French military jets over Libya

[Ulick]

I'm not really understanding you here. In one sentence you are promoting more decisive action leading to oil contracts, in the next criticizing the potential 'plundering' of resources?

Anyway, I thought this article was a good one on the various moral contradictions.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/22/libya/index.html

Not promoting or agreeing with it Tys, just saying that if they wanted to do the thing right (from their point of view), that was the action to take. The longer it drags on, the more opportunity there will be for Gadaffi to win the propaganda war and maybe win back the support of his own people.

[Main Street]

I'd have no sympathy for Gadaffi or be sentimental about his regime that survived in a climate of institutionalised imposed fear.
Some talk is a lot easier now that Gadaffi's troops were repelled at the outskirts of Benghazi. Who knows what other scenario we might have witnessed.
Maybe the fear of brutal reprisals from Gadaffi were exaggerated, but I doubt it. Gadaffi does not deserve a benefit of some doubt.

For sure the NATO strikes  are inspired by the natural resource wealth and has all the appearances of a race for lucrative contracts. Those in the race are even squabbling with each other.
But the fundamental issue can not be ignored, the Libyan people wanted rid of Gadaffi, they started it and got themselves into a serious fix where they demanded outside interference/help. I doubt if Gadaffi will escape nor will any loyal remnants be left to wage a protracted resistance.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

While I tend to back the International intervention in Libya. I wonder what happens if Gadaffi, pulls his forces back to barricks. Are the international community supposed to just patrol. What happens if Rebel force move towards Gadaffi loyalist cities, are the Gadaffi forces allowed to fight to defend themselves? Are the International community bound to prevent the Rebels mortaring or bombing loyalist towns and cities. I tend to be on the side of the Rebels. But what are the terms of engagement. Have the Rebels carte blance ot advance if they are or become capable to do so. Just wondering!

[Hardy]

People who seem to know the score are now saying the most likely outcome is a partitioned Libya.

That should work!

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

People who seem to know the score are now saying the most likely outcome is a partitioned Libya.

That should work!

Not sure of the ethnic or political makeup of Libyia, but isn't Libyia 3 Italian colonies thrown together. Not sure if Libyia falls into this category, but much of Africa are unrelated groups thrown together, it does is not necessarly an Ireland, Vietnam, Yeman, Korea or Germany.

[Declan]

Interesting piece:
Published on Sunday, March 27, 2011 by Toronto Star Our Dance with Arab Dictators
by Haroon Siddiqui
When we allow ourselves to be pushed into thinking about a people and a region as a monolith, sans diversity and differences, we view them only in stark stereotypes. We allow racist notions to become respectable.

Thus "the Arab street," a contemptuous phrase the media dare not use for public opinion elsewhere. There is no "Canadian street." No "American street." No "British street." No "French street." But Arab public opinion, emanating in the street — emotional and irrational — is to be dismissed.

Similarly, we are told that all Arabs/Muslims are hard-wired to mistreat women. Like blacks being prone to violence and Catholics to abusing boys.

And in the middle of this glorious Arab spring, we are instructed to keep our enthusiasm in check and ponder instead that democracy may not be part of the Arab DNA.

These crude formulations do serve a purpose. They keep the focus of Arab troubles exclusively on Arabs, as though we have had no part in the mess.

For decades, Arabs have been denied democracy mostly by client regimes of the United States and Europe that financed and trained the dictators' security set-ups. The mandate of these dreaded outfits has been to keep "the street" quiet, lest it resonate with what we did not want to hear.

Of the 22 members of the Arab League (18 really, if you ignore Comoros, Mauritania, Djibouti and Somalia), eight are monarchies — Jordan, Morocco and the six members of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council. They are all American/western allies. They are described by our politicians and pundits as "moderate." But they are tyrannies, in varying degrees. Six of them use torture.

There are eight other autocratic states — Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan and the Palestinian Authority. Six and a half (Mahmoud Abbas being only half the PA) have been western allies. Most maintain torture chambers, which the U.S. has rented for anti-terror interrogations.

All seven have had entrenched dictatorships, five of them western allies at some point or another (Hosni Mubarak, 30 years; Moammar Gadhafi, 42 years; Abdullah Saleh, 33 years; Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, 23 years; Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 12 years). Saddam Hussein also belonged in that club until he invaded Kuwait in 1991.

Our friends are all corrupt. The monarchs treat the state treasury as their own and won't divulge the dividing line between state and personal funds. Others have found ways to monetize power and amass fortunes (Mubarak $5 billion; Gadhafi $10 billion; Ben Ali $8 billion). We winked and nodded, as though the deal was that we'd enrich them for services rendered.

The West helped deny democracy to the Arabs in order to protect oil and ensure security for Israel.

When George W. Bush decided in 2003 to change that policy — "stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty" — he opted for war to bring democracy to Iraq. He adopted the same model, retroactively, in Afghanistan. And when Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, Condoleezza Rice called it "the birth pangs of the new Middle East."

The Arab masses are giving us an alternate model: a non-violent grassroots demand for pluralistic and transparent democracy. They are promoting it with nothing more than raw courage, only to run into the guns, bullets, tanks and tear gas supplied, in most cases, by the West.

These brave reformers are not unaware of our role in their plight. Yet they are not blaming us or Israel. It's a sign either of their generosity of spirit or their more immediate concerns of surviving another day.

