I have not been reading what is going on the the ME for a few months now. But just now I saw a headline at Yahoo when I went to check me email that said, The US and France no longer insist that Quaddafi must leave Libya. I really have no idea if Quaddaif rearming in power is a blow for or against justice. I do see it as a retreat for the US.
So I just had to show up and glow a little.
Ok no comment has been made here for a while this looks to me like a dead thread. The reason that I chose it is because just as some articles posted here have nothing to do with the middle east I wanted to post someting off topic.
Glen Beck:
I never liked him. I never listened to him. I only heard reports about what he ahd said. Now I hear that Fox is giving him the ax. It seems that he left the reservation.
He started to expose the Federal Reserve for what it is for one thing. Ok her also got carried away with the Rothschields conspiracy theory and George Soros among other things.
The thing is when it comes to the Federal Reserve being a blood sucking sham you have an example of something that the rebellious right and the rebellious left actually agree on.
As for the other stuff it is easy to fall for these Freesmason, Bilderburger, Trilateral Commission, and similar conspiracy theories. It is true that there is a conspiracy to promote these false conspiracies to hide the really really big conspiracy. The one hiding in plain sight. It is called the US military industrial complex congressional conspiracy, known as the US Government for short. Now off course not every one working for the US govenment has direct knowledge of the conspiracy. Hell there are probably even a lot Colonels that do not have any direct knowledge of the conspiracy.
Yet because the things that the US government does are so distant from promoting the general welfare there is no way in hell that I can be explained with out the use of some kind of centralized conspiracy theory. Those who think that such results over decades can come about through the normal give and take of political infighting clearly lack a developed sense of pattern recognition.
If a person needs me to quote examples to come to this conclusion all I can say I do not have time to type the public library in to this space. It would probably not do such a person any good anyways.
I am going to issue a religous Fatwa on this issue. This Fatwa may not carry much wieght anywhere outside of the TwilightZone but I will issue it non the less.
Warnings were issued by some on famous over two hundred years ago that secrecy is a poison to democracy. I do not remember who said it but even if some scum bag like Al Capone the idea that secrecy is a poison to democracy seems very sound to me.
What the hell is privacy other than secrecy by another name.
Privacy allows humans to do all kinds of evil things. If someone has nothing to hide the should not give a shit if the government is investigating them. Furthermore it is true that people have no expectation of privacy outside their home.
Tracking someone by GPS is nothing more than a way for the police to do what they have always done only much cheaper than they did it previously. I have often wondered whether I myself have a GPS system attached to one of my own cars. I have also wondered if the government can track the GPS system that is built in to a car in the same way that it can track cell phones.
What I have to say that is new and important is this.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the government can keep track of any citizen any ciitzen should be able to keep track of any government official at any and all times and find out everything that the government is up to at any and all times. Maybe the defense department can be allowed a very few exceptions to this policy.
What that means is this if a drug dealer calls up the city and county and state and federal government and asks if he is under investigation the government has to tell him/her the truth! Now I can see investigators all over America falling off their chairs in laughter. They should stop and think! Do they want to stop hard drug trafficing or do they want to put people in prison! If a person is trafficing in drugs and they know that they are under investigation they are either going to have to at least temporarily stop their business, or take more precautions which would be even more suspicous, or find another way to make a living. Now I imagine that most trafficers are smart enough not to call the government and ask if they are under investigation. But the authorities could use a honey pot. They could place a list of all their active investiagations on a web site and monitor that web site to see who checks it. If it is a reporter so be it. If the URL traces back to a reporter it would be natural that a reporter would want to know this info. If it traces back to someone like me with no job then the police might have a reason to look deeper.
What is really needed is America is not more privacy it is smarter police forces. Or at least police forces who will tell their bosses to go to hell when they are asked to spy on a peace group or say the NAACP and know that their fellow policemen and the DAs will back them up when they take their pitchforks and make some boss leave the office and never come back when these bosses becomes a puppet for politicians who are themselves puppets for corprate intrests rather good ciitzens trying to promote the general welfare by stopping corperations from creating toxic waste sites, creating criminal lending policies which lead to multi hundred billion dollar bailouts, and what have you.
In short America and the world need policemen who know who their customers really are. They need to know that we are here and we are watching them.
