We shot hundreds of Tomahawk missiles at 1.4 million dollars apiece. We then went in with fighter aircraft instead of using the appropriate ground attack equipment. It was not a well organized event. All of this was done in a civil war where we have no control of the events or who we are backing.
Ya, it’s a bitch when you can’t even depose one tyrant and stick another on the proverbial throne.
I think the West has handled this the right way. One brigade of U.S. Marines could have ended this war at any time in the past six months, but the rebels just wanted air support and to do all the ground-fighting themselves. Which means the Libya that results from this will not be like Iraq, where almost everyone across the spectrum has a seething resentment against the foreign invaders. Instead, it will feel indebted to the West for its freedom. (Sure, anyone who lost a loved one to a NATO bomb might feel differently, but they’ll be a small minority, and all other war-damage will be blamed only on Libyans.) That gives us a potentially important ally in the MENA.
We supported someone once in Afghanistan. It was the Taliban headed by Osama Bin Laden. I’m sure we got a hearty thank you for our efforts but what followed was anything but appreciation.
It would be nice to think that democracy suddenly breaks out but we look at this region like it was a European country. Libya is not Poland. It is a feudal country with a completely different mindset. This was a country that cheered when the Pan Am bomber came home.
Absolutely vital. Without NATO the rebels were dead 6 months ago.
Well, we know this revolution is neither jihadist nor Communist, because neither movement showed enough visibility, nor appears broadly popular. And there’s no military organization in Libya, on either side, strong enough to pull off a military coup or impose a military dictatorship. What other possibilities are there that are really scary?
And there will be greater return to America than the hatred and waste of the Iraq war crimes. I am not a military and I do not think you are a military, so I am content to hear the opinion of the revolutionaries of Nafusa who were very happy for the air support to their uprising.
If you had controle, then of course it would be some American façade, a fake liberation like your Iraq war, and not a reality of liberation revolution. This is real revolution against a dictator, and so you can not control it or the events.
America, France, all participating NATO members can be proud to have risked for liberty and revolution against a terrible dictator. To this, without trying to put them under the dead hands of American military commanders, they have won a lot of respect and love from Lybian revolutionaries.
No thing is sure in life or revolution. They have given a chance to Lybians and Africans now for liberty, and that is a great thing.
But some people, they can only complain they do not controle the things that can not be controlled, and they complain it is not certain what can not be certain. And this is because the man who led it is not of their narrow party. That is a sad thing.
This is invented fictional history. Americans did not support the Talebens because they did not exist until the civil war of Afghanistan after the soviets left, and the Ben Laden did not lead the Talebens at all.
Lybia is not a feudal country, it is sad to see the lies of a dictator repeated like that. It is true that democracy will not just happen in Lybia, but I do not think this person knows anything of Lybia.
The cheering of the Meghrari - this is a stupid thing to hold against Lybia since the TV show was put on by the very dictator that is being ousted. It is a great hypocrisy to take and hold it against the people who are making a revolution against the man who made this show!! The dictator’s propaganda is proof against the people who are overthrowing him??!!
Well, it is a tribal country. That could pose problems.
From Aljazeera’s Libya Live Blog: Statement of rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil:
Who knows how long that gratitude will last. But, for the moment, it’s significant: Before, we had a country on the Mediterranean whose government was always going out of its way to rattle sabers at the West. And now it looks like we’ll have a government there that feels grateful to the West.
All I wonder is what spin will be fired up to take this win from Obama.
Like this
Wow, so the Libyan uprising is just disgruntled and pissed off Eastern Libyan clans allied with the Islamofascists to oust a (previously insane) leader who was fighting the “good fight” against Islamo-Nazism?
Note:I love how they sum up the Arab Spring.
This was not long after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, right?
:dubious: That was the Jews, silly! Don’t you remember what they were shouting? “Torah! Torah! Torah!”
The US supported the mujahadeen (sp?) in Afghanistan against the Soviets. ObL was part of that organization. The Taliban was a creation of Pakistan post-Soviet pullout.
Whether that has any meaningful parallels here is hard to say.
I wonder if ralph is coming back.
Probably not. Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood or its equivalent was involved in this revolution, but not prominently enough to take it over.
The mujahidine were not one group but many. I think that there is a great difference between a revolution of six months fighitng against a narrow dictatorship and a decade of war against the soviets. And a great difference between the Afghanistan which was so poor and landlocked, and Lybia which could be very rich and is on the mediterranean.
Of course there are very large challenges, but the old regime was so evil that it will be hard to be worse.
Or maybe it was, based on results. People like you would have been calling for Obama’s impeachment if he’d sent ground forces “into harm’s way”, of course :dubious: Your criticism of him at this point is laughably spiteful.
A. You don’t usually have control of the events in any war, and B. Backing somebody *means *you aren’t controlling them.
This is a good thing for democracy, humanity, and the US too. Try to be happy about it and to congratulate those who brought it about - if you can force yourself, that is.
I see no reason to retract my opinion that the early direct involvement of the U.S., and the later tangential involvement of the U.S. via NATO, was wrong. Libya was none of our business, and the fact that the rebels have won does not change that.