benghazi s legacy

[wesw]

he real shame of the Obama / Clinton Libya policy goes unsaid.

we are all informed, thinking people (I m being generous)

we know the history of Quadaffi s attacks on others and his support of attacking the West. we know of his nuclear ambitions and progress.

we also know that he succumbed to world pressure and acquiesced to world demands to cease such efforts.

he surrendered his nuke program and materials. he stopped supporting world terror attacks.

he may have still been an undesirable leader for a country to have, but he changed his ways to a large extent.


then we went and took his ass out anyway, on a whim and with little thought or planning for the aftermath of his removal.

you see the result. Libya is a metastasizing hell on earth. a breeding ground for terrorism.


the real shame was that we lost all credibility. our word is no good. no one will submit to our wishes or the wishes of the world, because it

won t matter. we will take them out even if they change their ways.

Libyan policy guaranteed that Iran would become a nuclear power. the Libyan exampled showed them the folly of acquiescence and reform.

[Sue U]

Your grasp of even recent history is seriously impaired and your understanding of how foreign policy actually works is apparently nonexistent.

we know the history of Quadaffi s attacks on others and his support of attacking the West. we know of his nuclear ambitions and progress.

we also know that he succumbed to world pressure and acquiesced to world demands to cease such efforts.

he surrendered his nuke program and materials. he stopped supporting world terror attacks.

There was no "world pressure" on Libya to cease its nuclear weapons efforts. At the time of its unilateral disarmament in the early 2000s, its nuclear weapons development was practically non-existent and only at a very preliminary stage. (Gaddafi also ratted out AQ Khan as the source of nuclear proliferation, not only to Libya but to Iran and North Korea as well.) Gaddafi's abandonment of nuclear and other WMD programs was part of a broader effort to lift economic sanctions imposed by the US and UN after the bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in the 1980s, and to otherwise allow Libya to normalize relations with the rest of the world. Those sanctions had exactly nothing to do with any nuclear development program.

he may have still been an undesirable leader for a country to have, but he changed his ways to a large extent.


then we went and took his ass out anyway, on a whim and with little thought or planning for the aftermath of his removal.

"We" did nothing of the sort. Gaddafi was overthrown by his own people in the Arab Spring rebellions of 2011. "We" sat on the sidelines until Gaddafi had regained the upper hand in the civil war, and then France and the UK sought UN approval for intervention with a "no fly" zone. The US provided some limited support to what was primarily a French air campaign against Gaddafi. Not only did the US not play a leading role in removing Gaddafi from power, the Obama administration expressly declared that "regime change" was not its policy -- much to the dismay of John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who were just itching to have the US bomb the shit out of Gaddafi.

you see the result. Libya is a metastasizing hell on earth. a breeding ground for terrorism.

Libya is currently in the midst of a civil war and has been for more than 4 years. It is not "metastasizing" anywhere else. Libyans' domestic problems are theirs to solve. As terrible as a civil war is, it is neither our responsibility nor our place to impose a resolution.

the real shame was that we lost all credibility. our word is no good. no one will submit to our wishes or the wishes of the world, because it

won t matter. we will take them out even if they change their ways.

What guarantees did the US give to Gaddafi? What guarantees did "the world" give to Gaddafi? Why should some other sovereign nation "submit to our wishes"?

Libyan policy guaranteed that Iran would become a nuclear power. the Libyan exampled showed them the folly of acquiescence and reform.

Except for the fact that Iran has agreed with the U.S. and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as the E.U., to stop its nuclear development program in return for lifting economic sanctions and moving toward rejoining the family of nations, that's entirely accurate.

[wesw]

boy, you are all red aren t you. revisionist history, comrade.


eta- save it for the college kids.

[rubato]

Sue covered it pretty well. The only thing I would add is that the Libyans rose up against Qaddafi themselves and were doing the fighting and dying without us or our NATO allies, which we should contrast with mistaken attacks on dictators where this was not so.


yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

boy, you are all red aren t you. revisionist history, comrade.


eta- save it for the college kids.

Yet another fact-free, substance-free post. Just your style.

ETA:

A summation:

Anti-government protests began in Libya on 15 February 2011. By 18 February the opposition controlled most of Benghazi, the country's second-largest city. The government dispatched elite troops and militia in an attempt to recapture it, but they were repelled. By 20 February, protests had spread to the capital Tripoli, leading to a television address by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who warned the protestors that their country could descend into civil war. The rising death toll, numbering in the thousands, drew international condemnation and resulted in the resignation of several Libyan diplomats, along with calls for the government's dismantlement.[201]

Amidst ongoing efforts by demonstrators and rebel forces to wrest control of Tripoli from the Jamahiriya, the opposition set up an interim government in Benghazi to oppose Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's rule.[202][203] However, despite initial opposition success, government forces subsequently took back much of the Mediterranean coast.

