I love the idea we are in Libya because of the evil tyrant, sadly of course that evil Tyrant has annoyed the British people, so he must be hit and hit hard, it’s a bit bloody late now, but hold oh he does have Oil.

Syria on the other hand of course has what evil nasty people or a leader that the Government in the UK love or the people revolution are evil.

seems we do pick wars when they have Oil

Er, Syria has oil. Next.

I presume Galen 10 will be around here shortly.

Before commenting, please read the above article carefully and then consider how wrong you were in advocating this particular strand of lunacy.

Oh fuck off, pagar. You have nothing useful to contribute.

Re oil exports.

Libya = 1.542 million barrels per day. (14th largest in the world)

Syria = 155,000 barrels per day. (55th largest in the world)

Syria exports LESS oil than Belgium, Japan,Taiwan, Spain etc. etc.

Need I go on?

OOPS ! Forgot the link to oil exporting countries and the amounts.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=sy&v=95

I imagine one of the reasons why Gaddafi’s support among the Lybian people remains high actually is propaganda. Who here thinks that for most of his reign he didn’t position himself as Lybia’s defender against western imperialist invaders who would come to destroy their livelihoods, their homes, their children? Then what do people think NATO’s alliance with the transitional council would look like with that pre-prepared mindset?

In these days of high oil prices any helps, but Syria exports mostly low quality oil while Libya has high quality. The French were particularly pissed off at Libya because Gaddafi cancelled an order for French weapons and bought from Russia instead

Oh fuck off, pagar. You have nothing useful to contribute.

Ordinarily true, on this occasion he’s got a point.

It’s good that you’re now recognising that there is a problem with the Libyan war.

I’ve felt unable to criticise the Libya war. The Left in the UK immediately latched onto the meme that if we did nothing then thousands would die in Benghazi, and anyone suggesting that NATO’s action should be limited with an explicit exit strategy were criticised for procrastination when “immediate action is needed”. There is probably some truth that Ghadaffi would have sanctioned the killing of some civilians, but our actions have caused many more thousands to die (and we have killed many of them) with no end in sight to this war.

Ironically, I have been more comfortable expressing my doubts in the US forums where I am active. The US centre-Left are more reticent about this action than the UK’s centre-Left. So I welcome that – from the Left – you are opening up the discussion and recognising that this is a complex issue and that, possibly, a solution may be to stop our intervention.

The problems raised here are, for the most part, facts and not inconvenient lies promulgated by a tyrant’s pet broadcaster.

I may have missed it, but have they started bombing the TV centres and claiming it’s part of Gaddafi’s ‘war machine’ yet?

have they started bombing the TV centres and claiming it’s part of Gaddafi’s ‘war machine’ yet?

Pertinent question. They’ve bombed transmitters, but apparently not the TV stations themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/30/nato-bombs-libya-tv-transmitters

@10 To be fair “the left” over here has been fighting like cats in a bag over the issue with the battle lines drawn between the ‘anti-war left’ and the ‘humanitarian intervention left’.

@ Cylux

I imagine one of the reasons why Gaddafi’s support among the Lybian people remains high actually is propaganda. Who here thinks that for most of his reign he didn’t position himself as Lybia’s defender against western imperialist invaders

Are you implying he is not?

Whose propaganda have you been listening to?

Are you implying he is not?

I’ll say he’s not. The man’s a gangster and a thug, and the only thing he’s interested in defending is his crime family’s interests. He couldn’t give a fuck about “Libyans” in the wider sense.

The man’s a gangster and a thug, and the only thing he’s interested in defending is his crime family’s interests.

Agreed.

But to be fair to him, he’s not done a bad job at keeping the Western imperial invaders at bay.

So far, we haven’t been able to get what we want either by charm or force of arms.

@10 Richard Blogger,

If you’re arguing the toss in the USA, don’t overlook the anti-war people from the libertarian / paleo side. Neo-cons love war, as we know, but the establishment Democrats are scarcely better in that respect, especially with an incumbant in the Whitehouse.

@16 pagar

So far, we haven’t been able to get what we want either by charm or force of arms.

Technically speaking didn’t we* actually get what we wanted via charm for a time, but then with the Arab spring and the overwhelming urge to be a bunch of bomb happy interfering cunts then changed what we wanted? Which then received a helpful “we’re saving them” coat of gloss from Interventionist champions.

*By ‘we’ I of course mean Cameron and Sarkozy and any pertinent predecessors.

Technically speaking didn’t we* actually get what we wanted via charm for a time, but then with the Arab spring and the overwhelming urge to be a bunch of bomb happy interfering cunts then changed what we wanted? Which then received a helpful “we’re saving them” coat of gloss from Interventionist champions.

