Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
I think I need my tin foil hat to deflect all these conspiracy theories flying around here.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
West is really worried about innocent people being butchered by Gadha fi. :)
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
uk is active cuz suddenly americans are active; now after 42 yrs of qaddafi's governance suddenly every one has realized how much in tolerant qaddafi is...and yes oil is in the equation here, similar to the oil in iraq and gas pipelines which had to pass through afghanistan and pakistan...
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Ehsan uncle I did say was that Britian is only in it for the Oil. I dont buy for one minute that Britian is doing it for the Libyan people. I wish it were so but then Britian would have spoken out on other issues... if Libya did not have the Oil and BP was not so involved in the region then I seriously dont think the British would be so involved.
I wish it were for those innocent people but I sersiouly dont think it is and knowing British foriegn policy it is certianly not. If they dont have an interest in it they never speak out... look at the Gaza case, or the massacres in Kenya and other parts of Africa... again if the British or others could get something out of it they send in troops but if the country is barren then nothing more than words is what we get.
true! this is captilist ideology all abt!
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Go get your tin foil hat my friend… 
Naturally people across the World have every right to be suspicious of the powers that be… whats to say they wont try and enslave everyone given half a chance. 
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Well, of course. British companies have millions of pounds invested in Libya, unlike Congo. Part of any non-communist government's responsibilities is to safeguard the companies of that country as well as its people, because the companies employ the people.
Not mention the issue of how important Libyan oil is to Europe. It's no coincidence that Western Europe, despite being militarily insignificant compared to the US, is talking the most about intevention in Libya. Apart from the Libyan people themselves, Europe has the most to lose from Libyan instability. If Libya's oil industry is damaged, it will be Europe's economy that suffers next.
In fact, one could argue that in order to protect their own people from the economic shock of a Libyan oil industry collapse.... Western Europe will be forced to intervene in Libya in some way.
Agreed. And there is nothing wrong in a sovereign government looking out for its interests. And in the process, if innocent lives are saved thats added reason to intervene.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
I would like add here that, under no circumstances any foreign forces should land in Libya, the unrest is internal matter of Libya and the people of the Libya are capable of handling the situation, they can either win over the Qadafi forces or they can loose... either way stability & peace would return to the country... whereas if there is any foreign intervention, then the country will become another Iraq, where Western forces will be occupying the country and killing the innocent citizens in due course ( BTW the record shows that American and western forces can kill more civilians then the local govt)...
Secondly and most importantly it will be real bad example, if this happens, then US forces will be looking for the countries where some people are no happy + US govt is not happy with the govt of the particular country = US led invasion.. killing thousands of innocents/civilians and bringing unrest to the whole world...
The foreign element should be avoided... if Libiyans have suffered for 40 odd years under Qadafi then they can survive this as well on there own...
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
so do you think they should not have intervened in Bosnia when the serbs were ethnically cleansing and raping Bosnian Muslims? what if Qaddafi starts doing the same (he has used that kind of rhetoric)
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
so do you think they should not have intervened in Bosnia when the serbs were ethnically cleansing and raping Bosnian Muslims? what if Qaddafi starts doing the same (he has used that kind of rhetoric)
Both countries announced their independence, and went into war just there was no interventions by the foreign forces till the independence was announced, western forces imposed sale of weapons on Bosnian side and provided whatever they can to the serb side... later own they send more UN forces to make sure that Serbs do not have to waste time in search of bosnians...
Situation in Libya cannot be compared with Bosnia and Serbia... it is people who want the regime change let them do it themselves... BTW these western forces tried to do the same in Iraq.... check Iraq out if you want to see the out-come of the foreign forces invading a country to change the regime...
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
^^ I thought George ka Pakistan wala gora was little hard on Pakistanis being paranoid but you just proved his point.
Libya should be in the league of Qatar considering the low population and the amount of black gold it has. It is truly sickening that people who jump for demoratsy in pakistan are so narrow-minded when it comes to other countries; heck if one man rule stability is any criterion then all of you should bury your heads in the toilet for doing that lawyer bhangra as Pakistan's economy was in better shape pre-2007.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
^^ if US or other forces invaded Libya to change the regime, they will certainly turn things worse from bad... and we will have another Iraq to suffer from..
2ndly it will create a trend that would allow any country to invade any country whom they don't like, making uprising a reason to do so.... e.g.
Israel is already doing it, they had bombed Lebanon and often invade into Palestinian territory in the name of self defense... are they successfull???
