Meanwhile in Libya...

[Vanoi]

The Libyan army was in a pretty bad state. Even if Gaddafi hadn't intentionally neglected the military, its efficiency would have remained abysmal anyway. A large portion of the budget was embezzled by corrupt officials, the officer corps was dominated by incompetent men, who owed their promotion to the client system and drilling was essentially nonexistent. The regulars were still better than the undisciplined militias, but they lacked the necessary tactics to overcome urban defenses. Despite this, the Libyan Army was in the verge of capturing Benghazi, before their artillery and tanks were destroyed by the coalition. If Benghazi had fallen, the rest of the eastern cities would soon follow, while an isolated Misrata could not resist forever. Instead, the defeat in Benghazi led to a rapid retreat and prompted many allies of the government to defect to the stronger side. The civil war was more complicated than a popular revolution against the caricature of an oriental tyrant. It was basically a tribal conflict, as unfortunately the only organised ideological opposition came from the Islamist camp. Nowadays, progressive middle class is too feeble to actually matter and is easily infiltrated by Salafists, while leftist parties have either been eliminated by the regime or watched their support base being infatuated by the new trend of religious fundamentalism.

Makes sense considering the Libyan Army's performance during the war. I disagree about Benghazi though. The Libyan Army reached Benghazi at the time intervention occurred. I don't believe they would have taken it but we really can't be sure what would have happened.

Child?



Very relevant to the discussion. I think it's pathetic to justify deaths by embarking on an intervention that causes yet more deaths. The one who doesn't actually care about people and their rights is you, not me. It's not up to Washington's bureaucrats to decide destinies of other countries. We should only intervene to prevent genocides and massive death counts. Or to defend our interests.

I think its pathetic to watch people die because you are too afraid intervention might hurt somebody.

Whats funny is you saying Washington shouldn't get to decide the destinies of other countries and yet you go on immediately to list the only times YOU think its appropriate to intervene. Like you are the standard. The irony.

It absolutely is. Especially when it's a civil war, not a genocide. People die in wars.

Not its not. Especially when it starts to affect other countries around it. That ivory tower must be nice though.

Diplomacy is getting both sides to sit down. Diplomacy is determining cost/benefits of our actions. Diplomacy is negotiating the rules and plans to limit civilian or collateral damage. Diplomacy is lots of things. Diplomacy isn't dropping bombs. And fine, you didn't call Iraq a success, though I do recall you defending our actions there time and time again. Even now you call Iraq as a "better example than Libya". What the hell is that? An endorsement of interventions? Your argumentation is a disease. It enables and justifies invasions that only seek to topple, plunder, and dictate American hegemony to people who don't want it.

Please quote me on all the times i defended American actions in the Iraq War. I actually opposed it. There was no reason to really intervene. I compared it to Libya because though the war was unjust the US didn't just leave it in shambles like Libya. Tried to institute a democratic government and stability. Tried to re-build the it blew up. Libya could have been much much better. It had potential in 2012 when it held free elections with little violence occurring. But mistakes were made. And now we have this. that and US choices from the Cold War (Hfater) coming back to haunt us.

Diplomacy can work. Yet plenty of modern examples and on-going ones to show its not always possible. Syria is honestly the greatest example of diplomacy utterly failing so many people.

In Libya, it wasn't until 2 months after the UN intervention that Gaddafi actually said he would hold free elections and such. Too little too late.

Right about what? We can certainly provide asylum to those who are displaced. We can help governments who are affected by nearby conflict. None of these involve invading.

How did we solve the ISIS problem again? Oh yea, had to intervene in Syria along with Iraq. Gotta do more than just treat the symptoms. Letting it spread like you suggested makes things worse.

None of these involve toppling governments. Yes, your approach is worse. It's not only a failure in discourse, examples of total and complete failure of interventionism are littered across history. The only thing these interventions do, is marr American reputation and accomplish geopolitical goals. And nobody, nobody is fooled by these ridiculous and fabricated humanitarian pretenses.

For every bad intervention i'll name you one time where the world did nothing and it went to . Want to play that game? Lucidus tried that in the Venezuela thread. Not going to be good for you.

