I Apologize To The French!

[DailyDi]

The French gets a lot of crap from Americans, but I must say, they are right on top of this Libya issue, first planes in and willing to throw the first missiles.

Not looking or trying to start a big political debate here; just think its good to know that governments can come together when they think the cause is right.

[AutieAB]

How quickly things change, huh?

Don't get me wrong, things have changed in the last month or so and Gaddafi has to go but... Just a few months ago, France were signing trade deals with Tripoli and have been for quite a while. Last time I checked, he's been a despotic dictator for a while now </sarcasm>

[aleyxsis]

i know your not talking about french canadians !.All of our planes are in afghanistan (all 3 of them ) lol .But seriuosly god bless our fighting men and women !!

[DaddyHatiwolf]

wheres the cheering for the libyan people who arent taking crap anymore?

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

I would be very careful about this Libya thing. A couple of years ago, I heard that the Islamic theocrats, including the Muslim Brotherhood, were leading the Arabic decocracy movements knowing that if majority rule were installed, the Arabic people would vote fore Islamic theocracy and Sheri'a Law. Even Rush Limbaugh is having second thoughts about this after seeing how entrenched the Muslim Brotherhood is in Egypt

I was opposed to the Iraq war since part of the support for it was to "aid the Shi-ites" which are 60% of the Israqui people, Now, when I hear "Shi-ite" two things that come to mind are "Iran" and "52 captive Americans".. Now what do we do in Iraq when the Ayatollahs say to the Iraquis "Who do you love more Allah or the Crusader? [these people are living the Crusades like they happened yesterday, not 600+ years ago and 'Crusader' is a swear word'"

In 1981, one of my friends and I were discussing US intervention in Afghanistan and he mentioned the "Freedom Fighters" and I asked "Do you mean the Mujahaddim? [i could see 'jihad' in there]" and he said "yes". I said "'mujahaddim' means 'holy warrior'. Can you, as an atheist, equate 'holy warrior' with freedom?" to which he said. "But they're fighting the Soviets". I said "you will find that there are worse things in the world than the Sovs". He said "Well, it's only Afghanistan, the land is lousey, let them have it". I replied "It's land and any loand is good for staging. They are the natives so they know how to live there. They hate us more than the Soviets and will take a cut at us the first chance they get". I had been aware of the Islamic theocratic movement since 1978 so I was not out on a limb on this. It was like going from 1+1=2 to 2+1=3 and 2+2=4. Not hard at all

There may be worse things than Qaddaffi out there. Like Saddam Hussein he runs a secular tyranny and we had him under control. There is an Arabic proverb: "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it". It would not surprise me if this whole "democracy" thing leads to several new "Islamic Republic"s. Is that what you want?

[aleyxsis]

Anybody in government power is dangerous anymore !.Just wait it will get worse !! I hate to be neg but im slowly loosing faith !

[BabyJune]

SOLUTION: Send some of our Wall Street investors to the terrorist countries. Within a week they will have taken away all their money and bankrupted the country and there will be nothing left. Trust me, that'll work. They did it right here in America.

[DailyDi]

wheres the cheering for the libyan people who arent taking crap anymore?

Been doing that. Proud of all the countries who are now standing up and demanding a say in their own lives.

[LuvsGurl]

Only time will tell if these revolutions are good for foreign relations or not. Many of these dictators have been propped up and supported by the US for decades, so the people in these countries probably don't have the friendliest view of us.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

We have always done badly in the Near East. The 1980's incursion into Lebanon was a disaster. The Iraq War is a disaster the second stage of which is waiting to happen and we still do not have Bin Laden after 9 years. so what does that say? Half the military leadership was against the invasion of Iraq

The biggest reason for this is that we think of these areas as nations. As a resutl, we are unable to see the actaul dynamic there. In fact, there is no Iraq or Afghanistan. except in the geographic sense. Hussein said "With me dies Iraq". He understood that the place was not nation-state oriented. The two biggest factors in most Arab life are religion and clan/tribe. In religion, Iraq is like Nothern Ireland. In most of the West, we put that behind us after the Wars of the Reformation. We saw the destabilizing effects of religious strife and decided we better find a way to put an end to that or we would fly apart. But even in the US population, there is still a residue of religious animosity that is papered over by the church authorities.

\The next big problem is that Arab society organizez by clan, tribe and locale. Qaddaffi is from one part of Libya and that is where his base of support is.That is the part he favors and sticks it to the other half. If hi is ousted, as with Iraq the "outs" will seek revenge and a bloodbath is in the offing. This will be a tripartite system with the geographic factions warring. The third element will be the religious, particularly fanatical elements. They will move in and offer stability in exchange for being made the rulers of the place. Sonce this area is mostly Muslim and they have not learned to separate mosque from state, they will be a credible force and get their way. Two workds. "Sheri'a Law" in exchange for peace in the area. That is how the Taliban got control of Afghanistan. The population, being very homogeneious will go for it by about 85%. Who can blame them given the demographics and operational factors.

