Soldato
Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't
Venezuela the failed socialist state - Rising tensions.
Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't
Caporegime
I'm not arguing that these botched interventions have left things in a great state; but don't pretend it was started by anyone outside of Libya. Intervention was entirely justified; the problem was that - as so often lately - we neither committed to, nor prepared for, nation-building in the aftermath.
Soldato
Soldato
My point, Jack, was that one tyrant has been replaced by many of these murdering *****.
You now how a broken state where open slave markets are operating. People trafficking is widespread and the state is effectively broken into 4 with terror groups doing well
Caporegime
It's Mr Jack. And you're right, sure, but what was your point when you asked "what caused the civil war"?
The state was broken before we got involved. Venezuela, in contrast, is a disaster area of Murado's making but not yet a civil war zone.
Soldato
Just taking you down the garden path a little to open the situation out. The aim being is it better now than under Gaddafi?
Libya wasn't broken. It just had a corrupt despot in power. Now you have slave markets, people trafficking, terror groups, factions etc. If it was broken before it is gone now.
Not yet. Lets see if socialism spells doom eh... Jack?
Caporegime
No, at the time of the intervention Libya was already in a situation of full civil war. This is simply counterfactual.
I'm hopeful that getting actual socialist Guaidó in place will be an improvement. There is still a chance of a largely peaceful restoration of democracy.
Are you implying that the US, UK and France had literally no hand in the build up of tensions in Libya pre-Arab spring?
Caporegime
Wrong. We didn't destroy a single city; we didn't target a single civilian building. It was the rebels and Gaddafi who destroyed Libya.
Most people were fed up with Gaddafi. The rebels were simply the bunch that had the ability to do something about it.
It's a complete wreck. I already said this, remember? But that wasn't the fault of western intervention (which I never supported, just for the record).
Soldato
So really, it was as a result of the rebels launching an internecine attack (or series of) that turned the Libya into the after of the famous before and after pictures doing their rounds?
Were most people fed up with Gaddafi? Happy to see something of a verifiable nature.
They also had the ability as they were being given arms and supported by Western backed air forces. Rumour has it that France got involved as quickly as it did due to Gaddafi making promises he then reneged on. The sad fact is that Libyan money is/was widespread across France and the UK. It's not given the Libyan School of Economics (LSE) for nothing.
I didn't, but then I prefer the before. Tinpot dictator and all. Having said that Evan, if you ever get the chance I would recommend his book (The Green Book), it's quite short but the guy wasn't stupid. A Marxist too.
He also predicted the next two conflict theatres in a speech in 2009, saying it was going to be him and afterwards Bashar Al Asad.
Soldato
I've just read your comments above - this and various other nonsense. You're pulling this from your arse. At the start of the "uprising", there were militant groups in Benghazi who we know for a fact were in dialogue with Western oil companies such as Heritage Oil. They launched attacks seizing an air base and a military base (which they then looted for weapons to better arm themselves). The Libyan army rolled up tanks outside Benghazi at which point the West declared there was a mass-uprising in Libya and Obama and Hillary Clinton instructed NATO to intervene. The result was catastrophic. And the goal was unarguably regime change.
What's bleakly amusing about your revisionism is that at the time I was actively trying to get accurate information to public awareness that the militants in Benghazi were exactly that whilst the media was united in portraying the Benghazi rebellions as peaceful protestors that Gadhaffi had rolled tanks over. Similarly when you had Qatari soldiers on the ground in Libya comprising a good part of the anti-Libyan forces the Western media was still portraying it as a popular uprising.
This more than anything shows your ignorance of the country. Libya had the highest literacy rates of any North African country (this is a common proxy for measuring development and education), it had the highest number of doctors per capita of any North African country. It had no debt. It had low unemployment and large-scale, effective infrastructure projects. Talk to any British engineer who worked over there on the aquifer projects or just do some basic research. It was even, in its own way, more democratic than most ME regimes in that Gadhaffi presided over a council of different tribes who had representation and it functioned much better than the various monarchies that we are actually allied with. Gadhaffi - who we wanted killed - was the elected chair of the African Union. A union of 55 African countries. Libya used its sovereign wealth to provide security to a lot of African regions. You might note that once Libya was taken out, the USA has been offering to fulfil that role (for just a modest fee). Throughout the NATO attacks on Libya Gadhaffi repeatedly called for negotiations and offered ceasefires and was rebuffed by the rebels - who with the ability to obliterate any target they liked with a phone call to us - didn't care to negotiate.
