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That's yet to be seen although some looting and other shenanigans have been going on it's not so bad yet. I guess there was an armory in Qadaffis compound, I guarantee there is nothing left there. I hope the authorities can get things in order before the gangs do.

The shooting's over, is it?

Ah. Thought not.

Is anyone pretending Libya would not be a better place today the Benghazi rebels been suppressed when they numbered mere hundreds of enthusiasts suborned by foreign-paid agents of US subversion?

Gaddafi's revolution lasted over forty years and worked in the interest of Libya and its citizens. I suggest the new managers have hocked the entire country to Western interests. I look forward to reading the history of what's happened.

TruthBringer;1355846 wrote: One word. Bullshit.

Those polls are all Bullshit. Do you really believe any American with their head on straight would ever support a THIRD war in the Middle East when we are already tiring of our first two? We aren't stupid. Our country is broke, we are on the brink of economic collapse, and they're trying to tell us that 60% of Americans are in favor of spreading our military even thinner than it already is......

Sure. Those polls are all fake. This just proves it even more.We're note broke. Being on par with other countries economically is not broke...

To the op I'd say that the rebels are any group of soldiers that are not the enemy. It's good enough in my view to know the enemy as opposed to knowing my allies...

We've called for Gaddafi to step down, among others...We most certainly shouldn't base our decisions to go to war due to prior decisions at all. Just because we cannot change history doesn't mean we should allow that same history to dictate the future, it's counterproductive.

This could get ugly, really ugly. Remember Baghdad? All the factions fighting one another, Sunnis and She'ites butchering one another. This may be Berbers from the west and god knows who else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/world ... s&emc=tha2

This is all about whoever has the power and money. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

So, should we go back and post-mortem this thread, see whose arguments hold water in the aftermath of NATO's disgusting death-spree?

I reckon, at a conservative estimate, that even if everything Gaddafi was ever accused of was true then he'd still have killed less than a tenth of the Libyan deaths since March, all of which are directly and solely attributable to the opportunistic NATO intervention in Libya's internal affairs.

This has been a very interesting thread and I thank all that participated to my initial post. Now that the Colonel is dead along with many of his defenders, his opponents, those in the middle and the destruction of property, I think some time will have to pass before a reasonable summation can be made. Was the whole thing worth it? Who will ultimately benefit and how? Who will loose out and why?

spot;1373091 wrote: So, should we go back and post-mortem this thread, see whose arguments hold water in the aftermath of NATO's disgusting death-spree?

I reckon, at a conservative estimate, that even if everything Gaddafi was ever accused of was true then he'd still have killed less than a tenth of the Libyan deaths since March, all of which are directly and solely attributable to the opportunistic NATO intervention in Libya's internal affairs.
It doesn't matter if fewer were killed if the populace is still enslaved. Many human rights activists... especially the nonviolent ones... are willing to be beaten, imprisoned or die to free their people.

This wasn't non-violent but, nevertheless, the people are now free and they seem pretty darned happy about it. Hopefully they get something better. If not, they found out that change can happen.

I would like to note that I've seen this:

“Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives,” Obama said Thursday in a brief Rose Garden appearance.

- The Washington Post

But consider it a very shoddy attempt at taking credit for something they put off getting involved in. Rather slippery and ill thought out.

koan;1373158 wrote: the people are now free and they seem pretty darned happy about it.Consider a country in which half the population is pretty darned happy at the overthrow of the government and constitution and the murder of the head of state, and half are terrified that a knock on the door is shortly going to result in their children being taken off into the desert and shot after torture. Which half is likely to be on the streets whooping it up in front of the international media. More to the point, what do you think might happen to anyone going out on the streets demonstrating solidarity with Colonel Gaddafi's Green Revolution today? I think you'll find they're stood behind their curtains hoping to stay inconspicuously alive.

Some of the people now think they're free and they seem pretty darned happy about it. I don't even think you can confidently say it's the majority. In a tribal society, most of some tribes will be happy at the outcome and most of some tribes will forebode. I can't imagine the average citizen of Sirte will be pleased with the outcome at all, nor a lot of other towns like it.

I note that one of those taken into custody in Sirte yesterday was Moussa Ibrahim, I hope he survives his encounter with democracy.

I think it's more than half that are happy.

There's not much point showing solidarity to a dead man is there? Anyone who does it now is a little dim witted. I'm not convinced that anyone who might be arrested as a threat to the new movement outnumbers those who who might have been arrested by Gaddafi before the revolution.

