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Emperors Faithful wrote:
Right, becuase there Libya is currently a colony of France and there are French forces stationed there. Oh, and the Communists are behind everything.

That better?

Ketara wrote:I don't know anything about that. I didn't understand your post grammatically. I couldn't even infer what you were trying to say.

Me writing:- 'Jelly bonanza is roughly circumference of Chaos black in a holistic approach', made about as much sense as that post did.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously?

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Ketara wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Right, becuase there Libya is currently a colony of France and there are French forces stationed there. Oh, and the Communists are behind everything.

Wut?
Your post makes no sense.

I know. The US can't blame Vietnam on the French. Not entirely. And this pretty much has nothing to do with Libya.

France screwed up politically and war occured because of that. There doesn't have to be communists, just two sides fighting for control and France has legitimized the rebels which might as well split Libya into east and west. If america ends up carrying out another 'police action' I'll blame France. If you notice Libya is actually split between middle eastern populations and african populations, they have political borders created by Italy IIRC. We have areas that are in the same country but have no similarities besides that.

halonachos wrote:
France screwed up politically and war occured because of that. There doesn't have to be communists, just two sides fighting for control and France has legitimized the rebels which might as well split Libya into east and west. If america ends up carrying out another 'police action' I'll blame France. If you notice Libya is actually split between middle eastern populations and african populations, they have political borders created by Italy IIRC. We have areas that are in the same country but have no similarities besides that.

The French involvement in Indochina was an attempt to recover their Colonial holdings lost during the WWII occupation. The US supported the French (paying for most of the operation costs) becuase they needed the support of France in the European theatre given the onset of the Cold War. It's a bit more complicated than this, but already you should be able to see that this is in no way comparable to the current situation in Libya. But yeah, keep on (French) hating.

If we end up supporting France then it will kind of be like how Vietnam started. It doesn't matter if France was trying to get a colony back because the basics go like this;

France did something political, the country didn't like that politcal move, France tried something militarily, France failed, America came to help France.

France has already done something politically(recognizing the rebels), Libya probably isn't too happy about that, we just need to see if France tries something and fails.

France is the Leeroy Jenkins of Europe.

I don't think the parallels between Libya and Indochina are worth even mentioning, they're so tenuous and stretched. The situations are not realistically comparable.

Ones a desert without communism and the other one is a jungle with communism, got it.

halonachos wrote:Ones a desert without communism and the other one is a jungle with communism, got it.

Well no, one is a jungle that was owned by France, and posessed a pro-communist independence movement. France didn't want to leave, and as such turned to its allies for additional assistance. However, after they were forced out of the territory by a defeat at one of their main bases, the United States stepped in to support the pro-Western elements within the nation.

In Libya's case, we've got a sovereign nation split by a civil war, and France has supported one of the factions.

The situations are not comparable in the slightest. The only connection is that France was involved with both.

I don't understand the 'we must act united if we're to be taken seriously' aspect. Perhaps its just me but if Britain or Germany does something it doesn't really matter if the others act in unison with them, its still a force to be reckoned with. Its not like the US not being taken seriously if Oregon declared war on something and the rest of us just look at them a little funny... or is it?

halonachos wrote:
France did something political, the country didn't like that politcal move, France tried something militarily, France failed, America came to help France.

You do realize that French Indochina came to be called French Indochina by way of military action, right?

You're betraying your ignorance of world history here.

You're also ignoring the fact that Libya isn't connected to a larger political movement, and power structure in the way that Vietnam was with respect to global Communism in general, and China in particular. That alone means that this situation is not comparable to Vietnam.

ChrisWWII wrote:

halonachos wrote:Ones a desert without communism and the other one is a jungle with communism, got it.

Well no, one is a jungle that was owned by France, and posessed a pro-communist independence movement. France didn't want to leave, and as such turned to its allies for additional assistance. However, after they were forced out of the territory by a defeat at one of their main bases, the United States stepped in to support the pro-Western elements within the nation.

In Libya's case, we've got a sovereign nation split by a civil war, and France has supported one of the factions.

The situations are not comparable in the slightest. The only connection is that France was involved with both.

And the fact that France messed up politically(by not giving Vietnam sovereignty).

Dogma, do you always have to resort to personal attacks? Can you not even try to see past your own thoughts to see the idea behind my concept? I'm making a simple comparison and everyone else is telling me I'm wrong because there's no communists in Libya. I'm getting past the whole communist revolution part of Vietnam. There are parts where the two are dissimilar, but saying that the fact of the presence of communism is the only thing that keeps you from allowing a comparison between the two situations is like saying WW1 and WW2 are not similar because one of them lacked the NAZI movement.