US + UK invaded Iraq mainly to change the regime, and bring the democracy in the oil-rich country, after 9 years of killings of civilian Iraq is no where near to the peace and stability it enjoyed during saddam times ( please note that, Iraq was suffering from the international blockade and still people had access to water and electricity and there were not any bombs exploding apart from US bombing every now and then)
US invaded Afghanistan, and now the whole region is burning.... nothing good have came out even after killing millions & now the invaders are looking forward to talk to any body for an exit
US invaded Vietnam... and millions were killed, they utterly failed to change the regime there, but they successfully killed many in Vietnam and burned the hell out of Cambodia and other neighboring countries
All US had to do ( if they are any way serious in fulfilling the wishes of people demonstrating) do not support these corrupt rulers, seize their assets and return them to the people of the country, don't wait until the leader is thrown out, seize it then and there... seize the assets of Husni Mubarak, give it back to Egyptian govt, return the assets of Ben Ali to Tunisian People, Return the money looted and deposited in the banks of west which rightfully belongs to Pakistan People.. do not let the corrupt politicians have bank accounts in their countries, do not support dictators to start with...
but i don't think so they are seriously interested in the interest of the people, they are by all means looking forward to new war... so that they war-fed economy continues to boom... after all they needed some war-front after being thrown out of Iraq and Afghanistan...
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
So US shouldn't have interfered in the affairs of Kosovo or bosnia as those were internal serb - bosnian matters? Remember it goes both ways.
I seriously doubt there is a huge appetite for a land invasion force. A kosovo style air attack with supply line to the rebels (perhaps some special ops but i think hey are already there) might tilt things against Qadaffi forces. If Qadaffi's AF could be disabled, then it will even things out a bit plus you will see many more defections as people jump from a burning ship
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
^^ Now you are comparing Kosovo & Bosnia with Libya.... please read posts here and then try to add something to it...
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
So they were not genocides? Ok go watch your bolly film.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
West...two face as usual. Because Libya has oil and plenty of it the West is wanting to 'safe guard' Libya's citizens from this tyrant...LOOOOOOOOL!
What happened in Zimbabwe! Mugabae was far more ruthless then Gadaffi....but no oil so let him carry on. Just a slap on the wrist!
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
You would be crying racism against blacks if UK had intervend in Zimbabwe militarily.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Although this article isnt 100 percent related, but it gives a good idea of the whole situation in the middle east and the role of americans…
**How will America handle the fall of its Middle East empire? **
By Peter Oborne World Last updated: February 24th, 2011
Empires can collapse in the course of a generation. At the end of the 16th century, the Spanish looked dominant. Twenty-five years later, they were on their knees, over-extended, bankrupt, and incapable of coping with the emergent maritime powers of Britain and Holland. The British empire reached its fullest extent in 1930. Twenty years later, it was all over.
Today, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States, seemingly invincible a decade ago, will follow the same trajectory. America has suffered two convulsive blows in the last three years. The first was the financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences are yet to be properly felt. Although the immediate cause was the debacle in the mortgage market, the underlying problem was chronic imbalance in the economy.
For a number of years, America has been incapable of funding its domestic programmes and overseas commitments without resorting to massive help from China, its global rival. China has a pressing motive to assist: it needs to sustain US demand in order to provide a market for its exports and thus avert an economic crisis of its own. This situation is the contemporary equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine which prevented nuclear war breaking out between America and Russia.
Unlike MAD, this pact is unsustainable. But Barack Obama has not sought to address the problem. Instead, he responded to the crisis with the same failed policies that caused the trouble in the first place: easy credit and yet more debt. It is certain that America will, in due course, be forced into a massive adjustment both to its living standards at home and its commitments abroad.
This matters because, following the second convulsive blow, America’s global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen. Since 1956, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pulled the plug on Britain and France over Suez, the Arab world has been a US domain. At first, there were promises that it would tolerate independence and self-determination. But this did not last long; America chose to govern through brutal and corrupt dictators, supplied with arms, military training and advice from Washington.
The momentous importance of the last few weeks is that this profitable, though morally bankrupt, arrangement appears to be coming to an end. One of the choicest ironies of the bloody and macabre death throes of the regime in Libya is that Colonel Gaddafi would have been wiser to have stayed out of the US sphere of influence. When he joined forces with George Bush and Tony Blair five years ago, the ageing dictator was leaping on to a bandwagon that was about to grind to a halt.
In Washington, President Obama has not been stressing this aspect of affairs. Instead, after hesitation, he has presented the recent uprisings as democratic and even pro-American, indeed a triumph for the latest methods of Western communication such as Twitter and Facebook. Many sympathetic commentators have therefore claimed that the Arab revolutions bear comparison with the 1989 uprising of the peoples of Eastern Europe against Soviet tyranny.