Out right theft certianly seems likely. It would certainly be nice to have people from the Libyan government testify so that one could get a better idea whether or not there are legitimate reasons for Libya's lack of wealth considering its oil exports or whether the money was handeled with normal human stupidity or neglegence or gross negligence.
Reguardless of the answer it does not justify western intervention in this conflict. Ghaddafi obviously has numerous die hard supporters in Libya or he would have been defeated already. The residents of Misrata are obviously not defenseless or else Quadaffis forces would have recaptured the city by now.
The fact that people are tragically dying can not in and of itself be used to justify western intervention either. People die tragically in all civil wars. One could ask, how many people have to die before western intervention is justified? One could just as easily ask how low does the death count have to go before intervention is not justified.
Furthermore whose figures are to be believed? Learning the truth about how the story of the baby in the incubator in Kuwait was made up has left un unforgettable impression on me that anything reported that serves the intrests of US imperialists is to be treated as a untrustworthy story.
This was reinforced by reports after the invasion of Kosovo that many of the massacre stories were made up or exaggurated.
I say kill the King Cobra first and worry about the Cottonmouth later. Or how about this, kill the closest threat first and the more distant one afterwards. Of course ones location will influence which enemy is closer.
As a reminder, love your enemy but love your enemies victims even more. That applies to Quaddafis victims as well as the victims of the USA. Go Che, Go Che, it is almost the first of May!
The points about economic mismanagement are not very convincing. Those figures of unemployement and poverty could apply to many countries around the world. They could even apply to the US in a few years. Furthermore they could apply to the US even today if the US workforce did not hire millions people for stupid activiites like groping people when they want to fly somewhere, and telescamming, and filling the airwaves with ficticious stories both for political purposes and for an industry known as advertising.
With your examples of the behavior of the Quaddafi family you have made a good case of why Cuba or North Vietnam or VVenezuela should bomb Quaddafis forces. The Quddafis are billionaire brats who have betrayed a potential revolution. Do any of the leaders of the rebels quote Che or even Thomas Paine?
Will the US military really leave Iraq of its own free will?
It bet that it will be kicked out by either the current Iraqi government or if not by the Sadr Milita with the backing of enough of the Iraqi Army to do the job.
It is clear that the US will stay if they can get away with it.
Getting away with it means suffering costs that are politically bearable.
The tatics that Quaddafi has employed in this siege have standard operating siege proceedures for 5000 years.
They were declared illegal by the additional protocals of the Geneva Convention in 1 9 7 7. How many centuries ago was 1 9 7 7?
Furthermore the Geneva Conventions are not the final rule on barbaric behavior. These rules prohibit the assissination of any enemies political leaders for example. If you ask me when a war breakes out the politicians should be the first targets not the last targets.
Yes in this case that would mean Quddaffi. It would also mean the French President Sarcozy and the English Primier Whats his name, the MIC Puppet leading the USA, and the CIA troll masqurading as a freedom fighter in this civil war.
I still make no appology for hoping that Quaddafi outlasts Sarkouzy.
I remember hearing that once Saddam was captured no one would continue to fight for the resistance. The Iraqi resitance is not defeated it is only observing a shaky truce.
Ok it is an improvement. I have to wonder however why people in Honolulu need AC in the first place. I have always heard that Hawaii is the land of eternal spring time. Was the claim that Hawaii has the world's best climate just empty propoganda?
Would it not save even more if the Hawaians do as most of the world does and just open their windows and let the breeze come in. In thier case a fresh sea breeze.
Will people die if they do not have AC in Hawaii? They will die if they do not have heat in Buffalo NY or in Duluth-Supirior in the winter time. Not to mention the Russian heartland.
I was not aware of Qhuaddafy's History in formenting trouble in Sudan.
I still do not support intervention by the US or NATO in this conflict.
Are they suppossed to be any less dispicable than Quahddafi?
So if Quadhaffi has bought himself influence in the African Union the world is stuck with a situation in which has no clear good guys, there are clear bad guys, the US and NATO and Quaddafi, and there are foggy guys, the Lybian rebels.
This most definately would not be a case for US intervention if the US had rulers that were intent on ruling for the benifit of the general welfare. That is clear not only from a left wing perspective but also from a libertarian perpective and also a paleoconservative perspective.
