The rebels are all thinking that getting rid of Gaddafi and everything will be alright. There will be plenty of food, water, clothing, housing, BMWs and Mecedes Benzes to go round. The rebels are also likewise delusional that the West has Libya and her people's interests at heart. Nothing can be further from the truth. Both Britain and France offered their premature support to the rebels thinking that they had Gaddafi on the run. Britain's North sea oil is running down and both she and France had oil concessions. While Britain and France were backing the rebels Gaddafi decided to offer those concessions to China while he was forcing the rebels to retreat. Now instead of the official UN "no fly zone" we have regime change intended.
Gaddafi saw what happened to Saddam Hussain with the kangaroo court in Iraq. Like Gaddafi, I would rather go down fighting and take as many of the traitorous rebels with me. Any survivors can look to the current sad state of Iraq without the billions that were poured in by the USA and the Gulf states.

The clumsiness and inaccuracy of the passing reference to that president of Iraq named Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to pass without comment. It ain't exactly right to say some unnamed entity found it hard to get him to open suspected weapons facilities to inspectors. Those visiting and searching the country on the UN IAEA were able to acquire all the data they needed -- as they recount -- and they fled Iraq not because Hussein threw them out, the common claim, but because they were afraid of dying under American bombs.

As to those claimed chemical weapons of 2002, it's clear and it was clear at the time that while the governments of Iraq and Iran had and used chemical weapons, the Iraqi government wasn't using them against its minority populations as an everyday practice. On some occasions, the Iraqi government fatally gassed communities, not races, which had risen against it at CIA urging, and promises that such uprising would bring military support from the United States. An evil prank.

As pressure was lifted on the Hussein regime, the demand was made that it reveal everything it had about its chemical weapons, and the common understanding that the regime never did this is mistaken. It provided thousands of pages of official documents -- according to some accounts, tens of thousands of pages -- and the president of the United States (a man who displayed on camera a remarkable inability to say IAEA) declared this illegitimate because they were written in Arabic. He did not state his reasoning for this but it must have been either that the world's most powerful nation either couldn't read them or else didn't think reading them was worth the trouble.

I often wonder where all those documents in US custody for about a decade now, are kept, and whether they will will ever see the light of day -- as they should have before Mr Bush took his sulky public line that Arab documents in the Arabic language, well, they're not really documents. A lousy ground for going out and killing lots of people.

The recurring claim about how mean Mr Hussein was to minorities, that's true, and, on occasion, evil. Not nearly as evil as what happened to the minorities after America let slip the dogs of war supposedly just against Mr Hussein. The Iraqi death toll from that has been far far greater than anything Mr Hussein did to his people. We're supposed not to care because Mr Hussein was deposed. Iraqi survivors see it differently.

The article completely ignores the seventh and the decisive decisive factor that drags Libya war - it is typical coalition war with various players and various declared and undeclared political interests. The peril of waging prolonged coalition wars was already well understood by the Greeks. The Romans never played second fiddle in any of their wars. They did not fight to protect civilians. They fought either to kill hostile civilians or to get the foreigners under their tent.

When Reagan intervened in Granada and Panama, Clinton (NATO) bombed Kosovo, or Bushes went to fight Saddam Hussein, no one was confused who was the boss and what would be the result. Our problem with Obama is that he is an honest but not awfully gifted individual. He obediently follows the tunes playing in his head and calling for limitation of American power and rejection of American strategic and economic "selfish" interests. He does not like and does not understand foreign policy. As a result, he makes a mess of every single item his hands touch.

The great lesson from the Libya war, which for Byman and Co. will be nearly impossible to digest, is the collapse of multilateralism. Especially when it sets ostensibly "multilateral" goals and adheres to "multilateral" means. Multilateralism has always been a fiction used by demagogues like Byman against Reagan and Bush.

Contrary to your assertions, there are more dictators in the world and al-Quaddafi is one of them. Let's remember he came to power in a coup in 1969. To your point, the only thing Libya has going for it, is its vibrant economy with 90% percent of all its revenue coming from oil. But most of the wealth is lost to the people.

