oh noes!1!! Libya is total quagmire, Obama is the anti-christ for supporting the UN invasion, we'll be there for centuries because we'll need boots on the ground because the rebels are totally unable of capturing the country... quagmire or something.  Can someone remind me what the Fox News position was again? Seems like it's not coming true

Couple links to the appropriate places

oh noes!1!! Libya is total quagmire, Obama is the anti-christ for supporting the UN invasion, we'll be there for centuries because we'll need boots on the ground because the rebels are totally unable of capturing the country... quagmire or something.  Can someone remind me what the Fox News position was again? Seems like it's not coming true

Couple links to the appropriate places


Yesyesyes!

I don't believe that O'bama ever planned to set boots on the ground in Libya.  He was content to lob a few bombs their way because Libya was an easy hit to make.  That's also why he's not bombing Syria... because it is not the easy hit that Libya was.

However the premises of a "quick kinetic action" and "reducing the loss of civilian lives" didn't seem to come out now did they?  Thousands more people are dead in Libya due to international intervention.

This action will look even sillier when the post-Quadaffi factional violence commences.

The time for the USA to have bombed the hell out of Libya was back in the 1980's when it was in America's interest.  Despite Libya's past, NATO forces got so caught up in their warmaking and the mirage of an 'Arab Spring' that they neglected to observe tha in the 2010's, Quadaffi was actually a stabilizing force in North Africa.  Dems and Repubs alike made the same mistake on this one.

hats off to the rebels, man. i didn't think they had it in 'em, i'll be honest. this is a rare bit of exciting news, with Obama's help the Libyan people have pulled off what Reagan couldn't. Somehow, though, I have the suspicion Hillary should get more of the credit for this than Obambi, and to me it's frustrating that our foreign policy under the dems is so much better than our domestic policy. But nevertheless, Obama gets credit for helping this along just like he gets credit for tracking down OBL. Keep rackin' 'em up, Obama, maybe the tide will turn.

hats off to the rebels, man. i didn't think they had it in 'em, i'll be honest. this is a rare bit of exciting news, with Obama's help the Libyan people have pulled off what Reagan couldn't.

The Libyan people pulled off little.  The rebels were almost vanquished until Western air power was brought to bear.  Western air power destroyed the (albeit not very capable) Libyan Air force, sank all of its warships, and did aerial plinking of tanks and artillery pieces, then supplied the rebels with weapons, cash, and battle strategy help.  The Sisters of Saint Joseph could have taken Tripoli with all the Western air attacks over the past 6 months.

Next steps? Factional infighting, and demands that the West pony up money to rebuild the infrastructure which was destroyed over the past 180 days.

Will be interesting to see Quadaffi's fate though... Will he go down fighting, or will he beat a quick retreat to Tunisia or The Sudan? ???

Wow, 42 years of Gadaffi rulership comes to an end.

The only problem I see in this is if the rebels go as crazy as Gadaffi will we end up going to war again to sort them out?

As much as I think Gadaffi needed sorting out, both the UK and the US are moral hypocrites. We act like the world's police under the guise of democracy when all we are interested in is the oil supply. I wonder why we didn't/don't show so much enthusiasm to oust Robert Mugabe from office in Zimbabwe...  :-\\

  The Sisters of Saint Joseph could have taken Tripoli with all the Western air attacks over the past 6 months.


;D +1

hats off to the rebels, man. i didn't think they had it in 'em, i'll be honest.


And with apologies to Marshall McLuhan, this time around, the revolution was even televised.

One of the coolest moments of last night's beer-drinking-and-popcorn-munching session was seeing a live phone interview with one of Gadaffi's sons cut off due to gunfire, live, as the rebels overtook the building.


The only problem I see in this is if the rebels go as crazy as Gadaffi will we end up going to war again to sort them out?


http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/libyasquare.jpg

They may be crazy, but they sure don't look like the radical Islamic fanatics that Gadaffi, Mubarak, Hugo Chavez, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Republicans would have us believe they are.

They may be crazy, but they sure don't look like the radical Islamic fanatics that Gadaffi, Mubarak, Hugo Chavez, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Republicans would have us believe they are.


Hopefully, it's not a case of a lesser of two evils. If the US gave the rebels weapons to overthrow Gaddafi does that mean the US will go to war with them in about 20 years time.  ;)

That's what happens when you watch Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine', lol.

