UN intervention on LIBYA

[Rocket Queen]

Surprised no one started one already...

What do people think? Long time coming and absolutely necessary? UN shouldn't intervene?

Some links

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/201132094116102192.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/africa/21benghazi.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/africa/21libya.html?hp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/20/libya-air-strikes-live-updates

[sunnyp]

It's a fucking sham. Britain and France want oil.

[2NaFish]

if gaddafi was better at violently suppressing his people it wouldnt have got this far. the lads hsve decided to give someone else a go.

[Rocket Queen]

2na. Pourquoi tu écrit comme un imbécile, eh?

And foreign intervention is always complicated. All I know is if this makes it harder for him to commit genocide against his own people...then, well, go for it. Just don't create an other marionette gov...

[mooney]

The US, UK, France (leading terrorist states, in that order) have no real right to talk about "we cant just stand by while blah blah blah". There are plenty of interests at play here, none or very little of which has anything to do with concern for the Libyan population.

[GGS]

Gaddaffi should of saw this one coming two years ago, he played the game and was outplayed.

[2NaFish]

2na. Pourquoi tu écrit comme un imbécile, eh?

And foreign intervention is always complicated. All I know is if this makes it harder for him to commit genocide against his own people...then, well, go for it. Just don't create an other marionette gov...

I learnt german at school.

My point stands. If gadafi had crushed his people quickly, there would've been no call for any overt outside influence. As it is he's not able to run his country in a way that keeps the intl community content. He'll be ousted and replaced with someone who can.

None of what i say is for better or worse, just my musings.

[sunnyp]

I'm only now beginning to see the benefit of analysing history for a practical purpose.

Let's hope we don't repeat Iraq all over again. When Saddam's regime fell, the power vacuum led to tribal war. Like Saddam, Gadaffi/Gaddafi/Quadaffi whatever oppressed his people. The similarities are uncanny. This could be the start of another very long and unpopular war: I really hope not.

[Rocket Queen]

The US, UK, France (leading terrorist states, in that order) have no real right to talk about "we cant just stand by while blah blah blah". There are plenty of interests at play here, none or very little of which has anything to do with concern for the Libyan population.

Yes, clearly there are many interest at play. Could one of them be the Libyan people? No? Is this an other Iraq/Afghanistan?

The UN does choose where to intervene quite randomly. As the security council consist of what you call terrorist states, it would be naive to think that they did this simply to help. When is any "Foreign Aid" 100% free of other interest though? I personally don't believe that a single dime of US Foreign "Aid" is wasted anywhere but where it benefits them. Same goes for most governments. Humanitarian Aid that is operated privately/without gov funds is probably the only form of pure aid you can get, and even that is full of corrupted org. I think I recall you saying that one of the only two acceptable uses of military power is 1: legitimate self defense & 2: intervention to stop genocide. When can any state ever intervene without facing accusations (I'm not saying I disagree, I'm just debating the issue) of personal interest? / When will a state use their funds to "help" without benefiting from it themselves?

[muppit]

its all  about the iol it always has been  about oil and always will  be

[aintitfun22]

The US, UK, France (leading terrorist states, in that order) have no real right to talk about "we cant just stand by while blah blah blah". There are plenty of interests at play here, none or very little of which has anything to do with concern for the Libyan population.

either way it helps the libyan population at least have a chance at installing a better leader so do the motives behind outside intervention really matter? and leading terrorist states? what?

[bucketsixx]

Thank God for this. With all the 'deep' and 'necessary' cuts from Dave and Co, for a second there I thought our country was flat broke. Good to see we still have plenty of money left over to bomb foreigners.

[mooney]

Yes, clearly there are many interest at play. Could one of them be the Libyan people? No? Is this an other Iraq/Afghanistan?

The UN does choose where to intervene quite randomly. As the security council consist of what you call terrorist states, it would be naive to think that they did this simply to help. When is any "Foreign Aid" 100% free of other interest though? I personally don't believe that a single dime of US Foreign "Aid" is wasted anywhere but where it benefits them. Same goes for most governments. Humanitarian Aid that is operated privately/without gov funds is probably the only form of pure aid you can get, and even that is full of corrupted org. I think I recall you saying that one of the only two acceptable uses of military power is 1: legitimate self defense & 2: intervention to stop genocide. When can any state ever intervene without facing accusations (I'm not saying I disagree, I'm just debating the issue) of personal interest? / When will a state use their funds to "help" without benefiting from it themselves?

