Like, I'm perfectly open to a brief explanation of why I should disregard what that guy says but "lol" is perhaps too brief.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 26 April 2011 10:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Italy now onboard
April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italian air-force jets will carry out strikes against Libya as NATO seeks to break an impasse in the nine-week struggle to oust Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.
Italian planes will target military installations in Libya, Berlusconi told reporters in Rome today after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Italy, once Libya’s colonial ruler, announced yesterday it will change course and join in airstrikes on pro-regime forces that threaten civilians
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 13:36 (thirteen years ago) link
this is where we cluck at the spectacle of buying Obama's humanitarian horsehit upthread
http://www.thenation.com/blog/160177/hawks-want-libya-escalation-will-obama-agree
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 April 2011 15:42 (thirteen years ago) link
tracer isn't this enough?
These are the same people who have pushed the incorrect and unhelpful argument that Qadhafi carried out the Lockerbie bombing
incorrect?
― goole, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 15:48 (thirteen years ago) link
I have no idea.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 26 April 2011 15:57 (thirteen years ago) link
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 3:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
i dont understand, this article asks a question that you seem to be claiming it answers
― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 04:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Those, including “humanitarian interventionists” who are congratulating themselves over the coalition’s success in rescuing Benghazi from Qaddafi’s forces at the start of the NATO campaign, ought to be counting the dead on both sides now.
So what is he suggesting? That there should have been no intervention and Libya would have been better off with Qadaffi only counting the dead and congratulating himself on subduing Benghazi and elsewhere?
And I don't trust the thinking of the neo-cons either but knee-jerk reactions that we have to do the opposite of what they want is not exactly a nuanced approach.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 14:30 (thirteen years ago) link
Libya would have been better off
You keep bringing up Qadaffi killing Libyan people as Surely A Bad Thing. Granted, but this doesn't justify our killing some other Libyan people as Surely A Good Thing.
Foreign policy can't simply be measured by whether some other country might be better off for it. Especially when the policy means we are engaged in killing people. There are far too many damsels in distress for the USA to go charging around saving them all and too many evil-doers for us to ever kill them all. Another justification is required.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 17:50 (thirteen years ago) link
If we weren't still mired in Iraq/Afghanistan and had the troops and materiel to help, I would have favored an intervention here a lot more than I did the invasion of Iraq.
― Concatenated without abruption (Michael White), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 17:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Like, I'm perfectly open to a brief explanation of why I should disregard what that guy says but "lol" is perhaps too brief.― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 11:37 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 11:37 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark
he's called 'lenin's tomb': he's SWP: you'll find any amount of apologias for totalitarians of various stripes on his blog: and he's appeared on press tv
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 17:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Especially when the policy means we are engaged in killing people. There are far too many damsels in distress for the USA to go charging around saving them all and too many evil-doers for us to ever kill them all. Another justification is required.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 17:50 (38 minutes ago) Permalink
It does not look like there is any justification that would satisfy your beliefs. And no one is advocating that the USA can save "them all."
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 18:34 (thirteen years ago) link
the US CAN'T intervene everywhere it should, simply from a practical standpoint (case in point - Syria). but where we can and we have a moral obligation to do so (as I believe we did in Libya), then we should.
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 18:44 (thirteen years ago) link
also very otm
can it really be a moral obligation to do something that isn't possible?
― goole, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 18:47 (thirteen years ago) link
xp
There are many quite strong and well-established justifications for going to war against a country and it I have no problem with them whatsoever. For example, if that country's armred forces invades or attacks your country, or it blockades your ports, or seizes ships at sea that sail under your flag. There are other, similar causus belli and I won't bother to name them all. They are united by the simple fact of violent aggression against your country.
However, invading a country, or bombing it, because your country doesn't approve of its internal policies and you desire a change of government more amenable to your way of thinking is only another form of colonialism, no matter how you dress it up.
Getting the sanction and approval of a bunch of other, third party countries before you bomb the country you all agree "deserves it" may be a step in the right direction, perhaps, but it is still pretty damn shaky ground, imo, because it still amounts to aggression and should not be touted as some moral high ground.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 18:55 (thirteen years ago) link
I prefer the shakey ground of the current Libya approach to your isolationist one.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:03 (thirteen years ago) link
So, to leap straight to Godwin's you would have been fine with the Nazis killing 6 million people if they hadn't breached another country's borders?
― textbook blows on the head (dowd), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:04 (thirteen years ago) link
just to be clear here, aimless thinks colonialism is worse than genocide. sounds great.
lol xp
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:05 (thirteen years ago) link
because your country doesn't approve of its internal policies and you desire a change of government more amenable to your way of thinking
Also -- some of the people in Libya don't appear to be too pleased with their government. It's not a situation involving some cliched colonialist power trying to impose its values.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:06 (thirteen years ago) link
he's called 'lenin's tomb': he's SWP: you'll find any amount of apologias for totalitarians of various stripes on his blog: and he's appeared on press tv― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
I'm not marrying the guy. I haven't signed up to some kind of blood-pact. I just think he has some sensible things to say about Libya.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:10 (thirteen years ago) link
xp Using force against a country because it has attacked a third nation, rather than your own, has a legal and moral justification stretching back centuries. The idea of intervention because a government has attacked a subsection of its own population is newer, and more controversial, but it's tough to make an absolute moral distinction. There's never really been any suggestion in the modern era that your own state needs to be at direct or indirect risk.