Gadaffi loyalists are still holding about thirty journalists in a Tripoli hotel.  I hope everybody gets out okay.
:(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv8tVxk6Nj4&feature=related

Gadaffi loyalists are still holding about thirty journalists in a Tripoli hotel.  I hope everybody gets out okay.


They did.  As soon as the loyalists realized the regime had fallen, it was cool.  Without access to anything else, the troops "guarding" the journalists really believed Gaddafi's propaganda, up until it was obvious to anyone and everyone that it was just, well, propaganda.


Hopefully, it's not a case of a lesser of two evils. If the US gave the rebels weapons to overthrow Gaddafi does that mean the US will go to war with them in about 20 years time.  ;)


Possibly.  Rambo III turned out to be a pretty crappy return on our investment against the Russians.  But we've got until 2030 to settle the bet on our support of Gaddafi's overthrow.  LyricBoy: double or nothing? :)

http://midliferocksblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Muammar-gaddafi-funny.jpg

New disguise. :D

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DcigqUTuhLk/TYOXOkJM9UI/AAAAAAAACpw/NGXcJJKeupM/s1600/make%2Bup.jpg

oh noes!1!! Libya is total quagmire, Obama is the anti-christ for supporting the UN invasion, we'll be there for centuries because we'll need boots on the ground because the rebels are totally unable of capturing the country... quagmire or something.  Can someone remind me what the Fox News position was again? Seems like it's not coming true

Couple links to the appropriate places
During the 2008 election(and before) you were against the "Bush wars". Now you support this conflict. What's the difference? It's just a continuation of the Bush Doctrine. You referring to this conflict as a "UN invasion" is laughable. The US/NATO using a UN Resolution as a pretext for war does not make it a "UN invasion". You need a history lesson on the UN's involvement in conflicts.

The biggest accomplishment of the Obama presidency was to show how hypocritical both sides really are. Dems- War under Bush=BAD, War under Obama=GOOD  GOP- War under Bush- GOOD, War under Obama=BAD

Bush would have intervened in this situation as well. Libya is a strategic area with tons of resources. The difference is you would have been whining about this conflict if Bush were still in charge.

Now there's gonna be a power vacuum in the African region with terrorist organizations praying they can fill it, and when this so called "Arab Spring" isn't the sunshine and lollipops it was supposed to be, guess who has to walk in there and occupy it under the disguise of "spreading democracy"(oops, wrong catch phrase. Obama calls it "zones of freedom")? The United States. Now our defense budget can go from borrowing $700 billion a year to sustain it to a trillion and an already spread too thin military can twiddle their thumbs in another country while getting shot. YAY!! Obama and his cheering section win!

Now can you tell me what you won?



The disgusting thing about this conflict is that we're aiding Al Qaeda in the conflict. Even Hilary had issues with this, but we cant let such small details get in the way of our mouths watering over establishing a long term presence in that vital region.



One of the coolest moments of last night's beer-drinking-and-popcorn-munching session was seeing a live phone interview with one of Gadaffi's sons cut off due to gunfire, live, as the rebels overtook the building.

The post above also a continuation of the Bush Doctrine to a degree. Presenting warfare as something for you to cheer on like a sports game while you drink beer and eat popcorn. The destruction, loss of life, and consequences to these actions just trivial issues not to be thought of as you might choke to death on a popcorn kernel if you were to actually realize what you're cheering for. I don't blame Putin for referring to us as "parasites". He's right. If we didn't have such a large nuclear arsenal, naval armada, and our military stationed in every strategic spot on the globe, we'd get occupied and extinguished in three shakes of a lamb's tail.


Wow, 42 years of Gadaffi rulership comes to an end.

The only problem I see in this is if the rebels go as crazy as Gadaffi will we end up going to war again to sort them out?
One person in this thread gets it. Congrats.

We wont be going to war with them "again". It will be a continuation of the ongoing conflict, which the cheering section believes to be over but in reality has just started. Its why NATO allies started pulling out of the conflict months ago(Norway,Germany, Italy) and more allies considering it(Canada, France). They woke up and smelled the coffee, and they realized the coffee smell wasn't enforcing a UN resolution of a no fly zone to prevent the Libyan military from killing civilians but was instead the smell of occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the amount of countries willing to deal with a potential long term occupation when the Gaddafi smoke clears is going to be narrowed down to one.

The beer guzzlers and popcorn munchers should be placed on the front lines when it happens.



