Why is it moral for NATO to be bombing SIRTE after rebels have taken over?? Protecting who??

[Distant Observer]

How is what NATO and their local allies doing different than what they were claiming the Crazy Gaddafi regime intended to do in Benghazi.

Isn't this an international war crime given that it is clearly outside of the UN mandate and the UN Sec. General has even call for a cessation of all hostilities.

Obama could be excused for economic crises beyond his control, but the killing that is now going on is completely under the control of NATO special forces on the ground and planes in the air.



--------------------

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/26/libya-rebels-prepare-attack-sirte

Libyan rebels prepare to attack Sirte after Nato raids

Chris Stephen in Misrata and Julian Borger
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 August 2011 19.40 BST


Rebel units were massing for an attack on Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace, on Friday after Nato warplanes conducted intensive bombing raids to weaken one of the last major redoubts controlled by the ousted regime.

On the road to Sirte from Misrata, tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers abandoned by fleeing government forces were being assembled for the attack.

Rebels said a British and French special forces team was helping co-ordinate the assault, in which Misrata-based units will push eastwards to meet forces from Benghazi fighting their way westwards.

As the National Transitional Council (NTC) attempted to establish itself in Tripoli, setting up offices and holding a press conference, its claims to complete authority were undermined by skirmishes with Gaddafi loyalists and the failure to find the ousted Libyan leader or his sons.

[David__77]

1. Because regime change was always the objective.

And that loyalist forces managed to resist as long as they have is surprising, arrayed against the world's most powerful armies. Sirte has been peaceful and it is clear who is threatening civilians. A great crime has been and is being committed. My best wishes go to the Libyan people.

[The Magistrate]

2. At This Point, Sir, It is Simply Allied Powers Providing Requested Assistance To the Government...

"If we win, we're the loyal army; if we lose, we're the rebel army."

[Distant Observer]

3. Just heard the spokesperson . Guess they are just lying through their teath.

Guess lies are just part of the way the West does war.

[The Magistrate]

7. Lies Are Part Of How Everyone Fights Wars, Sir

Honestly....

[Distant Observer]

12. I agree. The people who naively believes the lies are annoying, however

[Romulox]

23. ROFL. nt

[Fumesucker]

4. Because shut up..

That's why.

[Distant Observer]

5. Guess when the White Masters do the massacres we just look the other way and be quiet

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MisterP]

8. no different from the Bay of Pigs or the Contras--but since it's successful,

many will cheer thanks to our shallow, content-free politics

[Distant Observer]

9. Sadly, it looks like "Nato" still has to kill a lot more people, before declaring victory

[PurityOfEssence]

30. No, no, no; NATO is SAVING lives...!

Don't you remember all of those thousands or hundreds of thousands who would have definitely been massacred in Benghazi? Those hypothetical deaths are just as valid in the sanctimonious heads of the interventionists as the real, actual dead people from this war.

Don't you see? These deaths--no matter how many there may be--will be far fewer than the hypothetical deaths of innocent armed rebels in Benghazi, and besides, the people killed in Sirte will all be, by definition, evil Qaddafi thugs. They will have had it coming anyway.

See, it's very simple: when you declare yourself "good", then anything you do is "good" and anything the opposition does is damnably wicked to the marrow.

This whole escapade is so morally ugly that it defies mere words. For shame.

[geek tragedy]

10. The internationally-recognized government of Libya requested those

strikes.

It is no longer an attack against a sovereign nation's forces.

Qadaffi's forces are now extra-governmental outlaws.

[Distant Observer]

11. "Qadaffi's forces" -- the "let's pretend so we can kill" game? Sirte was an enclave of peace.

Gaddafi is gone. But some people don't support the murderous Cyrenaicans. So NATO should kill them all?

This evil cries out to the heavens.

[formercia]

13. All the Tribal Leaders in Sirte have to do is surrender

Tribal loyalties run deep, especially those with long-time connections to the Regime. The answer isn't a simple one.

[Distant Observer]

15. Why can't people be let alone. Just as the Cyrenaicans wanted to be let alone for decades

[formercia]

18. Why?

They chose poorly.