I thought this morning about whether or not I should worry about the number of people who died because the revolution wasn't non-violent then realised that the reason it wasn't non-violent was because Gaddafi refused to step down. You can decide it's narrow minded of me and neither one of us will be able to prove one way or the other whether my perspective is biased or legitimate but I think Gaddafi was offered a few chances to step down and leave with his life and he vowed to die before he would give up his dictatorship. So Gaddafi killed all the people of his country who died to wrestle it back and Gaddafi chose the death he received. AFAIC he was executed because he promised the people he would not give up Libya as long as he lived.

I think it's more than half that are happy.


I think its more than half couldn't have gave a silly arsed damn just a few months ago and now find their world turned upside down with the very high potential of further conflict causing yet more destruction in their lives. One of the mistakes Q made is he wasn't harsh enough with the tribal oriented radicals who want to off the guy across the street just because he is one of "them".

If the NTC can get these tribes to move together instead of apart and get those weapons back where they belong they will be alright. If the members of this new government can control their greed and narcissistic predispositions and get the people of Libya a future they'll be alright. If they don't we have another Iraq on our hands.

Shortest News article I've seen. Libyan law to be based on Sharia Law, the key words here are "based on" I do believe. Qaddafi had a good secular set up from what I hear and your average Muslim has a different view of the world and religion than we do here in the west. It may be best to use something people are familiar with in the long run. Most Mid East countries use the same thing. Once again though we're left at the cross roads waiting. What does the future hold?

I also don't trust the WP either.

Libya’s transitional leader says Islamic Sharia law will be the “basic source” of all law - The Washington Post

koan;1373261 wrote: I think Gaddafi was offered a few chances to step down and leave with his lifeDo you think there's any evidence to that effect? Or is it just a feeling.

oh there's lots of evidence: his statements that he refused to leave.

koan;1373380 wrote: oh there's lots of evidence: his statements that he refused to leave.


Oh come on, play fair - you know perfectly well that doesn't come close to even implying "I think Gaddafi was offered a few chances to step down and leave with his life", all it means is that he refused to leave. The question of whether he'd have agreed to leave if offered "a few chances to step down and leave with his life" is left unaddressed. Do you think there's any evidence to the effect that he was offered a few chances to step down and leave with his life? Or is it just a feeling.

Because, just to make my point, I don't think there is any. I'd take that to mean that no such offer was made. I think the nearest he had as an option to leave was to buy his way into a country with no extradition treaties and the evidence shows that he didn't take that option - because, I suggest, he was a genuine old-school honourable revolutionary who died in battle defending his country from a commercial buy-out of the sort Simon Mann might have engineered.

What we have is a page from a colouring book. The spaces might be void of crayon right now but the picture is still clearly outlined. I could fill part of that with green and you tell me it's really blue and perhaps it's one of those weird colours that can be seen as either depending on the eyes that are looking.

Gaddafi's own words state he made a choice.

Defiant Gaddafi vows to fight on - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has vowed to fight on and die a "martyr"...

"Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of the revolution, I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post."
Grab your crayons and scribble wildly, just remember the picture was already drawn.

Anyone with ten minutes to read a brief article could check this one: BBC News - 'Cleansed' Libyan town spills its terrible secrets

It's a reasonable description of the consequence of the Western powers empowering their client rebels to overthrow the Libyan government. None of it would have happened had the West not interfered in Libyan internal affairs. The damage is immeasurably greater than anything the Colonel was ever accused of. On the contrary, even the article notes in passing that the Colonel's governance took particular care of those in need and on the periphery of Libyan society. What happened this year was shameful and a disgrace.

All governments are being overthrown. Even if the US was behind it, which is highly unlikely, it won't matter soon.

Better to live in terror of the future than to live under the thumb of a tyrant. People will die either way.

I'm not going to take the defense position of justifying why an oppressed people would kill others out of revenge. It's not good but it's not unexpected. I want you to prove to me that the Libyan rebels weren't homegrown. I want you to prove to me that 10 000 people dying to free their children is worse than indefinite generations dying under an oppressive regime. At least they have a chance now.

There is zero proof that the US generated this rebellion. Zero.

Nowhere have I singled out the US as generating the rebellion, either. I've said Western powers - including the US - financed the rebel movement for years before the outbreak of violence which is presumably what you're challenging, because you can't be saying they didn't feed money and weaponry and intelligence in once the violence was under way or that the air cover provided by NATO wasn't the deciding factor in the outcome. If you're actually challenging "financed the rebel movement for years before" I can show chapter and verse on that.

