In recent weeks the governments of the West (including Britain and the United States) have been getting very friendly towards Muammar Muhammed al-Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya.
Whilst I must stress that there is no plan to sell weapons to the dictator (and I do not believe that the United States, at least, will ever do this), in every other way Western governments are now seen as being supportive of the dictator of Libya.
Since he came to power in 1969 the dictator has followed a policy of socialism and his interpretation of Islam at home (with all the terror one would expect) and aggression and the support of terrorism abroad (in Africa, Asia and Europe). In his speech at the EU centre only a day or so ago, the dictator reserved his right to finance terrorism in future and expressed moral support for the terrorism being practiced in the Middle East today.
Can we now expect an apology for the claims that the war in Iraq was motivated by a desire to spread support for ‘human rights’ and freedom in general? I doubt that there will be such an apology – after all there has still been no apology for the claims about ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
The above being said, we are at war in Iraq now and (whatever lies were told to get us into war) the war must be won. It is just that the recent events concerning the dictator of Libya have left my tolerance for all the hypocrisy and general nonsense at a low ebb.
Maybe you’re owed one apology less.
See about WMD here(Link)
As an aside, has anyone read the reports of his eccentricities that are on display? Apparently this is par for the course at Arab League meetings and whatnot, but he looks even stranger in Brussels.
First, there’s his female bodyguards, who are chosen for their skill and good looks, and who wear blue camouflage: photo 1, photo 2
And then there’s the big-ass tent that he stays in on his diplomatic visits: photo 3
All that’s missing is a white cat and cheesy 60s theme music…
Paul:
What constitutes victory in this war?
Jacob:
I might take this story a bit more seriously if it wasn’t coming from a magazine that also thinks there is a conspiracy going on to cover up evidence for Noah’s ark on Mt Ararat.
I see you’re continuing in your relentless effort to make perfect the enemy of the good.
Talk about hypocrisy and general nonsense. So taking out a dictator and spreading freedom some small amount isn’t justified if you can’t take them all out at once? What utter rubbish. And of course the concomitant idiocy complaining that we’ve only found that Saddam was violating resolutions and having weapons programs and trying to procure weapons, but seems to have mostly failure in assembling workable munitions.
If one desired to support human rights and spread freedom in general, there are several reasonable approaches. One perfectly reasonable one is to pick a place which is particularly bad with its lack of human rights and freedom (and, incidentally, already a declared enemy, which can be easily invaded with minimal loss of life) where it looks like a great change can be made. Since you can’t actually invade and change all places simutaneously, you don’t.
The US Administration has also announced other, less military efforts aimed at supporting freedom and human rights across the Middle East.
You sir, are no friend of freedom. With your cries of “hypocrite!” you protest any one person from being liberated if we cannot all be liberated. With such Rawlsian-inspired philosophy you are more a socialist than a libertarian, to my mind.
All that’s missing is a white cat and cheesy 60s theme music…
Soros has a lock on that role.
…the dictator reserved his right to finance terrorism in future and expressed moral support for the terrorism being practiced in the Middle East today.
Kadaffy Duck is not the most quotable guy:
“”I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back, or to look backwards,” Qaddafi told a news conference. “We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days where we bomb our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so we will not be searched or harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes.”
” He did not explain what he meant…””
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118308,00.html
Hmm, let’s see:
“…I must stress that there is no plan to sell weapons to the dictator …”
And then again you say:
“…we are at war in Iraq now and (whatever lies were told to get us into war) …”
Now, I presume you get the certainty of no-arms-sales on the same level with that of maintainong the “we’ve been told lies” nonsense?!
The hypocrisy seems to be only all yours here. Try again, please.
It seems clear that there are two tracks to the Bush policy of freedom promotion. If you’re completely unwilling to play ball, you get onto the Axis of Evil and you eventually get to say hello to the 3ID and company. But if you do some minimally reasonable things like tidy up outstanding issues, expose international conspiracies to proliferate nuclear weapons, etc. you get to be cajoled into incremental reform and get to keep most of your ill-gotten gains.
I can understand wanting to do better than this but I can’t imagine what the practical policy is that would be superior.
Get lost, blogroach
Piss off
Get lost, blogroach
OK. Let’s try to get this back on track.
John,
Actually, any cries of hypocrisy are baseless, since the U.S. is pretty close to attempting to liberate the whole world. We’ve still got troops all over. One example that comes to mind is that U.S. troops are still stationed in Kosovo, despite being 7 years removed from the conflict.
The really amazing thing is that we are continually told by so-called experts that human cloning is not yet perfected when the evidence to the contrary is all around us.
John,
It amazes me how many libertarians these days sound like socialists.
Believe it or not I left the communist side of politics to get away from their nauseous foreign policy.
Samizdata is my bastion of sanity.
The evidence that the intelligence was just wrong and that the WMD issue was largely a lunatic move by Saddam to be seen as having ‘an ace up his sleeve’ is so strong, that talk of ‘hypocrisy’ seems odd in this case. In any case, do you really want Bush/Blair to apologise for overthrowing a mass murdering dictator?
Perry, not for that reason.
