58 thoughts on “Gaddafi could have been a bad guy”

  1. KIA says:
    June 14, 2016 at 13:37

    Obama wanted him gone because he represented a secular monarchy where he thought it should be an Islamic republic of the people.
    Gaddafi had given up his chemical and biological weapons and was playing nice, hurting no one.

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  2. Hariod Brawn says:
    June 14, 2016 at 13:50

    Doubtless there was plenty of propaganda used against Gaddafi when it suited, Mak, but war crimes investigators have original documents seized in Misrata including a government order for troops to prevent fuel and supplies reaching the city (400,000 to 500,000 people). He was starving his own people.

    “The abuses that we gathered evidence of in Misrata are some of the most egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity I’ve heard of in Libya . . . There has been some evidence of crimes committed by rebel forces, but certainly nothing anywhere near as widespread and systematic as those committed by Gaddafi’s forces . . . A single act can be deemed a war crime, but when troops commit systematic and widespread crimes against civilians, that is a crime against humanity.”

    – Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights.

    Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-misrata-warcrimes-idUSTRE77T0J520110830

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    • makagutu says:
      June 14, 2016 at 21:05

      I don’t dispute. Why not try him, as others have been, at the icj or icc? What has having him killed so brutally done to the peace in Libya?

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  3. tildeb says:
    June 14, 2016 at 15:17

    Have you never heard of the plane crash at Lockerbie Scotland that was the direct result of an intentional Gaddafi project – created, funded, and trained – to kill Americans? Imagine Americans taking exception to the continued breathing of such a pompous, deluded, and dangerous little prick.

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    • makagutu says:
      June 14, 2016 at 21:00

      Yes I have.
      Are you saying that was the excuse for killing him? Was he not asked to pay, which he did?
      Why hasn’t Bush met the same fate for invading a sovereign nation under false pretext?

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      • tildeb says:
        June 14, 2016 at 21:42

        Are you saying we shouldn’t target those who intentionally recruit, train, fund, and then deploy as civilians people to mass murder citizens of your country?

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        • basenjibrian says:
          June 15, 2016 at 00:21

          By your standards, tileb, every American President of the past forty years (including the sainted Peanut Farmer, who can at least partially be blamed for much of the mayhem in South Asia and the Middle East, as well as the horrors now enveloping Central America) should be tried and hung. The crimes of Carter, Clinton, Bush I, Bush II, and Obama overwhelm, individually and collectively, the nastiness of Quadaffi.

          His REAL crime was trying to set up a currency independent of the Spreadsheet Diddlers in London and New York. THAT crime could not be permitted.

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          • tildeb says:
            June 15, 2016 at 02:03

            No, basenjibrian, Gaddafi and US presidents do not represent the same standards at all and so the motivation and authority for actions done in the name of the country are considerably different. That you equate the two so effortlessly, so flippantly, so irresponsibly, tells me that you have zero interest in comparing and contrasting fairly but every reason to vilify and demonize all US presidents.. especially if under their watch any military engagement is undertaken. Is the world a poorer place for bin Laden’s demise?

            We live in a dangerous world, Basenjibrian. Perhaps you’d prefer to try to live the life you have under a Gaddafi-style regime and see if there is a qualitative difference and, if so, why. Further, you might want to figure out why some of us might think mass murders and those who organize them and direct their targeting don’t deserve your laissez-faire opinion but think reverse targeting for death is just. Furthermore, you might to consider why a Western style of governance might be worth defending by force against deluded despots willing and able to direct and target mass murders against you… even if we think a particular government policy is wrong.

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          • makagutu says:
            June 15, 2016 at 08:43

            According to tildeb’s standard, shoot them, kill them and then run off to save enclaves. They are awful, don’t you know

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        • basenjibrian says:
          June 15, 2016 at 03:28

          I can’t reply below….but…

          “No, basenjibrian, Gaddafi and US presidents do not represent the same standards at all.”

          I will respectfully disagree. American policy has caused objectively MORE harm than a petty tinpot dictator ever could.

          “Is the world a poorer place for bin Laden’s demise?”

          The war is certainly a poorer…and more dangerous place because of the war in Iraq, the Libyan intervention, and now direct U.S. support by Obama for the genocidal Saudi intervention in Yemen. That is the question that should be asked and answered.

          “We live in a dangerous world, Basenjibrian”

          Made far more dangerous by the sociopathic ruling elites and those willing to wink at their crimes.

          “Perhaps you’d prefer to try to live the life you have under a Gaddafi-style regime and see if there is a qualitative difference and, if so, why.”