I would guess that the analogy is apt. Just as 1989 saw the collapse of the Russian empire in Eastern Europe, so it now looks as if 2011 will mark the removal of many of America’s client regimes in the Arab world. It is highly unlikely, however, that events will thereafter take the tidy path the White House would prefer. Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate. They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption. It is too early to chart the future course of events with confidence, but it seems unlikely that these liberated peoples will look to Washington and New York as their political or economic model.
The great question is whether America will take its diminished status gracefully, or whether it will lash out, as empires in trouble are historically prone to do. Here the White House response gives cause for concern. American insensitivity is well demonstrated in the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA man who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore. Hillary Clinton is trying to bully Pakistan into awarding Davis diplomatic immunity. This is incredible behaviour, which shows that the US continues to regard itself as above the law. Were President Zardari, already seen by his fellow countrymen as a pro-American stooge, to comply, his government would almost certainly fall.
Or take President Obama’s decision last week to veto the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Even America itself accepts that these settlements are illegal. At a time when the Middle East is already mutinous, this course of action looks mad.
The biggest problem is that America wants democracy, but only on its own terms. A very good example of this concerns the election of a Hamas government in Gaza in 2006. This should have been a hopeful moment for the Middle East peace process: the election of a government with the legitimacy and power to end violence. But America refused to engage with Hamas, just as it has refused to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or to acknowledge the well-founded regional aspirations of Iran.
The history of the Arab world since the collapse of the Ottoman caliphate in 1922 can be divided schematically into two periods: open colonial rule under the British and French, followed by America’s invisible empire after the Second World War. Now we are entering a third epoch, when Arab nations, and in due course others, will assert their independence. It is highly unlikely that all of them will choose a path that the Americans want. From the evidence available, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are muddled and incapable of grasping the nature of current events.
This is where the British, who have deep historical connections with the region, and whose own loss of empire is still within living memory, ought to be able to offer wise and practical advice. So far the Prime Minister, a neophyte in foreign affairs, has not done so. His regional tour of Middle Eastern capitals with a caravan of arms dealers made sense only in terms of the broken settlement of the last 50 years. His speeches might have been scripted by Tony Blair a decade ago, with the identical evasions and hypocrisies. There was no acknowledgment of the great paradigm shift in global politics.
The links between the US and British defence, security and foreign policy establishments are so close that perhaps it is no longer possible for any British government to act independently. When challenged, our ministers always say that we use our influence “behind the scenes” with American allies, rather than challenge them in the open. But this, too, is a failed tactic. I am told, for example, that William Hague tried hard to persuade Hillary Clinton not to veto last week’s Security Council resolution, but was ignored. It is time we became a much more candid friend, because the world is changing faster than we know.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
How was Bosnia an internal matter for Serbia? That is like saying Syria is the internal matter for Iran. Wow that is so much stupid in this thread I think its catching.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
March 8, 2011 | 0955 GMT
By George Friedman
The world’s attention is focused on Libya, which is now in a state of civil war with the winner far from clear. While crucial for the Libyan people and of some significance to the world’s oil markets, in our view, Libya is not the most important event in the Arab world at the moment. The demonstrations in Bahrain are, in my view, far more significant in their implications for the region and potentially for the world. To understand this, we must place it in a strategic context.
As STRATFOR has been saying for quite a while, a decisive moment is approaching, with the United States currently slated to withdraw the last of its forces from Iraq by the end of the year. Indeed, we are already at a point where the composition of the 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq has shifted from combat troops to training and support personnel. As it stands now, even these will all be gone by Dec. 31, 2011, provided the United States does not negotiate an extended stay. Iraq still does not have a stable government. It also does not have a military and security apparatus able to enforce the will of the government (which is hardly of one mind on anything) on the country, much less defend the country from outside forces.
Filling the Vacuum in Iraq
The decision to withdraw creates a vacuum in Iraq, and the question of the wisdom of the original invasion is at this point moot. The Iranians previously have made clear that they intend to fill this vacuum with their own influence; doing so makes perfect sense from their point of view. Iran and Iraq fought a long and brutal war in the 1980s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran is now secure on all fronts save the western. Tehran’s primary national security imperative now is to prevent a strong government from emerging in Baghdad, and more important, a significant military force from emerging there. Iran never wants to fight another war with Iraq, making keeping Iraq permanently weak and fragmented in Tehran’s interest. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq sets the stage for Iran to pursue this goal, profoundly changing the regional dynamic.
