Funny how the rebels have shot down a plane without the help of the the UN just now. Has the liberal world learned nothing from Iraq?

@1 Probably best to think about the right response rather than the liberal one. The coming together of the UN to mandate a no-fly zone is an unambiguously good thing.

Great! Here we go again! The crusaders are coming to save those poor darkies.

“… the progress that Gadaffi has made in the last fortnight has been enough to secure his regime…”

Damn…

“The regime must surely fall… and the manner of the eventual ending of the Libyan regime…”

Oh! Maybe there’s “hope” after all!

Meanwhile:

“Pro-Gaddafi tanks are inside Libya’s rebel stronghold of Benghazi, a BBC journalist has witnessed, as the city came under attack.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12793919

Hm.

I’m not sure Cameron deserves a word of praise. He may have been the “clearest, earliest voice for a no fly zone” – but then he was also touring the region in the company of arms dealers and traders in human misery (same difference?).

I wait to see whether Cameron’s posturing will be effective in bringing down other dictators in the region. Somehow I doubt it…

Its a return of Gunboat Diplomacy ; the Europeans used such methods in the 19th century to exploit the divisions amongst people in areas that they subsequently colonised. Incidentally, Lord Palmerston who ordered a blockade of the Piraeus was a Tory PM who morphed into a Liberal during his time in politics. Could the same happen to David Cameron?

The Tory coalition needs a war, just as Thatcher needed the Falklands!

@1

Funny how the BBC reports the plane was a rebel plane shot down by Gaddafi’s forces

“1154: Libyan rebels have acknowledged the plane which crashed in flames in Benghazi early on Saturday belonged to them and it was shot down by Col Gaddafi’s forces.”

With media reports like this, is there any correspondong prospect of hope for Bahrain – or don’t the protests there count for as much?

ASHLEY HALL: The crackdown in Bahrain against anti-government protesters has taken a sinister turn with live ammunition being used to force them off the street and claims the military are stopping doctors and hospitals from treating the wounded.
The United Nations has condemned the use of what it calls shocking and illegal force and says the takeover of hospitals is in violation of international law.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3167675.htm

It’s a pretty steady gig and it’ll be nice to see what the Typhoons can do. Doubt there’s gonna be much cat-fight action which is a bit of a shame. I guess the semantics about a rebel/civillian/freedom fighter is for another day. It’s most helpful that the Arab League have called for it. It kinda seems relative bullshit that we’re alright with Libya but Zimbabwe’s not strategic enough. Hey ho.

“Doubt there’s gonna be much cat-fight action which is a bit of a shame.”

Killing Jabberwocks? Oh frabjous joy:
http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html

The British military are already out there in the press saying they will need more resources (= “assets”) for these extra military commitments. What was all that stuff a little while back about a £38 billion black hole in the Ministry of Defence’s budget?
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/defence_spending_38_billion_black_hole-2572

I wonder how many more local authority care homes for the aged will be closing as a result of military action in Libya?

Having predicted an hour before they bottled it (does anyone know why?), that Russia and China would veto any armed action against Libya, and that the USA, Britain and France would hide behind the veto to do nothing, I am puzzled what the Western big powers are playing at here. What do they actually hope to achieve in Libya?

David Owen said on the telly on Thursday that a de facto partition of Libya would be a possible solution. Cameron has been hinting that Gadaffi must go — in short, regime change, although this is not part of the UN deal. What if Gadaffi fights on, despite getting bombed, and even makes advances? The big powers were wrong-footed when Gadaffi didn’t just fall down ‘dead’ like Ben Ali and Mubarak; they may be wrong-footed again. A land war could be in the offing: or would the big powers really want to go through this again?

There is a broader issue, a much broader issue. The big powers, by encouraging revolt in one Arab country, are actually encouraging it across the Middle East, whilst at the same time happily seeing their friends brutally put down demonstrators in Yemen, Bahrein, etc. If it is right to oppose Gadaffi for being undemocratic and brutal, people across the Arab world are reckoning, why not oppose one’s own domestic dictator?

Whatever happens in Libya, Cameron, O’Bama and the rest are being exposed as hypocrites of the first order. Their advice is this: you can rebel against someone we don’t like, but don’t you dare do that against our friends. But the Arab masses did not wait for Western approval to topple Ben Ali and Mubarak; they will not heed Western advice elsewhere.

@10 – Dr Paul – whoa, your argument was great but conclusion went off on one. I think hypocrites is a little strong. They are both quite new to the job and for wither to respond with gushing praise for our armed interventions would seem antithetic to the intentions to withdraw militarily from Afghan & Iraq. To take advantage of domestic turmoil is standard operating behaiour if it’s a strategic asset. I dunno – the Arab League called for it so that’s a novelty to previous incursions. I genuinely can’t see a ground war – that’s an irresponsible potential consequence but i’d be surprised.

I agree with the author. I think it is pretty obvious that the UN Resolution is designed to see Gadaffi topple.

I’d like the likes of Dr Paul to explain to me what actual benefit the West can expect, short term or long term from the overthrow of dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia.

Me?

I just see the overthrow of these regimes as a general good. I don’t care too much about consequences, beyond their replacing dictators with something better..

Unlike Dr Paul:

Whatever happens in Libya, Cameron, O’Bama and the rest are being exposed as hypocrites of the first order.

I need that spelled out, because it currently makes no sense to me.

And just so you know, I don’t accept Dr Pauls’ idea that President Obama should be described as O’Bama. That is just US shite hitting our side of the Atlantic.

Dr Paul: “The big powers, by encouraging revolt in one Arab country, are actually encouraging it across the Middle East”

Exactly, but better not let on to Cameron and Hague or they will look foolish.

