European cities and was responsible for the largest massacre since ww2 in Europe tough shit

I'll just post this and not derail this thread anymore.

The 1100 cruise missiles launched at the former Yugoslavia were very destructive too, as well as the other conventional weapons used, including depleted uranium shells that have a devastating effects on the population long after their use.

There's no doubt that Serbian forces were primarily to blame for the massacre at Srebrenica and I was at the time demonstrating on the streets here condemning such a barbaric act. It also should be remembered too that the Bosnian government also bears some responsibility for the massacre:

...the Izetbegović government followed a clear policy that aimed to maximize casualties of its own civilians, a strategy adopted to elicit the outrage of international public opinion, and thus leading to Western military intervention against the Serbs and in favor of the Muslims.

Also Muslim forces engaged in repeated atrocities against Serb villages outside of Srebrenica. For more on this see here: http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_srebrenica_massacre_after_fifteen_years

 

[audiotech]

i don't see anything wrong with that.

Well one more post off topic.

That post you made against me on another thread has confirmed that you are nothing but a spiteful little toe-rag and morally bankrupt, so anything you post from now on I ignore.

 

[claphamboy]

Hmm Gaddafi has just done a radio interview saying the withdrawal from the compound was a tactical move and he will address the Libyan people shortly

When all else fails, I've always thought that 'run away' is a good tactical move TBH.

 

[likesfish]

seems the ideal way to remove a tryant airstrikes to destroy his hardware advisers and special forces to back up the rebels.
lets see if a hodge podge of locals do a better job than the UK/US did in iraq although tbf nobody could do worse mind you a neighbour doesn't want to annexe the oil fields so that might help.

 

[dylans]

seems the ideal way to remove a tryant airstrikes to destroy his hardware advisers and special forces to back up the rebels.
lets see if a hodge podge of locals do a better job than the UK/US did in iraq although tbf nobody could do worse mind you a neighbour doesn't want to annexe the oil fields so that might help.

NATO is perfecting this technique for regime change. It used it in Kosovo when it installed a bunch of drug trafficking gangsters into power and it used it in Afghanistan when special forces shepherded the Northern Alliance to power. This moment brings to mind the first days of the fall of Saddam and the images of Saddam's statue being pulled down. Then too, the supporters of regime change appeared on TV to smugly declare "mission accomplished" and lecture those of us who opposed foreign regime change, but it was the post Saddam era that turned into a disaster.

The TNC will be placed into power over the next few days and then we will begin to get a clearer picture of its real legitimacy and the factional divisions within it. The TNC represents Benghazi, as does its flag. The flag of Idris represents what Eastern Libya considers revenge for the loss of Cyrenaica power under Gaddafi. It's not a national flag and it will be difficult to unite the country around a celebration of Eastern power.There are several other regional power actors in this, the fighters of Misrata and the Berber fighters of the Nefusa mountains. Expect a power struggle to begin to emerge as these forces demand recognition for their role in the fight. Also it is clear that the TNC leadership and political strategy has been essentially created by NATO and the West, there is no evidence that the pro Western, pro Israeli, free market ideology of the TNC is one embraced by all Libyans and we can expect these tensions to come to the fore too. The country is awash with arms and awash with armed militias, all competing for the vision of Libya's future. The most important faction is Islamist (something deliberately downplayed or even ignored by those who celebrate these events as the beginning of liberal democracy.) Expect these forces to exhert their demands too. Also, Tripoli has played no real part in the overthrow of Gaddafi, it was achieved by an occupying army under NATO close air support. There is little real indication of how residents of Tripoli feel about their city occupied and destroyed by an occupying force from outside. We are being presented with a view of universal jubulance that is almost certainly distorted. Finally, the defeated loyalist forces have not disappeared, it is interesting that there are few images of captured soldiers beyond the odd one or two. No mass defections or surrender. They have blended into the city and the country as they did in Iraq. The possibility of an ongoing urban insurgency is a real one.