I wonder why we didn't/don't show so much enthusiasm to oust Robert Mugabe from office in Zimbabwe...  :-\\
You answered your own question in your previous sentence. Mugabe and Zimbabwe have nothing we need at the moment. As the tendrils of the US military begin digging into Africa, we may eventually see action in Sudan, Zimbabwe,etc. but it will have nothing to do with the prevention of wide scale massacres which have been occurring there for years.



with Obama's help the Libyan people have pulled off what Reagan couldn't.
You need a history lesson on Reagan's two strikes against Libya which had nothing to do with regime change or occupying Libya. Reagan with the greatest military on the planet in zero wars couldn't do what is happening now with the US in two major conflicts, up to its ass in debt, and on the verge of economic collapse?? Take your partisan glasses off.


it's frustrating that our foreign policy under the dems is so much better than our domestic policy. But nevertheless, Obama gets credit for helping this along just like he gets credit for tracking down OBL. Keep rackin' 'em up, Obama, maybe the tide will turn.
Another closet Bush supporter. You remind me of a friend of mine in the military. He voted for Bush twice, ranted non stop about Obama during the election, then started to support him on a variety of issues. Why? Because Obama stayed the course that was set by Bush. At least he was willing to admit it.



That's also why he's not bombing Syria... because it is not the easy hit that Libya was.
He's not bombing Syria yet because it's not the right time. I agree it wont be easy and tensions with Russia will reach Cold War levels when we start bombing there and could quickly turn into a US-Russia proxy war, but Syria will be the next domino to fall regardless.



This action will look even sillier when the post-Quadaffi factional violence commences.
You're not kidding.


The time for the USA to have bombed the hell out of Libya was back in the 1980's when it was in America's interest.  Despite Libya's past, NATO forces got so caught up in their warmaking and the mirage of an 'Arab Spring' that they neglected to observe tha in the 2010's, Quadaffi was actually a stabilizing force in North Africa.  Dems and Repubs alike made the same mistake on this one.
I agree on him being a stabilizing force in the region(just like Saddam was) and when all this is finally over it will be considered a colossal mistake.

As far as Reagan goes, while I agree he had the right to pulverize Libya in 86 had he wished to do so, the cons far outweighed the pros in doing it. He took the smart way out by doing strategic strikes to send a message and it worked at the time. Had he used the Bush/Obama doctrine of mass air strikes and possibly occupying Libya during the final years of the Cold War, it would have lit a fuse across that entire continent and we probably would have had to use everything in our military including the kitchen sink and steamroll the continent, creating a never ending quagmire. Take into account the Soviets would not have sat idle while we did this. Also take into account that during the 80s, people didn't sit around drinking and cheering on war after war after war. The American people would not have had the stomach for such a lengthy conflict.

Fugitive Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi offers to begin talks to transfer power to the rebels, his spokesman tells the media.

Colonel Gaddafi's second wife Safia and three of her children are in Algeria, Algiers confirms

During the 2008 election(and before) you were against the "Bush wars". Now you support this conflict. What's the difference? It's just a continuation of the Bush Doctrine. You referring to this conflict as a "UN invasion" is laughable. The US/NATO using a UN Resolution as a pretext for war does not make it a "UN invasion". You need a history lesson on the UN's involvement in conflicts.

The biggest accomplishment of the Obama presidency was to show how hypocritical both sides really are. Dems- War under Bush=BAD, War under Obama=GOOD  GOP- War under Bush- GOOD, War under Obama=BAD

Bush would have intervened in this situation as well. Libya is a strategic area with tons of resources. The difference is you would have been whining about this conflict if Bush were still in charge.

Now there's gonna be a power vacuum in the African region with terrorist organizations praying they can fill it, and when this so called "Arab Spring" isn't the sunshine and lollipops it was supposed to be, guess who has to walk in there and occupy it under the disguise of "spreading democracy"(oops, wrong catch phrase. Obama calls it "zones of freedom")? The United States. Now our defense budget can go from borrowing $700 billion a year to sustain it to a trillion and an already spread too thin military can twiddle their thumbs in another country while getting shot. YAY!! Obama and his cheering section win!

Now can you tell me what you won?


There's a HUGE GIGANTIC difference between supporting the rebels within a country, and invading a country and installing a military force as a replacement police force.  You want hypocrisy? The right was against "nation building" until Bush was in office, but were more than happy to begin doing just that once he was elected.  Providing air-support is not the "boots on the ground' effort of Afghanistan and Iraq. Saying that if I oppose that, I should oppose every other military action is just nonsense.

