Libya still in turmoil

[unokitty]

In historical terms, nation states only date back to the 18th century or so...

Many of the so called middle eastern nation states exist today simply because British or French administrators drew lines on maps while exiting the country.

The modern organizations that I admire are all international or transnational. (Apple, IBM, Google, Honda, etc...)

Perhaps, nation states are becoming obsolete?

For example, in the US it seems that as entitlements expand as a percentage of the budget, the political process becomes an increasingly venial fight over an increasingly small amount of dollars.

(Or it becomes a fight between political factions that get money from or give money to the government.) Can any intelligent US citizen believe that their vote has a significant impact on a political election, such as the last presidential election, where special interests donated just short of 2 billion dollars?

Just asking...

The more I look at news from DC, the more it looks like Waiting for Godot.

Uno

 

[Incorruptible]

Obama did not "oust" Ghadaffi. There were 19 countries who militarily intervened, of which the US was one. It wasn't our initiative that sparked the intervention either. It was that of the French and British. The French flew far more combat missions there than the US did.

The Libyan state was going down one way or another. The entire point of the US intervening was so that we would be seen as supporting the winning side.

It's amusing how American conservatives want to hold Obama responsible for whatever bad things happen in Libya now, by re-writing the history of the conflict to make US intervention the deciding factor in the outcome. Ghadaffi was going down one way or another, with or without US intervention.

obama did play an important role and do you believe the French and British would have went in if the US said no?

obama didn't have the authority to go in and it was clearly un-Constitutional.

The winning side was al-qaida though and after Ghadaffi was executed they said that Libya would be governed by strict Islamic law. So obama helped to support a group who wants sharia law. The same morons fighting against Ghadaffi were some of the same ones who were killing US soldiers in Iraq because a large amount of the fighters came from Libya.

If Ghadaffi was going down anyways then obama should have stayed out and mind his own business. Instead he attacked a country which had done no harm to the US and wasted tax dollars.

Oh and those terrorists who killed Ghadaffi, Remember them? Well they thanked the US by attacking the US embassy and killing 4 Americans in Benghazi on Sept 11.

 

[woolfe9998]

obama did play an important role and do you believe the French and British would have went in if the US said no?

Yes, actually I do believe they would have gone in without US participation. Tracking the history of western intervention yields that conclusion. They wanted us with them, but they were going in either way. That is the beginning and end of my reply to you, because your point was that Obama "ousted Ghadaffi" and was therefore responsible for any turmoil taking place there now. Your point was dead wrong. The rest of your arguments are just shifting the goal posts.

 

[chucky2]

I don't know wolf. From what I remember, they couldn't have maintained combat operations without us, i.e. they could do initial strikes but not maintain tempo. Or, looking at it another way, their militaries are useless to any real aggressor without US. Pretty sad for allies who are supposed to stand up to the USSR (now Russia).

 

[Agent11]

In historical terms, nation states only date back to the 18th century or so...

Many of the so called middle eastern nation states exist today simply because British or French administrators drew lines on maps while exiting the country.

The modern organizations that I admire are all international or transnational. (Apple, IBM, Google, Honda, etc...)

Perhaps, nation states are becoming obsolete?

For example, in the US it seems that as entitlements expand as a percentage of the budget, the political process becomes an increasingly venial fight over an increasingly small amount of dollars.

(Or it becomes a fight between political factions that get money from or give money to the government.) Can any intelligent US citizen believe that their vote has a significant impact on a political election, such as the last presidential election, where special interests donated just short of 2 billion dollars?

Just asking...

The more I look at news from DC, the more it looks like Waiting for Godot.

Uno

Nation states were born of blood and sacrifice for the greater good, Napoleon actually had quite a lot to say on the subject. This is why I find it disturbing that the west seems to have lost it's backbone.

Happy thoughts and a ballot box will not civilize some of these countries, and the fact that our leaders do not seem to realize this makes them look very naive.

 

[Anarchist420]

I heard that Ghaddaffi had become a hard money man. He also didn't believe in State-provided education (I'm assuming he wasn't lying). He also didn't impose strict sharia like those who replaced him did or so I implied.

Obama is one hellacious hypocrite because if VA or any other State tried to secede from the U.S. govt, he'd start using nukes.

Happy thoughts and a ballot box will not civilize some of these countries, and the fact that our leaders do not seem to realize this makes them look very naive.

I agree 100% with the first part, but I don't know that it's out of care for the rebels... it could simply be competition (see William Graham Sumner's theory on war).

That is, the Anglo-American Elites don't want to lose their establishment to a developing nation making progress... an example would be that most members of the Federalist Party didn't like Jewish people as the former knew they couldn't hold onto their govt-granted privileges in a free society.

 

[Agent11]

And yet our economic and trade policies are ruining our position in the world empowering the third world developing countries.

The question is are our leaders incompetent, stupid, or evil. I'm leaning towards incompetent and overly sure of their assumed mental superiority.

 

[Anarchist420]

The question is are our leaders incompetent, stupid, or evil. I'm leaning towards incompetent and overly sure of their assumed mental superiority.

The ruling class (Congress, Judiciary, and the Executive) are 98% pure evil, some are incomptentent, most are smart. Dick Cheney was smart, but not incompetent at all. Cheney Dick is one sadistic motherf***er as he lobbied for a sick, sick, total war against Serbia and stood down NORAD on 9/11 so he could profit from it... then lied about all of it.

In other words, Dick Cheney does not want to care about a nation without raping it. He largely lacks compassion, so there is no way he could care about the safety of anyone but himself (usually), meaning... the "national security" stuff is a bunch of bullshit.

John McCain, on the other hand, isn't competent and probably not pure evil, but he doesn't know how to care about a nation without raping it.

Obama is like McCain in that regard.

Romney is stupid though, while caring about those close to him and his country (he would attempt to rape it and never even realize that was what he was doing)... he has a rather emotional feminine side.

Unfortunately, I'm stupid like Romney and evil like Dick Cheney.

 

[werepossum]

Obama did not "oust" Ghadaffi. There were 19 countries who militarily intervened, of which the US was one. It wasn't our initiative that sparked the intervention either. It was that of the French and British. The French flew far more combat missions there than the US did.

The Libyan state was going down one way or another. The entire point of the US intervening was so that we would be seen as supporting the winning side.

It's amusing how American conservatives want to hold Obama responsible for whatever bad things happen in Libya now, by re-writing the history of the conflict to make US intervention the deciding factor in the outcome. Ghadaffi was going down one way or another, with or without US intervention.

US intervention was without doubt the deciding factor in the outcome. French and British forces lacked the ability to effectively operate against the Libyan air defenses, the ability to provide effective AWAC coverage, the ability to precisely strike targets next to inviolate collateral such as mosques or hospitals, and the ability to sustain strikes in a high threat environment. Only after the US took out the air defenses and C3 could France and to a lesser extent the UK effectively operate. That said, I'm an American conservative and I'm certainly not blaming Obama for the bad things happen in Libya now. Not only are the Libyans responsible for their own acts, but I'm assuming that whatever intel caused France to turn against He-whose-name-must-never-be-spelled-the-same-way-twice and convinced Obama to take part was persuasive for American interests.

Essentially Obama did the early heavy lifting to help out our allies, as we expect them to help us. France may honor that reciprocity more in the breach than not, but the UK has been our most stalwart ally and I expect any American President to help them in their time of need.