This is not new nor should it be surprising. Look at the US from 1861-65.We fought a nbrutal war of that kind too, from which we still have not recovered. That war set the stage fro the massive increase in Federal expansion to a level that would case the Founders to prefer Bristish rule if they saw it coming. Constitutionally, the Southern states were within their rights to secede and followed the specified procedures. Through a series of events in keeping with that view of the Federal Government over the past 140+ years it has acquired the framework for a totalitarian state and the only reason it has not become such is that the apparatus for this tyranny is distributed and not under the control of one entity. Hwever, nature sides with the hidden flaw and that is just a matter of when and not if unless this is reversed. If you doubt this, look up the meaning of the workd "totalitarian" and see how many areas of your life the government makes its presence felt: Make it easer and see how many parts of your life the government has NOT put itself. We are less fracious than the Arabs and looking at them from a long way off through the prism of being a nation-state in the European model. Tu us, the kind of internacine fighting that they do is insane. But they, like the Balkans, do not see that kind of thing as internacine. to the Sunni, the Shia might as well be Martians. To the Iraquis the Kurds might as well be from Venus. to the people of Takrit those from Najaf might as well be from Pluto. Even Italy has strong sectional division. Look up and understand the meaning of the word "Pisano". It does not mean "Italian", ti means Venezian, Roman Napolian, Genovese, Milano, etc. Italy is barely united and only for about 140 years. That is a short time in history. Frnace has been united for about 450 years (the Burgundians were the last to be brought in; forcibly). Britain has fared better; about 700 years and Portugal about 800 years, with the Azores being added some 550 years ago.

So division has been the state of affairs in ths world for most of the last 1500 year and we do not understand that or its meanings and dynamics

[oliver d]

US and EUROPEAN intervention in the internal affairs of Libya, one very simple answer oil nothing else.The allies have zero sympathy for the libian people or there cause,they dont care who is in power as long as the ones in power are willing to sell them oil

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Why people keep up with the one-dimensional anayses of things I do not know. These have been overwhelmingly proved wrong by virtue of being shallow, yet the practice persists. Same here

There are other, equally facile excusesrs that do not clash with the offered one and I would wager that all are true. In fact of them all the least significant is oil since it would be easier for us to deal with a single mostly secularentity than what may fall out of this, such a a partitioned Libya or, if Qaddaffi is ousted an Islamic Republic.

1. the idea that people are alike all over. This is based on simple projection and transferrence. "They're people, like us". This is true, but just enough to be decieving. from a mindset and worldview. they are quite alien. They take their religion far more seriously than we do and they think in exceedingly parochial terms. clan, trib and immediate region.

2 Grandstanding. "standing up" to Qaddaffi, who has been a thorn in our side since the late 70's. "Defending democracy": "looking good" has some value to be milked and maybe some even believe it.

3 Isreal. There is some notion that we have to jump in to protect Isreal. That country is perfectly able and willing to take care of itself and ought to and should be let to do so. I have no quarrel with them taking care of business. But this all looks good from all kinds of angles, especially religious.. How many Near East countries have nukes and what are they?

So this whole business resonates all kinds of ways

[freswith]

Indeed, it's nice to see the French involved for once without them putting their commercial interests first. Alas, the heel draggers this time round have been the Americans. Three weeks ago Obama rubbished David Cameron's plan for a no-fly zone, and we have lost that much time for Gaddafi to fly in mercenaries and wage war on his own people. Now Obama has come round, and realised that sometimes Bush was right, it may be too late(Miss me yet?). Had he moved three weeks ago he might have bumped Gaddafi into seeking asylum in Zimbabwe or Venezuela. Now not even Venezuela will have him.

Unfortunately Gaddafi will not give in easily. Like Hitler, he will be quite prepared to destroy his whole country before losing power himself. The only solution will be boots on the ground - followed by Gaddafi's boots on the gallows trap. As Goering discovered, you can't bring a country down by air-power alone; someone will always climb out of the rubble and shoot back. Ultimately you have to send in the poor bloody infantry to clear the enemy and force the peace treaty. Unfortunately Obama is viscerally opposed to this idea.

As for what comes next in Libya, heaven knows! The longer we leave it, the more opposition leadership will be eliminated and the way will open for the Islamofascists. We have lost three weeks in the construction of a shadow government and exit stategy.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Suggesting we should do something the outcome of which "heaven knows" is not minding the store. I have found that when you open the door to what "heaven knows", there is hell to pay. Better the devil you know than the devil you do not know. Both are devils so that is settled, but with one you have a modus vivendi. Why put yourself back to square one and with deuces and one-eyed jacks wild? The Reagan Administration could have knocked him off. So could have Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Do you suppose they knew something? I have known about the "Islamic Republic" movement since 1978. the way this upheaval is going throughout the Arab world suggests that it is orchestrated. It is certainly co-ordinated. Now, who could and would do that? I am suspicious of this thing. When even Limbaugh does not want to go charging in, I see a cautionary tale. Also, can we afford it being 14 tril in the drink and circling the drain?

I hate to say it, because I was long in favor of ousting Qaddaffi. But have since learned that in Afghanistan there were worse things than the Soviets

There were two books I read in the early '80's: MURPHY'S LAW and MORE MURPHY'S LAW From the first I got, "when you open a can of worms, you need a larger can to re-can them" and "Nature sides with the hidden flaw"