The French have strong domestic political reasons for their stance. Why is it that Hague, unlike the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, didn’t attend the UN Security Council debate to personally make the case for intervention in Libya? These media reports give an insight into the state of politics in France and show why foreign distractions are so urgently needed:

WHEN FRENCH president Nicolas Sarkozy hastily carried out the ninth cabinet reshuffle of his term last week, the immediate imperative was an external one: to help restore France’s credibility in the world after its clumsy handling of the north African revolts.

But the president’s decisions were also driven in a subtler way by a firmly domestic dilemma: how to restore Sarkozy’s credibility among his own electorate at a time when his stock is lower than ever.

After weeks of controversy over foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie’s maladroit handling of the Tunisian revolt, Sarkozy had no choice but to remove the veteran Gaullist just over three months after she assumed the post. Lampooned for offering the know-how of France’s security forces to Tunisia just days before former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled the country, she was further damaged by revelations that, as the protests raged in late December, she travelled across Tunisia on a private jet belonging to a businessman with alleged links to the regime.
Alliot-Marie was replaced by former prime minister Alain Juppé, whose return to the department he held for two years in the mid-1990s completes a remarkable political comeback. Juppé’s senior ministerial career was thought to have ended when, in 2004, he was found guilty of mishandling public funds and returned to Bordeaux to focus on his role as mayor. [7 March 2011]
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0307/1224291483460.html

Alain Juppé, France’s new foreign minister, is being heralded as the government’s new “strong man” and even a “shadow president”.

The titles were attributed by the French media after Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, on Sunday called on the former premier to rescue the country’s foreign policy damaged by weeks of controversy over links to the authoritarian regimes of north Africa, France’s former colonial backyard.

Mr Juppé replaced Michèle Alliot-Marie, the veteran politician. She was brought down by her readiness to offer French “savoir faire” in quelling the early protests that led to Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution and by her own family connections to the discredited regime of Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisian president. [28 February 2011]
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91459fac-4371-11e0-8f0d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1GuzlLz1j

A French appeals court has sharply reduced a ban on former Prime Minister Alain Juppe holding public office from 10 years to one.

This opens the way for the close ally of President Jacques Chirac to return to politics before elections in 2007.

In January, Mr Juppe received an 18-month suspended jail sentence for his role in an illegal party funding scam when Mr Chirac was mayor of Paris.

The conviction brought with it a 10-year ban from holding political office.
But in a surprise move, the appeals court in Versailles cut the ban and also trimmed the suspended prison sentence from 18 to 14 months. [1 December 2004]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4058821.stm

The French have strong domestic political reasons for their stance. Why is it that Hague, unlike the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, didn’t attend the UN Security Council debate to personally make the case for intervention in Libya? These media reports give an insight into the state of politics in France and show why foreign distractions are so urgently needed:

I would not expect the French or the Brits to be motivated by pure humanitarianism. Sarkozy and Cameron may be showing off to their electorate. Gadaffi is a grotesque psychopath so if they manage to defeat him they will look good.

Like a bloke who gives a fiver to a beggar to show his girlfriend what a generous chap he is, this stance contains a lot of hypocrisy and self-serving. But the beggar has got a fiver out of it.

@ 9 Bob B

The £38 billion hole is a fiction, and of course any defence procurement problems would be much reduced by cancelling Trident, and a few wother choice changes to undo the damage of the disasterous SDR carried out by the hapless Coalition.

As for your fixation with care homes, as has been pointed out to you (ad nauseam it seems because you never listen or give menaingful responses) non need to close directly as a result of this, because of course we are well capable of doing both; it’s just a matter of priorities and what else we cut and or tax instead.

Your fixations are becoming as boring as your sixth form google cut an pastery – do give it a rest!

@10 Dr Paul

Your spectacular wrong-headedness having been proven by your previous posts, you seem to be on a roll!

What the West is playing at presumably is hoping to replace a crazy dictator with a secular democracy. Isn’t that enough in and of itself? Most people would think that the replacement of many odious regimes in Latin America and the former Soviet Bloc with democratic regimes has proven to be a good thing; not least their inhabitants. There are of course other advantages.

Democratic, secular regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt must be a good thing; after that who knows? The regimes in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi should be told in no uncertain terms that they will be held to account in the same terms as Gaddafi; if he’s indictable at the Hague for crimes against civilians, so are those in charge in Bahrain and Yemen.

It seems the Libyan masses in Benghazi have been cheering the Americans; galling as that must be for many right-on anti-interventionists I think I know who has the right take on whether intervention is a good thing.

@ 5 namak

“Its a return of Gunboat Diplomacy ; the Europeans used such methods in the 19th century to exploit the divisions amongst people in areas that they subsequently colonised.”

No, it really isn’t. You obviously understand the concept of Gunboat Diplomacy even less than you appear to understand contemporary international relations. The fact that a small coterie of nutters in Libya still support Gaddafi, doesn’t mean we should take your claim that they are divided, or that “the West” or the UN or the Arab League for that matter, are colluding in some sinister plot to re-colonise Libya. Perhaps you’d prefer Gadaffi just to beleft to get on with it?

“Incidentally, Lord Palmerston who ordered a blockade of the Piraeus was a Tory PM who morphed into a Liberal during his time in politics. Could the same happen to David Cameron?”

Which is of relevance to your point how? Blockading Piraues was to prevent the Greeks attacking the Ottomans during the Crimean War. Cameron is hardly likely to turn into a Liberal; your grasp of British politcs seems about as shaky as your understanding of IR.

