Soldato
This is very wrong. NATO support was responsible for the overthrow of the Libyan government. There was a small armed insurgency in Benghazi in the East of Libya. The insurgents attacked a military base and seized the weapons. They had already at this point been engaged in diplomatic contact with Western governments as evidenced by the rapid roll out of oil selling agreements between them and Western oil companies such as Heritage oil. Ditto with Qatar which supplied large numbers of soldiers to make up the "popular uprising". NATO bombed countrywide destroying the Libyan army and bombing towns that were loyal to Gaddhafi even where there was no local resistance to him (e.g. Tripoli). All of this is easily proven. You'll find many people in Libya who disagreed with the NATO bombing. Particularly those who lost loved ones to it and all those who didn't want to see a group of vicious racists in bed with foreign powers take control of their country. I'll back up both of those statements. In towns occupied by the rebels, there are instances of them rounding up Black people and bussing them out of town and lynching them. The rebels also immediately started agreeing favourable oil deals with the west (i.e. within about a month of the so called uprising) and selling oil to Qatar cheap. Libya's oil reserves were publically owned. The rebels looted the country. Libya was also one of the few world nations that was not in debt. The "National Transitional Council" - the Western drop-in government for Libya agreed loans on behalf of the country to fund their "uprising" against the existing Libyan government and today it's gone from having billions of national surplus invested to being several billon in debt. It seems that it would surprise you that Ghaddafi had a lot of support in Libya. He overthrew the European backed king of Libya in a successful, bloodless coup and replaced it with a unified council of the different tribes in Libya - historically enemies and held it together for decades with all tribes represented. It wasn't a voting democracy but nor was it an unopposed dictator, it was a coalition of tribal groups. It had the highest literacy rates in North Africa, the highest doctor per capita rate and a social care system that would, based on your post, astonish you.
Heaven? No. Different to Western portrayals? Very much so. Equal to the hundreds of millions of pounds we spent on bombing the country to bits was a huge propaganda war. There were stories that Gaddhafi was supplying condoms and viagra to the army to help them better rape protesting civillians. Amnesty International found no such evidence. Capture of towns by the rebels against the citizens wishes were repeatedly portrayed in Western media as grateful liberations. Stories of Gaddafi sending tanks to kill protestors were spread rather than the factual version which was that Benghazi insurgents were armed and attacking military bases.
The National Transitional Council even executed its own generals (General Younes's body had severed fingers, one eye gouged out, a cut to the belly and appears to have been killed by burning). Gruesome but predictable by an organization that ethnically cleansed towns it occupied of Black people. And of course one might expect that the former head of state would be captured alive if possible, but no - they actively went out of their way to murder Gaddhafi. Not really surprising given the embarrassing things he could say about Western political figures but a good example of the sort of people we handed the country to. And you honestly think ordinary Libyans who had been mostly getting on with their lives wanted all this?
Libya was not ideal but it was not Saddam's Iraq and quality of life and human rights were better there than a number of our actual allies. Today, Libya has three governments and two competing parliaments and is a war-torn Hell hole with a ruined economy, infrastructure and its main export is smuggled weapons and terrorists.
Implied in that quote is that the people doing something are "good". When they're not, when their interests are securing oil and installing their own favourable governments, then I don't think the quote applies. I think it better applies to those of us who allowed our government to destroy so many lives and didn't stop them.
I mean this seriously - instead of simply disagreeing with me, do some research, look into it and realise you are uninformed on this subject.
I find it odd some of your arguments as you'll find out that actually your research only goes skin deep. First though, who is at fault for the problem in Libya? Just so i know which path to go down.
Your comment indicates you have little understanding of what actually went on in Libya and what is still going on.
A significant number of Libyans prospered under Gadaffi. That doesn't mean they condoned everything he did however.
Here's a good starting point - an ominous foreshadowing of what actually happened.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12528996
Out of interest do you actually know any Libyans to insist that I'm utterly wrong? I'm going to suggest not.
I said i find it utterly wrong that you and Libyans stand side by side on Qaddafi's side. That's what is abhorrent.
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