seriously? thats what youre getting from my posts? when ive been talking about making the conflict as short as possible? dude. I bring up Somalia again. During the beginning the US was there assisting in a humanitarian capacity but after losing a unit (Black hawk down) the US government decided to leave Somalia on its own. The conflict is still as bloody as it began. Tell me if in hindsight the half measure presented here actually helped address the root problem.
yes i believe that they should help all out or not at all.
because if they go half assed then they're just wasting the lives of the folks who may die due to this humanitarian effort. theyre also just going to watch, secure in the fact that they "helped" when folks on the ground are dying in preventable numbers.
So again, you think that we since we aren't going to invade, we shouldn't put the no fly zone in place, despite it being a measure which would, in and of itself, help the civilian population and the rebels against Gaddaffi. I really don't see why you hate the Libyan people.
because the "no fly zone only" option will prolong a war for years when it could be done in months?
Let's assume that we won't invade, since it's almost certainly not going to happen. (And even if it were more than a distantly remote possibility, it'd be a horrible idea for numerous reasons that have been outlined several times in this very thread, but you've ignored them each and every time, so I'm not going over old ground again.)
A no fly zone and no invasion, or no no fly zone and no invasion. Which one will help the civilians and rebels more?
If it's the former, why do you want to hurt the rebels?
because the "no fly zone only" option will prolong a war for years when it could be done in months?
seriously. say that i hate them one more time...im not convinced you're stupid yet
attack my points. dont attack me.
That is the weakest of your points. The no fly zone will not make the war any longer than it already would be, and would likely make it shorter by removing one of the key assets the government has. If we step it up from 'no fly' to 'close air support' we make the war even shorter.
Gadaffi is already on the backfoot. He's lost most of his country and is holed up in Tripoli. This war will be over in a few weeks at most, and even shorter if we install no fly and CAS support for the rebels.
But yes, please shoe me how making a 'no fly zone' will somehow hurt the rebels and make this war already going decidedly in their favor turn agains them?
take your righteous indignation to the side for a bit and do not think of this in terms of "good guys" or "bad guys" but in terms of lives.
the rebels are not an official group. one way or another if they feel like theyre losing they WILL quit.
if they quit sooner less civilians will die. rebels will die but thats what they got themselves into
if they win sooner less civilians will die. this is the "ideal"
if you prolong the war more civilians wiill die. more rebels will die. more soldiers will die. the only ones who gain are gaddafi and the mercs. The no fly zone will protract this conflict further because you put everyone on more even ground.
when youre a goat herder or a farmer who has to eke out a living day by day you have no care for lofty ideals as freedom, rights and country because your first thought is to feed yourself and your family.
when youre hungry democracy is the LEAST of your worries.
you cannot feed your family when you're dead or theres a war.
.....That doesn't prove anything at all. Where is the link between 'providing just a no fly zone' and 'months and months of brutal warfare'. There is none, and a no-fly zone will help them end this war sooner.
The rebels are WINNING they are not going to go home any time soon.
see... heres when im hesitant. The reason that Gaddafi is losing ground is because he has no quick way to mobilize his troops (source: CNN) most of his troops are still holed up in tripoli and his major bases.
if the rebels make an offensive on Tripoli and start winning there then i will share your optimism.
Automatically Appended Next Post: i really wish this would turn out as a cinderella story and that im wrong on all points. i sincerely do.
i would dearly love to see the rebels keep the momentum
but i remember other times when the underdog won and ejected the superior power (Vietnam- Viet Ciong vs US and Afghanistan vs Soviets) and i remember to keep my enthusiasm in check.
History has not been without a grim sense of humor
Bakerofish wrote:if you prolong the war more civilians wiill die. more rebels will die. more soldiers will die. the only ones who gain are gaddafi and the mercs. The no fly zone will protract this conflict further because you put everyone on more even ground.
The only one in the area with the ability to project force aerially is Gaddaffi.
How, exactly, does he gain from having that neutralised?
How do the rebels not gain from having that neutralised?
I really don't understand your reasoning. Not putting the no fly zone in place will protract the fighting: Gaddaffi will have the ability to bomb the gak out of the populace with near impunity. Removing that ability is a game changer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Do you think that putting the no fly zone in place won't help the rebels keep the momentum?
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Do you think that putting the no fly zone in place won't help the rebels keep the momentum?
it will. but theyll hit their brick wall in tripoli. take a city without a unified front. try it. Theres already rumblings of a rift within the rebls as the defectors want a unified front but the rerbels want to keep the integrity of their rebellion by putting a "non military" to lead.. the rebels currently dont have a unified front.
Gadaffi IS on the backfoot. When you have to bomb your own capital to try and stay in power, you're losing. When you have to call in 50,000 foreign mercenaries because you can't trust your own military, you're losing. The rebels control most of the country, and the key oil refineries, even if Tripoli does not fall, they have enough control to stabilize their country. As I recall, they've already started to form their own government in Benghazi.
The main benefit the Libyan loyalists have is airpower and artillery....Western air power can shut both of those down. There is a strong anti-Gadaffi movement in Tripoli, it's not going to be the brick wall you say it will.It will be bloody, but there is no doubt that Tripoli will fall.
There'd be less bloodshed on both sides, if the West were to impose the no fly zone, and even less if Western aircraft were to attack Libyan loyalist positions. Like I siad, blood will be shed, but like the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there will be less blood shed than the alternatives.
again my whole argument here is "if theyre gonna help, help all the way"
ever stop to think if the no fly was the best solution then why nobody has done it yet? there are tons of reasons and one of them is if its an efficient measure to whats happening now. When one plane costs 20 mil and can burn through fuel in gallons per secondyou have to make sure youre putting those planes to good use. A lot of folks dont see the efficiency, cost wise, threat wise andtime wise.
and heres another thing: a no fly zone would not stop artillery. that goes against what a no fly zone is. a no fly zone would also do little for choppers who can fly below radar and be out of the scene before a jet can even scramble.
more folks have died to groundfighting and artillery than the bombings.
the conflict is going on for far too short a time to call anyone "losing"
once rebels have taken Tripoli then ill rest easy.
Automatically Appended Next Post: again lets keep in mind that the rebels, at the end of the day are farmers, secretaries, mechanics etc. One even going as far as saying "ive never been at wa but ive watched a lot of action movies'
even if they are bolstered by "a good chunk" of gaddafis military (the numbers are still fuzzy but estimates at no more than a few hundred people) you're still taking a city
A CITY
it took the US armed forces around 19 days to take Baghdad. thats with planes, tanks, bombardment by sea and air and well trained troops equipped with the best the world has to offer.
i think its a reasonable assumption to think that "action hero" and his cousins will take longer than that.
cheer for rebels. pray for them. but dont think they have this in the bag yet.
If you note, I'm saying we should provide CAS in addition to the no-fly zone. Not to mention, 'flying under the radar' only works when the radar isn't looking down on you. A Western no fly zone would no doubt be controlled by an AWACS bird, that'd be able to keep an eye on a good chunk of the Libyan coastal regions. More importantly, there would be a standing CAP, not just scrambling fighters.
As for why no one's done anything yet? They're still debating what to do. RIght now, the west cares much more about getting its civillians out of Libya, and they're still arguing over what to do. Russia and China say 'nothing' the US and UK say 'let's do SOMETHING', and the Libyan resistance is asking for air support. They still don't know WHAT to do yet.
The problem with your argument is that you see it only 2 ways, either we help with troops on the ground, or we don't help at all. There are shades of grey in foreign assistance, and it's not worth it to go 100% either way. Air support is no doubt the easiest way to provide help to the rebels, but keeping our footprint to a minimum.
I'd say that once you have to bomb your own capital, call in foreign troops cause your own military is defecting from you in droves, and you've lost control of most of your country, you are losing.
Edit: The fall of Baghdad took 9 days, (4/3/2003 to 4/12/2003). Baghdad is a city of 6 million people, Tripoli is a city of 1 million. There is a major difference between the two. The fall of Tripoli will be long slow and bloody, but we can lessen the blood shed with Western air power. There is no denying this fact.
my opinion of a black and white view on this matter is because in the past interventions made by the US they were all grey and none of them worked as planned. Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Middle Eastern Conflicts...heck even in my country's shores (not that im not grateful, but the Philippine -US partnership is a "joint effort" so yes the US troops are at a more aggressive stance than theyve taken with the others - heck id take the US interference in the Philippines as more successful than most because theyre actually actively seeking out insurgents. this more aggressive stance has definitely quieted the southern islands a lot)
i agree they should take it a step further than no fly chris. I agree wholeheartedly.
but again...until Tripoli is taken, saying rebels are winning is just asking for it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: baghdad was taken by US troops with full gear
Tripoli's liberators are mainly farmers and workers
yes i agree there is a difference there
before some wiseguy cracks that there have been liberations done by farmers and workers in the past: the reason theyre so remarkable is because theyre so UNEXPECTED. they succeeded beyond any reasonable odds would have them. to hope that this happens in Libya is fine. to EXPECT it is foolish
Bakerofish wrote:
but again...until Tripoli is taken, saying rebels are winning is just asking for it.
Tripoli is almost irrelevant. Sure, its the capital, but it doesn't have controlling influence of any of the material assets available to the state. Gaddafi can stay in Tripoli for as long as he wants and we'll just start paying the rebels for the oil they now control.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bakerofish wrote:
before some wiseguy cracks that there have been liberations done by farmers and workers in the past: the reason theyre so remarkable is because theyre so UNEXPECTED. they succeeded beyond any reasonable odds would have them. to hope that this happens in Libya is fine. to EXPECT it is foolish
Violent uprisings by the middle class have a 40% success rate, roughly, though they rarely create material change. This isn't a peasant revolt, which almost never happen, and almost never succeed when they do happen.
Korea, Vietname and the Middle East wars were all full on interventions of the type you are proposing. They only way they could have gotten even stronger is if we started tossing nukes around. As dogma said, the rebels have de facto contorl of the country, they control the oil fields, and the refineries. Once they set up their government, there is nothing stopping them from asking for recognition...heck, the Libyan ambassador to the UN is already on the rebels side.
It's being reported that a diplomatic mission from the UK has reached the rebel leadership in Benghazi. It was originally reported that 6 SAS troops had been captured by rebels en route to making contact with the leaders, but now the MOD is saying that they are in contact with the team (whoever they are)...
Karon wrote:When will this guy stop? Baker, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
No fly zone would only help. We don't need to do anything else because we aren't fething IDIOTS.
You think that "weaklings" are people that actually have a brain, unlike your republican bullshitters like Bush.
Karon if youve been reading im not saying no fly would not help. im saying its not enough. who did i call weaklings?
@dogma
Tripoli is relevant. Gaddafi is relevant. Unless he steps down he is still the head of state according to law. Buying any asset of a country siezed by a rebel group is illegal.
@melissia
cant we lean towards a darker grey then?
@chris
thanks for taking the time to dissect my points rather than attacking me.
The rebels cant "take control" of a government if the current government is still holding on to power. the rebels cant make use of the resources the country has legally. the Libyan ambassador is relevant in getting OUTSIDE help which isnt happening yet. de facto or not we cant say that Gaddafi is tapped out yet. heck if I were in his place ill do the same. Ill let the rebels hold ground, ill let go of things i cant defend and make this a battle of attrition.
currently, gaddafi still has sea and air access. You cannot stop non military ships and planes from doing its business unless youre actively declaring war on the country. you can put in check points and delay, but full out prevention aint happening on a legal basis.
this isnt a battle in wide open plains with troops marching to face each other. this is going to be city fighting and the rebels have NO WAY of getting Gaddafi out of his hole short of calling air strikes or assassination.
and with the recent news of SAS presence and others...they seem to be going with a more covert approach.
heres an honest question to everyone:
is assassinating Gaddafi a viable option in a legal sense? say he gets shot "by his own troops" will the UN allow the rebels to take control officially or will the succession follow chain of command?
The rebels have the 100 ability to take over the government. International relations is all about recognition, and right now the world recognizes Gadaffi as the leader of Libya...that's why it's so significant that the British are negotiating with the Libyan rebel government in Benghazi, it means that the West may recognize and begin dealing with the rebels as if they are the government of Libya. And who's going to stop them if they do? Gadaffi? Yeah right.
Gadaffi is holed up in Tripoli, the rebels have sea and air access through other ports. If the West recognizes the rebels and the government, and begins doing business with them, they'll protect their new ally. Remember, the last time the US declared 'war' was against Hungary and Romania back in WW2. Every single action since then has been a Military Enagement Authorized by Congress or the UNSC.
In short, the rebels control the country, and are forming their own government. Even if Tripoli doesn't fall (which it will) the rebels can form their own government and be negotiated with. That's the reality of the situation. In international relations, what's 'legal' doesn't really matter, what the great powers say is true is. Even if de jure Gadaffi controls Libya, but the rebels are in de facto control by both their own military conquests, and the recognition of the west...who's going to say that isn't so?
the UN? Libya is STILL part of the UN even if theyre getting sanctioned for some of the things they did.
the purpose of the UN is to uphold common laws between countries and uphold and defend the sovereignity of its members
the UN cannot legally recognize the rebels if Gaddafi doesnt step down. to do so means that the UN is unimportant. there are some people who think that the UN is already unnecessary.
in international relations, LEGAL matters a lot.
remember folks its international laws that keep the world from becoming a grab bag for world powers. ever wonder why N. Korea is still there regardless of how fethed up it is? because they havent broken international laws. They keep using international laws to rationalize trying to get S. Korea back in fact. but its these same laws that keep the North from actually trying something really stupid as well.
If the UN says they're recognizing the rebels, who'se going to stop them? If the US, UK, France, Italy, China, Russia, and every other major power says they're going to recognize the rebels, who's going to stop them? The answer is: no one. If the world does not recognize Gadaffi as the leader of Libya, then he isn't the leader of Libya, he's the owner and leader of a small part of Libya under his direct military control, but that doesn't matter.
Actually, if we place embargos on a nation we can actively prevent any supplies from reaching them.
Their military IS leaving Ghadafi, in fact one of the bombers ordered to bomb the protestors crashed because the crew bailed out instead of carrying out the mission.
As stated before, when you have to rely on foreign mercenaries and bombing your own city you've already lost the war.
In relation to the farmers fighting the government, the rebels do have weapons like anti-aircraft but not mush in terms of heavy artillery. They have shot down one or two loyalist bombers already but they need help. Its also important to remember history. Look up the reason for celebrating Cinco De Mayo.
ChrisWWII wrote:If the UN says they're recognizing the rebels, who'se going to stop them? If the US, UK, France, Italy, China, Russia, and every other major power says they're going to recognize the rebels, who's going to stop them? The answer is: no one. If the world does not recognize Gadaffi as the leader of Libya, then he isn't the leader of Libya, he's the owner and leader of a small part of Libya under his direct military control, but that doesn't matter.
thats not how it works. they just cant "decide" how things will be.
getting recognized as a country is a lot more involved than you think. Heck, Taiwan for the longest time is still technically not a country even if it has its own government independent of China.
claiming a country isnt as simple as stabbing a flag into the ground and proclaiming "mine!". things have changed since Magellan.
halonachos wrote:
In relation to the farmers fighting the government, the rebels do have weapons like anti-aircraft but not mush in terms of heavy artillery. They have shot down one or two loyalist bombers already but they need help. Its also important to remember history. Look up the reason for celebrating Cinco De Mayo.
cinco de mayo? the "unlikely" victory of the mexicans against the french? the reason it being remarkable because it came out of left field?
for every underdog victory in history there are dozens of victories brought about superior numbers, positioning, supplies and firepower.
you guys make it sound like winning a war is easy. What legal basis would there be for putting an embargo on Libya? And if you do find one, will every country FOLLOW suit? Just because the US declares embargo doesnt mean Libya cant trade with anyone else.
you cannot tell me the military is leaving gaddafis side just because one or two bombers decided to defect. or a unit. seriously. There are defectors but the actual numbers arent enough to call this cut and dry.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Karon wrote:No, because a No-Fly-Zone is enough. We don't need to do anything else. We don't need to get involved here.
We don't need troops there, we don't need to bomb gaddaffi, we don't need to do anything but take away their single largest advantage.
okay understood that you feel that way. i can respect that
but also respect that taking away the air advantage doesnt mean sure victory. a lot of folks here are acting like thats all it takes.
thats not how it works. they just cant "decide" how things will be.
getting recognized as a country is a lot more involved than you think. Heck, Taiwan for the longest time is still technically not a country even if it has its own government independent of China.
claiming a country isnt as simple as stabbing a flag into the ground and proclaiming "mine!". things have changed since Magellan.
Yes they can. For a while the US recognized Taiwan as the government of all of China, and refused to recognize the PRC. Some states refuse to recognize existence of the State of Israel. Even then, all these situations are subservient to who has de facto control of anything. Right now, the Libyan rebels have de facto control of the country. If we recognize them as the new government of Libya, then they are the new government of Libya. They have internal recognition of their control by most of the country, and if granted externatl recognition they'd have the qualities to make them a new state.
Point it, we don't have to follow any legal procedures to oust Gadaffi. We didn't have to follow legal procedures to oust Sadaam or the Taliban, we simply changed the situation on the ground, and recognized the new government we installed.
thats not how it works. they just cant "decide" how things will be.
getting recognized as a country is a lot more involved than you think. Heck, Taiwan for the longest time is still technically not a country even if it has its own government independent of China.
claiming a country isnt as simple as stabbing a flag into the ground and proclaiming "mine!". things have changed since Magellan.
Yes they can. For a while the US recognized Taiwan as the government of all of China, and refused to recognize the PRC. Some states refuse to recognize existence of the State of Israel. Even then, all these situations are subservient to who has de facto control of anything. Right now, the Libyan rebels have de facto control of the country. If we recognize them as the new government of Libya, then they are the new government of Libya. They have internal recognition of their control by most of the country, and if granted externatl recognition they'd have the qualities to make them a new state.
Point it, we don't have to follow any legal procedures to oust Gadaffi. We didn't have to follow legal procedures to oust Sadaam or the Taliban, we simply changed the situation on the ground, and recognized the new government we installed.
ack dude stop.
the US refused to recognize CHINA? what parallel universe are you talking about here?
the US had no legal reason to oust Saddam? what the heck was that WMD hullaballoo about?
seriously Chris im sorry but you're misinformed on all counts here.
The United States, and most of the world for that matter recongized the Republic of China government in Taipei as the legal government of both Taiwan and mainland China until about the 1970s. A bit more reading for you.
And, by your standing, the US had no right to oust Sadaam, and couldn't recognize the new government until Sadaam stepped down....which is obviously not the case. Once the US had de facto control of Iraq, they recognized whoever they wanted as in charge.
the US refused to recognize CHINA? what parallel universe are you talking about here?
the US had no legal reason to oust Saddam? what the heck was that WMD hullaballoo about?
seriously Chris im sorry but you're misinformed on all counts here.
There are two countries that can be called "China": the PRC (mainland China) and the RoC (Taiwan). The RoC was the government of China that emerged following a civil war, only for their opponents, the communists led by Mao, to oust them when the civil war started again following WWII. The US sided with the RoC, and recognized them as the legitimate government of China, with the mainland, under the PRC, effectively a rebel holding. Later, the US decided it would be more lucrative to recognize the PRC as the legitimate government, and thus stopped recognizing the RoC, in addition to pressuring other countries to do the same.
The US also had no legal authority to invade either Iraq or Afghanistan. They just said "I'ma do this now" and went and did it, and nobody important (who had the power to do anything about it) cared enough to do anything about it. Legality means nothing when you have the power to do what you're trying to do without retribution.
That said, why on Earth should the US intervene in Libya, on either side? It will be resolved, one way or another, and is currently heavily in favor of the revolutionaries. If the US intervenes on their behalf, it casts into doubt their legitimacy as an independent movement. Not to mention the cost in lives, ordnance, maintenance, and fuel that it would cost to intervene. Much better just to let it burn itself out on its own, and be in a position to take advantage of whoever won for all their worth.
Man, this thread was way more fun when it was about Fraz trying to claim the US should be isolationist, and pretending that it used to be such.
Bakerofish, just give it up dude. There is probably a decent argument to be made for foreign intervention, but you're not making it. From this point you've argued yourself into such a weak position you're really best off just calling it a day.
okidokie. first and foremost this mess started when the ROC claimed sovereignity based on documents like the japanese instrument of surrender and the cairo declaration. this was not seen as relevant by other factions in the country so there was dissent and civil war.
the ROC LOST the civil war and fled to Taiwan and the islands near it. The PRC was then established to govern the mainlands.
the ROC was using international law to hold claim to its sovereignity. This was not an outright rebellion as there are legal international treaties that awarded them the right to govern.
the ROC was then recognized as the government of china due to them actively making democratic relations with the other nations. te PRC then established its own relations and now there are two: Taiwan and China...and the sovereignity of Taiwan is being scrutinized to date.
now the Libyan rebels do not have anything that supports them yet as a legitimate government. If you think the international community is going to recognize the rule they established just because they popped up is absurd. The current Libyan government still holds treaties and relationships with other governments and may call on those later on to contest the right of the rebels to rule.
Power is transferred over or destroyed. In order to establish a new government the old one must either abdicate or be eradicated.
The Iraq invasion was and still is controversial because the impetus for it was WMD and terrorism of which there were still contentions. The US had to PLEAD their case to international councils (plural) and make their case because otherwise they wont have the right to invade. Their main angle was that Iraq was breaking UN resolutions on WMDs. Thanks to a number of factors they went ahead with the invasion. Not all countries supported this and there are those that can still claim that the invasion was unjust and in violation of several international laws
now your opinion on the justness Iraq invasion is irrelevant. Whats relevant here is that for good or ill the US still had to follow international protocol and make their case.
they didnt invade just because they want to. they had to convince the world that it was the right thing to do.
international laws matter Chris...thats why were not seeing any concrete actions made by any country in Libya because one misstep and they can give Libya a reason to plead to the international community for protection.
'International Law' is whatever the powerful countries say it is, and if no one else powerful enough cares than it sticks. The international system is fundamentally anarchic, and it's essentially might makes right. If the US says 'Libya is blockaded' and backs it up...whose going to stop them? No one wants to, and so no one will. But when Libya says 'The Gulf of Sidra belongs to us', and the US say "Ummm, no. It doesn't,' then guess what happens? If you need a clue, look up the Gulf of Sidra incidents.... Your view of the international system is an idealistic one, that just like in a nation state there are laws imposed from above....however, the reality of the situation is, unlike in a state, there's no one to enforce those laws, so if people want to ignore them, they can.
ANd your history of the RoC and the PRC is flat out wrong. The RoC was defeated and fled to Taiwan. The United States and other Western powers refused to recognize the PRC as the new government of China, and kept the RoC delegation sitting in the spot labeled 'China' in the UNSC. Later on, in the 1970s, it became politically expedient for the US to ally itself more closely with the PRC, and so switched its recognition to the Beijing government, and gave the PRC China's seat on the UNSC.
As far as both states are concerned, and most of the world is concerned, there are not 'two Chinas' most nations pay lip service to the PRCs claim that it owns Taiwan, because they wish to trade with the PRC, and can't if they recognize Taiwan. However, Taiwan is often looked upon as a seperate entity, and dealt with as such.
The Libyan rebel government has the claim to sovereignty in that they claim to represent the people of Libya. They can also claim internal sovereignty, as most people in Libya recognize them as the new authority, not Gadaffi. Power is transferred, but it does not always have to transfer willingly. In Libya, the power was ripped out of Gadaffi's hands and given to the new government by virtue of the fact that they exist.