“The Tory coalition needs a war, just as Thatcher needed the Falklands!”

I’m struggling to see how this applies really. Much as I hate the Tories and the Coalition, they are actually doing the right thing – if somewhat belatedly. The two scenarios are not at all alike, and given the risks even I don’t give any credence to whacky conspiract theories about sinister Tory plans to improve their poll ratings by taking part in a UN mandated NFZ.

@16: “The £38 billion hole is a fiction”

But that figure comes from Dr Laim Fox, the defence minister himself, and it’s been checked out with the NAO:
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/defence_spending_38_billion_black_hole-2572

“As for your fixation with care homes, as has been pointed out to you (ad nauseam it seems because you never listen or give menaingful responses) non need to close directly as a result of this, because of course we are well capable of doing both.”

C’mon. We’ve been told time an’ again that curbing the budget deficit is the reason for all those unprecedented “efficiency savings” required of the NHS and Police. The closing of council care homes by my local LibDem controlled council is but one example of the consequences of the cuts made in government funds for local government.

The extraordinary thing is that with all these cuts in government spending on public services, the government has no problem finding the finance to pay for military intervention in Libya – although apparently not in Bahrain and the Yemen, where those demonstrating for more democracy are being shot by the scores by state security forces and their foreign allies.

“Your fixations are becoming as boring as your sixth form google cut an pastery – do give it a rest!”

As you are manifestly unable to respond rationally to the argument made, I entirely understand why you and yours want me to shut up.

How refreshing to see Cameron do foreign interventions the correct way without having to resort to telling lies to force the UK government’s will.

I’m still waiting for that little p*%ick – Wee Dougie Alexander to come out with his apology for the government actions last week.

Labour should frankly just either support the government or just shut up – who can forget the thousands of civilians killed to appease Tony Blair and his blood lust and desire to follow a right wing American president.

Regardless of the outcome well done Cameron for war without deceit and lies…

The two scenarios are not at all alike, and given the risks even I don’t give any credence to whacky conspiract theories about sinister Tory plans to improve their poll ratings by taking part in a UN mandated NFZ.

I don’t think that’s Cameron’s motive – for one thing I doubt the voters care enough – but how is it a “whacky conspiracist theor[y]“? The words “Thatcher” and “Falklands” spring readily to mind.

@ 19 Bob B

Ah right, so because Liam Fox says it’s true, and trots out some NAO figures to support his angle, you uncritically accept it?

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/defence_spending_38_billion_black_hole-2572

I agree that we should not use a double standard with respect to protesters in Bahrain and Yemen…. but since you don’t think we can afford to intervene in Libya, presumably your default position is that we shouldn’t intervene anywhere until we can afford it?

As pointed out in other recent discussions, we can afford to both fund our social services adequately AND participate in humanitarian interventions…. the scale, speed and targets of the cuts and efficiencies taking place are political decisions; I don’t agree with them, but they are being carried out by the Coalition in power. If people don’t like it they know what to do…..

“As you are manifestly unable to respond rationally to the argument made, I entirely understand why you and yours want me to shut up.”

That’s actually quite funny,as in all the screeds of regurgitated links you so delight in posting (it really doesn’t subsitute for having your own opinions you know….. you might like to try it sometime: google does not equal research remember). Also… who exactly might “you and yours” be?

People who don’t agree with your google vomitus? People who can actually engage in a debate without defaulting to cheap shots about “your are causing the death of people in old people’s homes doen the road”?

I don’t want you to shut up… I just want you to be less of an obscurantist, and stop clogging up with threads with screeds of (usually ill-considered and off topic) links you cut and paste from google. It isn’t smart, and it isn’t funny.

“Labour should frankly just either support the government or just shut up – who can forget the thousands of civilians killed to appease Tony Blair and his blood lust and desire to follow a right wing American president.”

I’ve been arguing in online debates – and elsewhere – since 2002 that invading Iraq for the reasons given by Blair was a big mistake but that’s no reason for not pointing out the glaring logical contradictions in, and the public spending implications of, the present government’s involvement in Libya with allies to facilitate regime change there.

Both the government now and the past Labour government could be utterly wrong, albeit for different reasons. If Labour in opposition is inhibited about exposing the pitfalls in the government’s engagement in Libya because of its past history with the Iraq invasion, as a declared floating voter, I’m not.

@21 Ben Six

“I don’t think that’s Cameron’s motive – for one thing I doubt the voters care enough – but how is it a “whacky conspiracist theor[y]“? The words “Thatcher” and “Falklands” spring readily to mind”

Any regular on here knows I detest Thatcher and everything about her. I hold her and her government directly responsible for the Falklands War, due to their appeasement of the fascist junta in Argentina before the war. Interestingly, Tory defence cuts and the withdrawal of the UK military presence in the Falklands precipitated the Argentinian invasion, and almost scuppered any chance of launching the flotilla that re-took the isalnds. Cameron and his feckless bunch might want to consider the echoes with their recent SDR.

But I digress; Thatcher pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. Most of us thought she was a gonner when the Falklands fell, but people have short memories. However to actually say you beleive there was a conspiracy to bring about the conflict for political gain IS pretty out there as far as I’m concerned. The culpability of the Tories isn’t reduced by the fact we won the Falklands War, anymore than the culpability of New Labour for Iraq is reduced by the fact that it managed to depose Saddam Hussein.

Those of us who remember the Falklands War will also remember that it was a damn close run thing; it could all have gone terribly wrong. Thatcher and the Tories could by no means have been sure that they would pull it off, and their success was more down to luck than good judgement.

The Tories may have reaped the benefit of winning the war, but if you see a conspiracy at work, then you honestly need to read more history.