France failed to keep the peace politically in Vietnam and continued to fail at keeping the peace so much that America joined in.

There's no peace in Libya, France made a political move by declaring the rebels as the new government creating a situation similar to Vietnam. Even though one side isn't communist we have a civil war going on between two ideological groups (rebels=Southern Vietnam, loyalists=Northern Vietnam) and it does involve regime change. France has involved the European community and the western world in the conflict now by making this declaration. Now if France takes military action to aid one side (the rebels) and exacerbates the situation we may have to step in to help them. If we get into a protracted war because of the aid we provide I would say that it is like Vietnam. Just because Vietnam was in Indochina and involved communism doesn't mean a war in Libya cannot be similar to it.

halonachos wrote:
Dogma, do you always have to resort to personal attacks? Can you not even try to see past your own thoughts to see the idea behind my concept?

There is no"idea behind your concept" (which is itself a nonsensical comment given that "idea" and "concept" are synonymous) other than a set of "similarities" that you're fabricating. This is why I said that you were betraying your ignorance of world history. A statement that, from my perspective, is not a personal attack, but a clear statement of fact.

halonachos wrote:
I'm making a simple comparison and everyone else is telling me I'm wrong because there's no communists in Libya.

No, that's not what is happening. I, among others, have been explaining to you why the situation in Libya has nothing in common with the situation in Vietnam aside from the fact that both involved the French. This isn't a matter of perspective or opinion, its literally just a matter of you being fundamentally incorrect.

halonachos wrote:
There are parts where the two are dissimilar, but saying that the fact of the presence of communism is the only thing that keeps you from allowing a comparison between the two situations is like saying WW1 and WW2 are not similar because one of them lacked the NAZI movement.

That isn't what I said. Please read the posts that you're going to take offense to.

halonachos wrote:
France failed to keep the peace politically in Vietnam and continued to fail at keeping the peace so much that America joined in.

There's no peace in Libya, France made a political move by declaring the rebels as the new government creating a situation similar to Vietnam.

No, that's utter nonsense. The fact that you can even claim to believe this is mind-boggling to me.

There are no French troops in Libya. Libya is not a French colony. The Libyan rebellion is not attempting to oust the French from their territory. There is no over-arching ideological construct supporting the Libyan government. There is no large benefactor state feeding the Libyan government arms. The only similarity between the two conflicts is that, in both cases, a country that we call France was, and is, involved.

So the fact that France is involved is something we agree to.

But you're saying that Libya is lacking in ideological sides?

Libya isn't a French colony so of course it can't be related to Vietnam.

No one's giving Libya weapons so it can't be similar.

The similarities include the political actions of France. This political action that caused the rest of the Western world to become involved in the affairs of another country.

There doesn't have to be another benefactor giving the Libyan government money and Libya doesn't have to be a French colony to acknowledge the fact that France has involved the western world in this conflict.

Saying that there are no ideals on the loyalist side is nonsensical. The overarching ideal would be a dictatorial mindset with the rebels representing a mindset of freedom.

France has caused us to be involved just like in Nam.

halonachos wrote:So the fact that France is involved is something we agree to.

Yes

But you're saying that Libya is lacking in ideological sides?

Libya has ideolgoy involved in this conflict, but it's very much different from what was going on in Vietnam. In Vietnam, a global communist movement was fighting the global Western movement through proxy. There is no such conflict of global ideology in Libya.

Libya isn't a French colony so of course it can't be related to Vietnam.

No one's giving Libya weapons so it can't be similar.

Except these things are kind of important. The reason France invested so heavily in Indochina was because it was their colony. The fact that no great superpower is supplying Libya with arms is also significant as it recognizes the fact that neither the Libyan government nor the rebels are a front for a larger organization/political alliance. These differences are significant enough to derail your comparison.

The similarities include the political actions of France. This political action that caused the rest of the Western world to become involved in the affairs of another country

There doesn't have to be another benefactor giving the Libyan government money and Libya doesn't have to be a French colony to acknowledge the fact that France has involved the western world in this conflict.

Saying that there are no ideals on the loyalist side is nonsensical. The overarching ideal would be a dictatorial mindset with the rebels representing a mindset of freedom.

France has caused us to be involved just like in Nam.

Once again, as I said, there are ideologies, however Libya is not a proxy war clash of two global superpowers vying for supremacy. It is a local conflict.

Secondly, the US and the rest of the Western world was involved with Libya long before the French recognized the rebel government. The US, UK and other nations were supporting a no fly zone, an American carrier was dispatched to the Mediterannean, and the British were arguably talking to the government in Benghazi. France simply took the first step in legitimizing the rebel government.

