US President Barack Obama has blamed UK Prime Minister David Cameron and other European leaders for the current chaos in Libya, saying he had “more faith” in them being invested in the follow-up, given Libya’s proximity.
Speaking to The Atlantic, Obama acknowledged the problems faced by Libya since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, referring to the situation as a “mess” – and in private as a “s**t show.”
“...We actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1 billion — which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess,” he said.
In March of 2011, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution on Libya authorizing the international community to “take all necessary measures” to protect the civilian population. The resolution called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and creating a no-fly zone over the country.
After the resolution was passed, however, a US-led coalition proceeded to intensively bomb the Libyan army.
“It is unacceptable to use the mandate subsequent upon UN Resolution 1973, the adoption of which was quite an ambiguous move, to achieve the goals which clearly are beyond its scope as the resolution stipulates only measures to protect civilian population,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
READ MORE: Calls grow for allies to stop air strikes on Libya
Obama went on to state that the ‘mess’ was largely due to the inaction of British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was “distracted by a range of other things” at the time.
He also criticized France’s then-President Nicolas Sarkozy for being too eager to take credit for the intervention to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.
"Sarkozy wanted to trumpet the flights he was taking in the air campaign," Obama said, "despite the fact that [the US] had wiped out all the air defenses and essentially set up the entire infrastructure."
Obama said that such bragging on the part of Sarkozy was fine, because it allowed the US to “purchase France's involvement in a way that made it less expensive for us and less risky for us.”
There was just one problem with that plan, according to the US president.
But Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, told RT that although Cameron and Sarkozy are also responsible for the chaos in Libya, Obama is the "major responsible figure."
"I believe Obama realized that it was a huge mistake and miscalculation, and he is trying to blame everybody else except himself," he said, adding that such a move by an American president is "unprecedented."
He went on to stress that the current situation in Libya is "much, much worse than it used to be during the Gaddafi regime."
"It is a huge mess there, bloodshed, a failed state, militia controlling most of the country. Also now, Islamic State has more than 7,000 fighters in Libya," he said.
The West "deposed Gaddafi, and they left. And after that, who took over? The militia. Armed militia...the whole region, North Africa, is destabilized because of the British and American and French intervention. How can we solve it? It may be too late now. Libya is dismantled completely, Libya is a tribal country now, a militia country, so it's not a state anymore," Atwan concluded.
‘Free riders’
Speaking more generally on what he calls a “free rider” mentality in times of conflict, Obama explained that EU countries have had a “habit” of pushing the US to act over the past several decades, but then shown “an unwillingness to put any skin in the game.”
The US president went on to stress that “free riders aggravate me.”
Obama recently stood up to ‘free rider’ Cameron, warning that the UK would no longer be able to maintain its so-called “special relationship” with the US if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense.
“You have to pay your fair share,” the US president told his British counterpart at the G7 summit in June 2015. Cameron subsequently met the 2 percent threshold.
But Obama didn't place all the blame on Cameron and Sarkozy. He admitted that the “degree of tribal division in Libya was greater than our analysts had expected. And our ability to have any kind of structure there that we could interact with and start training and start providing resources broke down very quickly.”
Speaking to a former colleague in the US Senate recently, Obama declared that the outcome of Libya was enough evidence to show him that “there is no way we should commit to governing the Middle East and North Africa...that would be a basic, fundamental mistake.”
Libya has been consumed by violence since the 2011 NATO-led campaign to topple Gaddafi, with rival governments and armed groups fighting for control of the oil-rich North African country. It has become a key operating base for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). A UN report published Thursday said that IS had "significantly expanded" the amount of territory it controls in the country.
Meanwhile, there have been reports that the UK is mulling the possibility of stepping up its involvement in the country amid fears that its campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq needs to be widened to include Libya.
Responding to Obama's comments to the Atlantic, a British government spokesperson said: “I think we would share the President of the United States' assessment that there are real challenges in Libya, that's why we are continuing to work hard with our international partners to support a process in Libya that puts in place a government that can bring stability to that country and why we are talking about how we can support such a government in the future,” as cited by the British media.
After following Bush into Iraq and Afghanistan the political will for effective follow through was just not there.
It turned into a "throw some bombs and hope for the best" show. Nation building is expensive and often bloody as history tends to show that the old one needs to be torn down 1st (in the example of European empire building) or wholesale cultural overthrow (in the example of Roman expansion into Britain).
The response in Europe is pretty much a shrug of the shoulders and a meh.
Most people in Britain didn't want to touch Libya with a barge pole, after the disaster of Iraq and Afghanistan, and we've came to the conclusion that however bad Middle Eastern dictators are, sometimes it's better to leave them in power, because the alternative is much more...
As for the special relationship, I beleive it's a running joke in Washington, and most people here, in my experience, couldn't give two hoots about it.
The only people who fuss over it are our politicians, as they desperately hold on for some 'prestige' or something.
Libya is responsible for Libya at the end of the day. That said, I agree with Obama that Cameron was intensely gung-ho about the whole thing, wanting his foreign military victory stamp on his politician card, he pressured the US into it, and then lost interest once Gadaffi was gone and he could claim 'victory'.
In reality, it was no more a 'victory' than removing Hussein was a 'victory' in Iraq. Sure, you toppled a third world regime with a powerful coalition of First World militaries. Whoop de doo. So what? As Yahtzee said about WW2, 'It was the last time we ever got a proper victory over an unambiguously evil enemy, unlike all of these wishy-washy modern wars, where we just run in, stamp all over the leader's face, and rush out declaring victory about time the local population are forced to start eating their own dead'.
It's started to feel like the Western World has a roulette wheel with every dictator's face on that they spin once every ten years. If it's not you that the ball lands on? Congrats, you get another decade of being feted, wined and dined, and generally left alone. We'll trade with you, send our police to advise you on managing the population, and sell you all the guns and tech you want. If you got picked though? Suddenly your evil genocidal ways can be tolerated no longer, and we'll have to smash your regime back to the stone age!
I have no issue with war in pursuit of moral goals, and not even with war in pursuit of specific valuable political/military/economic goals necessarily. Too often these days though, it feels like we do randomised drive by military assaults to fulfill nebulous personal objectives of domestic politicians. Our politicians don't play the Great Game so much as they want to tick their 'legacy' bingo boxes and waltz about in front of cameras pretending to be 'Great Statesmen' (instead of actually doing the things that would earn that title).
Sigvatr wrote: Just popped up in my newsfeed. Don't use RT as a source please, though. Will read the entire manifest asap.
What's with RT?
Besides it being a mouth piece for the russian government?
If you watch RT with the full knowledge that they'll never run a bad story about Putin, you end up being pleasently surprised by the quality of some of their non-Russian related stories.
I hardly think the UK is responsible for how much of a cluster feth it is there. But we certainly didn't help matters. Fire and forget bombs do not work when you are attacking a force embedded in among the populous.
What the UK government does, and what the population want, are two separate things. If you look at the news you'll see all manner of issues where the government is acting in the interests of the incumbent oligarchs and their private interests at the detriment of the people.
Libya is just another example of how out of touch they are.
Let's be fair to Cameron though, he didn't have much in the way of equipment to make war. Maybe he thought sending the odd obsolete Tornado across to bomb some nondescript dune that looked vaguely tank like would be enough.
Now, if only he hadn't sold off the Navy's perfectly serviceable Harrier Fleet replete with Carriers for rock bottom prices...
Obama's cock up on this was assuming he could pick up where Bush43 left it and that the politics would be the same as they were 10 years ago. We all saw Team America and western Europe decided it didn't want a replay of that. Cameron's cock up was in wanting his war tick in the box and promising it to Obama (incorrectly presuming he could generate enough support).
Obama doesn't appreciate the nuances of a parliamentary democracy (as evidenced by some of his recent quotes) and so blames Cameron for not giving him the military alliance he was promised.
