Libyan Uprising - Page 27

On March 11 2011 04:52 Boblion wrote:

Uhmm not really. In the Western democracies the governments are elected by the herd and the herd has been brainwashed by morality since the beginning of humanity.

The USA wouldn't even fucking exist if it weren't for the French intervening during the American revolution.

On March 11 2011 18:13 Nightfall.589 wrote:


It's very easy to drum up public support for whatever international cause you want to justify. See - Iraq war. See - approval for the war plummets as the years drag on.

But if you think otherwise, would you mind listing off some international actions, by, say, the United States over the past 50 years that were based on morality, and not rational (Or irrational) self-interest?

I have a feeling that even if you can list me a few, I'd have a far easier time presenting five actions for any one of yours that were immoral, yet driven by self-interest.

On March 11 2011 04:52 Boblion wrote:
They don't have time to brainwash people into another war like for Iraq.

On March 11 2011 18:13 Nightfall.589 wrote:


It's very easy to drum up public support for whatever international cause you want to justify. See - Iraq war. See - approval for the war plummets as the years drag on.

But if you think otherwise, would you mind listing off some international actions, by, say, the United States over the past 50 years that were based on morality, and not rational (Or irrational) self-interest?

I have a feeling that even if you can list me a few, I'd have a far easier time presenting five actions for any one of yours that were immoral, yet driven by self-interest.



You could have just waited a century, and asked for your independence, politely!

Leaders of the EU's 27 member states have said Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi must surrender power.

The EU is holding an emergency summit in Brussels in the hope of finding a common approach to the political and humanitarian crisis.

France has urged other states to follow it in recognising the rebel's interim council, but has so far failed to gain wider support.

11:26pm

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has called for "humanitarian zones" to be set up to house possibly hundreds of thousands of people displaced from revolutions in north Africa.

He said the sites should have "humane and decent conditions" and should be run by the United Nations, in order to "manage immigration flows" and provide European leaders "peace of mind" with regards to potential illegal immigration into their countries.

10:27pm

There's a new audio update on the Voices of Feb 17 page. A rebel fighter describes the battle for Ras Lanuf that went on throughout today. He says he is speaking from a car bound for the town of Al Gaila, on his way to Ajdabiyah with a friend who was wounded when a mosque was hit by pro-Gaddafi forces.

He says Gaddafi's forces are not using "regular weapons", and that they are using missiles, bombs and fighter jets.

"Our weapons are very light," he said. "They are useless."

You want the truth? God knows, every time they hit us, every time our numbers shrink, every time our weapons and ammunition go low, our spirits get lower. But our faith is high! We still have faith in God ... We don't even see [Gaddafi's forces coming] ... only thing you see is the guy next to you falling, and you pull him out."

Aiding the Americans had a positive result for the French, it weakend the British. What exactly is our positive result from defeating Gaddafi? Oke we take down Gaddafi and then? Congrats people of Lybia, you now have a civil war, enjoy.

That is awefully positive. Most of the people will see Americans being militarily active in yet another Arab nation. If they don't see it then their leaders will explain it like that to them.

If anything it will grind the revolutions to a halt because at that point it is no longer the people that are uprising but it will clearly be the American devil that has been behind it all.

Doesn't change the fact that in that scenario the US would have to occupy the country for several years and try to keep the tribes from murdering each others.

They dislike Gaddafi, that is all they have in common and it's not a healthy foundation to estbalish a government on.

We secure a base of affluence in the region. There's a reason America has tried to "spread democracy" across the globe in the past, and it isn't because we just love freedom that much that we spend billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to support it. Democratic republics=foreign markets which capitalism needs to survive.

This is probably one of the few times in the 20th and 21st century where American intervention is supported by both might and right, but due to perceived risks and a lesser margin of return then intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, its being overlooked.

Opposition leaders are calling for it. Nobody was calling for foreign intervention in Iraq, nobody was calling for foreign intervention in vietnam, nobody was calling for foreign intervention in Afghanistan.

Yes, because there was no clear opposition in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion. Moreover, do you think insurgents would emerge after the regime was toppled in favor of the toppled regime? That is absurd.

They dislike Gaddafi because they want a secular society with emphasis on individual political and social freedoms, they dislike Gaddafi because they want to see the fruits of globalism conferred to the people, not just the dictators.

Moreover, you fail to realize that History tells us a clear lesson: The longer we wait, the more we facilitate the rise of extremism. Extremism isn't just something that randomly happens, it is a clear response to extreme situations. When the Revolution becomes stalled, and the only way for the opposition to gain ground is through the blood of thousands of young men, that is when the situation is ripe for extremism. People fighting in those conditions need something like extremist Islam to motivate them to lay down there lives for the cause.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said on Saturday that it remains unclear whether imposing a no-fly zone over Libya would be a "wise" move.

"This is not a question of whether we or our allies can do this. We can do it," Gates said.