Saying that France drew the rest of the West into Libya is like saying that Harry Truman led the US into World War II. In both situations, the US/Western world was heavily involved prior to the event in question.

There's really nothing comparable beyond "France...", you might as well be comparing it to WWI, because that involved France doing something too...

France has said "Eh, we think those guys are the legitimate government now." That has nothing to do with France trying to hold onto a colony with military force, which we became involved in for completely different reasons after they were ousted.

America hasn't invested in a no-fly zone yet.

If you look at my original post I said that France was going to drag us into a conflict like in Vietnam. If France wasn't involved in Vietnam then would we have been involved in Vietnam?

I also said if they start another Vietnam like situation. I mean a protracted war in between a country divided. I don't mean that communists are trying to take Libya away from France, I mean that France was going to be the start of the western world's involvement en masse.

So if you guys are too busy focusing on the communism aspect of the war its not my problem.

halonachos wrote:
The similarities include the political actions of France. This political action that caused the rest of the Western world to become involved in the affairs of another country.

France took no political action in order to involve any other nation in Vietnam. Similarly, a French declaration of recognition has not necessary impact on the actions of other Western nations.

You're applying a categorical noun (the West) in the same way that you are applying a singular, specific noun (France). This is fundamentally incorrect.

halonachos wrote:
There doesn't have to be another benefactor giving the Libyan government money and Libya doesn't have to be a French colony to acknowledge the fact that France has involved the western world in this conflict.

The Western world is not a monolith. What France chooses to do has no necessary bearing on what any other Western nation might choose to do.

halonachos wrote:
Saying that there are no ideals on the loyalist side is nonsensical. The overarching ideal would be a dictatorial mindset with the rebels representing a mindset of freedom.

When I mentioned an overarching ideal I was referring to the sort of thing that Communism represented during the Cold War.

Regardless, a mindset is not the same thing as an ideal. A mindset entails a set of fundamental assumption, whereas an ideal is the product of such assumptions. More to the point, there is no particular evidence to support the notion that there is any particular mindset on either side of the conflict, it may simply be about personal profit written across large groups of people.

halonachos wrote:
France has caused us to be involved just like in Nam.

You must be trolling. There is literally no other remotely flattering explanation.

Can you seriously get past the communism aspect of Vietnam? I'm beginning to doubt that you can.

halonachos wrote:If France wasn't involved in Vietnam then would we have been involved in Vietnam?

If Russia didn't exist, then would there have been a Cold War?

Halo, if you're sincerely interested in the subject, and really can't see the vast differences between the two conflicts, you honestly need to do more reading and less posting on this one.

Your posts are beginning to smell of trolling from a moderator perspective.

halonachos wrote:Can you seriously get past the communism aspect of Vietnam? I'm beginning to doubt that you can.

This isn't that difficult. Communism, in the context of the Vietnam conflict, represented a significant ideological challenge to the sort of economic system, capitalism, that the United States subscribed to during the period. Because North Vietnam was a Communist state, it was naturally placed in opposition to the United States by the overarching conflict that characterized the entirety of the Cold War. Divorced from context, the important thing to note is not that North Vietnam was a Communist state, but that it was a state that subscribed to an ideology that the United States considered to be a specific threat to its security. The point being that there were compelling reasons for the United States to be involved in Vietnam besides "the French did something".

Again, Communism is only relevant in the context of the Cold War in that it represents something that the United States perceived to be a global threat to its own security.

France took no political action to involve another country, but then again I never said they did.

I said that France failed politically in Vietnam, they didn't fulfill a promise to a certain someone who got mad and decided to join the Communist bandwagon. France wanted to keep their colony and acted militarily and got their ass kicked. We then stepped in to help them because France couldn't deal with Vietnam.

According to CNN Libya has some natural borders and some political borders. These political borders were put into place by the Italians but enclosed two different types of people; African tribes and muslims. These two people don't see eye to eye and are fighting each other, one supports Ghadafi and the other wants him ousted. So we have two groups seeking power; one wants to keep it and the other wants to take it away.

I think we can agree about that.

France is saying that the rebels are now the legitimate government. Now that means they should be willing to support the legitimate government militarily if need be. If France gets involved there's a strong chance that we may get involved as well.

halonachos wrote:France took no political action to involve another country, but then again I never said they did.

Yeah, you did.

halonachos wrote:
The similarities include the political actions of France. This political action that caused the rest of the Western world to become involved in the affairs of another country.

halonachos wrote:
I said that France failed politically in Vietnam, they didn't fulfill a promise to a certain someone who got mad and decided to join the Communist bandwagon.