Some childish naivety all around from top politicians on both sides of the pond.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
Not gonna happen anytime soon, Cap'n. Jordan is the only country in the region that has come the closest, without resorting to a secular dicatorship or military run junta. And the government is still on the constant lookout for fundies and bomb chuckers amongst their population.
Sigvatr wrote: Just popped up in my newsfeed. Don't use RT as a source please, though. Will read the entire manifest asap.
What's with RT?
Besides it being a mouth piece for the russian government?
Yeah, that does not mean all of their stuff is bad though. RT has a lot of good articles too.
Obama is being stupid. The US fully shares the blame for the bombing of Lybia and the resulting mess. France and the UK would have never done anything without US support.
I, for one, laughed when I heard this. Obama cannot complain about being tepid with his military excursions when the other parties asked to participate cannot see an endgame. Removing Assad would've been disastrous, and as we've seen with Daesh' ability to give his army all they can handle, that decision likely would've given them a lot more territory /materiel to work with to further their global goals of jihad. Of course, Obama wasn't alone, he had plenty of Progressive GOP members on his side in John McCain (who cannot stop fighting Vietnam) and Lindsey Graham being the two of the biggest in the Senate.
I am glad this plan went no where, I am sure many Britons and French folks feel the same way.
carlos13th wrote: I hardly think the UK is responsible for how much of a cluster feth it is there. But we certainly didn't help matters. Fire and forget bombs do not work when you are attacking a force embedded in among the populous.
Bombs did work in Libya. The government was overthrown and replaced with a more west friendly regime. There were two main reasons for this; first, the government forces worked more like conventional military than guerillas, second, because we had a local militia spotting targets and following up successful attacks.
The problem is that the country and neighbours were and are so fragmented that the new regime was immediately under attack from various militia groups, some of them being Islamist extremist, supported ultimately by the Wahhabi paymasters who are behind ISIL and Al Quaeda.
Europe was never going to put boots on the ground after the Afghanistan and Iraq experiences, so our best choice was to strongly support a selected local militia group.
Now the population is mixed up like you say, and target selection becomes very difficult.
In retrospect, the best plan would have been to do nothing. This probably would also have been the best choice for the Syrian civil war, but I expect we still would have 3 million refugees in Turkey anyway, and we would not be able to attack ISIL in Syria so they would have an excellent safe haven.
As to whether this is all Cameron's fault, I don't think it can be completely blamed on him. The whole history of western involvement in the middle east leads up to the current position.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
I think it more has to do with the western world continually bombing their stability and governments back to 1200 AD than anything else.
Wulfmar wrote: What the UK government does, and what the population want, are two separate things. If you look at the news you'll see all manner of issues where the government is acting in the interests of the incumbent oligarchs and their private interests at the detriment of the people.
Not to be too nitpicky, but you have a typo here; you said "UK" instead of "US"... oh, wait.
The problem is that the country and neighbours were and are so fragmented that the new regime was immediately under attack from various militia groups, some of them being Islamist extremist, supported ultimately by the Wahhabi paymasters who are behind ISIL and Al Quaeda.
That's the politest term for Saudi Arabia I've heard today.
It's interesting to have the American point of view about Sarkozy.
It is exactly this, even in France everyone knew it: Sarkozy wanted a military victory before the elections.
However, it was presented like an european operation, with little support from the USA.
And French Navy/Air Force was the tip of the spear, bombing everyone everyday, of course.
Some journalists said Sarkozy wanted Gadafhi dead because Gadafhi threathened Sarkozy to reveal he financed his election, so if it is true, the roulette wasn't random this time.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
I think it more has to do with the western world continually bombing their stability and governments back to 1200 AD than anything else.
That one is great. Exalted. There is truth in it too. Hadn't the West and Israel bombed the old Arab nationalists into oblivion, islamic extremism would never have gotten a chance. Libya is a perfect example.
carlos13th wrote: I hardly think the UK is responsible for how much of a cluster feth it is there. But we certainly didn't help matters. Fire and forget bombs do not work when you are attacking a force embedded in among the populous.
Bombs did work in Libya. The government was overthrown and replaced with a more west friendly regime. There were two main reasons for this; first, the government forces worked more like conventional military than guerillas, second, because we had a local militia spotting targets and following up successful attacks.
The problem is that the country and neighbours were and are so fragmented that the new regime was immediately under attack from various militia groups, some of them being Islamist extremist, supported ultimately by the Wahhabi paymasters who are behind ISIL and Al Quaeda.
Europe was never going to put boots on the ground after the Afghanistan and Iraq experiences, so our best choice was to strongly support a selected local militia group.
Now the population is mixed up like you say, and target selection becomes very difficult.
You are correct. Oversight on my part I failed differenciate beteween when we first entered and had clearer military targets and now where things are fat more fuzzy.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
I think it more has to do with the western world continually bombing their stability and governments back to 1200 AD than anything else.
That one is great. Exalted.
There is truth in it too. Hadn't the West and Israel bombed the old Arab nationalists into oblivion, islamic extremism would never have gotten a chance. Libya is a perfect example.
Islamic extremism has existed for centuries, it's not something that's suddenly been created by the supposedly evil western world ruthlessly bombing poor Arab children...
Shira & Wahhabi was acceptable back when witch burning & "God Wills It!" was a good enough excuse to explain away man's barbarism.
Unfortunately, most of the Middle East hasn't yet gotten the memo that being born with a penis doesn't make you superior to all other forms of life.
Nor can you effectively rule a country through backwater religious ideals & laws in a globalised world.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
I think it more has to do with the western world continually bombing their stability and governments back to 1200 AD than anything else.
That one is great. Exalted.
There is truth in it too. Hadn't the West and Israel bombed the old Arab nationalists into oblivion, islamic extremism would never have gotten a chance. Libya is a perfect example.
Islamic extremism has existed for centuries, it's not something that's suddenly been created by the supposedly evil western world ruthlessly bombing poor Arab children...
Shira & Wahhabi was acceptable back when witch burning & "God Wills It!" was a good enough excuse to explain away man's barbarism.
Unfortunately, most of the Middle East hasn't yet gotten the memo that being born with a penis doesn't make you superior to all other forms of life.
Nor can you effectively rule a country through backwater religious ideals & laws in a globalised world.
You can effectively rule a country that way when the people are more afraid of getting bombed than having an extreme government
At some point every country has had a society we would deem extreme/barbaric today (Salem witch trials anyone? KKK lynchings? No right for women to vote?) but without the stability to improve on that we shouldn't be surprised that the society in question doesn't go anywhere. There's not need to go into good guys or bad guys, that's just the situation as it is.
And then we get a new pack of "rabid animals" in their place. We've been trying that strategy for a while now and things have only gotten worse. Fact is that the extremism won't stop until the general populace of the area decides to take action to stop it, but our actions have helped create a situation where the people prefer violent dictatorships to western intervention (see: Syria). That alone should speak to the effectiveness of the "put them down" strategy.
Bombs did work in Libya. The government was overthrown and replaced with a more west friendly regime. There were two main reasons for this; first, the government forces worked more like conventional military than guerillas, second, because we had a local militia spotting targets and following up successful attacks.
They did... at first, now Libya is in full on tribal warfare thanks to deposing Gaddafi and Daesh having loyal militias on the ground there. Their government is scrambling to try and maintain any semblance of order:
PS - I don't call them ISIS or ISIL, it lends too much credence to their cause, I call them "Daesh" because the Kurds do and it's an insult to them.
The problem is that the country and neighbours were and are so fragmented that the new regime was immediately under attack from various militia groups, some of them being Islamist extremist, supported ultimately by the Wahhabi paymasters who are behind ISIL and Al Quaeda.
I don't think the House of Saud is any more excited to see Daesh rear their ugly heads up than we are in the west, shared Sunni view of the world or not. Daesh is about establishing a global caliphate, the Wahabbists in SA might agree, but their methodology is different (plus Daesh isn't under their control, so there's that power struggle as well).
jhe90 wrote:Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
Sadly, we're under the almost universal delusion that there more rational actors in the ME than we believe, I believe in the inverse, there aren't enough rational people there, but most of them don't have the means to affect power structures over there anyways.