Since you're advocating for the people, it will be a novel idea for the Mr. al-Quaddafi, the Revolutionary Leader to allow free elections and encourage participation in civil society and government. I'm not necessarily talking about Western-style democracy. I'm referring to an environment that would have allowed inclusion of the dissidents that are now rebels. Mr. al-Quaddafi should remember how it feels being a rebel who took power by overthrowing another government. These citizens are now rebels because they see injustice and feel excluded. They remind me of the American founding fathers and mothers who were rebels against the crown and benefited from France’s support to fight…

Yes, bombing is an aberration and it is "twisted thinking." Yet history has proven that it has its place and that it has has worked as medium to send a clear message and compel hard-hearted leaders to "do the right thing."
Even Mr. Obama recognizes the need for a dose of realism to balance his liberal-peace approach. That in my opinion is true leadership in the face of this complex decision-making quagmire.

"Qaddafi's regime has billions of dollars in frozen assets; some of this should be put at the rebels' disposal"

The essence of this article is covered in the above phrase. The authors have no understanding of what is happening in Libya but are willing to give an unelected group attempting to seize power with NATO arms assets that belong to the Libyan people.

UN Resolution 1973 calls for an immediate ceasefire and for the various parties in Libya to negotiate a political settlement. Yet the US and the other members of the coalition are pressing for regime change, which is a violation of 1973. Colonel Qaddafi accepted the terms of the ceasefire offered by the African Union. While he made this perfectly clear and accepts that the ceasefire must lead to free and fair elections in which all Libyans would have a voice the authors of this article dismiss this as "empty rhetoric and gestures, of course, but ones that could potentially split off some coalition members or tie NATO up in internal deliberations." Despite his unusual leadership style Mr. Qaddafi has delivered for the people of Libya and for Africa. Libya enjoys the best healthcare system in Africa with a lifespan close to the US. Literacy is the highest in Africa - 92% male and 87% female. Internet access is significantly higher than Iraq, a country recently democratized by the US. Libya enjoyed relatively open access to information from the outside with thousands of TV dishes across the country. Perhaps Mr. Qaddafi's most significant legacy is the Great Manmade River which will supply Libya with water for decades to come. This may be far more valuable to Libya and Africa in the future than its oil. Qaddafi fought for and invested in a unified and prosperous Africa. This is why he has support from so many Africans.

The rebels refused to even consider a ceasefire and negotations because they assume that the NATO objective is regime change. The NATO objective should be made consistent with resolution 1973 - first a ceasefire, then negotiations among the parties followed by free and fair elections that include also the people that are loyal to Qaddafi. Even if Qaddafi were killed or raptured the conflict will remain unresolved until the voices of the people loyal to Qaddafi are also listened to by the rebels and all parties have a seat at the table.

It's worth having a look at a map of the Mediterranean; it will help to understand why the French were not at all keen on allowing a massacre to happen in Benghazi. France has a very obvious interest in what goes on at the opposite shore of its southern lake. The British government for its part is pursuing a pretty vigorous policy of mending its relationship with France a century after the Entente Cordiale. For the USA, however, it's difficult to see anything but trouble coming out of all this.

Why am I some speacial type of arsehole mills, or are you just engaging in “ad hominem” propaganda as a last refuge. eBooks Resale Rights You see how dubious it looks when that fool web does it……

The truth is going to rise like the sun in the east, don’t f-uck around and get scorched.

Land one Marine Expeditionary Unit at Brega, advance West, unite the Rebels with their comrades in Misrata, game over; Gaddafi falls.

Six reasons why it's been so tough to get Qaddafi to quit. Reason No.7: In order to hold NATO together, the U.S. has allowed France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Germany to remain the primary "Western" supervisor (make that "Security partner"!) in North Africa, while Egypt remains under U.S. control (make that "AIPAC" strategy). The Germans want to remain "ueberpeaceful" because they got tagged as resorting back to "starker Eingriff" against Serbia to get th ear training "Qaddafi's regime has billions of dollars in frozen assets; some of this should be put at the rebels' disposal" The essence of this article is covered in the above phrase. The authors have no understanding of what is happening in Libya but are willing to give an unelected group attempting to seize power with NATO arms assets that belong to the Libyan people. UN Resolution 1973 calls for an immedia.