@Nobby_Stiles, that’s a fine illustration of the fractal nature of global conflict. We want it to be simple, but the closer you get the more conflict you see. So many of the narratives don’t have any good guys.
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If terrorism is a sensible response, why are only a small fraction of people in affected geographies committing it, and why is their number one target their neighbors? They do actually have totalitarian ideologies, these terrorists. Maybe you could look into it, before declaring them so reasonable…
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I certainly agree with you that Qatar and the KSA are no friends of peace, I’d add Pakistan to that list.
I sympathize with muslim radicals. But i have kids and i have no faith that western policies will ever change. So rather than suffer for my beliefs I will ignore my own conclusions and keep myself and my family safe.
Someone once asked me why I live in New York if I hated America so much (I dont hate America but …) My answer was NYC was the only place I could think of with almost no Americans and no risk of being bombed by the US airforce.
As for why target your neighbors, well have you seen the price of visas?
Some estimates put the number of dead Iraqis as 1mn. Libya used to have free government heathcare and education. Now its a warzone. You dont think people in those countries have a right to be upset? Who should they blame?
Yes some of these countries have totalitarian ideologies. Like KSA or Egypt or Bahrain. However those countries are our friends even though they have sponsored Islamic terrorism. If its not about totalitarian forms of government - what is it about? O*l perhaps?
I guess so, yes.
Yeah, just make a map of the world showing resources and resource flows, and then mark the conflict zones. But the obvious correlation is never mentioned - instead we are told it is all about “hating our freedom” and religious extremism.
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I would listen attentively and sincerely to any of the Muslims listed here:
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Libya used to have a despotic totalitarian regime*, overthrown primarily by domestic resistance. The West did intervene to some degree, in part to prevent massacres of civilians, but so did Turkey, Egypt, UAE, Sudan and Qatar.
*Amnesty international 2010 report: “Freedom of expression, association and assembly continued to be severely curtailed and the authorities showed little tolerance of dissent. Critics of the government’s human rights record were punished. … Hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance and other serious human rights violations committed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s remained unresolved, and the Internal Security Agency (ISA), implicated in those violations, continued to operate with impunity.”
And much of that resistance was Islamic fundamentalists. Like I said, no good guys for a simple narrative.
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I am surprised its not the case already, considering the couple of “terrorism by truck” attacks in Europe.
Definitely. Just like much of the anti-fascist resistance during WWII came from Bolshevik cells. Resisting something bad does not automatically put you on the side of angels.
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Not really. The reaction by Libyan’s after the Benghazi incident were a pretty good indication at the time, that the Islamic Fundamentalists were johnny come lately’s to the situation. Much like how the Muslim Brotherhood swooped in after Mubarak’s ouster in Egypt.
The problem being that the former dictators generally preferred Islamicists as a neutered opposition group to moderates or democracy minded groups. At least prior to Osama Bin Laden, Islamicists were notorious for being fairly easy for autocrats to co-opt and use to supplement government repression forces.
So when these dictators fall, it is not the loose coalitions of moderates and/or breakaway military forces which can quickly form a government. Its these already existing, highly organized existing, political groups among the Islamicists which make the play for power.
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“Some degree” means precisely what?
Did “we” ship weapons to the opposition? Did “we” bomb the Libyan army? Did we import Islamist fighters who were trained in advance? And did we infiltrate the country with our special forces to assist in the fighting and to better target the air attacks?
If you answered Yes to “All the above” you are a winner!!
Now for seconds, Libya used to have a despotic dictator who proved free health care and free education including university education to all it citizens? Now its a fucking war zone with three different war lords controlling the country on whats primarily a tribal basis. 40,000 black africans died when the evil dictator was toppled as the Islamist rebels (who by the way, managed to kill a US diplomat a few years later) who took the view that black construction workers were best annihilated cos thats what Allah would prefer.
Now you might consider that intervention a good thing. But I think you would need to be a french or british oil company to think that what happened to Libya was a good thing. I would bet that most Libyans dont think their country is currently better off. They aint from New Hampshire.
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Forgive the tendancy to pedantry, but isnt that precisely what they were - which side should they have been on?
Being less pedantic, if the choice was Nazi or Bolshevik which side would you be on?
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Yes it is. I’m quite familiar with the area where this incident happened, and there haven’t been any issues with normal idiots. Personally, I’m not a fan of bollards, bulwarks, or any other barriers being put up as a response to events like this.
Easy there killer. I mentioned pedestrian and bike paths because that’s what the paths are where this incident happened. Not trying to win a discussion here, but given the tone of your responses it doesn’t sound like you’re interested in even having one.
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The side up against the wall, fairly early on, I suppose.
I suppose at the moment, Libya is worse off than it was under Qaddafi (though the high-end death toll estimates “only” reach tens of thousands - orders of magnitude below Syria - and it is not inconceivable that the resulting arrangement may be an improvement on the previous state). But you are conflating the intervention with the rebellion - which happened before for internal reasons and irrespective of any subsequent Western meddling.
Thank goodness the ever level headed and well spoken 45 had a weighted and carefully thought out response to this, not politicizing this tragedy in the slightest.
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Yeah… This is where I stop responding. Which is not to excuse the USA’s history of military adventurism etc., but honestly, why bother having that debate with you.
Honey badgers are violent beings, but it would be a mistake to call them cowards.
The same must be said about many human beings: they lack the introspection that it would take to be a coward. They would need to work just to aspire to cowardice.
If they had been, it wouldn’t have changed the vote much.
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