Their uprisings — each shaped by the particular circumstances of their nations and the depth of depravity of their respective rulers — have exposed the moral and even strategic bankruptcy of the western approach. Oil is available to us, yes, but at usurious rates. And Israel does not have long-term security.

A more democratic order would no more restrict the flow of oil than trade is hindered between democracies. Rather, the opposite dictum would apply: that democracy is good for business. Similarly, democracy promotes stability and peace.

Rather than being held hostage by their puppets, the U.S. and its allies must use their clout to back pro-democracy forces. The West clearly cannot military intervene everywhere. However, waging war in the name of humanitarian intervention in Libya but turning a blind eye to Bahrain and Yemen is too self-serving to ignore.

The Arab Awakening is as much about us as it is about them.

© 2011 Toronto Star

[johnneycool]

The who's who of the Libyan 'conflct';

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947

[Banana Man]

The who's who of the Libyan 'conflct';

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947

it's official, the world is a dark seedy place and you can take nothing at face value. The US are up to their neck in everything, talk about a modern day empire...

[orangeman]

Libyan rebels 'sign oil export deal with Qatar'

Libyan oil production has fallen by two-thirds during the ongoing unrest Libyan rebels say they have signed an oil contract with Qatar to export oil from rebel-held territory.

"We are producing about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels a day, we can easily up that to about 300,000 a day," rebel spokesman Ali Tarhouni told the Associated Press.

He said that shipments of crude would start in "less than a week".

The rebels say their main concern is obtaining insurance for any tankers taking oil from Libya.

Libya produces 1.6m barrels per day of oil but analysts believe this has fallen by at least two-thirds since unrest began last month.

[johnneycool]

The who's who of the Libyan 'conflct';

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947

it's official, the world is a dark seedy place and you can take nothing at face value. The US are up to their neck in everything, talk about a modern day empire...

I see on Newsnight last night Hague and Clinton talking about arming the 'rebels' purely for defensive uses only in a limited way, whatever that means and now the Yanks have 'concerns' about al-queda influences in Derna, a town who supplied more fighters to Iraq than any other Arab town.

Be careful (again) who you get into bed with!

[orangeman]

The who's who of the Libyan 'conflct';

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947

it's official, the world is a dark seedy place and you can take nothing at face value. The US are up to their neck in everything, talk about a modern day empire...

I see on Newsnight last night Hague and Clinton talking about arming the 'rebels' purely for defensive uses only in a limited way, whatever that means and now the Yanks have 'concerns' about al-queda influences in Derna, a town who supplied more fighters to Iraq than any other Arab town.
Be careful (again) who you get into bed with!

History repeating itself yet again.

[dowling]

I know Libya were accused of killing a wpc in England many years ago, that they supplied weapons to the IRA - to many not necessarily a bad thing - and were accused of the Lockerbie bomb, although I heard a relative of a victim of that say on radio recently that the relatives believed now that a Syrian or Syrian backed group was actually responsible and appeal evidence for the appeal that never came clearly pointed to that.
Could any of the posters here list a number of these attrocities that Libyans are supposed to have suffered under Gadaffi or what are the things that he has done which make him so bad, at least in comparison to say George Bush.
And why if he was so bad was there an irrigation system, the largest in the world, put in so that every part of Libya has access to fresh water and why the average wage in Libya when all these attacks started was twice that of Egypt?

[muppet]

I know Libya were accused of killing a wpc in England many years ago, that they supplied weapons to the IRA - to many not necessarily a bad thing - and were accused of the Lockerbie bomb, although I heard a relative of a victim of that say on radio recently that the relatives believed now that a Syrian or Syrian backed group was actually responsible and appeal evidence for the appeal that never came clearly pointed to that.
Could any of the posters here list a number of these attrocities that Libyans are supposed to have suffered under Gadaffi or what are the things that he has done which make him so bad, at least in comparison to say George Bush.
And why if he was so bad was there an irrigation system, the largest in the world, put in so that every part of Libya has access to fresh water and why the average wage in Libya when all these attacks started was twice that of Egypt?

You post vague arguments and demand accurate lists in reply? Do it right if you are doing it at all.

[Tyrones own]

Ah but sure he got the boot into Bush...that's all that matters

[dowling]

I know Libya were accused of killing a wpc in England many years ago, that they supplied weapons to the IRA - to many not necessarily a bad thing - and were accused of the Lockerbie bomb, although I heard a relative of a victim of that say on radio recently that the relatives believed now that a Syrian or Syrian backed group was actually responsible and appeal evidence for the appeal that never came clearly pointed to that.
Could any of the posters here list a number of these attrocities that Libyans are supposed to have suffered under Gadaffi or what are the things that he has done which make him so bad, at least in comparison to say George Bush.
And why if he was so bad was there an irrigation system, the largest in the world, put in so that every part of Libya has access to fresh water and why the average wage in Libya when all these attacks started was twice that of Egypt?

You post vague arguments and demand accurate lists in reply? Do it right if you are doing it at all.

I don't really understand why you're saying I'm making vague arguments, I only related a few points. There are some on here who are applauding attacks on Libya and Im only asking for some substance to their posts. Neither do I see the point of highlighting some of my post. What's the point of that. What's your stance muppet? Can you give any details of all Gadaffi's terrible deeds?

Sorry if the ref to George Bush got under your skin Tyrone. Put another leader's name in. Doesn't matter how he's viewed, it's just to compare any leader's actions with Gadaffi. I just think it would be interesting to do but please don't get hung up on George Bush.