On 17 March, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 was adopted, authorising a no-fly zone over Libya, and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. Two days later, France, the United States and the United Kingdom intervened in Libya with a bombing campaign against pro-Gaddafi forces. A coalition of 27 states from Europe and the Middle East soon joined the intervention. The forces were driven back from the outskirts of Benghazi, and the rebels mounted an offensive, capturing scores of towns across the coast of Libya. The offensive stalled however, and a counter-offensive by the government retook most of the towns, until a stalemate was formed between Brega and Ajdabiya, the former being held by the government and the latter in the hands of the rebels. Focus then shifted to the west of the country, where bitter fighting continued. After a three-month-long battle, a loyalist siege of rebel-held Misrata, the third largest city in Libya, was broken in large part due to coalition air strikes. The four major fronts of combat were generally considered to be the Nafusa Mountains, the Tripolitanian coast, the Gulf of Sidra,[204] and the southern Libyan Desert.[205]

In late August, anti-Gaddafi fighters captured Tripoli, scattering Gaddafi's government and marking the end of his 42 years of power. Many institutions of the government, including Gaddafi and several top government officials, regrouped in Sirte, which Gaddafi declared to be Libya's new capital.[206] Others fled to Sabha, Bani Walid, and remote reaches of the Libyan Desert, or to surrounding countries.[207][208] However, Sabha fell in late September,[209] Bani Walid was captured after a grueling siege weeks later,[210] and on 20 October, fighters under the aegis of the National Transitional Council seized Sirte, killing Gaddafi in the process.[211]

Oh look, a source, with citations to actual historical facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring#Libya

[wesw]

[wesw]

darn, that was a pretty darned good performance...

....the crowd shot was priceless.

keep on piping pied piper, keep on piping....

(getting into a "cite this, cite that' argument, with a skilled lawyer doesn t seem to be the wisest course of action for me. )

[Sue U]

You make uninformed and factually wrong claims from which you draw ridiculous conclusions that you apparently think are some kind of insight, and then run away when shown to be a fool.

As a threshold matter, if you claim something to be a historical fact (e.g., Gaddafi "succumbed to world pressure and acquiesced to world demands to cease such [nuclear weapons development] efforts"; "we went and took his ass out anyway, on a whim and with little thought or planning for the aftermath of his removal"), you should at least have some clue as to whether such events actually occurred. If you can't maintain that minimal link to reality, please stop posting and go get a neurologic evaluation immediately.

[wesw]

sue, I m not gonna go research every leader and nation, that met with or threatened quadaffi , or any UN actions or resolution, , over what, the last 40 yrs? or even over the years post Lockerbie.

call me a fool if you want, I am certain to lose any pissing contest against you.

[Sue U]

sue, I m not gonna go research every leader and nation, that met with or threatened quadaffi , or any UN actions or resolution, , over what, the last 40 yrs? or even over the years post Lockerbie.

????

If you claim something is a fact you should first know it to be a fact; if you don't know, then don't say it. If you claim something to be true, and it is proved false, you can man up and admit it rather than weaseling away with inane accusations, irrelevant videos and lame excuses.

Also too, since it seems beyond your capabilities:


With Tony Blair


With Nicolas Sarkozy


With Silvio Berlusconi


With Condoleeza Rice


With Barack Obama


With Susan Collins, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham and John McCain

[wesw]

exactly! we went from rewarding wise behavior to shooting up his army during an internal civil war, and thus showed the Iranian leaders that they dare not make any deal in which they relinquished their nuclear potential and facilities, because we would still be ready to overthrow them at our whim.

[Sue U]

Still clueless, still wrong.

[wesw]

hey, I was just happy to be able to bring it back on point , back to the OP....

it wasn t easy.....

you are good....

[Sue U]

[BoSoxGal]

wesw, you sure you don't live in Vermont?

[wesw]

nah..., I m more of the new Hampshire type.....

live free or die.

[Scooter]

Yes, UN sanctions were imposed on Libya after Lockerbie, and the conditions for lifting those sanctions were laid out. Libya complied with those conditions, the sanctions were lifted, and Libya was welcomed back into the international community.

No, no one expected Ghaddafi to transform into a democrat, and all of this welcoming back into the fold occurred while Libya continued a repressive and often brutal approach to squelching any and all opposition. But that was internal politics, so no one tried to change the rules and demand free elections and a free press before sanctions were lifted.

Yes, a new set of UN sanctions were applied after loyalist forces in Libya had engaged in indiscriminate massacres of civilians through aerial and artillery bombardment of cities in rebel-controlled areas, and had been flying in foreign mercenaries to augment his forces. If Libya's civil war had remained simply that, there would have been no basis for international intervention. But even civil wars have rules. By perpetrating what were arguably crimes against humanity and getting foreign troops involved, Ghaddafi made Libya's civil war the world's business.

The sanctions imposed by the Security Council were designed to bring an end to those violations. It sounds as if you are suggesting that because Libya had eventually atoned for previous violations of international law, it should not have been sanctioned for the subsequent violations during the civil war. I think that pretty much the entire world show Libya that they were willing to let the past stay in the past, but surely that cannot mean turning a blind eye to war crimes.

As to losing credibility, how, exactly? Sanctions were imposed on Libya in the 1990s to force Libya's to answer for PanAm 103. Libya eventually complied, sanctions were lifted, Libya was fully re-integrated into the community of nations. Libya once again chose to commit serious violations of international law, sanctions were imposed to address those violations.

Far from making our word worthless, that series of events shows that states will be called to account for lawlessness, that coercive measures will be brought to bear on them until they can be trusted to play nicely, and that all such measures will be lifted once that happens. If the state commits further crimes, it will be sanctioned accordingly.

I don't see how the message could be any clearer. As for Iran, I don't see how the world could have telegraphed a clearer statement that all will be well so long as the nuclear agreement holds up, but that any breach of the agreement will be answered with whatever measures are necessary to restore and enforce compliance. If the regime is destabilized as a result, that will be the price of not abiding by the agreement.

[wesw]

scooter, you don t know how happy it makes me to read an intelligent and reasoned argument from you, with no un necessary harshness. I read it and considered it a serious and respectful rebuttal of my points.

keep it up and you ll go far young man...,

[MajGenl.Meade]

My good lady wife, who had the poor sense to marry me, said today that she'd seen something on TV about Benghazi. She is, I would guess, more right than left wing. She said "it's just rubbish"
I guess she's maybe got good taste in some things