@22: “I agree that we should not use a double standard with respect to protesters in Bahrain and Yemen…. but since you don’t think we can afford to intervene in Libya, presumably your default position is that we shouldn’t intervene anywhere until we can afford it? ”

If all those unprecedented “efficiency savings” are being required of the NHS and the Police, the government can’t consistently afford even more military adventures. An oldish, pre-election figure from Gordon Brown was that the Iraq + Afghanistan wars had cost us £18 billions. The state of our public finances would be a great deal better without that expenditure.

That said, it’s not self-evident to me why killing those demonstrating against the authoritarian regimes of Bahrain and the Yemen by the score is acceptable while the killing of opponents to the authoritarian Gaddafi regime isn’t.

but not much hope or interest for the braver unarmed protesters in bahrain and yemen. different politicians but same hypocritical western foreign policies. journalists are pretty much the same,the relative silence on bahrain,yemen is deafening.

@ 23 Bob B

“that’s no reason for not pointing out the glaring logical contradictions in, and the public spending implications of, the present government’s involvement in Libya with allies to facilitate regime change there.”

I too beleive the decision to invade Iraq was wrong. However, you don’t know what the spending implications of the present involvement are or will be; it is however most unlikely to be anything on the scale of Iraq.

You keep going on about evidence, but what evidence have you produced, or indeed could you given that nobody knows what is going to happen yet?

People opposed to intervention continually dodge the question: what level of expenditure would you consider reasonable to protect innocent civilians in Libya?

@ 20 – Anonyperson – It is a little odd being legitimate. Feels a bit odd.

@26 paul

“but not much hope or interest for the braver unarmed protesters in bahrain and yemen. different politicians but same hypocritical western foreign policies. journalists are pretty much the same,the relative silence on bahrain,yemen is deafening.”

Really? Who appointed you the arbiter of which protesters are braver… the unarmed ones in Yemen and Bahrain, or those in Libya (some of whom have been unarmed incidentally) fighting vastly better equipped Gaddafi forces with little more than kalashnikovs? They are all just as dead when gunned down by their authoritarian rulers.

I’ve heard plenty of reporting from both Bahrain and Yemen… so it hardly supports your claim that it’s a deafening silence.

To be clear, I think our governments should be sending a clear and unequivocal message to all dictators, whether in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria etc., etc that things have to change, and shooting civilian protesters is not acceptable. The emir of Bahrain and President of Yemen ought to be referred to the Hague tribunal for the same reasons Gadaffi was.

However, the “pressing” issue right now is Libya; the West and UN delayed for weeks too long as it is. It would be great if we (whether the UN, the West, NATO, the EU or whatever) could intervene everywhere it was called for, but that’s hardly realistic. A start has to be made somewhere; it might as well be in Libya. We can’t avoid every issue for decades to come just because of the baleful legacy of Iraq.

@ 28 dick the prick

“@ 20 – Anonyperson – It is a little odd being legitimate. Feels a bit odd.”

Don’t let it go to your head…. even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.

Remember, the ridiculously mishandled Strategic Defence Review completed by the Coalition took the completely necessary step of scrapping our carrier based Harriers…. how’s that looking now I wonder?

@27: “You keep going on about evidence, but what evidence have you produced, or indeed could you given that nobody knows what is going to happen yet? ”

That is even worse. The government has made a new, open-ended military commitment to a foreign war and without a cash limit while requiring unprecented “efficieny savings” in healthcare and policing, supposedly due to its public spending curbs because of the inherited “unsustainable” budget deficit.

That just isn’t coherent. Recap on that editorial in the BMJ: Dr Lansley’s Monster
“What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad.”
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d408.full

@ 25 Bob B

“That said, it’s not self-evident to me why killing those demonstrating against the authoritarian regimes of Bahrain and the Yemen by the score is acceptable while the killing of opponents to the authoritarian Gaddafi regime isn’t.”

I must have missed the sound bit where William Haigh told the Emir of Bahrain to go right ahead… or Hilary Clinton telling the President of Yemen they weren’t concerned about a bit of collateral damage.

Are you totally divorced from reality, or do you just like playing to the gallery to annoy people with some prespective?

Galen do you not realize the libyan rebels have at least got weapons,the rebels in bahrain have got nothing except their bravery. Cameron a few weeks ago had a preplanned tour of middle east tyrants to sell them weapons(mubarak of egypt was always called a moderate by british politicians and journalists). After the brave Tunisian and Egyptian people overthrew their western backed despots ,the Cameron spin doctors said the new reason he was going was to help support democracy ! Unbelievable !
Sarkozy was badly damaged when his administration sided with the Tunisian despot ,when he was toppled ,Sarkozy realized he’d better not make the same mistake twice,so now he’s a committed “champion of human rights ” in Libya.
I’ll take all this new found interest in human rights when one tenth of the media coverage is given to the Bahraini and Yemeni protesters as is given to Libyan ones.
It will be interesting to see the reaction to the Saudi tyrant who’s been invited to the Royal wedding,the Bahraini king has had to make a diplomatic withdrawal.
I wonder if Bernie Ecclestone is still planning to stage the F1 race there this year? Could be a few skids there what with all the blood .

@31 Bob B

Jeezus, it’s like explaining something to a none to bright toddler.

Government doesn’t work like that… it never has, and never will. They don’t, and can’t, approach things in series, they have to deal with lots of things at once.

