Democrats & Liberals Archives

As I said over at InstantReplay, I think Qaddafi should get his own show on Comedy Central (or, failing that, appear on The Daily Show once or twice).

In all seriousness, though, the guy is a total nutjob, and it’s the unthanked efforts of CIA and InterPol operatives that have kept his region safe from nukes for the past few decades. Muammar puts the “rogue” in “rogue state”.

“Still Crazy After all These Years,” should be Qaddafi’s theme song. But he is not completely irrational. You can never trust him. He responds to firmness better than anything else. That seems to be the U.S. and UK policy toward the man. It is the best we can do. Qaddafi likes to talk tough. Watch what he does, not what he says.

Libya is not by nature an important country. It’s population and oil wealth are too small and its infrastructure too vulnerable to seaborne interdiction. Qaddafi’s quietness probably has more to do with geopolitical events than with his local problems. With the collapse of the Soviet counterbalance and the undisputed U.S. control of the seas, Qaddafi knows that his very long coastlines essentially belong to the U.S. any time it chooses. We demonstrated it to him on a couple occasions during the 1980s. He was getting used to this idea in the 1990s and now he knows it for sure. He may be a slow learner, but he learns. I have no doubt that if he felt unrestrained he would be back to the old antics. Let’s just keep him constrained.

Nobody lives forever. People like Qadafi and Castro are no exceptions. Libya will be welcomed back into the community of nations sooner or later. It doesn’t hurt to let Qaddafi back in as long as he behaves himself, but as Ronald Reagan used to say, “trust but verify.”

“Libyan leader Muammer Qaddafi has […] described the United Nations (UN) Security Council a ‘terrorist organization’.”

Alright! Common ground between Muammer and the U.S.! Maybe we can build on this and sort out our differences!

Whew! What a great time to be alive, eh?

hah, I didn’t know about the Amazonians.

It’s such a tragedy that such a moron can manage to hold on to power for such a long time.

You should see what Qaddafi puts reporters through. Some people think he may be in the late stages of syphilis, and that’s why he acts so out of his gourd. What a freak.

Julia

He may be strange but he is not stupid. He certainly manipulated George W. Bush into getting out of his past actions. He also has a point about Israel and Palestine. Elections would be the way to ensure Peace.

Nobody lives forever. People like Qadafi and Castro are no exceptions. Libya will be welcomed back into the community of nations sooner or later. It doesn’t hurt to let Qaddafi back in as long as he behaves himself, but as Ronald Reagan used to say, “trust but verify.”

But, of course, that would never work with someone like Saddam… :/

“Elections would be the way to ensure Peace.”

you mean in Libya, Aldous? Here i’d have to respectfully disagree. Elections may ensure a number of things, but peace is not one of them. An authoritarian state is much more stable than a fledgling democracy…

AP

No it wouldn’t work with Saddam because Iraq is a naturally more important country, it has a much greater population, much greater oil wealth, much more strategic position and much less an exposed coastline for marine interdiction. And Saddam had done a lot more to threaten the peace of the world.

Would the world be better off without Qadafi, Castro and Robert Mugabe? Definitely, but if they are as biting flies, Saddam is a poison snake that had already struck several times.

Elections may ensure a number of things, but peace is not one of them. An authoritarian state is much more stable than a fledgling democracy…

Aw geez, Schtaple, who let you become a Watchblog writer? Now we have to deal with an intelligent, well-reasoned lefty? How are we supposed to have ridiculous shouting matches when you post reasonable, well-explained arguments.

Party-pooper!

Oh, c’mon Jack! Castro had nukes pointed at us for cryin’ out loud. Qadaffi’s responsible for far more deadly terrorist attacks than Saddam ever was - and he hasn’t stopped.

Biting flies my butt… Or something.

It just amazes me the twisty, wacko logic you guys have to invent to justify a unilateral attack on Iraq. And I’m including the President.

When Castro was actually dangerous, he was protected as a client of the Soviet Union. Those were Soviet missiles, you recall, and facing down the threat nearly caused a world war. Now the pathetic old fart is a local nuisance. I will celebrate the day he goes to hell, but I would not commit U.S. forces to help him arrive sooner.

A similar logic applies to Qaddafi. He was most dangerous when he could hide in the shadows of the bipolar world. He recognizes that too and has been more cautious since the fall of the Soviet empire. His demise will also merit a bottle of champagne, but the cost of rooting him out exceeds the expected benefit.

Historians will be sorting out the Iraq situation for the next generation. Saddam posed a clear and present danger. The litany of his violence against peace and human rights is long. Unlike the other dictators, he became more dangerous in the post cold war. When he stopped being a Soviet client, he got even more unstable. The other important fact is location. Iraq is in the heart of the Middle East and on top the biggest oil fields in the world. That made Saddam especially dangerous and made the opportunity to topple him especially attractive. Freeing Iraq could be the wedge to topple the tyrannies all over the Middle East. It is a dangerous strategy, but probably worth it. That is something else the historians of the next generation will argue about.

chops, just you wait… i’ll pose some ridiculous arguments and get into shouting matches soon enough. i’m just working my way in slowly…

Quoted from schtaple:

“i’m just working my way in slowly…”

Ehhh heh heh heh heh heh heh….

