Time to be nice about something. I was quite cynical in February, but to my surprise we did do something useful, the rebels were brave enough to overcome their lack of organistaion, and after much chaos and death it has worked; the “rebels” are now the government, Gaddafi is a fugitive from justice. The fighting isn’t over but the result of the fighting is not in doubt.
However, as we managed to conclusively demonstrate in Afghanistan and Iraq, winning the war is the easy bit. Likely, everyone has learnt lessons from that. And likely, Libya is in a better starting position that either. So, my best wishes to them all (I never know what to say in such times; I don’t wish people “good luck” before a race, because it isn’t a matter of luck. I could wish them “try hard”, but that is patronising).
This is another side of victory. Great for a while but needs to fade quickly; likely it will.
wmconnolley: scienceblogs.com/stoat archive 
I think Craig Murray understands the situation better.
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This isn’t a subject on which I’m terribly well-versed, but my impression is that Libya will have tribal problems similar to Afghanistan’s.
Most of my optimism is reserved for Iraq.
It would be a lovely place to visit though if it weren’t for the people.
On an amusing side-note:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/photos-indicate-qaddafi-diplo-crush-on-rice/
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The problem with Iraq was the total disbandment of any infrastructure and security due to an external political desire to eradicate the Ba’ath Party. Lessons were not learned from the former Yugoslavia, or to be more specific, lessons were learned by some but disregarded by others, and the vetoed some could only stare in disbelief knowing full well what would happen next. Clean water supply is what the Libyan people need right now or the country will probably descend into chaos. Hopefully, none of the retards with the power of veto after the Iraq invasion have any influence in Libya. I recommend a read of General Sir Mike (Darth Vader) Jackson’s autobiography. I also hope the likes of Blackwater/XE and Haliburton will never get to set foot on Libyan soil, which would be replacing one set of mercenaries with another.
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Of course there were problems with Iraq. I personally wouldn’t have gone into any of the countries.
It just seems like the Iraqis are less barbaric and actually want to have a functional national government not based on tribalism or theocracy.
Those are just my feelings on the subject and could easily be wildly inaccurate.
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4 TheGood Locust, second paragraph, weirdly compares Iraq against the Tea Party.
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Sure, “save” oil rich Libya (and Iraq!) and ignore oil poor Syria and every other country…
[The Arab league asked us to. They haven’t asked us to save Syria -W]
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@Bowers I agree to a certain extent. The Tea Party is clearly not based on the tribal thinking patterns of the democrat party. It is pretty clear they don’t want a theocracy either, but I’m assuming most of them are religious.
There are of course many forms of religion – and religious (magical) thinking.
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@ GoodLocust. White Conservatives, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann. Fail on all three of your points.
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@Bowers If you have a point regarding white conservatives, Rick Perry an Michelle Bachmann then you’ll have to elucidate it for me.
This is especially true since I believe only Bachmann could be considered a member of the Tea Party and even that is a tenuous link since she is not the leader of the Tea Party and likely holds some opinions contrary to their values.
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GoodLocust, are you unwittingly saying there is a leader of the “grassroots” Tea Party? Who would that be, then? Where is Bachmann’s and Perry’s support coming from? The American Communist Party?
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@Bower You didn’t answer, so let me clarify, what do Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann and white conservatives have to do with the Tea Party as it relates to my description of Iraq?
Be as clear as possible.
As for your question, you can find the leader of the Tea Party by looking at who Richard Pryor was campaigning for in the classic American film known as Brewster’s Millions.
Your last sentence does not make sense to me logically. Did Barack Obama have the support of American communists in the last election? Does that make him a communist?
Perhaps they just felt Obama was the lesser of two evils.
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GoodLocust, the Tea Party is supposed to be a grassroots movement, without a leader. If you want the real leader, though, look to David Koch and his henchman, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity – reverse socialism, stealing from the working and middle classes to make the filthy rich even richer. Bachmann and Perry are dominionists, which requires a Christian theocratic state in order to enable the Second Coming. Bachmann even openly admits that she defers to her husband on decisions in accordance with Biblical law. Teavangelical Taliban.
My last sentence was sarcasm.
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@Bowers The Tea Party is a grass roots movement and has no real leader.
The Koch brothers are great! Did you know they gave $20 million to the ACLU in order to fight the Patriot Act while Bush was president?
