The Allies go in !

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Pardon me for posting - but this is exciting news !!!

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/US-Allies-Attack-Libya-118304704.html

The airstrikes have gone in against Libya. For once, the UK, USa and the rest of the world seem to be doing the right thing. I was shocked when i heard that cameron had tried to get the SAS involved in Libya. I want to make it clear that I have never liked Gaddaffi , even if I had never posted on that subject until recently in this forum. Iin fact, i don't like the idea of any dictator oppressing their own people and getting backing from the business community to do so.

So, to herar that the Libyan rebels are getting air support and even air strikes against gaddaffian positions is welcome news.

I just hope it isn't too late. governments never do this sort of thing without wantng some kind of pay back. i still hope that there will be free elections in libya, and that this will mean more demands for freedom there and elsewhere and not a rolling back of freedom to secure ' national interests'.

ii don't want gaddaffi replaced by a puppet of UK or US choosing , I want the Libyans to be able to set their own course as a nation . And if that means that we in the west have to lower our dependence on foriegn oil, so be it.

but we must ask ourselves -
what is the UN for?
if we don't want the USA to be the world's policeman , who else is up for the job ?
how can the democratic voters in democratic nations secure the freedoms of everyone - for untill we are all free, no one really is.

I am overjoyed, not in the death and destruction that now rains down upon Gaddaffis henchmen, but the opportunity that this may open up for democracy and freedom in a land that has been denied it for so long. wee are going in on the terms asked, the only terms the libyan opposition wants. I hope that they will have enough space to build their own nation on their own terms as a result.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42164455/ns/world_news-mideast/n_africa/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12776418

Comments

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

America: Gleefully Leaping Into Questionable Middle Eastern Misadventures since 1958!

But, seriously, I stand by my previous comments on this: we should not be involved in this. We're hypocrites. There have been far nastier civil wars than this going on in Africa since the end of the colonial era, and we didn't set up no-fly zones or threaten worse. An estimated 5.4 million people died in the "Second Congo War" of 1998-2003, a war that included such horrible atrocities as to make the situation in Libya look like a schoolyard rumble, and most Americans probably knew nothing about it, let alone cried for intervention. At the same time, the mass-murder of 11,000 Kosovan Albanians spawned continuous news coverage and brought down the full aerial wrath of NATO. I don't remember us intervening (except with half-assed sanctions) during the Bush War, either.

I'm not saying that one humanitarian disaster is less important than another. I'm saying that it's clear, dark-skinned people don't really matter unless the soil under them is full of oil. We'll bomb the hell out of Serbia to protect Europeans, and we'll bomb the hell out of Libya to protect our precious black gold supplies, ditto Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but hey, who cares if Saddam gasses a bunch of Kurds or black people rape, torture, and murder other black people on a massive scale?

I find the whole situation disgusting. It's great for the Libyan rebels, though. I'm sure they'll be appreciative in 10-20 years when we invade their country again because we need the oil.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that civil wars *will* be brutal. Wars in general are horrific, terrible things, moreso when you see what all the shiny tools of death actually do to human bodies. A civil war, where former neighbors and even formerly united families become divided against each other is worse than that. I might note that in addition to the Second Congo War the Western societies did not step in in the Sudanese Civil War or the forever war against the Lord's Resistance Army, or Hell, for that matter in the narco-war in Colombia.

This is emphasizing your point, not disagreeing with it.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I can't think of any civil war we've gotten involved in that actually worked out well in the end. Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon twice, Yugoslavia....

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Or for that matter our own civil war. You could add China and Russia to that list as well, our intervention in both served mainly to embarrass us and add to the already-likely problems with the victorious side.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you mentioned the U.S. Civil War. Does anybody doubt that if the Union had bombers at the time they would have used them?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Hell, if both sides had bombers the CSA would have invented them and used them first. They were the first racists taking on a much bigger and stronger society to turn to Wunderwaffen to compensate for lack of numbers. They used subs and ironclads IOTL. If they had bombers, though, they might have a small squadron.....then the Union would spam them with entire fleets.

The real war, not the romanticized Trojan War expy our cultural myths have turned it into was a very gruesome and bloody struggle. If either side had nukes or sarin gas or Stone Dog-type weaponry they'dve used it in a heartbeat.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

how exactly is a no fly zone going to protect oil supplies, and from what?