NinthMusketeer wrote:And then we get a new pack of "rabid animals" in their place. We've been trying that strategy for a while now and things have only gotten worse. Fact is that the extremism won't stop until the general populace of the area decides to take action to stop it, but our actions have helped create a situation where the people prefer violent dictatorships to western intervention (see: Syria). That alone should speak to the effectiveness of the "put them down" strategy.
At least the Kurds have stepped up to defend themselves with any kind of gusto. The Shi'a Militias drawn up to fight Daesh as they approached Baghdad as well as the Iraqi Army, did terribly in combat.
Experiment 626 wrote: At the end of the day it doesn't matter anyways, since there can't be any kind of real change & actual advancement in the Middle East, until Islam pulls itself out of 1200AD and smells the 21st century.
I think it more has to do with the western world continually bombing their stability and governments back to 1200 AD than anything else.
That one is great. Exalted.
There is truth in it too. Hadn't the West and Israel bombed the old Arab nationalists into oblivion, islamic extremism would never have gotten a chance. Libya is a perfect example.
Islamic extremism has existed for centuries, it's not something that's suddenly been created by the supposedly evil western world ruthlessly bombing poor Arab children...
Shira & Wahhabi was acceptable back when witch burning & "God Wills It!" was a good enough excuse to explain away man's barbarism.
Unfortunately, most of the Middle East hasn't yet gotten the memo that being born with a penis doesn't make you superior to all other forms of life.
Nor can you effectively rule a country through backwater religious ideals & laws in a globalised world.
The Arab nationalists always opposed religious fundamentalism. They kept nutjobs like the Muslim Brotherhood and the myriad other islamist organisations contained. Nowadays islamists have no opposition and there are no ideological alternatives for people to turn too. Modern Western ideologies are inherently tainted (for obvious reasons), nationalism failed, socialism failed, that leaves only religion to turn to.
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jhe90 wrote: Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
That is just dumb. You can't just put IS away as savages or animals, because they aren't. They are people. People who do horrible things, but people nonetheless. And people always do the things they do for a reason. Treating them like animals that must be put down will not solve the problems that created IS, it will only perpetuate them and eventually spawn something even worse. Like how Al-Qaeda spawned IS or the German Empire spawned Nazi Germany. It also has the nasty ethical side effect of lowering you down to their level.
Western people who degrade these people in the Middle East as medieval barbarians are part of the problem. Western military actions that inevitably cause civilian casualties even more so. It creates hostility towards the West, which leads people to support for anti-Western groups. A vicious cycle of hate and violence is the result.
Apart from that the comparison of islamic groups to "barbarians from 1200AD" is also ridiculous and false.
Stormrider wrote: PS - I don't call them ISIS or ISIL, it lends too much credence to their cause, I call them "Daesh" because the Kurds do and it's an insult to them.
That's a misconception; ISIS does not care whatsoever what we call them. To ISIS, anyone in the west is a crusader and anything we say is BS anyways, so no amount of insults hurled their way will have any impact. Better to use whatever the common term is so that everyone in the discussion is on the same page.
Stormrider wrote: PS - I don't call them ISIS or ISIL, it lends too much credence to their cause, I call them "Daesh" because the Kurds do and it's an insult to them.
That's a misconception; ISIS does not care whatsoever what we call them. To ISIS, anyone in the west is a crusader and anything we say is BS anyways, so no amount of insults hurled their way will have any impact. Better to use whatever the common term is so that everyone in the discussion is on the same page.
Also, Daesh is simply the Arabic-language acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, so ISIL and Daesh just mean the same thing but in a different language.
jhe90 wrote: Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
That is just dumb. You can't just put IS away as savages or animals, because they aren't. They are people. People who do horrible things, but people nonetheless. And people always do the things they do for a reason. Treating them like animals that must be put down will not solve the problems that created IS, it will only perpetuate them and eventually spawn something even worse. Like how Al-Qaeda spawned IS or the German Empire spawned Nazi Germany. It also has the nasty ethical side effect of lowering you down to their level.
"If you kill him, you'll be just like him" is deluded bs. ISIL stands for nothing but the persecution of the innocent: the rape of women, the murder of religious minorities and the torture of children who desire anything more than to be cannon fodder. To kill someone willing to make these things their life's work is not ethically the same as killing an innocent person for being a Shia, a homosexual or a museum curator.
ISIL is a symptom of a problem, but the problem is that there are too many people in the world who like what ISIL does. There is no mechanism by which they can convert a decent person into a sympathiser, so in the short term they are limited to the preexisting pool of donkey-caves like Arial Castro and Elliot Rodger, and in the long term they can only supplement that pool if they are still alive to indoctrinate ignorant children.
I think the bigger mess that Libya brought to light is that the United States is the only country in NATO with enough munitions to sustain a moderate air campaign against a third world country with a deliberately weak AD network.
Seaward wrote: I think the bigger mess that Libya brought to light is that the United States is the only country in NATO with enough munitions to sustain a moderate air campaign against a third world country with a deliberately weak AD network.
Seriously, Europe, what the feth.
We have better things to spend our money on, although apparently that is bailing out banks so 'better' is a relative term.
Seaward wrote: I think the bigger mess that Libya brought to light is that the United States is the only country in NATO with enough munitions to sustain a moderate air campaign against a third world country with a deliberately weak AD network.
Seriously, Europe, what the feth.
We have better things to spend our money on, although apparently that is bailing out banks so 'better' is a relative term.
The scary part is I read that as a comment referring to the US before doing a double-take.
Stormrider wrote: PS - I don't call them ISIS or ISIL, it lends too much credence to their cause, I call them "Daesh" because the Kurds do and it's an insult to them.
That's a misconception; ISIS does not care whatsoever what we call them. To ISIS, anyone in the west is a crusader and anything we say is BS anyways, so no amount of insults hurled their way will have any impact. Better to use whatever the common term is so that everyone in the discussion is on the same page.
Also, Daesh is simply the Arabic-language acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, so ISIL and Daesh just mean the same thing but in a different language.
Yeah but how else are you gonna show the internet you're "tough on terrorists"? Add in a few references to pig's blood and turning sand into glass and you're a regular Trump supporter!
Stormrider wrote: PS - I don't call them ISIS or ISIL, it lends too much credence to their cause, I call them "Daesh" because the Kurds do and it's an insult to them.
That's a misconception; ISIS does not care whatsoever what we call them. To ISIS, anyone in the west is a crusader and anything we say is BS anyways, so no amount of insults hurled their way will have any impact. Better to use whatever the common term is so that everyone in the discussion is on the same page.
Also, Daesh is simply the Arabic-language acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, so ISIL and Daesh just mean the same thing but in a different language.
Yeah but how else are you gonna show the internet you're "tough on terrorists"? Add in a few references to pig's blood and turning sand into glass and you're a regular Trump supporter!
I have come close to this. Same as a few others. Toss bacon on the sand/dirt in the Middle East, called for fire from either artillery or aircraft's so might have been a few shard glass made from sudden extreme heat. I'm voting for Trump because he entertains the Hell out of me. Wait.....does that make me a Hater....Racist....and/or.....extremists? All the above? Or maybe I am extremely tired of career politicians? I like Bernie over Hillary to. Does that mean I'm a red pinko commie lover?
But to the subject at hand. Its way to damn late to point the finger and lay out the "Who F'ed it up" mat. Question now is do we interfere, leave alone and hope the best, or get really jumpy and prop up a dictator/leader
I have come close to this. Same as a few others. Toss bacon on the sand/dirt in the Middle East, called for fire from either artillery or aircraft's so might have been a few shard glass made from sudden extreme heat. I'm voting for Trump because he entertains the Hell out of me. Wait.....does that make me a Hater....Racist....and/or.....extremists? All the above? Or maybe I am extremely tired of career politicians? I like Bernie over Hillary to. Does that mean I'm a red pinko commie lover?