[quaker bill]

14. None of it is actually moral

the moral means of settling differences does not involve weapons. Propping up a dictator with weapons is no more or less moral than using the same weapons to remove him.

The better and more moral choice is to never proliferate weapons to third world countries and their Dictators. Without a big stockpile of cold war weapons, the people tend to manage their leaders alot less violently, it is still occasionally violent, but often far less so.

[Amonester]

38. Well, they might use knives, swords, and rocks, but the results...

could be the same...

Weapon-manufacturing Unions would probably be forced to eat peas, though, unless the workers could be retrained to learn how to build solar-panel networks infrastructure...

I'll keep dreaming until...

[quaker bill]

58. It is hard to gain much of an advantage

on the general public with a stockpile or rocks and knives.

[Distant Observer]

62. I guess the Military industry is the only one we have under control

[bluestate10]

16. Sirte is the head of the snake. Until it is taken out, Qaddafi remains a treat to civilization. nt

[Distant Observer]

17. Sirte is a peaceful civilian city. I though Gaddafi was the crazy one. The rebels are now the crazy

killers chasing after "enemies"

[pinboy3niner]

19. Your 'peaceful civilian city' has military bases and has fired Scuds at Libyan cities

Reuters reports:

Sirte is believed to hold large numbers of die-hard Gaddafi supporters and significant military installations. NATO has said Gaddafi's army has fired several Scud missiles from the town, but all are believed to have fallen far from their targets.

[Distant Observer]

20. Read a little from pre-Nato propaganda and psyopts campaign

Economic and Social development

http://www.planbleu.org/publications/idd_cotiers_ly.pdf

Synopsis of Libya pre-war

http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Libya.html


life in libya pre-war

http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=6&i=2368

[pinboy3niner]

21. Which is relevant HOW to the presence of bases and forces firing Scuds at cities now?

[Distant Observer]

64. WHO? HOW? What damage? Do you believe anything after rebel leaders admit they have fabricated lies

for propaganda purposes.

[geek tragedy]

24. More pro-Qadaffi propaganda.

Proving yet again that some elements of the left will support any monster so long as he is in a conflict with the United States.

[ProgressoDem]

25. +1

I want to be disturbed but I find it more hilarious than anything.

[pinboy3niner]

27. Welcome to DU, ProgressoDem!

:hi:

Hilarious, yes, but shouldn't we also be concerned about the suffering of all those poor dead horses getting beaten to...um...er...um...

[Scurrilous]

29. Yep.

:thumbsup:

[PurityOfEssence]

31. More water-carrying for the administration

How do the local Gunga-Dins know if something is moral or not? If Barack Obama does it.

Will a Presidential Library be enough for the acolytes, or will they start a new religion? Would even THAT be enough for many of them?

[geek tragedy]

33. Who's worse in your eyes--Obama and his supporters or Qadaffi

and his supporters?

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pinto]

36. Yeah, "in rather short order" seems right, imo.

Against a wall would be my guess.

And Obama is much more dangerous than Qaddafi? Whaa?

Agree, it's a maddenly complex situation, yet your extreme hyperbole doesn't seem to shed much light on the thing. :hi:

[rasputin1952]

37. Qaddafi also

set up the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Nice guy.

[bahrbearian]

40. right on.

[amborin]

43. +1000

[amborin]

42. that is distorted and fallacious reasoning!

[sabrina 1]

55. And when the US was supporting this 'monster', up to a few months

ago, where did you stand then? Did you support the monster too? It was not the 'left' that supported him. Airc, the 'left' always opposed this government's support of Qadaffi. Amazing how history is rewritten in a matter of weeks, months. I have watched it with a sense of awe, remembering how we on the left were trashed when we objected to it, by the RIGHT when it was Bush and by some on the LEFT when it was this administration.

The LEFT, the true Left, has not changed its position on Qadaffi since at least 2006. Nor has it changed its position on US foreign policies regarding Arab/Muslim nations.

So your comment makes zero sense to anyone who has followed the US/Qadaffi/Mubarak/Ben Ali/Karamov/Fill-in-the-name-of-the-dictator relationships.

