What if NATO fails with Lybia?

The question needs to be asked. What if NATO doesnt “win” in Lybia?

where are you now

IMO – if the countless wars for ‘black gold’ were being fought on UK soil…..

IMO – if the countless wars for ‘black gold’ were being fought on UK, European or American soil then a long time ago replacements for fossil fuels would have been researched, developed and we could let the carbon cycle run it’s course.
(I don’t mean a Sinclair C5 either):rolleyes:

Instead we have the extortionately expensive mess we are in globally caught up in multiple theatres of war.

The “dying” Al-Megrahi’s doctor might be this “dead” lady:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0826/breaking15.html

It’s something of a domino effect, isn’t it? The Arab part really took wing in Egypt and that spread with varying degrees of success. Libya has been a thorn in our side for decades and once the Scots gave in and returned al-Megrahi, Gaddafi’s fate was probably sealed. I agree that it has little or nothing to do with oil.

I believe Syria is well-armed and although Assad’s record internally is appalling his direct effect on the West has been minimal.

Awakening, yes – it is being called the Arab Spring……but I wonder how many states will reach their summer. We don’t yet know if what will replace Mubarrak in September will be any better.

My point exactly 🙂
The inconsistencies caused by multiple Goverments / Nations with in the UN etc. are the lesser of two evils.

On Libya, I would like to know the real reason for the regime change.
Its not on humanitarian grounds because that just does not happen in the real world. I t is not enough reason to act in other countries (helicopter gunships used on civilians in Syria, on the news a few days ago).
I dont think it is oil either. We already had some good deals going on there. And lets be honest its a lot easier to do business with a dictator than multiple warring `tribes`.

In my opinion the Middle East is just going through its `awakening period` , something we did centuries ago.

World government – no, I don’t think so….. utopian in concept and impractical in execution. What we have is not good but maybe better than it was and I think I’d rather stick with it and its imperfections.

Maybe we just need to accelerate the centralisation of power.
Some kind of world Goverment /Army perhaps 🙂

Sadly Sky High you are exactly right, and it greatly upsets me the way things are at the moment.
I’m not anti-NATO,UN or American, Its just the values just don’t fit in anymore and it seems the quest is driven by money and not human life.

I totally agree with your first sentence. And it has always been so. Because it is not a disinterested grouping of nations, but a highly politicised grouping where self-interest and political positioning determine the decisions reached. It has little to do with the aspirations of the League of Nations which spawned it.

I just feel the UN and NATO are very selective on what countries they help and don’t help and Syria,Bahrian, Zimbabwe, Iran and Belarus to name a few all seem to be allowed to be ruled and mistreated by insane dicators and Libya where oil is said to be of the highest quality and plentiful gets UN and NATO assistance.

My wife is from Belarus and still has family there and there is plenty of things very disturbing going on as Europe look on.

The countries economy is in freefall and the Belarusian rouble lost half its value over night. Partly because before the last election Alexander Lukashenko doubled public sector and pensioners pay and won the election by 79.42% of the vote. Although during this time most of the opposition leaders ended up with a spell in prison.

On the 11th April this year there was a bomb attack on Oktyabrskaya metro station that killed over 14 people and hurt many more. The security forces raided all the opposition leaders offices and arrested 2 so called terrorists on the next day their names were never publicly released and to this day the whole situation has a odd feel about it. At the time Lukashenko blamed “The West” for trying to distablise Belarus.

The Belarussian public can not protest without being brutally supressed, People are also queuing at banks to get their money out incase the banks are unable to give the money out. People are not spending roubles and instead dealing in euro or dollars and there has been some panic buying in last few days or so.
The Belarussian government has also recently thrown out Russian and European reporters and controls the media totally.
I remind you that Belarus shares borders with Europe and Russian gas comes through Belarus to Europe.

Then there is Iran, A good friend of ours is a reporter and was tortured while in Iran in ways I can not write here. Her family are still there and if she phones them the security services break in to the calls, Her internet connection is also tampered with whenever she uses it. Her family have had all their assests frozen and are arrested anytime she writes anything here, Her father has been tortured several times in the last few years. She can not return home and visit family at fear of arrest and torture and is in many ways isolated.

All I am saying is yes a agree that Libya deserves regime change, But the way NATO and UN cherry picks who they get involved with bugs me.

What rankles even more is Zimbabwe. If ever there was a despot guilty of genocide it is Mugabe. But we haven’t heard a whisper about his potential arraignment in the Hague. 😡

Apologies for thread drift.

Kev – his intimate knowledge of the two conflicts compared to our own is not the argument. It is the simplistic but probably inevitable view of many who have fought that fighting wars is never right. Many other brave servicemen who take a more objective view, believe that wars do sometimes have to be fought.

If a ruler is killing his internal opponents, isn’t that a matter for the UN?

Isn’t that where the UN falls down? The UN can pass a resolution authorising the use of force to do just about anything but unless some nation with the military capability and the political will to intervene steps-up the UN is powerless to implement that resolution.

Libya fits nicely into these criteria; it is wealthy (oil rich), influential (historically a bad influence) and Europe and the US have some old scores to settle.

Rwanda failed to fit these criteria despite the genocide.

…and still not achieved the USA aim of controling the oil there.

Does Obama know that’s why we’re there?:rolleyes:
Tell him and we’ll pull out to let the UK and France do the heavy lifting alone.:D

I’m not sure why Libya is a NATO mission at all.

If a ruler is killing his internal opponents, isn’t that a matter for the UN?
I don’t think it is the concern of Europe or the US alone. If the world (including Asia, Russia, the mid-east, Africa, South America) wants to get mad about it fine, let them help support the mission.

Harry Patch, as we all know, was an Infantryman in the First World War and a Firefighter in the Second. Might I respectfully suggest that this man had a more intimate knowledge of those two events than any of us sitting safely behind our keyboards ever will.

With all due respect, in the same quote Harry Patch suggested shooting the Kaiser and his Son; now my knowledge of European history isn’t what it should be but isn’t that pretty much how the First World War started, somebody shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

Just because somebody has first-hand experience of war it doesn’t make their opinion correct. I can think of an Austrian corporal who fought in the First World War and who was quite heavily involved in the Second World War but I bet you wouldn’t automatically agree with his opinion would you?

Spot on as usual Kev. With what, 1.3 Billion of them, they would be a force to be reconed with by the combined Forces of the rest of the world put together.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

If we fail in Libya, The following will happen we will have lost more people who did not need to die, Spent more money we did not have,left a country more distablised then it was before and still not achieved the USA aim of controling the oil there.

Perhaps if the Libyan people realised that the USA’s ‘prize’ (as intimated here) for the removal of Gaddafi is the control of Libyan oil, perhaps they might prefer to keep Gaddafi. Fortunately, so far, I don’t believe we’ve lost anyone in Libya so far. As to the money, well it’s just the modern day equivalent of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned.

If there is to be an Arab spring then should it not rise and fall on its own merits? Isn’t it more worrying that China now is showing intent to parade its own influence around the globe by introducing an aircraft carrier to its fleet? One which, I might add, has aircraft which will operate from it?

Regards,

kev35

With no disrespect to an honourable soldier – he has dismissed 3 decades of complex and dangerous European history to a few simplistic words. Fortunately Churchill knew more about European history than Harry Patch.

Harry Patch, as we all know, was an Infantryman in the First World War and a Firefighter in the Second. Might I respectfully suggest that this man had a more intimate knowledge of those two events than any of us sitting safely behind our keyboards ever will.

Regards,

kev35

What if NATO doesn’t “win” in Libya?

Put CENTO 1979 in your favorite search engine and hit return…..