No matter how much you want to paint it as the "Bush Doctrine" it's more equivalent to supporting the UN in Bosnia.  The UN didn't invade Iraq and Afghanistan.  Those were strictly US/UK adventures. True revolutions are begun within the country by the people being oppressed, not by an outside country installing puppet governments.

During the 2008 election(and before) you were against the "Bush wars". Now you support this conflict. What's the difference? It's just a continuation of the Bush Doctrine. You referring to this conflict as a "UN invasion" is laughable. The US/NATO using a UN Resolution as a pretext for war does not make it a "UN invasion". You need a history lesson on the UN's involvement in conflicts.

The biggest accomplishment of the Obama presidency was to show how hypocritical both sides really are. Dems- War under Bush=BAD, War under Obama=GOOD  GOP- War under Bush- GOOD, War under Obama=BAD

Bush would have intervened in this situation as well. Libya is a strategic area with tons of resources. The difference is you would have been whining about this conflict if Bush were still in charge.

Now there's gonna be a power vacuum in the African region with terrorist organizations praying they can fill it, and when this so called "Arab Spring" isn't the sunshine and lollipops it was supposed to be, guess who has to walk in there and occupy it under the disguise of "spreading democracy"(oops, wrong catch phrase. Obama calls it "zones of freedom")? The United States. Now our defense budget can go from borrowing $700 billion a year to sustain it to a trillion and an already spread too thin military can twiddle their thumbs in another country while getting shot. YAY!! Obama and his cheering section win!

Now can you tell me what you won?



The disgusting thing about this conflict is that we're aiding Al Qaeda in the conflict. Even Hilary had issues with this, but we cant let such small details get in the way of our mouths watering over establishing a long term presence in that vital region.

The post above also a continuation of the Bush Doctrine to a degree. Presenting warfare as something for you to cheer on like a sports game while you drink beer and eat popcorn. The destruction, loss of life, and consequences to these actions just trivial issues not to be thought of as you might choke to death on a popcorn kernel if you were to actually realize what you're cheering for. I don't blame Putin for referring to us as "parasites". He's right. If we didn't have such a large nuclear arsenal, naval armada, and our military stationed in every strategic spot on the globe, we'd get occupied and extinguished in three shakes of a lamb's tail.
One person in this thread gets it. Congrats.

We wont be going to war with them "again". It will be a continuation of the ongoing conflict, which the cheering section believes to be over but in reality has just started. Its why NATO allies started pulling out of the conflict months ago(Norway,Germany, Italy) and more allies considering it(Canada, France). They woke up and smelled the coffee, and they realized the coffee smell wasn't enforcing a UN resolution of a no fly zone to prevent the Libyan military from killing civilians but was instead the smell of occupation like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the amount of countries willing to deal with a potential long term occupation when the Gaddafi smoke clears is going to be narrowed down to one.

The beer guzzlers and popcorn munchers should be placed on the front lines when it happens.

You answered your own question in your previous sentence. Mugabe and Zimbabwe have nothing we need at the moment. As the tendrils of the US military begin digging into Africa, we may eventually see action in Sudan, Zimbabwe,etc. but it will have nothing to do with the prevention of wide scale massacres which have been occurring there for years.

You need a history lesson on Reagan's two strikes against Libya which had nothing to do with regime change or occupying Libya. Reagan with the greatest military on the planet in zero wars couldn't do what is happening now with the US in two major conflicts, up to its ass in debt, and on the verge of economic collapse?? Take your partisan glasses off.
Another closet Bush supporter. You remind me of a friend of mine in the military. He voted for Bush twice, ranted non stop about Obama during the election, then started to support him on a variety of issues. Why? Because Obama stayed the course that was set by Bush. At least he was willing to admit it.

He's not bombing Syria yet because it's not the right time. I agree it wont be easy and tensions with Russia will reach Cold War levels when we start bombing there and could quickly turn into a US-Russia proxy war, but Syria will be the next domino to fall regardless.

You're not kidding.
I agree on him being a stabilizing force in the region(just like Saddam was) and when all this is finally over it will be considered a colossal mistake.

