logically, if you supported and still support the U.S. role in the bombing of Libya

[cali]

in 2011, why wouldn't you still support the invasion of Iraq in 2003? What is the qualitative difference? Though I didn't support it, I can understand why someone would initially support it. Gaddafi was undoubtedly a brutal dictator, but things went horribly, and I contend, predictably wrong. There's been a lot of analysis of that, but the consensus is that the rosy predictions were way off. Western eagerness to force the bloom of the Arab Spring, precipitated a rash move that destroyed the country's infrastructure- the bombing was massive- and opened the door to to a brutal civil war featuring the usual suspects.

With the luxury of hindsight available, it hard to see how anyone can still support it, despite Gaddafi having been a brutal dictator and now being dead and gone. And please if you're tempted to tell me that I'm defending Gaddafi or propping him up, or admired him, blah, blah, blah, refrain from looking like a fool. I shed no tears for him. The fact remains that the vast majority of Libyans were better before Libya was bombed to shit. That may be uncomfortable to recognize. It may seem, at a quick glance, paradoxical. It is undeniably true.

This is what the bombing was. This is what it did:

There were thousands and thousands of NATO bombing sorties over several months. Civilian infrastructure was hard hit, including hospitals, schools, water supplies, and domiciles.

Prior to the bombing the Libyan standard of living was the highest in the region (sound familiar?).

Here are some facts:

otal life expectancy at birth (years) 72.3
Male life expectancy at birth (years) 70.2
Female life expectancy at birth (years) 74.9
Newborns with low birth weight (%) 4.0
Children underweight (%) 4.8
Perinatal mortality rate per 1000 total births 19.0
Neonatal mortality rate 11.0
Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 14.0
Under five mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 20.1
Maternal mortality ratio (per 10000 live births) 23.0

Source WHO http://www.emro.who.int/emrinfo/index.aspx?Ctry=liy

The adult literacy rate was of the order of 89%, (2009), (94% for males and 83% for females). 99.9% of youth are literate (UNESCO 2009 figures, See UNESCO, Libya Country Report)

Gross primary school enrolment ratio was 97% for boys and 97% for girls (2009) .
(see UNESCO tables at

http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=4340&BR_Region=40525

Average calorie consumption was over 3,000.

More links to more facts- and none of these links are to sources that can be considered from a dubious source, either out there right wing or left wing.http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-forces-lead-attack-against-libya-in-operation-audacity-dawn/

http://fair.org/blog/2011/12/19/now-it-can-be-told-libyan-civilian-deaths

http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_09/20110906_110906-oup-update.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-forces-lead-attack-against-libya-in-operation-audacity-dawn/

[JoePhilly]

1. Ah ... the apples to rocks comparison.

[MohRokTah]

22. + 1,000,000,000,000 eom

[cali]

2. not unless you can cogently explain why the comparison isn't apt.

just saying it's apples and rocks without any explanation as to why leaves you the automatic loser in the debate. You did not refute my argument. Obviously. I'd be embarrassed to post what you just did. Argue it. Make your case.

[malaise]

3. You are 100% correct

and we rarely agree

[cali]

4. thanks Malaise

Just out of curiosity, do you think the comparison of Iraq and its aftermath and Libya and its aftermath, is an accurate one. I've been looking to see what the flaw in that comparison is, and I don't see that it's so big as to make the comparison invalid.

[malaise]

5. There are many similarities, but there are also differences

That said they are not too big to make the comparison invalid.

Of course common to both is that three letter word which gives Westerners 'the right' to bomb whoever they want whenever they want OIL!!!

[cali]

6. thanks. I'd add two more words

disaster capitalism

[malaise]

7. And Naomi Klein would agree

because chaos is so profitable

[BainsBane]

8. There are several differences

Though I opposed both, I would not say they are the same at all.

Libyans were engaged in a popular uprising against Qaddafi. What you think of their material quality of life isn't relevant to their own view of the regime. Inspired by the Arab spring, they were tired of living under a dictatorship and rebelled. That kind of arrogance about what you think people should consider acceptable is typical of Americans, and I would submit has more in common with the justification for the war against Iraq than it does with the parallel you are trying to draw. Your view of a regime does not supplant the views of the people living there.

Iraqis were engaged in no such popular uprising at the time of the second Iraq War.

Qaddafi was in the process of using the military against his own people. Saddam was not.

The operations in Libya were conducted by NATO, not the US alone. That absence of international support for Iraq was a key point in that war.