As for Iraq...well the US didn't do a very good job of persuading the rest of the world that it was right, did they? The point remained, the US said it was going to invade Iraq, and no one important enough or powerful enough to influence their decision said, 'No you're not.' That's how international relations works. There is no law imposed from above, because there is no power above the state.
taiwan issue: i dont see the diff between what you said and what i said. take it up with me in pm if you want so we can avoid derailing this further
as for : 'International Law' is whatever the powerful countries say it is, and if no one else powerful enough cares than it sticks"
wow. thanks for marginalizing the contributions of every country, every soldier and person who fought for those laws. I believe your own country has numerous contributions to those international laws as well. Nice to know you think that the UK will just roll over and "drop trou" when the US finally decides to be a d!ck.
eesh.
to everyone else:
my stance is NOT pro or anti foreign intervention. My stance is stay out or go all out. I can and may well be wrong but it is an opinion.
what ive been doing thus far though is trying to counter the following damaging mindsets:
The rebels are winning/ will win: cant know for sure until they do. we hope they do
Gaddafi is losing/will lose: cant know for sure till he does. we hope he croaks
Facts: Gaddafi gained power through a military coup and has extensive military experience. Gaddafi has access to the Libyan arsenal which is not insignificant. The Rebels are mainly composed of civilians and have no chain of command as of yet.
No fly zone = Rebels win: cant say for sure. Gaddafis guns, tanks and goons definitely have a say in the matter.
Consider the ff: Guns tanks and goons have killed more people than bombing runs in Libya. No fly zone will only prevent air based offensives. No fly zone means that tanks and troops can move unmolested
Gaddafi is no longer the head of his country: Umm no. Because otherwise his son's presence in the UN will not have any weight if they dont hold the Libyan government. The UN still recognizes Gaddafi as the head of state and the rebels as...well...rebels.
A "good chunk" of the military has defected: whats a good chunk? so far confirmed details give disappointing numbers for a "good chunk"
i guess i make people uncomfortable that im going against the popular "yay rebels!" mindset. Im rooting for them too if youve been reading my posts. Im just not going to let optimism cloud my assessment of the situation.
halonachos wrote:
In relation to the farmers fighting the government, the rebels do have weapons like anti-aircraft but not mush in terms of heavy artillery. They have shot down one or two loyalist bombers already but they need help. Its also important to remember history. Look up the reason for celebrating Cinco De Mayo.
cinco de mayo? the "unlikely" victory of the mexicans against the french? the reason it being remarkable because it came out of left field?
for every underdog victory in history there are dozens of victories brought about superior numbers, positioning, supplies and firepower.
you guys make it sound like winning a war is easy. What legal basis would there be for putting an embargo on Libya? And if you do find one, will every country FOLLOW suit? Just because the US declares embargo doesnt mean Libya cant trade with anyone else.
you cannot tell me the military is leaving gaddafis side just because one or two bombers decided to defect. or a unit. seriously. There are defectors but the actual numbers arent enough to call this cut and dry.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Karon wrote:No, because a No-Fly-Zone is enough. We don't need to do anything else. We don't need to get involved here.
We don't need troops there, we don't need to bomb gaddaffi, we don't need to do anything but take away their single largest advantage.
okay understood that you feel that way. i can respect that
but also respect that taking away the air advantage doesnt mean sure victory. a lot of folks here are acting like thats all it takes.
But why the feth should we care? The U.S. isn't Libya, we are tied up in our own conflicts right now. We can help the rebels, and show them we are on their side (moral booster, big deal)
And, it wouldn't just be us, this would be a U.N. decision to put up a no-fly zone. It would make Gaddaffi (if he isn't completely insane) realize that he is completely alone.
Gaddaffi will lose if a no-fly-zone is erected sooner. Gaddaffi will lose eventually if it isn't. We don't need troops there because this isn't directly effecting us in a serious enough matter that we need to put troops there.
Bakerofish wrote:
as for : 'International Law' is whatever the powerful countries say it is, and if no one else powerful enough cares than it sticks"
wow. thanks for marginalizing the contributions of every country, every soldier and person who fought for those laws. I believe your own country has numerous contributions to those international laws as well. Nice to know you think that the UK will just roll over and "drop trou" when the US finally decides to be a d!ck.
eesh.
It may not be nice, but it's how the International System works. No one fought and died for 'international law' people have fought and died for the 'national interest' or 'national security' or even more simply 'revenge', but no one has ever fought for 'intenrational law'. The closes ever was the Korean War, but even that was more a war for the national interest of the United States and its western allies than for 'international law'.
There really isn't any international law that anybody stands up to. No body is above the individual states as far as IR is concerned, and while they agree on a lot of things (thus creating 'international law'), if the US says 'nah, I don't think so', no one is going to want to or be able to stop them. Look at the Suez Crisis. The UK and France decided they wanted to do something that was ostensibly illegal under your vaunted 'international law'. What stopped them? The US and the Soviet Union (both countries more powerful, and important to their security) saying 'Hey wait a second! You can't do that!' If they hadn't said anything, or had reserved themsels to going. 'Naughty, naughty! ' Then the UK and France would have gottent away with it.
You're an idealist, and while that's respectable, we also have to obey the reality of the world, which is that if you're a powerful enough state, then you can ignore international law until a more powerful/important enough state decides to stand up and get annoyed with you.
Laws have no power beyond the presence of someone to enforce them. A sufficiently powerful and influential country can just run roughshod over them if they so choose, though it's more common that they manipulate them and do other things to try to assuage anyone who's annoyed by their actions.
Qaddafi is an unhinged loon whose own military has deserted him beyond a small core of loyalists. He has already lost most of the country, and cannot win whether he manages to deal with the well armed revolutionaries, a significant portion of which are military deserters, or not, simply because he has made himself into a pariah in the international community. He might have the legal right to the country in such a case, but that won't make anyone deal with him.
Karon wrote:
But why the feth should we care? The U.S. isn't Libya, we are tied up in our own conflicts right now. We can help the rebels, and show them we are on their side (moral booster, big deal)
this has been debated earlier. not adding anything to it now. i do respect that mindset.
Karon wrote:
And, it wouldn't just be us, this would be a U.N. decision to put up a no-fly zone. It would make Gaddaffi (if he isn't completely insane) realize that he is completely alone.
the UN has an army? they dont. they rely on the resources of the member countries to supply the muscle. The UN is not a military organization.
Karon wrote:Gaddaffi will lose if a no-fly-zone is erected sooner. Gaddaffi will lose eventually if it isn't.
you sure about this? or is this something you predict will happen? Predictions have a funny way of going belly up.
Karon wrote:
And, it wouldn't just be us, this would be a U.N. decision to put up a no-fly zone. It would make Gaddaffi (if he isn't completely insane) realize that he is completely alone.
the UN has an army? they dont. they rely on the resources of the member countries to supply the muscle. The UN is not a military organization.
Exactly, so who enforces the UNs decisions? The member nations that have the military muscle to do so. And what happens when they decide they don't want to do what the UN says?
In the words of President Andrew Jackson, "John Marshall [the UN] has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"
If those statements about international law are true my country wouldve been a US annex a long time ago. God knows the US government at the time wanted it that way. I mean they liberated us they should keep what they save right? Nah they let us have our country though the sheer goodness of their heart.
the only reason the US is getting a lot of leeway is that generally speaking the rest of the world benefits from what theyre doing. The moment the US does something that encroaches on a nations rights overtly and puts everyone else in a worse situation then the rest of the world will speak up. Im sure the EU, China and the rest can give the US a good staredown. Dont think the US can just bully everyone they want.
So, if the UN made the decision to put up the No-Fly-Zone, then nobody would be on Gaddaffi's side. I mean, nobody is, but Gaddaffi is half-insane right now, so you would hope he would realize it then.
The Phillippines was a US colony for about 50 years. I know, my entire maternal half of the family still lives in Quezon City. And more importantly, you're ignoring an entire war fought between the United States and the Phillippines to try and keep the Phillippines as an American colony. It was kinda a big deal. The US gave the Phillippines independence not out of the goodness of its heart, but for the simple reason that it was no longer necessary for the US's national interest. Why spend the money keeping a colony, if that colony isn't helping you in anyway?
You're partially right in that the US has a lot of leeway, but they have a lot of leeway in that the EU, China and Russia don't care enough to go through the trouble of strongly protesting what the US does. It's not worth it. If you protest too strongly, you get a war between two great powers, that could lead to a nuclear exchange. No, it's easier to stay silent, or just wag your finger at them.
Look at it this way, during the Cold War, the US intervened all around the world, the rest of the world stayed silent. The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and the rest of the world stayed silent.
You are clearly an idealist, and while this is not bad, your idealism is making you look at the world through rose tinted glasses. Things aren't as simple or as dramatic as you'd like to beleive.
So, if the UN made the decision to put up the No-Fly-Zone, then nobody would be on Gaddaffi's side. I mean, nobody is, but Gaddaffi is half-insane right now, so you would hope he would realize it then.
not all countries are a part of the UN.
@ chris
youre talking about the US colonization after the US-Spanish war. Yes we revolted because we wanted our freedom. what im talking about here is when the US helped us with our Japanese problem. You can be sure that during that time a lot of people had a different mindset about the US colonizing the philippines. However treaties have been made and the rest is history.
youre calling me an idealist as an easy way to dismiss what im saying. Not everyone stays silent when the US commits an error. There are currently tribunals on whether the US owes certain countries dues from War Crimes. Look up Mai Lai, Agent Orange and Abu Ghraib. These cases are being deliberated in an international court and if the US is found guilty then theyre expected to make amends. The process takes YEARS but it doesnt mean that its not happening.
what do you mean the world stayed silent during the cold war? the cold war happened because the soviets didnt like what the us was doing! The US pleaded their cases in international councils to take on Iraq and Afghanistan. look them up.
if international laws arent in place what the heck keeps China (they dont get any bigger folks) from just claiming the spratly's as their own? what keeps them from just expanding as theyve done for millenia and retake a good part of asia? they certainly have the machinery to do so.
international laws enforced by countries that agreed on the laws in the first place.
First of all, the UN has a military force comprised of willing countries. This is similar to the COALITION forces in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, the forces are made up of bits from willing nations.
We don't have to go all in or all out, that's black and white thinking which indicates idealism. There are gray areas that fill the space between the two options. These gray areas being limited military support, this military support usually bites us in the rear end anyways. As for the Phillipines, sorry but you guys were never really an economic necessity for us.
Going all in means an invasion with the full brunt of the US military, now is your country going to aid us in that invasion? The answer is most likely not, the English, Germans, Canadians, and French are most likely to help us in the chance that we do invade Libya. Japan may aid us, but China and Russia will stay out of it.
So in fact you are saying that if the western powers are invading something they should go all in or stay out while avoiding the middle ground that keeps our people alive and does good.
In a final statement, you do realize that the US wasn't 'all-in' so to speak in the Pacific Theater right? There were islands that we completely bypassed because we didn't need them even though the japanese fortified them heavily. We like to take out what needs to be taken out and leave the unnecessary behind.
If we aid the rebels it'll be with air and naval power, we'll say that there's a no fly zone. Ghadafi will challenge us because he's a delusional dingbat and we'll shoot some of his planes out of the sky. His forces will lose moral and the rebels will gain moral.
You're forgetting the most important part of the war and that's the disposition of the enemy. An enemy with low morale is more willing to succumb to surrender or defection, in fact the German commanders would tell their fighters to take out American supply convoys. This wasn't to starve the Americans it was to prevent them from getting letters from their loved ones, care packages, chocolate, and even cake. All of these may not be necessary but they can cause troops to lose hope in their fight and that may be enough to win. Ask any soldier what the most important thing they received while on deployment and they'll most likely say something related to family or something that kept their morale up.
The US helped the Phillippines during WW2 not out of some moral responsibility, but out of military necessity, combined with MacArthur's sense of honor. Nimitz wanted to bypass the Phillippines...no need to waste the material recaptureing the islands when we already had the Marianas as a bomber base. MacArthur managed to make his case, and he went on his little liberation spree.
We have a different definition of staying silent. The world waggingin its finger and saying 'bad [insert country here]' is different from standing up and opposing a nation. The world will always wag its finger at a nation that was doing something they don't like, but it's not easy to do more than that. Note that the US refuses to recognize the ICC.
Yes the Cold War was because the Soviet Union and the US had an ideological conflict, but look at the history books. THe Soviets wagged their fingers at us for Korea and Vietnam, and we wagged our fingers at them for Hungary and Afghanistan. Thats how the system works. It really is almost never worth it to stand up and openly fight another great power.
What keeps the Chinese from taking the Spratleys by military force? Fear. Fear that if they're too agressive they'll spark a war and ruin their own economy. Sure the Spratlys have oil and natural gas, but it's not worth fighting a war with the US over. Deterrence is what keeps them from expanding. They very well good declare that they're going to take over SIberia, Japan, Korea and all of Asia....and then the US, Russia and India would retaliate. The balance of power is what keeps them in check, not international law.
And its enforced by countries that agreed on the law...so what happens when the enforcers decide that its in their interests to break the law? Who watches the watchers? In IR terms...no body.
the "all in" stance is an opinion. disagreeing with it is all well and good. i note your other points as well. as far as the philippines not being an economic necessity *shrugs* does everything have to be about economics? and my country has expressed willingness to help in Libya. We have a few of our civilian people trapped there.
what irks me is the "sure win" attitude when the reality of the situation still leaves it up in the air.
@chris
youre ignoring my point. my point here is that the US liberated the Philippines and if it were not for international considerations, were well in their power to keep us as a colony. The philippines was in no mind set and position to resist as vigorously as we did in the earlier war. there would be no reason to let us go. there are several strategic reasons to keep the philippines. there are several economic reasons as well.
the concept of checks and balances ensure the application of international law. one super power's agenda is not going to concide with the others. Do you think the US isnt afraid of going against other countries too? International law was put in place to keep the big guys from killing each other and trampling the little guys underfoot
if it wasnt for international law there wouldnt be a diplomatic way of settling disputes. *rubs forehead* everyone would be at war. its not all about military might. international law allows for talks and agreements to be made without resorting to bombs.
this isnt idealism. the laws are there. whether you think they work or not is irrelevant.
No, even without international law, deterrence would still work. People are afraid of war now...especially with the consequences a nuclear exchange between great powers could have for the whole world. International law as you describe it does not exist. Big countries don't murder each other, because they fear the retaliation they would garner in return. Smaller nations either slip beneatht the radar completely, band together to form alliances that can hold off a superpower, or they DO get crushed by the bigger powers. Case in point, Hungary, Poland, Czechslovakia, Panama, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice)...need I go on?
International law didn't lead to diplomacy, diplomacy led to a generally accepted standard that became known as international law. Peace is not kept by law, but by fear of what would happen if we weren't at peace.
tl;dr: International Law as you describe it does not exist. Peace is kept through the Balance of Terror/Power that would be created if there was international law or not.
ChrisWWII wrote:No, even without international law, deterrence would still work. People are afraid of war now...especially with the consequences a nuclear exchange between great powers could have for the whole world. International law as you describe it does not exist. Big countries don't murder each other, because they fear the retaliation they would garner in return. Smaller nations either slip beneatht the radar completely, band together to form alliances that can hold off a superpower, or they DO get crushed by the bigger powers. Case in point, Hungary, Poland, Czechslovakia, Panama, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice)...need I go on?
International law didn't lead to diplomacy, diplomacy led to a generally accepted standard that became known as international law. Peace is not kept by law, but by fear of what would happen if we weren't at peace.
tl;dr: International Law as you describe it does not exist. Peace is kept through the Balance of Terror/Power that would be created if there was international law or not.
ah i get it now. youre mixing opinion with fact so ill drop the topic as i know now i cant convince you otherwise.
your mindset was pretty prevalent during the Reagan era btw.
The Balance of Power is considered a factual thing, not just an opinion. MAD is widely accepted as a defining thing of the Cold War, so I don't know where your opinion claim is coming from.
Are you a 'baker of ish', and if so is 'ish' some kind of bread product? Or are you a 'baker o fish', where 'o' implies some kind of jolly colloquialism, much like McDonald's famous 'fillet o fish' burger?
Inquring minds need to know.
I agree with you on internation law, by the way. Or at least I agree with you in that there's more to it than simply the force of might, simply because the leaders of nations don't consider themselves amoral forces desiring to that take whatever they can, held back only by the threat of retaliation.
If there is nothing solid to force someone into acting in a fair or just manner, there is no guarantee that they will do so. Especially not when you're talking about the kind of person that ends up in power in the first place. There is more to geopolitics than brute force, though. Even if you're on the top, it's not smart to openly run roughshod over established conventions, because it makes the whole game of diplomacy harder if everyone hates and mistrusts you. So the big players ignore what they want to, when they can't force the law to be what they want in the first place, while their diplomats scramble to assuage the concerns of anyone who might be a problem, if for no other reason than resorting to violence is expensive and unpopular.
I would say it's nothing near that black and white. No, the leaders of nations are not amoral arses trying to gain whatever they can, only held back by the threat of force. They are intelligent human beings (or so we hope). My point in arguing with bakerofish was that he was being too idealistic with his interpretation of international law.
Namely, that there is no such thing as international law. There are a series of conventions and treaties that most nations have signed to ang agreed to, and most of them follow those conventions fairly well. However, there is no true 'enforcement mechanism' for these conventions, especially if your one of the countries the world turns to to be an enforcer in the first place. Is there some kind of international law? Yes. But is it anywhere near as binding as the laws that exist within states? Not at all.
Remember, the argument that led to this tangent was that the world couldn't recognize the rebel government in Benghazi as the government of Libya because Gadaffi is still in charge under 'international law'. My point was that, it doesn't matter what the law says, if the world recognizes the Beenghazi government, then they're the ones in charge, no matter what Gadaffi says or claims.
youre talking like there arent other ways to make the big boys dance. The Saudis and Switzerland, while not being military powers on their own have been making the superpowers dance their tune
Singapore and the Vatican hold a considerable amount of clout. amazing since these countries are smaller than most major cities.
and believe it or not, goodwill is a valid reason for laws to be enforced. otherwise the Red Cross and Unicef would be paddling uphill moreso than they already are.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @chris
your error here is that youre thinking the will of the people of a nation decides who should be in power. even if the rebels become the defacto leaders of Libya, if Gaddafi is still alive and still holds the military theres no reason to recognize the rebels as other than being rebels. to do so gives logical reason for every rebel group to start declaring ownership of their respective territories and demanding sovereignity.
you claim i see things black and white when you refuse to see how youre simplifying the process of being a recognized country to a dangerous level. Heck if your idea of being recognized as your own government is true, the red states can declare cecession from the United States right now if they wanted to. It would also be easy for Ireland to seperate themselves from UK as well.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:If there is nothing solid to force someone into acting in a fair or just manner, there is no guarantee that they will do so. Especially not when you're talking about the kind of person that ends up in power in the first place. There is more to geopolitics than brute force, though. Even if you're on the top, it's not smart to openly run roughshod over established conventions, because it makes the whole game of diplomacy harder if everyone hates and mistrusts you. So the big players ignore what they want to, when they can't force the law to be what they want in the first place, while their diplomats scramble to assuage the concerns of anyone who might be a problem, if for no other reason than resorting to violence is expensive and unpopular.
Yes, there are consqeuences for breaching international law even if they are unlikely to be direct action. More than that, though, there are the limits we place on ourselves, because we want to see ourselves as good people. Even power hungry do this (at least most of them do).
youre talking like there arent other ways to make the big boys dance. The Saudis and Switzerland, while not being military powers on their own have been making the superpowers dance their tune
Saudi Arabia only exists as it is because the rulers play nice for the west (read: only "secretly" back violent opposition to their interests, while keeping oil flowing) in exchange for not having been deposed and replaced by someone more palatable, and Switzerland is only allowed to openly facilitate tax evasion because enough people in power rely on it in order to evade taxes. Neither holds any sway over global geopolitics.
Singapore and the Vatican hold a considerable amount of clout. amazing since these countries are smaller than most major cities.
No, they don't. Singapore is a regional power, but irrelevant on the global scale, and the Vatican only holds a small degree of PR power over largely irrelevant countries.
and believe it or not, goodwill is a valid reason for laws to be enforced. otherwise the Red Cross and Unicef would be paddling uphill moreso than they already are.
Right, diplomacy and PR, etc. Both of which are also great ways to change laws to be what you want them to be, or to convince no one to care/convince them that you're "totally not breaking them" when you break them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sebster wrote:
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:If there is nothing solid to force someone into acting in a fair or just manner, there is no guarantee that they will do so. Especially not when you're talking about the kind of person that ends up in power in the first place. There is more to geopolitics than brute force, though. Even if you're on the top, it's not smart to openly run roughshod over established conventions, because it makes the whole game of diplomacy harder if everyone hates and mistrusts you. So the big players ignore what they want to, when they can't force the law to be what they want in the first place, while their diplomats scramble to assuage the concerns of anyone who might be a problem, if for no other reason than resorting to violence is expensive and unpopular.
Yes, there are consqeuences for breaching international law even if they are unlikely to be direct action. More than that, though, there are the limits we place on ourselves, because we want to see ourselves as good people. Even power hungry do this (at least most of them do).
It's not just a matter of being power hungry. A country has a responsibility to protect its citizens and advance their interests. Even if that means breaking international laws when they can get away with it. If the US government were, say, to illegally pressure another country into releasing an American citizen who was on trial, or set to be on trial, for some crime, the diplomats involved in such a crime wouldn't be acting out of greed, but out of their responsibility to protect American citizens, nor would either they or the US face any penalty beyond a few publicity hungry pundits or minor politicians complaining about it to get mentioned on the news.
you sure you know what youre talking about? you know Saudi is where the Hajj is right? ya know...Mecca? not every country will fight for oil...but yeah im sure a good number of folks will fight to keep Mecca safe.
Switzerland has non neutral countries pledging to defend its neutrality
singapore is a regional power yes thats true but thats still power. singapore is a hub for sea based trading. Cripple that and a lot of commodities even in the west will go up.
Vatican has small degree of pr? really? you really want me to name every country that will raise hell if the vatican is threatend? Spain, Italy, Columbia, Argentina etc etc?
you sure you know what youre talking about? you know Saudi is where the Hajj is right? ya know...Mecca? not every country will fight for oil...but yeah im sure a good number of folks will fight to keep Mecca safe.
Most of those same people would absolutely love to see it out of the hands of the Saudi royal family though.
Switzerland has non neutral countries pledging to defend its neutrality
Which doesn't translate into being able to greatly influence geopolitics.
singapore is a regional power yes thats true but thats still power. singapore is a hub for sea based trading. Cripple that and a lot of commodities even in the west will go up.
And what's it going to do if it doesn't like how things are going? Shut down its port? Then it goes from "important" to "an aircraft carrier parked nearby telling it 'no, you're not allowed to do that'" in the blink of an eye.
Vatican has small degree of pr? really? you really want me to name every country that will raise hell if the vatican is threatend? Spain, Italy, Columbia, Argentina etc etc?
Sure, there are people who would complain and riot if someone actually attacked it, but it doesn't hold actual power over anyone important outside its borders.
You're confusing the intangibility of laws with "anyone with power can go axe crazy and no one will care." International laws can be broken without consequence by anyone with the ability to make anyone else important either not care enough to engage in a conflict of any sort beyond words (which is invariably expensive, regardless of the manner, be it military or economic), decide that the action in question isn't actually a breach of the law (regardless of whether it blatantly is or not), or agree that they should go ahead and break the law. That's a combination of military and economic power, diplomatic leverage, and PR. The same things that generally form international law in the first place.
your error here is that youre thinking the will of the people of a nation decides who should be in power. even if the rebels become the defacto leaders of Libya, if Gaddafi is still alive and still holds the military theres no reason to recognize the rebels as other than being rebels. to do so gives logical reason for every rebel group to start declaring ownership of their respective territories and demanding sovereignity.
you claim i see things black and white when you refuse to see how youre simplifying the process of being a recognized country to a dangerous level. Heck if your idea of being recognized as your own government is true, the red states can declare cecession from the United States right now if they wanted to. It would also be easy for Ireland to seperate themselves from UK as well.