          Well, of course not. I never made the claim that Gaddafi or his regime was good in any way. Probably better than innumerable petty despots we fund, train, and coddle over the decades, but hey, they are OUR tyrants, no?

          To an extent, the comfortable life I live is enabled by an objectively evil foreign policy, perhaps you should ask yourself the question how much do Iraqis, Yemenis, Libyans, and on and on and on and on have to suffer to enable our sociopathic Owners to play their games (and throw some crumbs our way).

          “Furthermore, you might to consider why a Western style of governance might be worth defending by force against deluded despots willing and able to direct and target mass murders against you… even if we think a particular government policy is wrong.”

          Conveniently enough, our “western style governments” have absolutely no problem raining death and destruction on villages hither and yon. So I guess it depends on one’s perspective, doesn’t it? Myself. a crime is a crime, even if it is committed by a precious “Western Style Government”. But hey, just consider the Lockerbie victims “collateral damage”. That’s what the west classifies victims of drone strikes and the like!

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          • tildeb says:
            June 15, 2016 at 04:14

            Ah… another deluded Chomsky-ite, I see: All things Western deplorable, decrepit, dastardly, every problem in the world always the West’s fault, no Western response adequate but directed for the profit of the the Industrial Cabal, yada, yada, yada,

            You really should take up self-flagellation; words are so inadequate to assuage your Western guilt. You’d feel better, too, I’m sure.

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        • makagutu says:
          June 15, 2016 at 08:38

          Is that your way of applying rule of law? Kill those you suspect without recourse to the legal systems? How has that worked out in Afghanistan where each day a new Al Qaeda leader is named whenever the previous one is killed?

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          • tildeb says:
            June 15, 2016 at 14:07

            Seized power in ’69, died in late 2011 after country went into open sectarian revolt. Those are a lot of years in power to have no ‘recourse to the rule of law’… an international law, let us not forget, that was absolutely ineffective and openly mocked by MG as having any authority over him for over four decades. Only military confrontation had any affect. Now suddenly you think a fifth decade or perhaps a sixth would suddenly turn him into a model world citizen?

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      • Ron says:
        June 15, 2016 at 01:12

        Why? Because Bush (like all former presidents) receives round-the-clock Secret Service protection until his natural demise. Cheney also asked for (and received) a year’s worth of extended SS protection after leaving office and has his own private security force.

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  4. Peter says:
    June 14, 2016 at 16:06

    The problems in Libya and Syria shows that sometimes there is no easy path forward.

    In Libya there was intervention, the result was no good. In Syria there was originally no intervention, the result was also no good.

    It was the Europeans who agitated for the intervention in Libya, if there is blame to be laid, it is at their door where it is better placed.

    I just think sometimes we are faced with horrible choices and a lack of sufficient information to know the outcome. This is the reality of the world that foreign ministers face. I suppose I tire of folk criticizing decisions with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

    Likewise I really struggle to understand why so many folk want to demonise Hillary Clinton. I mean to say I have read many comments by Bernie Sanders supporters who seem to see Hillary Clinton as pure evil. I am really staggered by such thinking especially when such folk suggest that they will instead vote for Donald Trump.

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    • makagutu says:
      June 14, 2016 at 21:09

      Peter you must know I have no stakes in the US election and I don’t demonise Hillary. In fact I wish her well.
      I agree with you the Europeans are to be blamed. And while you say we have the advantage of hindsight, I have read quite a number of reports that suggest Gaddafi had made several concessions but it had been decided upfront he must go.

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      • Peter says:
        June 15, 2016 at 05:32

        Mak, sorry I was not looking to have a go at you. My problem is that I spent too much time reading the comments sections on various articles dealing with Bernie Sanders future in the Presidential race. I have been astounded by the level of vitriol in the comments directed at Hillary Clinton.

        In those same comments many of these folk then go on to argue that it would be better to make Donald Trump president.

        I am Australian and as such have no direct stake in the U.S. election. However as a non American, the thought of Donald Trump being president appalls me. It is all very well some Americans being prepared to ‘roll the dice’ with their future, but unfortunately it is likely to be rolling the dice with that of the whole world.

        Those who call Hillary CLinton a war monger should spend at least five minutes listening to some of Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas.

        Anyway I hope that the current anti Clinton outpourings are just people working through their disappointment and come November these people will vote with their brain, not their emotion.

