USA must arm the world to keep shareholders happy = war must be promoted

[Sailor]

Obviously arms sales do not promote peace or stop armed conflicts.

Actually a nation with a strong defense certainly does promote peace. And arms deals help with a nations economy. Go figure.

[CosmicRocker]

Just stating facts CosmicRocker. Even peaceful countries have military and weapons for self defense.

we're not a "peaceful country" we war where we want to when we want to, and drone whom we want to where we want to.

I assume you're familiar with Paki's prohibition, after we blew up too many houses and caused "collateral damage"

Or you might check out " Nato bombing of Misrata" - where we "humanely" dropped bombs and melted babys.

Do you see China doing this? With the exception of Tibet, they have a huge military , but use "soft power" instead of blowing up the damn world.

What other country has military bases in every continent?

What other country can't stop weapons making because it "would destroy jobs."

We're addicted to war,as surely as we are oil, which is why we war for oil.

[Sailor]

we're not a "peaceful country" we war where we want to when we want to, and drone whom we want to where we want to.

I assume you're familiar with Paki's prohibition, after we blew up too many houses and caused "collateral damage"

Or you might check out " Nato bombing of Misrata" - where we "humanely" dropped bombs and melted babys.

Do you see China doing this? With the exception of Tibet, they have a huge military , but use "soft power" instead of blowing up the damn world.

What other country has military bases in every continent?

What other country can't stop weapons making because it "would destroy jobs."

We're addicted to war,as surely as we are oil, which is why we war for oil.

No other country is capable of having military bases on every continent. That is a good thing for the U.S. China is trying very hard to do just that in South America. Not a good thing.

Every large military power has done the same thing you are accusing the U.S. of doing. We are not an exception to the rule.

And what country cannot stop making weapons because it would destroy jobs? Everyone that makes them. And there are plenty.

And please sir, spare me your "melting babies" diatribe. Worse acts have been committed in this very country by its own citizens.

You should get out and see how the real world works CosmicRocker. You might actually like coming back to the United States when you see the rest of the world.

[Darmosiel]

we're number One !! Go USA!!

What a proud moment. We sell the world weapons so everyone can kill each other...and not only elsewhere at home also.

I'm soooo proud to be a native American.

[Darmosiel]

we're not a "peaceful country" we war where we want to when we want to, and drone whom we want to where we want to.

I assume you're familiar with Paki's prohibition, after we blew up too many houses and caused "collateral damage"

Or you might check out " Nato bombing of Misrata" - where we "humanely" dropped bombs and melted babys.

Do you see China doing this? With the exception of Tibet, they have a huge military , but use "soft power" instead of blowing up the damn world.

What other country has military bases in every continent?

What other country can't stop weapons making because it "would destroy jobs."

We're addicted to war,as surely as we are oil, which is why we war for oil.

War = Peace: It's The American Way

[merrill]

Not only that the industry is one huge tax dollar moocher = monster pork barrel corporate welfare.

[Darmosiel]

Not only that the industry is one huge tax dollar moocher = monster pork barrel corporate welfare.

Yep. The ULTIMATE pork barrel. All in the name of 'jobs'. So, if that's true where the hell are all these jobs?

[CosmicRocker]

No other country is capable of having military bases on every continent. That is a good thing for the U.S. China is trying very hard to do just that in South America. Not a good thing.

Every large military power has done the same thing you are accusing the U.S. of doing. We are not an exception to the rule.

And what country cannot stop making weapons because it would destroy jobs? Everyone that makes them. And there are plenty.

And please sir, spare me your "melting babies" diatribe. Worse acts have been committed in this very country by its own citizens.

You should get out and see how the real world works CosmicRocker. You might actually like coming back to the United States when you see the rest of the world.

Having bases is expensive, and doesn't guarantee our security.
It does help guarantee world security, except when we use weapons.

You don't know the horrors of Libya, where we bombed the NTC (Led a a "former" AQ lader-who self disassociated himeself.

We partnered with the UN, but the UN nations dropped out until there was just the old colonial powers: GB/France? and the US.

TherUS led the overthrow of Gaddafi, the mission was to enforce a no fly - not take sides and facilitate an overthrow of a member in good standing of the world nations.

Gaddafi was invited to, and shook Obama's hands at the G-8, after he gave up WMD's, and paid reperations for Lockerbie.

Libya had one of the highest standards of living, women were in professional positions, such as judges.
Is that going to happen under their new govt'?(no)

Everyone was guarateed a home, and the oil revenues were in the name of the "people of Libya"

Gadafi was a dictator, in the same was Fidel was, he was uneven, but genuinuly tried to help his ppl. The thugs from the east (Bengazhi) were a bunch of rabble with no popular support, even as we led them every inch of the way to Sirte -even there they could not gather up popular support.

It took the US to kill Gadafi, after we hit his convoy, and the Wolvers literelly tore him apart, and stuck him in a supermarket frozen foods aisle.