The US people were not told Qaddafi was responsible for 9/11, about to release a mushroom cloud, etc.... The treachery of the lies justifying Iraq were especially bad, which makes the involvement all the worse.

There were no US ground troops in Libya, and our entanglement was not nearly as devastating for the US.


Your post gives the impression that you oppose a people's right to overturn a government that you think provides an adequate standard of material support. Is that the case? Do you oppose all popular uprisings against dictatorships? Or is it simply foreign intervention in those conflicts you oppose? Was France wrong to assist the English colonies in its independence rebellion against Britain? Do you agree we should not have intervened in Rwanda? Was the US wrong to engage in bombings in the Balkans? Should that genocide have been left to proceed unfettered? The German Democratic Republic had a high material standard of living, high rates of education, etc.... Was their movement against dictatorship likewise unwarranted, despite living under the most extensive surveillance state in human history?

Or, is this about one thing--a video of Hillary Clinton and then people will work backward to justify a brutal dictator because the only thing they care about is a contest between political elites in the US?

[polly7]

9. No, it was not a popular uprising. That's been debunked many, many times. nt.

[sadoldgirl]

13. Thank you for all the info on another OP.

We are trained well to believe the lies wherever
they come from.

The question arises WHY? Is it just the oil? Why
would the West and especially the US want to
destabilize Africa as well as the ME?
Is it in our interest to lead endless wars?
I don't understand it, yet I am sure we will
try something similar in Venezuela.

Thank you again.

[polly7]

17. You're very welcome.

That was just a small sampling I kind of clumsily put together. .... there was an amazing amount of information from some really great posters that I wish I'd saved or bookmarked somehow. I believe it's not just about oil, but water and land now, too, perpetual war and the money to be made off it, stopping nations from using currency other than the dollar, enabling large corporations that pretty much own the World Bank and IMF to get in where they were shut out of before, building more and more bases to control Iran, Russia and China and to reap the resources from an unprotected Africa, from which there hadn't been much western control previously. And yes, they're trying hard to destabilize Venezuela - the same old trick - pay and train 'rebels' while undermining their democratically elected gov't. and causing ordinary people to suffer because of food shortages, violence, etc. Venezuela won't be easy, however. Chavez educated his people and got them involved in every level of gov't. They will not give up all the gains they've made since the brutal prior right-wing gov't easily.

Jmho's.

[cali]

14. I didn't claim they were the same. I claimed there are parallels.

And let's state that SOME Libyans were involved in an uprisiing against Gaddafi. You seem to think you can speak for Libyans. You cannot. I didn't speak for anyone- I presented facts. There's a lot of conflicting information on the uprising against Gaddafi- something you ever so conveniently erase. And it is not a matter of what I "think" about their QUALITY of life- as measured by the U.N. and WHO; those are facts that are germane when measured against quality of life statistics today.

Your arrogance in deliberately misstating facts is pronounced. Saddam was certainly still using force and the threat of force to oppress Iraqis. Gad, your propensity for revisionist history is shameful.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a U.S. led coalition. And as I'm sure you know, the U.S. is the dominant force within NATO.

You are right about the fact that no ground troops were in Libya.

I certainly think people have the right to fight an oppressive regime. I don't think that intervention is always the right thing to do. Your post reads as if you supported the NATO bombing though you claim to have opposed it. Perhaps you did and your post is intended to defend President Obama and/or Hillary.

I'll answer one of your final questions as I think it's pertinent: I think the world could have stopped the Rwanda genocide before it ever started. If you haven't, read General Romeo Dallaire's account of the Rwandan genocide, "Shake Hands with the Devil".

[BainsBane]

20. I didn't speak for anyone

The fact there was an uprising is also a fact, a fact you chose to ignore because you evidently think they are obligated to live under a government you wouldn't tolerate for a second. It is every bit as much of a fact as the UN figures you sited to make clear you think the Libyans--the ones who rose up, the ones you clearly think count less because of their failure to pay fealty to a dictator--should have sucked it up and been happy with what they were given.

The only parallel is that they are both Arab countries, and the US intervened. The differences far outweigh the similarities.

I did not misstate facts. The existence of an uprising is not a misstatement. You completely ignored its existence and claimed the situation was identical to Iraq, which goes far beyond simple misstatement. To then accuse me of arrogance for daring to point out differences that you very conveniently left out in order to distort the situation is par for the course. Yes, an uprising existed. That is not a misstatement, no matter how much you seek to conceal that fact.

I told you my position. You don't get to recast it for me because you find the fact I mention some clear differences to be inconvenient.

