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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe US Intervention in Libya Was Such a Smashing Success That a Sequel Is Coming
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34859-the-us-intervention-in-libya-was-such-a-smashing-success-that-a-sequel-is-comingJust as there was no al Qaeda or ISIS to attack in Iraq until the U.S. bombed its government, there was no ISIS in Libya until NATO bombed it. Now the U.S. is about to seize on the effects of its own bombing campaign in Libya to justify an entirely new bombing campaign in that same country. The New York Times editorial page, which supported the original bombing of Libya, yesterday labeled plans for the new bombing campaign deeply troubling, explaining: A new military intervention in Libya would represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread to other countries on the continent. In particular, this significant escalation is being planned without a meaningful debate in Congress about the merits and risks of a military campaign that is expected to include airstrikes and raids by elite American troops (the original Libya bombing not only took place without Congressional approval, but was ordered by Obama after Congress rejected such authorization).
This was supposed to be the supreme model of Humanitarian Intervention. It achieved vanishingly few humanitarian benefits, while causing massive humanitarian suffering, because as usual the people who executed the humanitarian war (and most who cheer-led for it) were interested only when the glories of bombing and killing were flourishing but cared little for actual humanitarianism (as evidenced by their almost complete indifference to the aftermath of their bombing). As it turns out, one of the few benefits of the NATO bombing of Libya will redound to the permanent winners in the private-public axis that constitutes the machine of Endless Militarism: It provided a pretext for another new war.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)War war war good for the pocketbook
Absolutely ridiculous but we keep doing this, meanwhile creating more enemies, our infrastructure is crumbling etc, but by god the weapons manufactures are getting richer👎
Wilms
(26,795 posts)Then he failed to mention Syria, Libya and Yemen.
But he touted efforts in Ukraine that have, in fact, destabilized the country and reset the Cold War.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)This article is full of shit. But what to expect from Greenwald. It's not even a couple of paragraphs more than your quote. Unsubstantiated bullshit.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Lots of people besides Greenwald say otherwise.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)ISIS in Libya is no bigger than the militia in the US. It does more damage because Libya is post-revolution with uncertainty. But Libya isn't falling into Iraq or even Syria style destruction. Libya is doing better than most Latin American states. Without that recognition it's a shallow observation.
The Libya R2P action did not "create" ISIS nor did it "empower" ISIS. ISIS would be doing this shit regardless, in every state that had the Arab Spring. See: Tunisia, the state best off in the Arab Spring.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Attempting to dominate the world with military force always backfires.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Undoubtedly another least bad of several bad choices situation.
We reluctantly bombed Libya originally to stop genocide, hoping rather than expecting that things would stabilize on a better footing afterward. Somehow I doubt the many, many thousands whose lives we saved think the only gain was to war profiteers.
As for the rest, Josh is right. And IMO, imagining that President Obama is in thrall to war profiteers, enormously powerful though they are, and that that is really why this is happening, is definitely very silly.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)you silly thing.
Yes. Obama made that decision reluctantly. As all informed people know.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)But reluctance doesn't seem to have much to do with that video, it sounds much more like someone giddy with victory, natural and unaffected pleasure.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Hillary = More War.
pampango
(24,692 posts)When former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was dragged from a drainage pipe in his hometown of Sirte and summarily executed by rebel forces in October 2011, much of the world looked at the event optimistically as the end of a 42-year dictatorship and a chance for the country to move forward.
In reality, however, the power vacuum left by the fall of Gaddafi's regime, along with his failure to create a civil society and infrastructure to succeed him and the vast stockpiles of unguarded weapons free for the taking, created a security nightmare that not only continues to threaten the region to this day, but also has broader implications for the long-term global struggle against violent extremism. Life in Libya under Gaddafi was bad; life in Libya today may arguably be worse.
Libya has collapsed, and without a general reconciliation between the rival governments, ISIL and al-Qaeda will only further strengthen their hold there. The December 2015 UN-brokered agreement was a starting point that proved too contentious for both parties to agree on.
Now is the time for the international community to work with both parties to resolve their political differences. As we have seen elsewhere, the consequences for Libya, for the region and beyond are too great.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/libya-extremism-consequences-collapse-160128054629594.html
Installing a new repressive dictator is not a viable (nor a liberal) option. Uniting the rival 'governments' as the UN has been trying to do seems more likely to work unless the world washes its hands and sits back and watches another civil war.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Libya-Syria-Ukraine. The axis of US scheming failure.
And while we obsessed over and "solved" the Netanyahu-concocted "crisis" of Iran (which never had bombs and wasn't developing any), North Korea has created multiple atomic bombs for a regime 100x crazier than the ayatollahs.
Fail!