LIBIA italy question? or europe question?

[Jaws2002]

I'm not bashing the Americans. I'm pissed with the gutless persident.
That is not a position for an undecided academic. The president of United States has to be a man of action and a man that has an opinion, not someone that is waiting for the reaction of others, to make up his mind how to act.
I absolutely agree with you that something a lot more dangerous CAN come out of a Libya without Gadaffi.
But the question here is who you stand for. Thugs, dictators that are pretending they like you, or the people?
I'd say the people of Libya have the right to decide their fate, the regime is just too strong and too ruthless and they can't do it alone.
I can tell you that a lot of Libyans now LOVE the western powers that came to help them. It wasn't Iran that came to their aid. This alone can prevent the jihadists from taking power in Libya if Gadafi falls.

[nearmiss]

Jaws

I'm not bashing the Americans. I'm pissed with the gutless persident.
That is not a position for a undecided academician. The president of United States has to be a man of action and a man that has an opinion, not someone that is waiting for the reaction of others, to make up his mind how to act.
I absolutely agree with you that something a lot more dangerous CAN come out of a Libya without Gadaffi.
But the question here is what you stand for. Thugs, dictators that are pretending they like you, or the people?
I'd say the people of Libya have the right to decide their fate, the regime is just too strong and too ruthless and they can't do it alone.
I can tell you that a lot of Libyans now LOVE the western powers that came to help them. It wasn't Iran that came to their aid. This alone can prevent the jihadists from taking power in Libya if Gadafi falls.

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Libya, Yemen, Darfur, Sudan, etc. We can go on for quite awhile pointing to despotic governments that subvert and oppress their own people. Currently the most demonstrative radicalized governments are in the hands of Jihadists.

It would be excellent to think since America is now in the thick of it there would be enough goodwilll and empowerment of the people to keep the radical factions from taking over. Not so, the anti-American media will twist and subvert the message of American desire for Libya of democracy to demogogary. It never fails.

It will take alot longer for people to understand propaganda and relative truth. You would think years of oppression by dictators would eventually be engrained into peoples psyche to vehemently oppose more of the same. Yet, they continue to fall into the same quagmire.

There is a thing about American democracy that even Americans are losing touch with. Individual freedom is what Americans enjoy, but they don't take enough individual initiative in the running of their own government to realize they are going to lose that individual freedom.

Individual freedom can only be preserved by individual involvement in the political process.

The less individual participation, the less individual freedom. There is a direct correlation.

[Jaws2002]

Absolutely agree with you.
Countries that get away from some form of opressing government, in many cases end up under another opressive regime in the oposite side of the political spectrum.
The problem is exactly what you mentioned. Lack of individual involvment and in many cases lack of poilitical experience and understanding of the masses in this countries, that have been opressed for a long time.
Two perfect examples. Iran and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
This both countries after bloody revolutions went from being opressed by right wing to being oppressed by left wing dictators or left wing/islamists they brought to power.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

Absolutely agree with you.
Countries that get away from some form of opressing government, in many cases end up under another opressive regime in the oposite side of the political spectrum.
The problem is exactly what you mentioned. Lack of individual involvment and in many cases lack of poilitical experience and understanding of the masses in this countries, that have been opressed for a long time.
Two perfect examples. Iran and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
This both countries after bloody revolutions went from being opressed by right wing to being oppressed by left wing dictators or left wing/islamists they brought to power.

It is nice we can find common ground to agree. When people educate themselves, quit listening to what they are being led to believe by the media and make decisions for themselves about information they figure things out.

Restructuring for government is a difficult process. The radicals and extremists know this well. The insurrections are organized. There are people waiting quietly on the fringes that already have a formulated agenda and plan of action.

It has not been possible to depose the radicals and extremists in most revolutions, because when the revolution comes it is usually their design.

The only way possible would be to have organized groups of people within the respective countries that understand "We the people" would be ready with a plan of action.

America has tried to provide the framework for nation building in Iraq, by maintaining a firm association with Iraqi leadership. If a democratic form of government does prevail in Iraq that would be a major victory for the freedom of all people in the Middle East.

There are many worst case scenarios that could play out with a defeated Gadahfi, and the prospects for a best case scenario are slim to none. IMO, of course.

[el0375]

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individual freedom can only be preserved by individual involvement in the political process.
nice, but we have to get good knowledge and to be able to make correct critisism that this will be able and in such conditions its not easy at all

The less individual participation, the less individual freedom. There is a direct correlation.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by el0375

nice, but we have to get good knowledge and to be able to make correct critisism that this will be able and in such conditions its not easy at all

The less individual participation, the less individual freedom. There is a direct correlation.

You are correct it isn't easy, and somehow people have got to find a way.

Emailing friends, join advocacy groups, contact representatives, tell friends, etc.

Saying nothing, produces nothing.

Saying something may not produce much, but always more than saying nothing.

Results take time, and persistent effort.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Why do you speak so about Obama and the US. It is common knowledge that the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, etc. think America is the great oppressor, yet they all want America to police the world.

Recently a radical from Croatia killed two American servicemen in Germany. Why? American soliders died in Croatia trying to stop the genocide and killing of the Croatian Muslims by the Serbian oppressors.

The news media turns things to suit their agenda, the radicals turn things to suit their agenda, and the poor people are misinformed and manipulated to think in those terms.

You know as well as I, no one respects America before or after trying to help. Everyone thinks America always has profit motive. Yet, Americans are burying their sons. Where are all the profits, when does that happen? What is the payback for the dead soldiers and billions of dollars spent to help ungrateful countries? More contempt and hatred of America and an empty wallet

The enemy is the same..radical jihadists.

