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Originally posted by 1kiki:
Because nothing quite says I'm a crazy bitch like posting crazy-bitch postcards.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
GEEZER- So let's see... In Libya under Qaddafi, you had plenty of food, free education open equally to both men AND women, reliable utilities, a generous housing allowance for newlyweds, and a secular government. Well, you might have to be careful of the guy on the top, and what you said about him.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Why do our bases protect Saudi Arabia, which isn't a quaint little harmless monarchy but a functioning dictatorship which turns women into chattel? Why did we support the "mujahideen" in Afghanistan, and al Qaida in Syria?

Are you only in favor of dictatorships when we "get something" out of it, like cheap oil? Is your love of freedom conditioned on how much it might cost you? 'Cause, yanno, if you're against dictatorship, be against it, consistently

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
It's why the USA's posturing about democracy and freedom seems so hollow to those of us outside the USA.

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Horse puckys indeed. “Very early on I heard something on NPR”. Really Sig, and then you bring up the Ukraine as though they are connected through a conspiracy of numbers somehow.

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Let’s try and not confuse the two shall we. The Libyans got tired of being ruled by a dictator which was the case with much of the Middle East at that time. They followed the way of other Middle Eastern counties and revolted. They called for our help. We make enemies of some Libyans if we do and others if we do not. We played our cards in a fashion to try and be seen as allies of freedom, rather than as a country that allowed a dictator to stay in place against the wishes of its people. We have had enough of that. Either way we lose.

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According to the General-Secretary of the LLHR, Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir, the claims about the massacres in Benghazi could not be validated by the LLHR when he was challenged for proof. When asked how a group of 70 non-governmental organizations in Geneva could support the LLHR’s claims on Geneva, Dr. Buchuiguir has answered that a network of close relationships was the basis. This is a mockery.

Speculation is neither evidence nor grounds for starting a war with a bombing campaign that has lasted about half a year and taken many innocent civilian lives, including children and the elderly. What is important to note here is that the U.N. Security Council decided to sanction the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on the basis of this letter and the claims of the LLHR. Not once did the U.N. Security Council and the member states pushing for war once bother to even investigate the allegations. In one session in New York City, the Indian Ambassador to the U.N. actually pointed this out when his country abstained from voting. Thus, a so-called “humanitarian war” was launched without any evidence.

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I see your delusion remains intact that the United States, the EU and our Jihadists are responsible for pulling the strings of everything that goes on, on this planet. Do you read what you post after you post it? It suggests a detachment from reality on a grand scale. It appears you can no longer (if you ever could) put things into their proper context. When I say this, it is out of concern because some of your friends here are noticing a marked difference in your behavior.

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I only know what I heard them say Sig

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Hey, if you like living in Oceania, with ten to twenty percent of the people reporting to the secret police and Big Brother deciding if you deserve to live for having thought crimes, it'd be a cool place. You couldn't have lived there...for long.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Hey, if you like living in Oceania, with ten to twenty percent of the people reporting to the secret police and Big Brother deciding if you deserve to live for having thought crimes, it'd be a cool place. You couldn't have lived there...for long.

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Yeah, because things are SO MUCH BETTER NOW in Libya. [/snark]

So what have we accomplished? That's a point you have yet to explain.

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The American Revolution lasted for only 7 years. It is considered to be an anomaly among wars that involve the use of guerilla tactics and ungainly militias.

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The Libyans decided to rid themselves of a dictator

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Let's hope reason and sanity overtakes them sooner rather than later.

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Mr Abdul-Jalil has been at pains to insist ‘that we as Libyans are moderate Muslims’, and has said the proposed constitution is ‘temporary’ and will be put to a referendum. But he has given a speech in which he said any law that ‘violates sharia’ is ‘null and void’.

This means Libyan men will be free to take more than one wife, a policy branded a ‘disaster for women’ by Adelrahman al-Shatr, a founder of the newly-formed centre-right Party of National Solidarity. He said: ‘By abolishing the marriage law, women lose the right to keep the family home if they divorce. It is a disaster for Libyan women.
‘It is a subject that should be discussed with the different political groups and with the Libyan people. These declarations create feelings of pain and bitterness among women.’ A spokesman for a group called Women Living Under Muslim Laws said: ‘Women are directly targeted by this change in laws and will lose many acquired rights in the process.’

