This Is What They Think Of You.

[Red-Robbo]

I think your user name is apt here. Libya was the richest and a pretty well run country before we decimated it. Doing pretty big things such as it water dispersal project which was huge.

Now it is a absolute mess because of foreign policy towards a country which was fairly well run, even if other countries didn't like the way it was being run.

 I think it has to be said, a substantial number of its own citizens didn't think it was being "well run" hence the uprising there.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

 I think it has to be said, a substantial number of its own citizens didn't think it was being "well run" hence the uprising there.

 

Yes but the biggest plus point for the USA and the UK, they had OIL and that sort of got our interest, Syria of course has oil but evidently not enough for us to be too interested.

[Red-Robbo]

Yes but the biggest plus point for the USA and the UK, they had OIL and that sort of got our interest, Syria of course has oil but evidently not enough for us to be too interested.

 

 

Libyan oil was - and remains - a state nationalised business.

 

As Gadhaffi was "our new chum" in North Africa, and was paying out millions in compo for his various misdeeds when he played in that top heavy metal band "The Axes of Evil". It was in the UK and US (though not most Libyans!) interest to keep him in power.

 

Nato's intervention was only sparked when his forces - largely drawn from sub-Saharan mercenaries - were threatening to "raze to the ground" Benghazi, a city with more than a million people. There's nowhere to hide in the Libyan desert and the destruction of the armoured columns bearing down on Cyrenaica and the Nato (and Qatari and the Saudi) fairly limited aerial intervention tipped the balance and ultimately led to the dictator having to hide in a sewage pipe before getting a sharp and terminal pain up the jaxi.

 

You assert Syria's relative oil-free status meant "the West wasn't interested" in its civil war - yet Cameron tried to get HoC assent for a similar intervention and Obama was talking one up before it became clear that no allies would support him there and it was all a little bit more messy and less straightforward. Of course, the West's inactivity was a godsend (pun certainly not intended) to the Islamist groups to whom the Sunni rebels turned instead.

[TRL]

I think it has to be said, a substantial number of its own citizens didn't think it was being "well run" hence the uprising there.

There were a substantial number which agreed with him as well. Much like every country. But not every country that the gallant west throw money at arming desenters then attacking the country once it had destabilised it.

Either way, western governments have seen a weakness, funded those to attack that weakness, then mopped up.

If we like it or not, there were millions for as well as millions against him. Who is to say we are right in helping remove him. Libya is and has been for years a clan based society. It is not a society we understand or maybe even agree with politically, so we destroy it. Like was Afghanistan, clan based society, we disagree, we destroy it.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

Libyan oil was - and remains - a state nationalised business.

 

As Gadhaffi was "our new chum" in North Africa, and was paying out millions in compo for his various misdeeds when he played in that top heavy metal band "The Axes of Evil". It was in the UK and US (though not most Libyans!) interest to keep him in power.

 

Nato's intervention was only sparked when his forces - largely drawn from sub-Saharan mercenaries - were threatening to "raze to the ground" Benghazi, a city with more than a million people. There's nowhere to hide in the Libyan desert and the destruction of the armoured columns bearing down on Cyrenaica and the Nato (and Qatari and the Saudi) fairly limited aerial intervention tipped the balance and ultimately led to the dictator having to hide in a sewage pipe before getting a sharp and terminal pain up the jaxi.

 

You assert Syria's relative oil-free status meant "the West wasn't interested" in its civil war - yet Cameron tried to get HoC assent for a similar intervention and Obama was talking one up before it became clear that no allies would support him there and it was all a little bit more messy and less straightforward. Of course, the West's inactivity was a godsend (pun certainly not intended) to the Islamist groups to whom the Sunni rebels turned instead.

 

Well hopefully the mess we left Iraq and Libya in had something to do with that and how long do you expect the Afghanistan armed forces to hold out after we abandon that particular hell hole?, my guess 2 weeks to a month tops before the Taliban control most or all of the country again, hopefully Syria was actually a turning point of course until of course the U S of A need another war for cheap oil and to prop up it's military arms manufacturing industry.

[Red-Robbo]

Well hopefully the mess we left Iraq and Libya in had something to do with that and how long do you expect the Afghanistan armed forces to hold out after we abandon that particular hell hole?, my guess 2 weeks to a month tops before the Taliban control most or all of the country again, hopefully Syria was actually a turning point of course until of course the U S of A need another war for cheap oil and to prop up it's military arms manufacturing industry.

Oil has naff all to do with Afghanistan although the second bit of your final sentence is a bit nearer the mark.

[Red-Robbo]

There were a substantial number which agreed with him as well. Much like every country. But not every country that the gallant west throw money at arming desenters then attacking the country once it had destabilised it.

Either way, western governments have seen a weakness, funded those to attack that weakness, then mopped up.

If we like it or not, there were millions for as well as millions against him. Who is to say we are right in helping remove him. Libya is and has been for years a clan based society. It is not a society we understand or maybe even agree with politically, so we destroy it. Like was Afghanistan, clan based society, we disagree, we destroy it.

You could say the same about Hitler, Stalin etc! Of course there are people who are connected to the machinery of repression who will have a vested interest in keeping torturing tyrants in place. Evidence of Libya was that the amount of support he really enjoyed was pretty minimal once the chips were down. The majority of his army had to be recruited in Chad, Niger and Sudan for that reason.

Yes, the country is a mess at the moment. Twas ever so when a "strongman" is toppled in a country with no democratic tradition.

I do think probably a lot fewer people have died there than if Gadhaffi's mercenary army had reached Benghazi

[TRL]

You could say the same about Hitler, Stalin etc! Of course there are people who are connected to the machinery of repression who will have a vested interest in keeping torturing tyrants in place. Evidence of Libya was that the amount of support he really enjoyed was pretty minimal once the chips were down. The majority of his army had to be recruited in Chad, Niger and Sudan for that reason.

Yes, the country is a mess at the moment. Twas ever so when a "strongman" is toppled in a country with no democratic tradition.

I do think probably a lot fewer people have died there than if Gadhaffi's mercenary army had reached Benghazi

I think the issue is that a huge amount of people employed in Libya were in the public sector. Employment in the young had got pretty high by the time he was toppled, but a lot of 30+ were employed directly by government, not so many in private sector. I think the main unrest has come from the young and was the catalyst for the west to start their campaign. Problem now many are out of work, not just the young. Plenty have no food on the table. Sometimes your standard of life can be better under a tyrant rather than what is left behind. And even taking that in, the tribal issues still persist.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

Oil has naff all to do with Afghanistan although the second bit of your final sentence is a bit nearer the mark.

 

I never suggested that Afghanistan was anything to do with oil, it was comment on foreign policy and the hope that after 3 disastrous interventions hopefully lessons have been learned.

[Red-Robbo]

I never suggested that Afghanistan was anything to do with oil, it was comment on foreign policy and the hope that after 3 disastrous interventions hopefully lessons have been learned.

Fair enough. I don't think Libya was a "disastrous intervention" though.

You have to remember it was a Nato /Arab League limited intervention, supported by a UN resolution and with no "boots on the ground". The main thing it achieved was no Homs/Aleppo style massacre in eastern Libya.

And yes it kept oil flowing. The last thing the World - including Libya - needed wad a 70's style oil shock caused by 6% of world production suddenly going off-line. That would've happened should some Syria type protracted civil war taken place. That would directly impact you and me.

As a general rule I think we can both agree that the less we have to do with the whole ****in region the better!

[Monkeh]

Afganistan was about bin lardan and the problem created by the USA in the Cold War when they armed the Taliban and other terrorist groups to fight the Russians and then abandoned them