There is not an iota of evidence that we couldn’t support doing both at once. The reason there isn’t, is because (stun me with another) we don’t know how much Libya will cost, or how long it will last; we have to make intelligent guesses. It might be over in a week and cost next to nothing. It might last years, and cost a whole lot. Doing nothing would also involve costs too you realise, so you might like to try and factor those in to your calculation.

galen if you think the despots of saudi,bahrain,yemen or any other western dictator is going to be referred to the Hague tribunal then you’re very naive as to how the world works.

However to actually say you beleive there was a conspiracy to bring about the conflict for political gain IS pretty out there as far as I’m concerned.

Who said “there was a conspiracy to bring about the conflict“? This is far too all-or-nothing. People can be disingenuous without being Luciferean. Your mechanic mends your car so slow he could be a decrepit cripple but that doesn’t mean the gear stick wasn’t broken.

@ 33 Paul

Of course I realise it; but is a Bahraini unarmed protester braver than one in Libya? Is a Yemeni shot down by a sniper more brave than a Libyan trying to stop a tank with a molotov cocktailand a kalashnikov?

Why must we sit on our hands and fail to support intervention in Libya because of the poor track record of our feckless political leaders? It’s OK to let thousands die in Libya somehow, because our leaders aren’t also proposing to topple the Emir of Bahrain or Yemeni President?

Perhaps you just don’t like the idea of spending any money like Bob B…. so principles are great, but only if you can afford them?

Why must we sit on our hands and fail to support intervention in Libya because of the poor track record of our feckless political leaders?

Stop it with the “we”s. Really, there have been more “we”‘s in here than in the gent’s at Wetherspoons. One can support intervention if one thinks our state is either good or competent enough (or, indeed, if its interests happen to align with the protestors’) but the point about assessments of its character is that if it has tended to behave in a certain manner its behaviour in an “intervention” may well be alike. Again, if you it’s either well-meaning and/or efficient this may not be cause for worry. If you don’t, however, there’s reason to be sceptical.

[*] think it’s either well-meaning and/or efficient

@ 35 paul

“galen if you think the despots of saudi,bahrain,yemen or any other western dictator is going to be referred to the Hague tribunal then you’re very naive as to how the world works.”

*sighs*.. yeah, naive enough to expect people to see sitting on our hands whilst people get butchered because of some guilt trip about Iraq is none too bright.

I cordially hope all dictators do get their day in the Hague. Still.. the fact that you feel there are western dictators tells us all we need to know about how seriously to take your views eh?

@ 38 Ben Six

The correct default response to the Libyan crisis isn’t to be so sceptical because of our mistrust of the motives of “our” leaders, that we stand by and watch a disaster happen. It was wrong in Bosnia, Kossovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sudan, the Congo.

Let’s be sceptical by all means, but not so scpetical that we tolerate the slaughter of innocent civilians, whether by Gaddafi, the Emir of Bahrain, or the President of Yemen.

wonders whether galen owns an undertaker or bodybag business…note to galen…please declare your interests

With a bit of luck Gaddafi will go the same way Ceausescu went. Cameron has done the right thing, even if he should have acted sooner — I can only hope it hasn’t come too late.

galen i meant to say western backed dictators. we ARE tolerating the slaughter of innocents by our governments friends in bahrain and yemen and saudi. i never mentioned iraq YOU did. Face it ,its not about human rights,if it was we’d be doing the same there,which we never will because privately our governments support the regimes of bahrain ,yemen and saudi arabia.

Another example of ‘appalling brutality’:

Yemen protests: Evidence snipers shot to kill
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/8392796/Yemen-protests-Evidence-snipers-shot-to-kill.html

Why must we sit on our hands and fail to support intervention in Libya because of the poor track record of our feckless political leaders?

Because shit-for-brains, those “feckless political leaders” are the ones prosecuting said intervention. If the British government, and the American government, and the French government, and all the other governments involved in this, were stupendously benevolent forces, then I could countenance bombing Libya.

But they aren’t. Let me remind you about the people we are talking about.

We are talking about Barack Obama. Someone who believes that CIA death squads are an appropriate tool for controlling the Afghan population. That assassinations are both morally and constitutionally justified. That drones should be used to murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Who thinks cluster bombs dropped on Yemen is something other than bloodthirsty. Who continues to back the coup government in Honduras. Who sees vetoing any criticism of Israel as the first responsibility of good governance. Who sees even thinking about legalizing even one illicit drug as not just wrong but simply laughable, something that only dirty fucking hippies on the internet would think of, despite the harm this war is causing in Mexico and Colombia. Who believes that ending the Iraq war means leaving behind 50,000 troops. Who isn’t concerned with these things called “trials” or “accountability”. Who sees the House of Saud as a wholesome ally.

I could go on. Why do you trust this man? There are reasonable humanitarian reasons why the Libyans need help. But why would you trust Obama to provide that help? He doesn’t have a good record at doing the right thing at all.

We’re also talking about the British government. Rising executive bonuses and rising unemployment are music to its ears. Decimating public services, violating the NHS, attempting to sell of the forests, privatizing the Post Office, etc are all in hard days work as far as our government’s concerned. Just two years ago, many of the members of this government had their hands in the till, and they only stopped when they were caught red handed. If they don’t have the interests of the British people at heart (their fucking electorate, remember?), why the damn hell would they act in a “humanitarian” fashion towards the Libyan people?

Take David Cameron. This is a man who is either so stupid or evil that he zealously clapped along as Tony Blair beat the drum for war in Iraq. Who thinks Four More Years of the Afghan quagmire is acceptable. Who voted to allow the indefinite detention of people accused of terrorism at Belmarsh. Who thinks that burglars should have zero human rights. Who likes to give speeches in Munich with a big anti-Muslim dog whistle. Who thinks that, when the Arab world is rising up against their leaders, that then is an appropriate time to go flog weapons to these satraps.

