Aurora atrocity more important than Syrian slaughter?

[leveymg]

34. The two situations aren't really comparable.

Libya's Gadhaffi had no real base of power. He was a charismatic who stayed in power because he had been kept in power by the US after the Libyan King was overthrown during a trip to the UK. A group of Brits wanted to go in with mercenaries and overthrow the junta, but the CIA got wind of it, and quashed the attempted coup. That's all public knowledge. I recall it's in the Wiki.

Gadhaffi stayed in power because he was smart enough to put aside 30% of Libyan oil production for western companies. which he sold at below market with some extremely large kickback schemes involving above-market cost imports, in recent years mostly with Italian and New Europe business partners. His dealings made a lot of people in the West very rich, so they had an interest in keeping the gravy train on track. That much is also widely acknowledged.

For a while he was the patron of many of the world's worst terrorists, some of whom are accused of attacking US targets, but these same terrorists also carried out operations against parties who were on the CIA's shit list, so somehow Gadhaffi survived. The facts are there, but you can draw your own conclusions.

Last year was just a convenient time to get rid of him.

On the other hand, the Assad regime in Syria is basically a clan and religious based affair that is ruled by prominent Alawite families. The Alawite are a Shi'ia sect and are a small minority - 14%, with about 70% of Syria is Sunni Muslim. During the last installment of the Sunni uprising in Syria, during which the Saudis also intervened, some 60,000 or more were killed. The Alawite will continue fighting to hold power - regardless of Assad's personal fate -- like their lives depend upon it.

Their lives depend upon it. Many, many of them will die - you can't just change that particular government, given the local history and conditions, without killing a lot of people along religious lines. Only someone who is very naive and very foolish would believe that there is any other way to remove the Alawite from power in Syria. It's not a video game.