I've always slightly suspected this: "Let 'em kill each other over there vs NY"!

[Xavier_Onassis]

All the intervention did was prevent Qadaffi from murdering thousands of Libyans.

No matter who ended up running Libya, they would not please you because they would be Muslims and you hate Muslims.

So I discount your kvetching about this as silly.

I bet you expect the ideal outcome in Syria would be a pro Israeli government that would turn over all rights to the Golan to Israel.

[Christians4LessGvt]

All the intervention did was prevent Qadaffi from murdering thousands of Libyans.

Total and complete bullshit.
Nato made thousands of sorties protecting rebel fighters
I guess those rebel soldiers could be decsribed as "thousands of Libyans"
But hardly innocent bystanders.
The intervention was meant to topple Khadaffi.
We dont intervene in every civil war where thousands might and sometimes do die.

No matter who ended up running Libya, they would not please you because they would be Muslims and you hate Muslims.

More complete lying garbage that actually makes no sense.
I suppose it's the old repeat the same lie enough and hope some moron might believe it.
I "hate" Muslims but I hire Muslims...which I could easily avoid.
My single highest paid employee is Muslim..I could turn that switch off today if I so chose.
I "hate" Muslims but have several close friends that are Muslim.
I "hate" Muslims but I spend Holidays and break bread with Muslims.
I "hate" Muslims but often praise King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
I "hate" Muslims but think of Muhammad Ali as one of my all-time heroes.
I "hate" Muslims but often praise the brave Muslims fighting the IslamoNazis.
I "hate" Muslims but advocate women's rights for millions of Muslim women.
I "hate" Muslims but support many Muslim leaders across the Middle East.
The list could go on and on......

So I discount your kvetching about this as silly.

So why do you keep responding?

I bet you expect the ideal outcome in Syria would be a pro Israeli government that would turn over all rights to the Golan to Israel.

The ideal outcome for Syria would be if Syria would closely aligned itself to the West.
Ya know...latch on to something with a success record, something that changes the world.
instead of something with a sucks record......Instead of buddying up with losers like Iran.
Syria and Syrians would be much better off making peace with Isreal and accepting reality.

[Xavier_Onassis]

To you, it seems that everything is a competition, everyone is a winner or a loser. Life is some sort of game. Bah.

The US has no close friends in the Muslim world, the only reason the US deals with them is oil or some other resource. Maybe they cultures are too dissimilar, but it seems that the main reason is that business is the only thing that they have in common.

My experience is that people are NOT winners or losers, and viewing life as a competition is a very poor way to go about living.

As a group, Americans are not particularly tolerant or friendly. Of course, there are a lot of exceptions. I have found people almost everywhere more tolerant and friendly than people here in the US, especially east of the Mississippi.

Israel could easily make peace by giving back the Golan, whenever Syria actually has a new government.

[Christians4LessGvt]

If the Libyan war was about saving lives, it was a catastrophic failure

Nato claimed it would protect civilians in Libya, but delivered far more killing.
It's a warning to the Arab world and Africa

Wednesday 26 October 2011 

As the most hopeful offshoot of the "Arab spring" so far flowered this week in successful elections in Tunisia, its ugliest underside has been laid bare in Libya. That's not only, or even mainly, about the YouTube lynching of Gaddafi, courtesy of a Nato attack on his convoy.

The grisly killing of the Libyan despot after his captors had sodomised him with a knife, was certainly a war crime. But many inside and outside Libya doubtless also felt it was an understandable act of revenge after years of regime violence. Perhaps that was Hillary Clinton's reaction, when she joked about it on camera, until global revulsion pushed the US to call for an investigation.

As the reality of what western media have hailed as Libya's "liberation" becomes clearer, however, the butchering of Gaddafi has been revealed as only a reflection of a much bigger picture. On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch reported the discovery of 53 bodies, military and civilian, in Gaddafi's last stronghold of Sirte, apparently executed ? with their hands tied ? by former rebel militia.

Its investigator in Libya, Peter Bouckaert, told me yesterday that more bodies are continuing to be discovered in Sirte, where evidence suggests about 500 people, civilians and fighters, have been killed in the last 10 days alone by shooting, shelling and Nato bombing.

