Why Libya? Why now?

Looks like the action has now moved to Syria (perhaps an even more brutal regime than Gadaffi and that's saying something) while the Libyan pot continues to boil . This could be very crucial to the whole Middle East because of it's proximity to Israel, and it's influence in Lebanon.

The Yemini president looks set to go shortly too. The whole house of cards is falling. I really hope it works out well, the arabs have suffered gross misrule and being pawns for the West for way too long. Behind all of these will also be the fate of the Iranian mullahs and their henchmen in the Republican Guard. This really could be an Arab Spring... or a disaster.
 
horusd said:
the arabs have suffered gross misrule and being pawns for the West for way too long.
Click to expand...
They've been the pawns of their own leaders far more than the pawns of the West.

The interesting one will come when the most opressive one of all falls.. what happens when the House of Saudi is in the cross-hairs?
 
Purple said:
They've been the pawns of their own leaders far more than the pawns of the West.

The interesting one will come when the most opressive one of all falls.. what happens when the House of Saudi is in the cross-hairs?
Click to expand...

Well, that's true Purple,but a lot of em got in initally or were maintained on the back of Western policies. ie Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco Egypt etc. Saudi Arabia is a real nightmare alright. I see the gov't is trying to buy itself out of trouble with jobs and money. They area major source of extremism with the wahabi (?) sect running the theocracy side of the show. Buying off the populace mightn't work this time tho.
 
Lads, lads - look at it this way, if cars ran on water only there would be absolutely no interest whatsoever in the Middle East.

Personally, I look forward to the day when our dependency on oil will die. Then (hopefully) the Arabs will have to come cap in hand to us.
 
Leper said:
Lads, lads - look at it this way, if cars ran on water only there would be absolutely no interest whatsoever in the Middle East.

Personally, I look forward to the day when our dependency on oil will die. Then (hopefully) the Arabs will have to come cap in hand to us.
Click to expand...

All wars are about control of resources. They may be dresses up about something else but stripped back it always comes to that.
Therefore saying "oil" is like saying "resources".
 
I don't care what the war is about anymore after that shocking story of the woman in the hotel. I'm glad they've gone in to shoot down Gadaffi's airforce. He is barbaric. And if news reports are to be believed it was 3 women who convinced Obama to act as they didn't want another Rwanda.

And I cannot understand how his evil soft face English educated son could be interviewed on TV and not be asked any hard questions.
 
Bronte said:
I don't care what the war is about anymore after that shocking story of the woman in the hotel. I'm glad they've gone in to shoot down Gadaffi's airforce. He is barbaric. And if news reports are to be believed it was 3 women who convinced Obama to act as they didn't want another Rwanda.

Agreed. The Libyan gov't say she's with her family. I wonder...


And I cannot understand how his evil soft face English educated son could be interviewed on TV and not be asked any hard questions.
Click to expand...

Saif al islam might be soft spoken but he's a nutjob like daddy. Ner a word from him in the last week or so. He's probably in Columbia or Venuzeula or getting ready to go despite saying he would fight to the death. Rebels are on the outskirts of Sirte, but they really are a rag-tag army. Without the Coalition they wouldn't have a snowballs.

I heard SKY news this am reporting that all this is down to American & British attacks. Hmmm... the first shots were in fact fired by the French...but the Brits don't much like being upstaged by the old enemy France, so they claim all the credit themselves. Business as usual so for the skewed Brit media.

They are constantly repeating those MOD photos of tanks etc being taken out by bombs. This is very distasteful. I assume there were people in them, so we are watching someone die. This is the worst kind of voyeurism.
 
Here some of my observations:
1) UN resolution 1973 was sold to members and the public as a no-fly zone enforcement. This part of the resolution is actually quite clear. At the same time there is a very ambiguous part about the protection of civilians through taking "all necessary measures". This is very open to interpretation and abuse.
2) Obama, the president that was going to prove that he could quickly withdraw American involvement from Iraq and Afghanistan, was very quick off the mark to get involved in Libya. The same man that said he was opposed to and voted against the Iraq war, has now gone off and fired missiles at Libya without the approval of Congress, which is the only institution that can declare war. It baffles me how he is being allowed to get away with such a blatant violation of the constitution he swore to uphold. Even the previous moron and war monger of a president got approval from Congress before going to war.

The situation in Libya stinks of history repeating itself, where a tyrant manages to get total power to a large extent through direct and indirect financial support from the west. Then when he doesn't quite behave within acceptable limits he is attacked and then replaced with someone else who will eventually rise to power in a similar way. I hope I will be proven wrong, but I can't see anything other than a divided country and ongoing civil unrest or even war if/when Gadaffi is toppled. Pretty much a lose lose situation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top