Isn't that what democracy is all about? That the will of the people equals who's in charge? Now, I may not like democracy, but the political stance of the West is that democracy is a good thing. I really don't get where you're going with this argument....rebels have been declaring themselve sovereign from larger states for a long time, look at Chechnya, look at Tibet. The Balkans. They're already doing this, so recognizing the true leaders of Libya isn't going to change anything.
Being recognized as a country is a simple thing. You need internal sovereignty, external sovereignty and that's about it....the rebels hold internal sovereignty, and are asking for external sovereignty. Why shouldn't we give it to them? Yes, the red states could secede, and yes Ireland could break away. But even if they did...they wouldn't get recognized, they'd get invaded by their owning power and dragged kicking and screaming back into the fold of the greater state if they had to. That's what Gadaffi is trying, and failing to do.
my problem here is your US centric world view. claiming that countries are "insignificant" just because it doesnt affect the US directly is foolish.
just because they cant affect you directly doesnt mean that the US or any other big country cant be hurt.
you think the US wont be unscathed if they marginalize Saudi in any way? this isnt politics were talking about here man. no matter what political reason you have if you threaten the Hajj in any way prepare for repercussions.
how many votes will be lost just because a religious leader calls for a certain action?
shut down one port of trade and everything gets affected. Not all cargo ships go to the US directlty from country of origin. Most intercontinental cargo liners have a stop in singapore for refuel and loading.
lol and your comment on switzerland not being a geopolitical force is hilarious. its a good thing theyre actively neutral because they can turn the world on its head if they decided to side with one movement or another. theyre actively NOT participating because they have a great advantage: they have everyone's fricking money!
the US isnt invincible. heck the US has been dancing to the tune of many "lesser" countries for a long time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Chris
youre assuming that democracy is a given. Not all UN countries follow a democracy and the UN's responsibility is to safe guard a country's sovereignity.
Why shouldn't we give it to them? Yes, the red states could secede, and yes Ireland could break away
why havent they if creating your country was easy? The IRA definitely tried to gain their independence. how about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front? They had "de facto" control of the southern islands of the Philippines for a while.
But even if they did...they wouldn't get recognized, they'd get invaded by their owning power and dragged kicking and screaming back into the fold of the greater state if they had to
lol why wouldnt they if like you say creating your country is a simple thing?
'Ireland' is typically used to refer to the Republic of Ireland, whereas Ulster, which is part of the UK, is normally just called Northern Ireland. NI will never declare independence from the rest of the UK, as it is overwhelmingly protestant, and most importantly, loyalist. That was why it was partitioned.
youre assuming that democracy is a given. Not all UN countries follow a democracy and the UN's responsibility is to safe guard a country's sovereignity.
why havent they if creating your country was easy? The IRA definitely tried to gain their independence. how about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front? They had "de facto" control of the southern islands of the Philippines for a while.
lol why wouldnt they if like you say creating your country is a simple thing?
cuz its not that simple.
am i the idealistic one here?
The UN has traditionally supported the will of the people as the defining characteristic, and tends to frown upon violent supression of them. By your logic, the UN should be helping Gadaffi, as he has legal control of the country, and supporting him is 'upholding the country's sovereignty'. Ths UN makes no such claim.
Because, like I said, it'd be a pointless attempt, and they'd be dragged kicking and screaming back into the greater state. They know this, and they know the world would never recognize them if they did so. The MILF (alright everyone, get your snickering out of the way. ) and other such terrorist organizations know that they have no legitimacy as far as the world is concerned. The difference between them and the Libyan rebels is that the Libyan rebels have a claim to legitimacy and actual recognition by the rest of the world.
While the process seems simple on paper, it's much more complex when you actually try to put it into process. Do your research, it's simple enough to declare yourself a country, but its hard to get recognized as a country.
The US not having a sure win victory over the Libyan air force is like saying that Mike Tyson doesn't have a sure chance of beating a three year old child.
They use older technology and I doubt that they have the level of training our aviators receive. We also have airbases in the area from which we can deploy better fighters if need be(the F-22) but I think that the F-18 Super Hornet can handle the Mirages that the Libyans bought some time in the 80's or so.
I would dare to say that the only threat of casualties we have stems from pilot error.
no ones saying that the US isnt going to claim air superiority. thats a given. pay attention. what weve been saying is if the Rebels can win on the ground.
@chris
you say this:
"While the process seems simple on paper, it's much more complex when you actually try to put it into process. Do your research, it's simple enough to declare yourself a country, but its hard to get recognized as a country"
after saying this:
"Being recognized as a country is a simple thing. You need internal sovereignty, external sovereignty and that's about it"
pick one. cant have both. youre not helping your case. before you claim that i do my research go do your own and stop tripping over yourself.
and yes, if Gaddafi claims that any of the other countries overstep and trample on his sovereignity he CAN invoke his rights and get a trial going. Thats why no country is jumping in willy nilly. Thats what the UN is for, to give countries a fair venue to plead their case in front of an international community.
@melissia
yep im saying that now. When the bombings happened in your earlier vid Gaddafis son was at UN saying there were no orders made to do so. This sinks his claim nicely
Yes I can. It's simple on paper, you need external sovereignty and internal sovereingty, and that's it. However getting both those things are extremely hard to get in practice. There is no contradiction there.
what irks me is the "sure win" attitude when the reality of the situation still leaves it up in the air.
Sorry, but this point was very vague as to who was going to win which is why I responded the way I did.
See how it goes and prescribe different doses when the time comes is what I say, there's no reason to chop off someone's hand to get rid of the sixth finger.
It's hard, but it's simple. There is no contradiction between those words, there are lot of simple things that are easy, but there are also a lot of simple things that are hard. If I told you to go around, and wash every single car in Manila, it'd be simple no? Washing a car is a simple thing, and anyone can do it. However, it is a hard thing to do as well, simply because there are so many cars.
Likewise, while it is simple enough to become a country, you just need internal and external sovereignty, it is hard to get such sovereignty.
=Thinka about it= Nah, I don't think I will stop. This is far too much fun. Glad to know you've resorted to pretending you've won though.
And yes, all the world needs to do is recognize the government in Benghazi, and that's that. The fact that British SAS troops were sent to Benghazi seems to imply this is the direction the West intends to take.
i lost. i lost a ton of time arguing with you. i sincerly thought id learn something from you but then you come up with this "non contradiction" out of left field
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports Libyan leader wants rebels to drop demands to try him in international court, guarantee his security as well as that of his family and funds in exchange for his departure from country
Roee Nahmias Published: 03.07.11, 09:45 / Israel News
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will resign and leave the country on condition that he and his family receive guarantees they will not be harmed, the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Monday. No official confirmation has been given.
The report cites "reliable" Libyan sources in Benghazi as saying that Gaddafi vowed to announce his resignation and the transfer of authority to rebels in Benghazi before his parliament if his security, his family's security, and his funds are preserved.
Rebels mobilizing in Benghazi (Photo: Tsur Shezaf)
Gaddafi also wants rebels to help him leave the country for the destination of his choice, and to relinquish their demand to try him in international courts for crimes against humanity, the report says.
The sources added that preparations for Gaddafi's departure had already begun, among them the spreading of a rumor that he had had a stroke.
"There has so far been no official response to Gaddafi's proposal, negative or positive," the paper was told. However, the sources hinted that rebels would not consider any negotiations with the Libyan leader.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi told France 24 in an interview that Paris and al-Qaeda were becoming involved in his country's internal affairs.
He added that "armed extremists" were plotting against his regime. "Al-Qaeda has a plan," he said. "I think it is trying to take advantage of the situation in Tunisia and Egypt, in which hundreds of people were killed on the sides of the police and the rebels."
Gaddafi also included himself in the "fight against terror" conducted by the West. "The ones holding weapons in Benghazi are al-Qaeda men without political or financial demands. If the terrorists achieve victory, they will not support democracy," he said.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @halo sorry but i thought the exchanges me and chris had spelled that out.
a lot of the folks here think the rebels have this in the bag
Yes, but you were addressing a point that I was making, not anyone else. If you want to address my points in vague terms and then say that I should've paid attention to the argument you were having with another person then you sir have made an error.
Your position of 'all in or all out' is idealistic which in turn is incredibly unrealistic. Life itself is not black and white and neither is the matter of war. There is a saying about the best laid plans not surviving the battlefield. If you want to argue on the fact that your position is not idealistic then you will need to address me and if you make any vague remarks you can't just say that I should look at arguments made by others instead of not taking the time to explain your point fully.
I can almost guarantee that your reply to this will include something of a personal attack along the lines of "its not my fault you didn't read".
chill. i already acknowledged that my "all in or nothing" is an opinion and mine alone. im not imposing that on anyone
what i took issue to was the assumption that the rebels will win the war of a no fly zone is established despite other legitimate threats the Lbyan Military still has. it aint as clear cut as that.
i lost. i lost a ton of time arguing with you. i sincerly thought id learn something from you but then you come up with this "non contradiction" out of left field
i feel really stupid.
thank you.
Explain how saying something is at the same time simple and hard is a contradiction?
thats not how it works. they just cant "decide" how things will be.
getting recognized as a country is a lot more involved than you think. Heck, Taiwan for the longest time is still technically not a country even if it has its own government independent of China.
claiming a country isnt as simple as stabbing a flag into the ground and proclaiming "mine!". things have changed since Magellan.
Yes they can. For a while the US recognized Taiwan as the government of all of China, and refused to recognize the PRC. Some states refuse to recognize existence of the State of Israel. Even then, all these situations are subservient to who has de facto control of anything. Right now, the Libyan rebels have de facto control of the country. If we recognize them as the new government of Libya, then they are the new government of Libya. They have internal recognition of their control by most of the country, and if granted externatl recognition they'd have the qualities to make them a new state.
Point it, we don't have to follow any legal procedures to oust Gadaffi. We didn't have to follow legal procedures to oust Sadaam or the Taliban, we simply changed the situation on the ground, and recognized the new government we installed.
bolded text. I said it first. getting recognized isnt easy.
you countered my points.
so am i to understand that you were agreeing with me the whole time??
You are half right, it is a hard process, but I'm not saying they're stabbing a flag in the ground and declared it theirs. They wrested control of the nation from the existing governmetn. Our bone of contention is that you say they had no right to do that as long as Gadaffi is still in power, while I say they have every right to do that, and all that's stopping them from being the government of LIbya is international recognition of the new situation on the ground.
one of the obstacles that the rebels have in geting recognized is that Gaddafi is STILL the recognized head of Libya. he has not stepped down. They have NO legal right to declare themselves government because if they did... WE WOULDNT BE CALLING THEM REBELS.
I quote:
"Plus, to give such military action international legitimacy, would require new authorization from the U.N. Security Council. There is some concern that Russia and China, each of which has the power to veto any Security Council resolution, would be skeptical of authorizing military action."
the military action being referred to here is the no fly zone.
why would russia and china veto a military action? one reason is if it encroaches illegally on a country's sovereignity.
but wait....the US doesnt have to follow laws just cuz Russia and China says so. right? i mean the US can flaunt international law right?
ChrisWWII wrote:There really isn't any international law that anybody stands up to.
... your next statement better be a paradigm shattering political statement of epic proportions to dig yourself out of your hole.
I'm going to repeat it again, they have every right to declare themselves the government. By your logic, we should be protecting Gadaffi and helping him preserve his nations sovereignty. The fundamental idea about a government is that it represents the people, and the people of Libya have said Gadaffi no longer speaks for them, the new government in Benghazi does. All the world has to do is recognize the Benghazi government as the new government, and its done.
Us calling them rebels is merely a term we find easy to use...the fact we're calling them rebels means nothing. We could just as easily be calling them 'Anti-Gadaffi Protestors' which would be more accurate, but it's not as easy to say.
Edit: By the way, you say that 'Gadaffi is the recognized head of Libya', so I propose to you, what's stopping the world from saying 'Nah, we don't consider him the head of Libya anymore. We're going to talk to Benghazi for our dealings with Libya now'? The answer....absolutely nothing.
chill. i already acknowledged that my "all in or nothing" is an opinion and mine alone. im not imposing that on anyone
what i took issue to was the assumption that the rebels will win the war of a no fly zone is established despite other legitimate threats the Lbyan Military still has. it aint as clear cut as that.
thats all.
The assumption really isn't an assumption, the reason why the rebels are being held back is because of the air power Ghadafi has left. Both sides have fighting forces, both have supplies, and both have weapons. However, Ghadafi has an air force so removing it would be equalizing them. If we need to take out his radar installations ot establish the no fly zone then that doesn't just mean his air power was reduced, but his overall military power was reduced. If we have to take out communications, its the same deal.
So a no-fly zone would:
1) Almost equalize the forces.
2) Boost rebel morale while reducing the Loyalist morale.
3) Diminish the effectiveness of Ghadafi's military overall.
Bakerofish wrote:They have NO legal right to declare themselves government because if they did... WE WOULDNT BE CALLING THEM REBELS.
What is it exactly that gives someone the legal right to declare themselves the government?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also did everyone just go wall-of-text at my last post, or has it been disconfirmed, or what? Inquiring minds want to know!
halonachos wrote:
1) Almost equalize the forces.
2) Boost rebel morale while reducing the Loyalist morale.
3) Diminish the effectiveness of Ghadafi's military overall.
if its not an assumption then what is it? a foregone conclusion? your points also have to be tempered by the facts i discussed earlier. Rebels mainly made up of civilians. Supplies. Arms. Position. Numbers. City fighting.
@warboss
looks to be a hoax...am monitoring it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Bakerofish wrote:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Bakerofish wrote:They have NO legal right to declare themselves government because if they did... WE WOULDNT BE CALLING THEM REBELS.
What is it exactly that gives someone the legal right to declare themselves the government?
lots. transfer of power, abdication. a successfull cecession. power vaccuum.
but its definitely not as easy as "the world says so" because then holding on to power loses meaning
What is it that constitutes power?
this is a question that has been asked through the ages man and not something this thread can contaibn alone. some people say divine right. some people say economics. some people site law. some people site might.
people get their masters degree trying to answer this question
Okay then Baker, if you want to look at that information then what about the fact that civilians have already shot down two or so bombers and have held back Ghadafi's land forces. If the rebels were so bad off then I would guess that they would've lost by now, but they're still there taking land held by those armed forces. Rebels living in those cities know those cities better than mercenaries from foreign countries(look at the Hessians in the Revolutionary war), both sides have the supplies necessary and each time Ghadafi blows up a depot remember that those were his depots to begin with so he's losing supplies either way. Their weapons are similar because they're taking the weapons from the military's depots.
Bakerofish wrote:this is a question that has been asked through the ages man and not something this thread can contaibn alone. some people say divine right. some people say economics. some people site law. some people site might.
people get their masters degree trying to answer this question
Alright then, what is it that constitutes power in Libya? Is it control of the oil? Is it control of a majority of the country?
Moderator note: Although we recognize that sexiest_hero does not actually hate Obama and is mostly just angry because he feels betrayed, we have edited the thread title to something less inflammatory.
While it has been allowed to stand for a while, we have considered that in retrospect, if someone who DOES hate Obama had used this thread title as a trolling post, it would have been locked or edited long ago, and it is inappropriate and inconsistent to let the title stand just because we know sexiest_hero is not actually trying to troll. Thank you. -Mannahnin
Yeah I was upset About the whole deal, I don't hate the Big O (I voted for him, and canvased pretty hard). But I do feel he lets things get way out of hand before dealing with it. I do belive this could have been avoided before a complete civil war, that just gives Oil companies a reason to jack up prices at record speed. I do feel that if we don't support protesters being killed before the gak hits the fan, we'll find many of the countries that emerge very hostile. O feel we either (A) help to make sure transfers of power are as bloodless as possible, or (B) deal with a new power full of hardened civil war vets who may have gotten aid from terrorist networks after the west turned them down. Sorry mods :(.
I wouldn't consider Obama's position on Libya weak, I would consider it indifferent. Not by his words, but by his actions (or lack thereof). It took 9 days for him to say anything about it. Which leads me to believe that he's more concerned about his re-election right now and it putting every one his actions or words through a political expedience filter to repair his image.
As for Libya, the rebels need to win on their own. We've got too much going on right now. I would like to see us help them, but I won't be holding my breath.
@halo
ill call those victories awesomesauce because they are. cant take that away. however the war isnt over and taking a capital is different. The core of Gaddafi's army remains. to assume that victory is imminent is asking for it.
Gaddafi might be feinting. Call the war a victory when its over. if the rebels gain Tripoli i will call it a done deal.
@warboss
right now what constitutes power in Libya is up in the air. hence the conflict. Obviously control of the geography and military might is being used to jockey for that power. right now Gaddafi is still retaining his title and the capitol. The rebels are contesting his claim.
right now what constitutes power in Libya is up in the air. hence the conflict. Obviously control of the geography and military might is being used to jockey for that power. right now Gaddafi is still retaining his title and the capitol. The rebels are contesting his claim.
who folds first gives power to the victor.
And if the rest of the world decides to just ignore Gaddaffi and deal directly with the rebels (in part because Gaddaffi can no longer deliver oil and such, he no longer has the power to do so)? If they enforce the no-fly-zone, which would mean that gaddaffi has no ability to meaningfully project force beyond tripoli?
If that happens, and Gaddaffi can't make decisions about anywhere further than he can throw a stone, does that not mean that he's no longer the de facto ruler of the country? That he is no longer in power, so to speak, without abdicating, and without being eradicated?
Which is exactly the position I've been holidng, but bakerofish insists that without some kind of legal procedure, Gadaffi is still in charge, and it doesn't matter what the de facto situation is.
right now what constitutes power in Libya is up in the air. hence the conflict. Obviously control of the geography and military might is being used to jockey for that power. right now Gaddafi is still retaining his title and the capitol. The rebels are contesting his claim.
who folds first gives power to the victor.
And if the rest of the world decides to just ignore Gaddaffi and deal directly with the rebels (in part because Gaddaffi can no longer deliver oil and such, he no longer has the power to do so)? If they enforce the no-fly-zone, which would mean that gaddaffi has no ability to meaningfully project force beyond tripoli?
If that happens, and Gaddaffi can't make decisions about anywhere further than he can throw a stone, does that not mean that he's no longer the de facto ruler of the country? That he is no longer in power, so to speak, without abdicating, and without being eradicated?
see youre assuming the world can just decide to just ignore Gaddafi's claim to govern. to do so means that youll be ignoring the very laws and rights you put for the greater good in the first place.
if all it takes is a UN vote to depose a head of state, Bush Sr and Jr wouldve been on the hotbox several times. If all it takes is a military advantage to control a country then a lot of Warlords in Africa wouldve had legitimate claim for power.
The current assumption of the international system is that power flows from the people. Whoever represents the people has the rightful claim to power.
The world can choose to ignore Gadaffi all they want, there is no law that says we have to recognize him as the leader of Libya. If there is one, please name it for me and give me a direct citation for where it is, who enforces it...I doubt you'll find one.
ChrisWWII wrote:The current assumption of the international system is that power flows from the people. Whoever represents the people has the rightful claim to power.
The world can choose to ignore Gadaffi all they want, there is no law that says we have to recognize him as the leader of Libya. If there is one, please name it for me and give me a direct citation for where it is, who enforces it...I doubt you'll find one.
It is? What planet are you on? Whoever has the gun rules in most countries.
I'm talking ideally, what most people WANT the system to be like. Yeah, de facto whoever has the bigger/more guns makes the rules, but ideallly, especially with Western democracies, the 'righhtful' government of the country is the one that represents the will of the people.
right now what constitutes power in Libya is up in the air. hence the conflict. Obviously control of the geography and military might is being used to jockey for that power. right now Gaddafi is still retaining his title and the capitol. The rebels are contesting his claim.
who folds first gives power to the victor.
And if the rest of the world decides to just ignore Gaddaffi and deal directly with the rebels (in part because Gaddaffi can no longer deliver oil and such, he no longer has the power to do so)? If they enforce the no-fly-zone, which would mean that gaddaffi has no ability to meaningfully project force beyond tripoli?
If that happens, and Gaddaffi can't make decisions about anywhere further than he can throw a stone, does that not mean that he's no longer the de facto ruler of the country? That he is no longer in power, so to speak, without abdicating, and without being eradicated?
see youre assuming the world can just decide to just ignore Gaddafi's claim to govern.
If he has no ability to govern, why should it be given any attention?
Bakerofish wrote: to do so means that youll be ignoring the very laws and rights you put for the greater good in the first place.
What laws and rights? Could you name one?
Bakerofish wrote:if all it takes is a UN vote to depose a head of state, Bush Sr and Jr wouldve been on the hotbox several times. If all it takes is a military advantage to control a country then a lot of Warlords in Africa wouldve had legitimate claim for power.
These things in isolation would not have been enough to depose (or install) a head of state, you're correct.
But let's say that midway through Bush jr's second term that the military defected to Al Gore and Bush had control of DC and Maryland and nothing else.
If Gore had the people behind him, in this scenario, and had de facto control over the country, why would it be out of the realm of possibility that he be recognised as the ruler of America?
ChrisWWII wrote:I'm talking ideally, what most people WANT the system to be like. Yeah, de facto whoever has the bigger/more guns makes the rules, but ideallly, especially with Western democracies, the 'righhtful' government of the country is the one that represents the will of the people.
That's the way I've been thought, and from the Western democratic point of view, power flows from the people to the government. There is a Locke style 'contract' between the people and the government. That is how Western democracies judge 'rightful government' and why they tend to protest a lot when someone is being opressive.
Unless of course the opressor is too important or powerful for them to stare down, and they settle for finger wagging.
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. 2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. 5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.
Bakerofish wrote:@halo
ill call those victories awesomesauce because they are. cant take that away. however the war isnt over and taking a capital is different. The core of Gaddafi's army remains. to assume that victory is imminent is asking for it.
Gaddafi might be feinting. Call the war a victory when its over. if the rebels gain Tripoli i will call it a done deal.
But what if Ghadafi has a secret military base somewhere else in the country? Then the battle isn't over despite the fact that the rebels took Tripoli. Ghadafi isn't feigning any secret army, he's a moron who thought that not rebuilding the house we bombed back in the 80's would be an act of defiance against the americans. He said that there was a 'kill line' in international waters and that anyone who crossed it would perish, we shot down a couple of his fighters. He has a bunch of empty threats up his sleeves maybe, but that's it.
youre conveniently ignoring the items i put in bold. read #7 again.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.
Right, right. The UN isn't intervening in the internal affairs of Libya by saying who they're willing to deal with on an international level, though.
The UN would be well within its rights to say that it recognises the rebel government as the government that represents the people. They wouldn't be wrong, either; the rebels control the vast majority of the country, and with it, the majority of the population, (though I may be wrong on that).
From the wikipedia which is not the most reliable source when it comes to academic fine detail, but it's usually a good source for undisputed data such as why the sky appears blue or Africa is FUBAR.