"indefinite generations dying under an oppressive regime" is an outrageous description. You may think it was oppressive - I happen not to, I think it was liberating - but you're forgetting how few and how rarely it killed. To make out that entire generations died at its hands as though it were Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge is fantasy.

yes, I know you think they had it good. But that's a circular argument as we've already been over that debate ending with the assertion that you didn't live there so you don't rightly know. You didn't live next to them so you didn't rightly observe. You don't personally know any of them so you can't even assert knowledge on a poll of a too small sample group.

I completely stand by my "indefinite generations" comment as you're talking about people dying to achieve change vs people never accomplishing change at all. Apples and rotted oranges.

I am, however, intrigued by the evidence you have of financing the rebels received before taking action. Please share.

May I drop BBC News - Libya's tribal clashes leave 105 dead in here? I don't see the slightest hint of improvement in Libya yet.

The consequence for Libyans of the West's lethal interference in the country's internal affairs is still mounting.

BBC News - Libya Sufi shrines attacked 'by Islamist hardliners'

Are we still pleased it happened?

Are we still pleased it happened?


Yes.

Clodhopper;1402006 wrote: Yes.There would have been those saying the same if Castro had been toppled and Cuba crashed to the condition Haiti's in.

Turmoil after a coup is natural. You'd have to come up with more than that to make it preferable for them to still be under the thumb of an oppressive leader. Even if another dictator takes over, it's now their struggle to win.

I was just looking into the aftermath of Castro and Guevara's revolution in Cuba. There were a lot of executions involved there, among other unrest. I've no doubt you are a supporter of what happened in Cuba, as am I, but you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Castro is to me the exception that proves the rule. I really don't like dictators.

Clodhopper;1402059 wrote: Castro is to me the exception that proves the rule. I really don't like dictators.


Looking at the state of the world I don't much like Democracies, to be honest, not the way they're practised. What matters is what happens. Gaddafi's Libya had a lot in its favour and an intransigent powerful vindictive enemy.

The reason I don't much like Democracies the way they're practised is that they can be, and are, bought and sold by those with the financial clout to do it. Dictatorships can't, not if they're run by genuine dedicated revolutionaries on a par with Castro or Gaddafi. Interfering in the internal affairs of a democracy is simple and quite probably legal - consider the Israeli lobby in Washington for an example of the ills that can follow.

I'm not sure I know of any democracies. We have countries that have a voting system, of one sort or another, to change the colour of the government occasionally - including ours. They chuck us a bone now and again but it looks the same as some of these dictatorships at times. Government ministers sit round and discuss how much revenue a particular law can generate, rather than how it would benefit society. Our counties are ruled by Corporate power manipulating puppets in government

We employ the language in common use. "Democracy" is invariably, unless discussing the ancient Greek world, a reference to Representative Democracy in the context of party politics. The existence of party to shore up a block vote in bulk, where this wing will support that measure because in turn it gets its own way on the matter of chief interest to it, inevitably overwhelms the will of independent representatives. Those who join themselves to a party are more powerful and capable than those who don't.

It's one reason I don't want Lords reform. At least at the moment the Lords isn't representative, it need curry no favour, it consists in the main of lifetime experts who listen to each other. Were it possible to stop party alignment there I'd be pleased but of course it isn't. At least every member of the Lords is effectively independent of the burden of representing anyone, it allows talent by appointment rather than dross by public acclaim.

I'm not saying democracy is a great system, it's just I don't know of a better. It's open to abuse in many ways but I do think that here anyway we get the government we deserve, and if we haven't liked the last thirty years we have only ourselves to blame. In hindsight, I think we should have been out on the streets protesting more, lobbying our MP and actively participating. We've just sat back and assumed they will do the right thing. We should have been making it clear we were watching.

I don't want the Lords appointed by the government or directly elected - I value the life peer system as a way of getting experts and the great and good into the legislative system. I have been pondering the idea that the Crown should have the responsibility of finding and appointing appropriate people (with some sort of guidelines as to what was required), which seems to have some merit to me if it's possible, but it may be putting the Crown too close to real politics. I'm not sure. Perhaps a Committe of the Lords themselves?

...or thinking on, why not leave the Lords to perpetute themselves and select their new members as and when someone dies or retires? With a requirement for the Commons to give the selection the nod, as a guard against abuse?