I see a parrallel in the Lybian Civil War to the Finnish-Soviet War of the 1940s. Finland (the good guys) were fighting the Soviets (the bad guys versus Finland) who were fighting the NAZIs (the worst guys).
In this case you have the rebels (the unknown guys) fighting the government forces (the likely bad guys compared to the rebels) who have been fighting the imperialist successors to the NAZIs for the past 40 years.
I do not like being put in to a situation where I have to chose between to the two sides in Lybia. Perhaps the rebels will fight the imperialist empire as well even though they would be indebted to them.
I have my doubts that the rebels would oppose the empire under those conditions though. So my heart win or lose goes to the government forces in this case.
Since so many of my fellow people of the left are trying to justify this intervention on humanitarian grounds let me point out a key difference between Lybia and cases in the past in which humanitarian intervention was more justifable.
There is a huge difference between Serbineza or Rwanda on one hand and Lybia on the other. The Bosnians in Serbineza were SURROUNDED. THEY COULD NOT FLEE UNDER THEIR OWN POWER TO CROATIA. (Who were killing them too only more slowly). The Ruwandans would have had to flee through jungle on foot to escape thier killers. Same story under Pol Pot.
In Lybia their are fluid but clear front lines. I for one do not beleive that Libyans would have difficulty making it to the Egyptian or Aligerian border if they feared that they would be massacred.
Now does Qudaffi need to be overthrown by OUTSIDE FORCES because he is killing his opposition? Is he killing them deader than Franco or Pinochet or who ever happens to be in charge of Columbia or Honduras at the momement? Is he killing them deader than the US leaders who used soldiers to kill Iraqi Freedom Fighters?
Rest In Peace America
The reason I do not support this intervention is that I no longer have any trust what so ever in the institutions that are telling us that this intervention is neccessary.
These people have run this sort of scam over and over and over again for the past 60 years.
Most people just do not get it. They say, "What are you talking about? Obama is not Bush. Obama is not Johnson."
That is why the majority of the people are being fooled time and time again. The fact of the matter is not only is Obama Bush, Johnson is Goldwater, and Obama is Johnson and Goldwater, and Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond to boot.
I doubt that most people ever will figure it out. If the Turkish and German governments were not willing to support a no fly zone I find it very hard to conclude that there were barbaric massacres occuring. Anyone not in a uniform but carrying a gun could be labled a civilian. Furthermore just how was the government able to rally the tank crews to counter attack? Who knew something important that the otherside did not know those military forces that defected from the government or those that rallied to support the government?
The story for intervetion smells like stale coffee to me.
Now if someone that I know and trust would have said that what is going on in Lybia rises to the level of a massacre of innocent non combatants and we need to intervene then that might sway me. Yet the only people that I can think of who I trust to make a determination on this are
Bradely Manning, Ehren Watada, the independent reporter from Alaska (of Lebonese decent I think) who reported from Iraq a number of times whose name I unfortunately forget right now, Russel Means, William Kustler, Cynthia McKinney. Some of these people are dead or in jail.
The number of trustworthy is few. Only dissedents need apply.
In this Libyan conflict I hope the best person wins. I do not pretend to know who that is. No one in Lybia should expect me (us) to know. If I did think that I knew I would support selling or loaning or giving them some weapons.
By the way are we going to involve ourselves in every world conflcit in which civilians are being targeted? Such events are quite frequent. I would think that for such an arguement to be valid that there be a certian barbaric threashold that must be crossed before outsiders step in.
On the other hand that threash hold would certainly be lower for other African countries than for European countries. In this case the interlopers could say that they are steping in on behalf of the African countries but were not able to do it effectively themselves.
The Bottom line is though that the only reason the US got involved is because Ghaddafi has been their implicable enemy and now they have the opportunity to get rid of him.
1. OK
2. How can we really know that the vast majority of the Libyan people were supporting the revolution. Media can be decieving. Did you or anyone take a secret poll. When the vast majority of the people rise up against a dictator the countries army usually does not stand in the way. In Yemen I understand that much of the army is defecting from the government. In Libya at least part of the army also defected.
That is certainly a sign of widspread support for the rebels.
But enough of the army remianed loyal that it was able to launch a counter attack. To me that looks like a fair fight. Not the kind of fight ones needs to step in to to break up before both sides have had a chance to get some killing in. You yourself said that once the government forces had to fight in close in terrain they would suffer heavier losses. After that had happened the rebels could have retaken the strategic initiative.