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….Sig. First of all, you moron, Libyans aren't fighting Qaddafi, who's been dead for several years now, they're fighting each other..

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….Sig. It would be as if Britain deposed President George Washington, and then the colonies immediately started fighting with each other for control. If that was supposed to be an analogy, you failed epically.

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….Sig. SOME Libyans wanted to get rid of Qaddafi and install a western-style democracy, and some wanted to build a Muslim state under Sharia law, and more than a few fighters were from foreign countries. We should pick our friends more carefully.

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…Sig. So, that's our strategy, eh? Destroy nations, and then HOPE that sooner or later... maybe decades later... reason and sanity take over?

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Sig. First of all, you moron, Libyans aren't fighting Qaddafi, who's been dead for several years now, they're fighting each other.-sig

They are still fighting Qaddafi loyalists who want back what they lost.

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The powers that stood behind Qaddafi. Because there is a power vacuum a power struggle between many is going on. This all started before we assisted anyone yet you still wish to blame us.

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You forget Qaddafi threatened to destroy an entire city of 80,000 leaving no one alive till we intervened. You always overlook facts that show you to be irrational

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What we are witnessing now are the people indigenous to the region continuing the struggle of developing their nations because they had no say for a very long time. Religion and a few ruled them all and in the interim (for good or bad) because of Oil we needed to keep a working relationship with those few. Making all the right decisions can only be accomplished in hindsight, and really not even then.

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I wonder if there isn’t a connection in sprit to what is happening in the Ukraine and our own Alamo, with the Ukrainians holding off the Russians while waiting for the Europeans to get there shit together and show up to the fight? Allowing them once and for all to shed the yoke of Russia and join the European colonies? Are they showing the same sprite displayed when Mexico broke from Spain?

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Sig, get back to reality, the Libyans started this themselves in the hopes of developing a government better than a dictatorship. This is what shows you to be nuts. You can’t realize that.

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There is one more thing that needs mentioning. I only see you post in threads that attack America and not in any that may point to something positive we did or are doing.

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If you love this country as you claim, you would not miss an opportunity to sing its phrases with its accomplishments

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SERIOUSLY, THUGR?

I think it's time YOU got back to reality, assuming you were ever there to begin with!

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Sig. First of all, you moron, Libyans aren't fighting Qaddafi, who's been dead for several years now, they're fighting each other.-sig

They are still fighting Qaddafi loyalists who want back what they lost.

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A prosperous, secular nation?

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The powers that stood behind Qaddafi. Because there is a power vacuum a power struggle between many is going on. This all started before we assisted anyone yet you still wish to blame us.

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A power struggle between (for the most part) jihadists on one side and parts of the former Libyan army on the other.

So, who would we like to see win?

Jihadists who're trying to impose Sharia law (a form of religious tyranny) and who've created poverty everywhere they went?

Secularists who're had a prosperous, secular tyranny?

WOW, it's a little tough to decide, isn't it!

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You forget Qaddafi threatened to destroy an entire city of 80,000 leaving no one alive till we intervened. You always overlook facts that show you to be irrational

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Actually, that is something I remember very well, because that heartbreaking missive, about tanks crushing civilians and people being shot en masse was entirely made up, and Human Rights Watch (with close ties to the State Department) had a hand in the fabrication. I'll see if I can find those articles (with pictures of the ACTUAL city the day of the supposed fighting) along with eyewitness accounts, and the reactions of residents who were totally nonplussed at the description of that (non)event.

ANOTHER made-up allegation was that Qaddafi told his soldiers to rape all women, and gave them Viagra to help with the job. That was actually investigated by an international group, and no evidence was found to support the allegations.

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It would be as if Britain deposed President George Washington, and then the colonies immediately started fighting with each other for control. If that was supposed to be an analogy, you failed epically-Sig

You seem to think we fought the British and then lived happily ever after from coast to coast. You forget the French Indian wars and all the battles with Indians and Spaniards who occupied much of Americans west for many years. Before and after our fight with the Brits. That war started in 1775 and we did not have a constitution till almost the end of 1787. Then there is the Civil War, another power struggle with confusing flags being hung on the tops of buildings. When we defeated the British there were thirteen Colonies all on the east coast. No constitution or bill of rights and many different philosophies on how we should proceed. No Sig, I think pointing to all the troubles we had in establishing our country is a very good analogy of how difficult building a nation is.

