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A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

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Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#61
post #35
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Libya and Syria conflicts were started by their respective dictators massacring people.

Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of the Élysée by newly elected president Sarkozy, four years before. And back then, Khaddaffi was not especially a benevolent dictator. And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have n…

I think there were two things that made a difference in Libya:

* Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support

There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited and mostly denied Khaddafi the advantage of his air force.

A thumb on the scale to tip the balance between Khaddafi and the rebels, basically.

And in fact, Syria is not so different, although the involvement is on a much larger scale. It's still mostly various rebel factions that do the actual fighting. Iraq, by contrast, was a full scale invasion, and one based on a lie.

I'm not saying that makes Libya and Syria completely justified, but it's clearly a different case than Iraq, and much easier to justify, if you accept the legitimacy of the rebels.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#62
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to Gaddafi?

Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).

I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi in English.

Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#63
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OPCW reports are publicly available, all detail is there. Ignoring those to provide leeway for murderers means supporting them. https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/wp-content/uploads/s_2...

I wanted to know what happened so I read the report. I have to say that the "details" are scarce in the report. The investigator not even went to place where the attack happened (because of the danger). The conclusions are also interesting, because they accuse ISIL, and not Assad. While sometimes ISIL and Assad have shared interests in the ongoing war, that doesn't mean they are the same. After all, we have seen some…

You didn't really finish the report, did you?

Page 33:

> On the basis of the foregoing, the Leadership Panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#64
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple dozen vile governments all over the world doing terrible things to their people at any given time. That alone doesn't explain why France is so aggressively interested in keeping the US in the Syria conflict. That same exact justification that you just mentioned applied equally to Iraq, Saddam had massacred and brutalized his own people for a long time. You don't see France egging on the US to get m…

Iraq wasn't in the state of unrest at the time of invasion, although yes, in principle Saddam was as murderous dictator as the other two. Arab spring would most decidedly have flared up his Iraq as well. Venezuela crisis is not anywhere on the scale of outright war in Syria and Libya. It is also well outside the reach of feasible French force projection. France however is involved in a number of conflicts elsewhere i…

your attempt to rationalize the Libya catastrophe is shameful. We selected a country and obliterated it, created something much worse as a result. Today there are flourishing slave markets in Libya. The outcomes were well known at the time of the action

The views you are expressing are no longer the global consensus, even among liberal apologists.

If the US truly intervened for humanitarian purposes, our interventions would look totally different.

And if anyone thinks the French are moral paragons, read the history of North Africa in the 20th century

History will eventually reflect that Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton were just as capable of arbitrary destruction as George Bush. And for some twisted reason HN will make this comment disappear.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#65
post #62
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).

I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi in English. Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.

It's a transliteration of Arabic. There's no single correct transliteration so it depends on the publisher as to what spelling they use.

Here's a very fun Stack Overflow question about using a regex to match the different spellings: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressi...

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#66
post #48
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how an incursion on Ukraine would result in a war with NATO. Ukraine's problem is precisely that it's a formerly neutral party and not part of NATO. In fact, from a Russian POV the reason for the annexation of the Crimean peninsula were fears fueled by Ukraine moving closer to NATO and the EU, violating its neutrality and jeopardising Russian military operations within Ukraine. I'm not justifying the anne…

What about the Budapest Memorandum?

It does not require other nations to defend Ukraine from a non-nuclear attack.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France had no problem supporting the conflicts in Libya and Syria that sought to accomplish similar outcomes as in Iraq (remove & replace Gaddafi and al-Assad). In fact, France has routinely urged Trump and the US to remain engaged in the Syria conflict. "Emmanuel Macron to urge Donald Trump to keep US in Syria during White House talks" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/23/emmanuel-macron-...

Both Libya and Syria conflicts were started by their respective dictators massacring people.

The reports that Ghaddafi was massacring people were rumors and were widely publicised when Genevieve Garrigos (Head of Amnesty International) appeared on French TV to report it.

6 months later, the same head of Amnesty International claimed that they had sent in investigators between Feb and July, and those investigators found no evidence that Ghaddafi had hired mercenaries to attack civilians.

Of course that was too late. The French/UK/US operation had already begun well before the investigation took place, and they weren't interested in evidence.

But your media probably didn't report on that.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#68
post #61
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of the Élysée by newly elected president Sarkozy, four years before. And back then, Khaddaffi was not especially a benevolent dictator. And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have n…

I think there were two things that made a difference in Libya: * Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited…

Both in Syria and Lybia you had quite a few special forces on the ground and some of the war lords / Kurdish militia got equipment and funding through western intelligence agencies. In the case of the Syrian civil war you could follow the factions and who they were supported by in real time on a google map somewhere.

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#69
post #67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Libya and Syria conflicts were started by their respective dictators massacring people.

The reports that Ghaddafi was massacring people were rumors and were widely publicised when Genevieve Garrigos (Head of Amnesty International) appeared on French TV to report it. 6 months later, the same head of Amnesty International claimed that they had sent in investigators between Feb and July, and those investigators found no evidence that Ghaddafi had hired mercenaries to attack civilians. Of course that was to…

[deleted]

Re: A military exercise staged 35 years ago almost triggered World War Three

#70
Mutually assured destruction makes sense if humans and information is perfect .... but it's not so it seems more like it is just a matter of time until it happens.

It is interesting to see how this plays out as the start of an exercise. I remember growing up in North Dakota and when the air force bases would run drills the sky would be filled with planes flying in formation .... no way you could tell if it was real or not (other than there not being any launches from the local ICBMs...).

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