I thought for a long time about the abolition of the House of Lords. For years I thought it was the sensible thing to do. Not so sure now. It seems to work in the sense of regulating what comes out of the Commons. I'm now thinking that having a elected second house would just be like two Houses of Commons. I dont like that idea at all. Maybe just a small representative portion that would work along side those already there

You already have one, they're called Bishops.

What do you mean, you didn't choose yours - don't you go to Synod?

My word Robert Fisk remains one of the bravest people I've heard of. He's given President Assad's Baathists stick for decades and there he is in Syria interviewing eye witnesses at the scene.

Robert Fisk: Inside Daraya - how a failed prisoner swap turned into a massacre - Robert Fisk - Commentators - The Independent

The same matter appears in The Lebanon Daily Star, carefully not attributing responsibility to the Western-financed Contras but, as does Robert Fisk in the Independent, pretty well implying it.

May I bring the thread up to date a little, courtesy of Patrick Cockburn?Without a central government with any real power, Libya is falling apart. And this is happening almost three years after 19 March 2011 when the French air force stopped Mu'ammer Gaddafi's counter-offensive to crush the uprising in Benghazi. Months later, his burnt-out tanks still lay by the road to the city. With the United States keeping its involvement as low-profile as possible, Nato launched a war in which rebel militiamen played a secondary, supportive role and ended with the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi.

A striking feature of events in Libya in the past week is how little interest is being shown by leaders and countries which enthusiastically went to war in 2011 in the supposed interests of the Libyan people. President Obama has since spoken proudly of his role in preventing a "massacre" in Benghazi at that time. But when the militiamen, whose victory Nato had assured, opened fire on a demonstration against their presence in Tripoli in November last year, killing at least 42 protesters and firing at children with anti-aircraft machine guns, there was scarcely a squeak of protest from Washington, London or Paris.

[...] Western and regional governments share responsibility for much that has happened in Libya, but so too should the media. The Libyan uprising was reported as a simple-minded clash between good and evil. Gaddafi and his regime were demonised and his opponents treated with a naïve lack of scepticism and enquiry. The foreign media have dealt with the subsequent collapse of the Libyan state since 2011 mostly by ignoring it, though politicians have stopped referring to Libya as an exemplar of successful foreign intervention.

Three years after Gaddafi, Libya is imploding into chaos and violence - Commentators - Voices - The Independent



I'll restate my comment from a few posts ago, and re-ask the same question:

1. The consequence for Libyans of the West's lethal interference in the country's internal affairs is still mounting.

2. Are we still pleased it happened?

And further comment on what happened, why, and how it panned out. I do think this article is worth reeding.

The result of the French, British and US intervention, the report finds, “was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of Isil [Islamic State] in north Africa.

It adds: “Through his decision-making in the national security council, former prime minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to develop a coherent Libya strategy.

In his evidence, Richards made clear he opposed the politicians’ decision to switch the strategic goal of the intervention from the protection of the people of Benghazi, threatened by Gaddafi, to regime change. The report finds: “If the primary object of the coalition intervention was the urgent need to protect civilians in Benghazi, then this objective was achieved in March 2011 in less than 24 hours.

“This meant that a limited intervention to protect civilians drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change by military means.

The report says in future military and intelligence officials should be given a formal right to register dissent at meetings of the national security council, and so require formal instruction to act by their political leaders.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... tervention

koan;1373158 wrote: This wasn't non-violent but, nevertheless, the people are now free and they seem pretty darned happy about it. Hopefully they get something better. If not, they found out that change can happen.


May I fling in an update, to keep the thread in play?

Speaking to reporters in Tripoli, Mr Guterres said he was making a "strong appeal to stop... the escalation".

The US, UK, France and Italy also issued a joint statement calling for calm.

"At this sensitive moment in Libya's transition, military posturing and threats of unilateral action only risk propelling Libya back toward chaos," they said in a joint statement issued by the US state department.

"We strongly believe that there is no military solution to the Libya conflict," the governments added.

The UN had been planning to hold a conference in Libya later this month for talks over ending the country's long-running crisis.

There were conflicting reports that Gen Haftar's forces had entered the town of Gharyan, 100km (60 miles) south of Tripoli.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47819952




The murder of Colonel Gaddafi remains an outrage, eight years after the thread started. The destabilization of Libya hasn't yet reached its low point much less started to reverse, and the destabilization was entirely a political choice of the UK and US governments.

Libya under Colonel Gaddafi was a wealthy secular egalitarian paradise compared to what it has become.