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        • makagutu says:
          June 15, 2016 at 08:54

          Peter thanks for the clarification.
          There is a lot of vitriol against Clinton. I see a lot of it on twitter. I have wondered how Drumpf has made it this far. It’s, I think, an indictment on the collective intelligence of those who have voted for him

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          • Peter says:
            June 15, 2016 at 09:15

            Mak what I think you are seeing is the long term impact of the demise of the American Middle Class. Sure employment has bounced back in the US since the Global Financial Crisis, but many of the jobs are lowering paying and without benefits.

            Increasingly middle America is sensing that the status quo is not working for them. This gives rise to an obvious solution, change the status quo. This is one reason there are so many attacks on Hilary Clinton, she is seen as the epitome of the Status Quo.

            But, and it is a big but, the solutions proposed by Donald Trump are unlikely to resolve this issue. Those now advocating a roll the dice vote for Trump seem to reason that things could not really be much worse, so a change should be for the better. However the reality is that things could get a lot worse.

            The long term reality of globalisation is that similarly skilled workers in different parts of the world will end up earning the same wages. This has been a long term trend that will not stop. However folk like Trump propose stopping it by inhibiting trade. This might cause some short term abatement of the trend but the rest of the world will be poorer as a result and in the long term the U.S. will also be poorer.

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          • inspiredbythedivine1 says:
            June 15, 2016 at 14:20

            Their over-enlarged foreheads and missing front teeth make it hard for them to reason properly.

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        • inspiredbythedivine1 says:
          June 15, 2016 at 14:17

          Your statement here is dead on accurate. As an American, I’m sickened by Trump. Sickened. Dislike Clinton? OK, fine, but to compare her to Trump, a fascist, ego-maniacal, spoiled rotten misogynist brat of a man-child is simply ridiculous. This vile, repulsive, war/hate mongering excuse of a human defames my nation with each word he speaks. Trump in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal is something the world needs to fear and fear deeply. Hate war? Think America creates wars? Just wait til Trump takes over. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

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    • basenjibrian says:
      June 15, 2016 at 01:28

      Iraq. Libya. Yemen.

      Plenty of reasons to demonize her. She has never met a war she did not oh so picturesquely and reluctantly support. She’s a War Pig. (h/t Black Sabbath)

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      • Peter says:
        June 15, 2016 at 05:34

        Hard to blame her for Iraq, that is clearly George Bush’s mess. I think too much is made of her Congressional vote, virtually everyone voted for it based on the mis information provided by the Bush Administration

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    • basenjibrian says:
      June 15, 2016 at 01:32

      Plus; It is very naïve to assume that there has been no intervention in Syria. If anything, there has been far too much by far too many players. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the nefarious thug in Turkey, Iran. On and on and on with the intervention.

      Given the multiplicity of groups and interests, external and internal, how exactly would a more overt (i.e., not through CIA spooks) intervention really work?

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      • Peter says:
        June 15, 2016 at 05:39

        Syria is a complicated mess.

        I tend to think Turkey is the main problem.

        What particularly distressed me about Turkey was how they used the conflict as an excuse to re-open their conflict with the Kurds. There was a peace treaty in place between Turkey and the Kurds, it was holding, then the Turks said they would cooperate in the fight against ISIS. SO what was the first thing Turkey did, they attacked the Kurds.

        The Turks now bemoan the current terrorist problem they have with the Kurds, a problem they brought on themselves.

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      • makagutu says:
        June 15, 2016 at 08:48

        Those who want Assad out, do they have a post Assad solution on they will leave it as Iraq, the man with the bigger guns carries the day till when the next powerful guy takes over

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  5. Sirius Bizinus says:
    June 14, 2016 at 16:23

    During the Arab Spring, Gaddafi was using tanks and heavy equipment to attack protesters in Libya. At the very least, those protesters had to have been dissatisfied with his leadership. It’s not like he was elected by the people he ruled, either.

    Simply because other countries had awful motives for wanting Gaddafi gone doesn’t negate his support of international terror in the 1980’s, or any of his brutal acts he has used to remain in power. All it means is that the lofty excuses western governments present are often just that – excuses.

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    • makagutu says:
      June 14, 2016 at 21:10

      I don’t object to any of that, not at all.
      It’s also hard to trust governments that attacked Iraq on claims they had wmds and none has been shown to date

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      • Sirius Bizinus says:
        June 15, 2016 at 01:02

        I hear ya, Mak. The level of mistrust is understandable, and many U.S. citizens share that same mistrust. It’s kind of embarrassing, considering that we’re also allegedly supposed to control our government through voting.

        That said, I don’t think anyone who isn’t a hardcore supporter of Ms. Clinton is under the impression that she’s going to give the world a hug or do the right thing for the right reasons. I can say that if her husband’s tenure in office is any indication of her own leanings, she’ll be more likely to not engage in military actions. That’s really the best assurance anyone can get right now I think.