And don’t get me started on Clegg, Berlusconi and Sarkozy.

How on Earth can you trust any of these people? Why the fuck do people like Sunny Hundal see people like Cameron as The Enemy Who Must Be Destroyed whenever he does anything domestically, and yet as soon as our Dear Leader decides to make war, all placards are dropped and kicked under the carpet, and they fall to their knees to grovel at the feet of our Ever So Wise King? Why are people who support this war so credulous, so lacking in even an ounce of skepticism, so willing to smear opponents of this war as relaxed about dead Libyans, when we look at the above record of the people prosecuting this war, and come to the very realistic conclusion that there’s a very good chance we could do more harm than good? Why are so many of you so willing to trust the powerful this time round?

Any war that is based around a policy of flogging weapons for years, and then within a month launching airstrikes – being at war with Eurasia, and then being at war Eastasia – any war like that is batshit insane at best, and mendacious at worst.

I hope I’m wrong.

@42 diogenes

“wonders whether galen owns an undertaker or bodybag business…note to galen…please declare your interests”

I think my interests are fairly clear to anyone reading what I post on here diogenes; your interests are harder to discern however, so please feel free to enlighten us rather than emerge every now and then from under your bridge to throw rocks and insults in lieu of coming up with coherent arguments.

Perhaps you are an out and out supporter of Gaddafi and his ilk, or perhaps just a fellow traveller. Otherwise, perhaps you are just one of these knee-jerk non-interventionists who is so committed to their brand of right-on, anti-imperialist bullshit that they would rather see dictators like Gaddafi left in peace to brutalise and slaughter their own populations as long as the sacrosanct principle of sovereignty isn’t jeapordised?

Or perhaps you are just what you appear: a witless troll whose only real interest is being a contrarian waste of oxygen.

@42 Phil Hunt

“With a bit of luck Gaddafi will go the same way Ceausescu went. Cameron has done the right thing, even if he should have acted sooner — I can only hope it hasn’t come too late.”

I doubt many would shed too many tears; I’d rather see him in front of the ICC in the Hague; with luck he’ll one day be in the company of the Emir of Bahrain, the President of Yemen, Robert Mugabe and other deposed criminals.

@44 paul

“galen i meant to say western backed dictators. we ARE tolerating the slaughter of innocents by our governments friends in bahrain and yemen and saudi. i never mentioned iraq YOU did. Face it ,its not about human rights,if it was we’d be doing the same there,which we never will because privately our governments support the regimes of bahrain ,yemen and saudi arabia.”

So you are advocating what response exactly? I’m genuinely interested. Do you expect us to intervene everywhere a government acts in this way? Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan, Iran, China….? They are all equally appalling in my view.

I’d be quite happy if our government cut all ties with the likes of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi…. although whether that would help the protesters is open to question. I think we should push for the ICC to investigate the authorities in all those countries, although given the sqeals of protest (and prolonged delay) in getting some action over Libya, the chances of any intervention seem remote.

Feel free to, you know, come up with some viable alternative that might actually stop the likes of Gaddafi getting his way. Perhaps you could explain to the protesters in Benghazi why intervention is a bad thing, because in your view it’s better to do nothing to help them, on the basis we’re pissed of with the doubke standards of our elected leadership. After all, your principles are much more important than their lives, eh?

More reports of ‘appalling brutality’:

Bahrain hospital attack: ‘Physical abuse and humiliation of doctors’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/8392820/Bahrain-hospital-attack-Physical-abuse-and-humiliation-of-doctors.html

But then Bahrain is regarded as an important ally of the West, unlike Libya with Gaddafi’s authoritarian regime installed.

@46 Alex

Of course you are wrong. Not only that, you are from your own mouth a deeply unpleasant individual who thinks abuse is a substitute for reasoned discourse.

Difficult to expect better from someone starting their pathetic rant with a casual “Because shi-for-brains….”, I know, but it only gets worse (if less obviously offensive) after that.

A few hundred words of hyperbole and hysteria about the bad menz who control the world, and their dupes (almost everyone apparently apart from the ideologically pure who agree with you).

And then of course, the priceless gem to top of this farago of unwisdom:

“Why are people who support this war so credulous, so lacking in even an ounce of skepticism, so willing to smear opponents of this war as relaxed about dead Libyans, when we look at the above record of the people prosecuting this war, and come to the very realistic conclusion that there’s a very good chance we could do more harm than good?”

Why? Because none of the non-interventionists have ever come up with ANY argument about how else the international community is to stop someone like Gaddafi killing thousands of his own people. All we get is lame come backs about innocent people being killed by the intervention, getting sucked into a quagmire, and the fact we shouldn’t be doing it because we have a bad track record and/or a double standard because we don’t intervene elsewhere.

So come on then… share your pearls of wisdom with us. Who IS going to do anything about it then…..? The UN?

People who support intervention aren’t credulous… they just haven’t had a sympathy bypass like you; the kind of ideological purist who would unashamedly rather see thousands die now in Libya, rather than run the risks of intervention. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it’s not as if your intentions ARE good… they are just shameful.

@45 & 50

Yes, the reports are appalling Bob; but since on cost grounds you oppose any intervention in Libya where thousands have died over the past few weeks, presumably you would oppose any intervention in Bahrain and Yemen too?

So you think it is right we should be appalled by all such brutality…we just shouldn’t do anything about it anywhere because any money would be better spent at home?

The full version of the accord makes clear the extent to which Mr Blair agreed to co-operate with the Gaddafi regime on defence matters.