No such thing was said. You mistake my reasoning behind staying out. And intervention helped get things to this point. That's not a dispute. That's pure fact. The intervention was in place in Libya almost from the first week of the hostilities. We don't, and we will never know the full extent of our involvement, but even from what we do know, it was significant. A ten year old child can authoritatively conclude that the intervention was part of the reason why we are here today in Libya. On-going civil war. An uncertain future. Total chaos and islamists roaming various parts of the country that are not under direct control.

Intervention wasn't actually considered until 2 months later. One week in Linya of protesters getting shot didn't spur anyone to action. Only when actual battles and defections occured did intervention become talked about.

A child could also conclude that Libya fell into conflict long before intervention and blaming intervention for Libya's problems is at best. Stop taking the responsibility out of the man who started the conflict. You have this very same problem wiht Maduro.

No it doesn't. "My approach" would see United States intervening in all kinds of humanitarian disasters across the world. A force for good. Your approach would see us intervening in every country you deem "rogue" in the same manner that Bush declared certain countries as an "axis of evil".

Your approach would be to let groups like ISIS take over. Let the fighting fight itself out right? Except it doesn't always do that. Your approach leads to far more conflict. I don't actually advocate to intervene everywhere. But i do see you want to try to paint me as some Bush-era neoconservative who believes that. Sorry, do try again.

You are aware it's possible to help out civilians and engage in diplomacy without ing bombing everything, right? Stop putting words in my mouth.

When Assad was conducting war sieges against towns and cities and preventing aid from getting to them, what should we have done? I really want to see this answer.

You can't hear me because you're too busy blowing up. Not because I'm claiming a moral high ground. Oh no, that's you. You presume to be the arbiter of what's right and wrong. Of which regime needs to be toppled and which one doesn't. Of why we need to drop bombs on a country.

You've tried to claim the moral high ground this entire discussion. You even have stated that i don't actually care about the people. And yet you admit you would let others die. Would let governments fall. And would generally do nothing.

Again, please get off that high horse.

You're moving goalposts. First, you claimed Venezuela doesn't want aid. Now we're suddenly talking about their economy and who's fault it is.

They don't. Taking in supplies from Russia means little when your people are starving and you refuse any aid from the US, and other countries including your own neighbors while people don';t even have medicine and adequate food to eat.

Only mentioned the economy as another point. That these dictators cause their own problems and then you complain when people want to do something about it.

No. I responded in a perfectly sensible manner in Venezuelan thread and I provided a lot of credible and good points in there. I would've continued the debate there as well, and in fact I still have a reply typed out from long ago that I haven't posted due to real life and site downtime.

And enough with the personal references. Am I going to get an apology for all of the insinuations you've made so far? I know you love skirting the ToS to get a few insults in. Am I gonna get an apology and respectful debate out of you? Or not?

First you made a snide comment about my views on intervention before even starting this debate. Then you compare me to the Pentagon and Bush himself in terms of wanting to blow people up. Have implied and then directly said i don't actually care about these people in these situations.

And you want me to apologize to you? You are barking up the wrong tree.

[Heathen Hammer]

Cause a civil war that kill thousands and spreads outwardly is much much better right? Unlike you Suki, i actually debated in the original Libyan civil war thread here. People forget how bad it got and why it started in the first place.

Funny enough, all of these "stable" strong man dictators keep causing civil wars that are now tending to spread beyond their own borders. Gaddafi's Tuareg mercenaries would later go on to cause complete unrest and civil war in Mali itself.

Actually Libya before foreign-backed insurgency was one o the most stable countries on the continent. Not to mention that at the point where NATO attacked Libya, Libyan forces were quite close to crushing the jihadist "freedom fighters".

I do favor intervention, but the alternatives offered are worst at best. Libya failed because no one actually wanted to help re-build it. Just blow it up. Even Iraq with all of its problems could be argued a more successful example when compared to Libya. At least they tried to re-build there.

Because there was no plan to re-build it. Reason why NATO attacked Libya was because of Libyan economic policies and move to abandon petrodollar, similar to American aggression against Iraq. "Humanitarian" reasons, as always, were nothing but a pretext, as no objective evidence was offered to back the claims made by jihadists or Western legacy media that supported the "moderate freedom fighter" narrative.