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  6. inspiredbythedivine1 says:
    June 14, 2016 at 16:29

    Gaddafi was whacked because of his bad taste in fashion. Just look at the dude. Eye sore is an understatement. Yes, maybe America should not concern itself with being the fashion police of the world, but, since we’ve already spent billions on armed drones to help clear this problem up, it would be a waste not to use them. Don’t you agree?

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  7. Robert A. Vella says:
    June 14, 2016 at 17:21

    Gaddafi was a brutal dictator in a land of poor, ignorant, and radicalized people. He wouldn’t play by the West’s rules, so they got rid of him. Now, the lid has blown off the boiling pot of Libya and is scorching the meddling hands of Hillary Clinton, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, and other warmongers. They deserve it, IMO.

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  8. Ron says:
    June 14, 2016 at 20:13

    “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations…entangling alliances with none”― Thomas Jefferson (March 4, 1801 inaugural address)

    Sadly, the U.S. abandoned this non-interventionist ideal shortly thereafter.

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  9. tildeb says:
    June 15, 2016 at 17:36

    So we get a dictator waging war with modern equipment against his own population. Up goes the international cry for intervention. (In Canada, we have a policy – forwarded to and adopted by the UN – called Duty to Protect. Under this policy – a fallout from the utter failure of ‘policing’ and ‘diplomacy’ that allowed the the Rwanda genocide to take root and then be carried out – Canada participated in both the Libya and Syria military response. We intervened in Afghanistan because the Afghani government committed an act of war against NATO and we fulfilled our treaty obligations. What we should have done as an international coalition is razed the country to the ground, utterly demolished every vestige of instituional authority, and rebuilt it from the ground up with Enlightenment values embedded in a constitution and law that would never again tolerate any institutional interference in this maintenance of law. That should have been and should become the inevitable result of committing war against a Western country and not this half-assed, job half done, dimwittery that settles into foreign policy that tries to ‘respect’ local people by respecting and incorporating local institutions that were the cause of the problem to begin with! Such a brutal policy works and really does create out of the chaos of war what all of us really want: peace, prosperity, order, and good governance paid for with very real blood.)

    Now, the village idiots always gather when a terrible event unfolds and the call goes forth for military intervention to end it. What makes them idiots is that well after the fact when the intervention gets very messy is to then condemn the intervention wholesale and produce the mandatory blame on the US – every time. This reveals the Janus face of the idiots. Yet unfailing, these folk pretend that for each of their hypocritical positions they possess the moral high ground and therefore can righteously condemn the US for both not doing enough and doing too much, for not heeding the call and heeding it, for using its military and shockingly producing casualties.

    How convenient. How drool. How idiotic.

    I find people who enunciate their opinions generally about armed conflict usually fall into one of two camps: those who think an issue requires them to take a side as if joining a cheerleader squad and those who actually try to solve a problem and select the best course of action available at the time. The village idiots don’t recognize the difference between acting on best course available at the time and not acting at all. This is the group that solves nothing – ever – bnut are very good at producing manifestos and making calls for actions by others. You can usually recognize them by the sound of tsk tsking all others.

    I cannot believe I have to explain why a Qaddafi is exactly the kind of brutal dictator and strongman in need of permanent removal, the kind of guy who condemns himself by his own brutal and selfish actions, actions like waging war against his own people, actions like targeting with mass murder the civilians of any government that takes any action to thwart these delusions of grandeur, actions that paid for by intentionally murdering the local population.

    This is not what US presidents do.

    To go along with the false equivalency that these tyrants are the same as any US president is not just incredibly biased but demonstrates an intention to warp reality to serve a highly negative and unfair belief.

    Does it really need pointing out that these presidents share nothing in common with the brutal tinpot and fashionably execrable tyrants? They don’t wage an active war against their own people. They do not mass murder their own civilians. They do not own the production of the country. They do not target with death those who criticize them. They don’t jail and execute the fifth estate. They do not hold all the reins of power. They are not immune from legal and peaceful replacement. And so on.

    But they are blamed for any and all civilian deaths from any policies carried out by the government and its agents they temporarily lead. The idiots make no mention of the extraordinary lengths the interventionist military is constrained by rules of engagement. The village idiots care not one whit for any of this reality and invest their moral certainty by simply assuming blunt equivalency. US bad, everything else that is bad is BECAUSE the US is bad. This is Chomsky-ism in a nutshell and it conflates whatever it needs to conflate to make reality fit into the warped model created by premises that simply aren’t true.