Under the terms of the deal, Britain was committed to “exchanges of information and views on defence structures, military and security organisations; exchanges of visits by experts and exchange of printed materials in the field of military education and science; exchanges of information on current and developing military concepts, principles and best practice, and the conduct of joint exercises’’.

The two countries also agreed to co-operate in “training in operational planning processes, staff training, and command and control; training of personnel in peace support operations; training co-operation relating to software, communications security, technology and the function of equipment and systems; exchanges of information and experience in the laws of armed conflict; and the acquisition of equipment and defence systems’’. In the Commons, David Cameron criticised the last government’s approach to Libya.

For two days in the UK the cuts are forgotten and Libya is the nain thread , how to hide bad news go to war……

@53 Robert

Yes, because you *must* be right, people really ARE that vapid that they can only think about one thing at once.

It would be so much better if we just stayed out of the whole affair and left Gaddafi to get on with it to assuage our collective guilt about the failings of our leaders in the past. The Libyan revolutionaries are bound to understand our principled stand in concentrating on our own economic woes, they will no doubt applaud the desire for self-flagellatiion about how deeply evil our system of government is, and that it trumps giving any concrete support to stop them being butchered in the streets.

All governments, whether democratic or not, use violence against their own citizens. Indeed the definition of a nation state is that its government has the monopoly on the use of violence within its geographical borders.

There is an implied assumption among states that when the legitimacy of the government is challenged (by revolution from within or by attack from without) they are entitled to use violence to maintain their legitimacy. The intervention in Libya on the side of the internal opposition overturns that assumption.

The argument that the intervention is justified on ethical grounds is laughable. As others have pointed out, why not Bahrain, Yemen, Burma, Uganda or Saudi? Gadaffi has not been more noticeably violent or inhumane in his resistance to the revolt of his people than others.

And the ethical argument is particular bunkum in terms of the intervention in Libya. Until it came under challenge a month ago, its government had our complete support. Indeed we liked the regime so much we had forgiven its horrific sponsorship of international violence in the past and had sold it our best military hardware.

And what is the objective?

To enforce a cease fire?

Partition?

Regime change?

We are supporting one side against the other and the clear unexpressed objective IS regime change. So we are once again going into a war based on a hypocritical agenda and without a clear idea of what we are trying to achieve or what a replacement regime would look like.

I am surprised and disappointed by the apparent blood-lust on this forum, of supposedly liberal people with desires of spreading a left-of-centre message.

Is the assumption that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Is the presumption that ANYONE who opposes a murderous dictator such as Gaddafi, must be of good heart and gracious intent?

Where lies the long-term strategy? How can it be contenanced that we supply weapons to a ‘brutal dictator’ who just happens to be friends with us at one point in time (when there are ‘national interests’ at stake), but then launch an attack, when said disctator turns his back on us?

How long are we go to continue this insane policy of intervening in other countries, bombing their infrastructure (and the ‘collateral damage’ which comes with it) and instituting ‘regime change’?

The West and other powerful countries, would do well to keep their noses out of such situations, that have nothing to do with them. How do we know that by backing the ‘rebels’, we aren’t in fact, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to years of war and the creation of more ‘terrorists’ who, in a few decades time, we will have to fight against, once it turns once more to brutal disctatoship?

The first thing we should do, is stop arming the bloody world! Of course, that will never happen, as there are too many ‘national interests’ and too much cash at stake. But hey, it might just stop this nonsense from happening all over again in a few decades time.

History repeating itself? Absolutely. Have we learnt any lessons? Absolutely not.

Come on leftists, stop supporting our so-called ‘democratic’ government from continuing the policy of the previous Blair, erm, regime (how ironic that any government we happen to dislike, suddenly becomes a ‘regime’ overnight), or trying to protect ‘national interests’ at the point of a gun.

How many Vietnam’s, Iraq’s, Afghanistan’s, or anywhere else that the supposedly democratic and civilised West have invaded, are we going to have before we learn that we NEVER benefit from such involvement. And when I say WE, I mean us, as people of the world, Both in the country directly involved, where bloody revolution, is followed by bloody dictatorship, by bloody revolution ad infinitum, and in the West, where such actions return to haunt us.

Stop arming the world. Stop going into battle. Stop attempting ‘regime change’.

For once Britain and others are doing the right thing for the right reasons. For sure there are no guarantees as to how this will turn out but looking away and doing nothing effective was surely unthinkable.
Doing the right thing for the right reasons is not the way that one can commonly characterise the actions of Western powers. We can only hope that this catches on.
The present determination of peoples across N. Africa and throughout the Middle East to win their freedom from repressive dictatorships has highlighted the hypocrisy of the West and our policy of “They may be bastards but they are our bastards”
I know I am being optimistic to the point of naivety here but perhaps this can be a turning point, a point at which the West realises that ethical foreign policy is the best policy.

@56 Political Animal

For a political animal, it’s odd that your instincts are so off, but it seems par for the course amongst a cadre of people on here who go off on one about “supposed” liberals having a bllod lust.

Like all the others of course, your dialogue of despair does precisely nothing for the people currently being gunned down.

“Is the assumption that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

No, not automatically… although in wartime particularly it might often be the case, as for example during WW2: the Soviets were hardly comendable, but being allied with them against Nazism was probably better than the alternative…. presumably from your post you’d rather we’d gone it alone altogether? No? Thought not.

” Is the presumption that ANYONE who opposes a murderous dictator such as Gaddafi, must be of good heart and gracious intent?”