[Gallus]

"Humanitarian" reasons, as always, were nothing but a pretext, as no objective evidence was offered to back the claims made by jihadists or Western legacy media that supported the "moderate freedom fighter" narrative.

"Moderate fighters" has become a joke phrase, like "the people's republic". Most people have realized by now that "humanitarian military intervention" is an oxymoron that insults our intelligence.

[Heathen Hammer]

"Moderate fighters" has become a joke phrase, like "the people's republic". Most people have realized by now that "humanitarian military intervention" is an oxymoron that insults our intelligence.

Yep, but during NATO attack on Libya, there were people who were aggressively defending that narrative and calling anyone questioning it "conspiracy theorists". And as usual, people that were called "conspiracy theorists" turned out to be 100% correct.

[Prodromos]

NATO's intervention wasn't intended to create a liberal democracy in Libya, but just to save lives. We need to distinguish the intervention itself from the world's subsequent failure to help rebuild Libya. If NATO hadn't intervened in Libya, the country likely would have ended up like Syria today. Libya's current troubles are extremely tame compared to the situation in Syria. Despite what some may believe, even pre-revolution Libya wasn't some sort of utopia.

https://www.haaretz.com/gadhafi-s-cr...aled-1.5315653

Ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi kidnapped and raped hundreds of teenagers in specially built sex dungeons, according to a television documentary to be screened by the BBC next week.

The program, "Storyville: Mad Dog – Gadhafi's Secret World," will be broadcast in the UK on February 3. Previews of the documentary were carried in the British media on Sunday.

Victims and witnesses state in the documentary that Gadhafi would choose his targets on visits to schools or colleges, patting on the head those who caught his eye.

His security officials would then take the victim to one of several specially designed suites of rooms, where they would be abused and raped by the dictator. In one such suite at Tripoli University, there is a fully-equipped gynecological examination room, where victims were tested for sexually transmitted diseases before being sexually abused.

"Some were only 14," recalled one teacher at a Tripoli school. "They would simply take the girl they wanted. They had no conscience, no morals, not an iota of mercy, even though she was a mere child."

Some of the girls were held for years, while others were dumped with appalling injuries.

"One just disappeared and they never found her again, despite her father and brothers searching for her. Another was found three months later, cut, raped and lying in the middle of a park. She had been left for dead."

Some victims were drafted into Gadhafi's unit of private female bodyguards, enduring years of rape and abuse and forced to witness the execution of opponents to the regime.

"Early one morning, we were taken to a closed hall," one former member recalled. "We were to witness the murder of 17 students. We were not allowed to scream. We were made to cheer and shout. To act as though we were delighted by this display. Inside I was crying. They shot them all, one by one."

"The women would first be raped by the dictator then passed on, like used objects, to one of his sons and eventually to high-ranking officials for more abuse," said Benghazi-based psychologist Seham Sergewa, who interviewed victims for the International Criminal Court.

Boys were also forced to serve in Gadhafi's harem. "He was terribly sexually deviant," recalled former chief of protocol Nuri Al Mismari. "Young boys and so on. He had his own boys. They used to be called the 'services group'."

In making the film, the documentary makers also uncovered evidence that Gadhafi used a private hit squad based in Cuba to eliminate opponents, and kept the bodies of victims in freezers.

Baha Kikhia was the wife of a foreign minister who had a fractious relationship with the dictator and went missing. When Gadhafi's regime fell, she found out that her husband's body was among those stored.

"He liked to keep his victims in the refrigerators to look at them now and again," she said. "He would visit his victims. It was as though they were some sort of macabre souvenirs. Something that he could look at and touch to remind himself of his omnipotence. Some had been there as long as 25 years."

Gadhafi was dragged from a drainpipe and shot by rebels in 2011, during Libya's civil war.

[Vanoi]

Actually Libya before foreign-backed insurgency was one o the most stable countries on the continent. Not to mention that at the point where NATO attacked Libya, Libyan forces were quite close to crushing the jihadist "freedom fighters".

Lol the Libyan army couldn't take Misrata or Benghazi when the intervention occurred. Source that the rebels were jihadists? And i want proof that they ALL were jihadists as you just claimed.

