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Libya

On 3 Apr 2011 at 12:43pm jrsussex wrote:

Libya appears to be going down the path many, myself included, feared it would. The people are now being killed by the various air forces who are supposedly protecting them. We hear of the civilians being killed by Gaddafi's army but nothing of those being killed by the rebels. Now there is talk of the possible use of ground forces. One has to wonder just when will the West learn to stop interfering in other nation's problems.
I'm old enough to remember the desperate cries of the people of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, completely ignored by the West as have many others since that time desperate for military help. The Congo, Rwanda and Zimbabwe from the past and now the Ivory Coast, Bahrain and so on.
As I said in an earlier post the West cannot continue to cherry pick where it takes action in support of "democracy". Do not misunderstand me, the world would be a much better place without Gaddafi but bringing more death and destruction is not the way forward. Negotiate his giving up power in Libya and either living there or in another country, that will bring an end to the senseless killing. That of course is on the assumption that whoever takes over does not do a Mugabe on the Western powers, never forget they wanted in place of Smith.

On 3 Apr 2011 at 4:34pm Mr Forks wrote:

Can any man that surrounds himself with elite female bodyguards really be that bad??!!!
The West should mind it's own business and stop piSSing it's taxpayers money away in the desert!

On 3 Apr 2011 at 4:49pm a wrote:

On 4 Apr 2011 at 10:41am Hoist wrote:

I agree that we probably shouldn't have gone in to Libya - but don't think I understand the rest of your post. You say that the West should butt out - but then say "I'm old enough to remember the desperate cries of the people of Czechoslovakia and Hungary" - should we have taken action there? Are there cases when we really should intervene?
Or put it another way - If (and this is a very big if) the Western powers' motives for military action are good - to save civilians - should we 'go in' when we can - i.e. when it is easy for us (and when it is not against our own best interests) or should we never ever take military action because we can't do it in all cases.
And if the reasoning is that we should take action in all cases where we can save civilians and get rid of foul dictators - regardless of our own best interests -for example in Bahrain - what shall we do for oil?

On 4 Apr 2011 at 11:07am Vesbod wrote:

Well you'd better get used to this sort of thing happening. The yanks will upset ANY country that doesn't fall into line. And you don't hear the Russians or Chinese complaining do you - that's because the yanks are doing the dirty work for everyone !!

On 4 Apr 2011 at 1:33pm Grunge wrote:

Damned if we do and damned if we don't. Of course civilians should be protected. It would have been better for more of the Arab nations to have joined in wholeheartedly, but unfortunately many of them are undergoing the same sort of trouble. I dread our humanitarian intervention being eventually dubbed as anti Moslem. I understand the friendly fire episode was brought on by the Libyan rebels firing into the air. Can't think why they all do it; isn't it wasting their ammunition at the very least? A childish way to behave which doesn't give me confidence about future outcomes.