You think Libyans shouldn't have risen up. Bully for you. You rattle off some stats from the UN that you insist are the only information acceptable to present, pretend you are asking for opinions and then get upset when people point out how weak your argument is. Let me make it clear. Whatever any Libyans choose to do in regard to affirming or overturning their own government is not subject to your or my approval, and that goes for every other nation on the planet. What you think about that is meaningless, and that you think it incumbent on you to pass judgment is precisely the arrogance I was addressing.

Whether the US should have intervened is a separate question from the uprising itself, which I submit you nor I have NO right to question. You have never even been to Libya. Who are you to decide they should have to continue to live under a dictatorship?

I feel quite certain that if Hillary Clinton had argued for intervention in Rwanda, most here would be justifying it. We get you want nothing more than to see her never seek office. It's pretty obvious as every position and event--including Benghazi--is resurrected for the all important goal of keeping a lone woman from ever becoming president. And I have no doubt that if the Democratic primary electorate chooses her, people will demonstrate as much disrespect for those voters as they now do to African Americans and other demographics who favor her, and as they do to the people of places like Libya, whose popular movements they have decided need to be invalidated in order to oppose the awful pretender to the presidency.

[boston bean]

10. Then stop telling people that they are unscrupulous in so many words for not caring the

brutal, murdering, violent dictator is gone.

With hindsight, one can be happy about one, and not keen on the other.

[cali]

15. Stop putting words in my mouth, bean. It's less than honest.l

"happy" and "not keen"

that sums you up neatly.

[quadrature]

11. helping start the chaos in Syria, was a continuation of intervention in Libya

Syria

300,000 dead
11 million displaced

just effin wonderful

[joshcryer]

12. Doesn't dignify a response.

[Cheese Sandwich]

16. Yeah it's basically the same thing as the invasion of Iraq.

Blow up a government, throw a society into chaos, flood the place with weapons ($$$), and then act shocked when religious fundamentalist militias take over the place.

[brooklynite]

18. Logically, I supported action in Libya because a Civil War had broken out...

...and Gadaffi's forces were killing innocent civilians.

Ditto Syria, where peaceful protests for democracy were met by brutal repression.

I'm not under the illusion that we can bring down every despot in the world, so no, I didn't support pre-emprtory action in Iraq. But if civilians are at significant risk (see, Serbia), I not opposed to reasonable military responses.

BTW - I take it your philosophy is: democracy isn't necessary as long as you have your health and a job? Sort of like Cuba.

[PETRUS]

25. Please, tell us about democracy.

We could use the advice. Because here in the US, we have a government that wages perpetual war around the world, implements policies that create enormous economic inequality, abject poverty and food insecurity, substantially higher medical spending than our peer group's average but worse health outcomes, spies on its own citizens and incarcerates more of them than anyone else, and holds elections but is only responsive to the demands of the wealthiest constituents. Would democracy help?

[4now]

19. A murderous dictator is dead at the hands of his own people

Doesn't really sound like Iraq to me.

[Cal Carpenter]

21. People seem to romanticize the role of the US and our

foreign policy objectives. Some people seem to think that somehow it will be different 'this time', especially if the party they support is in power, as though our foreign policy swings on a pendulum with election cycles rather than being part of a much larger, longer term momentum.

Just some quick thoughts on the matter.

[MohRokTah]

23. .

[MisterP]

24. these Whiz Kids 1. don't ever plan past 6 months and 2. see any group as their employees

their shock when the ultra-Salafists they hired didn't put down their guns and go back home to hoe the hills was genuine

[MannyGoldstein]

26. TOTALLY different. Night and day.

Millions of Americans served in Iraq, thousands were killed, tens of thousands wounded, and generations of Proles put into debt by that war. No way to gloss over that stinker, everyone knows it didn't live up to the hype, best to make a hurried admission while mumbling something about Bush deceiving us.

But Syria? We can ignore that sucker and/or claim it was a great success. Hell, we could say that Navy SEALS killed Gaddafi while rescuing Elvis. The Proles have no idea of what happened.

Totally different.

Regards,

TSTWM

[DanTex]

27. Umm, what? Libya was already in civil war when the NATO bombing occurred.

The purpose of the bombing wasn't to overthrow Gadafi, it was to prevent him from committing genocide. Libya wasn't a massive ground invasion, and unlike Iraq, it actually was a multinational coalition, let by France more than the US. Among the people that supported it were liberals like Nick Kristof. What are you talking about?

[MaggieD]

28. Exactly