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leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-8797041.html
As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.
In an escalating crisis little regarded hitherto outside the oil markets, output of Libya’s prized high-quality crude oil has plunged from 1.4 million barrels a day earlier this year to just 160,000 barrels a day now. Despite threats to use military force to retake the oil ports, the government in Tripoli has been unable to move effectively against striking guards and mutinous military units that are linked to secessionist forces in the east of the country.
Libyans are increasingly at the mercy of militias which act outside the law. Popular protests against militiamen have been met with gunfire; 31 demonstrators were shot dead and many others wounded as they protested outside the barracks of “the Libyan Shield Brigade” in the eastern capital Benghazi in June.
Though the Nato intervention against Gaddafi was justified as a humanitarian response to the threat that Gaddafi’s tanks would slaughter dissidents in Benghazi, the international community has ignored the escalating violence. The foreign media, which once filled the hotels of Benghazi and Tripoli, have likewise paid little attention to the near collapse of the central government.
The strikers in the eastern region Cyrenaica, which contains most of Libya’s oil, are part of a broader movement seeking more autonomy and blaming the government for spending oil revenues in the west of the country. Foreigners have mostly fled Benghazi since the American ambassador, Chris Stevens, was murdered in the US consulate by jihadi militiamen last September. Violence has worsened since then with Libya’s military prosecutor Colonel Yussef Ali al-Asseifar, in charge of investigating assassinations of politicians, soldiers and journalists, himself assassinated by a bomb in his car on 29 August.
Rule by local militias is also spreading anarchy around the capital. Ethnic Berbers, whose militia led the assault on Tripoli in 2011, temporarily took over the parliament building in Tripoli. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has called for an independent investigation into the violent crushing of a prison mutiny in Tripoli on 26 August in which 500 prisoners had been on hunger strike. The hunger strikers were demanding that they be taken before a prosecutor or formally charged since many had been held without charge for two years.
The government called on the Supreme Security Committee, made up of former anti-Gaddafi militiamen nominally under the control of the interior ministry, to restore order. At least 19 prisoners received gunshot shrapnel wounds, with one inmate saying “they were shooting directly at us through the metal bars”. There have been several mass prison escapes this year in Libya including 1,200 escaping from a prison after a riot in Benghazi in July.
The Interior Minister, Mohammed al-Sheikh, resigned last month in frustration at being unable to do his job, saying in a memo sent to Mr Zeidan that he blamed him for failing to build up the army and the police. He accused the government, which is largely dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, of being weak and dependent on tribal support. Other critics point out that a war between two Libyan tribes, the Zawiya and the Wirrshifana, is going on just 15 miles from the Prime Minister’s office.
Diplomats have come under attack in Tripoli with the EU ambassador’s convoy ambushed outside the Corinthia hotel on the waterfront. A bomb also wrecked the French embassy.
One of the many failings of the post-Gaddafi government is its inability to revive the moribund economy. Libya is wholly dependent on its oil and gas revenues and without these may not be able to pay its civil servants. Sliman Qajam, a member of the parliamentary energy committee, told Bloomberg that “the government is running on its reserves. If the situation doesn’t improve, it won’t be able to pay salaries by the end of the year”.
leaving behind failed states in a grand swath from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, seems to be the pattern of the last ten years. any chance that was intentional?
post # 13 Link: 112 Cruise missiles - What a mistakeKadafi is definitely not a kind leader. however, the US and UN are now interfering with a sovereign nations rights to defend itself against enemies, foreign and domestic.
I'll give 5:1 odd that if Kadafi is overthrown, we will have a worse government in the aftermath to deal with than under his leadership.