3. Is related to number two. Ok have Libyan government forces rounded up civilians and exectued them or are we calling the battle field deaths of rebles civilian executions? Both sides in this coflict have a motive to lie.
4.OK
5.No chance of mission creep.
6.Maybe OK (see number 3)
7.IMO probelly True
8.?
9.OK
10. Weak, very weak, You were really desperate to come up with a number 10.
I think that you have asked some pretty good questions.
I would only like to offer a few thoughts on question number two.
My understanding of the situation is that the US is a modern Ottomon Empire. Its lawlessness is directed primarily externally. In oder to maintain domestic unity the state allows quite a bit of domestic critisism with in boundaries.
Of course do not try to organize and expand a union in the US or the State will wage war against you. Do not try to bring socialism to the US or the state will wage war against you.
Do not try to mobalize African American Restiance to the economic conditions in the country or the state will wage war against you.
The means of state warefare may not always be violent but they will be diablical.
In fact by allowing a wider range of domestic criticism the state can claim that all is well in the realm.
It can also, especially with internet, monitor and thereby attempt to manage the development of dissent.
Remember Scott Ritter, I have always wondered who he is really working for. The reason why is that although he said damageing things about the US government but he told one huge lie during his time in the limelight which was that members of the miltary could not legally say no to going to war. The are in fact obligated to say no to a war of agression even if it voted on and approved by 100% of the American people, approved by Congress and ordered by the President. Now in some cases it might be hard to know if the country is launching a war of agression but in some cases it is absolutely not hard to know.
Scott Ritter was setting a boundary of dissent with in US soiciety. It is possible that he himself set this boundary becasue he thought that he would be blacklisted if he crossed it. If that is the case then there was still a boundary that he thought that that he could not cross.
I hope that has given you something to think about that you have maybe not thought about before.
Do not publish your plan on the internet. Send it out in the mail if you want it to have any value.
You can mail one copy to:
Inhabitant
Kloster Str. 36
52531 Uebach-Palenberg
Germany
I have not been reading what is going on the the ME for a few months now. But just now I saw a headline at Yahoo when I went to check me email that said, The US and France no longer insist that Quaddafi must leave Libya. I really have no idea if Quaddaif rearming in power is a blow for or against justice. I do see it as a retreat for the US.
So I just had to show up and glow a little.
Ok no comment has been made here for a while this looks to me like a dead thread. The reason that I chose it is because just as some articles posted here have nothing to do with the middle east I wanted to post someting off topic.
Glen Beck:
I never liked him. I never listened to him. I only heard reports about what he ahd said. Now I hear that Fox is giving him the ax. It seems that he left the reservation.
He started to expose the Federal Reserve for what it is for one thing. Ok her also got carried away with the Rothschields conspiracy theory and George Soros among other things.
The thing is when it comes to the Federal Reserve being a blood sucking sham you have an example of something that the rebellious right and the rebellious left actually agree on.
As for the other stuff it is easy to fall for these Freesmason, Bilderburger, Trilateral Commission, and similar conspiracy theories. It is true that there is a conspiracy to promote these false conspiracies to hide the really really big conspiracy. The one hiding in plain sight. It is called the US military industrial complex congressional conspiracy, known as the US Government for short. Now off course not every one working for the US govenment has direct knowledge of the conspiracy. Hell there are probably even a lot Colonels that do not have any direct knowledge of the conspiracy.
Yet because the things that the US government does are so distant from promoting the general welfare there is no way in hell that I can be explained with out the use of some kind of centralized conspiracy theory. Those who think that such results over decades can come about through the normal give and take of political infighting clearly lack a developed sense of pattern recognition.
If a person needs me to quote examples to come to this conclusion all I can say I do not have time to type the public library in to this space. It would probably not do such a person any good anyways.
I am going to issue a religous Fatwa on this issue. This Fatwa may not carry much wieght anywhere outside of the TwilightZone but I will issue it non the less.
Warnings were issued by some on famous over two hundred years ago that secrecy is a poison to democracy. I do not remember who said it but even if some scum bag like Al Capone the idea that secrecy is a poison to democracy seems very sound to me.
What the hell is privacy other than secrecy by another name.
Privacy allows humans to do all kinds of evil things. If someone has nothing to hide the should not give a shit if the government is investigating them. Furthermore it is true that people have no expectation of privacy outside their home.
