[EyeBrock]

That is very close Lemmy!

[Wada]

Have to say I tend to think like Eyebrock with regards to Libya. Only thing I can figure is Harper thinks this will look good on him.

[Guy_Fawkes]

The decision is popular with people, and it looks like we are going for an election soon... I fucking hate it when the military is used this way.

[martin14]

Guy_Fawkes Guy_Fawkes:

The decision is popular with people, and it looks like we are going for an election soon... I fucking hate it when the military is used this way.

Can't imagine the average Canadian is that stupid..

[BartSimpson]

I'm curious as to when someone's going to say this is Obama's war for oil?

[Thanos]

Yay. I was kind of wondering why it took five pages for someone to come along and say that.

[martin14]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

I'm curious as to when someone's going to say this is Obama's war for oil?

That doesnt make sense at this point, although it may in the future.

Until now, Libya was quite happy selling oil to the West, 85% export to Europe.

Now, if Whacky wins, he will tell the West go fuck themselves, and
quite rightly so.

If he doesn't, he will make sure to burn everything he can before
going, just like Saddam did.

So Libya will go back to the Stone Age for shipping oil,
making a mess for years to come.


The stupidity of this decision just keeps climbing.

[Guy_Fawkes]

martin14 martin14:

Guy_Fawkes Guy_Fawkes:

The decision is popular with people, and it looks like we are going for an election soon... I fucking hate it when the military is used this way.

Can't imagine the average Canadian is that stupid..

I know its not scientific but CTV has a online poll going with over 2000 votes, 75% are for military action in Libya. Its a purely political move, and it makes Harper look like a protector of innocent people. If this turns into a peacekeeping mission, and Harper is in power, Canada will be all over it. Canada ran into this without any kind of clear goal in mind, which was a dumb move.

[BeaverFever]

Well lets face it - if Libya's economy was based on carrot farming, we probably wouldn't be there. Just as we're not in the Ivory Coast or other places where attrocities are happening on a far greater scale. And there's been nary a harsh comment from the western nations about the brutal put-down of peacful democratic protests in US allied countries of UAE and Saudi Arabia.

But we already have their oil (or a good chunk of it) and so far nobody's openly calling for 'regime change' (but stay tuned). The important concern here is that whoever ends up in power remains favourable to US oil interests. The US can't afford to be on the losing side of history or playing catch-up after the fact as they were in Egypt.

Really this is about a guy, Ghadaffi, who has long been a bad guy in the eyes of the west. Even though he reformed his wicked ways post-9/11 to the extent that the Bush regime removed him from their list of terrorist-supporting nations and actually warmed US-Libyan relations, this occurred so recently that he just doesn't have enough good years of credibility. He's also not currently providing any useful service to the west so there's no reason to give him the "look the other way" courtesy that we extend to so many other brutal regimes around the world.

More importantly, many analysts expect that in the near future, we will likely see more uprisings against middle-east despots and the so west wants to deter other middle eastern states from considering heavy-handed reprisals such as those implemented by Ghadaffi.

So most policies come to fruitition when a number of factors converge and point to a similar outcome:

oil + bad reputation + need for deterrent messge - usefulness to western interests (zero) = airstrikes

In Canada, the equation is much simpler:

Desire to curry favour with the US + need to justify the ballooning costs of new F35 fighters = participation in US-led airstrikes.

Sad thing is that the US doesn't even keep score of our participation (or lack thereof) in their military conflicts and our support or opposition doesn't really hurt or help our relations with them on any substantive issue - US policy is almost entirely domestically driven and they spend very little time thinking about us.

[Curtman]

There was the strange incident a year and a half ago:

Libya's Gadhafi comes to Canada (!)

$1:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman Dimitri Soudas just let reporters know that Moammar Gadhafi will be coming to Canada on his way back to Libya from the United Nations meetings in New York. Soudas just distributed the following to reporters:

Libyan leader Gaddafi is making a one day stopover in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, on his way back to Libya from New York where he attended the United Nations General Assembly.

This is not an official visit to Canada.

Followed by:

Official: Gadhafi cancels Canada visit

$1:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has canceled a planned visit to Canada next week.

A Canadian government official said Saturday Gadhafi won't be landing in Newfoundland early next week to refuel his plane and stay for a night. The official said hotel reservations have been canceled and Libya's advance team has left.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because to avoid speaking for another country's head of state.

