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‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#51

Post by misja111 »

themgt wrote: post #37
PedroBatista wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already see there is no point in continue this conversation. I notice your standards for US/EU intervention are very very high and basically nobody should ever being killed. Why don't you apply the same reasoning to Gaddafi's regime and Syria/Russia/Al-Qaeda? You seem to have every problem existing in the Universe when the evil West does something ( and also a problem when it doesn't, also a problem that the West e…

Why don't you apply the same reasoning to Gaddafi's regime and Syria/Russia/Al-Qaeda? What reasoning? First of all I'm an American citizen, so I concern myself more with what my country does with my tax dollars than what other countries do, especially within their own borders or in situations that don't directly affect American citizens. I don't believe America's job is global law enforcement. It's like asking an Ame…

> but we're back to "when the US/NATO does it it's good, when US/NATO adversaries do it it's bad"

You're talking about the hypothetical situation when China or Russia would invade a country to stop the regime from torturing and killing people by the thousands. And you proceed to claim that when they would do it, the West would say "it's bad".

There have been plenty of occasions in, say, the last 75 years where China or Russia have invaded some country. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but not one single time was it to stop the regime from torturing and killing people by the thousands.

Otoh there have been, and still are, plenty of regimes that are killing and torturing like that, and which receive the full support from China and Russia.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#52

Post by edgyquant »

thriftwy wrote: post #31
misja111 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intervention was to implement a UN resolution to force a cease fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci... Not even Russia or China voted against it at the time so apparently most of the world agreed it was a good idea.

I hope that you understand that bombing Lybia, supplying rebels with weapons and then making them kill Gaddafi is a direct opposite of a cease fire ? Or do you believe that a cease fire is when the other side ceases firing so you can get a good shot yourself?

No it’s when both sides agree to stop

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#53

Post by alephnerd »

orwin wrote: post #28
themgt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "EU and America" didn't assassinate Gaddafi. Right. "We came, we saw, he died! [lol]" Gaddafi was "assassinated" because there was a full-on civil war and the EU and America bombed the massive convoy he had sent to crush the rebellion in Benghazi and enforced a no-fly zone otherwise Gaddafi's planes would obliterate the rebel forces and the civilians living in those cities This is just revisionist nonsense. There…

For accuracy's sake (i can't find the Atlantic article talking about it, and i'm not bored enough to spend my day going through Wikileaks, so right now the source is trustmebro, i hope that someone have the documents/article in favorite), thanks to Hilary's leaked emails, we know that Obama's administration wasn't keen on going in Libya, and only Sarkozy(France) and Cameron(UK) insistence on attacking decided the US…

> we know that Obama's administration wasn't keen on going in Libya, and only Sarkozy(France) and Cameron(UK) insistence on attacking decided the US to support the invasion (and it was mostly logistical support).

Yep. Can confirm.

This was publicly reported during the 2011-12 period as well. There were a couple press junkets Obama, the State Dept, and DoD did at the time highlighting this stance of non-interventionism. Read some of the older Economist articles from that era as well.

I didn't know Emailgate actually had emails from that time.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#54

Post by legutierr »

boppo1 wrote: post #38
PedroBatista wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already see there is no point in continue this conversation. I notice your standards for US/EU intervention are very very high and basically nobody should ever being killed. Why don't you apply the same reasoning to Gaddafi's regime and Syria/Russia/Al-Qaeda? You seem to have every problem existing in the Universe when the evil West does something ( and also a problem when it doesn't, also a problem that the West e…

> intervention We used to call this war. Is Russia just ‘intervening’ in Ukraine right now?

If Lybian forces were on the verge of committing war crimes and killing thousands, then "intervention" would be an appropriate word to describe what the Western powers did. They "intervened" to prevent an imminent atrocity, if you believe them.

And I am inclined to believe them, not because of what Western governments have said, but because the whole Arab Spring played out in real time on social media.

I agree that what happened to Gaddafi himself was horrific. It would have been a much better thing if he had been arrested and brought before a tribunal. But he was killed by Libyans, who were angry about the Libyans that Gaddafi himself had killed. The contribution that Western Governments made to those events was to stop the killing of thousands of people who opposed the regime. Arguing against intervention is arguing in favor of what would have happened without intervention—which is, effectively, what we have seen in Syria.

Now, was Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the verge of murdering tens of thousands? Were Ukranian forces gathered, ready to rain artillery shells down on a major Ukrainian city? If not, I don't think it would be appropriate to describe the Russian invasion as an "intervention". What would Putin have been "intervening" in? Ukranian self-determination?