Tracking someone by GPS is nothing more than a way for the police to do what they have always done only much cheaper than they did it previously. I have often wondered whether I myself have a GPS system attached to one of my own cars. I have also wondered if the government can track the GPS system that is built in to a car in the same way that it can track cell phones.
What I have to say that is new and important is this.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If the government can keep track of any citizen any ciitzen should be able to keep track of any government official at any and all times and find out everything that the government is up to at any and all times. Maybe the defense department can be allowed a very few exceptions to this policy.
What that means is this if a drug dealer calls up the city and county and state and federal government and asks if he is under investigation the government has to tell him/her the truth! Now I can see investigators all over America falling off their chairs in laughter. They should stop and think! Do they want to stop hard drug trafficing or do they want to put people in prison! If a person is trafficing in drugs and they know that they are under investigation they are either going to have to at least temporarily stop their business, or take more precautions which would be even more suspicous, or find another way to make a living. Now I imagine that most trafficers are smart enough not to call the government and ask if they are under investigation. But the authorities could use a honey pot. They could place a list of all their active investiagations on a web site and monitor that web site to see who checks it. If it is a reporter so be it. If the URL traces back to a reporter it would be natural that a reporter would want to know this info. If it traces back to someone like me with no job then the police might have a reason to look deeper.
What is really needed is America is not more privacy it is smarter police forces. Or at least police forces who will tell their bosses to go to hell when they are asked to spy on a peace group or say the NAACP and know that their fellow policemen and the DAs will back them up when they take their pitchforks and make some boss leave the office and never come back when these bosses becomes a puppet for politicians who are themselves puppets for corprate intrests rather good ciitzens trying to promote the general welfare by stopping corperations from creating toxic waste sites, creating criminal lending policies which lead to multi hundred billion dollar bailouts, and what have you.
In short America and the world need policemen who know who their customers really are. They need to know that we are here and we are watching them.
I have to say that there is something very odd going on.
This feels like the Twilight Zone. Who is behind the Candid Camera?
Out right theft certianly seems likely. It would certainly be nice to have people from the Libyan government testify so that one could get a better idea whether or not there are legitimate reasons for Libya's lack of wealth considering its oil exports or whether the money was handeled with normal human stupidity or neglegence or gross negligence.
Reguardless of the answer it does not justify western intervention in this conflict. Ghaddafi obviously has numerous die hard supporters in Libya or he would have been defeated already. The residents of Misrata are obviously not defenseless or else Quadaffis forces would have recaptured the city by now.
The fact that people are tragically dying can not in and of itself be used to justify western intervention either. People die tragically in all civil wars. One could ask, how many people have to die before western intervention is justified? One could just as easily ask how low does the death count have to go before intervention is not justified.
Furthermore whose figures are to be believed? Learning the truth about how the story of the baby in the incubator in Kuwait was made up has left un unforgettable impression on me that anything reported that serves the intrests of US imperialists is to be treated as a untrustworthy story.
This was reinforced by reports after the invasion of Kosovo that many of the massacre stories were made up or exaggurated.
I say kill the King Cobra first and worry about the Cottonmouth later. Or how about this, kill the closest threat first and the more distant one afterwards. Of course ones location will influence which enemy is closer.
As a reminder, love your enemy but love your enemies victims even more. That applies to Quaddafis victims as well as the victims of the USA. Go Che, Go Che, it is almost the first of May!
The points about economic mismanagement are not very convincing. Those figures of unemployement and poverty could apply to many countries around the world. They could even apply to the US in a few years. Furthermore they could apply to the US even today if the US workforce did not hire millions people for stupid activiites like groping people when they want to fly somewhere, and telescamming, and filling the airwaves with ficticious stories both for political purposes and for an industry known as advertising.
With your examples of the behavior of the Quaddafi family you have made a good case of why Cuba or North Vietnam or VVenezuela should bomb Quaddafis forces. The Quddafis are billionaire brats who have betrayed a potential revolution. Do any of the leaders of the rebels quote Che or even Thomas Paine?
Will the US military really leave Iraq of its own free will?
It bet that it will be kicked out by either the current Iraqi government or if not by the Sadr Milita with the backing of enough of the Iraqi Army to do the job.
