Here, you can read this old article that tells you all about it.
At one time, in the not too distant past, Libya was considered one of our worst enemies. We feared them. They supposedly hated us. President Ronald Reagan even bombed Libya once–and with very little provocation, some people thought. On a lighter note, a bumper sticker of that time had Mickey Mouse holding the American flag in one hand, and showing a well-known obscene gesture in the other. The caption underneath read “Hey, Khaddafi!” My point is, Libya and its leader Muammar Qaddafi had much the same status in the minds of most Americans that Iraq and Sadam Hussein have now.
Well, Libya is still there. Mr. Qaddafi is still there. So what happened? Is the threat gone or are we just being deliberately misdirected to another country and another conflict? I’m serious.
In 1986, Qaddafi apparently ordered the bombing of a disco in Berlin. The U.S retaliated by bombing Libya shortly thereafter, and this seemed to curtail the efforts by Libya to be a sponsor of terrorism.
However, in 1988, Pan Am flight 103 crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, from a bomb placed on the flight. It’s now presumed that the Libya motivated this attack, and there have been various legal and extra-legal manuevers to punish them. Link.
For now, Libya has been quiescient for almost 14 years. Your question however is a good one: the spectre of the Evil Moammar Quaddafi has now seemingly been replaced in the U.S. PR mill by Saddam Hussien. Justifiably? Yes, probably. But the parallels are disturbing.
As I remeber it, the US bombed Qadaffi’s palace. Weren’t some family members of his killed during this attack?
Qadaffi has been shocked into silence and has hardly donned his military uniform since.
Saddam has hed the crap bombed out of him, during the Gulf War and has been (reasonably) quiet since.
There is no proof Qadaffi is not supporting terrorists anymore.
There is no proof Saddam is not producing WMD anymore.
Your parallel reinforces the question; ‘Why is Iraq being singled out?’
There are plenty of other regimes that could pose a possible threat. There are plenty of regimes/organisations that would take precedence in being singled out, in relation with the (ongoing?) War on Terrorism.
Yes but the terms “International” and “Terrorist” are relative. I once read something about a bunch of terrorists in a place called Boston! They kept on calling for Freedom from Eastern Imperialist yokes – and the king called them terrorists and sent the boys over to whoop ass! As I recall reading, the terrorists created a new country and called it the land of the free – because they never saw themselves as terrorists, just freedom fighters. Mind you they did then continue to abuse a whole continent and kept shipping slaves – but they were doing it freely and without terrorising the poor Niggras etc!!!
To some folks who stand on other parts of the Globe the home of international terrorism is of course the Good Old US Of A
So perhaps the question should read more like “ Wasn’t Libya once considered from certain world views to be the Home of International Terrorism and where do you think, from your world view, Home is now?”
I know a few Libyans and have spoken with them about this. The View points involved are amazing and can even be mutually supported, except that some don’t want anything but their own world view to be dominant and that is terrifying! One world view ends up as Faschism!
The story I heard was that after we bomed Libya and killed, among others, one of Qaddafi’s children, he decided that being an international man of terror wasn’t all that much fun after all.
I wonder if that’s what realy has happened. If it were true you would think hawks would be talking it up more as “the proper way to treat these terrorist thugs”.
Yes yes, very clever. All international relations can be simplified down to a single line from a George Orwell book.
Fine. If everthing is relative and no nation can claim the moral high ground, then why shouldn’t each nation simply look our for their own interests? Shit, if killing innocent civilians in the name of freedom or economic interests is ok for the Libyans, Iraqis, Afghanistanis or whoever, why shouldn’t we just launch a couple of cruise missles whenever we want to drive up the price of soybeans?
Another thing. George Washington understood that it was important to fight the British with a conventional, uniformed army in order to add legitimacy to the Revolution.
Interesting, cite please.
Reason I ask is that I’ve always thought that the forming of a true conventional, uniformed army, at Valley Forge, was because the irregular militia army got kicked all over the place by the British.
That it wasn’t untill Von Steuben taught Prussian drill and maneouvers that the tide started turning in favor of Washington’s lot.
The skeptic in me believes that governments convince their people to go to war over issues which benefit those making the decisions. It also thinks that governments, as a whole, at the top, have no real interest in stopping terrorism. And so a target of hostile economic sanctions or war is chosen, and then the threat they pose is embellished, manufactured, or simply highly reported in order to justify whatever military moves our economic interest has pushed us into.
Assumably, there was a strategic reason for demonifying libya at the time that isn’t as valid now, or attacking Iraq has a better cost/benefit ratio associated with it. And so, since we’ve chosen Iraq as the target of our hostility, we spend all of our effort demonifying Iraq, and forgetting libya, because libya is no longer relevant to whatever interests we once had. So the demonifying follows the chosen target, rather than the chosen target following the threat.
Hence, ‘we have always been at war with eastasia’.
http://www.ushistory.org
The Continental Army was formed on May 10, 1775. Valley forge was its winter headquarters in 1777. But it a sense, Valley forge was the point where the Continental Army learned how to be a professional army.
So do you have a cite for any of that drivel, SenorBeef?
Look, your argument may very well have merits. But you aren’t supplying any cites and the initial way of presenting your argument was a cute cite from an Orwell book with no explanation.
Latro, don’t be ridiculous. Read this. Then come back and talk. While the Continental Army did have many problems, including discipline, with which Von Steuben was key to fixing, it was hardly some ragtag rebel outfit that never saw success. Much of the problem was the way that the CC administered the army, which Von Steuben never had any influence on. The true turning point was French supplies and naval assistance, not Von Steuben’s arrival.
It was more an offhand comment than any sort of argument. And I was accused of basically just being some potheaded teenager who wanted to say some cool out-of-context line from Orwell randomly. I was just expanding my thoughts and trying to show I wasn’t being random and trite.