No of course not. Has anyone sane actually said that… or is it just the automatic presumption in your head? Libya has had no chance to develop even a rudimentary civil society as was present in Tunisia and Egypt, so it’s hardly reasonable to expect an instant secular democratic opposition of our dreams to develop in a vacuum. All we have to go on are reports from people there, which seem to suggest that the revolution is a genuinely grass roots popular revolt calling for democratic change. Obviously there are no guarantees…. but why should your policy of non-intervention ipso facto result in a better outcome?

“Where lies the long-term strategy?”

In promoting secular democratic regimes across the Arab world, which don’t slaughter innocent citizens in the streets, don’t discriminate against minorities… you know, act like civilized liberal democracies should.

“How long are we go to continue this insane policy… etc”

As long as they murder their own people by the thousand for peaceful protest. Simple really.

“How do we know that by backing the ‘rebels’, etc…”

We don’t. It’s a calculaton that on balance they will be less bad than the current situation; fear of it “possibly” going pear shaped is not a valid excuse for doing nothing, any more than would the argument that we can’t afford it.

“The first thing we should do, is stop arming the bloody world! ”

Absolute pacifism may be alovely ideal, but much as you might not like the “real” world, we have to live with it as it is, not as we’d like it to be. I happen to agree that we shouldn’t arm the world…. tho I wouldn’t be averse to selling some armaments to other liberal democracies. It will make our home produced systems relatively more expensive however…. unless you are planning to totally disarm, or rely on other countries to supply all our weapons systems? I doubt you will get more than a tiny minority of the UK population to follow you down that path.

“History repeating itself? Absolutely. Have we learnt any lessons? Absolutely not.”

Well, that depends on whether you think these circunstances are similar enough to previous events. You might as well argue that the lesson of history in this case is that we should have intervened much faster, and much harder. I disagreed with the decision to invade Iraq, but thought the decision to invade Afghanistan was right.

Both have been disasters… but for different reasons. Neither was destined to be a disaster, any more than the de-nazification of Germany or occupation and rehabilitation of Japan were destined to be successes, or any more than the democratisation of the former Soviet satellites in E. Europe was inevitable or destined to succeed.

Few people predicted the wars in the Balkans in the 90′s, although the signs were there. We hadn’t armed the Serbs, but we did have to intervene to stop the nightmare scanrio of an ethnically pure Greater Serbia being realised; perhaps you’d have been arguing against intervention there too?

“And when I say WE, I mean us, as people of the world, Both in the country directly involved, where bloody revolution, is followed by bloody dictatorship, by bloody revolution ad infinitum, and in the West, where such actions return to haunt us.”

What is your alternative then… assuming you have actually thought about this enough to even come up with one? Doing nothing doesn’t count as a policy. Why should we accept the “inevitabilty thesis” you put forward? Even if it has played out that way sometimes…does that mean it always will, in every case? No, of course it won’t. Failures elsewhere don’t give us some moral “get out of jail free” card whereby we can pretend these things are happening in countries far away of which we know nothing.

Your impertinent assumption that only your moral qualms are legitimate, or that they trump those of people supporting intervention to avoid Gaddafi slaughtering thousands in Benghazi and elsewhere in Libya is repugnant.

@56 Politcal Animal

“Stop arming the world. Stop going into battle. Stop attempting ‘regime change’.”

Are we allowed to arm ourselves then? Can we “never” go into battle under any circumstances, and if we can, tell us what they are and where we are “allowed” to fight. Why can’t we attempt regime change of odious regimes? It’s all very well to subscribe to an ultra-realist view of national sovereignty, but in other respects you seem to be advocating fairly hard-core idealist views…. so how do your reconcile the two?

Is it OK if “other” non-Western countries bring about regime change? Or the UN? Or is “nobody” authorised to do it under any circumstances?

Hopi Sen is a warmongering scumbag just like his former boss Tony Blair. It is no surprise to see him rejoicing in the slaughter of human beings however I have to ask why Liberal Conspiracy allows him to incite murder on its website.

@ 60 resistor

So you think it’s OK to watch Gaddafi slaughter “his” civilians…?

The whole thing about a “no fly zone” was just another enormous lie by the war mongers. This is a full out air assault on Libyan civilians.

SteveBond: “For once Britain and others are doing the right thing for the right reasons. For sure there are no guarantees as to how this will turn out but looking away and doing nothing effective was surely unthinkable.”

Not quite – I’m not so naive as to think this motley crew could care less about the welfare of Libyans. Some are clearly quite happy to play the anti-Muslim card for political gain at home. This is obviously heavily motivated by oil and strategic interests (and probably by fears of refugee flows, at least for Sarkozy).

Having said that, it’s still the right thing to do, even if it is for the wrong reasons.

1) Unlike in Iraq, the war has already started. There is no “peace” option here. We either get involved or watch. Gaddafis statements strongly suggests he considers residents of rebel cities who have failed to fight the rebels unto death to be traitors and cowards: he’s likely to want to demonstrate what happens to traitors and cowards for the benefit of other would-be dissenters.
2) The financial interests of the oil companies and the interests of Libyans seem to coincide in this situation – they both want to avoid a long civil war / insurgency situation, and they both want to avoid Gaddafi perpetrating revenge massacres and other destruction (the oil companies wish to keep a workforce and facilities).

Of course, after any war their interests will diverge again – but for now, I’m fine with seeing Gaddafi foiled, even if it’s being done for the wrong reasons.

@62 libhomo

..and you think the actions of Gaddafi’s forces in E. Libya were wholly peaceful then? Do you just not care that they were hours away from rolling into Benghazi last week, or is it more that you think the UN coalition killing some innocent civilians whilst stopping Gaddafi’s fighters is somehow “more” evil, and therefore justifies your moral cowardice?