    This lumping of very different local Middle Eastern and Sub Asian conflicts into a shopping list for US transgressions is so stupid it burns, so inherently dishonest that it reveals a motive that has absolutely nothing to do with respecting what’s true and everything to do with selling an ideology: the US is bad.

    Sure, criticisms can be laid for all kinds of US actions and questions can be raised about the policies used to justify and implement them. That’s a real discussion. And one that never ends. But vilifying the US is not a discussion with the village idiots; it’s joining a dysfunctional, dystopian cheerleading squad. And that’s what village idiots love to do – forget about real totalitarian and humanitarian problems in need of military redress and focus on vilifying the US (but almost never China regarding these same conflicts).

    For example, to wonder if Gaddafi was a bad man at this stage – when the historical record is quite transparently in favour of the thesis – is the kind of revisionist history camp-following that makes a mockery of the truth. To then go along with a notion of equivalency between US presidents and local warlords is not even rational.

    Why?

    It’s not the local strongmen but US presidents put into this difficult situation… fielding calls from world leaders and allies all asking for military intervention, military aid, military training, combined with humanitarian cries to militarily stabilize a local situation for aid to be distributed. It’s not the warlord who has to face different houses of representation, the courts, and the fifth estate, and the electorate to justify what that response might be. But it is the US only who is shouldering the burden to commit to a course of action and be responsible to other government agencies for it.

    The local despot is the one busy using planes and tanks and helicopters against their own people and killing them in large numbers for the sake of maintaining personal power and personal control. It is revisionist history to suggest the two sides here are equivalent because some people die. That’s blunt and dull and ignorant thinking of the worst kind,

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    • Ron says:
      June 16, 2016 at 16:35

      The U.S. has installed and supported some of the worst dictators this side of Hitler.

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      • tildeb says:
        June 16, 2016 at 17:13

        I know. It may not be philosophically and ethically right but here in this world it’s realpolitiks in action.

        But to what extent does motivation, intention, and purpose of US presidents really play? Are these factors even considered fairly when trying to make an equivalency between US presidents and local brutal dictators? Are those who are willing to support this false equivalency even the slightest bit concerned with what THEY would do as president in that situation at that time to try to better understand the context – the political times and related issues – in which many of these decisions were made? Or is it easier to simply lay down a blanket of blame accompanied by loud tsk tsking as if the motivation can be rightly assumed to be corrupt and brutal for personal gain. That assumption demonstrates a level of profound realpolitik naivety that undermines the security of the West.

        My voice was one of the few warning of the humanitarian danger of supporting the Arab Spring movement, that ‘democracy’ means mob rule (and the guaranteed eventual rise of a replacement strongman) unless constrained by constitutional authority based on equality rights for all citizens. That constraint comes exactly one way and one way only: by superior military force.

        Now look at the PEW results of opinions from these countries swept up in the magical glamour of revolution. The level of support for anti-equality authority was and is overwhelming by local populations. This spells doom for change-for-the-better. One quickly realizes that the Arab Spring always was going to remove current authority, bring about civil war, let loose all kinds of sectarian and tribal interests, and destroy any vestiges of any kind of civil restraint. Country after country after country fell to this idiocy, bringing about the right conditions for a humanitarian crisis. Hey folks, you gets whatcha pays for. Qaddafi responded in the only way he could: by waging war against his own people. (That too, by the way, is philosophically and ethically wrong, and there were compounding reasons and political pressure for the Europeans – and thus NATO – to intervene and put an end to this ongoing exporter of such troubles.)

        Now look at how the Regressive Left lined up in naive support of ‘freedom-to-the-people’ demonstrators – and this is the important point – while AT THE SAME TIME dismantling any political capital to ARM and MILITARILY SUPPORT secular local forces. Look at the results. LOOK. Really look. Now YOU figure out a solution to the mess created by the Chomsky-ite politically naive… still busy doing their profoundly important bit: philosophically and ethically and exemplary tsk tsking with extreme selfrighteousness… oblivious to their part at home undermining the political capital that was need BEFORE it became a humanitarian crisis.

        But hey, as long as so many can feel so self-righteous… after all, that’s the Chomsky Cha Cha.

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        • basenjibrian says:
          June 29, 2016 at 02:17

          It’s not just “Chomskyites” who are brimming over with self righteousness. And unlike certain rather fervid Cruise Missile Liberals (too long, didn’t read), we are not supporting interventions and wars that objectively do make things worse.

          Name a single war in recent decades where American intervention has improved things? Name one.

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