Chronological List of 21st century wars in Africa
21st Century
2001–present War on Terrorism
1997–present Islamic Terrorism in Egypt
2002–present Islamic insurgency in the Maghreb
2002–present Operation Enduring Freedom - Horn of Africa 2006 Rise of the Islamic Courts Union
2006 - 2009 Ethiopian War in Somalia
2007 - today Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara
2009 - today Islamist civil war in Somalia
2009 - today Taliban insurgency in Nigeria 2001 - 2003 Central African Republic civil war
2002 - 2003 Ivorian Civil War
2003–present War in Darfur 2004 2004 French-Ivorian clashes
2004 - today Conflict in the Niger Delta
2004–present Central African Republic Bush War
2004–present Kivu conflict
2005–present Civil War in Chad 2005 - 2008 Mount Elgon insurgency
2007–present Second Tuareg Rebellion 2007 - 2008 Kenyan crisis
2008 Invasion of Anjouan
2008 Djiboutian-Eritrean border conflict
2009 Israeli bombing of Sudan
There were 13 active conflicts/wars in Africa before the recent meltdown in Libya, which will make 14 current wars/conflicts going on in Africa, 3 of which are current US military campaigns. If not getting involved in African wars such as Libya is a sign of weakness then we should be involved in every single on of the conflicts I just listed, many of which have much more of a direct national security interest to the USA.
Just because Obama doesn't want to involve the USA in an African civil war doesn't mean it's a sign or weakness or the wrong thing to do. Obama puts his underwear on before he puts his pants on, and Obama puts his socks on before he puts his shoes on. Just because Obama does or doesn't do something doesn't make it inherently wrong. There is a lot of things Obama does that I really disagree with, but you don't see me walking around with my underwear over my pants and my socks over my shoes to spite Obama.
Let's also bear in mind that the UN charter is not law, but rather an agreement between nations. It's got as much backing it as the old League of Nations did...well, a bit more, but Clause 4 didn't stop us in Iraq or Afghanistan did it?
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:The UN would be well within its rights to say that it recognises the rebel government as the government that represents the people. They wouldn't be wrong, either; the rebels control the vast majority of the country, and with it, the majority of the population, (though I may be wrong on that).
no they cant because of #1
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
If youre saying that a collective of nations can take away your nations sovereignity by vote then youre going against what the UN stands for.
@chris
LAW–noun
1. the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.
2. any written or positive rule or collection of rules prescribed under the authority of the state or nation, as by the people in its constitution. Compare bylaw, statute law.
3. the controlling influence of such rules; the condition of society brought about by their observance: maintaining law and order.
4. a system or collection of such rules.
Charter–noun
1. a document, issued by a sovereign or state, outlining the conditions under which a corporation, colony, city, or other corporate body is organized, and defining its rights and privileges.
2. ( often initial capital letter ) a document defining the formal organization of a corporate body; constitution: the Charter of the United Nations.
And the UN isn't a sovereing body, so its charter just defines how the organization works. Fair enough. It does not govern the ways nations interact. Nations can intereact without the United Nations.
If the UN Charter was strictly enforced by all its memebers than Iraq wouldn't have happened. Hungary and Czechslovakia wouldn't have happened. The Suez Crisis wouldn't have happened. The UN Charter is enforced when it is convenient for the enforcers.
Once again, you are making it seem like we should be supporting Gadaffi. Your logic is that since we must preserve all UN members sovereignty, we should support the lawful government of the state, which, you state, is Gadaffi's government holed up in Tripoli.
When I saw the threads' new title I thought it was a totally new thread and was about to post a witty comment on how he has already used that joke, sadly the title only changed :(
ChrisWWII wrote:And the UN isn't a sovereing body, so its charter just defines how the organization works. Fair enough. It does not govern the ways nations interact. Nations can intereact without the United Nations.
it doesnt govern how nations interact?
did you even read the charter?
ChrisWWII wrote:If the UN Charter was strictly enforced by all its memebers than Iraq wouldn't have happened. Hungary and Czechslovakia wouldn't have happened. The Suez Crisis wouldn't have happened.
the lapses in applying the law does not mean the law does not exist. And who said the US isnt being investigated for Iraq? theres an official inquest to it as we speak.
ChrisWWII wrote:The UN Charter is enforced when it is convenient for the enforcers.
This is opinion. I dare you to prove this.
ChrisWWII wrote:Once again, you are making it seem like we should be supporting Gadaffi. Your logic is that since we must preserve all UN members sovereignty, we should support the lawful government of the state, which, you state, is Gadaffi's government holed up in Tripoli.
stop putting words in my mouth. Prove that i said I support Gaddafi. What i said is that by law Gaddafi is stillhead of state and the rebels cannot be recognized just because a group of nations says so. and the UN will never do so because of #1
just because you want it to go a certain way doesnt make it fact
The UN doesn't govern how nations interact because it has no authority over them. In theory? The UN is a forum for dicussion to make relations between states easier, but it is not a world government directing how states interact.
I have already shown to you. It wasn't convenient to enforce the charter to greant sovereignty to Hungary, or Czechslovakia, or Poland. It wasn't worth it to enforce the sovereignty of the RoC. The UN enforces things only when its enforcers feel its in their interests to do the enforcing.
I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just following your logic through to its conclusion, which is something we can all disagree with. You argue that the UN has a solemn right to enforce a nations sovereingty, and that Gadaffi is the legal head of state of Libya, he is being attacked by rebels. To ensure Libya's sovereignty, under your ideas, we need to help Gadaffi ensure his states sovereignty.
My question to you know is how you think states like the horde of the Balkan countries that arose out of the collapse of Yugoslavia got formed. How? They declared independence, and often against the will of the naiton which continued to claim to own them the world recognized them as independent, and the original nation had to bow down and accept it. That's how things work. There is no court for admitting a new state to the world club. It's all about recognition, and the point remains that once the rest of the world recognizes the government in Benghazi, they will be the de facto leaders of Libya, no mattrer what legal position Gadaffi has.
By making it suck more? Because once we get involved it's not just about Libya it's about the USA and that definitely has the potential to make things worse than they already are.
Also if we are going to act as the world's police why just Libya?
All of the following are African wars, African civil wars, and US military operations in Africa. Now tell me which we should be involved in, which we shouldn't be involved in, and how many American lives are expendable in the name of acting as the world's police.
2001–present War on Terrorism
1997–present Islamic Terrorism in Egypt
2002–present Islamic insurgency in the Maghreb
2002–present Operation Enduring Freedom - Horn of Africa
2006 Rise of the Islamic Courts Union
2007 - today Operation Enduring Freedom - Trans Sahara
2009 - today Islamist civil war in Somalia
2009 - today Taliban insurgency in Nigeria
2003–present War in Darfur
2004 - today Conflict in the Niger Delta
2004–present Central African Republic Bush War
2004–present Kivu conflict
2005–present Civil War in Chad
2007–present Second Tuareg Rebellion
2011-present Libyan civil war
Also please explain to me how we are going to occupy African nations while keeping the minimum number of troops required to fight a counter insurgency in accordance with the Army's counter insurgency handbook.
Bakerofish wrote:
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
If youre saying that a collective of nations can take away your nations sovereignity by vote then youre going against what the UN stands for.
Sovereignty is a funny thing with many different conceptions, but the one consistent principle is that it depends on external recognition. The UN can, collectively, decide that they no longer recognize the sovereignty of a member, and thereby evict the member from the GA.
ChrisWWII wrote:The UN doesn't govern how nations interact because it has no authority over them. In theory? The UN is a forum for dicussion to make relations between states easier, but it is not a world government directing how states interact.
its not a government but is an body that establishes the rights and priveleges of its members. Members here is KEY
ChrisWWII wrote:I have already shown to you. It wasn't convenient to enforce the charter to greant sovereignty to Hungary, or Czechslovakia, or Poland. It wasn't worth it to enforce the sovereignty of the RoC. The UN enforces things only when its enforcers feel its in their interests to do the enforcing. .
you show me how you see it. your task is to prove it. i can agree with you but that doesnt make it fact.
ChrisWWII wrote:I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just following your logic through to its conclusion, which is something we can all disagree with. You argue that the UN has a solemn right to enforce a nations sovereingty, and that Gadaffi is the legal head of state of Libya, he is being attacked by rebels. To ensure Libya's sovereignty, under your ideas, we need to help Gadaffi ensure his states sovereignty. .
it is not a RIGHT to enforce but to acknowledge that sovereignity of its MEMBERS and protect that sovereignity by being compromised by other members. You said UN needs to ensure Libya's sovereignity. You misunderstand. The UN cannot interfere with domestic disputes even if it compromises the sovereignity of the country. What it can do though is PREVENT the MEMBERS from doing anything to compromise a MEMBERS sovereignity.
My question to you know is how you think states like the horde of the Balkan countries that arose out of the collapse of Yugoslavia got formed. How? They declared independence, and often against the will of the naiton which continued to claim to own them the world recognized them as independent, and the original nation had to bow down and accept it
the old government had to surrender to the new. The power had to be transferred or taken or destroyed. The UN did not enforce this. Yugoslavia was a UN member and when yugoslavia dissolved the UN didnt have a hand in actively dissolving them. How they declared independence was not something the UN could make decisions on. What the UN did was prevent any members from making unjust interventions and when the new governments were formed and recognized they were then allowed to join.
the UN does not decide what makes a country. Individual countries recognize individual countries as such. The UN is basically a group of countries agreeing to not compromise each others sovereignity.
That's how things work. There is no court for admitting a new state to the world club. It's all about recognition, and the point remains that once the rest of the world recognizes the government in Benghazi, they will be the de facto leaders of Libya, no mattrer what legal position Gadaffi has.
yes there is no court that can officially recognize a sovereign state as this is mostly after a government has been established and reliant on the rest of the world recognizing them. UN or not. Youre insisting that all the rebels need to do is control a country to make the UN recognize the rebels as the new leaders. That cant happen if Gaddafi still has claims to power.
has he been officially deposed yet? no
has he stepped down? no
have the rebels wrested total political, economic and temporal control over Libya? no
can they? Yes if they can get Gaddafi to step down or take power in some way.
Can the UN just "award" control of a nation to another party? FETH NO
Can the UN declare who is a country or not? NO.
Can the rebels control the geography, establish independence from Gaddafis government, establish their own, protect their borders and build relationships with other countries and thus become a sovereign state?
YES. DEFINITELY EMPATHICALLY YES. But they will NOT be recognized as LIBYA. Theyll need to come up with a different name.
I think this is what you were getting at Chris but you were going about it the wrong way.
@dogma
They can evict a member from the GA but cannot deny a country's sovereignity as this is established and enforced by relationships with different countries. example: They can kick out Libya from the UN but they cant take away its sovereignity
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:The UN would be well within its rights to say that it recognises the rebel government as the government that represents the people. They wouldn't be wrong, either; the rebels control the vast majority of the country, and with it, the majority of the population, (though I may be wrong on that).
no they cant because of #1
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
If youre saying that a collective of nations can take away your nations sovereignity by vote then youre going against what the UN stands for.
You keep using this sovereignty word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
When a state is sovereign, it means that outsiders do not control its internal affairs. I simply do not understand why you think that the UN saying who it's willing to deal with on an international scale is interfering with Libya's internal affairs. It isn't. That's not domestic, that's international. It's not the UN imposing a government from above, it's the UN recognising who has the power to deliver; who, in fact, is in power, and dealing with them instead of someone else. The kingmaking will have already been done by the time this comes about.
its not a government but is an body that establishes the rights and priveleges of its members. Members here is KEY
It's an international discussion forum. The UN has shown time and time again it's not afraid to violate sovereignty if ithas to. If you dispute this, I point to all the peacekeeping misions.....the UN does not exsist to facilitate sovereignty, the UN exists to facilitate international diplomacy.
you show me how you see it. your task is to prove it. i can agree with you but that doesnt make it fact.
I really don't know what you're saying here, but it seems to me that you're agreeing with me that the UN does this magical 'enforcement of sovereignty' thing only when its convenient for the enforcers....eh, that's good enough for me.
the old government had to surrender to the new. The power had to be transferred or taken or destroyed. The UN did not enforce this. Yugoslavia was a UN member and when yugoslavia dissolved the UN didnt have a hand in actively dissolving them. How they declared independence was not something the UN could make decisions on. What the UN did was prevent any members from making unjust interventions and when the new governments were formed and recognized they were then allowed to join.
They definitely didn't do so willingly. They begrudgingly accepted the de facto situation on the ground once the enforcers of the world decided they were going to recognize the newly independent nation-states. They did not surrender power. They had it wrested from their clutches. The world recognized the new nation state.
the UN does not decide what makes a country. Individual countries recognize individual countries as such. The UN is basically a group of countries agreeing to not compromise each others sovereignity.
You're right. INdividual states recognize individual states. So if most states recognizie the government in Benghazi as the government of the territory known colloquially as 'Libya', then they are the rulers of that territory. Glad we agree.
yes there is no court that can officially recognize a sovereign state as this is mostly after a government has been established and reliant on the rest of the world recognizing them. UN or not. Youre insisting that all the rebels need to do is control a country to make the UN recognize the rebels as the new leaders. That cant happen if Gaddafi still has claims to power.
Yep, that's all they need. They have internal sovereignty already, and all they need know is the external sovereignty gained by wide spread internationl recognition of the situation on the ground. IT can very easily happen as long as Gadaffi is in power...it'd just take the US and other key nations declaring that they are opening diplomatic relations with the Benghazi government. ONce again, I pose you...who's going to stop them if they choose that path?
has he been officially deposed yet? no
has he stepped down? no
have the rebels wrested total political, economic and temporal control over Libya? no
In order, So what? So what? and Yes. So what if he hasn't been officially deposed? It doesn't matter whether or not Gadaffi is still claiming to control all of Libya, if the de facto situation ont he groun says otherwise. It really doesn't matter what Gadaffi says, if the rest of the world decides to ignore him. Not to mention, the rebels control the largest oil refineries in Libya. Given the nature of Libya's economy, I'd say that counts as controlling the economic aspect.
can they? Yes if they can get Gaddafi to step down or take power in some way.
Or we could just ignore him, and let him rant all he wants while the rest of the world recognizes a new government...
Can the UN just "award" control of a nation to another party? FETH NO
Can the UN declare who is a country or not? NO.
No they can't, but they can recognize a new body as controlling a territory. In the modern world, if you get a seat in the UN General Assembly, you are generally considered to have gained external sovereignty. So no, it can't award nation states around...but it can recognize new governments as it sees fit.
Can the rebels control the geography, establish independence from Gaddafis government, establish their own, protect their borders and build relationships with other countries and thus become a sovereign state?
YES. DEFINITELY EMPATHICALLY YES. But they will NOT be recognized as LIBYA. Theyll need to come up with a different name.
No they won't. We'd just recognize them as the new government of the territory colloquially known as Libya, ignore Gadaffi's increasingly insane rantings (assuming he isn't dead by then), and go along or merry way. The government in Benghazi would send an ambassador to New York to sit in the chair behind the placard labeled 'Libya' and that'd be that. Gadaffi has no power, and the way things seem to be going, the West seems to be getting ready to open up diplomatic relations with the Benghazi government.
It is indeed what I'm going at, but it's you who are approaching it the wrong way. You seem to think that the de facto situation on the ground does not matter, when in fact it's all that matters. Gadaffi can sit in his palace in Tripoli all he wants, and rant and rave about how he is the rule of Libya...but if the rest of the world doesn't recognize him as suich, and deal with the government in Benghazi...why do we care what Gadaffi says?
Bakerofish wrote: so youre saying that is a nation is sovereign then outsiders do not control its internal affairs
true
but youre saying that the UN can remove sovereignity from Gaddafi and award it to the rebels?
wtf?
#1 and #7 in the charter.
they cannot dictate or remove Libya's sovereignity nor can they award that sovereignity to someone else
all they can do is ensure that members dont do anything to compromise each others sovereignity. even if most of the members would like to do so.
Gaddaffi doesn't have sovereignty. Libya has sovereignty. Libya is a sovereign nation. It is not interfering in Libya's internal affairs for the UN to refuse to recognise Gaddaffi as the ruler of Libya. If the rebels have de facto control of the country, then they are the ruler of Libya, and it does not even approach meddling in Libya's internal affairs for the UN to recognise this.
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
Gaddaffi doesn't have sovereignty. Libya has sovereignty. Libya is a sovereign nation. It is not interfering in Libya's internal affairs for the UN to refuse to recognise Gaddaffi as the ruler of Libya. If the rebels have de facto control of the country, then they are the ruler of Libya, and it does not even approach meddling in Libya's internal affairs for the UN to recognise this.
This. A million times this. Gadaffi does not have sovereignty, his government is just the government the world recognizes as in charge of Libya, a sovereign nation state. If the situation changes, and Gadaffi's government no longer controls Libya, then the UN has every right to recognize the de facto rulers of Libya, even if Gadaffi never gave up his power.
are you guys purposefully ignoring fact just to prove me wrong?
point 1: It is not interfering in Libya's internal affairs for the UN to refuse to recognise Gaddaffi as the ruler of Libya.
its not??
First: the UN is not in the position to refuse or recognize the sovereignity of a country.
Second:
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
if the countries of the UN refuse to recognize the current Libyan government in favor of the rebels they violate Principles 1 and 4
Youre positing this view:
IF SEVERAL COUNTRIES AGREE, THEY CAN REMOVE A COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT AND AWARD POWER TO ANOTHER GROUP
you seriously dont see whats wrong with the statement above?
Point 2: If the rebels have de facto control of the country, then they are the ruler of Libya
De jure and de facto:
De jure, or legal, sovereignty is the theoretical right to exercise exclusive control over one's subjects.
De facto, or actual, sovereignty is concerned with whether control in fact exists. It can be approached in two ways:
Does the governing power have sufficient strength (police, etc.) to compel its subjects to obey it? (If so, a type of de facto sovereignty called coercive sovereignty exists.)
Are the subjects of the governing power in the habit of obeying it?
It is generally held that sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. That is, "No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty."
In other words, neither claiming/being proclaimed Sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements.
Rebels have de facto
Gaddafi has de jure
hence the conflict
and again... you CANNOT remove de jure status from Gaddafi just because everyone else agrees
the conflict is ONGOING
whoever wins secures Sovereignity
and as members of the UN, nations cannot do anything to back either side without just cause because it goes agains the CHARTER
this is a domestic dispute for power
outsiders have NO SAY on who holds the power or not
Saying your opinion often enough and loud enough does not make it fact
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I will be once again called an idealist
People with counter my points without naming credible sources. no proof. just opinion and a warped view of international law with a huge democratic bias (even though not every UN member runs a democratic nation...but yeah)
laughtrip quote of the day:
"Gadaffi does not have sovereignty, his government is just the government the world recognizes as in charge of Libya, a sovereign nation state"
so if his government is the government, doesnt that make it the government?
Bakerofish wrote:Youre positing this view:
IF SEVERAL COUNTRIES AGREE, THEY CAN REMOVE A COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT AND AWARD POWER TO ANOTHER GROUP
You aren't listening to what we're saying if that's what you've gotten from our posts. The rebels, at the moment, have the majority of the power in Libya. If the trend continues, they will maintain that. They will be the de facto ruler of Libya.
Not because it was imposed externally, but because they brought it about themselves.
Recognising that the rebels have achieved that isn't taking power from Gaddaffi and giving it to them; they did it themselves. It's simply a recognition of that fact.
Bakerofish wrote:Point 2: If the rebels have de facto control of the country, then they are the ruler of Libya
De jure and de facto:
De jure, or legal, sovereignty is the theoretical right to exercise exclusive control over one's subjects.
De facto, or actual, sovereignty is concerned with whether control in fact exists. It can be approached in two ways:
Does the governing power have sufficient strength (police, etc.) to compel its subjects to obey it? (If so, a type of de facto sovereignty called coercive sovereignty exists.)
Are the subjects of the governing power in the habit of obeying it?
It is generally held that sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. That is, "No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty."
In other words, neither claiming/being proclaimed Sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements.
Rebels have de facto
Gaddafi has de jure
hence the conflict
and again... you CANNOT remove de jure status from Gaddafi just because everyone else agrees
...Yes, we can. If Gaddaffi does not have de facto power, he isn't the de facto ruler, and is not sovereign. Given this, and given that the international community needs to deal with someone in Libya at some point, if the rebels have de facto control, there's no reason why they shouldn't be recognised as the ruler de jure.
and as members of the UN, nations cannot do anything to back either side without just cause because it goes agains the CHARTER
this is a domestic dispute for power
outsiders have NO SAY on who holds the power or not
At some point you're going to need to listen to what we're saying. The UN saying who it will deal with in Libya is not imposing government from above. Imposing government from above would be like invading, holding a vote, and then having a revote when the results don't go as planned.
If Gaddaffi is not the de facto ruler of Libya, and the rebels are the de facto ruler of Libya, and the rebels have the support of the majority of the population... then why should they not be recognised as the de jure ruler? The mind boggles.
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Bakerofish wrote:"Gadaffi does not have sovereignty, his government is just the government the world recognizes as in charge of Libya, a sovereign nation state"
so if his government is the government, doesnt that make it the government?
There could be two governments in Libya. In fact, the second is in the making, right now.
One will be the government that has power de facto over Libya. One won't be, and will be illegitimate. Probably the latter will be Gaddaffi's.
Bakerofish wrote:im sorry i developed this sickness where i have difficulty listening to people who are factually and categorically wrong
de facto is NOT de jure
de jure is right to rule by LAW. Gaddafi gained his right to rule by a successful revolution
if the rebels overthrow him then YES they become de jure and de facto
Right. But if the rebels fail to overthrow him (entirely)? If Gaddaffi retains Tripoli and the rebels decide "Screw it, we don't need Tripoli", and ignore him because he's irrelevant?
Then what? Does Libya have no ruler de jure? Or, because the rebels have control of the entirety of the rest of the country and the oil, and are thus the de facto ruler, do we deal with them, because they have the power to make things happen in Libya?
Bakerofish wrote:and who the UN chooses to deal with does NOT dictate who controls a country
whats so hard to understand here?
What's so hard to understand about the recognition of a fact not being the imposition of that fact? The UN will deal with whoever has control. If Gaddaffi still has control of Tripoli but the rebels have control of everything else, then they will deal with the rebels, because Gaddaffi is not the ruler de jure if he is not the ruler de facto.
warboss, im going to level with you. are you asking me these questions because you want really want to know or because youre just going to challenge my points?
are you just out to prove me wrong?
because right now youre warping everything to fit your point of view.
youre basing your entire argument over a misunderstanding of what the UN is, how it works, the difference between de facto and de jure and a misunderstanding of what i say. Your counterpoints are hypothetical scenarios to fit what you want to see.
unless you look and find a credible source to back up your claims, unless you understand what the UN does and what it can and cant do... youre not going to convince anyone
im willing to learn from you but you have to stop being so misinformed
ChrisWWII wrote:
If the UN says they're recognizing the rebels, who'se going to stop them?
---
Right now, the Libyan rebels have de facto control of the country. If we recognize them as the new government of Libya, then they are the new government of Libya. They have internal recognition of their control by most of the country, and if granted externatl recognition they'd have the qualities to make them a new state.
---
Being recognized as a country is a simple thing. You need internal sovereignty, external sovereignty and that's about it....the rebels hold internal sovereignty, and are asking for external sovereignty. Why shouldn't we give it to them?
if recognition is a requirement of sovereignity and sovereignity is power then i think i fulfilled your request.
Automatically Appended Next Post: i can post more:
No they can't, but they can recognize a new body as controlling a territory. In the modern world, if you get a seat in the UN General Assembly, you are generally considered to have gained external sovereignty. So no, it can't award nation states around...but it can recognize new governments as it sees fit.