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/25/the-koch-brothers-right-wing-c
No? They aren’t the bogeyman they’ve been made out to be by Media Matters.
As for “stealing from the poor and middle class” – how do you suppose that? The rich pay the vast majority of the income tax in the US. If anything the poor and middle class aren’t paying their fair share – which precisely explains the clamor for ever increasing “services” – why wouldn’t they want them if they aren’t paying for them?
And Bachman and Perry being “dominionists?” That sounds like a silly conspiracy from some blog. Are they religious? Sure, but to say they are going to turn America into a theocracy is silliness.
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> dominionists
Citation for Bachmann, see ref. to the book “Total Truth”:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all
But when you read the other quotes in the article, Bachmann contradicts herself frequently on both opinion and fact.
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@Hank
So your proof that she wants a theocracy is that 30 years ago a professor at one of her schools said he wanted one (according to that rather biased article so who knows what the truth is)?
You people said the exact same thing about George Bush. Why aren’t we a theocracy after 8 years of him?
As for her “quotes,” some of which were quite brief and obviously truncated, anybody can play the quote-mining game.
Obama has made many very stupid and radical statements. He even attended a church for over 20 years and brought his children to listen to a man that claimed, repeatedly, that white people invented HIV to commit genocide against blacks.
Why do you ignore such things from Obama’s past, which are often much worse, while focusing on a professor Bachmann may or may not have had 30 years ago?
What was Obama doing 30 years ago? Oh that’s right – he was in Pakistan for some reason – just a simple tour of a country under strict Sharia law, military rule and which was used as a launching pad for an insurgency by Islamic militants against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
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Texas Observer: Rick Perry’s Army of God
“In all the media attention surrounding Perryâs flirtation with a run for the presidency, the governorâs budding relationship with the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation movement has largely escaped notice. But perhaps not for long. Perry has given self-proclaimed prophets and apostles leading roles in The Response, a much-publicized Christians-only prayer rally that Perry is organizing at Houstonâs Reliant Stadium on Aug. 6.
[…]
Eight members of The Response âleadership teamâ are affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation movement. Theyâre employed or associated with groups like TheCall or the International House of Prayer (IHOP), Kansas City-based organizations at the forefront of the movement. The long list of The Responseâs official endorsersâposted on the eventâs websiteâreads like a Whoâs Who of the apostolic-prophetic crowd, including movement founder C. Peter Wagner.”
So, Obama may well have attended a church meeting with a nutjob, but, in the seeming absence of leading AIDS deniers in his administration it would appear that Obama has far more acute critical thinking skills than Rick Perry.
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“What was Obama doing 30 years ago? Oh that’s right – he was in Pakistan for some reason – just a simple tour of a country under strict Sharia law”
Call the Lone Gunmen.
More âBirtherâ Nonsense: Obamaâs 1981 Pakistan Trip
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@Bowers
Yeah Obama has had such a great administration. Remember his “green jobs czar?” He had to resign when it came out that he was a 9/11 truther. Not to mention the other nuts who’ve said things like Mao Tse-Tung being one of her two favorite philosophers.
I would not be surprised if any of them thought HIV was invented by whites to kill blacks [snip. You can tell, in retrospect, that its all gone horribly wrong by this point, can’t you? One clue is that you end up posting all your comments as replies to someone else (this applies to JB, too). Anyway, this is all wildly off-topic. If you want to argue Obama’s virtues or otherwise, find another blog. I just wrote you a nice post setup for you to refute me and the IPCC on attribution -W]
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/30/america-s-secret-libya-war-u-s-spent-1-billion-on-covert-ops-helping-nato.html
… the U.S. also supplied other high-tech gearâNATO sources declined to describe it, but apparently it had never been given before, even to allied special forces.
⢠When a desperate Gaddafi began to launch Scud missiles into towns held by the opposition, a U.S. guided-missile destroyer offshore negated his offensive by shooting down the Scuds….”
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Apologies.
[Thanks OK -W]
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This shit makes me feel icky. It’s a bit East India Company. We should have, quite frankly, been doing it without this kind of “reward”.
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The Libyan footie team has changed their kit colours to the rebel colours. As far as I’m concerned, that’s officially the end of the Gaddafi regime.
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