However, they have taken us into a war that they shouldn’t have taken us into, so I expect an apology is required for that. Blair has certainly taken the UK into a fight we should have ignored. The US folk can make their own judgement on Bush’s actions.
Furthermore, they seem to be making a monumental fuck-up of the occupation, and I’d like to see some apologies for their mis-handling of this, though face saving seems to be their preference.
Now, without a doubt, a nasty tyrant has being given the boot, but the cost of this, from my point of view as a member of the tax paying public, is “what a waste of my tax money. I’m not happy to be coerced for this kind of thing.”
Pay for your own moral crusades.
I want them to take moral responsibility for the deaths that have followed them doing so, and get the hell out now that Saddam is gone.
Having supported the liberation I’m less than enthusiastic about the occupation of Iraq.
Lets get out as soon as possble. If I was a patriotic freedom loving Iraqi I would be pretty pissed off with a foreign army kicking down my sister’s/wife’s front door coming to take my AK47 away whilst I was out looking for work. It seems to me that a lot of the insurgency is nothing to do with Al Quaeda or Baathists, its Joe Mohammed, fed up with GI Joe stomping around his town.
So what do we do? Start pulling out post June 30, let the UN sort out democracy for Iraq. If it goes wrong and they vote in mad Mullahs – as is quite possible – that is their choice.
I suspect that the US plans to “influence” the security apparatus long term. Treaties will be agreed between Iraq & the US, US bases will be established by treaty. The de-Baathified Iraqi military and security services will be advised by US advisors a la Guatemala/El Salvador in the 80s. If the civil power becomes too inimical to US interests the Iraqi military will apply counter-pressure.
A risky strategy, if it goes wrong, the US ends up backing a military coup and its client general becomes president. But that is hardly the end of the world – ask a Chilean.
There is zero chance of Al Quaeda getting voted in to power in Iraq or Iraq becoming a base for international terrorists. Let Iraqis deal with their local terrorists.
Personally, I would like to apologise for trusting the judgment and competence of the socially-conservative/welfare statist yahoos currently occupying the White House.I guess I should have known better.Now I do.
Right on, Jussi – at least w/ the lefties in the hot seat we EXPECT to get buggered blind. Oddly enough, the ONE thing Bush et al have done RIGHT is the thing they’re getting hammerd for. I’m far more upset about his stance on Education, welfare, perscription drugs and illeagal immigration than I am about continuing the Iraqi conflict that had been ‘on hold’ for 12 years…
But that’s drifting off topic.
Funny thing about The Colonel – I don’t recall hearing much of him after Regan bombed his barracks. Sadly, he wasn’t in that evening.
More sadly, his kids were. If only we had known were he WAS not where he was SUPPOSED to be.
Rat bastard frenchies hosed us on that one, too, as I recall.
Scott: And by implication, screw “moral responsibility” for leaving the mess to degenerate?
At least we’ll have washed our hands of the immediate blood, so who cares about the consequences?
Feh.
Govt action is its own justification. The govt must act because the govt acted, which it did because the govt acted previously, which it did because the govt acted previously…….
The bigger the mess govt makes, the more we need the govt to fix the mess. Lovely statist belief.
Thank God we invaded, otherwise things like this might have happened:
Agreement Reached to End Fallujah Siege
FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) – U.S. Marines announced Thursday an agreement to end a bloody, nearly monthlong siege of Fallujah, saying American forces will pull back and allow an all-Iraqi force commanded by one of Saddam Hussein’s generals to take over security….
It amazes me how many people still think, after 911, that leaving Islamic fascists and Aarb national socialists like Saddam in power to hatch their schemes is an intelligent foriegn policy. Removing him was not a moral crusade, it was an essential element in our national security.
I guess that for some people like Scott, not enough people died on 911 to make the point yet.
Shawn, this is for you and Saddam, as the two of you are interchangable:
Meet The New Boss II
Oh Shawn,
Iraqis want us out
Scott:
Is that really the best you can do? Stories about a few military personnell who should have been better supervised, and whining by the people who celebrated the Sept.11 atrocities?
And comparing me with Saddam? Puhleeease.
Ive seen better arguments from leftists.
Your entire stance rests on pretending that Sept.11 never happened. That a militant anti-American organisation that was ignored as unimportant did not use that policy mistake to launch a horrific attack on U.S. soil.
Because admitting that it did happen, and that it happenned due to an unwillingness do deal forcefully with those who attack us and our allies, means admitting that we must deal with all those groups and states that promote terrorism against us. Which of course means Saddam’s regime, well, EX regime now. You know, the one that tried to assassinate an American President? The one that repeatedly shot at our aircraft patrolling the skies in the no-fly zones, zones set up afater Saddam invaded a peaceful nation? The one that gave money to the families of Arab suicide bombers to encourage more of them to slaughter Israeli men women and children? The one that wanted to unify the Middle East under one man in order to destroy Israel. The one that had little children as young as 2 tortured and raped in special child prisons? A practice by the way that would still be taking place if gutless little whining piss-ants like you were in charge. Just how many little kiddies tortured and raped is enough for you? 100? 200? A thousand? Hmmm?
