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There's a lot to this I don't get.

Why does Libya so admire this guy? He murdered civillians. Where in the world is that a popular thing to do?

I can understand how an Iraqi might applaud a local guy who blows up a US Humvee. It is, technically, a foreign military in your country. It's a military target. It's in your country. Ok. I don't agree, but the framework is there at least.

Bombing a civillian airliner? Hero? What the hell, Libya?

This is one of the many times that I lament being on the "good side." It'd be so nice to get that memo from Libya, say "wow, really?" Then shoot the guy in the head, and dump his body at their embassy. "Don't threaten me anymore."

It's a strange world indeed.

Phryxis wrote:There's a lot to this I don't get.

Why does Libya so admire this guy? He murdered civillians. Where in the world is that a popular thing to do?

The distinction between civilian and military is a very Western idea.

Phryxis wrote:There's a lot to this I don't get.

Why does Libya so admire this guy? He murdered civillians. Where in the world is that a popular thing to do?

When you think the otherside is bad and your side is good, a whole lot of people don't really care who the target is, as long as our's are killing their's. Which is fethed up, for sure.

Mind you, does anyone really believe that less civilians died in the invasion of Iraq than in 9/11? Do many people in the West really care?


To be honest, the most troublesome thing to me is that we just declared Gadaffi could come in from the cold, he'd repented and all was forgiven. Clearly he's not quite so reformed, but there's oil so...

Well, he did cancel his nuclear program, and dispose of his chemical and biological weapons.

Albatross wrote:And Australia would have done what, exactly?

With Libya I don't think Australia is entangled enough in an economic sense. Now if it was Indonesia or China we'd be bending over fast as you please.

sebster wrote:
They threatened the welfare of UK citizens living in Libya.

Yeah, I read that. I think that you know as well as I do that they wouldn't dare be that stupid. Just more empty threats from ANOTHER middle-east crackpot.

Technically they said UK citizens may be at risk in Libya. If the populace was to react violently to a refusal to release, that might be taken as fair warning. ...right.

dogma wrote:Well, he did cancel his nuclear program, and dispose of his chemical and biological weapons.

And paid compensation for Lockerbie. Yet, there's this carry on to get the Lockerbie bomber released. Seems we're willing to put up with a lot, as long nations make a public show of being reasonable.

Albatross wrote:Yeah, I read that. I think that you know as well as I do that they wouldn't dare be that stupid. Just more empty threats from ANOTHER middle-east crackpot.

Well, they've been at least that stupid once before.

sebster wrote:
And paid compensation for Lockerbie. Yet, there's this carry on to get the Lockerbie bomber released. Seems we're willing to put up with a lot, as long nations make a public show of being reasonable.

I don't think its all that unreasonable for Qaddafi to seek the release of the Lockerbie bomber. His national constituency is such that he can't simply do whatever the West tells him to do, he has to at least put on a show of defiance.

Presumably though, UK citizens are always at risk in Libya? It's not exactly the most stable of governments is it?

filbert wrote:Presumably though, UK citizens are always at risk outside the Libyan embassy in London anyway ? It's not exactly the most stable of governments is it?

fixed.

reds8n wrote:

filbert wrote:Presumably though, UK citizens are always at risk outside the Libyan embassy in London anyway ? It's not exactly the most stable of governments is it?

fixed.

Ah touché!

filbert wrote:Presumably though, UK citizens are always at risk in Libya? It's not exactly the most stable of governments is it?

It has more to do with being a white European than it does Libya being unstable, though its certainly not the most dangerous place in the world.

Mind you, does anyone really believe that less civilians died in the invasion of Iraq than in 9/11?

Well, for one thing, I'm not sure... I mean did US forces kill 3000 civillians during the 7-ish years the thing has been going on? I would certainly assume so. But at the same time, I figure the vast majority of civillians are being killed by other Iraqis.

Also, while we certainly killed a bunch of civillians, we don't approve of it, and wouldn't applaud a soldier for doing it. We "tolerate" it, but we don't "celebrate" it.

Not that any of that is news to you, but I typed it out anyway.

Phryxis wrote:

Mind you, does anyone really believe that less civilians died in the invasion of Iraq than in 9/11?

Well, for one thing, I'm not sure... I mean did US forces kill 3000 civillians during the 7-ish years the thing has been going on? I would certainly assume so. But at the same time, I figure the vast majority of civillians are being killed by other Iraqis.

Also, while we certainly killed a bunch of civillians, we don't approve of it, and wouldn't applaud a soldier for doing it. We "tolerate" it, but we don't "celebrate" it.

Not that any of that is news to you, but I typed it out anyway.

Does Iraq celebrate 9/11?

dogma wrote:I don't think its all that unreasonable for Qaddafi to seek the release of the Lockerbie bomber. His national constituency is such that he can't simply do whatever the West tells him to do, he has to at least put on a show of defiance.

