The Glade 4.0

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/1 ... geNumber=2

Yay, more war!

They are enforcing a no-fly zone and are allowing strikes against ground targets. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

See, the difference between Iraq and Libya is that France has investments they want to protect in Libya.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

France had plenty of interests in Iraq. France didn't want to lose the semi-exclusive deal they had with Iraq alongside a few other European countries that were basically ignoring the sanctions. Overthrowing the government, and thus the sanctions, meant that they'd have to compete with the whole world for the oil.

The hypocrisy of the people who support this and who don't support the Iraq war is just incredible.

As long as other countries help with the burden and we do not commit any ground troops I am OK with it.

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

In my opinion it is just adding into the violence.

Yes but the world is a violent place always has been, hopefully it will change but until it does this is what we have. It would be nice if everyone could solve their issues peacefully, but it doesn't always work. Does everyone stand around and watch others get hurt when they could step in? The world would be an even worse place if they did.

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

Years of imperialist intervention in the middle east led towards the events of September 11, and furthermore, would you now call Iraq a better place?

I don't think it is any better but I don't think it is any worse either. Personally I would pull all of our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, take a chunk of that money and put it into beefing up our human intel and then do targeted air strikes when we find terrorist training areas. If we are attacked again then we find out who sponsored them and strike them hard unless they can show proof they are trying to stop it.

Yes a lot of innocent people would get hurt but that is the price you pay for hurting our innocent people. We would also offer a carrot in that we would be willing to talk to anyone in good faith and try to help them resolve whatever issues they have.

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

I don't think we need to be intervening in what is, for all intents and purposes, a Civil War.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Let the rest of the UN do it. In fact, **** the UN.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

So I haven't been following this much, but I find it comical that the UN is advocating 'War'.

To what end? What is the 'end goal'? What is the motivation? To punish Quadaffi for being a meanie? To stabilize the oil supply? Or maybe he is hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Yeah, you know. All those reasons they didn't want to go after Saddam.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It's because he's an evil dictator who allegedly killed or "massacred" people who were allegedly civilians, although in my opinion they were maybe the same people who stole tanks from the government. Saddam killed many more civilians so I don't see the huge difference.

Do you feel the same about people who oppose this but supported the Iraq war?

Somewhat but not as much, since at the start of the war the entire media was pushing that there was credible evidence of WMDs.

Obama hasn't said anything like this (yet), but it's still pretty funny and imaginable.

I see this as similar but distinct from the Iraq war. In Iraq, there was no (current) political uprising, there was no significant threat of massacre for large groups of the population, and Iraq had illustrated aggression to foreign countries in the past.

Someone above said this was a civil war and we should stay out for that reason. What is the purpose of war? To reach an end or to make some grand showing in an honorable battle? Here we are presented with an opportunity to remove a dictator for minimal cost and with no committment of ground forces.

Furthermore, Libya's been playing nice for the past 10 years or so, but that's over. His lack of support in this crisis from the international community will not make him want to continue playing nice, nor will anyone want to play with him - the West is currently embarrassed for supporting dictators accross the region. This means he will probably become a menace again, and a potential Iraq down the road.

Better to just get it over with now, while we can claim the moral high ground.

To be fair, Gadaffi warned all civilians to leave the city of Benghazi days before his attack. It's no different than what we did before destroying the city of Fallujah in Iraq. Do you think he has no legitimate reason to fight the rebels, who have seized cities and arms and pitched battles?

Do you think we should attack China because they don't have democracy?

Pay attention to what I actually said, please.

Nope, next time we just declare all of China a no-fly zone when they have a pro-democratic revolution.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

What are you trying to get at here?

Just becuase we might get involved in one particular conflict doesn't mean we need to get involved in, or start, any other conflict. Libya is a weak, third-world country, while China is a large, powerful nation with nuclear weapons. We make decisions on what to get involved in based on national interest, not based on some need to meet abstract standards of "consistency."

Moreover, what does it matter whether Ghaddafi has reasons to fight the rebels? He thinks he does, we, and the rebels, think he's wrong.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

112 Cruise missiles against Libyan military targets to enforce the no-fly zone today. Do you think Moammar is getting the message yet?

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

What message? That it's ok for rebels to take over cities and steal massive amounts of property? I'm just trying to look at this from an unbiased perspective.

If you mean about massacring civilians, well they've never done this.

The civilian's survivors beg to differ.

The message is that most of the rest of the world thinks he is going too far in his treatment of his people and that they are more than willing to help the people to victory over his regime.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones