Civil War in Libya

[Lemur]

FWIW, the post-revolution recovery seems to be going better than expected.

Elementary schools opened last week. The university will open next month. Water and electricity are flowing. Uniformed police are on the street. Trash collection is haphazard but functioning.

This is the fastest post-war recovery I have witnessed: faster than Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan. Certainly faster than Somalia, Sierra Leone or Rwanda.

Why this rapid recovery in a country marked by four decades of dictatorship? Why does Libya seem on track while Egypt seems to have gone off the rails?

Libya has at least three important advantages: good leadership and clear goals at the national and local levels, careful planning and adequate resources.

[Fragony]

Post-war? Heard some less hallelujah-worthy things but we'll see

[Ignoramus]

Apparently things aren't quite so settled yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...-fighters.html

[Fragony]

Apparently things aren't quite so settled yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...-fighters.html

There is still massive fighting going on in loyalist strongholds. Rumour has it that the UK parachuted SAS who got badly pwned by loyalists, 24 dead, 12 captured.

[Viking]

More like propaganda.

[Fragony]

More like propaganda.

More like uncomfirmed, SAS getting pwned that is, not the heavy fighting. Propaganda would be telling it's ok to be bombing Libya because we just got to save these civilians, and it usually looks like what Lemur posted.

[Viking]

More like uncomfirmed, SAS getting pwned that is

The regime has been claiming to shoot down planes and what not since day 1. Nothing new.

[Fragony]

The regime has been claiming to shoot down planes and what not since day 1. Nothing new.

And rebels captured a ghadaffi-sonny how many times? Question, do you honestly believe we are equiping jets to save a few civilians. Ghadaffi isn't even that bad, he actually had the intention to reform way before the howling started, but it really isn't about that is it. Ghadaffi wanted to return to gold and dinar, which would be bad news for France and the US as they have assets there. I'm all for free economy but not at the expense of tens of thousands, or just one person at that. It's ugly and I love beauty

[Viking]

And rebels captured a ghadaffi-sonny how many times?

Which is relevant how?

Question, do you honestly believe we are equiping jets to save a few civilians.

I give a dam about the motives to the point where they effect the outcome.

Ghadaffi isn't even that bad, he actually had the intention to reform way before the howling started, but it really isn't about that is it.

Looks like they came to slow; what a shame. He only had 42 years to carry them out, after all.

Ghadaffi wanted to return to gold and dinar, which would be bad news for France and the US as they have assets there.

I'd be more easily convinced if you could show some numbers from realiable sources. Do also refer to #2.

[Hax]

The dinar is used in several Arab countries. I don‘t see the point

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

There is still massive fighting going on in loyalist strongholds. Rumour has it that the UK parachuted SAS who got badly pwned by loyalists, 24 dead, 12 captured.

I think it exretemely unlikely that is remotely true, at this point there is very sittle to be by parachuting half an SAS squadron into Libya, or even a full Squadron if some escaped. The SAS tend to leave that sort of thing to paratroopers, not to mention They are rather busy in Afganistan right now.

Ghadaffi isn't even that bad, he actually had the intention to reform way before the howling started, but it really isn't about that is it.

His son Saif claimed he wanted to reform, but that facade fell when the protests started, and he came out as a chip of the old chopping block.

[PanzerJaeger]

Propaganda would be telling it's ok to be bombing Libya because we just got to save these civilians, and it usually looks like what Lemur posted.

Haha, nice one Frags. Don't let the same people who have been spreading nonsense about impending genocide, foreign mercenaries, and protecting civilians lecture you on propaganda.

[rory_20_uk]

There is still massive fighting going on in loyalist strongholds. Rumour has it that the UK parachuted SAS who got badly pwned by loyalists, 24 dead, 12 captured.

Using that many SAS at once on such an unimportant things seems a hellish risk. Losses like that would take possibly years to replace and for pretty small gains.

A lot of troops and no clear targets (even if Gadaffi et al were inside, nothing to be lost in ensuring a tight noose rather than risking one's best troops.

[Viking]

Haha, nice one Frags. Don't let the same people who have been spreading nonsense about impending genocide, foreign mercenaries, and protecting civilians lecture you on propaganda.

I have never talked about 'protecting civilians'. I have not used the word 'genocide'. I have proved the use of foreign mercenaries with reliable, independent Western media sources. Nonsense is what you write.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Haha, nice one Frags. Don't let the same people who have been spreading nonsense about impending genocide, foreign mercenaries, and protecting civilians lecture you on propaganda.

Of course. Meanwhile when we return from “I don't like it” to facts we can observe two things (a) Gadaffi did employ mercenaries (but that is not a cause for war in and of itself), and (b) at the point where the bombing began there was very much the threat of wholesale slaughter. You may say that this is all just political posturing to further some imperialist goals, and you might be right.

Back to Frag's claims, then: SAS in Libya? Got the news reports somewhere of people in SAS uniforms being captured? (Don't bother with that months old item, now.)

I don't doubt there will be some SAS types on the ground, as they were there to do the reconnaissance for the rebel troop movements earlier and possibly take out a few Gadhaffi supporters on the way. But half a squadron captured without so much as a nice viral video or picture being mailed to, say, Al Jazeera? This smacks of Sharaf declaring that everything was absolutely going to be a glorious victory for Saddam's forces at the same time the Americans took Baghdad.

[Fragony]

I only claimed there is a rumour

[Slyspy]

Ah, the good old rumour of a rumour!

[Fragony]

Ah, the good old rumour of a rumour!

It's a rumour and just that. What is pretty clear though, this ain't over yet.

[PanzerJaeger]

I have never talked about 'protecting civilians'. I have not used the word 'genocide'. I have proved the use of foreign mercenaries with reliable, independent Western media sources. Nonsense is what you write.

My apologies. There has been so much propaganda thrown around by the supporters of this farce, it is difficult to attribute it to specific people months later. As to the mercenary lies that led to the public lynchings and wholesale slaughter of blacks in Libya in the name of hatred and racism, this has been discussed over and over again. To find the true foreigners fighting in Libya, one needs only to look to the coalition forces.

Of course. Meanwhile when we return from “I don't like it” to facts we can observe two things (a) Gadaffi did employ mercenaries (but that is not a cause for war in and of itself), and (b) at the point where the bombing began there was very much the threat of wholesale slaughter. You may say that this is all just political posturing to further some imperialist goals, and you might be right.

a) Conscription of black immigrant workers already living in Libya has no semblance to the claims the rebels and their Western backers spread during the beginning of the conflict and Western media went along with as fact. It was a deliberate, orchestrated propaganda campaign, and the blood and misery of millions of black Libyans are on their hands.

Nato leaders, opposition groups and the media have produced a stream of stories since the start of the insurrection on 15 February, claiming the Gaddafi regime has ordered mass rapes, used foreign mercenaries and employed helicopters against civilian protesters.

An investigation by Amnesty International has failed to find evidence for these human rights violations and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.

b) Who says? We were specifically warned of an impending genocide - of " a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." (Obama) Where's the evidence?

In his March 26 radio address, Obama said the United States acted because Gadhafi threatened "a bloodbath." Two days later, he asserted, "We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi — a city nearly the size of Charlotte (N.C.) — could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world."

Really? Obama implied that, absent our intervention, Gadhafi might have killed nearly 700,000 people, putting it in a class with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. White House adviser Dennis Ross was only slightly less alarmist when he reportedly cited "the real or imminent possibility that up to a 100,000 people could be massacred."

But these are outlandish scenarios that go beyond any reasonable interpretation of Gadhafi's words. He said, "We will have no mercy on them" — but by "them," he plainly was referring to armed rebels ("traitors") who stand and fight, not all the city's inhabitants.

"We have left the way open to them," he said. "Escape. Let those who escape go forever." He pledged that "whoever hands over his weapons, stays at home without any weapons, whatever he did previously, he will be pardoned, protected."

Alan Kuperman, an associate professor at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, is among those unconvinced by Obama's case. "Gadhafi," he told me, "did not massacre civilians in any of the other big cities he captured — Zawiya, Misrata, Ajdabiya — which together have a population equal to Benghazi. Yes, civilians were killed in a typical, ham-handed, Third World counterinsurgency. But civilians were not targeted for massacre as in Rwanda, Darfur, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bosnia, or even Kosovo after NATO intervention."

The rebels, however, knew that inflating their peril was their best hope for getting outside help. So, Kuperman says, they concocted the specter of genocide — and Obama believed it, or at least used it to justify intervention.

This conflict was built on lies, deceit, and imperial self interest. That would be fine, I guess, if only a dictator and his cronies were taken down (that was the plan for Iraq, after all). However, to get the population behind the war, a large and already abused segment was singled out and scapegoated - with awful consequences that will resound and impact the blacks in Libya for generations to come. They will always be seen as traitors to the revolution. God help them, because the West surely will not.

[Fragony]

Don't have to be a pacifist to be disgusted by this senseless loss of life, and the worst is yet to come when the who gets what starts. Libya was doing fine

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Don't have to be a pacifist to be disgusted by this senseless loss of life, and the worst is yet to come when the who gets what starts. Libya was doing fine

Mercs, mainly from Chad and other parts of Africa, were driving around and shooting people on the streets at the start of the uprising, after Gadaffi's Air Force basically defected you were looking at, at best, Somalia II, at worst Somalia II preceeded by civilian massacres, of the like that are getting started in Syria, where 3,000 people have dies in the last few months.

A better question is why we aren't blowing up Syrian tanks yet.

[Noncommunist]

Mercs, mainly from Chad and other parts of Africa, were driving around and shooting people on the streets at the start of the uprising, after Gadaffi's Air Force basically defected you were looking at, at best, Somalia II, at worst Somalia II preceeded by civilian massacres, of the like that are getting started in Syria, where 3,000 people have dies in the last few months.

A better question is why we aren't blowing up Syrian tanks yet.

I suppose because the Syrian National Council doesn't have a base of operations within Syria and the Russians and Chinese are loathe to approve yet another war that could seriously heat up where their bases are.

And so far, the only government to recognized the Syrian National Council is Libya which is a bit distracted at the moment unlike France which did have a somewhat capable military.

[Viking]

[...]the blood and misery of millions of black Libyans are on their hands.

I doubt there are that many black Libyans. The ones among the rebels forces seem to be doing just fine.

[Fragony]

I doubt there are that many black Libyans. The ones among the rebels forces seem to be doing just fine.

No they are not, they are lynched, whole town is missing in fact. Black people are seen as sub-human by arabs they call them slaves. It's true that Ghaddafi had black mercenaries, and it's also true that a lot of the rebel forces aren't from Libya and are tearing it apart

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No they are not, they are lynched, whole town is missing in fact. Black people are seen as sub-human by arabs they call them slaves. It's true that Ghaddafi had black mercenaries, and it's also true that a lot of the rebel forces aren't from Libya and are tearing it apart

Evidence?

I expect their are foriegn fighters among the Libyans, causes tend to attract idealists, a "good war" sent Orwell to Spain and Byron to Greece.

Gadaffi supported black immigrants against his native Libyans, he created a situation where they were reliant on his regime for security. This is not the result of a deep inborn hatred of Blacks, this is a result of divide and rule.

[Viking]

No they are not, they are lynched, whole town is missing in fact. Black people are seen as sub-human by arabs they call them slaves. It's true that Ghaddafi had black mercenaries, and it's also true that a lot of the rebel forces aren't from Libya and are tearing it apart

'Black Libyans among the rebel forces' translates to 'black rebel soldiers', and they appear to be doing just fine. As for the 'tearing apart' bit, I am sure you have solid evidence for this.

[Fragony]

'Black Libyans among the rebel forces' translates to 'black rebel soldiers', and they appear to be doing just fine. As for the 'tearing apart' bit, I am sure you have solid evidence for this.

Got no evidence no, was kinda wondering where these 40.000 black immigrants went myself really, all i know is that they are all gone

[PanzerJaeger]

I doubt there are that many black Libyans. The ones among the rebels forces seem to be doing just fine.

That should have read 'blacks in Libya'.

[Beskar]

Last City, Sirte, has been taken.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15384335

[Subotan]

Apparently, Gaddafi has been captured in Sirte. That will explain why they refused to surrender.