Libya was proposing an "African Euro" which it would back with its large gold reserves (now missing, btw) and oil revenues (owned by the state with proceeds used on behalf of or as bursaries to the public - you can check that). This would have been a rival to the dollar and - something many are not aware of - would have supplanted French-controlled currencies (the West African Franc and the Central African Franc) in 14 African countries. (France controls the currencies, their issuing is controlled by France and they are pegged to the Euro greatly limiting trade for these African countries).
Libya have problems? Sure. Gadhaffi an angel? No. You pushing a narrative that is almost wholly disconnected with reality? Absolutely.
Soldato
An excellent post Harmony.
Caporegime
I point you again to the timeline of the conflict. At the time of military intervention, the eastern part of the country was occupied by rebel forces, an area which includes the second largest city and the largest oil fields in Libya. Whatever version of Gadaffi's regime you wish to embrace, the fact is that when the military intervention began the country was already broken, and engulfed in a bloody civil war.
That big orange bit? That's the area controlled by Rebels before the military intervention.
Soldato
Thank you. Libya and what we did to it is a particular topic of interest and concern for me. If you ever get the chance to talk to any of the many British engineers who worked on the aquifer projects and get their first hand accounts of their time working in Libya, grab it.
Soldato
I cant say I know anyone who has worked there. I know it was generally prosperous and the people well educated generally speaking.
My oversight is mainly that the country was fine the way it was and that a conflict would lead to disaster. Proven now.
It is also like the situation in Syria, I still remember Evan trying to argue it was some decrepit hell hole and a poster Sven256 was posting the opposite but backing his up. He showed pictures from Asad territory vs Jihadi/Western backed territory. The tact was then those pictures are old and then Sven pointed out they were from a day or two previously from a Facebook page of a restaurant there. Lol.
Syria used to be relatively safe. Libya used to be relatively safe. Now they are terrorist infested holes. And the worst part is Western governments backed the worst and most brutal side.
I wonder if you believe Gaddafis plan was to change it to the gold dinar and do business through gold? I've heard politicians mention this and while their proclivity is towards lies, these claims check out. Libya would have had the best gold/person for the oil.
As you say in your above erudition, oil is and was a big part. Shell had a problem with Syria too. But nothing was do- .... Hmmm...
Soldato
That big orange bit? That's a huge swathe of desert that someone has coloured orange.
The fact you're presenting a big map of Syria with an arbitrary chunk of it painted orange to try and present it as if shows the rebels had won one third of the country is staggeringly disingenuous. Additionally, I thought you were talking before we joined in because the area they "held" before that is that wee little chequered strip in the top left. But I don't see what your point is other than hitting Wikipedia in search of things that support your view. You seem to be wanting to present the case that the rebels were a viable threat to the Libyan government and army by themself, without the hundreds of millions of dollars supplied by countries like Qatar, the arms shipments, the on-demand bombing, the oil deals suspiciously signed within a month of their attacks, the presence of foreign soldiers and the illegal seizing of Libyan assets by Western governments. You seem to want to do that with the purpose of presenting the idea that without our intervention, the country would still have collapsed or been riven by interminable civil war. Neither is true. Without foreign military backing and aid, the Eastern rebels (who weren't particularly popular, btw) would have been crushed by the Libyan army and the country would have continued on its course.
This is before we even get started on the Western lies and propaganda such as Gadhaffi issuing condoms to the Libyan army to use rape as a tactic of suppressing resistance and other such over the top insanity.
Really, you should leave this one. If you genuinely believe what you're putting about rather than just having an agenda, then please stop, read a few different viewpoints and reconsider. Because this sort of historical revisionism is nauseating to me.