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First of all, we had many wars of expansion, in which we killed everyone who stood in our way. HARDLY an event that we want in the process of "nation building" ... unless you support genocide.

Do you? Support genocide as part of "nation building?

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What we are witnessing now are the people indigenous to the region continuing the struggle of developing their nations because they had no say for a very long time. Religion and a few ruled them all and in the interim (for good or bad) because of Oil we needed to keep a working relationship with those few. Making all the right decisions can only be accomplished in hindsight, and really not even then.

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It depends on what your goals are. If you're willing to let oil trample over ethics, then- yes, it becomes very cloudy, because then you have to decide how much evil you're willing to support and how much it will bite you later.

However, if you're REALLY about promoting self-determination, development, and freedom, there are so many other ways to go about it other than a bombing campaign.

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I wonder if there isn’t a connection in sprit to what is happening in the Ukraine and our own Alamo, with the Ukrainians holding off the Russians while waiting for the Europeans to get there shit together and show up to the fight? Allowing them once and for all to shed the yoke of Russia and join the European colonies? Are they showing the same sprite displayed when Mexico broke from Spain?

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"I wonder if there isn’t a connection in spirit to what is happening in east Ukraine and our own Alamo, with the east Ukrainians holding off the fascists in Kiev while waiting for the Russians to get there shit together and show up to the fight? Allowing them once and for all to shed the yoke of the IMF. Are they showing the same sprite [sic] displayed when Mexico broke from Spain?"

Fixed it for you.

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Sig, get back to reality, the Libyans started this themselves in the hopes of developing a government better than a dictatorship. This is what shows you to be nuts. You can’t realize that.

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Bullshit. The real goal of many of these rebels was to institute a religious dictatorship under Sharia law.

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There is one more thing that needs mentioning. I only see you post in threads that attack America and not in any that may point to something positive we did or are doing.

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WHEN we do something positive, I'll be the first to sing our praises! Right now, I don't think that bombing nations and supporting jihadists and fascists is a positive thing, and if YOU think so, then you're nuts.

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If you love this country as you claim, you would not miss an opportunity to sing its phrases with its accomplishments

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I think what we did with Germany and Japan after WWII was wise. I think all of the safety net programs instituted during the Great Depression were awesome. Getting rid of slavery, finally, was a decent moment. Democracy is a wonderful idea (which needs better implementation) and the Bill of Rights is an inspiration to all. I can quote you chapter and verse of our founding fathers. There are many things to praise about this nation, but the last several decades don't have many positive events in them. Unlike you, I can separate out the good from the bad. I don't need to blur my standards and conflate the two.

Now, just a couple of general comments.

FIRST
When you talk about "the people" you consistently forget about the vast majority of any population, which is "women and children and the elderly". Women make up at least half of most populations, and children under 15 make up about half of poor populations, and while the elderly make up small fraction in poor societies, in more prosperous ones they constitute a larger portion. Between all three categories, they make up about 75% of a people.

Any movement which doesn't take into account the voice of women and the elderly, and the welfare of children is immediately suspect. When YOU talk about "the Libyans" and "the Ukrainians", what you're really thinking about is a tiny fraction of a small portion of the population. Please be aware that when YOU use phrases like "the Libyans" and "the Ukrainians", you have mentally discounted something like 75-99% of "the people" living in an area. You go on and on about "the people" but you really don't know who you're talking about.

SECOND
You have clearly not thought very much about the role of violence in imposing ideas/laws on others. Violence is the underpinning of our law. Fail to pay your taxes, and push that idea of its extreme and you will see the business end of a gun-barrel in the hands of a lawman. So, when is the use of violence legitimate? When does it change from being an agent of freedom to an agent of oppression? How do YOU know that we haven't passed that point... where we are no longer defending, but imposing?

I have my own answers, but I think you should think about it.

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