That has followed a two month-long siege and indiscriminate bombardment of a city of 100,000 which has been reduced to a Grozny-like state of destruction by newly triumphant rebel troops with Nato air and special-forces support.

And these massacre sites are only the latest of many such discoveries. Amnesty International has now produced compendious evidence of mass abduction and detention, beating and routine torture, killings and atrocities by the rebel militias Britain, France and the US have backed for the last eight months ? supposedly to stop exactly those kind of crimes being committed by the Gaddafi regime.

Throughout that time African migrants and black Libyans have been subject to a relentless racist campaign of mass detention, lynchings and atrocities on the usually unfounded basis that they have been loyalist mercenaries. Such attacks continue, says Bouckaert, who witnessed militias from Misrata this week burning homes in Tawerga so that the town's predominantly black population ? accused of backing Gaddafi ? will be unable to return.

All the while, Nato leaders and cheerleading media have turned a blind eye to such horrors as they boast of a triumph of freedom and murmur about the need for restraint. But it is now absolutely clear that, if the purpose of western intervention in Libya's civil war was to "protect civilians" and save lives, it has been a catastrophic failure.

David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy won the authorisation to use "all necessary means" from the UN security council in March on the basis that Gaddafi's forces were about to commit a Srebrenica-style massacre in Benghazi. Naturally we can never know what would have happened without Nato's intervention. But there is in fact no evidence ? including from other rebel-held towns Gaddafi re-captured ? to suggest he had either the capability or even the intention to carry out such an atrocity against an armed city of 700,000.

What is now known, however, is that while the death toll in Libya when Nato intervened was perhaps around 1,000-2,000 (judging by UN estimates), eight months later it is probably more than ten times that figure. Estimates of the numbers of dead over the last eight months ? as Nato leaders vetoed ceasefires and negotiations ? range from 10,000 up to 50,000. The National Transitional Council puts the losses at 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded.

Of those, uncounted thousands will be civilians, including those killed by Nato bombing and Nato-backed forces on the ground. These figures dwarf the death tolls in this year's other most bloody Arab uprisings, in Syria and Yemen. Nato has not protected civilians in Libya ? it has multiplied the number of their deaths, while losing not a single soldier of its own.

For the western powers, of course, the Libyan war has allowed them to regain ground lost in Tunisia and Egypt, put themselves at the heart of the upheaval sweeping the most strategically sensitive region in the world, and secure valuable new commercial advantages in an oil-rich state whose previous leadership was at best unreliable. No wonder the new British defence secretary is telling businessmen to "pack their bags" for Libya, and the US ambassador in Tripoli insists American companies are needed on a "big scale".

But for Libyans, it has meant a loss of ownership of their own future and the effective imposition of a western-picked administration of Gaddafi defectors and US and British intelligence assets. Probably the greatest challenge to that takeover will now come from Islamist military leaders on the ground, such as the Tripoli commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj ? kidnapped by MI6 to be tortured in Libya in 2004 ? who have already made clear they will not be taking orders from the NTC.

No wonder the council's leaders are now asking Nato to stay on, and Nato officials have let it be known they will "take action" if Libyan factions end up fighting among themselves.

The Libyan precedent is a threat to hopes of genuine change and independence across the Arab world ? and beyond. In Syria, where months of bloody repression risk tipping into fullscale civil war, elements of the opposition have started to call for a "no-fly zone" to protect civilians. And in Africa, where Barack Obama has just sent troops to Uganda and France is giving military support to Kenyan intervention in Somalia, the opportunities for dressing up a new scramble for resources as humanitarian intervention are limitless.

The once savagely repressed progressive Islamist party An-Nahda won the Tunisian elections this week on a platform of pluralist democracy, social justice and national independence. Tunisia has faced nothing like the backlash the uprisings in other Arab countries have received, but that spirit is the driving force of the movement for change across a region long manipulated and dominated by foreign powers.

What the Libyan tragedy has brutally hammered home is that foreign intervention doesn't only strangle national freedom and self-determination ? it doesn't protect lives either

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/libya-war-saving-lives-catastrophic-failure

[Plane]

  The people of a nation have an absolute right to rebel against bad government , this is something to be expected now and then.

    I don't think the US has to be involved every time , but as a general rule is is good to pick a favoriate and support them.

    What was the real alternative for Libia?

      Support for Gadaffi was just so not happening.