Caporegime
It's the area with the largest oil fields in Libya, do you think those unimportant?
No, those are the bits lost by the rebels prior to the intervention.
The rebels were largely composed of defectors from the army, they weren't some ragtag band of civilians. It's true that Gadaffi had gone some way to pushing them back but the idea they could simply have been rolled over is counterfactual nonsense.
I've yet to meet a Libyan who is sad to see Gadaffi gone*. Not that they're much happier about what has happened since. Your one sided presentation of Gadaffi as a time of roses is tosh.
Says the man who has been repeatedly wrong about the facts on the ground.
* - yes, yes, biased sample, etc.
Soldato
Not "fine", I'd say. But a Hell of a lot better than many regimes we deal with. And heading in a very positive direction. The most difficult part for Western viewpoints is the "democracy" angle. Libya was not a democracy. HOWEVER, its history was very tribal and what Gadhaffi did create was a tribal council where the different factions of Libya felt represented. At least until one faction decided that with the aid of the West they could control all the oil for their own benefit. Regardless, it wasn't a democracy but it was a kind of balance of power that was working for the different tribes. When the Libyan government was smashed apart and its army broken up, it reverted to rival factions squabbling with each other. Last time I checked, Libya had two parliaments and three governments all simultaneously. How it would have handled Gadhaffi's passing I don't know but I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that it would have continued on its path - the ground work had been well-laid. And the aquifer project that I keep going on about would have transformed large parts of Libya giving it an amazing agricultural base and opening up a lot of new living space.
People do not like to be wrong. That's why the tactic of getting in there first with your narrative is so beloved by propagandists. Once you first make someone believe something, most will not take contradictory information as a reason to change their mind, but as an attack that must be defended. The first response is to hit Google or Wikipedia and find information specifically that will support your view.
Yes, I believe that. It's well-evidenced that this was being explored and also very clear that Libya had the resource to do it. They had large gold reserves, a successful oil industry (hamstrung by limited access to Western equipment but still) and the good reputation to do it. As I mentioned above, Gadhaffi was the elected chair of the African union, Libya had on many occasions used its wealth to fund programs in other African countries and fund pro-African groups. They'd also helped keep the peace in some of the less stable African regions. So we know they had the capability and the opportunity and were at the minimum investigating it. Frankly, it would have made a lot of economic sense. There are downsides to a currency system that wide (look at the difficulties in Greece with the Euro for example). But then a lot of the countries that might have signed on to it are already penalised in such a way already because their currency is pegged to the Euro by France, which controls the issuing of their currency (14 nations belong to either the Central African Franc or the Western African Franc - both of which are French owned currencies). So it could well have been a net gain. But long-term successful or not, the question is whether or not Libya would have done it and it's very likely they were going to. This isn't "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" conspiracy theory. This is more "a lot of people don't know" level stuff.
In addition to Shell, lets throw in Goldman Sachs to the equation. The Libyan Investment Authority entrusted over a billion US dollars with Goldman Sachs. GS then "lost" nearly all of it. Libya pursued legal action against them and forced GS to a deal whereby they'd re-invest and get $5bn in preferred shares. GS and the US government are, as I'm sure you already know, more entangled than two octopuses *******. The prospect of LIBYA of all countries have a significant voting share in GS was unpalatable to say the least. Immediately with the NATO decision to attack you had asset freezing and to the best I've been able to find out, this was just quietly dropped. I say asset freezing, seizing is more likely. Who knows where Libya's gold reserves are today? It's a mystery.
Anyway, source for the above. It's the Guardian but hey - the truth shows up in the unlikeliest of places sometimes.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/31/goldman-sachs-libya-investment
Caporegime
Anyway, what has any of this got to do with Venezuela?
Soldato
US Senator Marco Rubio tweeted a picture of Gadhaffi's corpse at President Maduro.
EDIT: Not his corpse, my mistake. His blood covered face on the way to being killed. The rebels videoed and distributed it. Marco Rubio plainly grabbed a copy and took a still from it.