Canada had planned on sending Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to meet with Gadhafi to express Canada's displeasure over the hero's welcome Libya gave to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. All 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground died when a bomb blew up the plane over Scotland in 1988.

I still think our involvement is part of some kind of "principled" adventure of Harpers related to Lockerbie.

[BeaverFever]

Politicians rarely make "principled" adventures, especially when it costs tens of millions and is bound stir controversy. ALmost everything they do is calculated and tactical - its the nature of the job. A principled person couldn't stay in office for 5 minutes.

[Guy_Fawkes]

Curtman Curtman:

There was the strange incident a year and a half ago:

Libya's Gadhafi comes to Canada (!)

$1:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman Dimitri Soudas just let reporters know that Moammar Gadhafi will be coming to Canada on his way back to Libya from the United Nations meetings in New York. Soudas just distributed the following to reporters:

Libyan leader Gaddafi is making a one day stopover in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, on his way back to Libya from New York where he attended the United Nations General Assembly.

This is not an official visit to Canada.

Followed by:

Official: Gadhafi cancels Canada visit

$1:

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has canceled a planned visit to Canada next week.

A Canadian government official said Saturday Gadhafi won't be landing in Newfoundland early next week to refuel his plane and stay for a night. The official said hotel reservations have been canceled and Libya's advance team has left.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because to avoid speaking for another country's head of state.

Canada had planned on sending Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to meet with Gadhafi to express Canada's displeasure over the hero's welcome Libya gave to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. All 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground died when a bomb blew up the plane over Scotland in 1988.

I still think our involvement is part of some kind of "principled" adventure of Harpers related to Lockerbie.

I really cant see why you think this is all related to Lockerbie. Canada would not attack a country because 270 people (only 4 of which were Canadian) were murdered close to 30 years ago.

[stokes]

I have no issue with us assisting in Libya at the request of the UN. What pisses me off is that the Arab League cried for our intervention to stop atrocities in Libya but have failed to step up to the plate themselves and now are critical at our(allies) actions saying we have gone too far.

On this reason alone we should leave at let them sort it out amongst themselves, let the Arab League intervene to bring peace.

[andyt]

stokes stokes:

I have no issue with us assisting in Libya at the request of the UN. What pisses me off is that the Arab League cried for our intervention to stop atrocities in Libya but have failed to step up to the plate themselves and now are critical at our(allies) actions saying we have gone too far.

On this reason alone we should leave at let them sort it out amongst themselves, let the Arab League intervene to bring peace.

Yep, that's par for the course for those guys. Maybe we should have said we'll take out Libya's air defenses with our cruise missiles, but then you guys use your planes (I know Saudi Arabia has lots) to enforce the no fly zone.

But it seems we can't just do partial interventions. I just read that in debate in Parliament, the Reformacons said that putting Canadian boots on the ground in Libya is not ruled out. (Unfortunatly the link disappeared) I really thought this was supposed to just be air support, now they're not ruling out boots on the ground.

[Guy_Fawkes]

stokes stokes:

I have no issue with us assisting in Libya at the request of the UN. What pisses me off is that the Arab League cried for our intervention to stop atrocities in Libya but have failed to step up to the plate themselves and now are critical at our(allies) actions saying we have gone too far.

On this reason alone we should leave at let them sort it out amongst themselves, let the Arab League intervene to bring peace.

Thats not entirely true, they did denouce the attacks but changed their mind after a quick meeting.

$1:

Also on Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon emphasized that the decision to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to authorize military action against Gadhafi came at the recommendation of the Arab League.

He held a news conference with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and said the goal was to stop Gadhafi's killing of civilians "which was totally unacceptable and strongly condemned all across the world."

Moussa emphasized the Arab League supports the UN's decision.

"We respect the Security Council decision and we have no objection to that because it has specified there will be no land troops to occupy Libya," Moussa said Monday, agreeing that the primary goal is to protect civilians.

On Sunday, there were reports that Moussa had complained that allied troops were shelling civilians, which didn't fit with the terms the Arab League had agreed to. However, an EU official later said Moussa was misquoted.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20 ... rd-110321/

Qatar and the UAE have also sent aircraft to help with the No-Fly zone. So some of a Arab League is helping...