Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

honestly i think the US and french administrations and all the rest of the world around them are just bumbling through this. i don't think anyone has any clear idea. the interests and moral imperatives kind of halfway add up to a reason for this to be done at all and that was good enough at the time, a couple weeks ago, so here we are

also i read that bernard henri-levi basically talked sarkozy into this himself?

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/0328/How-a-philosopher-swayed-France-s-response-on-Libya

alarmingly pro-pan-Arabist sentiments and statist policies

Why are these relevant? No point being pan-Arabist when the rest of the Arab countries think you're a liability. And statist - so?

I prefer the "bumbling" theory.

he hasn't nationalized the only industry that anyone outside of libya gives a fuck about. i know america hates nationalized industry, but not that much. they're still allies with a bunch of western european countries last i heard. im not sure if his pan-arabist stance is that alarming, given how much other arab states hate him.

but yes, the US has made no bones about basically hating gadaffi, apart from the slight rapprochement in the last decade. i wouldn't be surprised if opposition groups there had some links with the US, but it seems to have been pretty low-level stuff and it doesn't bother me too much.

from where should the underground pro-democracy opposition have got support? in the region of you have US-backed dictatorship egypt, or -- who?

xposts

goole otm but it is always really hard to convince people that "bumbling" is how things work, like, 99.billion% of the time.

i keep saying this, but Q's main 'chit' with the west was not his anti-islamist bonafides or whatever, it's deciding to suddenly break open the world's most dangerous nuclear proliferation ring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan#Iran_and_Libya

...for reasons i still don't quite get. he's a wild man.

also i read that bernard henri-levi basically talked sarkozy into this himself?

well he's certainly been bashfully telling every reporter within earshot that he did..

the underground pro-democracy opposition

who dat? not snarky, just want to know. i've been trying to learn about the opposition in libya and this is tough info to dig out.

for the record i am totally, 100% in agreement with the notion that the_west is bumbling into this without much of a plan, my conspiracy theory notwithstanding. which is a big part of why i don't like it.

(also note that my conspiracy theory also depends on massive amounts of bumbling)

I can’t tell you how annoyed I am by the fringe left adulation for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the grounds that he is ‘anti-imperialist,’ and with an assumption that he is somehow on the Left.

Wait -- who's done this?

'They have elected a ­Labour government," a Savoy diner famously declared on the night of Britain's election landslide in 1945. "The country will never stand for it." From the evidence so far coming out of Iran, something similar seems to be ­happening on the streets of Tehran – and in the western capitals just as desperate to see the back of Iranian president ­Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/18/iran-elections-us-foreign-policy

guys like george galloway are pro-ahmadinejad

xpost

oh i misspoke i guess. the transitional council seems to be pro-democracy, yes? and about half of them were CIA-backed by your reckoning? i put two and two together and figured some of them knew each other before this year.

there are no "guys like george galloway" besides george galloway

for the record yes i am also 100% trying to rain on the feel-good parade of American bombs blasting a glorious rescue in yet another war in the Middle East at the same time that states are attempting to plug the holes in their budgets with the most cynical attacks on the working class in memory, firing entire professions and attempting to demolish the last vestiges of union power. ooh that's unfair! is it? national finance is a zero-sum game in 2011. should that play a part in my opinions on this war, on its morality? maybe not. but it does.

another question:

- where are the vaunted arab "partners" in this military effort?

such a debbie downer! i know!

well if any of them had militaries that were really worth anything they wouldn't be 'partners' with us probably

im not having a feel-good parade about this! it could go incredibly badly. and you know, like most people, im very much affected by the cuts, but again, your rhetoric is a bit ott. (not sure what you mean by "national finance is a zero-sum game". the economy is fucked and the governing class, on both sides, are ideologically opposed to doing much about it. but the level of state spending is still historically very high, how is it "zero-sum"?)