It is clear that the US will stay if they can get away with it.
Getting away with it means suffering costs that are politically bearable.
The tatics that Quaddafi has employed in this siege have standard operating siege proceedures for 5000 years.
They were declared illegal by the additional protocals of the Geneva Convention in 1 9 7 7. How many centuries ago was 1 9 7 7?
Furthermore the Geneva Conventions are not the final rule on barbaric behavior. These rules prohibit the assissination of any enemies political leaders for example. If you ask me when a war breakes out the politicians should be the first targets not the last targets.
Yes in this case that would mean Quddaffi. It would also mean the French President Sarcozy and the English Primier Whats his name, the MIC Puppet leading the USA, and the CIA troll masqurading as a freedom fighter in this civil war.
I still make no appology for hoping that Quaddafi outlasts Sarkouzy.
I remember hearing that once Saddam was captured no one would continue to fight for the resistance. The Iraqi resitance is not defeated it is only observing a shaky truce.
Ok it is an improvement. I have to wonder however why people in Honolulu need AC in the first place. I have always heard that Hawaii is the land of eternal spring time. Was the claim that Hawaii has the world's best climate just empty propoganda?
Would it not save even more if the Hawaians do as most of the world does and just open their windows and let the breeze come in. In thier case a fresh sea breeze.
Will people die if they do not have AC in Hawaii? They will die if they do not have heat in Buffalo NY or in Duluth-Supirior in the winter time. Not to mention the Russian heartland.
I was not aware of Qhuaddafy's History in formenting trouble in Sudan.
I still do not support intervention by the US or NATO in this conflict.
Are they suppossed to be any less dispicable than Quahddafi?
So if Quadhaffi has bought himself influence in the African Union the world is stuck with a situation in which has no clear good guys, there are clear bad guys, the US and NATO and Quaddafi, and there are foggy guys, the Lybian rebels.
This most definately would not be a case for US intervention if the US had rulers that were intent on ruling for the benifit of the general welfare. That is clear not only from a left wing perspective but also from a libertarian perpective and also a paleoconservative perspective.
I see a parrallel in the Lybian Civil War to the Finnish-Soviet War of the 1940s. Finland (the good guys) were fighting the Soviets (the bad guys versus Finland) who were fighting the NAZIs (the worst guys).
In this case you have the rebels (the unknown guys) fighting the government forces (the likely bad guys compared to the rebels) who have been fighting the imperialist successors to the NAZIs for the past 40 years.
I do not like being put in to a situation where I have to chose between to the two sides in Lybia. Perhaps the rebels will fight the imperialist empire as well even though they would be indebted to them.
I have my doubts that the rebels would oppose the empire under those conditions though. So my heart win or lose goes to the government forces in this case.
Since so many of my fellow people of the left are trying to justify this intervention on humanitarian grounds let me point out a key difference between Lybia and cases in the past in which humanitarian intervention was more justifable.
There is a huge difference between Serbineza or Rwanda on one hand and Lybia on the other. The Bosnians in Serbineza were SURROUNDED. THEY COULD NOT FLEE UNDER THEIR OWN POWER TO CROATIA. (Who were killing them too only more slowly). The Ruwandans would have had to flee through jungle on foot to escape thier killers. Same story under Pol Pot.
In Lybia their are fluid but clear front lines. I for one do not beleive that Libyans would have difficulty making it to the Egyptian or Aligerian border if they feared that they would be massacred.
Now does Qudaffi need to be overthrown by OUTSIDE FORCES because he is killing his opposition? Is he killing them deader than Franco or Pinochet or who ever happens to be in charge of Columbia or Honduras at the momement? Is he killing them deader than the US leaders who used soldiers to kill Iraqi Freedom Fighters?
Rest In Peace America
The reason I do not support this intervention is that I no longer have any trust what so ever in the institutions that are telling us that this intervention is neccessary.
These people have run this sort of scam over and over and over again for the past 60 years.
Most people just do not get it. They say, "What are you talking about? Obama is not Bush. Obama is not Johnson."
That is why the majority of the people are being fooled time and time again. The fact of the matter is not only is Obama Bush, Johnson is Goldwater, and Obama is Johnson and Goldwater, and Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond to boot.
