The Libya UN Resolution
In Libya a quite heavily armed rebellion, even with its own fighter jets, from the parts of the country which sent the most (relative to population) Salafi fighters against the U.S. occupation in Iraq has now been internationally recognized and will get armed support from Gulf state dictatorships, France, the U.K. and the United States. Already arms are flowing to them through the military dictatorship of Egypt.
Meanwhile the U.S. allies Bahrain and Yemen, with support of mercenaries from the fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, are shooting up masses of unarmed protester who demand their democratic rights. How come no one is pushing for any interference on their side?
Whoever thinks that the Libya UN resolution, allowing for all out war on the side of the rebels, has anything to do with "Human Rights" or "Democracy" should get their head examined.
This is about oil, about what is good for Israel and about neo-conservative/neo-colonial aspirations of some "western" leaders.
But who will now join the shooting? The U.S. military is against starting another war. NATO will not act because at least Germany and Turkey would oppose that. So it is up to France and the UK. Will they actually go on their own? We'll see.
I am happy that my country, Germany, joint the BRIC-states (Brasil, Russia, India, China) in abstaining from the UN vote.
Posted by b on March 18, 2011 at 9:20 UTC | Permalink
« previous page@ Debs is dead...
please don't stop coming to the bar... your comments and pov are too valuable.
Posted by: crone | Mar 20 2011 3:26 utc | 103
I second crone. It should be obvious to others that Night Owl is just what he wants to be, a distraction. I wish Sloth and R'Giap would stop the personal back and forth as well (whoever started it).
I have a suggestion- Since this started as a virtual whisky bar, one of the limitations is not knowing how much your conversation partners have had to drink, and knowing how slack to cut them in their rants and spiels. So I propose, on an entirely voluntary basis, that people end their posts with a *#* to let people know how many drinks (or equivalent) they've had. Or you could put a >#< to show your target number of drinks you will need to accommodate the latest outrage.
I'm just *2* for now.
Posted by: Biklett | Mar 20 2011 5:16 utc | 104
Thanks to Dr. Yeuh for his link to Pepe Escobar's article, "The Club Med War". The reasons put forth in the article for what is happening with Libya appears spot on. And thanks to r'giap for his link to George Galloway's interview. Galloway has never been shy when speaking his mind and calling out the hypocrisy of the West. I have been on Galloway's newsletter distribution list for years.
Probably we all realized that the "West" would get their military fingers deep into the Libyan pie sooner or later. Perhaps I am being too conspiratorial in my thinking, but I believe there was shrewd planning on the part of the Obama administration - time needed to bribe the Arab League leaders and allowed time for the situation to deteriorate into something very dire whereby few complaints from world opinion would be heard with the final arrival of this UN resolution, a green light for offensive war by the military of western nations. The Gates negativity/warning about the extensive bombings that would be required to implement a 'No Fly Zone' was all part of the propaganda to prepare world opinion for this greater action. Sort of the Brer Rabbit approach: “Oh please don't throw me into that briar patch!” And it is no surprise to see France and Britain leading the bombings considering about 80% of Libya's exported oil ends up in Europe/UK and with BP representing the UK.
On principle, I could support nations coming to the aid of foreign civilians requesting protections/assistance from an “out of control” government on a limited basis, and in this respect I have sympathized with Night Owl. I think Night Owl was/is specifically correct on two major points that some others here did not quickly recognize - the Libyan rebellion is with legitimate cause and the discontent with Qaddafi is fairly widespread. But regardless, this UN resolution is, in effect, without bounds and appears tailor made by the West for the West. And as so many other MOA posters here have remarked, “Where is the concern for the protesters being killed by Arab leaders in other nations?” Debs is correct when he says “Yemen is a sadly under-studied nation here at MoA.” And this is no fault to b, as we all realize events are coming faster than anyone can keep up with. But all of us should devote some more attention to not only Yemen but all of these Arab nations where the people are being snubbed in a deadly fashion. Each is unique.
Posted by: Rick | Mar 20 2011 5:18 utc | 105
onward amerikka
the world's oldest democraZy......
http://tinyurl.com/6knqq9u
http://tinyurl.com/6a5xo5
http://tinyurl.com/4nnyjgu
http://tinyurl.com/2vx9n
Posted by: denk | Mar 20 2011 12:48 utc | 107
denk, I don't know what others think of this, but I wish you posted "real" links instead of tinyurls: so I could know in advance if it's something I've already read, or if it's from a site I like or not, etc
Posted by: claudio | Mar 20 2011 15:21 utc | 108
claudio
ok
but sometime if the link is too long n break into 2 or even 3 lines
i'd post in tinyurl
Posted by: denk | Mar 20 2011 15:51 utc | 109
Denk...
