Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 176 posts

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

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #159
reducesuffering wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prigozhin himself, one of the primary architects of the invasion of Ukraine, stated that the invasion reason given was bullshit. https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16721950353732157... "By February 24th, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Now the [Russian] Defense Ministry attempts to fool society, tries to fool the President, and tell the story of a crazy aggression from the Ukrainian side and they were…

So are you asserting that the OSCE was carrying water for the Russian Defense Ministry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_...

The only thing the OSCE documented in the article you cited was explosions in the region and a casualty in the government controlled areas from the attacks.

It does not support your (Russia’s, really) claim of a Ukraine-initiated escalation

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

#162

Post by CapricornNoble »

mymac wrote: post #132
CapricornNoble wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is naked Russian propaganda masquerading as enlightened discourse. OSCE via Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/osce-reports-surge-numb... Unless Reuters is "naked Russian propaganda" now, there was definitely an uptick in kinetic activity in the Donbas, with most of it falling on the Separatist side of the line of control.

Russia has given each and every excuse that you could possibly come up with in 2014 and again in 2022. If you're a defense industry consultant I'd expect you to be more than conversant with the run-up to the second episode of this war and not to swallow such things hook, line and sinker. Note that nowhere in that article does it say that the Ukrainian side did that. For all we know this was a provocation, as Russia i…

> Note that nowhere in that article does it say that the Ukrainian side did that. For all we know this was a provocation

If you are asserting that the Helsinki-based OSCE was duped by Russia detonating a bunch of explosions on their own side of the line of control....prove it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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

#163

Post by CapricornNoble »

dragonwriter wrote: post #161
CapricornNoble wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you asserting that the OSCE was carrying water for the Russian Defense Ministry? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_...

The only thing the OSCE documented in the article you cited was explosions in the region and a casualty in the government controlled areas from the attacks. It does not support your (Russia’s, really) claim of a Ukraine-initiated escalation

This page has the PDF of the full report: https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/5...

On page 2, with the map of the Donbas, the vast majority of the explosions are in northwest Luhansk, NE of Luhansk city itself, and North of Donetsk....on the Separatist side of the line of contact.

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

#164

Post by ganglandfee »

2devnull wrote: post #149
ganglandfee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah. You realize you just said facts are facts and that facts are just that, they are neither right or wrong, hypocritical or amoral or immoral . Hmmm. That’s tough to argue against when you put it like that. Another way to put it is that many facts can be true at the same time. Superpowers are gonna Superpower, but they are also hypocrites operating on a double standard.

Yes! That’s exactly right! So then the question is, are all facts the same? The answer I’ve come to is that some facts are more useful than others. The fact that America is a great power is a very important fact. The fact the great powers act alike is a useful fact. The fact that can derived from these, that America does great power stuff, is of no value. It’s just the obvious result of other facts which are more imp…

[flagged]

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

#165

Post by lenkite »

legutierr wrote: post #156
lenkite wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But he was killed by Libyans, who were angry about the Libyans that Gaddafi himself had killed. Sorry, I suggest you dig deeper. He was killed by Misrata fighters who were directly NATO sponsored and equipped. There were lots of articles on how NATO supported Misrata at the time.

Misrata is in Libya, no? Were the people who captured and killed Gaddafi not Libyans? Are you saying that these people were working under orders from NATO? What was their motivation, if they were not fundamentally angry about how Gaddafi had treated their fellow countrymen?

> Are you saying that these people were working under orders from NATO? What was their motivation, if they were not fundamentally angry about how Gaddafi had treated their fellow countrymen?

Yes, there were under orders from NATO. They even coordinated air-strikes. This is no real surprise to anyone. Hell, I think some of the NATO generals even complimented the coordination. Can dig that up if needed.

Anger at a nation's leader does not justify NATO intervention. Most of these rebels were quick to take Libya back to the barbaric ages where women were treated as cattle. Libya also became an ISIS HQ. No one talks about human rights violations after Gadaffi was kicked out and tens of thousands killed. Media attention became nil at that point. Of-course NATO nations pat themselves on the back - hey we took out the bad guys. So what if our "good guys" kill 10x more ?

I find the hypocrisy and justification used for NATO wars utterly sickening.