Well you've got the "I'm a veteran so I know better than you" shtick down, but I do think you personally might actually have real experiences on it. My favorite are people that served in the Navy working on helicopters or some such that try to claim some kind of authority on Islamic matters because they spent 6 months on a base in Kuwait, but I digress.
If you actually are a Trump supporter for the lulz, I totally understand and feel the same way. A big part of me wants him to win just so the Republican party can finally admit how terribly far they've fallen from Eisenhower.
But a serious Trump supporter "tired of career politicians" is kinda just dumb. Does anyone really think the elite NE prep schools he went to are any different from the elite prep schools establishment elected officials went to? That a NYC silver-spoon actually understands the average middle class American? And you don't get much more career politician then Bernie. 30+ years in Congress and all.
But to the subject at hand. Its way to damn late to point the finger and lay out the "Who F'ed it up" mat. Question now is do we interfere, leave alone and hope the best, or get really jumpy and prop up a dictator/leader
What we need to do is either divorce ourselves from the House of Saud, or more realistically, help subversive moderate elements in Iran. Or even more realistically, keep funding arms and money to Wahhabist Sunni radicals that are inimical to the American Dream but expedient now because oil or Israel or something,
jhe90 wrote: Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
That is just dumb. You can't just put IS away as savages or animals, because they aren't. They are people. People who do horrible things, but people nonetheless. And people always do the things they do for a reason. Treating them like animals that must be put down will not solve the problems that created IS, it will only perpetuate them and eventually spawn something even worse. Like how Al-Qaeda spawned IS or the German Empire spawned Nazi Germany. It also has the nasty ethical side effect of lowering you down to their level.
"If you kill him, you'll be just like him" is deluded bs. ISIL stands for nothing but the persecution of the innocent: the rape of women, the murder of religious minorities and the torture of children who desire anything more than to be cannon fodder. To kill someone willing to make these things their life's work is not ethically the same as killing an innocent person for being a Shia, a homosexual or a museum curator.
ISIL is a symptom of a problem, but the problem is that there are too many people in the world who like what ISIL does. There is no mechanism by which they can convert a decent person into a sympathiser, so in the short term they are limited to the preexisting pool of donkey-caves like Arial Castro and Elliot Rodger, and in the long term they can only supplement that pool if they are still alive to indoctrinate ignorant children.
There a problem, but a problem we have to end. Simple as that. They destroy man kinds history, rape, murder, burn people alive and engage in all manner of brutal practices banned in west for centuries. There a dark shadow on the world. They will do no good for mankind in life. What will they create, grow or build but more hate and death?
Adding it up, there monsters, look what they did to the yazidi people, the Kurds, women, dictators and despots we tolerate, but these monsters....its no lie they have engaged in barbaric practices and are sworn enemies of pretty much anyone. They hardly showed any mercy in Paris, if not stopped, that may come again. Our cities on the frontline. No one wants that.
Britain, France, and potentially Italy were active, but it turned out they didn't have much of a bomb inventory, or capacity to coordinate, well anything.
French are moderately tough on the ground, but rely on the US to get them there if by plane.
No, but they certainly aren't going to be killed of either. That has been tried now for well over a decade and it has arguably made things worse, a lot worse.The 'colonial wars' of the last couple of decades show just how inadequate the use of force is against an entrenched ideology with a degree of popular support.
Daesh are a scourge but the soil of their spread was fertilised by unwise military intervention and then inadequate diplomacy and nation building by the west. More of the same is not going to help matters.
jhe90 wrote: Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
That is just dumb. You can't just put IS away as savages or animals, because they aren't. They are people. People who do horrible things, but people nonetheless. And people always do the things they do for a reason. Treating them like animals that must be put down will not solve the problems that created IS, it will only perpetuate them and eventually spawn something even worse. Like how Al-Qaeda spawned IS or the German Empire spawned Nazi Germany. It also has the nasty ethical side effect of lowering you down to their level.
"If you kill him, you'll be just like him" is deluded bs. ISIL stands for nothing but the persecution of the innocent: the rape of women, the murder of religious minorities and the torture of children who desire anything more than to be cannon fodder. To kill someone willing to make these things their life's work is not ethically the same as killing an innocent person for being a Shia, a homosexual or a museum curator.
ISIL is a symptom of a problem, but the problem is that there are too many people in the world who like what ISIL does. There is no mechanism by which they can convert a decent person into a sympathiser, so in the short term they are limited to the preexisting pool of donkey-caves like Arial Castro and Elliot Rodger, and in the long term they can only supplement that pool if they are still alive to indoctrinate ignorant children.
There a problem, but a problem we have to end. Simple as that. They destroy man kinds history, rape, murder, burn people alive and engage in all manner of brutal practices banned in west for centuries. There a dark shadow on the world. They will do no good for mankind in life. What will they create, grow or build but more hate and death?
Adding it up, there monsters, look what they did to the yazidi people, the Kurds, women, dictators and despots we tolerate, but these monsters....its no lie they have engaged in barbaric practices and are sworn enemies of pretty much anyone. They hardly showed any mercy in Paris, if not stopped, that may come again. Our cities on the frontline. No one wants that.
As a threat, there not going away any time soon.
You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly. The West can't do anything about this problem except making it worse. It is up to the people of Syria, Iraq etc. to stop this. Only they can end it.
Frazzled wrote: Britain, France, and potentially Italy were active, but it turned out they didn't have much of a bomb inventory, or capacity to coordinate, well anything.
French are moderately tough on the ground, but rely on the US to get them there if by plane.
jhe90 wrote: Maybe if someone of the Islamic groups advanced past point of 1200ad barbarians with guns we might not have to bomb the gak out of them.
Some of those, you cannot negoiate, there wild savage dogs. Need putting down. IS for example. Human rabid animals.
That is just dumb. You can't just put IS away as savages or animals, because they aren't. They are people. People who do horrible things, but people nonetheless. And people always do the things they do for a reason. Treating them like animals that must be put down will not solve the problems that created IS, it will only perpetuate them and eventually spawn something even worse. Like how Al-Qaeda spawned IS or the German Empire spawned Nazi Germany. It also has the nasty ethical side effect of lowering you down to their level.
"If you kill him, you'll be just like him" is deluded bs. ISIL stands for nothing but the persecution of the innocent: the rape of women, the murder of religious minorities and the torture of children who desire anything more than to be cannon fodder. To kill someone willing to make these things their life's work is not ethically the same as killing an innocent person for being a Shia, a homosexual or a museum curator.
ISIL is a symptom of a problem, but the problem is that there are too many people in the world who like what ISIL does. There is no mechanism by which they can convert a decent person into a sympathiser, so in the short term they are limited to the preexisting pool of donkey-caves like Arial Castro and Elliot Rodger, and in the long term they can only supplement that pool if they are still alive to indoctrinate ignorant children.
There a problem, but a problem we have to end. Simple as that. They destroy man kinds history, rape, murder, burn people alive and engage in all manner of brutal practices banned in west for centuries. There a dark shadow on the world. They will do no good for mankind in life. What will they create, grow or build but more hate and death?
Adding it up, there monsters, look what they did to the yazidi people, the Kurds, women, dictators and despots we tolerate, but these monsters....its no lie they have engaged in barbaric practices and are sworn enemies of pretty much anyone. They hardly showed any mercy in Paris, if not stopped, that may come again. Our cities on the frontline. No one wants that.
As a threat, there not going away any time soon.
You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly. The West can't do anything about this problem except making it worse. It is up to the people of Syria, Iraq etc. to stop this. Only they can end it.
Hence why I pointed out that nothing will ever change until there is a cultural reawakening within Islam itself...
Islam as practiced & preached in the Middle East is literally 1000 years behind the rest of human society's evolution. It's entirely incompatible with a modern world that's thrown gak like witch burning, stoning to death, medieval practices, extreme isolationist ideals et all out the window.