Anti-Gaddafi forces] Crimes against international humanitarian law] Execution of prisoners of warA group of 15 to 22 Libyan army soldiers captured in Derna were reportedly executed in the village of Martuba, 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Derna.
According to a widely circulated story, the men were claimed to have been "executed by their own officers for disobeying orders".

Another group of 15 dark-skinned Libyan prisoners were publicly executed by hanging in front of the Bayda courthouse.

Murder and torture of injured soldiers 17 February, the Bayda hospital admitted two injured men, one of black complexion, and the other of olive complexion.
The men were accused of fighting against the rebels. A hospital doctor claimed that the black man was murdered and hung by an angry mob that had gathered around the hospital. The other injured man was reportedly beaten, shot and returned to the emergency room.

Lootings and beatingsIn four towns in the western mountains captured in June by the opposition, HRW noticed lootings of private property and beatings of alleged Gaddafi sympathizers by rebel forces. The National Transitional Council (NTC) then pledged to hold responsible the causers of the attacks and to prevent such abuses in the future.[21]

Killing of civiliansDuring the Battle of Sirte, the rebels killed many civilians, including men, women, and children, while there were also reports of the rebels harassing and stealing from the locals. According to one resident, "The rebels are worse than rats. Nato is the same as Osama bin Laden." According to another local woman, "We lived in democracy under Muammer Gaddafi, he was not a dictator. I lived in freedom, Libyan women had full human rights. It isn't that we need Muammer Gaddafi again, but we want to live just as we did before." A local elderly woman stated "They are killing our children. Why are they doing this? For what? Life was good before!"[22]

[edit] NATO airstrikesOn 9 August, the Libyan government claimed that 85 civilians were killed in NATO airstrikes on the village of Majer near Zliten.[23] A NATO spokesman said that they were targeting four buildings in which nine vehicles were destroyed and that government claim "was not corroborated by available factual information at the site".[24] The Libyan government declared three days of national mourning. Reporters were later taken to a hospital where they saw at least 30 dead bodies including the bodies of at least two young children. The Libyan government claimed that the bodies of others killed in the airstrikes were taken to other hospitals. Neither of these claims were independently verified,[25] although some media outlets came to the conclusion that it seemed more credible than usual that something tragic happened due to the presence of at least 14 bodies at one hospital, including an infant.[26].

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said a council-mandated investigation of NATO involvement in the Libyan Civil War is essential "given the fact that initially we were led to believe by NATO leaders there are zero civilian casualties of their bombing campaign.".[27] The U.S. and France called Russia's demand for an investigation "a distraction", supporting the claim made by Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador: "This is duplicative, it's redundant, it's superfluous and it's a stunt." [27]. According to France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud there were two ongoing investigations of NATO’s actions in Libya, one by a U.N. Human Rights Council which is scheduled to report in March and the second by the International Criminal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_r...byan_civil_war

Why in the hell are we involved in these? This wa soley a no fly zone, not a permission for war crimes

Next we can talk about drones, and the concept that anyone withing 40 feet of a "signioficant target" is automaticaly classified as a 'militant'

Or we could get out of foreign wars, end the New Crusades, and go about keeping our military for defense.

[CosmicRocker]

The NATO governments who armed and provided air support to the armed rebellion against Gadaffi's dictatorship have quietly ignored the aftermath of Gadaffi's overthrow, perhaps because it involves militias running riot torturing, threatening and killing people (apparently with the approval of the National Transitional Council), looting; and even ethnically cleansing entire towns for the crime of being black.

Many people paint Libya as entirely worse or entirely better than it was under Gadaffi, but it isn't as clear cut as that. While the rebels were committing some atrocities themselves even before the military balance swung in their favour, Gadaffi's forces were killing people suspected of not supporting Gadaffi or supporting the rebels on a much larger scale and almost randomly, even when abandoning cities to the rebel advance (1) - (2).

For white or Brown skinned Libyans not suspected of supporting Gadaffi, things are better for many of them. For Islamists, many of whom were jailed and tortured under Gadaffi, things are better too. For black Libyans and black immigrant workers from other countries - and anyone suspected of having supported Gadaffi (whether they actually did or not) things are much, much worse. Over all that seems like no real improvement.

Amnesty Internationalreports that 'Militias continue to arrest people and hold them in secret and unofficial detention facilities...it is estimated that 4,000 remain in centres outside the reach of the central authorities. Some have been held without charge for a year.

An Amnesty International fact-finding team found evidence of recent beatings and other abuse - in some cases amounting to torture - in 12 of the 15 detention centres where it was able to interview detainees in private during its most recent visit.

Common methods of torture reported to the organization include suspension in contorted positions and prolonged beatings with various objects including metal bars and chains, electric cables, wooden sticks, plastic hoses, water pipes, and rifle-butts; and electric shocks.

