Help me here Ken. The only location specific reference I could find was in the Huffington Post which was:
Hope this is not degenerating into a p____ing contest about whose air took out what we see on TV?He would not elaborate on what was hit or where, but said French forces are focusing on the Benghazi area and U.S. forces are focused in the west.
Tinkle not lest thee be tinkled upon...
So do I -- certainly not my intent.Originally Posted by JMA
Your counterspin? Probably not, eye of the beholder, I expect...Is that what the truth is called nowadays?That's the question, isn't it?Save the world from what? ... think about it.I've known that since before you were born, haven't whined about then or now. US Politicians have been doing that even before I was born and deserve criticism, I have no problem with honest criticism, indulge in it myself and encourage it from others -- I do have a dislike of flagrant bias; don't whine about it but have no problem pointing it out...Unfortunately Ken when the US (politicians) screw up criticism will come from all quarters. Nuthin you can do about it. Whining about it is unbecoming.Probably so -- and that will change exactly what?The simple point is that the dithering of the US politicians has a cost in hundreds, maybe thousands, of Libyan lives. You and others may wish to laugh that off and mock those who won't as being those "who want to save the world" but at the end of the day its going to be yet another example of US foreign affairs failure.I'm dubious but we'll see...The saving grace of course is that the military will step in, wrap it up in a few days, then hand the lot over to some politically correct structure who is likely to screw it up...So do I and yes you are ...Strange? Personally I find people entirely predictable.
Dubious about what?
That the No-Fly-Zone and the relief of Benghazi was over in days?
Or that the "structure" to which the US hands over command will screw it up?
Was?
Was? No was to it, still going on and likely to be for a while -- so I am dubious about your "The saving grace of course is that the military will step in, wrap it up in a few days..." Quite dubious, in fact.No doubt about that at all. Coalitions always do, nature of the beast. Not much sense ever expecting much else.Or that the "structure" to which the US hands over command will screw it up?
Dr. March Lynch, at NPR, in a 22 March 2011 interview with Terry Gross on the subject, Why Libya Matters To The Middle East's Future
If Gadhafi survives, it sends a message to every dictator in the region that force pays, that the way to stay on the throne is to shoot your people if they protest, and the international community really won't do anything about it. And that sends a powerful message both to the dictators and to the people. That's the real stakes in the region.One of the legacies of Gadhafi's rule is that he almost completely crushed civil society. And that means that we don't have political parties or trade unions or civil society organizations, human rights organizations; the sorts of people and organizations and institutions that we could see as potential leaders in some kind of new post-Gadhafi Libya. So our starting point of knowledge is very, very low.One of the lines I've heard the most often in the Arab media and talking to people is: No-fly zone over Libya, that's nice. Where was the no-fly zone over Gaza? And all of these things come together into a powerful counter-narrative, which basically says that yes, we want the West to help, but the minute we start seeing American troops on the ground or Western bombs killing innocent Libyan civilians, then all of a sudden that's not acceptable.When you say Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, flip from supporting the no-fly zone to complaining about the bombing, that's exactly what I'm talking about, where he's looking at it and saying: Well, as long as it was a costless, cheap intervention, that's fine, but when you have Western troops suddenly actually attacking an Arab country, that then brings us back into Iraq territory.
Just today, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, who has an extremely gifted ear for Arab opinion, and he's become one of the most popular leaders in the Arab world, just today he gave a speech in parliament where he warned about the West going to war for Libyan oil.
And I think that right now, Arab opinion, which was very enthusiastic about an intervention to protect the Libyan people, is already starting to teeter on that edge of having the fears of another Iraq outweigh their desire for helping the Libyan people.Basically, the big structural change in the region is that the public is far more empowered than it was before - obviously in places like Tunisia and Egypt, where you've had actual changes of the government - but even in the rest of the region.
The leaders are far more attentive now to what the public wants and what the public things. They have to be because there's so much pressure on them from below, and they don't want to do things now which are going to risk triggering more protests or anger the people.What happened in Bahrain is just another example of how what started as this big, grand narrative of peaceful, popular uprisings against autocracy has been diverted into different kinds of stories.
So if Libya gets turned into civil war and intervention, in Bahrain what's happened is it's turned into sectarianism and a really nasty resurgence of the Iranian-Saudi Cold War.And once that framing kicked in, you saw this spreading through the entire region so that now you have major Shia figures, like Ali Sistani in Iraq and Hassan Nasrallah in - the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, now weighing in on the side of the Shia in Bahrain; and major Sunni figures such as Yusafa Qaradawi, who is the Islamist figure on al-Jazeera, weighing in on the side of the Sunnis.