On the other hand, 'modern' Islam as practiced & preached by moderates has flourished within western globalised societies, just as Christianity and every other major religion has managed to adapt & evolve over the centuries.
If the ME violently refuses to evolve like the rest of humanity has managed, then they only have themselves to blame for their gakhole situation.
While I'd proffer they should up their game, I can understand their position. Why have a massive military if you don't need one? If you don't view the projection of military power as needed you don't need it.
In a better world all the militaries would be minimalist affairs.
No, but they certainly aren't going to be killed of either. That has been tried now for well over a decade and it has arguably made things worse, a lot worse.The 'colonial wars' of the last couple of decades show just how inadequate the use of force is against an entrenched ideology with a degree of popular support.
Daesh are a scourge but the soil of their spread was fertilised by unwise military intervention and then inadequate diplomacy and nation building by the west. More of the same is not going to help matters.
If I recall this entire Lybian/extremist ISIS group thingy grew out the mess created when America chose to bomb Iraq which was in vengance for the 9/11 attacks which in turn where performed by an extremist group who where essentially given life when America invaded that area in the first place....
master of ordinance wrote: If I recall this entire Lybian/extremist ISIS group thingy grew out the mess created when America chose to bomb Iraq which was in vengance for the 9/11 attacks which in turn where performed by an extremist group who where essentially given life when America invaded that area in the first place....
So mister Obama, Pot calling the Kettle much?
I'd say a more accurate reason was the Wests overall failure to pick a side in the Syrian Civil War, allowing ISIS to develop and grow. Had we backed a player, they most likely would have been stamped out before they truly came to power. The issues in Libya are much more in-depth then ISIS though.
Some different perspective that Obama owns a bit of the Lybian mess as well...
OBAMA’S LIBYA GAK SHOW
That pretty much sums up his foreign policy legacy.
Defining President Obama’s legacy isn’t hard. All you need to do is define the world’s situation before and after his presidency. One of the best examples is what used to be the nation of Libya, which Obama has reportedly called a “gak show.”
Before Obama’s military intervention, Libya was governed by Muammar Qaddafi, a dedicated terrorist. Ronald Reagan ordered a night attack by U.S. Air Force F-111s that nearly killed Qaddafi in response to a Berlin nightclub attack in 1986, but that didn’t stop Qaddafi. Qaddafi ordered the bombing of a U.S. airliner over Scotland in 1988 that killed 270.
Qaddafi was vulnerable and he was smart enough to know it. After President George W. Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative led to the interception by U.S. and British forces of two ships in an Italian port carrying nuclear materials to Libya, and fearing the same fate as Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi surrendered his nuclear weapons development program.
All was relatively quiet in Libya. Qaddafi posed no danger to U.S. national security after that. And then came President Obama’s military intervention in Libya at the behest of France and other NATO allies that overthrew Qaddafi and led to his death in 2011.
The reason for the military action, Obama then claimed, was the danger of a humanitarian catastrophe caused by Qaddafi’s forces attacking civilians. The real reason was that France’s access to Libyan sweet crude was blocked by Qaddafi. Neither France nor England had the ability to undertake the airstrikes necessary to overthrow Qaddafi’s government, so U.S. forces were necessary despite the fact that no U.S. national security interest was at stake.
Obama, saying that U.S. military intervention was “necessary, unique and limited,” added that there was a “moral imperative” to prevent Qaddafi from massacring his own people. His redefinition of our national security interests to suit his actions was central to his case: “If we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. It was not in our national interest to let that happen,” Obama said. “I refused to let that happen.”
With Qaddafi gone, there was no Libyan government. The vacuum was filled, quickly, by terrorist groups seeking control over what had been a nation.
Since then, Libya has devolved into warring terrorist factions. It has two rival “governments” claiming to rule it. In fact, Libya is now a safe haven for terrorist networks including ISIS, which is probably the fastest-growing and most dangerous to U.S. national security. ISIS controls significant parts of that nation.
On September 10, 2012, one day before the terrorist attacks in Benghazi left four Americans dead, there were at least ten terrorist groups that had active operational terror cells within Benghazi’s city limits, according to a report on the attacks published by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
A little more than two weeks ago, the assessment of our top commander in Africa, Gen. Don Bolduc, was that the spread of ISIS across Libya was so strong that further U.S. military involvement would be essential even if there were to be an agreement between the two rival factions claiming to govern Libya (though neither does).
Obama, of course, denies any responsibility for the massive policy failure after he chose to intervene militarily in behalf of the rebels seeking Qaddafi’s overthrow. This past week he blamed what he called the Libya “gak show” on our NATO allies, particularly British PM David Cameron, who he said was distracted and didn’t keep an eye on Libya.
It’s almost fair to blame our allies for sucking us into an unnecessary war, but that’s not what Obama did. Obama blamed Cameron for the aftermath as if Cameron, not Obama, had any responsibility for the current state of Libya.
ISIS, we must remember, is a product of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. It now dominates large parts of Iraq, Syria, and Libya. We can’t blame Obama for not intervening in the Syrian civil war because there were no good guys in the fight, and there still aren’t. There wasn’t then, and isn’t now, anyone with whom we should ally ourselves. Russia and Iran now dominate the field to protect Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite (a sect of Shiite Islam) terrorist regime. But Obama should be blamed for turning Libya into ISIS’s — and other terrorist networks’ — safe haven.
We have to remember the massive cover-up that Obama and Clinton led after the Benghazi attacks. In the hours of the attack and for days after, the Obama administration was peddling its talking points which claimed that there was no organized terrorist attack, that the “demonstrations” which preceded the attacks in Benghazi were the result of an obscure anti-Muslim video.
We also must remember that those talking points — which were the foundation for National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s infamous lies on five Sunday political talk shows right after the attacks — were tightly controlled by the White House. In an email before Rice’s appearances, deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes (brother of CBS News president David Rhodes) wrote, the goals were: “To convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy; To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests; To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”
But the attacks were, obviously, the result of a broad policy failure. If we had not intervened to overthrow Qaddafi, the attacks would never have happened. If Obama hadn’t chosen to redefine our national security interests incorrectly to fit his actions, no Americans would have been in Benghazi.
If Hillary Clinton’s State Department had paid any attention to the CIA and its own intelligence, it would have known that the ten terrorist cells were active and operational within Benghazi before the attacks and Clinton would have either withdrawn Americans from Benghazi or acted on the many requests for reinforced security at the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex.
Obama’s legacy in the Middle East is plain for all to see and for history to record. He didn’t create ISIS but his actions directly led to the chaos in Libya that enables it to grow and prosper. ISIS’s strength and prosperity has already led to the San Bernardino terrorist attack by ISIS adherents, and will lead to more attacks of unknown severity within the U.S.
It’s not just David Cameron who took his eye off Libya, Syria, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East. Obama’s duty, which his most valued foreign policy tenets characteristically overlook, is to protect and defend American national security wherever and whenever it is threatened.
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton left Americans behind to face the Benghazi attacks alone at the cost of four lives. As a friend of mine told me last weekend, every father, mother, sister, and brother of anyone serving in our military should remember that if she’s elected president, Hillary Clinton will abandon our people to the same fate whenever it’s convenient to her politically, just like she and Obama did in Benghazi.
Libya is indeed, as Obama reportedly said, a “gak show.” That would be the proper appellation for Obama’s legacy in the Middle East.
Newly disclosed emails show that Libya’s plan to create a gold-backed currency to compete with the euro and dollar was a motive for NATO’s intervention.
The New Year’s Eve release of over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails from the State Department has CNN abuzz over gossipy text messages, the “who gets to ride with Hillary” selection process set up by her staff, and how a “cute” Hillary photo fared on Facebook.
But historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves threatening European currency.