The difference is most of Libya oil production is going to Western European countries. Western European countries will be forced to acquire more of their oil from Russia. It is not about freedom, it is promoted that way by the media. The Libyans will be just as oppressed by the Jihadists as they have been by Gadahfi. Sorry, it won't be any better. There will be no rule of "We the People" if Gadahfi is out of power. It will be organized radical jihadists who have planned and promoted the insurgency that take the role of oppressing the libyans.

YET, no one is thinking why the jihadists are pushing so hard to take Libya. After they took Egypt... they only got a broke country with no money or resources to promote their agenda. Now that is different with Libya. If the jihadists can get their hooks into a money tree like Libya and dedicate the resources to jihad just think of the havoc they can cause.

America should have stayed out of the Libyan conflict 100% and let the Western European countries with everything to lose see what they can do about Libya.

We will have to wait and see, but you can trust Americans will be hated regardless of the outcome. A new Jihadist Libyan government will pull their factions together to affirm their power and be more oppressive of the Libyan people than Gadahfi.

Sadly, it just looks like more of the same for the people of Libya.

Don't get me wrong... I'd love to be wrong and look forward to a democratic government ruled by "we the people".

While you're right about many people going against the Americans and then asking for their support, there's a couple of point i'd like to address. I more or less agree with you, just providing a bit of extra opinion from another perspective.
For example, the Croats are not muslims but catholics. Apart from that, the current situation is very different from previous ones.

Libya is a genuine uprising, a civil war so to speak. Iraq was an invasion plain and simple and the Balkan affairs was selective punishment. I live in the region and know from first-hand accounts by people who live in the former yugoslav states that everybody was killing everybody during those years. There's a lot of tourists coming to certain sea resorts close to my home town and whenever the issue comes up with any of them, Croats, Bosnians and Serbs alike, they've had no trouble admitting that their neighbors or someone they knew was involved in civilian killings or executions of prisoners.
It's just that one side was seen as a Russian influence in the region and they got all the blame and bombs on their heads.

Ironically enough, some of the states formed by force by the NATO interventions are the ones that can't control or even harboring militant islamic elements: both the Madrid and London bombings of a few years ago were traced back to Kosovo and Bosnia, plus NATO has already conducted at least one joint exercise with Serbian forces recently. All of this tells me that if nothing else, a serious mistake of picking sides based on short-term planning has occurred in a region where ethnic rivalries span entire centuries and it would make more sense to be firm but fair and impartial to all, both in punishment and in motivation to end the conflict by forcing concessions from all involved parties to an equal measure.

This is the one single mistake that has plagued foreign US policy for decades, ever since Cuba, Vietnam and silently backing dictators in various countries from the south America to Iraq: the planners tend to think the locals will easily conform to their standards and usually lack in-depth knowledge of local social, historical and cultural conditions.

This is the main reason the UK was more successful than the US is in their counter-insurgency campaigns in the years after WW2: they usually refused to openly pick sides, preferring to contain the situation within each country and support their chosen "representative" faction with indirect means. This has the welcome effect of not drawing all the spotlights on you, plus the outcome can be served as being partly a decision of the locals, much more preferable in the long run to have people think they managed to changed the situation on their own.
It also pays a lot if the local civilians in the area can trust you to be impartial, they will trust you more in general. This however is a far cry from what usually happens on the field, when young soldiers that have been specifically trained to place their unit's safety above the civilian population have also been led to believe they'll be received as liberators by the locals: they are getting attacked and despised but nobody took the time to tell them why it really happens (because it would openly reveal the true nature of their mission), so whenever they face hostility from the locals they are naturally frustrated, inclined to disregard the local population even more ("i came here to die for these guys and they throw rocks at me?screw them" type of thinking), the locals respond in kind and escalate and the vicious circle continues...

I truly believe that the blame doesn't lie with the foot soldier. It's the guys who sent him there that have some answering to do, both to the locals and to the soldier. Most of the current mess that goes on in various regions around the world is not the fault of the local population or the western public in general, but caused by a select few people in high places that make a career out of mincing words...and in all honesty, they are not only lying to the foreigners they try to oppress, they are also lying to us, the citizens, who put them in that place. I have no problem at all with people of different origins, it's our governments that usually pit us all against each other

I agree with you that this is all a mess and it's easy to make mistakes. What you propose about individual action in your following posts also holds a lot of merit. We must start being able to hold our leaders accountable if the situation is to be improved. Countries that have healthy democracies, like Switzerland and Scandinavian states, are usually based on that. The citizen is an integral part of the machine, not some throw-away voter we can lie to to ensure another term in office. This means that the citizen in turn is also willing to do more for the state, because he IS the state and can see direct benefits. This is reflected on all facets of society, from mandatory military service (excusable only under health reasons) to frequent referendums about the slightest of issue. This is far better than what happens in most European countries, where people can get elected in office by saying one thing and then do another as soon as they secure the spot.

The problem usually is that the powers that be can easily polarize a situation to drown out the most reasonable opinions among us all, so individual action gets sidetracked to other goals. For example, during the past few years anyone who disagreed with how the recent wars were ran was labeled as a US-hater, jihad supporter or a Soviet sympathizer. It's not until recently that the amount of loss of life and financial cost has made the western public at large aware of the fact that mistakes have been made, both in justification and in execution of these operations. It's the experience of the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan that makes us all unwilling to step in for Libya today.

It's also true that mistakes are not all intentional. However, the longer we focus on labels instead of the issue at hand and as long as we are unwilling to admit and own up to said mistakes, the easier it is for our governments to pit us against each other for the benefit of others.

I hope i didn't ruffle any feathers here, all i'm trying to say is that as long as we prefer to be vindictive instead of fair and enforce a similar attitude on our rulers, we won't really see much of an improvement.