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#55

Post by 2devnull »

themgt wrote: post #21
PedroBatista wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "EU and America" didn't assassinate Gaddafi. If the "alternate reality" didn't already erased it, you may recall something called "Arab Spring". It's not like Gaddafi was in a stable position at the time, and even less likely he would skate the whole situation until today. Gaddafi was "assassinated" because there was a full-on civil war and the EU and America bombed the massive convoy he had sent to crush the reb…

The "EU and America" didn't assassinate Gaddafi. Right. "We came, we saw, he died! [lol]" Gaddafi was "assassinated" because there was a full-on civil war and the EU and America bombed the massive convoy he had sent to crush the rebellion in Benghazi and enforced a no-fly zone otherwise Gaddafi's planes would obliterate the rebel forces and the civilians living in those cities This is just revisionist nonsense. There…

This is almost the offensive realist viewpoint were it not for the intense American exceptionalism. Great powers are going to do what they do. Accept this and everything becomes more hopeful. Otherwise, the world will always seem to be ruled by terrible amoral people and nihilism and despair are all you will ever have. There is no glorious future without rulers or parties, therefore wars and competition. Our western Judeo-Christian morality will never replace other modes of thinking, even in our own government!

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#56

Post by edgyquant »

Ygg2 wrote: post #33
flohofwoe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the EU or America assassinating Gaddafi, only that he was killed by his own people Mussolini-style.

Rocket that blew his convoy came from NATO bombers saying they weren't behind it is asinine.

He wasn’t killed by rockets

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#57

Post by alephnerd »

boppo1 wrote: post #39
orwin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For accuracy's sake (i can't find the Atlantic article talking about it, and i'm not bored enough to spend my day going through Wikileaks, so right now the source is trustmebro, i hope that someone have the documents/article in favorite), thanks to Hilary's leaked emails, we know that Obama's administration wasn't keen on going in Libya, and only Sarkozy(France) and Cameron(UK) insistence on attacking decided the US…

How did France compel the US about anything?

The US and EU were in the middle of a trade dispute over Airbus subsidizes at the time, which was largely French led.

The WTO ended up finding the EU guilty in 2020.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#58

Post by mytailorisrich »

mschuster91 wrote: post #19
totetsu wrote: post #2

When ever I see something like this I can’t help but wonder if it would have happened if EU and America hadn’t assassinated Gaddafi. I know that’s kind of a knee jerk reaction, but really what is happening in lybia now? What’s the plan? Protect the oil pipelines and just don’t look too close anymore?

> When ever I see something like this I can’t help but wonder if it would have happened if EU and America hadn’t assassinated Gaddafi. Gaddafi would have died sooner or later anyway, and he was a kleptocrat like all other dictators were and are. > but really what is happening in lybia now? What’s the plan? Protect the oil pipelines and just don’t look too close anymore? What would be needed is an intervention force t…

Gaddafi was bad but his regime did manage to make Libya one of the most developed countries of the region before Western sanctions eventually hit, and they did that without borrowing any money abroad thanks to their oil reserves.

> the French are even more reviled than Islamists are in Africa

That is pure propaganda BS.

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#59

Post by hnbad »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #5

Heartbreaking. The tone of all observers is that this is as much a failure of governance as an environmental catastrophe. As everyone who was at Burning Man learned, plumbing and drainage is the basis of civilisation. Letting it go to rack and ruin is storing up misery, so it worries me that in the UK we've had 20 years of government that has effectively "washed its hands" of water management.

There's a dead comment here about how it was "actually a dam collapse, not a flood" and how no news source is reporting on that. From what I can gather, at a glance, at least the AP, The Guardian and Al Jazeera all state that the flood was the result of two dams collapsing and the cause of the collapse was the storm.

Even the article itself states that the two dams were poorly maintained and the collapse is the result of their state as much as the storm itself.

Given how many places have infrastructure rotting from either corruption or cost savings, I wonder how many more news stories we will see in the future that follow the pattern of "severe weather event results infrastructure failure killing thousands".

Re: ‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20k

#60

Post by logicchains »

legutierr wrote: post #54
boppo1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intervention We used to call this war. Is Russia just ‘intervening’ in Ukraine right now?

If Lybian forces were on the verge of committing war crimes and killing thousands, then "intervention" would be an appropriate word to describe what the Western powers did. They "intervened" to prevent an imminent atrocity, if you believe them. And I am inclined to believe them, not because of what Western governments have said, but because the whole Arab Spring played out in real time on social media. I agree that w…

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