This. A million times this. Gadaffi does not have sovereignty, his government is just the government the world recognizes as in charge of Libya, a sovereign nation state. If the situation changes, and Gadaffi's government no longer controls Libya, then the UN has every right to recognize the de facto rulers of Libya, even if Gadaffi never gave up his power.
the funny thing is that Chris mentions all of this and maintains that the UN has no real power to do anything
The UN doesn't govern how nations interact because it has no authority over them. In theory? The UN is a forum for dicussion to make relations between states easier, but it is not a world government directing how states interact.
they have no power to govern how nations interact but they have power to recognize sovereign nations?
Bakerofish wrote:@emperor
i dont think anyone is comfortable with that idea
Think of it this way, would the South or North in the US Civil War have accepted foreign intervention? The South was aided by the UK, but this is a lot different from the things being proposed here.
lol sorry i just went on a tangent there. got the idea from a friend.
on the self determination issue i can definitely understand why they wouldnt want assistance. they want to keep the integrity of the rebellion intact
during the earlier parts of the rebellion the rebels were arguing over how to organize themselves. some rebels felt that choosing leaders with experience would be a logical choice to organize the rebellion
and others wanted non military, non government to lead the revolution as it conveys the spirit of the fight better.
if they were hesitant accepting ex military and ex government, its understandable that theyd be uncomfortable about having foreigners aid them as well
though as of last update they seem to have taken leaders from the government and the military
Emperors Faithful wrote:This is wierd. Regardless, there are signs that the Libyans themselves aren't keen on direct intervention.
Except for when they repeatedly and directly request no fly zones at virtually every level of standing from political ambassador at the UN to resistance military fighters to run of the mill protestors. But hey, thats a nice sign.
Bakerofish wrote:
if recognition is a requirement of sovereignity and sovereignity is power then i think i fulfilled your request
the funny thing is that Chris mentions all of this and maintains that the UN has no real power to do anything
they have no power to govern how nations interact but they have power to recognize sovereign natio
I am close to wits end with you......
Sovereignity != Power. External Sovereignity = A states right to exist, without control on it from outside nations. Internal Sovereignity = A recognition by the people of a state that the state has power over them.
It's not that the UN has the power to recognize sovereignity. It's just that gaining a seat on the UN General Assembly is a good sign that you have acheived external sovereignity. It's not that the UN is saying that 'Ok, these guys are the new government' it's recognizing the fact that the power structure in that country has changed, and recognizing who has actual power. The UN has no power without its enforcers backing it up, but it can be a good barometer about how the world feels about individual states.
That have no power to govern how nations intereact, and they also do not have the power to recognize sovereing nations. However, the question here is not recognizing Libya as a sovereing nation. No one is denying that Libya is sovereign. No one is denying Libya's right to exist as an independent nation state. Recognition here does not refer to sovereignity, but a recognition of the de facto situation on the ground.
You keep telling us that we don't understand the difference between de facto and de jure. Well, I say we understand perfectly. It's just that de jure doesn't matter. Like I said, if the whole world decides to just ignore Gadaffi no matter what he says, and what he claims his legal position to be, who's going to stop them? No one. So even if de jure Gadaffi maintains control, it's completely irrelevant.
If your statement is true, when the rebels took control of the majority of Libya and becamethe de facto government as you said then whats stopping the other nations from taking out gaddafi this very minute?
if gaddafi didnt have the right to rule at this point as you claim then hes just a madman threatening a country and can then be taken out with no repercussions.
why hasnt anyone tried?
*i predict a lot of tinfoil
Like I said, if the whole world decides to just ignore Gadaffi no matter what he says, and what he claims his legal position to be, who's going to stop them? No one
again, the world ignoring Gaddafi does not take his legal right to rule away from him. the world does not dictate who runs a country. that matter has to be dealt with internally. They are doing so right now.
give me a historical instance where in a UN-member nation with a power struggle, the world ignored the de jure ruler who is still vying for power for the de facto one. go on ill wait.
It's not that the UN is saying that 'Ok, these guys are the new government' it's recognizing the fact that the power structure in that country has changed, and recognizing who has actual power.
WHY HAS THE UNITED NATIONS NOT DONE SO? surely doing so right now would curtail any further violence or at least give the UN legal right to intervene in a military manner. Surely this would allow the "all in" approach that i prefer.
oh wait wait wait...cuz they dont have the keen grasp of international protocol that you do.
youre not at your wits end. youve went past that point a good while ago.
I love the absurdity of this. LOL sovereignity does NOT equal power? the right and ability to rule a country does NOT equal power?
if ruling a country is not power then shoot the world is going nuts over a whole lot of nothing
1) There is nothing stopping anyone from taking out Gadaffi. We've just decided we'd rather not get involved, and will sit here watching the rebels do their thing instead of anything else. If the West decided it wasnt Gadaffi dead NOW....well there is nothing stopping them. They just choose not to.
2) Yeah, I've agreed it doesn't take away his legal right to rule. It's just that his legal right to rule means absolute bupkiss when his country decided they didn't want him ruling them anymore. An example? PRC and Taiwan, the world decided they'd ignore Mao's new China for about 30 years, while dealing with Taipei as if the Nationalist government continue to control both Taiwan and the Mainland. Eventually, of course, the world had to bow to the reality of the situation.
3) Because it's not in their interests to get that involved just yet. It's why the UK is apparently negotiating with the rebels, possibly in an attempt to prepare the way for official recognition.
4) Because sovereignity resides in a state's right to be a state, not in the person ruling it.
Emperors Faithful wrote:This is wierd. Regardless, there are signs that the Libyans themselves aren't keen on direct intervention.
Except for when they repeatedly and directly request no fly zones at virtually every level of standing from political ambassador at the UN to resistance military fighters to run of the mill protestors. But hey, thats a nice sign.
I was responding to the calls for foreign troops on the ground. But hey, that's a lovely example of snide posting, mate.
Bakerofish wrote:give me a historical instance where in a UN-member nation with a power struggle, the world ignored the de jure ruler who is still vying for power for the de facto one. go on ill wait.
Bakerofish wrote:@emperor
i dont think anyone is comfortable with that idea
Think of it this way, would the South or North in the US Civil War have accepted foreign intervention? The South was aided by the UK, but this is a lot different from the things being proposed here.
That depends on who the foreign intervention favored and what exactly it entailed.
The difference here though is that the Libyan rebels and civilians are ASKING for the assistance via a no-fly zone to prevent bombing of civilian targets.
Automatically Appended Next Post: BBC and CNN reporters risking their lives to give you stories from Libya:
Again, why do think the rebels will be better? Why not get involve in the dozen or so other conflicts in Africa. Humanitarian aid, sure I am down with that sort of. But haven't we learned our lesson from Iraq?
Haven't we learned our lesson from Bosnia and Kosovo. Are we going to go into decade Three and still have troops there? Now we have Albanians wkilling US soldiers in Germany.
I don't know, maybe the world is the right answer.
That's disturbing...it may seem that Gadaffi is at least in a stalemate with the rebles now, if not pushing them back. Of course, that's just one reporter, so it's unlikely to be indicative of the entire situation on the ground.
Glad to know NATO is getting ready to do something...if they're laucnhing reconaissance flights, I wonder if that means they're considering a no fly zone. I'm also wondering whatever became of those SAS troopers that apparently went to Benghazi...
Frazzled wrote:Again, why do think the rebels will be better? Why not get involve in the dozen or so other conflicts in Africa. Humanitarian aid, sure I am down with that sort of. But haven't we learned our lesson from Iraq?
Haven't we learned our lesson from Bosnia and Kosovo. Are we going to go into decade Three and still have troops there? Now we have Albanians wkilling US soldiers in Germany.
I don't know, maybe the world is the right answer.
We can try that, but then parts of the world want to say you.
Frazzled wrote:Again, why do think the rebels will be better? Why not get involve in the dozen or so other conflicts in Africa. Humanitarian aid, sure I am down with that sort of. But haven't we learned our lesson from Iraq?
Haven't we learned our lesson from Bosnia and Kosovo. Are we going to go into decade Three and still have troops there? Now we have Albanians wkilling US soldiers in Germany.
I don't know, maybe the world is the right answer.
We can try that, but then parts of the world want to say you.
They already do, in case you haven't noticed. Time to be like Japan. Provide aid, and diplomacy, but otherwise just trade.
Then France had issues with Vietnam and couldn't hold that together and we stepped in.
Then there was some more invasions in the middle east that we had to help deal with because we said we would.
.
History not taught much in the USA then?
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ChrisWWII wrote: I'm also wondering whatever became of those SAS troopers that apparently went to Benghazi...
Released that evening unharmed.
Helps to warn people you are arriving, especially when arriving armed by Chinook in the middle of the night when the only people the rebels expect to see arrive by helo are pro-Gaddafi forces...
ChrisWWII wrote:1) There is nothing stopping anyone from taking out Gadaffi. We've just decided we'd rather not get involved, and will sit here watching the rebels do their thing instead of anything else. If the West decided it wasnt Gadaffi dead NOW....well there is nothing stopping them. They just choose not to.
people have been trying to kill gaddafi for years. why not now when you claim theres no legal reason not to?
weak.
Yeah, I've agreed it doesn't take away his legal right to rule. It's just that his legal right to rule means absolute bupkiss when his country decided they didn't want him ruling them anymore. An example? PRC and Taiwan, the world decided they'd ignore Mao's new China for about 30 years, while dealing with Taipei as if the Nationalist government continue to control both Taiwan and the Mainland. Eventually, of course, the world had to bow to the reality of the situation.
predictable. and really doesnt help your case at all. It actually shows the UN charter and "de jure" or "legal right to rule" being important and upheld.
understand that "Taiwan" is a convenient way for the rest of the world to refer to The Republic of China (ROC) as there is already a People's Republic of China (PRC). There cant be two Chinese governments as this muddies a number of important things.
cliffs notes version. ROC and PRC are both "de facto" sovereigns of their respective territories. However both claim "de jure" status as the sole governing body of China
I quote you: "It's just that de jure doesn't matter"
then how come "de jure" or legal right to rule became a factor in the UN exercising its charter to remove ROCs seat in the assembly and award it to the PRC?
If there is no body that upholds the UN charter...
let me take a second to quote you here:
Let's also bear in mind that the UN charter is not law, but rather an agreement between nations. It's got as much backing it as the old League of Nations did...well, a bit more, but Clause 4 didn't stop us in Iraq or Afghanistan did it?
Then how come the ROC was outvoted and the PRC was given the seat in the assembly? How is this decision enforced among countries?
ROC was backed by the US and they STILL couldnt hold claim to de jure? The US who could "do anything" and not have anyone shut them down?
read and understand. Do not force what you "know" over what is.
Ketara wrote:You do know chris is an International Relations student in one of the best Universities in Britain right?
No. And frankly it doesnt show. I guess his professors never taught him to state his sources.
Maybe you can help him support his claims? if im wrong i would really want to be corrected and i think ive proven im willing to listen to provable claims. Ive offered my points and supported them. Chris has not done so.
@biccat
see above. PRC claims de facto rule over China AND de jure as a successor government. Taiwan cant hold "de facto" claim since they were ousted by the PRC and lost "de jure" when they were ousted.
Bakerofish wrote:
people have been trying to kill gaddafi for years. why not now when you claim theres no legal reason not to?
weak.
There is no reason stopping them. The best explanation is that they don't want to deal with the political fall out if word gets out that a Western antion tried to assasinate a rival head of state.
predictable. and really doesnt help your case at all. It actually shows the UN charter and "de jure" or "legal right to rule" being important and upheld.
understand that "Taiwan" is a convenient way for the rest of the world to refer to The Republic of China (ROC) as there is already a People's Republic of China (PRC). There cant be two Chinese governments as this muddies a number of important things.
Both states claim to be the government of all China, and for a long time Taiwan sat in the chair labeled China in the UNSC. The big problem is that both claim to be China...so who's right? De facto, the PRC, and that's what the world recognizes.
then how come "de jure" or legal right to rule became a factor in the UN exercising its charter to remove ROCs seat in the assembly and award it to the PRC?
The United States and other key states began to see a larger benefit to recognizing the PRC, both for taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet split to further harm the Soviet Union, and more recently the fact that most states would rather trade with the PRC, and in order to do so they must have diplomatic relations with the PRC.
In short, the US and the West pulled their support for the ROC being the government of China, and switched their recognition to the PRC. Without this support, the ROC had no choice but to accept the situation, and settle for what they could. The PRC and ROC is really an interesting situation....especially given your definitions of de jure law, the ROC really should be the government we all recognize, as they never ceded power to the PRC.....however, the world recognized the de facto situation, and realized that the PRC is the true government of China, and it made no sense to continue to pretend Taiwan was really in charge.
Edit: For someone so concerned with sources, you seem to be relying on wikipedia alot...
Melissia wrote:You seem to be under the false impression that if we suddenly stop intervening in Africa/the Middle East we'll stop getting terrorist threats.
They can't drive a truck bomb into our base in Tripoli if we don't have a base in Tripoli.
see above. PRC claims de facto rule over China AND de jure as a successor government. Taiwan cant hold "de facto" claim since they were ousted by the PRC and lost "de jure" when they were ousted.
What's the basis for the legal right to be a sovereign? I think that's what ChrisWWII is getting at.
Taiwan never lost their legal right to rule, at least, not in their opinion.
If some rebel group claims the legal right to rule Libya, does that abolish Ghadaffi's claim? When does his claim expire? When did Saddam Hussein's claim expire? Did it exist until the rope goes taut?
I haven't been paying that close attention to Libya, because our President is taking the opinion that another dictator is going to be better than the current dictator. I don't see that as much of a change, except for the fact that we've already spent millions propping up the current dictator and we're going to lose our 'investment.'
lol at least im not pulling my sources out of thin air. wiki isnt flawless but generally speaking it works as you can start cross checking the citations for credibility and again if im wrong counter em.\
cite better sources
im sure you have interesting anecdotes from professors and textbooks and research material to back you up. kinda hard to translate over the web though. again if you have a better set of sources than i do please list them. I love to read
whats fun about you is you pull stuff like this:
The United States and other key states began to see a larger benefit to recognizing the PRC
you display incredible mass mind-reading powers that somehow can timetravel
There is nothing stopping anyone from taking out Gadaffi. We've just decided we'd rather not get involved, and will sit here watching the rebels do their thing instead of anything else. If the West decided it wasnt Gadaffi dead NOW....well there is nothing stopping them. They just choose not to.
ooh and i didnt know you had that level of authority and using "I just dont want to" as a rationale as well. Very gradeschool.
levity aside, youre confusing conjecture for fact. Youre tainting fact with your own POV.
and you convenietly ignore facts when they dont align with your mindset:
ex: the US didnt get enlightened out of the blue, they were OUTVOTED in the PRC/ROC issue
ChrisWWII wrote:There is no reason stopping them. The best explanation is that they don't want to deal with the political fall out if word gets out that a Western antion tried to assasinate a rival head of state.
There's also (in the U.S.) an executive order prohibiting assassination.
War being a particularly nebulous area of law, this (apparently) doesn't prohibit targetting of specific named individuals during wartime.
I've pretty much lost interest in this thread, but I figured I'd throw this out and see what happens: Baker, you were adamant that the UN was unable to recognise the rebels as the legitimate government of Libya because it would be violating Article 2.
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. 2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. 5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.
How do you reconcile this with your calls for a full scale invasion to crush Gaddaffi utterly? Would that not also be in violation of Article 2, and thus something that the UN would never do?
Any international relations student can tell you that the United States was not 'outvoted' in anyway. The United States chose of its own free will to recognize the governmen in Beijing as the government of all China. It did this without any external pressure, and the subsequent 'alliance' between the two powers was clearly an attempt to exploit the Sino-Soviet split. This is a simple matter of the historical record, and you are welcome to find some source that damns all of history.
I'm am conjecturing based on the available evidence, and the available evidence, suggests that the United States and other Western Powers do not want to deal with the political fall out that would accompany the termination with extreme prejudice of Gadaffi.
You are welcom to find sources that contradict this statement, but snarking at how you think I'm an idiot will not help you.
Edit:
biccat wrote:
There's also (in the U.S.) an executive order prohibiting assassination.
War being a particularly nebulous area of law, this (apparently) doesn't prohibit targetting of specific named individuals during wartime.
I knew there was something in the US...I thought it was the Carter doctrine, but that's dealing with the Middle East. Ah well.
Bakerofish wrote:ooh and i didnt know you had that level of authority and using "I just dont want to" as a rationale as well. Very gradeschool.
.......as an academic myself, I have to say, even with no particular view in this topic as to who's right or wrong, you might want to tone yourself down a little bit. It was a figure of speech in an internet debate. He's not writing his thesis here. And considering your level of grammatical skill displayed so far, you're hardly in a position to be nitpicking like that.
levity aside, youre confusing conjecture for fact. Youre tainting fact with your own POV.
With regards to politics, international relations, and other things of such substance, your POV always taints what you write. Bias is considered to be so inherent at a higher level of discourse, that its rarely even worth mentioning in such a context, unless directly relevant.
prove your claims. state your sources.
Why should he? I mean, seriously? As said, he's not writing his dissertation or thesis. This is an internet debate. Providing a bibliography with appropriate footnotes is a waste of time, the opposing person never listens anyway. Several times I personally have quoted direct source from relevant material in online debates, and most of the time its just ignored flat out. To the point where I simply don't bother any more. I know my stuff, why should I care what some random internet bod thinks?
And as already stated, wiki is hardly a reputable source if we are to consider direct relevant source material.
To be perfectly frank, you seem to be demanding he attach relevant academic footnotes and compose a structured essay to everything you say, whilst not even bothering to run your own replies through a spell checker and citing wikipedia as your source. One sided, no?
see above. PRC claims de facto rule over China AND de jure as a successor government. Taiwan cant hold "de facto" claim since they were ousted by the PRC and lost "de jure" when they were ousted.
What's the basis for the legal right to be a sovereign? I think that's what ChrisWWII is getting at.
Taiwan never lost their legal right to rule, at least, not in their opinion.
If some rebel group claims the legal right to rule Libya, does that abolish Ghadaffi's claim? When does his claim expire? When did Saddam Hussein's claim expire? Did it exist until the rope goes taut?
I haven't been paying that close attention to Libya, because our President is taking the opinion that another dictator is going to be better than the current dictator. I don't see that as much of a change, except for the fact that we've already spent millions propping up the current dictator and we're going to lose our 'investment.'
ive posted the links that answer those questions and i just highlited the main points here.
to answer though:
Taiwan has yet to come up with a way to convince the UN that they didnt though. The way the PRC played this is sheer genius.
Taiwan claims to be "China" and even after getting ousted they claim de jure rule though PRC held the majority of the territories. UN recognizes ROC as China. PRC then establishes economic, military and political independence from ROC (de facto) and petitions for a place in the UN and declaring ROCs presence illegal
PRCs argument: the PRC succeeded to the sovereignty of China in 1949-1950, including that over Taiwan, although Taiwan continued to be under the administration of the old Republic of China government. This sovereignity was established through force of arms, economic presence and political relationships.
Taiwan had to prove otherwise.
both sides were given equal opportunity to claim "China"
UN nations took their sides. US backed ROC. Russia backed PRC (surprise! lol) and it came down to a vote. PRC was then given the seat and was declared successor government to the Founding Member China
this is the genius stroke:
Taiwans defense the entire time was under the banner of "China" and since they were outvoted they lost their status as "China" in the UN General assembly. They were now no longer a sovereign nation as they declared their territory "China"
their only chance to be recognized as a sovereign nation was to claim their territories as seperate and independent from China. They wanted to secede and join the UN under the name "Taiwan"
except the PRC, "CHINA" according to the UN established an anti secession law before Taiwan was able to secede successfully. According to the UN, Taiwan cannot be accepted as part of the UN because to do so would infringe on PRCs claim of sovereignity.
Taiwan had to secede by force and the civil war continued and still continues in a way today.
its an amazing story.
you other questions: in order to lay legal claim to Libya Gaddafi has to give up his claim. by either suddenly ceasing to breathe or taking it up the tailpipe and stepping down. there are other ways but it all boils down to if Ghaddafi can no longer offer a reasonable resistance to the rebel claims.
Saddam's claim to power ended when he couldnt hold baghdad and was captured and thus under the power of a coalition.
to debate whether the invasion in Iraq was legal is something thats still being petitioned in the UN today. i think the Netherlands was asked to investigate and file reports on the US and Britain
You fail to note that the PRC did not get the seat on the UNSC or the GA until the 1970s. There was never a 'vote' as you so describe. The Soviet Union backed the PRC, and the West backed the RoC as you describe, and for 20 odd years, the RoC maintained that it was the government of all China, and the US, the West and the UN recognized it as such. However, after the Sino-Soviet split, the West decided it was more prudent to back and help the PRC, to create a 'second front' in the Cold War. There was no 'vote', it was all a matter of diplomatic recognition.
More importantly, the RoC has not seceeded as the secessionist movement within the RoC is not strong enough to adequaetely fuel the desire for an indepent state. Not to mention, the PRC has never remitted its threat to use force if their 'wayward province' decides it wants to set up its own government. If Taiwan seceeded from China, and declared itself a soverein state, the only reason they wouldn't be given a seat in the GA right away, is that the PRC would raise holy hell, and fight tooth and nail every step of the way.
Your flight of fancy here fliess in complete disregard to the historical record, and the stucture of the relations between states.
Ketara, thank you for saying that. I have enough trouble fighting in the St. Andrews library for access to books to right my silly little freshers essyas on, so there is no way in hell I'm going through the trouble to write a full scale essay here. And even if I was, I'd have to be citing sources and explaining how they back up my argument, not just throwing sources and saying 'these prove you wrong lol'.
Bakerofish wrote:ive posted the links that answer those questions and i just highlited the main points here.
I don't mean to be rude, but I don't see how those links make your point. You need to explain your point, then use sources to back it up.
Bakerofish wrote:PRCs argument: the PRC succeeded to the sovereignty of China in 1949-1950, including that over Taiwan, although Taiwan continued to be under the administration of the old Republic of China government. This sovereignity was established through force of arms, economic presence and political relationships.
Taiwan had to prove otherwise.
There are two problems with this:
1) the PRC wasn't recognized as "China" until 1971. Consider the UN Security Council resolutions concerning Korea, despite both the USSR and China holding veto powers.
2) The burden of proof should rest with the group contesting the legal right, not with the group that holds the legal right. The PRC contested ROC's legal claim to rule China, they should bear the burden of proof.
Bakerofish wrote:UN nations took their sides. US backed ROC. Russia backed PRC (surprise! lol) and it came down to a vote. PRC was then given the seat and was declared successor government to the Founding Member China
the charter allows for military intervention when violence is directed against civilians who are unable to defend themselves
the bombings are reason enough to put a petition to the UN SC for approval
@ketara
look, if im wrong i fold. im not trolling.If im wrong and get corrected I learn. I will concede if im wrong.
during the earlier part of the exchange Chris himself challenged me to state a source for my stance
I gave him the UN CHARTER.
which he said was not worth a lot. and left it at that
i was then called an idealist for stating that the charter is upheld and enforced by the members of the UN.
