Posts by Neil Morrison
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Really? The writer of that piece I linked to - you did read it I assume - may need your guidance back to the path of 'common knowledge'.
I really can't say I'm all that interested in the writer you linked to. I am interested though in what Obama is doing and he does not appear to have fallen for Gaddafi's spin that his opposition is dominated by Islamic extremists. I tend to agree.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Always appreciate your insider info, Neil
It's actually common knowledge that the US hasn't fallen for Gaddafi's spin that it's all the fault of Islamic extremists. That's sort of why Obama is acting like he is.
If you see that as insider info you're a bit out of touch.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Simon Grigg,
That used to be the case but the CIA...
Getting intelligence from does not have to imply support for and I can't see any action of the Obama admin that suggests they supported Gaddafi and they have certainly not bought into Gaddafi's line that the Eastern-Libyian opposition is dominated by Islamic extremists.
And it was info on Islamic extremists the US was being fed by Gaddafi. But they clearly have taken that with a grain of salt.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Clint Fern,
Action was delayed in Bosnia was also delayed because the Clinton administration...
It's true that Clinton needed some convincing - by Blair - but why people turned to the US was because the Europeans were incapable of acting themselves.
Something else of interest is the role that Susan Rice, Samantha Power and Hilary Clinton have played in this. They all had first hand experience of dealing with Milosevic and now play important roles in Obama's foreign policy team.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to John Holley,
In Libya there have been no such constraints and the Allies started with a SEAD campaign so now have air superiority across Libya.
I'm not 100% sure but I think that's because the US now has the technology to take out radar-guided missile stations more accurately which they did not have back in the mid-90's. That forced the US to bomb from higher altitudes which lead to civilian casualties.
One other very notable difference to back then is the relative ease with which the European's have reached a concensus on how to manage this intervention. Compare that to Bosnia and Kosovo where their squabbling delayed action for three years. They appear to have learnt that lesson.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Bart Janssen,
It's almost certainly true that the high quality oil that Lybia produces (much higher quality than from Suadi Arabia) and the supply of that oil to France in particular might have some role in the UN actions.
The alacrity of Sarkozy's actions has much more to do with criticism he faced for not acting over Tunisia. France has strong cultural connections with North Africa with a large number of the French having roots in that region.
It wasn't a coincidence that one of the other countries that put forward the UN resolution was Lebanon - another French-speaking country.
-
Both Tunisia and Egypt underwent regime changes with very very little loss of life.
I was wondering if it had something to do with a society's relative homogeneity. I might be wrong about Egypt but it appears more homogenious than Libya. And the current divisions in Libya appear to reflect regional governance structures that date back to Roman times.
Yugoslavia and Iraq had large ethnic and/or religious differences in one country, that already had a history of animosity, which the dictators manipulated and hence made things a lot worse.
Libya seems to fall some where between Yugoslavia and Egypt.
Or perhaps Mubarak's regime was just less oppressive.
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to chris,
interesting titbits
such as having relatives in mortal danger?
-
Hard News: Libya, in reply to Rich Lock,
Would love to know a bit more about this - can someone point me in the direction of some further reading?
This Guardian opinon piece touches on the issue.
-
8. There is no sectarian or ethnic dimension to the Libyan conflict…
Gaddafi has exploited tribal divisions within Libya to his own advantage in exactly the same way Saddam did in Iraq so there are similarities - not differences - there.
Perhaps no. 8 could have been “There’s a different French President”.