As far as Reagan goes, while I agree he had the right to pulverize Libya in 86 had he wished to do so, the cons far outweighed the pros in doing it. He took the smart way out by doing strategic strikes to send a message and it worked at the time. Had he used the Bush/Obama doctrine of mass air strikes and possibly occupying Libya during the final years of the Cold War, it would have lit a fuse across that entire continent and we probably would have had to use everything in our military including the kitchen sink and steamroll the continent, creating a never ending quagmire. Take into account the Soviets would not have sat idle while we did this. Also take into account that during the 80s, people didn't sit around drinking and cheering on war after war after war. The American people would not have had the stomach for such a lengthy conflict.


I'm going to Karma you for this.

But don't get me wrong...I still think Bush I (Not GWB) should've ended the 1st Iraq War, and I don't like him doing that!

But someone else may agree with you...Dennis Kucinich, he even said that Bush asked Congress going to BOTH Democrats and Republicans. 

The post above also a continuation of the Bush Doctrine to a degree. Presenting warfare as something for you to cheer on like a sports game while you drink beer and eat popcorn. The destruction, loss of life, and consequences to these actions just trivial issues not to be thought of as you might choke to death on a popcorn kernel if you were to actually realize what you're cheering for.


Karma for truth.  (And one of the best damn posts this section has seen in years.)

After the politicization of the past four administrations (Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, Obama) and their respective wars-of-opportunity (Gulf War I, That Thing In Bosnia, Gulf War II, and Libya), I've largely stopped caring about the arguments for/against their respective wars, because the justifications for (and against) our wars have degenerated entirely to partisan bickering.  If a 100-mile asteroid were detected on a collision course for an extinction-level-event in 50 years, those asshats on the Hill would still be bickering about whether or not it was "socialism" or "part of the UN Agenda 21" to cooperate at a global level to deflect it (if a Democrat was in charge), or if it was a "giveaway to big business" and "what about the environmental impact of the launch vehicle" to build the launch vehicle (if a Republican were in charge).  

As Bill Hicks put it, "'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'".

So I picked up the sledgehammer, reset the moral compass to "It's OK when we're blowing up whatever the President, regardless of party, wants blown up", and grabbed the beer and popcorn.  What, you think there's a way to stop it from happening?  We're apes.  We're the damn dirty apes who blow it all up eventually.  Unless your net worth is measured in billions of dollars or millions of votes, stop wasting your time trying to fix what can't be fixed, and enjoy the ride - whether it ends in the gutter or the stars - for what it is.  

The Soviet Union was the other modern superpower that tried "keeping a lid on people" by appointing thugs to rule over satellite "republics". Their implosion in the 90s was epic.  Our attempts to impose "freedom" on Iran in the 80s, and Afghanistan and Iraq in the 00s failed just as badly.

Maybe it wasn't the intention of the Department of State, but the remnants of my moral compass still point in the general direction of "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary...", and if the Libyan or the Egyptian people choose to be our adversary in 2020, that's still a better outcome (to me) than having them as slaves of whatever thug we helped impose on them until the pot really boils over.

^it's actually kinda refreshing to see someone willing to be so openly cynical and misanthropic! well written stuff, though.

though i don't have much enthusiasm for the libyan intervention or kosovo, there DOES seem to be a difference in how republicans and democrats start and wage wars. democrats focus a lot more on air power and limited use of power, republicans seem to like to just dive in with armored divisions and just get that nice, gooey tar baby quagmire goo all over themselves. but more importantly, in both libya and kosovo there actually DOES seem to be a fair amount of evidence that an enormous massacre was either being committed or was about to be committed. in afghanistan and iraq, you really can't make that case. yes, they were both oppressive regimes, but it was the same oppressive regime we'd been dealing with just a couple years before, there wasn't some looming uptick in violence that the military action served to prevent.

that said, i do kinda share your cynicism about US foreign policy. and i agree that it's high time we start letting people around the world pursue self-determination, even if they end up making choices we don't like. our 60-year experiment with propping up friendly dictators around the world is officially a big FAIL, in my book.