:| now theres wrong you can let go. i couldve let go
maybe i shouldve
but then people supported him and i figured i might be wrong so i asked valid questions
and never got a satisfactory reply back
and here we are
like you said this is an internet debate so i think a little humor (which i acknowedged) is acceptable. Ive tried being tactful but that didnt work. And its hard not to resort to humor when the level of wrongness is at a disturbing level. if i misspoke i apologize
at least now i've gotten him to actually state a source so i dont think my efforts were totally in vain
and i appreciate the feedback on my grammar. I'll work on it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @biccat
fair enough
i was afraid people will just go TLR\
Re ROC/PRC
1971 was the year the resolution was passed. 1949-1950 is the year the PRC ejected ROC
so between 1950 - 1971 ROC was holding the seat "illegally"
Edgar Snow (17 July 1905 in Kansas City, Missouri – 15 February 1972 in Geneva) was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution. He is believed to be the first Western journalist to interview Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, and is best known for Red Star Over China (1937) an account of the Chinese Communist movement from its foundation until the late 1930s.
if im referring to the same guy:
I would like to know what gives him an official capacity to speak in behalf of the United States regarding the relationships the country it has with China and Taiwan.
look, if im wrong i fold. im not trolling.If im wrong and get corrected I learn. I will concede if im wrong.
during the earlier part of the exchange Chris himself challenged me to state a source for my stance
I gave him the UN CHARTER.
which he said was not worth a lot. and left it at that
i was then called an idealist for stating that the charter is upheld and enforced by the members of the UN.
:| now theres wrong you can let go. i couldve let go
maybe i shouldve
but then people supported him and i figured i might be wrong so i asked valid questions
and never got a satisfactory reply back
and here we are
like you said this is an internet debate so i think a little humor (which i acknowedged) is acceptable. Ive tried being tactful but that didnt work. And its hard not to resort to humor when the level of wrongness is at a disturbing level. if i misspoke i apologize
at least now i've gotten him to actually state a source so i dont think my efforts were totally in vain
and i appreciate the feedback on my grammar. I'll work on it.
Fair enough if you meant to be humorous, but sometimes when debating on the internet, you have to be careful. The tone conveyed is always the tone you meant, and whilst you might be arguing in a fairly jocular light hearted fashion, it doesn't always necessarily come off that way, due to the lack of body language and vocal expression. The trick is to reread before you post, and ask yourself, 'Could I've just written be taken offensively?'. If so, a rephrase is in order.
I don't believe you're trying to deliberately troll here, and are simply expressing your point of view as best you can. Sometimes though, you have to agree to disagree on the net, simply because you reach a point where you realise you and the other chap are effectively arguing at each in mute incomprehension of what the other person is saying, and calling it quits is the best way forward.
Bakerofish wrote:@biccat
fair enough
i was afraid people will just go TLR
Well that's the problem with the internets. I'm sufficiently interested in your position on the issue that you've got at least one reader.
Bakerofish wrote:Re ROC/PRC
1971 was the year the resolution was passed. 1949-1950 is the year the PRC ejected ROC
so between 1950 - 1971 ROC was holding the seat "illegally"
You haven't shown how the ROC was holding the seat "illegally." They had a legitimate claim of sovereignty, and there was no requirement that the UN recognize one claimant over another.
A brief question: how do you square the claim that from 1950-71 ROC held the seat "illegally" while at the same time arguing that Ghadaffi still has legitimate sovereignty over Libya? Both involved armed insurrections against the then-sovereign.
I understand that those are claims that are currently advanced by each side, but you haven't shown how, in 1950, control over China legally passed to the PRC from the ROC.
Melissia wrote:You seem to be under the false impression that if we suddenly stop intervening in Africa/the Middle East we'll stop getting terrorist threats.
They can't drive a truck bomb into our base in Tripoli if we don't have a base in Tripoli.
Melissia wrote:You seem to be under the false impression that if we suddenly stop intervening in Africa/the Middle East we'll stop getting terrorist threats.
They can't drive a truck bomb into our base in Tripoli if we don't have a base in Tripoli.
No, they'll just bring it home to us.
Not if we have troops guarding the US/Mexican border and not the Libyan/Egyptian border.
Melissia wrote:You seem to be under the false impression that if we suddenly stop intervening in Africa/the Middle East we'll stop getting terrorist threats.
They can't drive a truck bomb into our base in Tripoli if we don't have a base in Tripoli.
No, they'll just bring it home to us.
Not if we have troops guarding the US/Mexican border and not the Libyan/Egyptian border.
And what about the canucks the 9/11 hijackers entered through that border
Melissia wrote:Because I'm SURE our military can protect our 3,507 mile land border and 12,383 miles of coastline flawlessly.
If they really want to smuggle a bomb into the US they could just hide the bomb inside a ton of cocaine.
Or put it in one of the hundreds of thousands of cargo containers that go through US harbors every single day. Or send it to Canda, and move it over the border.
Bakerofish wrote:@emperor
i dont think anyone is comfortable with that idea
Think of it this way, would the South or North in the US Civil War have accepted foreign intervention? The South was aided by the UK, but this is a lot different from the things being proposed here.
The South actively wanted England's and France's involvement to help defeat the Union. Didn't happen thanks to their over trading of cotton prior to the war (i.e had no collateral to force their hands).
@ketara
Thanks. In fairness though, if a person has decided to be offended about what I say, he will be offended regardless of how I write anything down. I was speaking in what I believe to be the appropriate level of politeness in the OT forum but I get your point about toning down the snark.
@biccat
the major difference between the PRC/ROC and Libya issue is that the PRC was able to secure both de facto and de jure while the Rebels have de facto but is unlikely to have de jure.
The PRC claimed de facto by claiming the mainland and chasing the ROC away.
Now what happens next is controversial. i dont fully understand this myself mind you so i may have details wrong:
PRC defeats ROC ROC retreats to Taiwan island still calling itself "China"
PRC declares sovereignity over China
World War II Japan invades Taiwan
Taiwan loses sovereignity
World War II Japan loses and returns territories
Japan returns Taiwan over to "China"
then things get fuzzy
in what seems to be a clerical error of epic proportions, the PRC used this and is able to convince the UN (not all, it came down to a vote) that ROCs claim to de jure was invalid.
The Libyan rebels on the other hand may have de facto but are unlikely to prove that Gaddafi's claim to de jure is illegal. Unless they depose Gaddafi like Gaddafi deposed Libya's former monarchs, de jure is still with Gaddafi.
the rebels CAN claim independence from Libya though. they just cant be libya anymore.
You're still wrong on your history. There was never a vote. After the Nationalists were defeated and fled to Taiwan, they continued to be recongized as 'China' in the UN, and by the West for about 20 years until the 1970s, where the US and other nations switched their recognition to the PRC, and Taiwan lost its seat on the security council, and the PRC was recognized as the government of 'China'. The PRC did indeed take de facto control of China, but the RoC never recognized this, and never handed over power as you claim is necessary. If we go by your previous definitions of de jure power transition, the RoC is still the rule of China, and the PRC isn't China, because the RoC never surrendered its power.
The PRC never persuaded the UN that the RoCs claim to power was invalied. The world just chose to recognize the new de facto situation on the ground. The PRC spent 20 years trying to get recognized as the government of CHina, and failed for those 20 years.
The rebels in Libya can very well say that they represent the people of Libya, and are thus the government of Libya.
Not helping your position any. You know, you say my teacher over here in St. Andrews must not be teaching me right/I am not taking in the lessons. But given that we have multiple people agreeing (loosely) with me, and saying that you are wrong with your interpretations of sovereignity...has it occured to you that YOU are the one that's mistaken here?
I mean, given that you've fallen back on sniping at me instead of refuting my arguments....
You can show me how I'm wrong. That is my argument, that there was no vote as you claim, and that the switch of internationl recognition from the RoC to the PRC was the result of the world--especially the West--choosing to recognize the PRC. I can go into why the West would choose to do that, but I really don't feel the need. Not to mention, you'd just ignore it by declaring it 'opinion'.
Saying 'You're wrong, lol.' doesn't really help your position at all.
Let me point out that despite all you said, the recognition of China did not happen till 1971,20 years after the conclusion of the Chinese civil war. Your argument that they played and gamed the system is simply false.
You are the one who is proposing a deviation from the accepted historical record. The burden of proof is on you, not me.
Bakerofish wrote:
PRC defeats ROC ROC retreats to Taiwan island still calling itself "China"
PRC declares sovereignity over China
World War II Japan invades Taiwan
Taiwan loses sovereignity
World War II Japan loses and returns territories
Japan returns Taiwan over to "China"
As I recall, the communists under Mao stood down/retreated and let the nationalists take over with the threat of invasion by Japan looming overhead. The nationalists, who had been winning the civil war, were forced to shift attention to the invading Japanese, suffering heavy casualties. After the Japanese were defeated, Mao came back and usurped power from the battered nationalists, who fled to Taiwan. The US, with its whole "rabid hatred of communism" it had going on back then, refuses to recognize the communists (the PRC) as the rulers of china, instead favoring the nationalists in Taiwan (the RoC). Eventually, they decided to reach out and de-marginalize the PRC for political and economic reasons.
UN GA Resolution 2758 shows that the UN put it to a vote and PRC was favored by majority:
On 15 July 1971, 17 UN members requested that a question of the "Restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations" be placed on the provisional agenda of the twenty-sixth session of the UN General Assembly, claiming that the PRC, a "founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council, had since 1949 been refused by systematic maneuvers the right to occupy the seat to which it is entitled ipso jure".
On 25 September 1971, a draft resolution, A/L.630 and Add.l and 2 was submitted by 23 states, including 17 of the states which had joined in placing the question on the agenda, to "restore to the People's Republic of China all its rights and expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek."
On 29 September 1971, another draft resolution, A/L.632 and Add.l and 2, sponsored by 22 members, was proposed declaring that any proposal to deprive the Republic of China of representation was an important question under Article 18 of the UN Charter, and thus would require a two-thirds supermajority for approval. A/L.632 and Add.l and 2 was rejected on 25 October 1971 by a vote of 59 to 55, with 15 abstentions.
now how the PRC managed to attack the ROC's claim is a lot more blurry now.
[quote=BakerofishNow what happens next is controversial. i dont fully understand this myself mind you so i may have details wrong:
PRC defeats ROC ROC retreats to Taiwan island still calling itself "China"
PRC declares sovereignity over China
World War II Japan invades Taiwan
Taiwan loses sovereignity
World War II Japan loses and returns territories
Japan returns Taiwan over to "China"
You're almost there but not quite.
Taiwan was never a seperate sovereign nation. It was part of China.
The Communists (later PRC) and the KMT (later the RoC) were part of the new government following the overthrow of the emperor. The RoC betrayed and slaughtered the PRC, and took control of the country. This led to a few decades of infighting. Then Japan invaded, the RoC retreated to the southwest of the country, the PRC remained through the country in resistance cells, but based themselves out of the northwest.
The Japanese were defeated, and retreated from the country. The ROC and PRC fought, and the ROC won. The PRC retreated to Taiwan.
From Taiwan, the PRC claimed they were still the rightful government of China. Meanwhile the PRC said they were the rightful government of China, and that included Taiwan.
in what seems to be a clerical error of epic proportions, the PRC used this and is able to convince the UN (not all, it came down to a vote) that ROCs claim to de jure was invalid.
It wasn't a clerical error, the US didn't want to hand over permanent security council status and therefore veto status to a communist regime. They only changed that when the close relations between China and the USSR became shaky, and the US responded by trying to attract China, including giving its government recognition in the UN.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bakerofish wrote:@sir
yeah i got the timelines wrong. PRC happened after WWII
now knowing that... the PRC's claim seems to be a lot more suspect doesnt it?
They're the government of the country. That's the only claim that matters.
i think youre switching PRC and ROC there. The ROC fled to Taiwan
I probably did. I was trying to use your terms to help you keep it straight, and used terms you'd never use to describe those organisations in regular language. I was using ROC and PRC in terms you'd never use them to normally describe modern Chinese history.
But more importantly, you understand the history now, yeah? And most importantly, you understand that the ROC remained the recognised government of China for entirely political reasons, and not because of any kind of "clerical error".
knowing this though, is it possible that the rebels can try something similar to wrestle de jure from Ghaddafi?
I still dont think so. The rebels dont really have the clout to swing the UN the way PRC did
thoughts?
But the clout needed to swing the UN is entirely different in each case. On the one hand you had a new communist government closely aligned to the USSR during the cold war, the western countries were not at all interested in granting them official recognition.
There is no similar political reason to deny any new government of Libya their seat in the UN. Well, not at this point, we don't really know what form this government will take.
sebster wrote:
But more importantly, you understand the history now, yeah? And most importantly, you understand that the ROC remained the recognised government of China for entirely political reasons, and not because of any kind of "clerical error".
wait can you clarify this? when you say remained what do you mean? That the ROC (Taiwan) represented China in the UN until 1971? yeah i agree there. But how they got kicked off the UN though is the problem. Regardless of any political motivations a country chooses to recognize another, the letter of the law and charter had to be followed. How they accomplished that is the controversy.
the reason i say or it comes off as a clerical error to me is this:
The multilateral Peace Treaty of September 1951 did have the legal effect of formally surrendering Japanese sovereignty over Taiwan, the Pescadores, and arguably the Diaoyu Islands, but China was not a party to the Treaty, through either the ROC or the PRC.(58) Moreover, the Treaty did not specifically identify the entity that was to inherit Taiwan.(59) That question was not clarified by the bi-lateral Peace Treaty of 1952 between Japan and the ROC, which simply recognized Japan's renunciation in the multilateral Peace Treaty of 1951.(60)
Japan gave back Taiwan to "China" but not specifically to ROC or the PRC. Since the PRC (Communist China) held de facto control over the mainland by this point they had more weight with the claim that they were the ones being referred to.
Really folks it's time to sit back and let people figure their own sh@#. Not since WW2 has anyone really appreciated U.S. intervention. Do you really think U.S. Military intervention is going to solve these problems? Our military interventions are what have created most of our enemies and made us targets of terrorist attacks.
Some people thought we would be greeted with open arms in Iraq too, that worked out well! Now we can't even afford to pay our teachers.
If other countries want military intervention so badly let them do it. Let someone else spend their money, hell maybe we can sell some weapons and actually make some money.
What we should do is find a way to get China to spend all their money and resources on these stupid excursions. While we are at it, if Europe wants U.S. bases on their soil, start coughing up some cash.
Lets clean up our own house first.
The counter point to this is had we cared enough to advise and support Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi properly maybe we could have avoided the middle east catastrophe entirely.
Now you're probably going to just ignore this, as you think I'm 'wrong', but if that's why you think it was a clerical error? That's completely wrong.
The Chinese sovereignity question would have existed anyway, as the issue was not 'who owned the island', it was that although the PRC had won a military victory, and taken control of the mainland, the RoC still existed, and still claimed it had power. As sebster explained, this was helped by the Western nations who did not want to compound their 'defeat' by the communists in China, by simply handing over a UNSC Permanent 5 seat to a communist nation.
As you said, Japan did not recognize the PRC as the government of China until 1971, the same year that the rest of the world began to recognize the PRC. The Western Nations especially switched their recognition in an attempt to capitalized on the Sino-Soviet split.
Really folks it's time to sit back and let people figure their own sh@#. Not since WW2 has anyone really appreciated U.S. intervention. Do you really think U.S. Military intervention is going to solve these problems? Our military interventions are what have created most of our enemies and made us targets of terrorist attacks.
Some people thought we would be greeted with open arms in Iraq too, that worked out well! Now we can't even afford to pay our teachers.
If other countries want military intervention so badly let them do it. Let someone else spend their money, hell maybe we can sell some weapons and actually make some money.
What we should do is find a way to get China to spend all their money and resources on these stupid excursions. While we are at it, if Europe wants U.S. bases on their soil, start coughing up some cash.
Lets clean up our own house first.
The counter point to this is had we cared enough to advise and support Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi properly maybe we could have avoided the middle east catastrophe entirely.
Yeah, some people did think we'd be welcomed with open arms in Iraq... they were not actually asking the Iraqis about it though. Unlike the Libyans who are asking for a no-fly zone.
bs. You're not "lending assistance" if you're shooting at a country's aircraft. Well...I guess if by lending assistance you meant helping them get to the ground quickly I guess.
WSJ denoting stalemate starting. Be careful of backing the wrong horse.
A no-fly one has the support of the Conference of Islamic Nations, the majority of countries in the UN, and pretty much everyone bur Russia and China. Meh at backing the wrong horse-- we're backing people who want to overthrow a tyrant, and pretty much everyone agrees that it's a good idea. This is not comparable to Iraq which did not have such overwhelming support.
Melissia wrote:A no-fly one has the support of the Conference of Islamic Nations, the majority of countries in the UN, and pretty much everyone bur Russia and China. Meh at backing the wrong horse-- we're backing people who want to overthrow a tyrant, and pretty much everyone agrees that it's a good idea. This is not comparable to Iraq which did not have such overwhelming support.
bs. IF THEY SUPPORT IT LET THEM DO IT.
They don't need us. I don't see ANY of them doing anything. They are full of gak.
I hadn't noticed any particular interest in launching attacks on Russia or China either, unless you think they are just paranoid awaiting the imminent U.S. Invasion of most of Asia that we have been so blatanty preparing for?
lol admittedly this is more tin-hat than anything but if ya take a look at it, getting an aircraft carrier in the mediterranean for an extended period of time gives a shorter and clearer run, and over friendlier airspace
so they get one in there, theres the other near Iraq and Iran, the one in S. Korea...
I noticed you didn't answer the question. If the rest of the world is for this no fly zone except China and Russia, where are the Swedish Saabs and German Tornadoes screaming over Libya? I don't see any Mirages flying nor fighters with the Brazilian flag on it. No Saudi or Kuwaiti F-15s, no South African airships either.
Bakerofish wrote:lol admittedly this is more tin-hat than anything but if ya take a look at it, getting an aircraft carrier in the mediterranean for an extended period of time gives a shorter and clearer run, and over friendlier airspace
so they get one in there, theres the other near Iraq and Iran, the one in S. Korea...
again tin-hat
dont hurt me
The US has air force bases in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, and South Korea, just to name a few.
Having an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean isn't going to drastically change the operational threat of the United States towards Russia or China.
US Naval ships are in the Med alot of the time anyway... Have been for the last 60 years.
Same as there have been USSR/Russian ships in the Med too...
This thread seems to have a few people who know very little about history and current affairs.
As for the invasion of Iraq, many did welcome the US arrival, such as the scenes toppling the statue of Saddam. Indeed 101AB sector was virtually passified within a week or two and they were getting on great guns.
The problem was that the US government elected to disband the Iraq Army and various other insitutions, meaning they had to then keep US troops on the ground as an 'occupation' force and also deal with massive amounts of unemployed soldiers who feel into the insurgency.
They were happy you arrived... they just didnt want you to stay.
Oh and the utterly botched attempts at building an Iraq regime didnt help too much either.
Actually the main problem for a no-fly zone is indeed where to base the aircraft and who will provide the short range and long range aerial surveillance aircraft.
Alongside this you will also need satelitte intel providing locations of key AA installaltions, that will need to be taken out before hand, as in Bosnia. You will also want some on the ground intel, from either SF or trusted local sources to pick up hidden AA sites.
You will also need rescue and recovery operation units in the area along with QRF SF teams to help retrieve pilots from hostile forces.
But mainly... You need a base capable of handling a large amount of aircraft required to enforce the zone.
Melissia wrote:NATO is already doing short and long range as well as satalite surveilance.
Its member states are.
Not NATO itself. Pulling all those resources into a complete and workable system is another matter. NATO dont always get it right when they try and pull various nations into one force.
Big P wrote:Actually the main problem for a no-fly zone is indeed where to base the aircraft and who will provide the short range and long range aerial surveillance aircraft.
Well, you can base them on carrier in the Med, or if Italy will go along with us, base them out of southern Italy/Malta.
I sincerely doubt that NATO will have any problems holding a no fly zone down...I refer you back to the Gulf of Sidra incidents in the 80s. Somehow I doubt the Libyans would have improved much.
True, but they weren't in open rebellion at the time.
There's a huge difference between lending assistance and invading a country.
The Kurds wanted us there pretty badly
Remember kids, US Carriers=4.5 acres of sovereign US territory ready to go where needed.
Yeah at what cost? Tell you what the UN, EU whoever, we willl send our stuff out for you when you start footing the bills! That includes the butchers bill and all future medical bills! I'm so sick of the US doing all the heavy lifting and getting nothing but sh@# for it. The EU, UN and NATO have big mouths and no balls. The only country over there that does there share are the Brits.
Seriously, Europe has had peace since WW2 but what have the Europeans contributed to that? What price have they paid for that stability that is built upon the foundation of US protection? You know they charge us for the land our bases are on, they act like our military is criminal, but try to close a base and watch the protests. F'em
A no-fly one has the support of the Conference of Islamic Nations
Again great? Foot the bill, those planes are gonna use a lot of fuel, maybe they can talk OPEC into filling them for free. While they are at it do something about out $4 a gallon gas right now. The Us armed forces job is not to create stability in the world while our own people can't foot the bill for it.
Don't forget the political bills. Politically the US is bankrupt. Conference of Islamic nations, you want some help, you had better start talking about how the US is the friend on Islam. I want some political credit for the work the US armed forces put in. If I hear another story about civilian deaths! Really, like it happens on purpose! Sorry maybe if you could take care of your own sh@%, the US soldiers wouldn't be there accidentally killing some civilians now and then.
I can just see it now, we shoot down a Libyan helicopter, it crashes into a farmhouse or whatever mud and straw buildings these people live in. Headlines "US Airforce killls family in Libya, Conference of Islamic Nations condemns US no fly zone". This would of course be followed by riots and flag burnings throughout the Islamic countries. Quickly followed by France, Italy and Germany call the US warmongers and pulling out what little support they lent, leaving us there all alone AGAIN. The US tax payers foot the bill while we can't even pay out teachers, corporations turn huge profits. The US is then forced to pull out because of public opinion and Libya turns into a US hating fundamentalist state.
The world then points a finger at the US and says "Your fault!"
You do realize that we have carriers that regularly go on cruises in the mediterranean right? We have carriers there already thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the dozens of air bases we also have in the area, Qatar for example.
halonachos wrote:You do realize that we have carriers that regularly go on cruises in the mediterranean right? We have carriers there already thanks to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the dozens of air bases we also have in the area, Qatar for example.
Yeah, so. Doesn't mean we should launch operations and increase the cost of them being there unless someone wants to foot that bill. I don't see the Ice Cream man giving kids treats for free just cause he's driving by anyway.
I don't think the tax payers are happy about the excursions we are on, much less pay for another. Can anyone give any reason why it would be in the US best interest to become active in this theater? Please don't respond with people are getting killed. People are getting killed everywhere. Helping them MAY be in thier best interests, not the US's.
Why should the US taxpayer foot the bill to give someone else liberty as ours are being stripped away at home?
I am currently in San Diego for a bit. I see so many homeless veterans, until we can afford to take care of them the way they deserve, I don't think we have the right to spend money on ANYONE else. Why are we giving financial and military aid to the world when the soldiers that this aid is based on are wandering homeless in droves?
As I recall, there was already an aircraft carrier dispatched to the Libyan coast, albeit one with insufficient resources to enact a no-fly zone. Of course, I only heard that second hand, so I don't know the truth of the matter.
halonachos wrote:Oil and the fact that he's sponsored terrorism before help.
Those are the exact same reasons we went into Iraq and that has been fabulous!. So you want to spend another 3 trillion dollars a year that we don't have. Good call!
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Sir Pseudonymous wrote:As I recall, there was already an aircraft carrier dispatched to the Libyan coast, albeit one with insufficient resources to enact a no-fly zone. Of course, I only heard that second hand, so I don't know the truth of the matter.
The Libyan air force is not scary, it could be done with one carrier. But why? Who pays for it? Will Libya, will UN, will Nato? If by some miracle they shoot a plane down, or one just crashes for some reason who pays for that $50 million dollar expense?
Actually we went into Iraq because of the fact that he had WMD's before.