On March 13 2011 05:15 Ilfirin wrote:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/201131218852687848.html

Looks like everyone wants a no-fly zone, plus


This needs to be done IMO. I understand the arguments for/against pretty well at this point, and, to be honest, he's bombing his people with fighter jets. And it's just going to get worse. And then when he wins, he's gonna slaughter them all like pigs. Between all of them dying, and everyone hating us for not doing anything, and us helping, and so many less dying, and everyone hating us for interfering, we need to interfere. It's one thing when nobody has asked for help, but when everyone is begging for it and hundreds of thousands are more or less guaranteed to die if we don't, we need to do something

On March 13 2011 05:39 Elegy wrote:


Don't be ridiculous, hundreds of thousands won't die. Insane figures you're suggesting rofl.

Just because an upstart rebellion asks for foreign intervention doesn't mean giving it doesn't set a terrible precedent.

On March 13 2011 05:15 Ilfirin wrote:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/201131218852687848.html

Looks like everyone wants a no-fly zone, plus

This needs to be done IMO. I understand the arguments for/against pretty well at this point, and, to be honest, he's bombing his people with fighter jets. And it's just going to get worse. And then when he wins, he's gonna slaughter them all like pigs. Between all of them dying, and everyone hating us for not doing anything, and us helping, and so many less dying, and everyone hating us for interfering, we need to interfere. It's one thing when nobody has asked for help, but when everyone is begging for it and hundreds of thousands are more or less guaranteed to die if we don't, we need to do something

On March 13 2011 07:22 zalz wrote:


Hundreds of thousands is a bit of an overstatement. This country only has about 6.5 million people living in it. This doesn't mean that there is a number of deaths wich can be considered "oke", ofcourse we can all agree that any civillian death is one too many.

I am however still not convinced as to why we should help the rebels. The truth is that the rebels are not freedom loving, modern, secular, democratic people. They are all over the map when it comes to the political spectrum but like most countries in North-Africa, Libya is nothing like a modern country and it's population doesn't seem to want that direction either.


So why would we help rebels that are no more western oriented then Gaddafi? I can understand the logic of helping them if they share the same vision for a society as we do because then i know they will be succesfull. Ataturk set a great example of how the modern secular state will lead to succes, it is the whole reason that Turkey is not just as backwards as the rest of the middle-east. If i saw a champion like Ataturk leading the revolution then i would say that we should send in the entire army and raize Gaddafi to the ground, because then i would know that the future was bright for Libya.

But there is no such champion. These people are not allies of the west. They aren't outright enemies either but they certainly have little intrest in being like us.


There is no logical reason to support these rebels, but i am not a machine, i realize there is also a moral aspect in trying to knock down a dictator and supporting a revolution of the people.

The problem here is that we must think about what signal we are sending if we do this. We are willing to help rebels that don't share any of our world views? Should we supply islamists with weapons if the majority of a country is supporting an islamic theocracy? Should we supply communists with weapons if they are the majority of a country?

We don't help enemies and we don't help neutrals either. From what i have picked up i would judge the Libyan people as neutral towards the west. They aren't trying to be like us but they aren't very anti-western either.

I just can't see why we would help these people though. We have nothing to gain from their succes or failure. We view the world very black/white and when we see people fighting a dictator we can forget that the people aren't always the good guys.

Iran overthrew the Shah. People of all walks of life marched in the streets demanding that he would leave. Women, communists, modernists and democrats all hated the government. Who did they end up with? A religious zealot and a president that is waiting for the 12th imam to plunge the globe into a worldwide caliphate.

Things do not always get better with a revolution. At times the entire people are not eager for more freedom, at other times it is small groups like in Iran that end up grabbing power.


We can't go around helping everyone that hates their government. This is a fight that the Libyan people need to carry to the end. Unless we are provided with incentive, we should not step in.

This is also in my view the more moral thing to do because funding every rebellion that rises up and destablizing half the world does not seem like a very moral thing to do. If we are willing to fund the Libyans then that would mean we should fund every rebellion, wether they agree with us or not, and that seems like a very strange foreign policy.

On March 13 2011 01:52 Half wrote:


We secure a base of affluence in the region. There's a reason America has tried to "spread democracy" across the globe in the past, and it isn't because we just love freedom that much that we spend billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to support it. Democratic republics=foreign markets which capitalism needs to survive.

This is probably one of the few times in the 20th and 21st century where American intervention is supported by both might and right, but due to perceived risks and a lesser margin of return then intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, its being overlooked.



Opposition leaders are calling for it. Nobody was calling for foreign intervention in Iraq, nobody was calling for foreign intervention in vietnam, nobody was calling for foreign intervention in Afghanistan.



Yes, because there was no clear opposition in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion. Moreover, do you think insurgents would emerge after the regime was toppled in favor of the toppled regime? That is absurd.


They dislike Gaddafi because they want a secular society with emphasis on individual political and social freedoms, they dislike Gaddafi because they want to see the fruits of globalism conferred to the people, not just the dictators.

All these are all democratic and capitalistic values.


Moreover, you fail to realize that History tells us a clear lesson: The longer we wait, the more we facilitate the rise of extremism. Extremism isn't just something that randomly happens, it is a clear response to extreme situations. When the Revolution becomes stalled, and the only way for the opposition to gain ground is through the blood of thousands of young men, that is when the situation is ripe for extremism. People fighting in those conditions need something like extremist Islam to motivate them to lay down there lives for the cause.

On March 13 2011 09:19 gosuMalicE wrote:

Well when the US NEEDS to invade countries to ensure the survival of capitalism then maybe capitalism is wrong? Just saying.