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

#166

Post by lenkite »

legutierr wrote: post #155
lenkite wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A coup sponsored by the US and orchestrated by Nuland with support of the U.S. state department.

Right, of course. The thousands of people gathered in protest in Kiev were all there at the direction of the U.S. State Department.

> Right, of course. The thousands of people gathered in protest in Kiev were all there at the direction of the U.S. State Department.

Quite a few were - we will probably get a good idea of the numbers ~40 years later unless the President at the time deems otherwise.

Do remember that Yanukovych's election was certified by international monitors. https://www.oscepa.org/en/news-a-media/press-releases/press-...

A significant fraction of Ukraine voted for him - esp from the south and east. Toppling an elected government whose election was deemed valid by a vetted group of international observers is what split Ukraine and finally led to this bloody situation today.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/212663/Election_repor...

And if you think the U.S. was not involved, I am afraid that is a extraordinary act of burying your head in the sand. The U.S. was involved even in the earlier Orange revolution in 2004. At that time, the U.S. media was not as sophisticated as it was later. The Guardian and US papers proudly declared the US combating Russian influence and "protecting democracy" by sponsoring protestors! Ukraine was always a tug of war between U.S. and Russian influence but 2014 coup was what broke the Camel's back.

Remember - Nuland is even on record discussing who should hold the reigns after the coup. She didn't want Klitschko in the central government. Too moderate for her. She wanted the Anti-Russian and far-right guy Arseniy Yatsenyuk in power.

And Lo and Behold - Her Prophecy Was Fulfilled! In an interview with Poroshenko, he admitted that Nuland was in Kiev during the time of the Maidan protests. She traveled 3 times during that period, organizing support and supplies for the "democratic movement" - even going to the extent of giving sandwiches to protestors.

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

#167

Post by Ygg2 »

edgyquant wrote: post #56
Ygg2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He wasn’t killed by rockets

Sure, and when I hire an assassin I don't kill the target, I just provide the monetary support. Still makes me a killer. Even worse if I crush someone's leg to let assassin do its job.

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

#168

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #109
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #67

Ugh, first I'm hearing of this. Some of that is my fault; I'm using Marl's* news aggregator which craps up the default feed with celebs and sportsball. I've had it set to National to avoid drowning in fluff-poo. I need to invest in a better news supplier. *ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37509507 Response to the disaster is slow, partially due to disaster response being sucked into the massive need of Moroc…

> I wish the West was set up where we could volunteer family members This sounds insane so I surely must be misreading. Do you not mean "where we could volunteer [ourselves]"? I'm imagining a scene in the style of "The Death of Stalin" where I am woken up in the middle of the night and told "your brother has nominated you for relief efforts in Morocco, you have 10 minutes to gather your things."

> Do you not mean "where we could volunteer [ourselves]"?

Sort of. I meant where we=family could volunteer members of the family.

Me and 5 adult sons live together. Everything is shared (resources, decisions) and 'we' winds up supplanting 'I' a lot.

To reduce confusion, I can be more mindful of pronoun use. At least until the new economy makes our arrangement widely familiar.

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

#169

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #88

Dams (and their collapses) are one of those risks which are latent and underappreciated but devastating force-multipliers of weather and climate-related events. The Derna dam collapses, even with only partial death reports is already the second deadliest recorded dam failure, and is close on the lower-end range of death estimates for the worst, the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure in China, following another weather catastro…

There's a good in-depth look at this situation by the NY Times which supports much of what I'd written above, and dives into more specific details and history. HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37534800>

Concerns with these dams dates to 1986, 37 years ago, with engineering studies put off another 12 years, and an attempt at remediation finally committed to only four months before Libya fell into civil war in 2011. And yes, there are broader geopoliticial strategies playing out with multiple parties involved.

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

#170

Post by penneallagricia »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #16
penneallagricia wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its impossible to say, then why intervene? If you can't prove that bombing will have net positive effects then why do it?

Is omniscience a prerequisite to reacting? Nothing would ever get done then.

We're talking about killing people in a country on the other side of the world.

If not omniscience at least clear evidence that there is no other course of action and that this is absolutely required (spoiler, it wasn't). Reacting irrationally is just what animals do.

Post reply on HN