I’ll be watching you… Zeek—-> (O_O)

Saddam posed a clear and present danger.

Not to the United States, Jack. Not after Bush 41 kicked his butt out of Kuwait. After ‘92 he could be described in the same condescending manner as you describe Castro and Qadaffi.

As for toppling tyrannies, we need to make sure the government that replaces them is in our best interest. The Bush administration is eager to upset the apple carts, but not so eager to make sure all the apples fall where we want them.

You can wait decades to make a judgement on Iraq if you want, but I’ll tell you right now that replacing Saddam with a fundamentalist Islamic regime wasn’t worth the casualties or the tax money, or the effect it had on our relationship with our allies or the effect it’s had on our economy.

I am very hopeful for the next year.

So far, Iraq has lived up to the most optimistic predictions. The parties are arguing like mad, but they are talking, not shooting.

There has been a big change in media of our Euro allies. In almost every country, editorial writers have asked if Bush was right. The writers are often not friends of Bush or conservatives. Many are answering in the negative. BUT they admitting that situation is working the way Bush wanted and predicted. They still just won’t give him credit. (The same thing happening in 1989 when they talked about Ronald Reagan.) Clearly the moral certainty has drained from most of the anti-American elites. They will recover and move onto other issues, as they always have, but this one is moving toward the next stage.

The next stage, by the way, is that “This would have happened anyway. Everybody always expected this outcome. The American action only came in from of the inevitable and probably caused the situation to be worse.”

Such things no longer depress me. It is business as usual. The better this works out, the faster people will forget that it was a problem.

The next stage, by the way, is that “This would have happened anyway. Everybody always expected this outcome. The American action only came in from of the inevitable and probably caused the situation to be worse.”

Inevitable, no, but there was certainly strong pro-Western pressure by moderates in Arab countries before Iraq II started, and it is certainly debatable what the effect of Iraq II was been and will be.

For the nostalgic, my first WB post was riffing on the idea that 9/11 was precipitated by the fact that radical Islam was trying to avoid a threat from the West - “As societies open—-due to economic globalization, cheaper communication and travel, etc—-this threatens those memes that require an - intellectually isolated community to survive. … [the] purpose of 9/11—-from the point of view of the RI-meme—-was to provoke the west into a military war against the Islamic world, thereby isolating itself from western memes.”

William

That’s what I mean.

Pro-western forces have been at work in the Arab world at least since the aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt.

There is absolutely no way that any democratization movement (still in its infancy) would have started without the war in Iraq. Saddam was not about to fall by himself. You can see the strength of the Baathist today in their resistance even after they have been displaced. President Bush was criticized for not speaking to Arafat, who was always welcome at the Clinton White House. This now turns out to have been a good move. Condi pressured the Egyptians to at least begin to think about running a multiparty election.

In world events, you can never prove causality. But in the 50 years before George Bush became president and changed the more or less consistent bipartisan policy toward the region was almost no (check that - absolutely no) progress toward democracy in any Arab country. Some of them actually regressed. Since 2001, there were elections in Iraq and (non-Arab but connected) Afghanistan. Democracy movements are working in many other countries. Not one of Bush’s critics predicted that. It could all be a coincidence, but I don’t believe that. I think George Bush was right and I am proud to have supported him.

So far, Iraq has lived up to the most optimistic predictions. The parties are arguing like mad, but they are talking, not shooting.

Are you kidding!!!? You haven’t had time to keep up with the news, have you?

There is absolutely no way that any democratization movement (still in its infancy) would have started without the war in Iraq.

Totally untrue.

And all your so-called “Democracy movements” are electing radical Islamists. That’s not a good thing no matter what spin Condi puts on it,

Rice, in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters, said she was guided less by a fear that Islamic extremists would replace authoritarian governments than by a “strong certainty that the Middle East was not going to stay stable anyway.”

So far, Iraq has lived up to the most optimistic predictions. The parties are arguing like mad, but they are talking, not shooting.

Are you kidding!!!? You haven’t had time to keep up with the news, have you?

this is actually a fairly muddy issue. the debate between the political parties has been reserved to this point, even though a true government hasn’t been formed. this could easily have devolved into something chaotic, and it hasn’t to this point. but one could argue, of course, that the sunni insurgency is essentially political violence.

There is absolutely no way that any democratization movement (still in its infancy) would have started without the war in Iraq.

Totally untrue.

agreed- there have been democracy movements of different shapes and sizes in the arab world since the breakdown of the ottoman empire. lebanon, before its civil war, actually had a fairly robust go at it. bahrain had elections before the US was in iraq. so did yemen. and kuwait. i do think that the rest of the arab world did take notice, of course, of what was happening in iraq; but it remains to be seen whether or not the TNA will be a success. if it’s not, bush’s victories will quickly turn to failures.