Libya today is beginning to resemble Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam or Afghanistan after the victory of the Northern Alliance and I see nothing to celebrate in that. Those who are celebrating "freedom" should remember their history because its not pretty

 

[Random]

The goal, as in former Yugoslavia and everwhere else, is to create an enabling role for foreign predatory capitalism. The privatisation of socially owned enterprises, without any regard to legal ownership.

Milosevic was already using neo-liberalism to destroy the social system of old Yugoslavia as far back as the 1980s. I know it's a neat picture, to tie up bad old neo-liberalism with bad old NATO/USA but that's not how capitalism works.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

NATO is perfecting this technique for regime change. It used it in Kosovo when it installed a bunch of drug trafficking gangsters into power and it used it in Afghanistan when special forces shepherded the Northern Alliance to power. This moment brings to mind the first days of the fall of Saddam and the images of Saddam's statue being pulled down. Then too, the supporters of regime change appeared on TV to smugly declare "mission accomplished" and lecture those of us who opposed foreign regime change, but it was the post Saddam era that turned into a disaster.

The TNC will be placed into power over the next few days and then we will begin to get a clearer picture of its real legitimacy and the factional divisions within it. The TNC represents Benghazi, as does its flag. The flag of Idris represents what Eastern Libya considers revenge for the loss of Cyrenaica power under Gaddafi. It's not a national flag and it will be difficult to unite the country around a celebration of Eastern power.There are several other regional power actors in this, the fighters of Misrata and the Berber fighters of the Nefusa mountains. Expect a power struggle to begin to emerge as these forces demand recognition for their role in the fight. Also it is clear that the TNC leadership and political strategy has been essentially created by NATO and the West, there is no evidence that the pro Western, free market ideology of the TNC is one embraced by all Libyans and we can expect these tensions to come to the fore too. The country is awash with arms and awash with armed militias, all competing for the vision of Libya's future. The most important faction is Islamist (something deliberately downplayed or even ignored by those who celebrate these events as the beginning of liberal democracy.) Expect these forces to exhert their demands too. Also, Tripoli has played no real part in the overthrow of Gaddafi, it was achieved by an occupying army with NATO support. There is little real indication of how residents of Tripoli feel about their city occupied and destroyed by an occupying force from outside. We are being presented with a view of universal jubulance that is almost certainly distorted. Finally, the defeated loyalist forces have not disappeared, it is interesting that there are few images of captured soldiers beyond the odd one or two. No mass defections or surrender. They have blended into the city and the country as they did in Iraq. The possibility of an ongoing urban insurgency is a real one.

Libya today is beginning to resemble Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam or Afghanistan after the victory of the Northern Alliance and I see nothing to celebrate in that. Those who are celebrating "freedom" should remember their history because its not pretty

I read this post and I have to state you don't you know what the fuck you are talking about. It's quite clear that the rebels from all parts of the country are happily flying this flag and no other.

And as the the Islamists. Then, yes, they will be present, especially in the east of the country, but common sense tells you that as things stand their anti-Western rhetoric will not find wide spread support amongst the population at large.

Mistrata, Tripoli and the north east of the country already have a well-established mercantile and industrial working class and it is from there that the best ideas for a new Libya will come from

It is not the Cold War. They do need client dictatorships in the middle east, indeed they have set their sites on a liberal democracy. For them it is a political project that after investing so much money and resources into they cannot abandon without losing serious face

 

[dylans]

I read this post and I have to state you don't you know what the fuck you are talking about. It's quite clear that the rebels from all parts of the country are happily flying this flag and no other.

How many people in Libya are rebels? How many people in Tripoli are rebels? There are 1 million 800.000 people in Tripoli. Many are loyal to the regime. Many may not like Gaddafi at all but do not trust the rebels who they see as a conquering army. They are not dancing on CNN, that doesn't mean they are not there.

You are self deluded and you are in for a shock as reality bursts your bubble