You can still use the TinyURL in the 'href=' clause of the link, but then put the actual title in the text of the link (see the example at the bottom of the comments page, where it says HTML tags). Doing this, it can allow you to shrink the original URL without using TinyURL.
Cheers!
Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Mar 20 2011 20:59 utc | 111
claudio n dr yueh
thanks n thanks
i did that too, sometimes just couldnt be bothered
especially when too many links or occupied with other work
i miss brian
he provided lots of links ;-)
Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2011 2:21 utc | 112
night owl - why so quiet since saturday? no chance for all-out war, huh? scope creep, if you bought into the premise of the unsc action simply approving the enforcement of a NFZ, took barely 24 hours as the NYT on sunday made clear: Allies Target Qaddafi’s Ground Forces as Libyan Rebels Regroup
American and European militaries intensified their barrage of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces by air and sea on Sunday, as the mission moved beyond taking away his ability to use Libyan airspace, to obliterating his hold on the ground as well, allied officials said.Rebel forces, battered and routed by loyalist fighters just the day before, began to regroup in the east as allied warplanes destroyed dozens of government armored vehicles near the rebel capital, Benghazi, leaving a field of burned wreckage along the coastal road to the city.
...
There was evidence, too, that the allies were striking more targets in and around Tripoli, the capital. More explosions could be seen or heard near the city center, where an international press corps was kept under tight security constraints.
...
“We hit a lot of targets, focused on his command and control, focused on his air defense, and actually attacked some of his forces on the ground in the vicinity of Benghazi,” Admiral Mullen told Fox News.
...
Gen. Carter F. Ham, who as the head of the United States Africa Command is overseeing the operation, said in an e-mail on Sunday that “the initial strikes have had, generally, the effects we sought. Fixed air defense sites, particularly the longer-range systems, appear to no longer be operating.”
He said that “some ground forces in the vicinity of Bengazi were destroyed. Some appear to be at least static, if not moving back south and west.”
...
The Americans, working with the British, French and others, flew a wider array of missions than the day before, when Navy cruise missile barrages were their main weapons. They deployed B-2 stealth bombers, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and Harrier attack jets flown by the Marine Corps striking at Libyan ground forces, air defenses and airfields. Navy electronic warplanes, EA-18G Growlers, jammed Libyan radar and communications. British pilots flew many of the bombing missions, and French, British and American planes all conducted ground attacks near Benghazi, American commanders said.
Posted by: b real | Mar 21 2011 3:41 utc | 113
yes, like hell the puppet master is gonna miss all the fun ala kosovo
uncle sham could hardly wait can he ?
http://empirestrikesblack.com/2011/03/first-blood-american-missiles-rain-down-on-libya/
u could almost hear obama straining on his leash over this one hehehe
http://www.psipook.com/features/darfur.html
i was initiated into the nwo by sites like antiwar.com n stephen gowans
at a time when nato was committing aerial terrorism over ex-yugo
re-reading his piece now, it seems like its only yesterday
http://www.swans.com/library/art7/gowans02.html
prez clinton *did* yugo
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Kosovo/NATO-attack/letter-Stella.html
now prez wannabe clinton does libya
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/president-hillary-clintons-shock-and-awe/
Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2011 4:41 utc | 114
n where’s that prez for change, the nobel *peace* prize laureat ?
why does good man always die young ?
http://tinyurl.com/2f2nabh
Posted by: denk | Mar 21 2011 8:23 utc | 115
debs, zionist propaganda used to promote a racist agenda always has racism close to its surface, implying that Arabs are only fit for cleaning the chosen people's floors. That chaos and violence is the natural state for Arabs.
yep
Posted by: annie | Mar 21 2011 14:08 utc | 116
One of the reasons I don't hang around here that often now, is because of the way some personalise issues, but after several posts accusing both myself and b of being Muammar supporters, I had enough.
don't ever go debs, please
Posted by: annie | Mar 21 2011 14:22 utc | 117
The comments to this entry are closed.