If you actually do some research you will find that most of the oil fields owned by an outisde country in Iraq are owned by the Chinese who did jack squat.
So if oil really was the major reason we went into Iraq, why would we allow China to buy rights to most of the fields?
We are also proposing a no-fly zone, not a full scale invasion. Those are two completely different things, if you want to compare the concepts of the no-fly zone over Libya and the invasion of Iraq you may also want to compare eating an apple to burying a dead dog.
halonachos wrote:Actually we went into Iraq because of the fact that he had WMD's before.
Nah, that's probably not why. At the time there was a single confirmed proliferator, and one significantly more dangerous possible proliferator that would have been of much greater interest.
Two of the best explanations that I've heard stem from a sort of collective obsession with Iraq within the policy wonks in the administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.), or the belief that exporting democracy to the Middle East would cause a domino effect whereby the Middle East would democratize, and therefore become sympathetic to the US, or at least stable. Both causes point at a sort of collective delusion, which seems like a probable cause when more material forces are not illuminating.
halonachos wrote:
If you actually do some research you will find that most of the oil fields owned by an outisde country in Iraq are owned by the Chinese who did jack squat.
So if oil really was the major reason we went into Iraq, why would we allow China to buy rights to most of the fields?
Because we're not really interested in who possesses any given oil field, we're interested in the actual price of oil; meaning we have a compelling interest to see the commodity outside of state ownership.
dogma wrote:Nah, that's probably not why. At the time there was a single confirmed proliferator, and one significantly more dangerous possible proliferator that would have been of much greater interest.
But did we have a butchered cease fire with that proliferator and a stated policy of regime change with that country?
halonachos wrote:Actually we went into Iraq because of the fact that he had WMD's before.
If you actually do some research you will find that most of the oil fields owned by an outisde country in Iraq are owned by the Chinese who did jack squat.
So if oil really was the major reason we went into Iraq, why would we allow China to buy rights to most of the fields?
We are also proposing a no-fly zone, not a full scale invasion. Those are two completely different things, if you want to compare the concepts of the no-fly zone over Libya and the invasion of Iraq you may also want to compare eating an apple to burying a dead dog.
WMD's go watch more fox news! WMD was the excuse and maybe the final straw, the real reason was an axe to grind with Saddam.
Who cares who owns the oil fields, I havn't seen any subsidies from it. Are you saying that if we help Libya then they give us the oil for free, i don't see that happening. If BP or shell want the oil so bad, then they can foot the bill. Of course they would just pass it back on to us.
Question, how much Libyan oil do you have in your car right now? How much from the middle east? Do the research I think you will be surprised.
Most wars start small. No fly zones are always the first step. Again who pays for the no fly zone?
Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think the tax payers are happy about the excursions we are on, much less pay for another. Can anyone give any reason why it would be in the US best interest to become active in this theater?
Oil prices will always be a popular reason, though the reality is that the oil never stops flowing for long, if it ever does. The real issue is whether or not that oil is flowing towards the places we want it to do towards (not necessarily us) , or other areas .
Andrew1975 wrote:
Why should the US taxpayer foot the bill to give someone else liberty as ours are being stripped away at home?
What liberty is being stripped away? In our representative system you have a say insofar as there are elections, after that you just get to talk about how you don't like something. Even if you think that denies you your natural liberty, you can't argue that it isn't perfectly in accordance with the social contract implied by the Constitution, and those collected laws derived from it.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I see so many homeless veterans, until we can afford to take care of them the way they deserve, I don't think we have the right to spend money on ANYONE else. Why are we giving financial and military aid to the world when the soldiers that this aid is based on are wandering homeless in droves?
In part its because those soldiers were probably given exactly what their contracts with state implied, meaning that they got what they deserved in the sense that desert follows from agreement.
I can argue that I deserve to be given a billion USD per anum, but if no one agreed to that prior to my statement, then I don't have a very strong case.
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halonachos wrote:What's that term for collective thinking that turns out negatively? Think Tank, no, dang forgot what its called.
Group think.
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biccat wrote:
But did we have a butchered cease fire with that proliferator and a stated policy of regime change with that country?
Does it matter? Policies are easily changed, and the cease fire could just as easily have been dealt with by lifting the no-fly zones. Invasion wasn't the only option, it was merely the option that the Bush Administration favored.
There's this sort of zeitgeist that backing out conflicts indicates weakness, which is often true (depending on the observer), but it really doesn't matter when you're already holding all the cards, so to speak. Standing down from Iraq wasn't suddenly going to make people believe that the United States was no longer the most powerful military force on the planet.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think the tax payers are happy about the excursions we are on, much less pay for another. Can anyone give any reason why it would be in the US best interest to become active in this theater?
Oil prices will always be a popular reason, though the reality is that the oil never stops flowing for long, if it ever does. The real issue is whether or not that oil is flowing towards the places we want it to do towards (not necessarily us) , or other areas .[/code]
Sure but can we say that any of these excursions have helped the price of oil? As far as I can see I haven't seen Saudi Arabia or Iraq giving specific oil discounts to the participants of the gulf wars....have you? I don't mind fighting for oil as long as the US specifically get some benefit. What I don't agree with is the US fighting for the worlds oil or corporations oil. Go get it yourself.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Why should the US taxpayer foot the bill to give someone else liberty as ours are being stripped away at home?
What liberty is being stripped away? In our representative system you have a say insofar as there are elections, after that you just get to talk about how you don't like something. Even if you think that denies you your natural liberty, you can't argue that it isn't perfectly in accordance with the social contract implied by the Constitution, and those collected laws derived from it.
I would say the decline of the middle class is a loss of liberty, stripping unions of their rights to collective bargaining would be stripping people of liberty. All because money is tight and now people want us to spend more to help out Libya? Why? Egypt did it for themselves.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I see so many homeless veterans, until we can afford to take care of them the way they deserve, I don't think we have the right to spend money on ANYONE else. Why are we giving financial and military aid to the world when the soldiers that this aid is based on are wandering homeless in droves?
In part its because those soldiers were probably given exactly what their contracts with state implied, meaning that they got what they deserved in the sense that desert follows from agreement.
I can argue that I deserve to be given a billion USD per anum, but if no one agreed to that prior to my statement, then I don't have a very strong case.
That isn't a real answer to the specific question. The question being why should the US spend money on Libya when our own house is not in order. Again how does US intervention specifically help the US? I'm not against Nato doing it. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just don't see the value in the US taking on another burden as the rest of the world sits back and reaps the rewards. Let the French do it. Hell, I think the US can do it if someone else will finance it and make it worth our while. I don't have a problem with being the global police, I've just never seen the police work for free.
It can also be argued that they (the veterans) should be taken care of, fed and housed, yet veterans benefits are always one of the first costs that are attacked or cut.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Sure but can we say that any of these excursions have helped the price of oil? As far as I can see I haven't seen Saudi Arabia or Iraq giving specific oil discounts to the participants of the gulf wars....have you? I don't mind fighting for oil as long as the US specifically get some benefit. What I don't agree with is the US fighting for the worlds oil or corporations oil. Go get it yourself.
There's two counter-arguments here.
The first is that we aren't pursuing discounts, we're pursuing the status quo, which presently favors us heavily due to the presence of relatively sympathetic governments in the oil producing nations that we purchase crude from.
The second is that we're primarily interested in Middle Eastern oil because that's where everyone else gets their oil from, and if they decide to, say, cut off Europe, the overall supply will be reduced such tha there will be greater competition for the oil we get from other regions (primarily Africa, and South America, as Canada will always favor us due to shipping costs). In this sense we cannot ignore the interests of others, as they directly affect our own; that's the burden that comes with beings the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I would say the decline of the middle class is a loss of liberty, stripping unions of their rights to collective bargaining would be stripping people of liberty. All because money is tight and now people want us to spend more to help out Libya? Why? Egypt did it for themselves.
Well, Egypt hasn't done anything yet, they got Mubarak to step down sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything substantive.
I'm also not sure the middle class has declined in real terms, though they definitely have relative to the upper class, which is not unimportant.
Andrew1975 wrote:
That isn't a real answer to the specific question. The question being why should the US spend money on Libya when our own house is not in order.
Our house isn't in order? How are you defining in order? We're among the most prosperous nations in the world. I could see an argument from the deficit, but I was thrown off by your appeal to emotion based on homeless veterans. From my perspective such people got exactly what they signed on for, a period of service with a degree of compensation and the omnipresent chance of eventual homelessness that everyone faces, which fits my definition of "in order".
If you're arguing that our country should be better, then that's a different line of inquiry.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Again how does US intervention specifically help the US? I'm not against Nato doing it. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just don't see the value in the US taking on another burden as the rest of the world sits back and reaps the rewards. Let the French do it. Hell, I think the US can do it if someone else will finance it and make it worth our while. I don't have a problem with being the global police, I've just never seen the police work for free.
We don't do it for free, the US is at the top of an orchestrated structure of global power from which we draw significant economic benefits. You don't notice it because its been that way for the entirety of your life, and that of nearly everyone else still breathing. Probably the most tangible benefit is that we are able to consume as much petroleum as we do at such a low price relative to the rest of the world.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "let NATO do it". The US is a NATO member state, and would be a party, probably the most significant party, to any military action taken by that body. Any no-fly zone imposed will either be US-only, or driven by NATO/a generic coalition of states.
Andrew1975 wrote:
It can also be argued that they (the veterans) should be taken care of, fed and housed, yet veterans benefits are always one of the first costs that are attacked or cut.
Sure. The group 'veterans', or more accurately "veterans in need of significant aid", is pretty small, and therefore largely irrelevant politically.
I agree that the VA is underfunded, but the reality is that the vast majority of people simply don't care, so it isn't terribly significant to any political argument for or against intervention.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Sure but can we say that any of these excursions have helped the price of oil? As far as I can see I haven't seen Saudi Arabia or Iraq giving specific oil discounts to the participants of the gulf wars....have you? I don't mind fighting for oil as long as the US specifically get some benefit. What I don't agree with is the US fighting for the worlds oil or corporations oil. Go get it yourself.
There's two counter-arguments here.
The first is that we aren't pursuing discounts, we're pursuing the status quo, which presently favors us heavily due to the presence of relatively sympathetic governments in the oil producing nations that we purchase crude from.
The second is that we're primarily interested in Middle Eastern oil because that's where everyone else gets their oil from, and if they decide to, say, cut off Europe, the overall supply will be reduced such tha there will be greater competition for the oil we get from other regions (primarily Africa, and South America, as Canada will always favor us due to shipping costs). In this sense we cannot ignore the interests of others, as they directly affect our own; that's the burden that comes with beings the world's largest consumer of petroleum.
So your saying that it wouldn't be better for the US to negotiate a reciprocal deals in turn for military support? It's not that I don't understand your point, it's that if we are going to be doing these things I think we should get more out of it. This current situation where we bare the costs for the rest of the world is irresponsible to US citizens.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I would say the decline of the middle class is a loss of liberty, stripping unions of their rights to collective bargaining would be stripping people of liberty. All because money is tight and now people want us to spend more to help out Libya? Why? Egypt did it for themselves.
Well, Egypt hasn't done anything yet, they got Mubarak to step down sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything substantive.
I'm also not sure the middle class has declined in real terms, though they definitely have relative to the upper class, which is not unimportant.
The middle class hasn't declined? What part of the US do you live in? What do you do for a living that you haven't felt this? People are losing their houses, they can't afford medical care. We just bailed out the richest 1% of the United States and they are stabbing us in the back and taking peoples houses and throwing them on the street. Not just taking away peoples benefits, but trying to make it illegal for people to fight for them. Meanwhile oil companies are posting record profits, why? Because they can get the American tax payer to finance the protection of their global oil interests.
Mubarak stepping down is pretty substantive, the fact that they did it on their own and without foreign intervention is very impressive. Sure they have a long road ahead, but it surely is substantive!
Andrew1975 wrote:
That isn't a real answer to the specific question. The question being why should the US spend money on Libya when our own house is not in order.
Our house isn't in order? How are you defining in order? We're among the most prosperous nations in the world. I could see an argument from the deficit, but I was thrown off by your appeal to emotion based on homeless veterans. From my perspective such people got exactly what they signed on for, a period of service with a degree of compensation and the omnipresent chance of eventual homelessness that everyone faces, which fits my definition of "in order".
If you're arguing that our country should be better, then that's a different line of inquiry.
I don't think so, if you look at my argument that's exactly what I am saying. Why are we so busy fighting for other peoples rights, liberties, freedoms, ways of life, improvement of their conditions whatever, if we are not improving our own. I'm sick of the rest of the world getting a free ride and complaining about it.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Again how does US intervention specifically help the US? I'm not against Nato doing it. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just don't see the value in the US taking on another burden as the rest of the world sits back and reaps the rewards. Let the French do it. Hell, I think the US can do it if someone else will finance it and make it worth our while. I don't have a problem with being the global police, I've just never seen the police work for free.
We don't do it for free, the US is at the top of an orchestrated structure of global power from which we draw significant economic benefits. You don't notice it because its been that way for the entirety of your life, and that of nearly everyone else still breathing. Probably the most tangible benefit is that we are able to consume as much petroleum as we do at such a low price relative to the rest of the world.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "let NATO do it". The US is a NATO member state, and would be a party, probably the most significant party, to any military action taken by that body. Any no-fly zone imposed will either be US-only, or driven by NATO/a generic coalition of states.
So because we make the world safer in our own interests we are the only one that has to foot the bill and we have to share the benefits with everyone for free,? Please we should take a hint from corporate America. Follow the money. It's cheaper to use an ATM but they still charge you more for it. Anyone who benefits from the intervention should pay for it especially if they need it more than we do.
Let Nato, UN whoever else wants to do it, do it. I wasn't being specific. And if nato wants us to do it alone fine, just finance it for us and pay us for the service or send the French or Italians to do it. Oh wait, they can't, because they don't have the capabilities, because they know the US will do it for free.
Andrew1975 wrote:
It can also be argued that they (the veterans) should be taken care of, fed and housed, yet veterans benefits are always one of the first costs that are attacked or cut.
Sure. The group 'veterans', or more accurately "veterans in need of significant aid", is pretty small, and therefore largely irrelevant politically.
I agree that the VA is underfunded, but the reality is that the vast majority of people simply don't care, so it isn't terribly significant to any political argument for or against intervention.
Well if it's pretty small we should be able to handle the situation for less than a Libyan excursion.
I think the vast majority don't care about Libya, or the freedom and safety of the Libyan people, at least not at the cost of our own people. While we care about the price of oil, I don't think they care about the global price that other countries are paying. Currently there is no oil shortage, no stoppage, in fact reserves are at the highest they have been in awhile. It's not supply that is causing global spikes in prices, it's fear that there will be a problem.
Andrew1975 wrote:
So your saying that it wouldn't be better for the US to negotiate a reciprocal deals in turn for military support? It's not that I don't understand your point, it's that if we are going to be doing these things I think we should get more out of it. This current situation where we bare the costs for the rest of the world is irresponsible to US citizens.
Basically, yes. If we negotiate a reciprocal deal, one of two things are liable to happen:
1) The nation in question becomes an exclusive supplier, potentially constricting the remainer of the global supply, and encouraging our client state to renege on the agreement.
2) Our preferential deal artificially drives down profits for our client state, and they renege on our agreement in order to make more money on the open market.
In both cases we end up in a situation basically identical to the present one, as our only military recourse would be to take direct control of the client state.
Andrew1975 wrote:
The middle class hasn't declined? What part of the US do you live in? What do you do for a living that you haven't felt this? People are losing their houses, they can't afford medical care.
People haven't been able to afford medical care for a long time, and have been buying homes with fundamentally flawed mortgages. The middle class hasn't declined, its merely realized the truth of the state that its been in for about 20 years.
Andrew1975 wrote:
We just bailed out the richest 1% of the United States and they are stabbing us in the back and taking peoples houses and throwing them on the street.
Not doing so would negate the purpose of the bailout.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Mubarak stepping down is pretty substantive, the fact that they did it on their own and without foreign intervention is very impressive. Sure they have a long road ahead, but it surely is substantive!
I disagree. Regime change almost never has a substantive impact on the actual condition of a nation, especially when the regime being changed is highly institutionalized; as Mubarak's was (stemming from Nasser's original coup).
Andrew1975 wrote:
So because we make the world safer in our own interests we are the only one that has to foot the bill and we have to share the benefits with everyone for free,?
Because of the way international trade works, any benefit that we derive from our military policy will naturally be passed down to our trading partners, and others who are invested in the system. There's not avoiding it. Well, there is a way to avoid it, its called colonialism, and its much more expensive, and unstable, than the current system.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Let Nato, UN whoever else wants to do it, do it. I wasn't being specific. And if nato wants us to do it alone fine, just finance it for us and pay us for the service or send the French or Italians to do it. Oh wait, they can't, because they don't have the capabilities, because they know the US will do it for free.
Why would NATO pay the US? The US contributes to NATO.
Andrew1975 wrote:
While we care about the price of oil, I don't think they care about the global price that other countries are paying.
The price of any given barrel of oil is derived from the global price of oil. The only reason that the average person doesn't care about the global price of oil is that they're ignorant of how it affects the price of gas at the pump.
Big P wrote:Actually the main problem for a no-fly zone is indeed where to base the aircraft and who will provide the short range and long range aerial surveillance aircraft.
Well, you can base them on carrier in the Med, or if Italy will go along with us, base them out of southern Italy/Malta.
I sincerely doubt that NATO will have any problems holding a no fly zone down...I refer you back to the Gulf of Sidra incidents in the 80s. Somehow I doubt the Libyans would have improved much.
Well seeing as we (Britain) decided to mothball all our Harriers, our carriers are rather toothless...
Even basing out of Southern Italy and Malta will require aircraft to have re-fuellers on stand-by just outside Libiyan airspace as aircraft have to be on station to maintain a no-fly zone. This would led to long mission times for pilots if they have to act from European soil. Ideally you would want them based out of a neighbouring country, but I cant see that happening.
I fail to see what Sidra has to do with it.
That saw Reagan deploy the USS Forrestal and Nimitz off the Libyan coast and in reaction to US exercises the Libiyans bombed up and set some aircraft out to 'attack' the US fleet. On August 19th, one o fthe Libyan SU-22s popped off an AA-2 at an F-14 and the two eagles, 102 and 107, splashed their Libiyan opposition with Sidewinders in retailation.
They did not enforce a no-fly zone, or indeed operate for an extended period.
I dont see the US being willing to deploy two carriers to the area in order to maintain a no-fly zone. This will have to be a NATO led and executed mission, backed by UN sanction, and it will be difficult to conduct due to the range and distance from suitable operational airfields.
I'm American, so when I say 'we' I am usually referring to the Unisted States. It would be idea to base them in Algeria or Tunisia, but obviously we can't do that, so we'll have to settle for the next best thing. If there's one thin Western air forces have down to a T, its how to keep an aircraft up in the air for a long time. Remember, we wouldn't need to patrol ALL of LIbya, just they key parts where loyalist air bases are located. One aircraft carrier should be able to do that.
I refer back to Gulf of Sidra simply because it's a good example of the combat ability of the Libyan air force. They're not going to be able to resist a no fly zone.
Andrew1975 wrote:
So your saying that it wouldn't be better for the US to negotiate a reciprocal deals in turn for military support? It's not that I don't understand your point, it's that if we are going to be doing these things I think we should get more out of it. This current situation where we bare the costs for the rest of the world is irresponsible to US citizens.
Basically, yes. If we negotiate a reciprocal deal, one of two things are liable to happen:
1) The nation in question becomes an exclusive supplier, potentially constricting the remainer of the global supply, and encouraging our client state to renege on the agreement.
2) Our preferential deal artificially drives down profits for our client state, and they renege on our agreement in order to make more money on the open market.
In both cases we end up in a situation basically identical to the present one, as our only military recourse would be to take direct control of the client state.
You act like there is no precedent for this. The US Controlled the Panama canal for quite some time, because we built it. I see no reason why the same type of agreement could not be reached with oil fields. Exclusivity doesn't have to be part of the deal. The amount of profit available from oil is huge, any of the oil producing countries could sell to a country for a discount if they wanted especially if that country is responsible for their ability to pump oil in the first place.
Andrew1975 wrote:
The middle class hasn't declined? What part of the US do you live in? What do you do for a living that you haven't felt this? People are losing their houses, they can't afford medical care.
People haven't been able to afford medical care for a long time, and have been buying homes with fundamentally flawed mortgages. The middle class hasn't declined, its merely realized the truth of the state that its been in for about 20 years.
Maybe the reason for this is if you take the military spending and wasteful humanitarian aid we provide around the world and reinvest that in the US we wouldn't be in such a f'ed up situation.
Andrew1975 wrote:
We just bailed out the richest 1% of the United States and they are stabbing us in the back and taking peoples houses and throwing them on the street.
Not doing so would negate the purpose of the bailout.
nonsense, utter nonsense. This is the Dogma I am used to. Those banks and corporations owe the US taxpayer.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Mubarak stepping down is pretty substantive, the fact that they did it on their own and without foreign intervention is very impressive. Sure they have a long road ahead, but it surely is substantive!
I disagree. Regime change almost never has a substantive impact on the actual condition of a nation, especially when the regime being changed is highly institutionalized; as Mubarak's was (stemming from Nasser's original coup).
I guess it depends on what your idea of substantive change is. You probably don't think the American revolution was a substantive change. And no I don't want to hear your reason why it wasn't. I'm beginning to remember why I don't argue with you. Someone should be paying you to derail threads.
Andrew1975 wrote:
So because we make the world safer in our own interests we are the only one that has to foot the bill and we have to share the benefits with everyone for free,?
Because of the way international trade works, any benefit that we derive from our military policy will naturally be passed down to our trading partners, and others who are invested in the system. There's not avoiding it. Well, there is a way to avoid it, its called colonialism, and its much more expensive, and unstable, than the current system.
Wrong, just wrong. Cheaper oil would not benefit the US and colonialism is the only way to get it. Wrong
Andrew1975 wrote:
Let Nato, UN whoever else wants to do it, do it. I wasn't being specific. And if nato wants us to do it alone fine, just finance it for us and pay us for the service or send the French or Italians to do it. Oh wait, they can't, because they don't have the capabilities, because they know the US will do it for free.
Why would NATO pay the US? The US contributes to NATO.
So do all it's members but I don't see them pulling their weight. We should match whatever the rest of the members are providing and no more unless the rest of the members want to foot that bill. I don't care if its Nato or the UN. If you want a police force then you have to pay for it,
Andrew1975 wrote:
While we care about the price of oil, I don't think they care about the global price that other countries are paying.
The price of any given barrel of oil is derived from the global price of oil. The only reason that the average person doesn't care about the global price of oil is that they're ignorant of how it affects the price of gas at the pump.
Not true, not true at all. I just don't care what they have to pay. I care what I have to pay and if you want the US to secure your oil then we should not have to pay what everyone else does. If the US is responsible for your ability to pump oil, then you should be obligated to provide some reciprocal benefit to the US specifically. If not I don't really see a reason for our intervention. Other countries have the abilities to intervene and apply pressure let them do it. The US is actually in a better position than most to withstand spikes in oil prices, if it came down to a waiting game Europe would have to act before we did. I personally would love to see Italy, France and Germany try to handle these situations on their own.
Well seeing as we (Britain) decided to mothball all our Harriers, our carriers are rather toothless...
I guess 'mothballed' is the important word. That implies that they can be 'un-mothballed' should we require them.
Not if they have been 'mothballed' in the manner of the Nimrod....
Well, no. They were 'scrapped'. That pissed me off a bit actually - what a fething waste! Couldn't they have just well, mothballed them? Or at least sold them?
