"I saw someone describe UAVs as “indiscriminate weapons of terror” yesterday. Again, it’s just freaking embarrassing sometimes."
They are. They destroy entire compounds, complete with men, women and children, all sight unseen, all based on flakey and often wrong intelligence. It's very tidy, because we never get to see the carnage.
UAV's are the very definition of terror weapons.
I'm sure there are many Libyans that share Juan Cole's view, but I'm entirely more convinced by this. It makes so much more sense, and has so many historical and current precedents to bolster it.
Also not mentioned is the complete ostracism of Goldstone and his entire family by the local South African Jewish community since his original report was released. Perhaps he and his children are sick of being pariahs. It's apparently not even possible for well respected Jews to criticize Israel these days, no matter how appallingly it behaves. They make sure anyone that does, suffers severe consequences. Israel and its supporters are belligerent, self-serving and completely out of control.
This would absolutely not be happening if Libya didn't have a lot of oil.
Western governments are driven and financed by corporations, and they want "their" oil back. If you really think this has anything at all to do with humanitarianism then you are very, very naive.
One might also mention that the Taliban only hosted Al Qaeda on the condition that they didn't attack the US. Also that they offered to give up bin Laden to the US if they provided proof of his complicity in 9/11. The US refused and then immediately invaded Afghanistan.
Although the US did later promise to offer proof of his complicity to the rest of us, they never actually have. Bin laden has never acknowledged involvement (quite the opposite), and all we've bee given are a couple of poor quality blurry videos complete with "bin Laden" wearing a watch on the wrong wrist and jewellery, which the real one never did.
All of which make you wonder what the hell we are doing there, especially since Gates says there may be substantially less than 100 members of Al Qaeda there.
We have spent an almighty amount of money chasing and failing to catch a few n'er do wells. What an incredible waste of money and human life. And coincidentally, what an incredible positive reinforcement of the ideas that encouraged Al Qaeda in the first place...
Given the long history of the US bombing of wedding parties because of faulty intelligence and then lying about it in Afghanistan, that's entirely plausible. That's not to say it's true in this case. But it certainly has been, on numerous occasions in the past.
"I saw someone describe UAVs as “indiscriminate weapons of terror” yesterday. Again, it’s just freaking embarrassing sometimes."
They are. They destroy entire compounds, complete with men, women and children, all sight unseen, all based on flakey and often wrong intelligence. It's very tidy, because we never get to see the carnage.
UAV's are the very definition of terror weapons.
http://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2011/04/pilger-british-libya-yemen
http://tinyurl.com/3ddewov
I'm sure there are many Libyans that share Juan Cole's view, but I'm entirely more convinced by this. It makes so much more sense, and has so many historical and current precedents to bolster it.
Also not mentioned is the complete ostracism of Goldstone and his entire family by the local South African Jewish community since his original report was released. Perhaps he and his children are sick of being pariahs. It's apparently not even possible for well respected Jews to criticize Israel these days, no matter how appallingly it behaves. They make sure anyone that does, suffers severe consequences. Israel and its supporters are belligerent, self-serving and completely out of control.
The word "brutally" is never used with regard to the US, is it? Despite it being far more appropriate, by several orders of magnitude.
This would absolutely not be happening if Libya didn't have a lot of oil.
Western governments are driven and financed by corporations, and they want "their" oil back. If you really think this has anything at all to do with humanitarianism then you are very, very naive.
3 million? You are either delusional or a simple (in both senses of the word) victim of propaganda.
No
One might also mention that the Taliban only hosted Al Qaeda on the condition that they didn't attack the US. Also that they offered to give up bin Laden to the US if they provided proof of his complicity in 9/11. The US refused and then immediately invaded Afghanistan.
Although the US did later promise to offer proof of his complicity to the rest of us, they never actually have. Bin laden has never acknowledged involvement (quite the opposite), and all we've bee given are a couple of poor quality blurry videos complete with "bin Laden" wearing a watch on the wrong wrist and jewellery, which the real one never did.
All of which make you wonder what the hell we are doing there, especially since Gates says there may be substantially less than 100 members of Al Qaeda there.
We have spent an almighty amount of money chasing and failing to catch a few n'er do wells. What an incredible waste of money and human life. And coincidentally, what an incredible positive reinforcement of the ideas that encouraged Al Qaeda in the first place...
4 US Troops killed in Helicopter Downing
Given the long history of the US bombing of wedding parties because of faulty intelligence and then lying about it in Afghanistan, that's entirely plausible. That's not to say it's true in this case. But it certainly has been, on numerous occasions in the past.