They're not playing to the peanut gallery in that memo, because it's in private memos. But I'm not surpised or disappointed that they'd want him back, he was working with their sanction in the first place.

The problem is that they're using threats to attempt to secure his release. That is not the behaviour of a nation that's come in from the cold. I mean, I'm all for engagement over isolation, but when a nation makes threats to secure the release of a terrorist, you withdraw some level of engagement, you don't just give them what they want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Phryxis wrote:Well, for one thing, I'm not sure... I mean did US forces kill 3000 civillians during the 7-ish years the thing has been going on? I would certainly assume so. But at the same time, I figure the vast majority of civillians are being killed by other Iraqis.

Also, while we certainly killed a bunch of civillians, we don't approve of it, and wouldn't applaud a soldier for doing it. We "tolerate" it, but we don't "celebrate" it.

Not that any of that is news to you, but I typed it out anyway.

When you take out power, water and other infrastructure in a country that large, for that length of time, you will end up with more than 3,000 deaths. It's just inevitable.

And yeah, we didn't mean to kill any of those people, but we did. And we don't care like we do about the 9/11 deaths. Because we care a lot more about ours than we do about theirs.

sebster wrote:
They're not playing to the peanut gallery in that memo, because it's in private memos.

Well, the private memos were between the US and Britain. Its not clear in what capacity the Libyan threats were made. However, it doesn't really matter, as official statements of policy, especially in a dictatorship, tend to be relatively even between private and public discussion; primarily because care is taken not to deviate from the party line. In any case, it seems that physical reprisal wasn't the intention of threats, but rather diplomatic (removing British officials) and Corporate (cutting contracts) consequences.

sebster wrote:
But I'm not surpised or disappointed that they'd want him back, he was working with their sanction in the first place.

The problem is that they're using threats to attempt to secure his release. That is not the behaviour of a nation that's come in from the cold. I mean, I'm all for engagement over isolation, but when a nation makes threats to secure the release of a terrorist, you withdraw some level of engagement, you don't just give them what they want.

That's debatable. If the concession that's being requested is essentially immaterial, as with Megrahi, then there not issue with simply giving it to them. If they threaten you again in the future, and the concession demanded is material, then withdraw engagement. Not all threats are created equal, you can acquiesce to some, and respond to others and there doesn't need to be any sort of consistency between the two choices available.

The extent to which people consider the aesthetics of a request to be important never ceases to amaze me.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Dear Libya, I have read your note, attached as it was to a brick through my window. So I am writing this back to you via the trails of our warplanes over your airspace.

We have now parked half the British Navy off your shoreline, if so much as a hair on a British citizen's head is put out of place in your cheapass desert nation, we will bomb you back into the stone age.

If there is a terrorist repercussion to that, we will rend your culture extinct.

Bemused.

Chancellor Stompa.

I want to be British, just so I can vote Stompa. Is that so wrong?

Okay, I lied, my obsession over Morrissey is also a contributing factor.

So you have a multi billion oil deal under threat, versus releasing a dying man. Hmmm, hard choice... not.

It could be that the UK government thought "what the hell, the bugger has only got a few years left, is it really worth the hassle of keeping him?" Arabs always posture when it comes to making such statements. They always remind me of the Black Knight in Monty Pthons Holy Grail Added to this there are numerous allegations that he was stitched up.

dogma wrote:Well, the private memos were between the US and Britain. Its not clear in what capacity the Libyan threats were made. However, it doesn't really matter, as official statements of policy, especially in a dictatorship, tend to be relatively even between private and public discussion; primarily because care is taken not to deviate from the party line. In any case, it seems that physical reprisal wasn't the intention of threats, but rather diplomatic (removing British officials) and Corporate (cutting contracts) consequences.

We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the memos between the UK and USA, as such we can conclude Libya was making claims as per the memos. We know that the claims made by Libya were in private, because if they were public we would have heard them directly.

Therefore, we know Libya was making threats of reprisals in private to secure the release of the terrorist. Which means that they weren't just doing it for show, but genuinely wanted the guy back.

That's debatable. If the concession that's being requested is essentially immaterial, as with Megrahi, then there not issue with simply giving it to them. If they threaten you again in the future, and the concession demanded is material, then withdraw engagement. Not all threats are created equal, you can acquiesce to some, and respond to others and there doesn't need to be any sort of consistency between the two choices available.

The extent to which people consider the aesthetics of a request to be important never ceases to amaze me.

That assumes a model in which the only two actors are Britain and Libya, and the only decision point to be made is handing back terrorists. In that circumstance the release of the guy looks trivial.

But once you start looking at the complexity of international relations, in becomes a mess to look at individual instances like that. You need to start asking yourself questions at a higher level - 'should we maintain relations with a country that makes threats to secure a convicted terrorist, or should we build international pressure to drive reform within that country?'

Libya was kept in the dark for a long time because of that very thing.