IMMIGRATION thread

[Gilrandir]

Maybe Merkel will give them our Navy?

Traditionally, their cockleboats are to be as unsafe as they can help. In that case the pity will conquer and the British will escort them to Buckingham palace and allow to camp in Hyde Park. Otherwise they will rush en masse in the direction of Hastings and who knows what may follow then - coronation of Raheem the Conqueror?

[AE Bravo]

It's a bad outcome for those innocent people who end up arrested, tortured and possibly killed by the security services - things that happen in closed dictatorships.

And somehow this is worse than +10,000 people getting killed and +250,000 leaving their own country?

The arming was the point, because you said NATO effectively armed islamists. The initial uprising, long before NATO's intervention, provided plenty of weapons for anyone to loot.

They were not enough to stop the regime. You underestimate the initial power of this regime, the defense spending/security sector of Libya was strong. Those weapons didn’t come close to Qaddafi’s or NATO's arsenal.

Yeah, none at all.

During the uprising, no signs of indiscriminate killing. The rebels you hate less than the regime have killed way more civilians.

Very unlikely - look to Syria and Yemen. How much of a guarantee does Qatar have that their side in Syria is going to win? None at all, really.

You miss the point. It’s not about guarantee but whether their western patron is okay with them funding these groups to overthrow Assad. Since regime change was a legit objective, zealously funding Islamists also became legit.

We disagree on what the primary objective was.

We disagree that nato’s goal and reason for intervening was the removal of Qaddafi?

No, they even fielded their fighter jet in the defence of Benghazi (and apparently shot it down themselves).

This was nowhere near enough to stopping the counteroffensive on the city. Saif al Islam was on tv five days after that was reported saying it will all be over in a couple of days. Egypt was the only refuge and the rebels in the east had already begun retreating there. There was nowhere to go for the rebels.

More excerpts from what I linked to before. NATO is to blame friend, there's really no way around it:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When the UN authorized the intervention on March 17, 2011, and NATO started bombing two days later, Libyan government forces quickly halted their eastward offensive. As a result, Benghazi was not retaken by the government, the rebels did not flee to Egypt, and the war did not end in late March. Instead, the rebels in Benghazi reversed their retreat and launched a second westward offensive. Within barely a week, benefiting from NATO bombing of government forces, the rebels recaptured Brega and Ras Lanuf. In so doing, however, the ragtag rebels outran their supply lines, so the government again was able to retake the cities two days later. Over the next four months, such cities on the central coast changed hands several more times as the region became a primary theater of the war. Repeatedly, NATO would bomb Libyan forces, enabling the rebels to advance on populated areas, until the government counterattacked—with each round of combat inflicting casualties on both fighters and noncombatants.

In Misurata, too, intervention prolonged and escalated the fighting. On March 19, government forces were just retaking the city’s center from the re- bels who, without resupply routes, were doomed to fall within days, roughly one month after the fighting had started there. But when NATO attacked both the government’s ground forces near the city and its naval vessels off the coast, the rebels gained breathing room and reopened their supply lines. As a result, fighting in Misurata continued for another four months until the rebels eventually prevailed in late July, by which time the city’s death toll had grown substantially, as detailed below.

In Libya’s western mountains, the rebellion also revived, fostered by an in- flux of weapons and trainers from NATO member states. Accordingly, by late August 2011, rebels had converged on Tripoli in a pincer from east and west. Not surprisingly, government forces staged a fierce defense of the capital—magnifying severalfold the death toll of soldiers, rebels, and civilians in an area that had been quiescent during the preceding ave months

The rebels also had strong reason to believe that such intervention would be forthcoming. As early as February 22, 2011, former U.K. Foreign Minister Lord David Owen, while speaking to Al Jazeera, called for a no-fly zone.62 On March 2, the rebels’ military commander spoke by telephone to Britain’s foreign secretary “about planning for a No-Fly Zone,” according to the U.K. government.63 The next day, March 3, British Special Forces and intelligence agents clandestinely attempted to meet with rebels in eastern Libya.64 On March 5, France formally praised the rebels’ establishment of the National Transitional Council. Just ave days later, France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, agreed to recognize the rebel council as Libya’s legitimate government during a meeting at his office with the rebels’ top diplomat, Mahmoud Jibril.65 This was remarkable considering that the rebellion was barely three weeks old and the rebels already had lost most of their initial territorial gains. On the same day, March 10, while the rebels were in abject retreat, their political leader appeared on CNN to plead again desperately for a no-fly zone: “It has to be immediate action.”

This evidence demonstrates that, by the third week of the rebellion (if not sooner), the strategy of the rebels depended on forthcoming NATO intervention—which they had grounds to expect. Indeed, the early and significant signals of support from NATO countries help explain why the otherwise feeble rebels continued fighting the government’s vastly superior forces.

[AE Bravo]

Though as can bee seen in other sources, regime forces had attacked Zawiya much earlier than 7 March; like on 4 March when they even claimed to have retaken it:

They actually retook it March 9. Like I said bbc were the only ones that apologized for their dishonest coverage of the war, which pretty much every western outlet is guilty of but didn't care to correct themselves.

[Viking]

And somehow this is worse than +10,000 people getting killed and +250,000 leaving their own country?

Worse? What's worse: you (presumed innocent) getting mowed down by a bulldozer, or 10 other innocent people instead? Is either of the two cases worse than the other? Worse with respect to what?

Those weapons didn’t come close to Qaddafi’s or NATO's arsenal.

Neither did the weapons outsiders provided.

During the uprising, no signs of indiscriminate killing.

Hard to verify, either way - one of many problems with closed countries.

The rebels you hate less than the regime have killed way more civilians.

It's highly probable that the allies during WWII many places killed more civilians than the Nazis by ordinary bombing raids and fighting; but such statistics are not inherently meaningful for comparisons for what's 'worse' - context is key.

You miss the point. It’s not about guarantee but whether their western patron is okay with them funding these groups to overthrow Assad. Since regime change was a legit objective, zealously funding Islamists also became legit.

And what do you base this on? Why shouldn't the Gulf states fund the rebels, anyway?

We disagree that nato’s goal and reason for intervening was the removal of Qaddafi?

Never mind, we disagree that the objective itself was a failure.

This was nowhere near enough to stopping the counteroffensive on the city. Saif al Islam was on tv five days after that was reported saying it will all be over in a couple of days. Egypt was the only refuge and the rebels in the east had already begun retreating there. There was nowhere to go for the rebels.

Who cares what Saif said. Facts are there were several cities beyond Benghazi. Benghazi itself could not be expected to fall within a day or two ( if it at all would fall), which would provide extra time to plan any defence for remaining cities.

NATO is to blame friend, there's really no way around it:

Blame for what, exactly? If the Libyan militias wanted prosperity for their country, they could move towards it rather swiftly - NATO is not holding them back.

They actually retook it March 9. Like I said bbc were the only ones that apologized for their dishonest coverage of the war, which pretty much every western outlet is guilty of but didn't care to correct themselves.

Link please for the BBC statement. Chances are it has absolutely nothing to do with when the fighting for Zawiya first began (the end date is not in dispute).