^it's actually kinda refreshing to see someone willing to be so openly cynical and misanthropic! well written stuff, though.

though i don't have much enthusiasm for the libyan intervention or kosovo, there DOES seem to be a difference in how republicans and democrats start and wage wars. democrats focus a lot more on air power and limited use of power, republicans seem to like to just dive in with armored divisions and just get that nice, gooey tar baby quagmire goo all over themselves. but more importantly, in both libya and kosovo there actually DOES seem to be a fair amount of evidence that an enormous massacre was either being committed or was about to be committed. in afghanistan and iraq, you really can't make that case. yes, they were both oppressive regimes, but it was the same oppressive regime we'd been dealing with just a couple years before, there wasn't some looming uptick in violence that the military action served to prevent.

that said, i do kinda share your cynicism about US foreign policy. and i agree that it's high time we start letting people around the world pursue self-determination, even if they end up making choices we don't like. our 60-year experiment with propping up friendly dictators around the world is officially a big FAIL, in my book.


This is why policing the world is a bad idea for the U.S., many countries will take advantage of our ideas and history and it burns-out most of America when we do this in many ways.

Trust me on this one....

This is why policing the world is a bad idea for the U.S., many countries will take advantage of our ideas and history and it burns-out most of America when we do this in many ways.

Trust me on this one....
i actually don't think it's necessarily that bad if it's done with the UN. (i have no idea why NATO even still exists...) but that crap bush pulled with his "coalition of the willing" was ridiculous.

there are military operations i'm kinda halfway on. i think bush sr. had a point that we really didn't want to just let hussein take over kuwait. i'm glad the massacre in libya was averted and qaddafi was deposed. even still, though, i'm suspicious whenever the govt starts a war. wars are rackets.

i actually don't think it's necessarily that bad if it's done with the UN. (i have no idea why NATO even still exists...) but that crap bush pulled with his "coalition of the willing" was ridiculous.

there are military operations i'm kinda halfway on. i think bush sr. had a point that we really didn't want to just let hussein take over kuwait. i'm glad the massacre in libya was averted and qaddafi was deposed. even still, though, i'm suspicious whenever the govt starts a war. wars are rackets.


But profitable (for some) rackets.

One more word - "real politique"

There's a HUGE GIGANTIC difference between supporting the rebels within a country, and invading a country and installing a military force as a replacement police force. 
No there isn't, and you say that like the Libyan conflict is over and we've already left.  Wait.....supporting the rebels? That's not what this mission was supposed to be about, remember? The UN mandate was a no fly zone to prevent the mass slaughter of civilians. We weren't supposed to side with anyone. It went from a neutral stance before the bombs started dropping to blowing up everything in sight while British and US special ops(including the CIA) went in to help the rebels, who have ties to various terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda. This is why Russia says the world was duped into this conflict and they're right. The real objective was revealed once the operation was underway.....regime change and eventual occupation, which just happen to be the two major elements of the Bush Doctrine.



You want hypocrisy? The right was against "nation building" until Bush was in office, but were more than happy to begin doing just that once he was elected.
I don't do the partisan bickering thing regarding conflict. Both sides are knee deep in this so it's pointless to do so.



Providing air-support is not the "boots on the ground' effort of Afghanistan and Iraq. 
We've done much more than just provide air support. In fact, this conflict is eerily similar to the two you mentioned above. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars started out with air strikes and special ops and CIA task forces going in and aiding and arming the resistance. Guess how the Libya conflict started? Just because we haven't sent in 100,000 ground troops yet doesn't change the fact the US has the same goal regarding Libya.



Saying that if I oppose that, I should oppose every other military action is just nonsense.
No it isn't. What's nonsense is you supporting or opposing military action based on the party of the guy calling in the air strikes. You either support US and/or NATO imperialism as it walks through the Middle East and Africa, or you don't. Simple as that. You don't get to flip flop based on who wins an election. By the way, Libya, Syria, and Somalia were all on Bush's list of countries to bomb and occupy but he simply ran out of time. Kinda funny that those three are now in Obama's sights. But according to the partisans, what's going on now has NOTHING to do with what went on the past 10 years. Yeah....sure.



No matter how much you want to paint it as the "Bush Doctrine"
I don't want to paint it as the Bush Doctrine. It IS the Bush Doctrine.



it's more equivalent to supporting the UN in Bosnia.
Wow. No it isn't. Not even close.  No offense, but you obviously know very little about the UN's involvement in conflicts and shouldn't be making these blanket statements about the UN's role in them.



The UN didn't invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
They didn't invade Bosnia or Libya either.