― I LOVE BELARUS (ShariVari), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:11 (thirteen years ago) link
The weird thing to me is, our new doctrine seems to be, "If you can get ahold of some guns and start a war against your dictator, we'll help. But if you stick to nonviolence, you're on your own."
Is that where the "moral obligation" comes from? The fact that the Libyan rebels decided to use technicals and mortars and raise a small army?
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Isolationists do not believe in getting involved in the far off wars of other countries.
At present the USA is bound by treaty to involve itself in wars if one of our many, many, many treaty allies are attacked from without. I would not not renounce these treaties, even though the number of countries we are obliged to protect probably number around 50 or 60.
If it is isolalionist to say we ought not as a rule seek out and aggressively start wars, that protect neither ourselves, nor our allies, then I guess I am isolationist. But that seems a damned peculiar way to define isolationism. Basically, if any war is proposed, and any reason can be produced for starting it, opposing it becomes "isolationist", by your apparent definition.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:13 (thirteen years ago) link
x-post Again, they started with non-violence and were attacked by their state.
― textbook blows on the head (dowd), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:14 (thirteen years ago) link
just to be clear here, aimless thinks colonialism is worse than genocide
another case where 2 + 2 = 22.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:15 (thirteen years ago) link
There's never really been any suggestion in the modern era that your own state needs to be at direct or indirect risk.
And what a lovely era it has been, too.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:17 (thirteen years ago) link
If you can get ahold of some guns and start a war against your dictator,
uh
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:18 (thirteen years ago) link
dowd I'm kind of aware of that. So did protestors all over the middle east. But they're not getting rewarded with an air force.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:18 (thirteen years ago) link
So did protestors all over the middle east.
no, what happened in Libya has not happened anywhere else.
oh that's not true at all!
― goole, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:19 (thirteen years ago) link
Again: where is the difference? Why the "moral obligation" in Libya but not elsewhere, where peaceful protestors are getting killed like shooting gallery targets? It seems the difference is that in Libya, the protestors responded by picking up guns and turning a violent crackdown into a civil war. The message appears to be that this behavior will get you an airforce. But stick to nonviolence and well, good luck with getting shot.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:20 (thirteen years ago) link
the difference is that every country is different. why is this so hard to grasp.
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:21 (thirteen years ago) link
like the consequences of bomging Libya /= the consequences of bombing Syria /= the consequences of bombing Yemen /= the consequences of bombing Bahrain
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:22 (thirteen years ago) link
The difference was possibility, maybe. Chance of success, both with and without external force, has to be a consideration.
― textbook blows on the head (dowd), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:23 (thirteen years ago) link
we've done all this
the reason the US hasn't done this in different places is they are different: either the US is sided with the government, as in bahrain, or, as with syria, it's just like no way
ie there was an element of expediency
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:24 (thirteen years ago) link
for example: consequences of NATO bombing Syria = Iran gets involved, Israel gets involved, mass regional warfare on a heretofore unprecedented scale that would have impacts WAY beyond the bounds of Syria's internal politics.
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:25 (thirteen years ago) link
See also: Tienamen Square.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
but if we're godwinning: the ussr violated other countries' borders (poland, finland) *and* had unpleasant internal policies... and yet the US refused to attack. what's up with that? why single out germany?
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
tbf Russia probably would have been better off if we had iced Stalin. too bad there were all those pesky treaties and promises made at Yalta and the UN Security Council etc
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Spoken like a true Curtis LeMay acolyte, shakey mo.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
never heard of him
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:30 (thirteen years ago) link
playin' possum
― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:30 (thirteen years ago) link
did the music to Superfly IIRC
― I just like… I just have to say… (Starts crying) (DJP), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:30 (thirteen years ago) link
I get all that dudes; I was picking at the contention of "moral obligation".
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:31 (thirteen years ago) link
ah the "stone age" guy. yeah that really reflects my politics *rolls eyes*
― no slouch of a snipster (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:50 (thirteen years ago) link
There's arguably a moral obligation to prevent crimes against humanity where they can reasonably be predicted. The idea that Benghazi would be flattened with huge civilian loss of life is probably the primary moral / legal (rather than logistical) difference between Libya and some of the other states in question.
In some cases acting on that moral obligation won't be possible, in others it might make things worse, in many the obligation will simply be ignored. Where it's possible to act legally, effectively and in line with the principles of the UN, i don't think inaction elsewhere prevents it from being valid. Whether that's what's happened in Libya is clearly open to debate.
― I LOVE BELARUS (ShariVari), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 19:58 (thirteen years ago) link
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, April 27, 2011 7:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
this is such a false set-upthe reason they picked up guns & didnt stick with nonviolence is because they would be beaten/killed. how effective do you see nonviolence being in libya exactly
― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
hoping we compare it to the civil rights movement soon
― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 22:13 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm not saying that amping up resistance into a civil war was the wrong move. I don't know. But yeah you're right, before that happened, I guess the nonviolent resistance was about as effective as it is in Syria right now. It made the whole world sit up and pay attention. It discredited Gaddafi (to the extent that there was any more discrediting to be had with him; more meaningfully it thoroughly discredited the rehabilitated image that Gaddafi's son had been meticulously pushing for years). It was doing a lot. Would it have toppled Gaddafi on its own? Not fucking likely.
So I guess my question is, what if Syrians managed to cobble together a rebel army? What if they held some towns, started ambushing Syrian army troops? I imagine the US would find a reason or two not to prevent the inevitable slaughter that would ensue.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 22:23 (thirteen years ago) link
(For the reasons posted above by Shakey and history mayne)
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 27 April 2011 22:25 (thirteen years ago) link