Sapere Aude
You quoted:
It started before and he is just following the proven example of Mugabe and other thugs. Why does anyone think Gbagbo has decided to flip the UN, the US and the world the finger?If Gadhafi survives, it sends a message to every dictator in the region that force pays, that the way to stay on the throne is to shoot your people if they protest, and the international community really won't do anything about it. And that sends a powerful message both to the dictators and to the people. That's the real stakes in the region.
If Libya turns out to be the turning point then the effort for that purpose alone will have been worthwhile IMHO.
What the international community needs to figure out is how to apply the right amount of pressure to force reform or dictators from office and not through ignorance read into many of these situations a greater amount of force and forces needed to shift these dictators. I believe it will be seen that this whole effort in Libya has been hugely over specified (draw criticism from a wide range of countries) and yet there are still towns and cities under attack.
Maybe you missed it but everyone (except you apparently) now agrees that the NFZ is in place and effective (and was from day two). So keeping it that way be expensive and boring (for the pilots). Was rather simple wasn't it?Was? No was to it, still going on and likely to be for a while -- so I am dubious about your "The saving grace of course is that the military will step in, wrap it up in a few days..." Quite dubious, in fact.
Maybe not even worth the cost of 130 or so Tomahawk missiles and other ordinance the use of which seems to have drawn criticism from the Arab League, African Union, Russia, China and other odd bods.
Still would have recommended using the three cruise missiles routine right up front. Would have saved a lot of lives and a lot of money.
BTW any idea why you think the Gaddafi controlled TV and radio is still on the air?
Nah, I didn't miss that those who believe in that foolishness *say* it's effective.
At least as many if not more who think it stupid disagree. I sure do not think it is (a) effective, (b) smart, or (c) likely to achieve the stated goal.
No, it wasn't rather simple -- at least not to judge from all your carping about it. Before we ascribe it to the 'was' column, let's wait until it's over...Uh, yeah -- because no one has been told to shut it down. That and a lot of other things are reasons your "was" is premature.BTW any idea why you think the Gaddafi controlled TV and radio is still on the air?
You and I agreed the US was dithering, we both put it down to a lack of knowledge and other problems. While I know the US system is designed to cause that, you chose to ignore it -- which is certainly okay -- but the real difference between us was I disapproved of the whole idea -- and still do. Whereas you were a cheerleader for the action.
That dithering was likely not intended to force others to step up and do things but it fortuitously did just that. Long overdue, too...
So-called humanitarian interventions in my observation and experience generally do more harm than good and arguably rarely if ever change the body count much -- just who the targets were and generally both sides were and are at fault.
Your "three cruise missile" attack presumes accurate targeting info and success. Probably not as certain as you seem to presume and it would have left us attacking yet another Islamic nation for little benefit to anyone including those that were to nominally be 'saved.' Had they all missed, we'd have looked even sillier than we do...
BTW, your post on another thread on that topic, so-called humanitarian intervention, failed to mention the five paragraphs of valid criticism of the concept. To rectify that omission on your part, here are some quotes from those paragraphs and the LINK:
Those in order seem to indicate a massive amount of western / European hearth presumed superiority and egos at work; the US is guilty of using 'humanitarian' issues to further its own interests -- so are the others who think it a grand idea; the inconsistency is routinely noted by others whiule the proponents blow those concerns off with various rationales, regardless it appears quite hypocritical to most of the world; one such rationale can be and is applied to the G-77 'Well, of course, they object...'"Some argue that humanitarian intervention is a modern manifestation of the Western colonialism of the 19th century."
"Others argue that dominant countries, especially the United States and its coalition partners, are using humanitarian pretexts to pursue otherwise unacceptable geopolitical goals and to evade the non-intervention norm and legal prohibitions on the use of international force."
"Henry Kissinger, for example, finds that Bill Clinton's practice of humanitarian intervention was wildly inconsistent. The US launched two military campaigns against Serbia]] while ignoring more widespread slaughter in Rwanda, justifying the Russian assault on Chechnya, and welcoming to the United States the second-ranking military official of a widely recognized severe human rights violator - the communist government of North Korea."
"During the G-77 summit, which brought together 133 nation-states, the "so-called right of humanitarian intervention" claimed by powerful states was condemned."
As I wrote, sneering European condescension and egos.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 03-24-2011 at 12:07 AM. Reason: Text in quotes not italics
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