Those were strictly US/UK adventures.
Oh wow. Strictly?? Really? You know even less about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars than you do about the UN, which should have been impossible. The 9/11 attacks and the imminent conflict with Afghanistan were the first time in history NATO invoked Article 5 and if you don't know the significance of that, I don't know what to tell you. Just because the US and UK have a larger and superior military than other allies does not make them "US/UK adventures". If we use your logic, WWII was nothing more than a US adventure. As far as Iraq goes, they were in violation of several UN resolutions long before the war started, and the US and UK were not the only two countries to vote yes on those resolutions.

The US has the power to go it alone if/when it wants to or needs to. The US also has an uncanny ability to use UN resolutions to suit its own needs, regardless of who is in the Oval Office. We also have alliances to rely on for support, and yes the UK happens to be one of those countries. If you really think the US and UK are the only two countries that are taking part in the reshaping of the Middle East and strategic areas of Africa, I have several bridges I'd like to sell you. Is the US the "top dog" in this strategy? Of course. The only participant? NO.

You should be careful with these blanket statements of yours. Many countries have suffered casualties in these wars and since this site has international members, you may rub some people the wrong way by ignoring the deaths of friends/family/citizens of their countries in these wars as you attempt to make partisan points with extremely basic knowledge on what you're discussing.



True revolutions are begun within the country by the people being oppressed, not by an outside country installing puppet governments.
So this isn't a true revolution? Make up your mind. The Libyan rebels/terrorists were being crushed until the US/NATO intervened, set up a no fly zone, destroyed Libya's military, armed the rebels, and trying to force a new government in there and influencing allies and the UN to legitimize them.



But don't get me wrong...I still think Bush I (Not GWB) should've ended the 1st Iraq WarI agree. He had the entire world behind him and the authority to walk in and take it but he pulled back instead. While he publicly stated it was the right thing to do, privately he probably regrets it. Had he occupied Iraq, dealt with the Kurdish uprising, and properly utilized the carte blanche mandate he was given, the Clinton presidency never would have occurred. That's not a slight against Clinton either. Bush would have been reelected simply because the country would not have changed presidents while that was going on.



After the politicization of the past four administrations (Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II, Obama) and their respective wars-of-opportunity (Gulf War I, That Thing In Bosnia, Gulf War II, and Libya), I've largely stopped caring about the arguments for/against their respective wars, because the justifications for (and against) our wars have degenerated entirely to partisan bickering.I agree 100% and regarding your statement about the Soviet implosion being "epic"(which it was), the downfall of the Soviet Union is the only reason every conflict we've been in since then has been able to occur. The 1991-2011 conflicts would have been tripwires for WWIII during the Cold War, especially Bosnia/Kosovo. Soviets also never would have allowed us to sit in the sandbox and oil puddle of the Middle East indefinitely. Chucky or someone can run in here and yell "Korea! Vietnam" as a rebuttal to that but it's apples and oranges.

During the Cold War and especially during the 80s, the US built the greatest military in world history as a deterrent to the Soviets and to counteract the potential spreading of communism and once the Soviets were removed from the equation, it allowed this deterrent to become offensive in nature and permanently changed the role of the US and NATO on the world stage.

Here's an interesting article, especially for those who think the rebels are saints, that the conflict is over, and Libya will now be swimming in peaches and cream with no further bloodshed....


Note to Chucky(and others): Go read about the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and their goals before reading the article. Even your much ballyhooed UN has them on their list of terrorist groups that need to be exterminated, which means the moment Gadaffi is truly removed from Libya and this new era of Libya begins which is being "sponsored" by the UN, Libya is in immediate violation of many UN resolutions.

In other words, a new UN resolution was used as an excuse to go into Libya under false pretenses, and when things get ugly in the aftermath, we have a handful of older UN resolutions to use as an excuse to stay.

Yet this sounds nothing like a Bush maneuver to you?  ;D  Amazing.


Rebel military chief says he was tortured by CIA



The overthrow of Gaddafi has brought together strange allies, but few stranger than Abdulhakim Belhaj, the military commander of all rebel military forces in Tripoli, and Nato. An Islamist whom Gaddafi tried to have the US list as a terrorist, Mr Belhaj says he was tortured by CIA agents after being arrested in the Far East in 2004 and later handed over by them to Colonel Gaddafi for further torture and imprisonment in Libya.

Mr Belhaj, the head of the military council for Tripoli, who led an Islamist guerrilla organisation fighting the Gaddafi regime in the 1990s, told The Independent in an interview that he had been directly "tortured by CIA agents" in Thailand after being first arrested in Malaysia.


