Talk-Polywell.org

Such cunning chaps to get us to do their dirty work for them!! I guess that's what you end up like if you fight the Russians for so long with smaller forces than theirs. You have to end up with skills that allow you to out-manoeuvre the Grand-Masters of chess themselves.... craftier than a fox who's gone to crafty-finishing school and won the craftiest-fox trophy.

Chris, are you trying to launch a devastating torpedo of truth here? Do you have the blood of a tiger?

Simply stating the blindingly obvious, to those who are trying to cover their eyes to it.

Al Quaeda is, surely, not fighting on behalf of Ghaddafi. Al Quaeda are, surely, active in Libya. Ergo, if we are fighting Ghaddafi, we must now be fighting on the same side as Al Quaeda.

In a Society that has suddenly erupted into a civil war, it is hardly the peace-loving school-teachers, quiet accountants, clever engineers, sane scientists, &c., who lift up weapons against the state. The first to do it are the criminals and the miscreants who always wish to do wrong, whatever the circumstances.

Go watch looting in a riot. Mob behaviour rules. It ain't the genteel types with principled views that take control.

A large fraction of those fighting in Libya may well not even be Libyans any more. Who the hell knows? You can be damned sure the Western powers don't!

Spoken like someone truly in the know.

Stick to physics, you are better at it.

Chrismb apparently forgot to link to the reports that AQ are backing the rebels in Libya. There is no question Quadaffy is one of the bad guys. It remains to be seen if the rebels are better.

chrismb wrote: In a Society that has suddenly erupted into a civil war, it is hardly the peace-loving school-teachers, quiet accountants, clever engineers, sane scientists, &c., who lift up weapons against the state. The first to do it are the criminals and the miscreants who always wish to do wrong, whatever the circumstances.

so the american independence war was fought by criminals and miscreants?

AcesHigh wrote:

chrismb wrote: In a Society that has suddenly erupted into a civil war, it is hardly the peace-loving school-teachers, quiet accountants, clever engineers, sane scientists, &c., who lift up weapons against the state. The first to do it are the criminals and the miscreants who always wish to do wrong, whatever the circumstances.

so the american independence war was fought by criminals and miscreants?

Those who practice slavery are criminal miscreants. So I guess the answer to your question is 'yes'.

ladajo wrote:Spoken like someone truly in the know.

Stick to physics, you are better at it.

So are there AlQ fighting for Ghaddafi, or are you saying there are none in Libya. Which is it, because it has to be one of those if you are suggesting I am wrong.

To be more serious Chris, some wars have two clear-cut sides, but those are actually the exception. Through most of history, wars have many factions.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is, most of the time, a misnomer. Each faction is in it for themselves. Taking out Ghaddafi does not necessarily help Al Qaeda in any way.

There is the inherent danger in all of the current revolutions in the Middle East/North Africa that extremist factions, such as Al-Qaeda, could take advantage of the anarchy to seize power, and that they would be worse than the previous regimes. However, if we successfully get working democracies in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, it's likely to hurt Al-Qaeda much more than leaving the previous regimes in place.

But Ghaddafi was already supporting the LIFG who were seeking to overturn AlQ's dominant rhetoric. Why would creating a situation where such changes become stymied again help?

My simple point was that, for whatever reason, we are on the same side as AlQ fighters. There are clearly are two sides here; one who aims to keep G in power, one that seeks to remove him.

I wasn't suggesting we have the same ultimate objectives, but the immediate one, get rid of G, are the same and AlQ and UK/US forces are currently brothers-in-arms on this particular objective.

The efforts of AQ in Lybia are hardly organized at this point.
Ghaddafi was into LIFG to please the west and get more free stuff.
Ghaddafi's primary purpose for a LONG time has been Ghaddafi. Nothing else.
You implied above that the coalition was fighting with AQ.
If AQ had the upper hand, Ghaddadfi would be (and probably has in the past) assisting them. He is a squirrelly man that we will probably never know the full extent of.

If we do nothing to help the arab revolts, the west will look like its supporting the repressived regimes, and Al-Queada will use that as a recruiting tool. If, on the other hand, we help the rebels throughout the middle east, we will gain the vast bulk of arab society as grateful allies who will look at Al-Queada as having totally failed them.

The arab rebellions are showing a side to arab society heretofor unknown to me. The impression I've always had was that the average arab supported his oppressive government. Anytime you saw some ME dictator on TV, he was giving some speach to a cheering crowd. Now when you listen to the rebel supporters on TV, you realize it was all propaganda, they express the same values as us, i.e., freedom and democracy.

Another point, have you ever in modern history seen an arab military fight as hard as the Libyan rebels. They've got no training, armed with crappy small arms and standing in there against tanks, artillery, helicopters and jet fighter bombers. I tip my hat to them.

Or you could look at it like this ...

Now that the West has gone in to bat for Al Quaeda they will leave the West alone and those obnoxious TSA nude scans and goon searches can go away.