Again, that is absolutely incorrect. Ho Chi Minh had no intention of ever agreeing to any realistic set of French demands. In fact, he embraced Communism while being educated in France.

halonachos wrote:
According to CNN Libya has some natural borders and some political borders. These political borders were put into place by the Italians but enclosed two different types of people; African tribes and muslims. These two people don't see eye to eye and are fighting each other, one supports Ghadafi and the other wants him ousted. So we have two groups seeking power; one wants to keep it and the other wants to take it away.

Oh, oh God. That's so unbelievably wrong it isn't even funny. Libya can no more be reduced to matters of "ethnicity" than Darfur, which is to say that neither case can be so simplified.

Just off the top of my head I can tell you that Libya is nearly 99% Muslim, and that there is no sort of categorical reason that a given person cannot be both an African tribesman, and a Muslim.

halonachos wrote:
I think we can agree about that.

No, we can't.

halonachos wrote:
France is saying that the rebels are now the legitimate government. Now that means they should be willing to support the legitimate government militarily if need be.

No, no it doesn't. There is no direct, logical connection between the recognition of one body as a legitimate government, and military intervention.

Ive got a raging hangover and this back and forth between Dogma and Halo is driving me back to drink....

halonachos wrote:France took no political action to involve another country, but then again I never said they did.

You very clearyly said that.

I said that France failed politically in Vietnam, they didn't fulfill a promise to a certain someone who got mad and decided to join the Communist bandwagon. France wanted to keep their colony and acted militarily and got their ass kicked. We then stepped in to help them because France couldn't deal with Vietnam.

Which is arguably true. The French got kicked out of Vietnam (with mild military support from the US), and in the negotiations ending the French involvement in Indochina, Vietnam was divided into two states pending elections to determine a national government. However, the elections failed to take place, and war broke out between the South Vietnamese government, and Vietcong rebels (who were supported by North Vietnam). In accordance with its containment policies, the US stepped in militarily.

France didn't drag us into Vietnam. We got ourselves into Vietnam, and if we get involved in Libya, we will be the ones getting ourselves in.

According to CNN Libya has some natural borders and some political borders. These political borders were put into place by the Italians but enclosed two different types of people; African tribes and muslims. These two people don't see eye to eye and are fighting each other, one supports Ghadafi and the other wants him ousted. So we have two groups seeking power; one wants to keep it and the other wants to take it away.

Not necessarily, the ethnic break down of Libya is much more north-south than east-west, and there is currently an East West divide between the two factions.

France is saying that the rebels are now the legitimate government. Now that means they should be willing to support the legitimate government militarily if need be. If France gets involved there's a strong chance that we may get involved as well.

The US recognizes Russia, does that mean that they must support the Russian government by bombing Chechen rebels? No, it doesn't. You can recognize a nation as sovereign, and recognize a new government without getting involved militarily. Even if France gets involved, there's no reason we have to get involved as well. The foreign policy of France does no affect the foreign policy of the US, the UK or Germany. France will do what it wants, and the rest of the West will do what they want.

I can't believe you guys are having a debate with someone who can write a sentence like this and think it a good point.

France is saying that the rebels are now the legitimate government. Now that means they should be willing to support the legitimate government militarily if need be.

I mean.....seriously? The stupidity contained in this sentence actually makes my brain hurt.

No offence halo, but if this is truely your concept of how international politics works, then please. Just give it up. Quickly and painlessly. For the sake of saving my desk from my head hitting it repeatedly.

Despite being a major cynic, I continue to believe that most human beings can be dealt with logically and rationally, even though they continue to spew the most ill-informed, idiotic spiel ever crafted by the human mind.

Of course, I'm likely wrong with that idea, but hey...it can't hurt to try, no?

Ketara wrote:I can't believe you guys are having a debate with someone who can write a sentence like this and think it a good point.

France is saying that the rebels are now the legitimate government. Now that means they should be willing to support the legitimate government militarily if need be.

I mean.....seriously? The stupidity contained in this sentence actually makes my brain hurt.

No offence halo, but if this is truely your concept of how international politics works, then please. Just give it up. Quickly and painlessly. For the sake of saving my desk from my head hitting it repeatedly.

There's a difference between should and would. Why would a nation declare a rebel group as the sovereign government of a nation? If you can answer that one for me then go ahead, I want to hear how your understanding of international politics works.

halonachos wrote:There's a difference between should and would. Why would a nation declare a rebel group as the sovereign government of a nation? If you can answer that one for me then go ahead, I want to hear how your understanding of international politics works.

To try to make people forget about their involvement with the now-axe-crazy fallen dictator sitting in Tripoli?