Hillary’s Death Squads
A March 27, 2011, intelligence brief [archived here] on Libya, sent by long time close adviser to the Clintons and Hillary’s unofficial intelligence gatherer, Sidney Blumenthal, contains clear evidence of war crimes on the part of NATO-backed rebels. Citing a rebel commander source “speaking in strict confidence” Blumenthal reports to Hillary [emphasis mine]:
Under attack from allied Air and Naval forces, the Libyan Army troops have begun to desert to the rebel side in increasing numbers. The rebels are making an effort to greet these troops as fellow Libyans, in an effort to encourage additional defections.
(Source Comment: Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting…).
While the illegality of extra-judicial killings is easy to recognize (groups engaged in such are conventionally termed “death squads”), the sinister reality behind the “foreign mercenaries” reference might not be as immediately evident to most.
While over the decades Gaddafi was known to make use of European and other international security and infrastructural contractors, there is no evidence to suggest that these were targeted by the Libyan rebels.
There is, however, ample documentation by journalists, academics, and human rights groups demonstrating that black Libyan civilians and sub-Saharan contract workers, a population favored by Gaddafi in his pro-African Union policies, were targets of “racial cleansing” by rebels who saw black Libyans as tied closely with the regime.[1]
Black Libyans were commonly branded as “foreign mercenaries” by the rebel opposition for their perceived general loyalty to Gaddafi as a community and subjected to torture, executions, and their towns “liberated” by ethnic cleansing. This is demonstrated in the most well-documented example of Tawergha, an entire town of 30,000 black and “dark-skinned” Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backed NTC Misratan brigades.
These attacks were well-known as late as 2012 and often filmed, as this report from The Telegraph confirms:
After Muammar Gaddafi was killed, hundreds of migrant workers from neighboring states were imprisoned by fighters allied to the new interim authorities. They accuse the black Africans of having been mercenaries for the late ruler. Thousands of sub-Saharan Africans have been rounded up since Gaddafi fell in August.
It appears that Clinton was getting personally briefed on the battlefield crimes of her beloved anti-Gaddafi fighters long before some of the worst of these genocidal crimes took place.
Al-Qaeda and Western Special Forces Inside Libya
The same intelligence email from Sydney Blumenthal also confirms what has become a well-known theme of Western supported insurgencies in the Middle East: the contradiction of special forces training militias that are simultaneously suspected of links to Al Qaeda.
Blumenthal relates that “an extremely sensitive source” confirmed that British, French, and Egyptian special operations units were training Libyan militants along the Egyptian-Libyan border, as well as in Benghazi suburbs.
While analysts have long speculated as to the “when and where” of Western ground troop presence in the Libyan War, this email serves as definitive proof that special forces were on the ground only within a month of the earliest protests which broke out in the middle to end of February 2011 in Benghazi.
By March 27 of what was commonly assumed a simple “popular uprising” external special operatives were already “overseeing the transfer of weapons and supplies to the rebels” including “a seemingly endless supply of AK47 assault rifles and ammunition.”
Yet only a few paragraphs after this admission, caution is voiced about the very militias these Western special forces were training because of concern that, “radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its military command.”
The Threat of Libya’s Oil and Gold to French Interests
Though the French-proposed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 claimed the no-fly zone implemented over Libya was to protect civilians, an April 2011 email [archived here] sent to Hillary with the subject line “France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold” tells of less noble ambitions.
The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is considered “Francophone Africa.”
Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency. In place of the noble sounding “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine fed to the public, there is this “confidential” explanation of what was really driving the war [emphasis mine]:
This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).
(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)
Though this internal email aims to summarize the motivating factors driving France’s (and by implication NATO’s) intervention in Libya, it is interesting to note that saving civilian lives is conspicuously absent from the briefing.
Instead, the great fear reported is that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.
French intelligence “discovered” a Libyan initiative to freely compete with European currency through a local alternative, and this had to be subverted through military aggression.
The Ease of Floating Crude Propaganda
Early in the Libyan conflict Secretary of State Clinton formally accused Gaddafi and his army of using mass rape as a tool of war. Though numerous international organizations, like Amnesty International, quickly debunked these claims, the charges were uncritically echoed by Western politicians and major media.
It seemed no matter how bizarre the conspiracy theory, as long as it painted Gaddafi and his supporters as monsters, and so long as it served the cause of prolonged military action in Libya, it was deemed credible by network news.
Two foremost examples are referenced in the latest batch of emails: the sensational claim that Gaddafi issued Viagra to his troops for mass rape, and the claim that bodies were “staged” by the Libyan government at NATO bombing sites to give the appearance of the Western coalition bombing civilians.
In a late March 2011 email, Blumenthal confesses to Hillary that,
I communicated more than a week ago on this story—Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing—though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, Robert gates gives credence to it. (See story below.)
Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further confirmation.
Not only did Defense Secretary Robert Gates promote his bizarre “staged bodies” theory on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” but the even stranger Viagra rape fiction made international headlines as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made a formal charge against Libya in front of the UN Security Council.
What this new email confirms is that not only was the State Department aware of the spurious nature of what Blumenthal calls “rumors” originating solely with the rebels, but did nothing to stop false information from rising to top officials who then gave them “credence.”
It appears, furthermore, that the Viagra mass rape hoax likely originated with Sidney Blumenthal himself.
Seaward wrote: I think the bigger mess that Libya brought to light is that the United States is the only country in NATO with enough munitions to sustain a moderate air campaign against a third world country with a deliberately weak AD network.
Seriously, Europe, what the feth.
So that less than one day air campaign has been forgotten?
I get that military people like tradition, and that tradition is "Bomb the feth out of them!", but come on.
Seaward wrote: I think the bigger mess that Libya brought to light is that the United States is the only country in NATO with enough munitions to sustain a moderate air campaign against a third world country with a deliberately weak AD network.
Seriously, Europe, what the feth.
So that less than one day air campaign has been forgotten?
I get that military people like tradition, and that tradition is "Bomb the feth out of them!", but come on.
I think the point he is making is that it was only a less then one day campaign because European air powers couldn't sustain anymore of it.
But yes, Libya's issue is much deeper then we needed to bomb them more. We pretty much overthrew Qadaffi with even less of a plan then we had in Iraq, and given how much the left just loved to point out how poorely we handled Iraq, you think that their turn in the cockpit they would have thought it through a bit more. *shrugs*
Iron_Captain wrote: You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly.
What makes you think that Islamist dreams of empire are any more resilient than the German or Japanese dreams proved to be? If Hitler can be driven to such despair by defeat that he would order that Nazi Germany has forfeited its right to exist before killing himself, what makes you think that the Islamists would react any better to their abject failure to establish a new caliphate?
Iron_Captain wrote: You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly.
What makes you think that Islamist dreams of empire are any more resilient than the German or Japanese dreams proved to be? If Hitler can be driven to such despair by defeat that he would order that Nazi Germany has forfeited its right to exist before killing himself, what makes you think that the Islamists would react any better to their abject failure to establish a new caliphate?
Well, I bet we could do that, if we would practice total scorched earth warfare like what happened in WW2. We won't though.
We didn't try to win the hearts and minds of the Germans and Japanese. We made them fear for their societies very survival.
With Daesh the local political and military forces need to be considerably supported and strengthened, in terms of training and equipment but not militarily . The overt (or even covert) use of force by the West simply strengthens Daesh's 'crusader' narrative and airstrikes will do little of real substance anyway.
Once Daesh has been militarily defeated the entire region needs to be carefully, and tactfully, guided and supported to ensure that Governments are representative, accountable and actually support their populace. It will take a long time for the Middle East to develop Western style democracy, if ever, but its clear to see what the lack of stable governance leads to.
Lingering flashpoints, like the Kurds and Israel, also need to be diplomatically tackled along side the more unpalatable of our 'Allies'.
In short I would be as well asking Santa but I don't see how the region can be stabilised when we keep randomly bombing bits of it.
While I'd proffer they should up their game, I can understand their position. Why have a massive military if you don't need one? If you don't view the projection of military power as needed you don't need it.
In a better world all the militaries would be minimalist affairs.