Because there was no plan to re-build it. Reason why NATO attacked Libya was because of Libyan economic policies and move to abandon petrodollar, similar to American aggression against Iraq. "Humanitarian" reasons, as always, were nothing but a pretext, as no objective evidence was offered to back the claims made by jihadists or Western legacy media that supported the "moderate freedom fighter" narrative.

Do you have sa source for any of the claims you just made?

[Gallus]

Yep, but during NATO attack on Libya, there were people who were aggressively defending that narrative and calling anyone questioning it "conspiracy theorists". And as usual, people that were called "conspiracy theorists" turned out to be 100% correct.

It's not even a conspiracy theory at this point. Just look at the list of countries that were targeted by NATO in the past 20 years. And then look at the list of countries with even worse humanitarian crises and bloody civil wars that did not recieve a benevolent intervention. Any fool can notice a pattern.

[Vanoi]

Every conspiracy theorist sees a pattern.

[Heathen Hammer]

Lol the Libyan army couldn't take Misrata or Benghazi when the intervention occurred. Source that the rebels were jihadists? And i want proof that they ALL were jihadists as you just claimed.

Because they were highly sectarian, funded by gulf States (which are fundamentalist theocracies that fund muslim terrorism worldwide)and imposed shariah law and other fundamentalist nonsense? Hell just watching the footage from the terrorist side all you can hear those thugs yelling would be "allahu snackbar".

Do you have sa source for any of the claims you just made?

Dude, this is common knowledge.
More links:
https://theecologist.org/2016/mar/14...ry-imperialism
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201...fi-gold-story/
https://www.thenewamerican.com/econo...astated-dollar
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...uammar-gaddafi

Every conspiracy theorist sees a pattern.

Or you are just in denial and use "conspiracy theory" as derogatory label because facts are against your narrative.

[Swiss Army Cheese]

Lol the Libyan army couldn't take Misrata or Benghazi when the intervention occurred. Source that the rebels were jihadists? And i want proof that they ALL were jihadists as you just claimed.

Yeah, they couldn't take those cities because the intervention occurred. The prevailing narrative at the time was that everyone in Benghazi was about to be slaughtered by Cataffy. Which was why NATO intervened in the first place.

[NorseThing]

It seems that all has stopped in Tripoli. At least as far as diplomatic relations with the outside are concerned. Is Tripoli going to now suffer the fate of so many places when rebels topple a shaky government? Has the UN picked a wrong side?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8888711.html

Mr Hafter’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive to take the capital city earlier this month and is battling militias loosely allied with the UN-supported government based there.UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the organisation is “gravely concerned” at continued reports of indiscriminate shelling of populated areas.
“Civilians in conflict-affected areas are experiencing electricity cuts and water shortages as a result of damaged infrastructure, while access to essential items such as food, medicine and fuel is severely disrupted,” said Mr Dujarric.
Almost 39,000 people have been displaced by the fighting over the past three weeks, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

[Ludicus]

Operation Odyssey Dawn was a grave mistake, not only from a moral, but also from a cynical perspective

Right. We already knew that in 2011, There's nothing moral about Nato's intervention in Libya | Seumas Milne

Only a western solipsism that regards it as normal to be routinely invading other people's countries in the name of human rights protects Nato governments from serious challenge.

[Abdülmecid I]

So, the strategic situation has changed decisively since the Turkish intervention. Thanks to the equipment they received and the prevalence of Turkish drones, the Government of National Accord has not only repulsed the offensive against Tripoli, but has also forced the Libyan National Army to retreat from several areas. The twitter activists are even excited over the prospect of an attack against Benghazi, but that's just pure fantasy. However, Haftar's position seems to be on a precarious position in western Libya. As the GNA forces advance, many tribal militias that had lent him their support will opportunistically change sides to join the dominant power in the region. In my opinion, unless one of the interested foreign powers disproportionately escalates its involvement, the possibility of Libyan unity is very unlikely for the foreseeable future. The country seems to be divided approximately along the lines of the two old Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, while the governments in Benghazi and Tripoli are too weak to even exercise any serious control over the surrounding periphery.