If true, his story is evidence of the close co-operation between the CIA and Colonel Gaddafi's security services after the Libyan leader denounced the 9/11 attacks. After his stint in the hands of the CIA, Mr Belhaj was kept in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. He says: "I was in prison for seven years during which I was subjected to torture as well as solitary confinement. I was even denied a shower for three years." Other Libyan Islamist prisoners have related how they were sometimes taken from Abu Salim to be questioned by US officials in Tripoli.


Released from prison in 2010, Mr Belhaj, who had military experience from fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians in the 1980s, became one of the most effective rebel military commanders. He is said by diplomats to have played a crucial role in the capture of Tripoli at the end of last month, and is highly regarded by the chairman of the Transitional National Council (TNC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil.

Ironically, given his claims of previous mistreatment at US hands, Mr Belhaj has emerged as one of Nato's most important allies during their air campaign in support of the rebels over the last six months. Speaking in his headquarters in the Mitiga military airbase on the eastern outskirts of Tripoli, he forcefully denied that he and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which he helped found in 1995, had ever been allied to al-Qa'ida.

"We never had any link to al-Qa'ida," said Mr Belhaj, a short, soft-spoken, bearded man, who does not use a military title. "We never took part in global jihad. The fact that we were in the same country, Afghanistan, does not mean we had the same goal." He stresses that the sole aim of the LIFG was always to overthrow Gaddafi.

Despite his current close co-operation with Nato, Mr Belhaj says he finds it difficult to forgive his treatment by the CIA in the past.

When first detained at an airport in Malaysia in 2004 he says he was with his wife: "She was six months pregnant and she suffered a lot."

After a few days, CIA agents took him to Thailand as part of the notorious rendition process by which the agency transferred prisoners to countries where security forces were known to use torture. He says that in Thailand CIA agents took a direct part in his torture, though he did not give details. He says that "if I ever have the chance I will take legal action" against those responsible.

The disclosure of Libya's intelligence files may reveal embarrassing details of co-operation between the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies with Gaddafi's brutal and ruthless security services in pursuit of Islamist opponents. Mr Belhaj says that in the wake of 9/11, the US administration reacted by pursuing "any organisation with an Islamic agenda".

Mr Belhaj spent seven years in Abu Salim prison which was the site of the Gaddafi regime's most infamous atrocity, the massacre of some 1,200 prisoners in 1999, almost all of them Islamists, who had protested against conditions. The first protests which ushered in the uprising in Benghazi this February was by lawyers representing the families of the dead Abu Salim prisoners.

The Libyan prison was run with great savagery even against those whose offences were minor. Students accused of being excessively religious were stripped naked and attacked by dogs. Prisoners who survived might spend decades without seeing their families. In Abu Salim, Mr Belhaj helped write a 419-page document, published in 2009, which repudiated the Jihadi doctrine of holy war and the use of violence to change regimes. The name of the LIFG was changed to the Libyan Islamic Movement for Change. The ideological change, spurred by the failure of radical Islamic groups fighting on their own to overthrow governments, led to Islamists seeking the co-operation of more secular and liberal groups also opposed to Arab police states. It is these popular front coalitions that have won victories in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya.

Mr Belhaj is keen to underline that he and other Islamists are not seeking to impose their agenda. He says: "The Libyan people have different views and those views will be respected." He also evidently wants to reassure Nato countries that they have not helped get rid of Gaddafi only to see a fundamentalist Islamic state replace him. He had just returned from a meeting in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which has given him significant support, where "I explained to them our vision of the future." Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the TNC, specifically says he was taken to a Nato meeting in order to reassure the West that he presented no threat.

Mr Belhaj says the thousands of militiamen from all over Libya, who owe allegiance to his Military Council, will ultimately join a new Libyan army or return to civilian life. Asked about mass round-ups of sub-Saharan Africans, often undocumented workers, accused of being mercenaries, he said he wanted harassment stopped, but many immigrants had no identity card. He added: "Last night 10 immigrants came to this base for protection and we will check their IDs and either look after them or help them leave the country."

On the whereabouts of Gaddafi, he said that the military operation room in charge of locating him had "strong information he is in Bani Walid". Saadi, one of Gaddafi's sons had phoned Mr Belhaj a few days ago "to separate himself from his father's regime" and was told that, if he surrendered himself, his safety would be guaranteed and he would receive a fair trial.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/rebel-military-chief-says-he-was-tortured-by-cia-2347912.html