@ Claudio I imagine the zionist support for Muammar is chiefly of the 'my enemy's enemy' type, so it won't be explicit, rather more of a nod and a wink to the sleek & prissy windbags on their payroll. Every time people in the ME are at war with anyone who isn't a zionist the nazis in charge of israel give out a cheer, not only does that mean their natural enemies are weakening each other by internecine fighting, it also aids the sort of racist crap that is the sub text of what the zionist troll writes "Yemen is a goddamned basketcase.". zionist propaganda used to promote a racist agenda always has racism close to its surface, implying that Arabs are only fit for cleaning the chosen people's floors. That chaos and violence is the natural state for Arabs.
Yemen is a sadly under-studied nation here at MoA. English special forces have been murdering and raping in the Yemen since the end of WW2. When Harold Wilson did his big decolonisation number for the english in the 1960's Aden (the Yemeni port city) was the demarcation point. Everything 'east of Aden' was to go but Aden (for many years considered part of India by the english!) which was the english base for protecting its access to the oil fields english thieves regularly plied, remained an essential strategic asset. Naturally this meant the english (with implicit amerikan support for the independence fighters had been dubbed 'communist' by the english -now they are islamofascists of course) continued to try to keep a tyrannical government in power until they got forced out whereupon the english began funding counter revolutionary groups.
This ended in tears. The mess that Yemen is which is a sort of dysfunctional cell continually dividing, rejoining then splitting again on a different fault line, is in large part due to the tactic adopted by the various imperial powers to wage war by proxy during the 2nd half of the 20th century. A series of basically tribal differences were exploited by england, amerika (USuk for the z troll) on one side, and the Soviet Union (russian imperialism) on the other. This made for just the type of chaos infants create when they can't get their own way. "If Russia takes this we're gonna make them regret it" would have been the meme on the USuk side and doubtless the soviets thought the same about continued USuk involvement in the Yemen.
Much harder for the people though because these tribal conflicts become impossible to reach their normal resolution when a facade of ideological claptrap (necessary to obtain the weapons needed to protect the people from the weapons the other empire had given the other mob) has been laminated onto the argument.
There has never been the least attempt by the dominant powers on the planet to recognise that the nation/state framework with its attendant fixed borders, is not necessarily the best way for tribal societies to create sovereign administrative infrastructure. The emerging nations were expected to 'de-tribalise' over night so as to provide a communication and exploitation channel which best suited the exploiters. This meant those states frequently ended up with leaders who accepted that situation because they had rejected their culture (and very often their own people - In the Yemen those leaders are likely to have spent their formative years at an english boarding school followed by oxbridge or on the other side attending a Russian University -what was it called Patrice Lumumba Uni ?) and/or those advancing the agenda of a particular tribal grouping at the expense of the others.
This is how the Yemen has ended up in such a mess, one according to the z troll, that is unworthy of our attention because it is a basket case. Typical zionist racism that ignores the historical context of issues.
As for the other bloke, it is not helpful or even slightly illuminating to cry the old "they started it" thing. One of the reasons I don't hang around here that often now, is because of the way some personalise issues, but after several posts accusing both myself and b of being Muammar supporters, I had enough. The first stupidity in that accusation is lumping b and myself together, we have vastly different points of view on most subjects including Libya, the second was the incorrectly truncated syllogism which goes something like "intervention will ensure ghaddafi goes, which is why Ghadaffi opposes intervention, therefore those others who oppose intervention, do so because they support Ghadaffi". Truncated down to "People who oppose intervention support Ghaddafi".
Let's try that same syllogism with a simple name substitution
Intervention will ensure Saddam Hussein goes, which is why Saddam Hussein opposes intervention, therefore those others who oppose intervention, do so because they support Saddam Hussein. The only conclusion to be drawn from that is at least ten million amerikans (about the number who marched against the Iraq invasion) support Saddam Hussein.
Debating other peoples characters, rather than the ideas they espouse is a distraction and a dead end, but just like most people if someone sets about trying to smear me rather than the substance of what I say enough times, then eventually I will respond in kind. The same goes for this ridiculous idea which was first proposed by the neo-liberal economic rationalists, that ideas and therefore the principles which underpin them are a fashion item. That an easily provable truth such as, 'nation states act out of self interest' is something to be discarded when the idea has been around for a long time because it has become 'old fashioned'. If only!
It would be great if oblamblam said to his sleazy little french offsider "Girlfriend, that whole take control of Libya, secure the oil routine? Lose it. Hegemony has just become so last year darl, don't be going with that. Too soon to be retro, stop before you're the bitchface on the cover of Paris Match in a mullet 'do."
Posted by: Debs is dead | Mar 20 2011 2:54 utc | 101