[sumskilz]

Naturally, we (the US) and are our allies are supporting the side who are fighting against the side supported by our other allies.

[Vanoi]

Naturally, we (the US) and are our allies are supporting the side who are fighting against the side supported by our other allies.

Whats ironic is that Hafter used to be a CIA asset and lived in the US. Now the US is supporting the GNA against him.

Not surprised the LNA were pushed out. The GNA are are not a great fighting force but the LNA are worst. Guess all the Saudi, French, Jordanian, and Russian support just wasn't enough for the LNA to hold on. Libya will definitely remain divided for a while.

[Abdülmecid I]

You forgot to include the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The irony is that the United States actually supported Haftar in the beginning (albeit mildly), until they gradually shifted their position. To be frank, Washington cares very much about what militia rules over Libya. Even the initial intervention was launched more because France and Britain couldn't defeat Qaddafi's ill-equipped and disorganised army than due to a serious interest in bringing Libya under the American sphere of influence. Its biggest impact was how it tainted Hillary Clinton's political career in the domestic front. Anyway, what interests me in this conflict is how complicated the alliances are, which do not resemble those of the average Middle-Eastern conflict. The problem is that the social media and the news are dominated by AKP activists and Qatari-funded media (Middle East Eye, al-Jazeera), so it's a bit difficult to get an accurate image of the front.

Anyway, the prospects of Haftar don't look particularly bright. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the LNA backers are disappointed with the performance of a general, whose political career actually started, because his crushing defeat in Chad.

[Common Soldier]

NATO's intervention wasn't intended to create a liberal democracy in Libya, but just to save lives. We need to distinguish the intervention itself from the world's subsequent failure to help rebuild Libya. If NATO hadn't intervened in Libya, the country likely would have ended up like Syria today. Libya's current troubles are extremely tame compared to the situation in Syria. Despite what some may believe, even pre-revolution Libya wasn't some sort of utopia.

The claim of all the rapes.of Gaddaffi could be inventions to justify the interventions. Saddam killed far of his own people than Gaddaffi, started started 2 wars with his neighboring countries, yet the same people who condemn Bush Jr's war in Iraq are defrndig the Libya intervention. What hypocrisy and double stsndards. Even if Iraq hadn't had weapons of mass destruction at the moment, he wanted them and had used them in the past. Nerve gas is considered a weapons of mass destruction, although the left redefined WMD so they could criticise Bush more. Sooner or later, when the US was distracted with something and couldn't respond, Saddam would have acted agaim, it was only a matter of time.

At least Bush tried to put Iraq back together, which is more than you can say for Obama and Libya. Libya under Gaddaffi may not have been a paradise, but it was better off than it is now. Nomone wants to criticize the intervention because it would mean exposing St. Obama, and that is heresy. What Obama did was immoral, to break country and not try to fix it. If Bush had walked away from Iraq after removing Saddam without establishing stable government he would have been criticized for it.
X

[Tureuki]

Suppliers of LNA probably started to regret it, GNA doesn't even have a proper air force, but somehow LNA manages to repeatedly lose Pantsirs, they fled from the strategically important Watiya Air Base. LNA is almost entirely pushed away from westernmost areas of Libya. If this continues, LNA will crumble down with defections and decreased international support, but Benghazi isn't going to fall anytime soon.

Turkish lent uavs changed the tide, they possibly received some training and instruction on organization as well.

[Tureuki]

LNA is in full retreat, just as i said some days ago, they are crumbling down with slaughter and defections, GNA is rapidly taking back land and Egypt is pushing Haftar to declare ceasefire so they can salvage whatever is left in eastern Libya.

Unlike Syria, Erdo had a total success on this front.

[Odenat]

Sirte is liberated by GNA. That is a big victory. Egypt and Haftar asked for a ceasefire. As you can remember, 2 months ago Haftar refused a ceasefire at Moscow meeting.

Two days ago, Erdoğan met with GNA leader Sarraj. The two leaders agreed on starting operating Mediterrean oil fields at once. GNA is not still strong enough to attack Haftar's strongholds at Eastern Libya. But who knows what will happen when oil starts to flow?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...133939141.html