So whine away. Me, I sleep better at night knowing we have a President that is prepared to destroy terrorist organisations and states before they can launch any more Sept.11’s. That this clearly bothers you speaks volumes.
I suggest one hundred Hail Mary’s standing at Ground Zero to help clear your troubled mind.
Shaun makes a good point, the argument that a war in Iraq was necessary foreign policy for the US to protect against future problems hatched by Saddam.
The troubles is, he doesn’t make the argument why it is necessary and there is a lot of argument that Saddam was contained, containable in the future and the cost of a unpopular, divisive war wasn’t necessary.
The West has contained far larger threats in the past, without wars of occupation. Furthermore, as a UK national, I’m more interested in whether the UK foreign policy interests needed to bow to US foreign policy in this instance, and I’ve yet to seen convincing argument that we did. I’m no appeaser, but I like to think I pick the wise fights and this wasn’t one of them. This war was not worth it, for the UK foreign policy interests.
I hope to persuaded otherwise, given the cost we’ve had to pay.
I find it interesting that Iraq has been occupied by the military for quite some time now, and people are still debating whether the war should’ve happened. To me, it’s a moot point. The soldiers are there. What do we do with them now?
I say Bush adheres to his six-month deadline and pulls out. What’s the worst that could happen? Mass chaos? Wait, we’ve already taken care of that, too:
“…some in Safwan remain outside the law and remarkably good at hitting moving targets.”
Shawn doesn’t need to prove any Iraq-9/11 relationship. 9/11 isn’t an historical event, its merely an excuse and a club with which to beat opponents.
you what? so scott, 9/11 isn’t an historical event? your decent into full blown chomsky style barking moonbatness is now complete. if ever anyone needed proof that you are completely divorced from reality, here it is. there is a later post on this site called ‘useful idiots’ which is pretty much about people like you. there was a time when you actually tried to make arguments but now you have become an wacked out self parody.
9/11 is a date. 9/11/2000 is the date of the event. The event was the attack on the WTC. I wonder what the reaction would be then.
Were you able to read, snide, you would have noticed that what I was saying was that to Shawn, 9/11 is an excuse and not an event. As you are a functionally illiterate warmonger, I should have been more clear originally.
Quaddafi is the Wacko Jacko of politics, except that the Colonel copped a plea and is being allowed to carry on in Neverland.
Among national leaders, Qaddafi must rank as the most brilliant survivor and player-off of enemies since Francisco Franco.
Well first my post on Switzerland does not seem to have appeared, I did ask Perry to tell me if it did not arrive but he is a busy man.
I have never been accused of being a supporter of John Rawls before, so as insults go that was at least original. There are alternatives to either making friends with a dictator or going to war (I will return to this at the end).
George Bush friend of liberty? Any evidence for that? Such as government departments shut down, or regulations abolished.
In fact President Bush has backed even more government welfare state spending (for example No Child Left Behind and the extention to Medicare), so it would seem that he is rather closer to being a supporter of John Rawls than I am.
There was a time when many Republicans understood that to cut taxes you must cut government spending (and that cutting government spending was a good thing in-its-self) but (with the exception of Ron Paul and some others) this seems forgotten today. The Vice President seems to believe that borrowing money does not matter (he thinks that the 1980’s prove that – which President Reagan did NOT believe). Of course the Democrats are wrong headed (for example Mr Kerry seems to think that increasing the top rates of income tax will give him more revenue to use for extended government health spending), but that does not mean that Mr Bush is any good.
Do I want Mr Bush and Mr Blair to apologise for locking up S.H.? No – I am not even sure I want apology about the weapons of mass destruction (such an apology might do more harm than good now). I do not know how many people some future government of Iraq may or may not kill, or whether it will be more or less than S.H. killed – but that does not mean I shed any tears for S.H. being in a cell (even if the future is just endless war, or a new dictator who will kill more folk – that does not mean it is wrong to lock up S.H.).
As for S.H. claiming that he had lots of W.M.D. and this somehow conning Mr Buch and Mr Blair. Well I seem to remember the regime in Iraq saying (endlessly) that it had got rid of its W.M.D. (none of which had ever been used against Britian or the United States anyway). Also the intelligence services have been engaged in the in depth study of Iraq for many years.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair would have known there was little or nothing there (and they lied their heads off about the subject). Indeed if Iraq had got vast stock piles of W.M.D. Britain and the United States would have most likely not attacked (just as there has been no attack on North Korea).
Just a few days ago Mr Bush claimed that the military had been given full authority to go and get the killers of American civilians in the city of F. – it now appears that even as he said that he had already decided to pull U.S. forces back.
Now this may be the correct choice – but it does prove that Mr Bush lies about national security matters (he says one thing having already ordered the opposite).
George Washington warned against seeking after monsters overseas. But that is no reason to make friends with the monsters.
The fact that people can not understand that government might NOT act (either to attack, or to make friends with, another government) shows what a statist age we live in.
What constitutes victory? Well I suppose a regime (perhaps a loose federation) where the rulers do not engage in mass slaughter and do not preach hatred of the West. To achieve this opposition must be defeated and Western forces must then be pulled out (if Western forces have to stay, then victory has not been achieved).