There is also a legacy issue. The military doctrine of most European countries is based on stopping a large conventional force invading from the East and fighting a war on home soil. Power projection overseas hasn't been a concern since the end of the colonial era. Even the UK struggled in the Falklands at the height of the cold war. Switching over to volunteer forces that operate abroad in mostly low intensity conflicts is going to take a long time.
Once Daesh has been militarily defeated the entire region needs to be carefully, and tactfully, guided and supported to ensure that Governments are representative, accountable and actually support their populace. It will take a long time for the Middle East to develop Western style democracy, if ever, but its clear to see what the lack of stable governance leads to.
History might disagree with you. ISIL is just another in a string of movements historically. The Ottomans learned to deal with them by pulling back from the region. Once the movement burned itself out they would move back in.
Terrorism has been an issue now because of media and ease of movement.
While I'd proffer they should up their game, I can understand their position. Why have a massive military if you don't need one? If you don't view the projection of military power as needed you don't need it.
In a better world all the militaries would be minimalist affairs.
There is also a legacy issue. The military doctrine of most European countries is based on stopping a large conventional force invading from the East and fighting a war on home soil. Power projection overseas hasn't been a concern since the end of the colonial era. Even the UK struggled in the Falklands at the height of the cold war. Switching over to volunteer forces that operate abroad in mostly low intensity conflicts is going to take a long time.
Which is why it was USAF C-17's that were transporting the French military to Mali.
Iron_Captain wrote: You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly.
What makes you think that Islamist dreams of empire are any more resilient than the German or Japanese dreams proved to be? If Hitler can be driven to such despair by defeat that he would order that Nazi Germany has forfeited its right to exist before killing himself, what makes you think that the Islamists would react any better to their abject failure to establish a new caliphate?
Well, I bet we could do that, if we would practice total scorched earth warfare like what happened in WW2. We won't though.
We didn't try to win the hearts and minds of the Germans and Japanese. We made them fear for their societies very survival.
That can't be done with Islam, which is a worldwide religion with a billion adherents in dozens of countries, many of which are friendly to the west, or even allies (e.g. Turkey is a member of NATO.)
Iron_Captain wrote: You can't end this problem. You can kill people, but you can't kill ideas. If you destroy ISIL, a new organisation that is probably even worse is going to spring up real quickly.
What makes you think that Islamist dreams of empire are any more resilient than the German or Japanese dreams proved to be? If Hitler can be driven to such despair by defeat that he would order that Nazi Germany has forfeited its right to exist before killing himself, what makes you think that the Islamists would react any better to their abject failure to establish a new caliphate?
Are you now comparing impirialism to religion? Seriously?
Ah well. The reason German imperialism vanished (though some anti-EU folks might claim otherwise ) is that the very reason for its existence was gone after WW2. Germans had long been searching for new opportunities, new "Lebensraum" in the east. Over the centuries many Germans settled in Eastern Europe. German imperialism came about as a result of the drive to unite all ethnic Germans in a single German state. After WW2, all Germans that lived outside of the new borders of the German state were either exterminated or expelled. With the Germans gone, so was the desire of Germany to control those areas.
Japanese imperialism was mostly a result of the humiliation Japan received at the hands of Western powers, and the desire to get on the same level as the Western powers that followed out of that. After WW2 Japan was occupied by the US, which made imperialism impossible. Japan subsequently got on the same level as the West due to economical success, which removed the need for imperialism as a tool to become equal to the West (also because the West itself moved away from imperialism).
Now with radical islamism (it is not imperialism, imperialism is something that only states can do.), the main causes of that is that Muslims (like the Japanese earlier) have an inferiority complex towards the West. The West is stronger than the Middle East and it is not really shy about it. Quite the contrary, the West is arrogant, self-righteous and very insistent about imposing its cultural values (that it regards as superior to everything else) on others. Like the Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi has said: "(The Westerners) are perpetual teachers, we the perpetual students. Generation after generation, this asymmetry has generated an inferiority complex, forever exacerbated by the fact that their innovations progress at a faster pace than we can absorb them." I hope you can understand that this leads to frustration. Their culture is under threat from the West. Like most of the rest of the world (like in Asia and Africa) the initial response was nationalism. And altough Arab nationalism was initially succesful in fighting Ottoman and European rule, unlike in the rest of the world, it ultimately failed and lost its influence and power after the Yom Kippur War. The only alternative for muslims is to draw upon their shared religion instead for inspiration. To go back to the roots of their culture and religion, and look to a time when the situation was reversed (the Middle Ages), thus giving rise to Islamic fundamentalism. And since this conflict is not just cultural, but inevitably also political, fundamentalism gives rise to islamism. The frustration of islamism by other political forces (mostly the old guard of nationalists who remained in power) in turn leads to the emergence of islamic terrorism, which after being frustrated time and time again, becomes ever more extreme. So basically, islamic fundamentalism is never going to go away unless living conditions in the Middle East are drastically improved, and dropping bombs is only going to make things worse.
The Ottomans learned to deal with them by pulling back from the region.
The world has changed. The small localised wars that characterised the colonial period were fought against groups who were largely emeshed in local power structures (even if they had been supplanted) who had little to no communications with the wider world and had little impact on the wider world.
Daesh is the latest incarnation on an international movement that is openly active in 2 continents and has support, if not active interests, globally and has proven ability to strike directly at it's enemies home soil. There really isn't a comparison.
Absent advocating the extermination of 1Bn innocents (which is as illogical as it is horrifying a concept), I am not seeing how staying involved in the mess has helped the US or Western Europe. The only policy that seems to have worked over time is the installation of dictators.
Frazzled wrote: The only policy that seems to have worked over time is the installation of dictators.
Which will in all likelihood no longer work.
We need to stay involved but it needs to be all about soft power and caution, not force and arrogance which seems to have the plan for the last 15 years or so.
Frazzled wrote: Why do you believe staying involved is helpful? How many times has Brazil been attacked?
Brazil is politically stable.
If we disengage the moderate forces in the region will not only have a harder time ousting Daesh, there is also a danger of heading towards dicatorship/genocide/bad places (which in fairness may happen anyway). Daesh will still regard the West as a target irrespective of what we do.
Isolationism has never been a wise course of action.
Frazzled wrote: Why do you believe staying involved is helpful? How many times has Brazil been attacked?
Brazil is politically stable.
If we disengage the moderate forces in the region will not only have a harder time ousting Daesh, there is also a danger of heading towards dicatorship/genocide/bad places (which in fairness may happen anyway). Daesh will still regard the West as a target irrespective of what we do.
Isolationism has never been a wise course of action.
Which supports two arguments: both of which are distateful.
*nuke the site from orbit.
*for the protection of whatever country you are in, keep "those people" out.
There has to be a third way, and it needs to be found, or else the Trump factions will win across the US and Europe.
I think the Third Way may be to soldier on. Don't panic! Minimum interference. Try our best to keep our nations safe. Support friendly, stable governments. Make it clear that Muslims are welcome as long as they obey the law of the land.
We're not going to suddenly convert everyone in the Middle East to liberal pluralistic democracy, but most of the youth is coming over to our side, as in Iran, and gradually things will turn around. as the old guard die off.
The blunt fact is that life under ISIL is complete gak unless you're a gun-toting youth or an extreme religious fanatic. Most people aren't. They want to run corner shops, or make films, or set up fashion businesses, get on with their neighbours and not live in fear all the time.
Kilkrazy wrote: I think the Third Way may be to soldier on. Don't panic! Minimum interference. Try our best to keep our nations safe. Support friendly, stable governments. Make it clear that Muslims are welcome as long as they obey the law of the land.
We're not going to suddenly convert everyone in the Middle East to liberal pluralistic democracy, but most of the youth is coming over to our side, as in Iran, and gradually things will turn around. as the old guard die off.
The blunt fact is that life under ISIL is complete gak unless you're a gun-toting youth or an extreme religious fanatic. Most people aren't. They want to run corner shops, or make films, or set up fashion businesses, get on with their neighbours and not live in fear all the time.