- where are the vaunted arab "partners" in this military effort?

they're sending like 12 planes by the end of the week or something. most of the arab governments are fucking nasty dictatorships so. and also what does it have to do with them?

er, also, didn't you JUST SAY that egypt was arming the rebels??

secretly

("secretly")

well there's your arab support. or de-legitimizing US support, i guess, given who funds the egyptian military. whichever way you want it.

dude it is so annoying talking to you! are you trying to say anything?

im generally responding to your points, p well i think

there are no "guys like george galloway" besides george galloway

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, March 28, 2011 5:44 PM

ken livingstone
jeremy corbyn

ok, fair

Not fair on Livingstone and Corbyn TBH - Galloway's uniquely repellent and self-serving.

perfectly fair, and at least galloway confines himself to the anti-semite after dinner circuit; looking forward to the mayoral elections next year

pep talk from the president tonight!

welllll it's not fair in that i LIKE red ken but in certain respects i.e. shameless opportunism and a certain stunt mentality towards political alliances I can see the comparison

they're also all press tv bros, which is kinda what started this tangent

Do any others have a problem, with corbyn - just out of interest

"Hmm," ponders Mr. Obama. "I wonder how I can muddy the waters even more? I know! How about an ambiguous, defensive national address to get the attention of the majority of Americans who probably don't even realize I've gotten us into another middle east boondoggle, with even less to gain from it than the last few times? Yeah! That seems like just the right thing to do."

couldn't really listen to obama tbf. i tried, in the car while running some errands. what i heard sounded either obvious or tendentious. heavy LBJ vibe.

- just because we can't stop EVERY atrocity doesn't mean we shouldn't stop ANY atrocity

- if no one had stopped gaddafi, dictators around the region would have gotten the message that violent repression "works"

- we will send americans into harm's way if "the flow of commerce" is at stake

(no seriously i didn't just imagine him saying that last part did i?)

he said "Let me be clear" a couple of times.

Conservative bloggers I see are fixated on how many times he says "let me be clear."

seems as good a time as any to break out the emulators

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/38/Desert_strike_gameplay.png

A conference on Tuesday is being held to shape a vision of a post-Qaddafi era. On the battlefield, rebels were facing resistance in the crucial town of Surt. NY Times

While in Syria, government supporters were out today in Damascus in response to:

Monday, marchers gathered in the city’s main square, chanting “Not Sunnis, not Alawis, we all want freedom” and “God, Syria and freedom only.” By late afternoon, hundreds of people had staged a sit-in, uncertain whether the army would try to break them up during the night. More than 60 people have been killed in Syria since March 18, human rights groups say; it was unclear if there were any casualties on Monday

Not sure how one gets to a post-Qadaffi era when rebels may not be strong enough militarily to win.

the bombing will continue until peace is achieved

And you would prefer Quaddaffi killing until peace is achieved

for what its worth, even tho i think hes mostly wrong, i appreciate tracer's posts in this thread if only for forcing ppl to articulate & think stuff thru because its def not like hes the only one thinking this

I was just hoping he would accept the merits of the Juan Cole Open letter to the Left that he posted previously. But he keeps coming back and challenging each point in that posting.

(ineptly)

i think juan cole's letter is persuasive at times but parts of it feel blinkered. the anti-intervention arguments he demolishes are very simplistic ("pure pacifism is a crock", etc). they're far from being the strongest arguments he can muster against this military action. i.e. he doesn't take on any of the practical arguments against. which is weird, because he doesn't usually straw-man like that. i find the tone strangely rah-rah at times, with paens to "the working people" of libya, as if opponents of this military intervention are opposed to the desires of the working people of libya's desires. there's a lot of that kind of rhetorical bullshit in there, to be honest. according to cole, opponents of this intervention "all did have the implication that it was all right with the world community if Qaddafi deployed tanks against innocent civilian crowds just exercising their right to peaceful assembly and to petition their government." i mean.. again it's reminiscent of every war build-up ever. "so you're ok with (x) killing his own people?" "uh no" "then we agree"

's desires

Do Syrians believe their state radio--

State news media have largely blamed foreigners and residents of a Palestinian camp near the city for the unrest in Latakia. On Sunday, state radio reported multiple sightings of foreigners in the coastal town, including “a group of Lebanese women who said they wanted to rent an apartment but ran away when asked for identification.” NY Times

That's as good as Fox tv or Rush L.

that's a very left-sounding argumentative strategy to me: 'either you do something about it or you're ok with it'.