How should the west help Libya

[chrismb]

if Libya sucessfully threw off the rule of Gadaffi, it might inspire the citizens of Saudi Arabia that the time is now, and as a result the flow of oil gets disrupted. Our leaders have become whores for a tank of gas.

And for the record, my opinion is Saudi Arabia would be way better off if they tossed the Royal Family.
There are to many a-holes and their families "ruling" countries and hiding behind principles of sovereignty to hide widescale corruption and violations of Universal Human Rights.

So do you not see the issue!?!?

Here, you have said that this country Saudi Arabia, is such a country that fits your criterion for justifying military action to protect those who would be capitally punished by the state.

[Just to clarify - I am making no judgements about Saudi, or Libya. I do not think I have any place at all from my position of ignorance to hold an opinion. This is for the UN to form an opinion on, and I am not a member of the UN!]

So... why does this thread start by asking what can we do for Libyans, yet doesn't ask what can we do for Saudi Arabians?

D'you not see my point? I'm trying to understand why you would single out support for people in one country when we do stuff all for other people under a wrongful death sentence in other countries. Why would military action in one country be 'justified', but not in another country?

[KitemanSA]

Chris,
I think that the initial question was phrased more along the lines of "Libyans during their civil war" not Libyans under general duress by Qhiddafi". So as long as SA is not at civil war, the question does not apply.

[ladajo]

Chris,
I just saw we cross posted on the Waco thing. Missed that last night.

For the record, the ATF did screw the pooch in Waco. They falied to follow procedure and good sense. It is a much cirticed event, as well as the similar stand offs with "End of the Worlders" in Idaho and Wyoming (if I recall correctly).
The foundational point is that the ATF did seek to interview Koresh about weapons he had. He denied the interviews. They had info from cult defectors, as well as some of the folks he bought weapons from. The ATF then sought a warrant, got it, and then went to serve. He denied entry, so they in turn did a quick regroup and sought entry stupidly.
The serving small team completely underestimated the depths of stupidity Koresh was existing in. He did have automatic weapons, and he did use them. They also did have a Browning M2. It was emplaced on the roof. They also had many explosive and fire based improvised weapons. As I said, I have met and spoken with a couple of government folks who were there. I have also seen the internal critique video produced for it. If you have any doubts about the use of 7.62mm automatics, I know in the public domain there is the video of one of the ATF initial entry attempt guys, (I forget his anme now off the top of my head), trying to access a second floor window. Look closely at the return fire punching through the wall and hitting him from inside of the room. Koresh and his core delusional followers made no attempt to "peacefully resist". Use of force, although managed badly, was fully justified.

If your fundamental question is when should the international community intervene in the internal civil strife of a state, as I have said several times, it is circumstancial. For example, I highly think that the Saudi Royals need to move on, but at the same time, they are not actively driving the Saudi Military through towns and cities and blasting away at things that move or not in a systematic armed assault on the people.
I applaud the AU for establishing a principle of "Intervention", but am also disappointed that they, (and others) continue to give in to the resistance of predicatble oppressive governments that in self interest position against intervention, for a desire to maintain their own ability to move against their own people if they feel the need. The others that oppose it are normally those to afraid to get sucked into it for political reasons.
Any time this stuff comes up, there is a predictable grouping in who thinks something should be done to help the citizens, and those who would not, and those who want to stay out of it.
Politicians have killed way more people than any military.

[Diogenes]

For your review:
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Also, in the case you present, it is unrealistic that 55% of the US would take up arms and march on DC. Lybia and the US are Apples and Oranges in this regards. See the above link.

The walking into a local government office in a free western country with stated intent to kill with the gun in your hand is not acceptable behaviour to the standards of the society. Period. Whether one feels that there are no other recourse, that is myopic at best. An Open Society provides many means to contest without killing or violence. If the court system does not do it for you, then there is the media and now-a-days social networking mechanisms to get the word of your dilemma out. This is a free exercise of the will of the people for self governance. In countries like Lybia and Iran, North Korea, etc, this opportunity does not exist.
If the issue one has is not supported well enough by the public at large, and redress or justice is denied, then one needs to accept that as part of the bargain of a free society that the big issue for you, was maybe not that big. Violence is not justified.

Have you ever read Thoreau's Civil Disobediance? He made great argument that is still well respected today in regard to the people exercising self governance. However, his argument was never a advocation for violence. It was a advocation for free will.

Violence is unacceptable until a certain level of oppression and tyranny is reached. Here is one example.

http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm


The botched raid on the Branch Davidians was not sufficient to justify an armed response, but when it was happening, I knew a lot of people who said they thought the ATF needed some civil resistance. That incident THOROUGHLY p*ssed off a lot of gun nuts. After OKC they came back to their senses.



While we are sorta on this subject, did you see this?






http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2 ... ed-in.html

[Diogenes]

And for the record, my opinion is Saudi Arabia would be way better off if they tossed the Royal Family.
There are to many a-holes and their families "ruling" countries and hiding behind principles of sovereignty to hide widescale corruption and violations of Universal Human Rights. It is high time that the last years has seen "the people" waking up and realizing they have the power, not the rulers.

