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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Fury on April 14, 2011, 01:34:33 PM
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False pretense for war in Libya?
EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.
Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. “If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’’ Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.
But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.
The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.
Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.
But Khadafy’s acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide.
Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’
If bloodbath was unlikely, how did this notion propel US intervention? The actual prospect in Benghazi was the final defeat of the rebels. To avoid this fate, they desperately concocted an impending genocide to rally international support for “humanitarian’’ intervention that would save their rebellion.
On March 15, Reuters quoted a Libyan opposition leader in Geneva claiming that if Khadafy attacked Benghazi, there would be “a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda.’’ Four days later, US military aircraft started bombing. By the time Obama claimed that intervention had prevented a bloodbath, The New York Times already had reported that “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda’’ against Khadafy and were “making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.’’
It is hard to know whether the White House was duped by the rebels or conspired with them to pursue regime-change on bogus humanitarian grounds. In either case, intervention quickly exceeded the UN mandate of civilian protection by bombing Libyan forces in retreat or based in bastions of Khadafy support, such as Sirte, where they threatened no civilians.
The net result is uncertain. Intervention stopped Khadafy’s forces from capturing Benghazi, saving some lives. But it intensified his crackdown in western Libya to consolidate territory quickly. It also emboldened the rebels to resume their attacks, briefly recapturing cities along the eastern and central coast, such as Ajdabiya, Brega, and Ras Lanuf, until they outran supply lines and retreated.
Each time those cities change hands, they are shelled by both sides — killing, wounding, and displacing innocents. On March 31, NATO formally warned the rebels to stop attacking civilians. It is poignant to recall that if not for intervention, the war almost surely would have ended last month.
In his speech explaining the military action in Libya, Obama embraced the noble principle of the responsibility to protect — which some quickly dubbed the Obama Doctrine — calling for intervention when possible to prevent genocide. Libya reveals how this approach, implemented reflexively, may backfire by encouraging rebels to provoke and exaggerate atrocities, to entice intervention that ultimately perpetuates civil war and humanitarian suffering.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/14/false_pretense_for_war_in_libya/
Called this. Not even a video showing a single massacre. This guy and his cronies are the biggest rats I've ever seen.
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hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmm - where did we hear this well over a month ago?
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hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - where did we hear this well over a month ago?
;D
I can tell you where we didn't hear it from: Barack Obama, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and their rest of the cronies in the Obama regime. :D :D :D :D
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Apparently they admitted today that our "dialed down involvement" with NATO still has us flying close to 40% of the missions. Did Obama really not think the world wouldn't find out?
What a corrupt regime we have miring us in a third war.
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Stunning: NATO Secretary General Admits There Is No Strategy For Libya
Big Peace ^ | 4/13/11 | Peter Schweizer
In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen had the following stunning exchange: “Rasmussen: The honest answer is that there is no military solution to this conflict. We need a political solution, and it’s up to the Libyan people to come up with one. We can only call upon the leadership in Tripoli to put an end to its acts of violence, to grant the people their legitimate rights and to permit a peaceful transition to democracy. SPIEGEL: What happens if Gadhafi doesn’t comply with these demands? Wouldn’t NATO at least have
(Excerpt) Read more at bigpeace.com ...
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Stunning: NATO Secretary General Admits There Is No Strategy For Libya
Big Peace ^ | 4/13/11 | Peter Schweizer
In an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen had the following stunning exchange: “Rasmussen: The honest answer is that there is no military solution to this conflict. We need a political solution, and it’s up to the Libyan people to come up with one. We can only call upon the leadership in Tripoli to put an end to its acts of violence, to grant the people their legitimate rights and to permit a peaceful transition to democracy. SPIEGEL: What happens if Gadhafi doesn’t comply with these demands? Wouldn’t NATO at least have
(Excerpt) Read more at bigpeace.com ...
Stunning. It'll be a tragedy if the heads of Obama, Power, Rice and Clinton don't roll for this.
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Dildos like Straw, blacken, Benny, Mal, Andre, etc would vote for obama no matter what he does. Bama could pul up with a paddy wagon with a chain gang and enslave those fools' families and they would still vote for him.
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:-\
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Don't worry its not a real war ( just ask Andre) its simply a kinetic military action, all is well ::)
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Don't worry its not a real war ( just ask Andre) its simply a kinetic military action, all is well ::)
It's alright. Obama told me almost two months ago that Gadhafi would be gone in a matter of days.
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It's alright. Obama told me almost two months ago that Gadhafi would be gone in a matter of days.
I believe I said almost 2 months ago that Gaddhafi wasn't going anywhere and the rebels would get crushed, maybe I should change my handle to the prognosticator ;D
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I believe I said almost 2 months ago that Gaddhafi wasn't going anywhere and the rebels would get crushed, maybe I should change my handle to the prognosticator ;D
;D
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I believe I said almost 2 months ago that Gaddhafi wasn't going anywhere and the rebels would get crushed, maybe I should change my handle to the prognosticator ;D
We already have a board prognosticator: El Profeta. :)
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False pretense for war in Libya?
EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
It's okay if Obama does it. This is bad only if Bush does it.
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I believe I said almost 2 months ago that Gaddhafi wasn't going anywhere and the rebels would get crushed, maybe I should change my handle to the prognosticator ;D
Just think, you managed to get that right without access to the mountains of information or resources that the God-King has at his disposal. Says a lot about his level of competency when he still managed to get it wrong. ;D
It's okay if Obama does it. This is bad only if Bush does it.
One of the comments said that this is OK because Bush lied about Iraq. That's how these people think. :-\
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One of the comments said that this is OK because Bush lied about Iraq. That's how these people think. :-\
What do you meant "these people"?
Racist post reported! :)
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What do you meant "these people"?
Racist post reported! :)
;D
I should have rephrased it to "Obama drone".
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Just think, you managed to get that right without access to the mountains of information or resources that the God-King has at his disposal. Says a lot about his level of competency when he still managed to get it wrong. ;D
One of the comments said that this is OK because Bush lied about Iraq. That's how these people think. :-\
Amazing isnt it?
Bush - who they said was the worst potus ever in need of a cell, is now their standard of conduct for what is permissible by the messiah.
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We got played by our "NATO Allies", plain and simple, Gadhafi has information that the Brits and French don't want getting out there.