[Christians4LessGvt]

What was the real alternative for Libia?

Maybe do what most nations did...China, Russia, most others.....didn't get involved!

[Plane]

What was the real alternative for Libia?

Maybe do what most nations did...China, Russia, most others.....didn't get involved!

That is an alternative for US not an alternative for Libia.

We do care how much of the world lives in misery and despotism, when our influence can improve the world we should do so.
 There is a dog for us in the fight, we should at least place a bet every time.
I don't think we spent too much on Libia.
It might have been good to have spent just a bit more and made our ambassidor safer.

[Christians4LessGvt]

I don't think we spent too much on Libia

In my mind a dollar spent
making things worse for the Libyan people as a whole
is "spending too much".
There was no US National Interest in Libya.
A Human Rights Watch research team already has evidence of war crimes committed by the "winner"
Watch the Human Rights Watch video below to see who Obama helped bring to power in Libya:

Libya: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte

[Xavier_Onassis]

There was no US National Interest in Libya.

===========================================

Yeah, imagine Afghanistan run by Al Qaeda with Libya's huge oil revenues, and next to Egypt. That would clearly be of no importance to the US.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Yeah, imagine Afghanistan run by Al Qaeda with Libya's huge oil revenues, and next to Egypt. That would clearly be of no importance to the US.

You idiot you are making my point!
Under Khadaffi there was no chance of Al Qaeda running Libya.
Now after Obama supported groups/rebels linked to Al Qaeda that may actually happen.
Obama has made the nightmare you speak of...Al Qaeda with huge oil revenues possible!
Again....Obama's actions made matters worse for not only Libyans but the entire world.



Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links


Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
 
5:00PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.

British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html

[Christians4LessGvt]

Flying proudly over the birthplace of Libya's revolution, the flag of Al Qaeda

By Sam Greenhill

2 November 2011


The black flag of Al Qaeda was hoisted in Libya yesterday as Nato formally ended its military campaign.The standard fluttered from the roof of the courthouse in Benghazi, where the country?s new rulers have imposed sharia law since seizing power.

Seen as the seat of the revolution, the judicial building was used by rebel forces to establish their provisional government and media centre.
 
Change of regime? A trademark Al Qaeda flag was seen flying over Benghazi's courthouse last week


Flying high: The Al Qaeda flag, with Arabic writing and a moon design, can be seen flying alongside a Libyan national flag above Benghazi's courthouse

The flag has been spotted on the courthouse several times, prompting denials from the National Transitional Council that it was responsible.
 
Taking a bulldozer to Gaddafi's estate: Libyans demolish dictator's former home as diplomat warns of 'revenge culture'
Is this the last letter from Gaddafi ? A plea to his 'friend' Silvio Berlusconi begs him to stop Nato bombings

Complete with Arabic script declaring ?there is no God but Allah? and a full moon underneath, it was hoisted alongside the Libyan national flag.
Extremists have been seen on Benghazi?s streets at night, waving the Al Qaeda flag and shouting ?Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West, VICE reported.

NATO'S LIBYA CAMPAIGN
Mar 17: U.N Security Council passes a resolution to impose a no-fly zone in Libyan airspace.
Mar 19: French and Italian aircraft enter Libyan airspace to begin reconnaissance and surveillance. British and U.S. ships and submarines fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan air and ground defences.
Naval blockade also enforced.
May 11: Nato aircraft fires four rockets at Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, killing two people.
May 12: 52 NATO strikes are carried out against loyalist targets across the country.
May 26: In the strongest attack of the operation so far, Nato planes bomb 20 targets in Tripoli under 30 minutes.
June 13: Nato carries out 62 airstrikes against targets in Tripoli and four other cities.
June 20: Nato is accused of killing 19 civilians in Sorman, west Tripoli, following another attack
July 16: Another Nato strike kills 10 rebels and wounds 172 during an advance on Brega.
Aug 9: Nato bombs a warship in Tripoli harbour.
Aug 20: Nato-supported rebels in Tripoli launch an uprising in the city, as Nato launch bombing raids over government targets.
Oct 20: Rebel forces take Sirte, with Gaddafi captured and eventually killed as Nato planes attack his convoy.
Oct 23: Gaddafi's family are forced to flee as rebels claim his compound in Bab al-Azizia.
Oct 31: Nato ends operations in Libya