Iran has another, more challenging strategic interest, one it has had since Biblical times. That goal is to be the dominant power in the Persian Gulf.
For Tehran, this is both reasonable and attainable. Iran has the largest and most ideologically committed military of any state in the Persian Gulf region. Despite the apparent technological sophistication of the Gulf states’ militaries, they are shells. Iran’s is not. In addition to being the leading military force in the Persian Gulf, Iran has 75 million people, giving it a larger population than all other Persian Gulf states combined.
Outside powers have prevented Iran from dominating the region since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, first the United Kingdom and then the United States, which consistently have supported the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. It was in the outsiders’ interests to maintain a divided region, and therefore in their interests to block the most powerful country in the region from dominating even when the outsiders were allied with Iran.
With the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, this strategy is being abandoned in the sense that the force needed to contain Iran is being withdrawn. The forces left in Kuwait and U.S air power might be able to limit a conventional Iranian attack. Still, the U.S. withdrawal leaves the Iranians with the most powerful military force in the region regardless of whether they acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, in my view, the nuclear issue largely has been an Iranian diversion from the more fundamental issue, namely, the regional balance after the departure of the United States. By focusing on the nuclear issue, these other issues appeared subsidiary and have been largely ignored.
The U.S. withdrawal does not mean that the United States is powerless against Iran. It has been reconstituting a pre-positioned heavy brigade combat team set in Kuwait and has substantial air and naval assets in the region. It also can bring more forces back to the region if Iran is aggressive. But it takes at least several months for the United States to bring multidivisional forces into a theater and requires the kind of political will that will be severely lacking in the United States in the years ahead. It is not clear that the forces available on the ground could stop a determined Iranian thrust. In any case, Iraq will be free of American troops, allowing Iran to operate much more freely there.
And Iran does not need to change the balance of power in the region through the overt exercise of military force. Its covert capability, unchecked by American force, is significant. It can covertly support pro-Iranian forces in the region, destabilizing existing regimes. With the psychology of the Arab masses changing, as they are no longer afraid to challenge their rulers, Iran will enjoy an enhanced capacity to cause instability.
As important, the U.S. withdrawal will cause a profound shift in psychological perceptions of power in the region. Recognition of Iran’s relative power based on ground realities will force a very different political perception of Iran, and a desire to accommodate Tehran. The Iranians, who understand the weakness of their military’s logistics and air power, are pursuing a strategy of indirect approach. They are laying the foundation for power based on a perception of greater Iranian power and declining American and Saudi power.
Bahrain, the Test Case
Bahrain is the perfect example and test case. An island off the coast of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are linked by a causeway. **For most purposes, Bahrain is part of Saudi Arabia. Unlike Saudi Arabia, it is not a major oil producer, but it is a banking center. It is also the home of the U.S. 5th Fleet, and has close ties to the United States. The majority of its population is Shia, but its government is Sunni and heavily linked to Saudi Arabia. The Shiite population has not fared as well economically as Shia in other countries in the region, and tensions between the government and the public have long existed.
The toppling of the government of Bahrain by a Shiite movement would potentially embolden Shia in Saudi Arabia, who live primarily in the oil-rich northeast near Bahrain. It also would weaken the U.S. military posture in the region. And it would demonstrate Iranian power.
If the Saudis intervened in Bahrain, the Iranians would have grounds to justify their own intervention, covert or overt. Iran might also use any violent Bahraini government suppression of demonstrators to justify more open intervention. In the meantime, the United States, which has about 1,500 military personnel plus embassy staff on the ground in Bahrain, would face the choice of reinforcing or pulling its troops out.
Certainly, there are internal processes under way in Bahrain that have nothing to do with Iran or foreign issues. But just as the internal dynamic of revolutions affects the international scene, the international scene affects the internal dynamic; observing just one of the two is not sufficient to understand what is going on.
The Iranians clearly have an interest in overthrowing the Bahraini regime. While the degree to which the Iranians are involved in the Bahraini unrest is unclear, they clearly have a great deal of influence over a cleric, Hassan Mushaima, who recently returned to Bahrain from London to participate in the protests.** That said, the Bahraini government itself could be using the unrest to achieve its own political goals, much as the Egyptian military used the Egyptian uprising. Like all revolutions, events in Bahrain are enormously complex — and in Bahrain’s case, the stakes are extremely high.