Pull out everything, military and economic. Not in a malicious way but rather leave them alone. The US has been pretty busy colonizing MENA economically for a long time. See nation in debt, offer aide, increase their debt due to aide, impose laws to relieve debt, open markets, privatize industry and sell it to western investors, exploit people and land, now profit. Rinse and repeat.
Islam is the last thing many of the down trodden have. The last bastion the west can't break. So naturally it radicalizes in the face of its percieved opposition. People in MENA can't fight on the wests terms so they have chosen a method that is ugly, horrible but effective. It says go away we don't want you here.
So I say leave and maybe save ourselves from our own greed at others expense while we are at it. Let them build, govern and live as they choose, it is their right to have. In a generation they will probably leave their grievances behind and both sides can wash their hands of the ugliness.
At least that would be the ideal way to do it. I suspect we will try the bomb until they accept their subordinate purpose to the west again method. Not like the people will mind their lives getting even worse. You either live to get beheaded by ISIS or collateral'd by America lol.
Maybe we should treat them as a nation state. ? Sideways thinking.
That has rules. If you attack the west its a act of war. We will pound every single flying your flag to rubble with swift efficiency treating it as a declaration of open warfare. No softly kid gloves, bring the steel armoured fist.
If you can behave less like seeming war adicts who have managed to anger a long list of nations. They might live and they may learn.
They want to be a "state" ... Can they manage to obey the rules man kind holds them too.
They can choose to act like civilised men, or face the concqunces of there violent acts.
They'd have a choice, they make that one, so be it which way they go, and if it is a hellfire missile turning there leaders to a thin stain, well that's that.
We gave them a choice, they chose rather badly.
Perfectly fair. Give them a chance, one chance, maybe they may see sense.
jhe90 wrote: If you attack the west its a act of war. We will pound every single flying your flag to rubble with swift efficiency treating it as a declaration of open warfare. No softly kid gloves, bring the steel armoured fist.
Tried it. It not only did it not work it cost vast quantities of blood and treasure, destabalised much of the middle east, radicalised even further some elements of Islam and essentially created Daesh. Mission accomplished?
Alpharius wrote: I don't think 'soft power' is going to cut it either at this point.
This is a problem that needs diplomatic power and influence from the wider world to support and equip local powers to defeating Daesh militarily and socially. It really needs a sustained and carefully crafted approach.
Iron_Captain wrote: Are you now comparing impirialism to religion? Seriously?
I'm comparing imperialism to imperialism. ISIL is not Islam, ISIL is their would-be caliphate. ISIL is explicitly trying to unite the Muslim world under a single dictator, their leader, and purify their territory of all who are not "true" Muslims. That they justify this under the guise of Muslim unity rather than German unity does not change what they are.
I think the point he is making is that it was only a less then one day campaign because European air powers couldn't sustain anymore of it.
To be clear, I am talking about the 1986 bombing. The 2011 campaign extended well beyond a day.
If we stopped obsessing over smart weapons, and used old iron munitions, would cost alot less and easier to make. But you have to be willing to lose accuracy.
jhe90 wrote: Maybe we should treat them as a nation state. ? Sideways thinking.
That has rules. If you attack the west its a act of war. We will pound every single flying your flag to rubble with swift efficiency treating it as a declaration of open warfare.
And what about the people that have been subjugated and forced to fly the flag? India flew the British flag for a significant period of time; can India be held responsible for British imperialism?
No softly kid gloves, bring the steel armoured fist.
If you can behave less like seeming war adicts who have managed to anger a long list of nations.
This statement is in direct contradiction to the fairly bloodthirsty nature of the rest of your post.
What resources are available in the Daesh-controlled areas? If the supply of goods and services was cut off into there, could they build the weapons they fight with. Apart from the oil refineries we hear they control, what do they have to trade with, to get weapons?
Can Daesh sustain their 'state' without outside support?
I think the point he is making is that it was only a less then one day campaign because European air powers couldn't sustain anymore of it.
To be clear, I am talking about the 1986 bombing. The 2011 campaign extended well beyond a day.
If we stopped obsessing over smart weapons, and used old iron munitions, would cost alot less and easier to make. But you have to be willing to lose accuracy.
And create even more extremists when people lose their family's to bombs dropped by planes flying our flag. Killing innocents with bombs is a recruitment drive for ISIS/ISIL/Daesh
While I'd proffer they should up their game, I can understand their position. Why have a massive military if you don't need one? If you don't view the projection of military power as needed you don't need it.
In a better world all the militaries would be minimalist affairs.
There is also a legacy issue. The military doctrine of most European countries is based on stopping a large conventional force invading from the East and fighting a war on home soil. Power projection overseas hasn't been a concern since the end of the colonial era. Even the UK struggled in the Falklands at the height of the cold war. Switching over to volunteer forces that operate abroad in mostly low intensity conflicts is going to take a long time.
Which is why it was USAF C-17's that were transporting the French military to Mali.
True, but it isn't just the strategic airlift. The cold war left the US with a far more useful military infrastructure than Europe for modern conflicts. In that sense Obama's comments are a bit odd. Why blame France and the UK for a lack of capability that hasn't been available to these countries for decades. If the Wolfowitz doctrine is any indication, the US isn't particularly fond of the idea that other western nations develop significant ability to project power outside of their region.
We're not going to suddenly convert everyone in the Middle East to liberal pluralistic democracy, but most of the youth is coming over to our side, as in Iran, and gradually things will turn around. as the old guard die off.
I don't think that's correct. Everything I have seen shows that Islamic extremism is most popular among the youth, with the older portions of the population being the voice of reason. And that extremism is only going to get worse with time.
I'm with Templar. The youth in Iran is influence by the Elder/Imams who are major focal points in their lives same as their parents. Iran VIP who came to the UN talked to Cameron which I remember correctly they wanted to talk to him. Obama crew were trying their damdest to get the VIP on the phone with him
We're not going to suddenly convert everyone in the Middle East to liberal pluralistic democracy, but most of the youth is coming over to our side, as in Iran, and gradually things will turn around. as the old guard die off.
I don't think that's correct. Everything I have seen shows that Islamic extremism is most popular among the youth, with the older portions of the population being the voice of reason. And that extremism is only going to get worse with time.
You understand of course that Islamism can be most popular among the youth and still a minority interest? To make up an example, 10% of oldsters could be Islamists, and 15% of youngsters, and that leaves 87.5% of all Muslims as moderate.
There's no reason to suppose it will only get worse with time. Islam is already over 1,500 years old. Clearly extremism doesn't inevitably get worse with time, or it would already be as bad as it could get.
Kilkrazy wrote: Islam is already over 1,500 years old. Clearly extremism doesn't inevitably get worse with time, or it would already be as bad as it could get.
Errmm, gonna have to disagree.
Islam was at its most moderate during the early middle ages. And I don't think its total age is any sort of proof one way or the other.
Jihadin wrote: Paganism is very much older and still around today
Yet seems far more sociable about other religions than ISIS-types, despite the age.
Well, all pagans I know are of the extreme-right neo-nazi type...
Then there is the whole historical persecution of christians, and the ritualistic raiding and warfare many pagan religions used to have... I wouldn't say pagan religions are more sociable than others by default.
Why I picked one I can relate very closely to. Bacchus....Roman God of Alcohol and Sex. Sure the other guy can make water into wine and multiply fish and bread. I settle for steaks hand carved from a butcher slave and hand fed to me by my love slaves as I watch some unfortunate criminal fighting a lion with broken finger nails and screaming
Jihadin wrote: Why I picked one I can relate very closely to. Bacchus....Roman God of Alcohol and Sex. Sure the other guy can make water into wine and multiply fish and bread. I settle for steaks hand carved from a butcher slave and hand fed to me by my love slaves as I watch some unfortunate criminal fighting a lion with broken finger nails and screaming
I get the unsettling feeling you typed that with one hand...
