Here's the truth: we are supporting the "good guys." Right?

"The rebel military commander in the Nafusa Mountains, Col. El-Moktar Firnana, admitted that some abuses had taken place after rebels captured the towns, but said such attacks violated orders issued to the rebel forces not to attack civilians or damage civilian property. He claimed that some people had been punished, but did not say how many people or for what offenses," Human Rights Watch said.

The group also noted that it has "documented repeated indiscriminate attacks by government forces on civilian areas" and the use of landmines.

Inside Libya on Wednesday, rebels lost and then regained control of Qawalish, a village in the western part of the country.

Sorry, I'm just not keen on the notion of us backing these "good guys." We have no idea what we're doing--that's what is wrong.

Suddenly you believe HRW?

I did see a report on this in the guardian today, and yes, I expressed concern at what the rebels might be like when the civil war broke out. The Nafusa rebels are not really part of the NTC.

It will be of interest to se if the leaders can and do instil discipline

danivon wrote:Suddenly you believe HRW?

I'll grant you they are always suspect. However, when the "other" side is Ghaddafi, I think they have little reason to lie. He is a well-chronicled abuser of life, let alone "human rights."

However, the bigger point is we got into this not knowing who the rebels are. If we knew, we would have had no difficulty arming them, etc.

However, the bigger point is we got into this not knowing who the rebels are

I think by now, its clearer who the rebels are...
The victors.
And we'll see how their transition to government will go... Some form of democracy to start....
However it should be noted that the longest serving dictator in the Middle East is seeing his regime end... At what cost to NATO and the US? 0 casualties. 0 troops on the ground. (excepting targeting officers and perhaps some clandestine advisors...) This may have taken a little longer than first advertised, but it does seem to have worked out reasonably well. Now, whether or not it works out to the benefit of the West in general is still to be seen. But Libya will need to sell its oil to Italy again. And when the oil starts to flow perhaps the world wide price will fall... And since Ghaddaffi's regime had in its coffers a great deal of wealth, now in the hands of the transition force, the rebuilding should be largely self financed.
But of course the only imprtant thing is how this will affect the US Presidential race....

Funny how the above statement is quite similar to Iraq
Few casualties, seemingly unqualified success (and a quicker "victory" in Iraq)
But as in Iraq, there were no plans for after the war, who would lead, what would happen?

We could have immediately pulled out and had the same situation as we are seeing here, not a real big difference. Why is it so wonderful in Libya but so bad in Iraq?

Yup, aside from lives, cost, boots on the ground, and legitimacy, it's exactly the same.

I think Libya is a work in process, just like Egypt is a work in process. Today was definitely good news.

But not at the time either....
still remarkably similar, at this stage Iraq was thought of the same way (Mission Accomplished"?)

Do you think there's a strong possibility that we will lose over 4,000 soldiers and spend $1,000,000,000,000 on Libya?

Ray Jay wrote:Do you think there's a strong possibility that we will lose over $4,000 soldiers and spend $1,000,000,000,000 on Libya?

I don't.

On the other hand, I think the odds of some kind of democracy developing are pretty slim. I would put the odds on some kind of dictatorship eventually emerging.

What will be interesting is how much credit Obama tries to take--now or during the campaign. Given his original declaration that this would take "days," he should be relatively humble about it.

Hopefully he won't be so foolish as to parachute onto an aircraft carrier with a lot of fanfare. Now that would be problematic.

GMTom wrote:Funny how the above statement is quite similar to Iraq
Few casualties, seemingly unqualified success (and a quicker "victory" in Iraq)
But as in Iraq, there were no plans for after the war, who would lead, what would happen?

There are plans, it's just that they aren't American/NATO plans (because it's the Libyans running it, not us). There were plans in Iraq. The ones for Iraq were not followed properly, however.

We could have immediately pulled out and had the same situation as we are seeing here, not a real big difference. Why is it so wonderful in Libya but so bad in Iraq?

Well, there were several differences:

1) While NATO provided air support, the ground offensive in Libya was primarily undertaken by Libyans themselves, indeed before NATO was involved there was an organised rebel army
2) Libya does not have a significant Sunni/Shia divide as Iraq does, and equally there is not a significant amount of influence from foreign based clerics (as was the case with Iranians over Iraqi Shia)
3) As yet we are not in the post-war situation, but de-Ba'athification in Iraq led to a major problem in the way it was carried out - disbanding the entire army meant there were loads of annoyed unemployed guys with weapons and training at a loose end, and removing all party members from the bureaucracy meant that there was hardly anyone competent left to run ministries.

There are of course many possible outcomes. I'm pleased to see that it was the Nafusa front that proved decisive, as that was where I thought things would happen. But the tribal differences between the Berbers of Nafusa and the Arabs of the rest of Libya are not going to go away (and the course of the war may well result in splits between them as the Berbers point out that they did the actual toppling while the NTC were sacking their cabinet and barely moving the front).

I heard that the transitional council have drafted a constitution, which is for a democratic state. Of course, they are also saying no elections for 2 years (apparently to allow movements and parties to grow and develop first) and there's a fair amount to do first.

(by the way, the impact on US politics, I could not give a monkeys what it is, frankly. I'm not that bothered about the impact on UK politics, tbh)

danivon wrote:I heard that the transitional council have drafted a constitution, which is for a democratic state. Of course, they are also saying no elections for 2 years (apparently to allow movements and parties to grow and develop first) and there's a fair amount to do first.

I guess we'll see.

The dust has not yet settled over the Libyan capital of Tripoli since rebels took control over the weekend. But already, a draft constitutional charter for the transitional state has appeared online (embedded below). It is just a draft, mind you, and gauging its authenticity at this point is difficult. There is also no way to know whether this draft or something similar will emerge as the final governing document for a new Libyan regime.

Way too soon to tell. If I were to guess, I would guess we will have some kind of civil war, followed by a strong man taking power. That's based on history. I think the odds of a democracy are probably one in ten.

I think a bit higher than 10%. A lot depends, actually, on what Tunisia and Egypt do. But if Libya does become more democratic, it will likely be more robust if it is home grown rather than imposed from without.

danivon wrote:I think a bit higher than 10%. A lot depends, actually, on what Tunisia and Egypt do. But if Libya does become more democratic, it will likely be more robust if it is home grown rather than imposed from without.

On the latter, I agree. And, there is some room for encouragement. It does not appear that the dictator's sons have received the most common treatment when dictatorships fall (hanging, firing squad, etc.).

Off topic:

Could the Republican opposition to helping to topple Gadaffi have anything to do with the revelations that the US was sending people to Libya to be tortured by the regime?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/se ... -rendition

(and yes, the article is about UK complicity with the programme, but it's clear that it was US flights taking detainees to Tripoli)