I doubt that most people ever will figure it out. If the Turkish and German governments were not willing to support a no fly zone I find it very hard to conclude that there were barbaric massacres occuring. Anyone not in a uniform but carrying a gun could be labled a civilian. Furthermore just how was the government able to rally the tank crews to counter attack? Who knew something important that the otherside did not know those military forces that defected from the government or those that rallied to support the government?
The story for intervetion smells like stale coffee to me.
Now if someone that I know and trust would have said that what is going on in Lybia rises to the level of a massacre of innocent non combatants and we need to intervene then that might sway me. Yet the only people that I can think of who I trust to make a determination on this are
Bradely Manning, Ehren Watada, the independent reporter from Alaska (of Lebonese decent I think) who reported from Iraq a number of times whose name I unfortunately forget right now, Russel Means, William Kustler, Cynthia McKinney. Some of these people are dead or in jail.
The number of trustworthy is few. Only dissedents need apply.
In this Libyan conflict I hope the best person wins. I do not pretend to know who that is. No one in Lybia should expect me (us) to know. If I did think that I knew I would support selling or loaning or giving them some weapons.
By the way are we going to involve ourselves in every world conflcit in which civilians are being targeted? Such events are quite frequent. I would think that for such an arguement to be valid that there be a certian barbaric threashold that must be crossed before outsiders step in.
On the other hand that threash hold would certainly be lower for other African countries than for European countries. In this case the interlopers could say that they are steping in on behalf of the African countries but were not able to do it effectively themselves.
The Bottom line is though that the only reason the US got involved is because Ghaddafi has been their implicable enemy and now they have the opportunity to get rid of him.
1. OK
2. How can we really know that the vast majority of the Libyan people were supporting the revolution. Media can be decieving. Did you or anyone take a secret poll. When the vast majority of the people rise up against a dictator the countries army usually does not stand in the way. In Yemen I understand that much of the army is defecting from the government. In Libya at least part of the army also defected.
That is certainly a sign of widspread support for the rebels.
But enough of the army remianed loyal that it was able to launch a counter attack. To me that looks like a fair fight. Not the kind of fight ones needs to step in to to break up before both sides have had a chance to get some killing in. You yourself said that once the government forces had to fight in close in terrain they would suffer heavier losses. After that had happened the rebels could have retaken the strategic initiative.
3. Is related to number two. Ok have Libyan government forces rounded up civilians and exectued them or are we calling the battle field deaths of rebles civilian executions? Both sides in this coflict have a motive to lie.
4.OK
5.No chance of mission creep.
6.Maybe OK (see number 3)
7.IMO probelly True
8.?
9.OK
10. Weak, very weak, You were really desperate to come up with a number 10.
Do the oppostiion forces have a leadership or are the actions of the opposition forces spur of the moment add hoc decisions?
I think that you have asked some pretty good questions.
I would only like to offer a few thoughts on question number two.
My understanding of the situation is that the US is a modern Ottomon Empire. Its lawlessness is directed primarily externally. In oder to maintain domestic unity the state allows quite a bit of domestic critisism with in boundaries.
Of course do not try to organize and expand a union in the US or the State will wage war against you. Do not try to bring socialism to the US or the state will wage war against you.
Do not try to mobalize African American Restiance to the economic conditions in the country or the state will wage war against you.
The means of state warefare may not always be violent but they will be diablical.
In fact by allowing a wider range of domestic criticism the state can claim that all is well in the realm.
It can also, especially with internet, monitor and thereby attempt to manage the development of dissent.
Remember Scott Ritter, I have always wondered who he is really working for. The reason why is that although he said damageing things about the US government but he told one huge lie during his time in the limelight which was that members of the miltary could not legally say no to going to war. The are in fact obligated to say no to a war of agression even if it voted on and approved by 100% of the American people, approved by Congress and ordered by the President. Now in some cases it might be hard to know if the country is launching a war of agression but in some cases it is absolutely not hard to know.
Scott Ritter was setting a boundary of dissent with in US soiciety. It is possible that he himself set this boundary becasue he thought that he would be blacklisted if he crossed it. If that is the case then there was still a boundary that he thought that that he could not cross.
I hope that has given you something to think about that you have maybe not thought about before.
Do not publish your plan on the internet. Send it out in the mail if you want it to have any value.
You can mail one copy to:
Inhabitant
Kloster Str. 36
52531 Uebach-Palenberg
Germany
I would like to see your plan.