I would agree with you except for one thing. Wahhabism. Toss the Royal family and you would get Ayatollah style theocracy. As bad as they are, the Royals are a stabilizing influence on Saudi Arabia, just as the Shah of Iran was a stabilizing influence on Iran. (Thank you Jimmy Carter!)

[Diogenes]

Chris,
I just saw we cross posted on the Waco thing. Missed that last night.

For the record, the ATF did screw the pooch in Waco. They falied to follow procedure and good sense. It is a much cirticed event, as well as the similar stand offs with "End of the Worlders" in Idaho and Wyoming (if I recall correctly).
The foundational point is that the ATF did seek to interview Koresh about weapons he had. He denied the interviews. They had info from cult defectors, as well as some of the folks he bought weapons from. The ATF then sought a warrant, got it, and then went to serve. He denied entry, so they in turn did a quick regroup and sought entry stupidly.
The serving small team completely underestimated the depths of stupidity Koresh was existing in. He did have automatic weapons, and he did use them. They also did have a Browning M2. It was emplaced on the roof. They also had many explosive and fire based improvised weapons. As I said, I have met and spoken with a couple of government folks who were there. I have also seen the internal critique video produced for it. If you have any doubts about the use of 7.62mm automatics, I know in the public domain there is the video of one of the ATF initial entry attempt guys, (I forget his anme now off the top of my head), trying to access a second floor window. Look closely at the return fire punching through the wall and hitting him from inside of the room. Koresh and his core delusional followers made no attempt to "peacefully resist". Use of force, although managed badly, was fully justified.
.

I would like to see this evidence. I remember at the time the ATF was absolutely refusing to let anyone see what weapons were recovered from the ashes. Many people commented about how rapidly they bulldozed the entire site. People whom I knew at the time who were experts on all manner of weaponry were all over this incident, and a central claim made by everyone I spoke with was that they did not find Automatic weapons at that site. No one believed anything the ATF was saying at this point.

Of COURSE they would claim there was Automatic Weapons! Later they would claim that they were protecting the "children." (So said Janet Reno.)

Anyways, if there is evidence of what the ATF claims is true, then I will accept it, but up till now I have not seen any of it. Suffice it to say the ATF has a real credibility problem in the Circles I used to run in.

[Diogenes]

Did a little poking. Found this list.


If accepted at face value, they did indeed recover two actual machine guns from the compound.

1 Heckler and Koch MP-5

1 Sten submachine gun

This pretty much justifies the ATFs involvement, unless of course these particular weapons were of a non-automatic type. As I don't think they even made non-automatic versions of these weapons, this is an unlikely possibility.

The FBI determined that 46 semiautomatic firearms had been
modified to fire in full automatic mode:

22 M-16 Type Rifles

20 AK-47 Type Rifles

2 Heckler and Koch SP-89

2 M-11/Nine

I didn't see a .50 caliber machine gun listed though. It was known that the Davidians were using "Hell fire switches" so it can be speculated that this could be the modification the FBI is referring to, or they could have actually modified the internal components. A lot of machine gun parts were found, so perhaps they did a proper modification.


Interestingly enough, one of my friends who was a Machine gun collector (and had the License for it.) demonstrated how you could make any semi-automatic into a full automatic with a shoe string and an eyelet screw. You just tie the string to the bolt, loop it through the eyelet screw in the stock, and then put a loop around the trigger. Pull the bolt back, and when you let it go it will pull the trigger every time the bolt cycles.

Funny as h3ll! I guess my point is that a lot of people don't believe owning a machine gun should be that big of a deal. Certainly not to the extent that the ATF needs to come at them prepared for bear, then being completely surprised when they actually got a bear! (Seriously, they show up in body armor carrying machine guns and they DON'T expect a fight? )


The incident was a tragedy for everyone involved. It shouldn't have happened. If the ATF hadn't been so aggressive and trigger happy, perhaps all the deaths could have been avoided. (They could have captured Koresh on one of his many jogging episodes, but they wanted the publicity.) They Unnecessarily fueled a lot of Anti-government sentiment, some of which culminated in the rise of the Militia movement and the OKC building.


Anyway, the legal requirement for ATF involvement appears to be moderately justified, so I stand corrected.

[ladajo]

Yes, I absolutely agree that the ATF screwed the pooch in managing the incident. Both from situation control, and media relations.

However, I also believe that the use of force was justified. I am very much a gun ownership proponent. I am however not a nutcase gun ownership proponent. If you demonstrate you are unstable, then you need not be accumulating firepower.

I think the bigger tradgedy in Koresh and other cults, is that the law allows them to exist, and even protects them from open inspection to verify if folks are no longer members of free will. I have no problem for folks to do as they wish, dressup how they want, etc, as long as they bring no harm to others in doing so.

It has been a long while since I looked at stuff from Waco. I will see what is still out there. A long time ago we used the case study for "Use of Force" training, as well as tactical lessons learned.

[ladajo]

http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm

Athens, I reacll this from a long while back. Good to read it again.

This is fundamentally why the Federal Oath of Office is to the Constitution, not offices or individuals. Something lost on many. It is specifically worded in that you swear to "support and defend" the constitution, and to obey "lawful" orders of those appointed above you.

I would have been right up front with the ex-GI's.

[choff]

I take back calling western leaders whores for a tank of gas. It looks like they finally came through! Hope things turn out for the better now.