A sudden lurch toward extremism will alarm many in the West who supported the ousting of Colonel Gaddafi.It also threatens to embarrass David Cameron who staked his personal reputation on the campaign to free Libya from the tyrant. Nato stuck to its decision to end its seven-month operation despite calls from the National Transitional Council for it to stay longer.
Allies of Nato have been keen to see a quick conclusion to a costly effort that has involved 26,000 air sorties and round-the-clock naval patrols.
The UN Security Council authorised the mission in March to protect civilians in the civil war.
Nato staff temporarily seconded to the headquarters in Naples for the Libyan operation are being reassigned to their regular duties, officials said.
Last week, the country?s interim leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, declared that sharia will be the ?basic source? of legislation.
The chairman of the National Transitional Council has also declared the country?s future parliament will have an ?Islamist tint?.
Sharia law is a form of hardline Islamic rule favoured by fundamentalist groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr Abdul-Jalil has been at pains to insist ?that we as Libyans are moderate Muslims?, and has said the proposed constitution is ?temporary? and will be put to a referendum.
But he has given a speech in which he said any law that ?violates sharia? is ?null and void?.
This means Libyan men will be free to take more than one wife, a policy branded a ?disaster for women? by Adelrahman al-Shatr, a founder of the newly-formed centre-right Party of National Solidarity.
He said: ?By abolishing the marriage law, women lose the right to keep the family home if they divorce. It is a disaster for Libyan women.

 
The Al-Qaeda flag was seen above Benghazi's courthouse just days after Libyan rebels imposed Sharia law on parts of the country (file picture)
?It is a subject that should be discussed with the different political groups and with the Libyan people. These declarations create feelings of pain and bitterness among women.?
A spokesman for a group called Women Living Under Muslim Laws said: ?Women are directly targeted by this change in laws and will lose many acquired rights in the process.?

The Benghazi courthouse was the epicentre of the revolution and on its forecourt in February running battles were fought with Gaddafi?s  mercenaries in the first few days of the uprising.

After Benghazi fell to the rebels, the courthouse became the headquarters of the fledgling leadership. They barricaded the main doors with wooden logs and set up a rudimentary government on the first floor, from where they worked tirelessly to organise the rest of the eight-month revolution.

To this day, captured tanks parked outside the courthouse are a playground for children and a symbol of the people?s defeat of the tyrant.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055630/Flying-proudly-birthplace-Libyas-revolution-flag-Al-Qaeda.html

[Christians4LessGvt]

Connections Between Al Qaeda And Libyan Rebels Run Deep

Doug Mataconis   Saturday, March 26, 2011   

There's more evidence today that many of the men engaged in fighting against the Gaddafi regime have ties to an organization that killed 3,000 Americans about 9 1/2 years ago:

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited around 25 men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the ?members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader?.

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Chad, of course, lies to Libya's south, and there are fears that a collapse of the central government in Tripoli could allow groups sympathetic to al Qaeda to set up camp in the vast deserts of Southern Libya:

The fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi might see the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorist groups filling up the void, US analysts have said.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that was branded by the US as a terrorist organisation in May 2010 has been operating from its base in Algeria, and has now extended its reach to the borders of Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad and Libya, Fox News reports.

Gaddafi had earlier not only provided intelligence on the terrorists? operations to the US, but has also publicly spoken out against them.

Branding the group members as "bad Muslims", Gaddafi said: "The security forces found a mosque in al-Zawiya. In a mosque! Weapons, alcohol, and their corpses all mixed up together".

Now that the Libyan dictator has gone into hiding, many analysts have raised concerns whether southern Libya will become a magnet for jihadist groups.

Cully Stimson, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who is now a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the al-Qaeda affiliate might turn out to be an adaptive enemy.

"AQIM has found their niche. They are going to exploit that to the degree they can. They have the ability in the strategic interest in moving and being adaptable. One of the most high-profile cases was a British hostage Edwin Dyer, who was murdered after lengthy negotiations for his release stalled," Stimson added.

If post-Gaddafi Libya turns into an al Qaeda haven on the very doorsteps of Europe, we may have traded one insane dictator for a far more serious problem.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/connections-between-al-qaeda-and-libyan-rebels-run-deep/

[Christians4LessGvt]

Putin: Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?