Unlike Libya, where the effects are primarily internal, the events in Bahrain clearly involve Saudi, Iranian and U.S. interests. Bahrain is also the point where the Iranians have their best chance, since it is both the most heavily Shiite nation and one where the Shiites have the most grievances. But the Iranians have other targets, which might be defined as any area adjoining Saudi Arabia with a substantial Shiite population and with American bases. This would include Oman, which the United States uses as a support facility; Qatar, headquarters of U.S. Central Command and home to Al Udeid Air Base; and Kuwait, the key logistical hub for Iraqi operations and with major army support, storage and port facilities. All three have experienced or are experiencing demonstrations. Logically, these are Iran’s first targets.
The largest target of all is, of course, Saudi Arabia. That is the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, and its destabilization would change the regional balance of power and the way the world works. Iran has never made a secret of its animosity toward Saudi Arabia, nor vice versa. Saudi Arabia could now be in a vise. There is massive instability in Yemen with potential to spill over into Saudi Arabia’s southern Ismaili-concentrated areas. The situation in Iraq is moving in the Iranians’ favor. Successful regime changes in even one or two of the countries on the littoral of the Persian Gulf could generate massive internal fears regardless of what the Saudi Shia did and could lead to dissension in the royal family. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Saudis are moving aggressively against any sign of unrest among the Shia, arresting dozens who have indicated dissent. The Saudis clearly are uneasy in the extreme.
Iran’s Powerful Position
**The Iranians would be delighted to cause regime change throughout the region, but that is not likely to occur, at least not everywhere in the region. They would be equally happy simply to cause massive instability in the region, however. With the United States withdrawing from Iraq, the Saudis represent the major supporter of Iraq’s Sunnis. With the Saudis diverted, this would ease the way for Iranian influence in Iraq. At that point, there would be three options: Turkey intervening broadly, something it is not eager to do; the United States reversing course and surging troops into the region to support tottering regimes, something for which there is no political appetite in the United States; and the United States accepting the changed regional balance of power.
**
Two processes are under way. The first is that Iran will be the single outside power with the most influence in Iraq, not unlimited and not unchallenged, but certainly the greatest. The second is that as the United States withdraws, Iran will be in a position to pursue its interests more decisively. Those interests divide into three parts:
eliminating foreign powers from the region to maximize Iranian power,
convincing Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region that they must reach an accommodation with Iran or face potentially dangerous consequences, and
a redefinition of the economics of oil in the Persian Gulf in favor of Iran, including Iranian participation in oil projects in other Persian Gulf countries and regional investment in Iranian energy development.
The events in the Persian Gulf are quite different from the events in North Africa, with much broader implications. Bahrain is the focal point of a struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for control of the western littoral of the Persian Gulf. If Iran is unable to capitalize on events in Bahrain, the place most favorable to it, the moment will pass. If Bahrain’s government falls, the door is opened to further actions. Whether Iran caused the rising in the first place is unclear and unimportant; it is certainly involved now, as are the Saudis.
The Iranians are in a powerful position whatever happens given the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Combine this with a series of regime changes, or simply destabilization on the border of Saudi Arabia, and two things happen. First, the Saudi regime would be in trouble and would have to negotiate some agreement with the Iranians — and not an agreement the Saudis would like. Second, the U.S. basing position in the Persian Gulf would massively destabilize, making U.S. intervention in the region even more difficult.
The problem created by the U.S. leaving Iraq without having been able to install a strong, pro-American government remains the core issue. The instability in the Persian Gulf allows the Iranians a low-risk, high-reward parallel strategy that, if it works, could unhinge the balance of power in the entire region. The threat of an uprising in Iran appears minimal, with the Iranian government having no real difficulty crushing resistance. The resistance on the western shore of the Persian Gulf may be crushed or dissolved as well, in which case Iran would still retain its advantageous position in Iraq. But if the perfect storm presents itself, with Iran increasing its influence in Iraq and massive destabilization on the Arabian Peninsula, then the United States will face some extraordinarily difficult and dangerous choices, beginning with the question of how to resist Iran while keeping the price of oil manageable.
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
Re: Why is the British media suddenly talking about ‘intervention’ in Libya?
Re: Bosnia, it is a gray area. It is regarded as a civil war by some people qualified to judge these things, and not regarded as that by others similarly qualified. read this: Bosnia After Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention - Sumantra Bose - Google Books .
While any land intervention would be absolutely counter-productive, if Gaddafi keeps bombing areas controlled by rebels, prevents humanitarian aid getting there, and it becomes a bloodbath like he has promised it will be, then a no-fly zone should be established. Reflexive anti-americanism is fine, but dont let that get in the way of protecting people who are trying to overthrow a lunatic dictator.