How do you feel about the current administration's support of Karamov right now? I would like to know what the LEFT's position is on US support of Brutal Dictators, before it changes again.

[stuckinarut]

22. Because god and right are on our side.

plus, it's not war when we drop bombs, its "humanitarian assistance".

[bvar22]

26. Freedom Bombs aren't FREE.

They will continue to fall until Libya is turned into a NeoLiberal Free Market HELL,
owned by the World Banks, the IMF, and the Global Corporations,
just like Iraq.

The "Legitimate Government" is who-ever-the-fuck-we-say-it-is,
OR
they will get Humanitarian Freedom Bombs until they agree.


YAY!!!







You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[PurityOfEssence]

32. Ya got that right: they cost barrels and barrels and barrels...

Mmmm...so light...so sweet...so crude; yum, it's imperialicious...

[amborin]

44. LSC, and new fodder for neo-liberalism on steroids

[scentopine]

39. Iraq was suppposed to be the neo-con/neo-lib petri dish... shiny example

of free market government. We purged the government and military, replaced it with 100,000 tax payer funded private contractors and proudly exclaimed "mission accomplished".

The result was over 1 million displaced men, women and children, 100,000 dead, grotesque public hangings, and a country now being overrun by religious radicals.

Not to mention thousands of dead and amputee soldiers, and a cost of over $1 trillion.

We need our own purge - get the neo-cons and neo-libs and centerbaggers and other right wing crack pots out of our government.

The oil just isn't worth all the death and destruction we are creating.

[woo me with science]

59. How dare you see the larger picture. nt

[Starry Messenger]

28. k&r

[Distant Observer]

41. Hatred begets hatred, killing begets killing. It will be a generation before the atrocities of war

are healed.

We have done this to country after country with the same result. Fifty years ago we overthrew Patrice Lumumbah of the Congo -- an anti-imperialist and passionate pan-africanist -- to put in place a less "dangerous" leadership. Millions of bloody killings later, the fruits of corrupt Western intervention in Africa continue bear in rotten stinking abundance.

[thewiseguy]

45. Uh were not multiple scud missiles fired from Sirte towards other cities last week?

[Prometheus Bound]

46. True enough. Three sand crabs and seven fish killed.

[thewiseguy]

48. I am wondering if you would say the same thing if they were being fired at your place

[Prometheus Bound]

49. I'd be more worried about 2500 NATO bombs & missiles aimed at cities than 3 scuds aimed at the ocean

[thewiseguy]

51. wow you sure forgot about the Gaddafi forces shelling and killing civilians in thousands

[Prometheus Bound]

52. I thought you were talking about the three scuds.

[Distant Observer]

54. HRW has already disputed those reports as rebel propaganda. Death on both sides

[BlueCheese]

47. Without commenting on the larger Libyan conflict...

It really seems that NATO has long since exceeded its original mandate.

[truedelphi]

57. NATO is about "nation building" -

Since "civilized governments" stand behind the armies and the wars conducted by NATO, it is basically legalized piracy.

[bvar22]

61. NATO long ago became the "Enforcement Arm" of the IMF,

the Western Banks, The Global Oil Corporations, and the G-8.

Resistance is futile.
You will be assimilated.

”For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Prometheus Bound]

53. Anti-war = Gaddafi supporters; does that mean intervention advocates = al-qaeda supporters?

Incredibly childish. These tactics leave no room for discussion.

[Distant Observer]

56. Well in libya you get to support both PNAC, Royalists and Al Qaeda on one ticket

[blindpig]

60. This was never about 'protecting civilians'.

It is raw imperialism under the fig leaf of a tribal uprising given credence by unrelated events in other countries.

[inna]

63. belated kick

[Distant Observer]

65. Interesting to remember that Qaddafi managed to do regime-change "bloodlessly". NOT SO NATO

Ask the Iraqi: regime-change via bloody bombing and factional massacres does not portend a good future - no matter how much oil you have.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/qaddafi-leads-coup-in-libya

By the time Qaddafi attained the rank of captain, in 1969, the revolutionaries were ready to strike. They waited until King Idris was out of the country, being treated for a leg ailment at a Turkish spa, and then toppled his government in a bloodless coup.