I think - obviously we can only speculate at this point - any (at least in the short term), benefits to the population would be merely incidental. Obviously that would be a positive thing initially but...

Genuine self defence once all peaceful means are exhausted and to end atrocities was what i said, correct! good memory. It's probably quite hard to avoid accusations, i'd agree there. The only major humanitarian intervention i can think of would be Vietnam entering Cambodia to kick out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I think something to do with the Indian military going into Kashmir as well but im not sure on that. How/if Vietnam benefitted from their intervention im not sure. As for the funds... I'd be in favour of paying massive financial reparations to the countries we've helped decimate. I wouldn't ever expect for this to happen without enormous public pressure, not in this system with the governments we have here (US/UK etc...). We could easily help - genuinely - if we wanted to, of course. It's a matter of will rather than means.

either way it helps the libyan population at least have a chance at installing a better leader so do the motives behind outside intervention really matter? and leading terrorist states? what?

Do our motives matter? Is that a joke question? Ask a homeless Iraqi, or a Haitian, of the East Timorese (this list will get pretty massive if i dont stop now so i will). Gaddafi hasn't been a US/UK backed leader in the same way Mubarak was, or Pinochet or Suharto. The uprising, i imagine, will have been seen as a perfect window of opportunity in which to install someone more "inclined" towards our interests. Someone who will provide, "stability".

Notice how Bahrain is staying largely unmentioned....

As for the terrorist states bit. That's perfectly accurate. You're capable of looking up the US and UK governments own definitions of the term, and then applying that to our foreign policy - particularly post 1945. Im sure we've been through this before...?

[Rocket Queen]

I think - obviously we can only speculate at this point - any (at least in the short term), benefits to the population would be merely incidental. Obviously that would be a positive thing initially but...

Genuine self defence once all peaceful means are exhausted and to end atrocities was what i said, correct! good memory. It's probably quite hard to avoid accusations, i'd agree there. The only major humanitarian intervention i can think of would be Vietnam entering Cambodia to kick out Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. I think something to do with the Indian military going into Kashmir as well but im not sure on that. How/if Vietnam benefitted from their intervention im not sure. As for the funds... I'd be in favour of paying massive financial reparations to the countries we've helped decimate. I wouldn't ever expect for this to happen without enormous public pressure, not in this system with the governments we have here (US/UK etc...). We could easily help - genuinely - if we wanted to, of course. It's a matter of will rather than means.

Do our motives matter? Is that a joke question? Ask a homeless Iraqi, or a Haitian, of the East Timorese (this list will get pretty massive if i dont stop now so i will). Gaddafi hasn't been a US/UK backed leader in the same way Mubarak was, or Pinochet or Suharto. The uprising, i imagine, will have been seen as a perfect window of opportunity in which to install someone more "inclined" towards our interests. Someone who will provide, "stability".

Notice how Bahrain is staying largely unmentioned....

As for the terrorist states bit. That's perfectly accurate. You're capable of looking up the US and UK governments own definitions of the term, and then applying that to our foreign policy - particularly post 1945. Im sure we've been through this before...?

Well yes, reparations would be a selfless, or as close as you can get, method of help, sure. But what about other methods? And what about the Somalian genocide? I remember how the UN faced criticism for not acting fast enough to prevent the genocide. I don't think I know enough about Somalia. But I would assume that if you try to protect a people from murder committed by their own government, you would have to remove that government, and lend advice/security forces to insure that elections and reforms would happen successfully/ prevent a dangerous new set of leaders from taking over. All of this is of course extremely problematic. How do you ensure this from happening without being too much of an influence? As power corrupts and maintaining power is the 'big leaders' goal we have sadly seen marionette govs/bitches being installed all over the world. So the chance of this happening again is extremely large, of course. There is obviously a simple theoretical answer to this, but in practice, it seems to be difficult.

Basically, I'm just asking you what you suggest for Libya? Do you suggest that the UN/The big 5 just steps off? Stays out of it and let things/civil war take its course, and hope that the people wins the battle in the end? Hope that like in Egypt the people will win? I just don't see this happening, Libya is not Egypt and Quadaffi is an even bigger raging lunatic than Mumbarak.