The same with these other nations we are aiding the overthrow of, especially Syria.
exactly
Try the last 30 years.
pre Arab Spring, leaving failed states was not across the Middle East policy, quite the opposite
the prefered strategy before was leave a puppet dictator in power. But the Arab Spring taught the US, Saudi and Israel a big lesson, social media and internet has changed the game. Don't get me wrong, Russia, China and Iran even took note of the Spring.
the rulers are now trying to reign in the power of internet and social media through the spying and surveillance programs and the scaremongering of the Muslim terrorist hiding under the bed. But even this strategy is failing, so now it seems the new strategy is crash, burn and leave the hordes of barbarians to keep fighting as long as they don't empower themselves.
pretty sadistic if u ask me knowing that the women and children are being left for the hordes of barbarians to feed on, US, Saudi and Israel pretty much became to nations, what Jigsaw from the Saw movies is to his victims
Are we supposed to be shocked that nation-building doesn't work? Newsflash: it never has....
which failed states are you referring to?
Would you guys consider Iraq a poor job at nation building? Does the nation of Iraq seem to be a good country. Does it seem to be a good country as opposed to the other nations around it?
wattabout that country was it sudan or congo that the french came in fighting any liberation resistence....still a hole just like 2000 years ago
You cannot change these nations without changing their culture. Fat chance of that.
Iraq? Afghanistan?
exactly, but they sit on "our" oil, we refuse to reduce our dependence on their (or any) oil, so taxpayers (US military) pay for taking their oil.
those are the ones I was referring to. Das Texan seemed to be referencing failed states created by US foriegn policy in the 20 years before 9/11. I'm not sure what he meant.
Central American dictator ships we put in power. I mean we ing basically put Saddam in power in the 80s.
ing Reagan started this by getting involved in everyone else's ing business.
bull
"In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup ... by 1969 Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party. ... He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
Saddam grabbed power all by himself.
LOL...
We buy other nations oil, yopu complain.
We try to drill more oil, you complain.
You're on both sides of the fence!
because my side of the fence is anti-BigCarbon energy.
Please.
We all know you are the champion of making bull causes.
Iraq sure seems the same now doesn't it.....
when I pointed this out way back when, dude was all like "
but who's gonna protect the women and children from ruthless dictator
lmao @ grasping what the problem is now that team blue is in the house...
There may be some occasion 50 years from now when some historian or other writes of the demise of the Soviet Union, and the complete and utter lack of understanding of the Arab and muslim countries by anybody in the West. Our last several presidents now have no clue whatsoever about the cultures we are dealing with, and we seem -bent-for-election on repeating every damn mistake the British (and then Soviet) empires made in the region.
This whole phenomenon is truly a bipartisan cluster-f%$#. Reagan did precious little in response to the Lebanese attack on U.S. interests in Beirut. GHW Bush was probably the best, but his response to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and corresponding placement of U.S. MIlitary forces (read Infidels) in the Arab holy cities was the overt rationale for Osama Bin Laden. Clinton didn't have a clue what to do (although doing nothing, in retrospect, might have accidentally been a good thing), Bush was a disaster, and is being followed by Obama being a disaster, and the only real option to Obama would have been McCain, who (god love him) just wants a war all over the world all the time.
And all the while this is going on with America spending her treasure and her young people's bodies in nonsensical wars, Russia has gone back to a totalitarian state (Putin is really like a czar) and China keeps motoring along becoming the world's biggest economy.
Don't underestimate Israeli influence on the matter. While responsibility ultimately falls in the persons you listed, IMO, it's undeniable they're trying to re-shape the ME by proxy. You could make the argument about oil in Iraq, but the rest?
I agree. I shouldn't have left them out. Personally I am amazed that U.S. Foreign Policy for the last 60 years or so has us being the Israeli Army proxy. We would have a lot fewer enemies over there if we didn't fight all of Israel's wars for them, but I know that we do partly because we have been dependent on the oil in the Arab countries (less now than at any time in the last 50 years) but also because if we didn't back Israel, she could/would be destroyed by her Arab neighbors, and we won't let that happen. Nor do I think we necessarily should let it happen. It is just that it has been awfully expensive for us in the long run, and you are right to point it out.
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