Albatross wrote:Well, no. They were 'scrapped'. That pissed me off a bit actually - what a fething waste! Couldn't they have just well, mothballed them? Or at least sold them?
They were brand new and cost a fortune!
Well, it was probably organised by someone who was a nimrod (and not the good kind that can fly).
Albatross wrote:Well, no. They were 'scrapped'. That pissed me off a bit actually - what a fething waste! Couldn't they have just well, mothballed them? Or at least sold them?
They were brand new and cost a fortune!
Well, it was probably organised by someone who was a nimrod (and not the good kind that can fly).
Not sure anyone would have wanted to buy them... From what I heard from sources it seems they were pretty much obselete before they rolled off the factory line...
As for the Harriers, the RAF fleet is scrapped.
The Sea Harriers just have the GR9s left (the GR7As got scrapped) and those are most certainly living on borrowed time. It looks like we may well get a new aircraft carrier on stream but not have any fixed wing to deploy fromit...
As ChrisWWII states a large US Carrier could certainly enforce the no-fly zone on its own, whether there is the political will power to do so remains to be seen. It might be that a NATO enforced zone will be more politically acceptable to have in the region... Which brings its own set of problems.
Andrew1975 wrote:
You act like there is no precedent for this. The US Controlled the Panama canal for quite some time, because we built it. I see no reason why the same type of agreement could not be reached with oil fields. Exclusivity doesn't have to be part of the deal. The amount of profit available from oil is huge, any of the oil producing countries could sell to a country for a discount if they wanted especially if that country is responsible for their ability to pump oil in the first place.
You're missing the point. There is no reason for any oil producer to sell to anyone at a reduced price, ever. The demand for oil far outstrips supply, and any agreement that we might make with a foreign state, exclusive or not (as I already illustrated), can easily be reneged on; and in fact there is a very large incentive to do so.
Regardless, as I've said many times already, the US already has a privileged status when it comes to its ability to import oil, and this is largely the result of its military policy with respect to oil producing states and the role it plays in enabling US corporations to do business in those states (among others).
Of course, you'll probably just say, again, that we don't benefit enough, and then go back to paying 2 USD per gallon less, on average, than the rest of the developed world.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Maybe the reason for this is if you take the military spending and wasteful humanitarian aid we provide around the world and reinvest that in the US we wouldn't be in such a f'ed up situation.
You know how humanitarian aid works, right? Basically the government buys goods from domestic manufacturers and ships it to foreign states. Cash aid is incredibly rare. Foreign aid is far more beneficial to US producers than to most foreign states.
As far as the military budget, I think it should be cut by 30%.
Andrew1975 wrote:
nonsense, utter nonsense. This is the Dogma I am used to. Those banks and corporations owe the US taxpayer.
The purpose of the bailout was to stabilize the balance sheets of certain banks without drawing explicit attention to those that were fully solvent (hence the comprehensive application of funds). If you don't allow banks to foreclose on homes, and so mitigate their losses, then you've basically just postponed the inevitable collapse of those institutions. No amount of bailout money is going to change the basic reality of our economic system.
Regardless of whether or not you feel the banks owe the taxpayer, what was done could not have been done any other way (except perhaps less the bailout money, though that's been debated so many times here as to be simple repetition at this point).
Andrew1975 wrote:
I guess it depends on what your idea of substantive change is. You probably don't think the American revolution was a substantive change. And no I don't want to hear your reason why it wasn't. I'm beginning to remember why I don't argue with you. Someone should be paying you to derail threads.
The American Revolution was substantive change because it involved the independence of a colony. The ousting of Mubarak is not a substantive change because it involved only the removal of one man at the head of an institutionally repressive system; ie. not a cult of personality.
I'm not sure why you think my commentary on Mubarak is derailing the thread when you brought Mubarak up in the first place.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Wrong, just wrong. Cheaper oil would not benefit the US and colonialism is the only way to get it. Wrong
Are you seriously claiming that cheaper oil is not beneficial to the United States? Really? I mean, our petroleum industry is hugely important, but nowhere near as important as the infrastructural lifeblood of the economy.
And yes, colonialism is the only way to do what you're describing. Even in the case of the panama canal that you cited earlier, the United States was forced to maintain a permanent military cordon around the asset. In any other situation the conversation goes like this:
US: We'll give you military support for cheaper oil.
Oil Producer: Ok
US: Why aren't you selling us cheaper oil?
OP: We don't want to.
US But our agreement!
OP: You'll provide us the same deal under market prices, or we'll remove all your extraction companies from out territory, seize their equipment, and bring in foreign workers. We'll also stop exporting to you.
US: Fine, because we have no choice other than putting troops on the ground to enforce the original agreement (colonialism).
Andrew1975 wrote:
So do all it's members but I don't see them pulling their weight. We should match whatever the rest of the members are providing and no more unless the rest of the members want to foot that bill. I don't care if its Nato or the UN. If you want a police force then you have to pay for it.
Match in what sense? As a proportion of our military budget to theirs? As a proportion of our overall force to theirs? A direct, one-to-one match?
You're entire claim is needlessly vague, and indicates to me that you're not really interested in this issue aside from some personal umbrage which, quite honestly, isn't particularly interesting to me. I don't care to argue with people that are going to stand on base of emotion.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Not true, not true at all. I just don't care what they have to pay.
Yes, because you don't seem to understand how the global price of oil impacts what the US has to pay. You're just reiterating the point I made, and reinforcing the impression I've taken from your position, as explained immediately above.
Looks like Libya has agreed to a cease fire without the US raising a finger. Hmmm. Maybe we don't have to be the world police. It's shocking, it's like the world can handle it's own problems sometimes.
Are you saying that the USA will not be involved in enforcement of a no-fly zone? Because that would be incorrect. The USA was also heavily involved in the negotiations.
Are you saying that the USA will not be involved in enforcement of a no-fly zone? Because that would be incorrect. The USA was also heavily involved in the negotiations.
"Britain and France, along with two unnamed Arab countries, were preparing to enforce the no-fly zone, said a European diplomat, adding that it could take "between 24 and 48 hours" for the operation to begin.
At least two Arab nations also agreed to participate, according to the European diplomat and a U.S. official, and discussions were ongoing with other governments in the region.
They declined, however, to identify the Arab countries that would take part. One was believed to be the United Arab Emirates, the federation of pro-West oil-producing sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf.
The U.S. also will participate, but the extent of the American role was still being decided by President Barack Obama, according to the U.S. official who asked not to be further identified in order to talk about the issue."
It hasn't happened yet. The US has not really even made any strategic moves besides some shuffling of currently deployed forces. It has hardly taken a real threatening posture. The US has stated that if it does participate the forces will have be mostly Arab consisting of forces from Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. I don't know how possible that really is, but the members of the Arab league do have powerful air forces at their disposal. It (the US) certainly won't or shouldn't be THE major player as this is a UN operation and not a US led one.
I think this has been handled really well by Obama of whom I am not a fan. What incentive is there for the US to ever do these things alone, we are not the only country in the world that has interests there.
Andrew1975 wrote:I think this has been handled really well by Obama of whom I am not a fan. What incentive is there for the US to ever do these things alone, we are not the only country in the world that has interests there.
Obama has stated very clearly that the US will not deploy ground troops. They are participating in the enforcement of the no-fly zone, but I don't know where you are getting the idea that the US is 'doing it alone'.
EDIT: And to suggest as much is really quite insulting to all the foreign troops that have fought and died alongside US forces, which wasn't always in a UN approved action.
Obama has stated very clearly that the US will not deploy ground troops. They are participating in the enforcement of the no-fly zone, but I don't know where you are getting the idea that the US is 'doing it alone'.
EDIT: And to suggest as much is really quite insulting to all the foreign troops that have fought and died alongside US forces, which wasn't always in a UN approved action.
Is predominantly alone a better phrase for you? No offense, but the US usually does the heavy lifting and shoulders almost all the blame and cost. I don't think that can be argued. Of course our allies help and I won't dishonor it by saying that it is negligible the backing we get is appreciated and some of our allies help much more than others. However, I rarely see people burning Australian, French, or British flags and I don't see these countries spending nearly the amount on military adventures and bribery aid that the US does. When all other participants contributions combined does not equal even 50% of what the US contribution is, I'm sorry but it's not an equal distribution.
It hasn't happened yet. The US has not really even made any strategic moves besides some shuffling of currently deployed forces. It has hardly taken a real threatening posture. The US has stated that if it does participate the forces will have be mostly Arab consisting of forces from Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. I don't know how possible that really is, but the members of the Arab league do have powerful air forces at their disposal. It (the US) certainly won't or shouldn't be THE major player as this is a UN operation and not a US led one.
I would call deploying an aircraft carrier to the Mediterannean a fairly significant strategic move. No doubt the US won't be the primary enforcer of this, which I'm guessing is part of Obama's plan, which seems to be going quite well, but the US should definitely at least be involved with the operation.
I would call deploying an aircraft carrier to the Mediterannean a fairly significant strategic move. No doubt the US won't be the primary enforcer of this, which I'm guessing is part of Obama's plan, which seems to be going quite well, but the US should definitely at least be involved with the operation.
No doubt, if it happens and our allies think it is necessary I'm all for pitching in because we should support our allies. But doing the heavy lifting.....meh. I still don't really believe much is gonna change in Libya and if the Arabs want a no fly zone or military action, they can accomplish it themselves. But we should support our allies who have supported us in the past. I never said we shouldn't.
As far a the carrier fleet. Was moving that a real expenditure is that really a posture! It can be said it was in the neighborhood. I mean it was already in the Mediterranean, it's just closer to Libya now.
Obama has stated very clearly that the US will not deploy ground troops. They are participating in the enforcement of the no-fly zone, but I don't know where you are getting the idea that the US is 'doing it alone'.
EDIT: And to suggest as much is really quite insulting to all the foreign troops that have fought and died alongside US forces, which wasn't always in a UN approved action.
Is predominantly alone a better phrase for you? No offense, but the US usually does the heavy lifting and shoulders almost all the blame and cost. I don't think that can be argued. Of course our allies help and I won't say that it is negligible the backing we get is appreciated. However, I rarely see people burning Australian, French, or British flags and I don't see these countries spending nearly the amount on military adventures and bribery aid that the US does. When all other participants contributions combined does not equal even 50% of what the US contribution is, I'm sorry but it's not an equal distribution.
Which, to be fair, is largly because the US has a ridiculously huge DND Budget. Your armed forces even sponsor several professional sports, an act that seems, for the most part, to be exclusive -to- the US. I think another reason that the US Military is so widely hated is because they get involved, even if both sides of a conflict don't necessarily want them there. Rushing in somewhere uninvited, and with guns blazing, isn't the best way to make friends on an international level. Meanwhile most other NATO nations tend to stick more to a peacekeeping role, they go where they're needed/wanted, when asked to do so. Very rarely will they just assert control over another country via military means. That's just the way of it though - the larger a nation's military, the more agressive that nation is going to be. And people might not see the good that sometimes comes from it, because it's outweighed by the bad aspects of such actions.
The US has just been too heavy handed since the Cold War. In WWI the US was largely a background player until they joined in 1917 - one year before the end of the war. Before then, they simply supplied the Allies with extra equipment. And again, it took them 3 years to enter the second world war (It officially started in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland), but again, they supplied the Allies with equipment due to Britain's industry being wiped out. The US was much-loved back then, because they weren't invading everyone that had oil and/or gave the President the stink-eye.
I guess all things considered, Americans should be proud of Obama for showing restraint and handling this as per UN and Rebel wishes. They asked for support in all forms, short of putting foreign troops in Libya. So far, that's what the US and NATO are doing. You Yanks want people to stop burning your flags? Win the battle for Hearts and Minds? Then this is an excellent example of how to get there. If these rebels take down Ghadafi, then they're going to remember the US that supported their nation, rather than the US that invaded it. Maybe it's not the ROFLSTOMP that Americans are used to, but that doesn't mean that it's a sign of weakness. Instead, I would say it's an indication that the man on top is using his head instead of his fists to solve a problem, and it's about bloody time.
Andrew1975 wrote: However, I rarely see people burning Australian, French, or British flags...
Burning French and British flags are pretty popular in some places mainly those where (shock/horror) these nations have seriously mucked up the local area or done something offensive (like banning the burqua). People generally think Aussies are just plain awesome though.
When all other participants contributions combined does not equal even 50% of what the US contribution is, I'm sorry but it's not an equal distribution.
For what it's worth Pakistan was the largest contributor of armed forces to the UN in 2008(or 9?). Regardless, when you're comparing the invasion force that originates from a country of +300 million as compared to, say, Australia which is scraping 20 million of course the larger country is going to take up a larger portion of the force. Equal distribution would dictate that Australia should only send 1 soldier for every 15 the US sends. I don't see why Australia would be interested in Libya at all in a political sense, but I do support the humanitarian call for aid (Australia has a less than satisfactory track-record when it comes to our own region, but you could also blame some of that on the US).
You have a problem with viewing things as The World vs America (and our allies, but they don't really do anything).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
metallifan wrote:Maybe it's not the ROFLSTOMP that Americans are used to...
Which, to be fair, is largly because the US has a ridiculously huge DND Budget. Your armed forces even sponsor several professional sports, an act that seems, for the most part, to be exclusive -to- the US. I think another reason that the US Military is so widely hated is because they get involved, even if both sides of a conflict don't necessarily want them there. Rushing in somewhere uninvited, and with guns blazing, isn't the best way to make friends on an international level. Meanwhile most other NATO nations tend to stick more to a peacekeeping role, they go where they're needed/wanted, when asked to do so. Very rarely will they just assert control over another country via military means. That's just the way of it though - the larger a nation's military, the more agressive that nation is going to be. And people might not see the good that sometimes comes from it, because it's outweighed by the bad aspects of such actions.
The US has just been too heavy handed since the Cold War. In WWI the US was largely a background player until they joined in 1917 - one year before the end of the war. Before then, they simply supplied the Allies with extra equipment. And again, it took them 3 years to enter the second world war (It officially started in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland), but again, they supplied the Allies with equipment due to Britain's industry being wiped out. The US was much-loved back then, because they weren't invading everyone that had oil and/or gave the President the stink-eye.
I guess all things considered, Americans should be proud of Obama for showing restraint and handling this as per UN and Rebel wishes. They asked for support in all forms, short of putting foreign troops in Libya. So far, that's what the US and NATO are doing. You Yanks want people to stop burning your flags? Win the battle for Hearts and Minds? Then this is an excellent example of how to get there. If these rebels take down Ghadafi, then they're going to remember the US that supported their nation, rather than the US that invaded it. Maybe it's not the ROFLSTOMP that Americans are used to, but that doesn't mean that it's a sign of weakness. Instead, I would say it's an indication that the man on top is using his head instead of his fists to solve a problem, and it's about bloody time.
This all day long
You have a problem with viewing things as The World vs America (and our allies, but they don't really do anything).
But isn't this really the way it is. Really with few exceptions (UK, AUS, etc) our allies and the world have left the US holding the global security bag. And only show up to collect aid checks and tell us what douches we are. The US could have done this alone and charged in like a drunk. But this time we held are hand and forced others to realize we are tired of it. There is no way we get French and Arab league support and get Russia and China to look away if we do this on our own. I think people were getting the blame cannons ready, but we didn't flinch, forcing them into action.
Well, I just think that if the current trend keeps up, your concerns about the US shouldering most of the logistics will fade away. The only reason it's been that way for the past 50-odd years is because they've been the instigator and/or have had the largest population, largest DND budget, and thus, largest army. And every time you've got a Republican in office down there, it seems to get run off it's feet invading other nations left, right, and centre.
Now the US has a chance to be seen as a mediator and peacekeeper, rather than an enforcer, once more. Why would Americans not give it a chance to happen before throwing out accusations of weak command? It's worked for a large part of the rest of the world.
Andrew1975 wrote:But isn't this really the way it is. Really with few exceptions (UK, AUS, etc) our allies and the world have left the US holding the global security bag. And only show up to collect aid checks and tell us what douches we are. The US could have done this alone and charged in like a drunk. But this time we held are hand and forced others to realize we are tired of it. There is no way we get French and Arab league support and get Russia and China to look away if we do this on our own. I think people were getting the blame cannons ready, but we didn't flinch, forcing them into action.
Good. Becuase the rest of the world has been tired of it for quite sometime.
Andrew1975 wrote:But isn't this really the way it is. Really with few exceptions (UK, AUS, etc) our allies and the world have left the US holding the global security bag. And only show up to collect aid checks and tell us what douches we are. The US could have done this alone and charged in like a drunk. But this time we held are hand and forced others to realize we are tired of it. There is no way we get French and Arab league support and get Russia and China to look away if we do this on our own. I think people were getting the blame cannons ready, but we didn't flinch, forcing them into action.
Good. Becuase the rest of the world has been tired of it for quite sometime.
Hey, I'm with you all the way. Unfortunately there are quite a few people here that think the US should be sticking their noses everywhere. Not me.
Andrew1975 wrote: Because if you are strong you can do it on your own, so to do the opposite is weak.
I think if you are strong you can, but if you are smart you don't.
Even if you're strong, you -shouldn't- go it alone. That's why the world hates the US so much. Because they spend the last half-century, with few exceptions, kicking around the rest of the world and telling it how to live, and then calling out their allies when/if they wouldn't lend as much assistance as the joint chiefs wanted. Then, it's government and people would complain that the US was bearing most of the military burdens because the other NATO members didn't agree with their actions, or because they had less interest in a region than America did, and only sent the minimum amount as a show of goodwill.
It's akin to a bully picking fights with all the kids in the schoolyard, then complaining that no one helped him out after his victims ganged up and bung-fethed him. It's not fair to the citizens of a nation when they're led to believe that it's military forces are actually shouldering the burden out of necessity, and not just because the government controlling them has a skewered view as to how a superpower should help resolve world issues.
Even if you're strong, you -shouldn't- go it alone. That's why the world hates the US so much. Because they spend the last half-century, with few exceptions, kicking around the rest of the world and telling it how to live, and then calling out their allies when/if they wouldn't lend as much assistance as the joint chiefs wanted. Then, it's government and people would complain that the US was bearing most of the military burdens because the other NATO members didn't agree with their actions, or because they had less interest in a region than America did, and only sent the minimum amount as a show of goodwill.
It's akin to a bully picking fights with all the kids in the schoolyard, then complaining that no one helped him out after his victims ganged up and bung-fethed him. It's not fair to the citizens of a nation when they're led to believe that it's military forces are actually shouldering the burden out of necessity, and not just because the government controlling them has a skewered view as to how a superpower should help resolve world issues.
Oh, I agree, but I also disagree. In reality I think most of our allies and enemies would have preferred we went in on our own or mostly on our own. Then the get to reap the rewards and point fingers at us weather we are successful or not and bear, little to no responsibility and or cost. I contend that is why they many times hem and haw so long before finally taking action, they are just waiting for the US to charge in like a mad bull, so that they don't really have to (I mean it might have something to do with these excursions being fiascoes). That being said the proper time to start these operations (if one really believes they are necessary, i don't) was over a week ago.
It's also easier for everyone in a logistical sense if the US does it alone. If there really are going to be arab league fighter jets. I don't think i would want to be anywhere around them. The chances for friendly fire are going to be astronomic and we already know it's a reality of war from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I blame Hollywood. The story of WWII in the US is that of the US riding in and saving the world pretty much all by itself. Most people here couldn't even tell you about Russian and contributions and if pressed would probably answer that they were with the Germans. Oh and forget our European allies, lets face it when was the last time you saw a Tommy in uniform!
Andrew1975 wrote:Oh, I agree, but I also disagree. In reality I think most of our allies and enemies would have preferred we went in on our own or mostly on our own. Then the get to reap the rewards and point fingers at us weather we are successful or not and bear, little to no responsibility and or cost. I contend that is why they many times hem and haw so long before finally taking action, they are just waiting for the US to charge in like a mad bull, so that they don't really have to (I mean it might have something to do with these excursions being fiascoes).
Again, it comes down to the US having a Defense Budget larger than practically the rest of NATO combined, and a headcount that towers over it's allies. That's not to say that none of the NATO nations could make the first move once in a while, but the ability of any other state in NATO to maintain a prolongued conflict on it's own would be considerably lower than that of the American Forces. It's the price the US pays for being the big kid on the block. Whether or not they actually do make the first move is up to the JCoS and the CiC. It's their choice to jump in headfirst, with or without allied support. NATO isn't leaving the US out to dry, but rather, smaller militaries (which would be a large portion of the organization) don't have the same access to funding and resources that the US has. That's why, aside from the 'big 3' in Europe, NATO support for American military operations is rather limited - Because the US is, in a way, the Sledgehmmer. It might take a larger number of casualties than it's partner nations, but it's got the momentum behind it to pretty much set up a beachhead anywhere it wants. As for finger pointing, well there're two types of people that do that - protesters and politicians. And most of them probably wouldn't know the business end of a rifle if you labeled it for them.
That being said the proper time to start these operations (if one really believes they are necessary, i don't) was over a week ago.
Goddamn right, I read Ban Ki Moon's adress to the UN and was suprised and dumbfounded as to why he would think that telling Ghadafi that attacking Benghazi would result in "hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths" would stop him, as if Ghadafi cared when he shelled the piss out of innocents in Misrata. And now that we control his airspace and are authorized to take "any necessary measures to prevent harm to civilian elements", he calls a ceasefire and asks the rebels to parlay. Guy's a nutjob, hopefully the Libyan people can finish him off before May.
Man, I hate to say it, but I can tell you are not an American. You argue and make sense while you do it and you are actually informative. Not what I've gotten used to here. I appreciate it.
Andrew1975 wrote:
As far a the carrier fleet. Was moving that a real expenditure is that really a posture! It can be said it was in the neighborhood. I mean it was already in the Mediterranean, it's just closer to Libya now.
Deploying a carrier strike group is considered a major move as far as military posturing goes, the fact that it isn't that expensive is merely an upside. And the Enterprise was not previously in the Mediteranean. It was in the Persian Gulf, and moved to the Med in preparation for possible military action against Gadaffi.
So yes, moving a carrier group is a significant move, especially when the US is moving a carrier from an area where it actually has forces on the ground, to an area that is arguably of less direct importance to the US.
Deploying a carrier strike group is considered a major move as far as military posturing goes, the fact that it isn't that expensive is merely an upside. And the Enterprise was not previously in the Mediteranean. It was in the Persian Gulf, and moved to the Med in preparation for possible military action against Gadaffi.
So yes, moving a carrier group is a significant move, especially when the US is moving a carrier from an area where it actually has forces on the ground, to an area that is arguably of less direct importance to the US.
Correct, but originally I was talking to someone about cost, moving a carrier is not an additional expenditure. It doesn't cost anything because that's a standard operation cost and would be incurred on a daily bases, weather or not it moved at all.
Shocking! Did anyone really expect anything else? Arabs rarely appreciate US intervention in the middle east. Even when they ask for it they want very limited intervention. That's why I say if they really want these things done, they should do it themselves.
All you have to do is look at Gulf War I to see that. "We ticked off Saddam, save us. You saved us, thanks for bringing your toys, but you can't go into Iraq and depose an Arab leader!"
I didn't in the beginning, but now that he has changed his stance I think it not only shows weakness, but stupidity. Naivety may have been a better word.
' Then the 
) and other such terrorist organizations know that they have no legitimacy as far as the world is concerned. The difference between them and the Libyan rebels is that the Libyan rebels have a claim to legitimacy and actual recognition by the rest of the world.
the world is the right answer.
and using "I just dont want to" as a rationale as well. Very gradeschool.