Amnesty International has detailed information on at least 20 cases of death in custody as a result of torture by militias since late August 2011.'

It adds that 'In May the transitional authorities adopted legislation which grants immunity from prosecution to thuwwar (revolutionaries) for military and civilian acts committed with the “purpose of rendering successful or protecting the 17 February Revolution.”

In a June meeting with Amnesty International, Libya’s General Prosecutor was unable to provide any details of thuwwar being brought to justice for torturing detainees or committing other human rights abuses. ' (3)

This sounds a lot like even the central government in Libya is giving former rebel militia-men a blank cheque to do anything to anyone to "protect the revolution", with a law which could as easily have been one of those allowing Gadaffi's forces to do anything to anyone to protect his 1969 revolution against the monarchy. Unless this changes then it's just going to be history repeating itself.

The French medical charity Medicines Sans Frontieres (doctors without borders) suspended some of its operations in Libya in January after multiple cases of rebel militia-men bringing in prisoners who they had tortured for treatment just to keep them alive to torture them some more (4).

James Hider of the Times newspaper reports that 'In Mshashia, once a town of 15,000 outside Zintan, not a single person can be seen. Entry roads are blocked with burnt-out lorries. Signs read: “Closed military zone. No entry.”

The emptying of Tawerga, just outside Misrata, is even more disturbing. A town of 30,000 people, many of them black, the mass expulsion was tinged with the racial overtones that marked much of the revolution, when Gaddafi was accused of using African mercenaries to do his killing. ...

...Ramzi al-Muntar, a jobless former rebel ....whose home was destroyed in the siege of Misrata...

“They are not allowed to come back. If they do, someone will kill them,” he said. “...Anyway, they are not really Libyans. They are descended from a slave ship that ran aground once off the coast.” (5).

Amnesty was already reporting in September last year that many black Tawerghan men had never been heard of again after being taken away at gunpoint by armed militia-men from the Misrata brigades (6).

Human Rights Watch has reported that the militias have also tortured Tawerghans to death and looted their homes and businesses, which has parallells with ethnic cleansing by militias in Bosnia , which was similarly motivated partly by getting loot in a country under sanctions and in which 'economic reforms' demanded by the US in return for providing new loans to Yugoslavia (having called in the old ones) had pushed up unemployment (7) - (9).

The militias aren't even content with having forced Tawerghans out of their homes, having continued to attack and kill Tawerghan men, women and children in refugee camps near Tripoli for instance (10).

Libyans who aren't black aren't safe either if they annoy or criticise the militias in any way.

Just complaining about Misrata militia-men firing their guns in the air was enough for them to beat one hotel owner unconscious and destroy his hotel with rocket propelled grenades, while another man who had some unknown argument with militia-men at a checkpoint was later found by his family dead in a morgue, supposedly of natural causes, though his body was covered in bruises and a second autopsy paid for by his family showed he had died of kidney failure and internal bleeding (11).

This sounds a lot like the days of Gadaffi's dictatorship when anyone who criticised Gadaffi or his regime could end up disappeared, only more chaotic, because rather than being at risk if you criticise one lot of rulers, Libyans are at risk if they criticise or argue with any of over 100 militias, if their skin is considered to dark, or if they are suspected (rightly or wrongly) of having supported Gadaffi.

The way the supposedly 'democratic' armed revolutionaries, who supposedly only wanted "freedom" are behaving - just like the forces of the dictatorship they overthrew - makes me regret having supported arming the rebels and half regret ever having backed a NATO intervention to protect Benghazi (though i never supported using it for a war of regime change due to the risks of civil war and revenge killings by victorious rebels). It also makes me even more opposed to supporting armed rebellion in Syria, as the resulting sectarian civil war is likely to make Libya look peaceful by comparison.

If freedom from dictatorship just means the freedom for different people to torture and murder and loot the possessions of others, then it is not worth the loss of life required to overthrow the dictatorship and we should wait for it to fall peacefully the way the Soviet bloc dictatorships did instead.

The election victory of a relatively secular coalition in Libya is less bad than if hardline Islamists had won, but it remains to be seen whether all the militias in control of different parts of the country will accept the authority of the central government or not.

With torture and murder by armed former rebel militias replacing that by Gadaffi's forces - and no trials involved, suspicion being enough, so far things are not that much better than under Gadaffi - the only change being who is doing the torture and killing and who the victims of it are, with the likelihood that just as under Gadaffi many of those suffering violence are not responsible for the crimes they are accused of. (I don't mean that this would excuse torture or execution or jail without trial even of those who are guilty - none of these things are justifiable).

Whether Libyans end up better or worse off overall depends on how the elected government behaves and whether it is willing and able to disarm and disband the militias. If it can't or won't, things are unlikely to improve.

http://alienatedleft.blogspot.com/20...re-as-bad.html

[Sailor]

CosmicRocker. According to your own posted articles, Libya did 99% of the killing to its own citizens. What is your point again?