Yes. You are absolutely correct.

8. Schmidt

” In these days of high oil prices any helps, but Syria exports mostly low quality oil while Libya has high quality. ”

Yes, it is mostly heavy oil that Syria has and their reserves are in decline. The Syrian government relies on the export earnings of the heavy oil for foreign exchange. However, it is not as valuable as the Libyan light-grade, low-sulphur oil. They do have significant natural gas reserves, but they need foreign investment and know how to exploit them. With 60% of the population under the age of 20, and huge youth unemployment the uprising in Syria is entirely predictable.

@20 Demographics. Who’d have guessed? Could that apply to our riotous zones too?

Note to pagar too: I presume you are one of these people who think some nationalities, perhaps in the middle east or north Africa, actually need violent, oppressive governments. You know, that old meme about arabs and strong leaders, that sort of racist shit. Torture and secret police are what they need.

Fuckwit.

@ Cherub

You have been highly aggressive and unpleasant on this thread.

The state of Libya was, itself, a Western construct. I do not believe that Arabs benefit from violent, oppressive government- I actually don’t believe anybody benefits much from any government.

I do have enough respect for the inhabitants of Libya to believe they should be allowed to determine their own destiny, whatever that may be, and that our intervention will only get in the way and make matters worse. I also believe that our arguments for getting involved are disingenuous.

Trust that explains.

We can play media wars all we like but on the ground it is very real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3G8CQ6pA8U

Do we really have to wait until this persists long enough for it to become very real for us.
What would you do tables reversed?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cPpCD05aYI

And is it any wonder that we are failing in Libya? As we’ve seen, our own government can’t even impose order on a bunch of stoned teenagers with BlackBerries, so how can they possibly hope to engineer a successful regime change in some far away land. Not. Going. To. Happen. Incredible as it it seems, we’ve been radically overestimating the competence of these people. Not only should they not be starting any wars aimed at remodelling entire societies, but they shouldn’t even bother with active foreign policy–they’re too likely to fsck it up.

@ Symon

Although I don’t agree with our attack on Libya, I have to say that the video you posted felt like manufactured propaganda.

The hope is of course one bomb hits one building in which the Gadaffi family are having a meal of fish and chips with the leaders and generals, end of war.

Cost of that bombing may even reach another billion quid, but at least our troops are getting good training so when they come back get the sack they can have a resume to find a job in lets see Banking, or even dropping bombs on looters

Yup – there are lots of ethnic minority folk working in the local branch of my bank.

Very sensibly, the bank has figured that it’s good for business. And they are articulate, sharp and helpful in my experience. But I’ve come across some very dumb white folk working for banks too, like that lady with a Scots accent who told me in the autumn of 2008 that the Scots make good bankers.

…there are lots of ethnic minority folk working in the local branch of my bank.

You are Mrs Brady: Old Lady and I claim my five pounds.

@pagar

I wouldn’t say manufactured, the bodies appear real enough. Capitalised upon for the resistance effort? of course, what would you do?

@All

The agenda is Syria which is allied to Iran and then Iran itself. We have already been told as much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXtccjUGrs There are several other sources confirming the agenda too. I’ll leave it to you to research. Lot’s of information on-line, not difficult to uncover. Take a look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-XIeb879SY . Also research Project For The New American Century (PNAC)

Bahrain and Yemen are already client states, hence no mention of the protester crack downs that are taking place there.

Debate about what Gaddafi mighta coulda woulda done, are a waste of emotional energy. What we witnessing is the implementation of a plan the has been long in the works.

i remember at the start much was made that the great champions of demcracy, the arab league were fully on board with the nato mission and that qatar were providing planes and were ready to fly combat missions. could someone tell me how many combat sorties the qataris or any other arab state has flown?!

The fact is that the people who looted did so because they thought they could get away with it. They saw that the police weren’t enforcing the law, and were allowing the riots to play themselves out, and they decided to go and loot themselves some “free stuff”.

That is the simplest and probably most logical explanation for people’s behaviour.

Some of them (like the girls above) were out to riot because it felt good, it was an opportunity for them to assert their “power” over “normal” people.

The fact is that some of the people were “just caught up in the madness”.

Others made the decision that it was OK for them to go and steal things from other people. – I don’t know why they think this is OK – perhaps there’s something wrong with them? Anyone who’s been burgled will have asked themselves this question at some point.

The job of society is to try and solve what is wrong with the people who think it’s OK to do that sort of thing.

The difference between left and right is how they believe that can be solved.

too many windows open, that was intended for a different thread (please ignore)