3...2...1...go!

Seriously, though. Your thoughts about it. What will happen next? Agree with the UN approval of a no-fly-zone? What goes on in Muammar Gaddafi's head?
Discuss.

I think we should stop poking our nose where it doesn't belong and bring our troops home<3

You are American, British, French?

It is all about oil! President Obama is bought and paid for by the big oil companys. The French cannot wait to get there hands on all that Libyan oil. We have seen this all before.

Wow. When it's about oil they dress it up as freedom. When it's about freedom, they dress it up as oil.

*Long sigh*

I generally don't agree with military interventions in a country that hasn't even attacked anyone, and this case is no exception. I find it clear that there are other interests different than "Libyans' freedom", as Libya is a very rich country (when it comes to resources such as oil). I don't agree with the UN resolution and I'm afraid that some countries will probably break it because they won't find it "generous" enough.

About what goes on on Gadafi's head, I think he's clearly mad of power. Some of the things he has said are just... wow.

Welcome to World War 3.

Oh, you are SO funny, considering that innocent people are dying and in WWII only over 60 million people died, the perspective of having a new World War is really hilarious...


The problem is that there are many uninformed people out there. You tell them "but Gadafi is such a dictator, he is horrible and should be killed" and they immediately say "oh yes, then go there kill him". In Spain, the news are totally defending the military intervention as something totally necessary. Some people just accept these arguments without thinking more.

I'm not opposed to enforcing a No-Fly Zone, I just want some other country to do the enforcing for right now. Someone in Europe, who isn't already enormously committed elsewhere in the world and who doesn't have a track record of turning No-Fly Zones into extended military interventions. Ideally I'd love for the Russians to step up, show that they're committed to democracy in other countries at least?

I don't think any humanitarian aid will do any good as long as Gaddafi's in power now, and I don't think he's going to lose this civil war without some significant military aid in some capacity either, so either we suck it up and watch as he kills a bunch of his people or we ship in some missiles sideways up his rear end and then maybe help the rebels with some guns.

I'm not opposed to watching Gaddafi kill his people though either. Obviously the world has dealt amicably with worse dictators in the past and probably continues to do so elsewhere. It is a bit strange watching people focus in on Gaddafi alone while other protests elsewhere in the Muslim world continue to go on and are violently squashed by our allies. I don't understand the disconnect of righteous anger people have for Libya rather than Bahrain, for example, except as an implicit acknowledgment that most westerners don't know where Bahrain is but understand that Libya is somewhere south of London and east of New York.

<snark>

I think it would help if there were some idealized Middle Eastern partner for the West to help the public keep score. The closest we come is Israel, and they're really no help at all. The West needs some Middle Eastern democracy fully invested in providing the public face for the whole region, wholly or mostly without fault, able to translate the politics in some sort of digestible soundbites for consumption by Europe and North America.

When things happen in Europe, for instance, I think the powers that be in the US pretty much ask someone in London what's going on and whatever they say, whether it's "the French eat cheese" or "Germans like farts" they just nod and go, "Well, it's a trusted source." The Middle East needs someone for us to replace Israel with (because these days their answer is always an untrustworthy and uninspirational, "kill them all, and send more money") to tell us which regimes we should care for and trust, and which ones we should denounce and depose. Sort of like the service Japan provides for the West in Asia.

</snark>

Yeah, and my name is Lady Gaga.

Wasn't trying to be funny. How many countries are involved in this crap? Huh?

Face it, from this point on it's only gonna get worse.

Funny how it works- When they are in the middle east they are called freedom fighters and we send our airforces to help them overthrow their government. When they are in the west, they are called domestic terrorist and imprisoned, and in the U.S. executed by the federal government.

If Obama was bought and paid for by Big Oil then we'd have been in Libya last week as soon as it was politically feasible to do so, the same way we did with Iraq. Twice. With Herbert and George. Similarly, there wouldn't have been a moratorium on offshore drilling during the BP oil spill.

Any US President, any sufficiently commercially invested government anywhere, has to be somewhat beholden to large commercial interests of any sort and strategic interests before those. I don't see how it could possibly be any other way, without turning their backs on huge amounts of capital necessary for growth and the livelihoods and economic interests of their constituencies. If Obama's got a soft spot, in fact, it's probably for the military of all things - since I think it's clear he knows he's not particularly educated on the intricacies of projecting military power he's more or less stood off from the whole thing except for giving broad political direction and letting the people in charge run things as they like.

Business I think he thinks he understands, or at least understands enough to tell people no when he disagrees with them. But no one running a government can afford to turn their backs completely on something that risks so much money and economic investment in a strategic asset like oil. It would be irresponsible for them to do so.

Whether or not it would have sold well to the press or not, it would have been vastly more correct to have invaded Iraq, for instance, on the pretext of oil. Rather than nonexistent weapons technology, or some trumped up argument involving moral principles than nations mostly can't afford except for the purposes of propaganda and election campaigns, we could at least declare a concrete victory over that: "We've secured an oil field, when operational the global economic engines shall be humming!"

It is not more moral for nations to kill people for principles than for resources. A dead person is a dead person, and principles only seek to excuse wars, they don't generate them. I can't even find it in myself to chastise this notion, because in part it's how civilization polices itself of ideas, distributes wealth and stays dynamic; and in part because I don't see how we could possibly grow away from such an intrinsic aspect of ourselves and still be ourselves.


Yeah, I know I'm cynical.

Nope, it's not.

Whatever.

Show your work. What trends have you observed, both contemporary and historic, suggest to you that things will only continuously escalate to the point of global warfare, rather than coming to a head in that region and calming back down?

WW3 has been going on for about 8 years. It's just escalating. During WW1 and WW2, they probably didn't realize it was a full fledged war until well into them. This is a simplified explanation but also interesting regarding how WW1 started. It starts as a disagreement or someone being an asshole (speaking in the context of the URL posted previously) and continues to get worse and worse, with other guys (countries) joining and piling on. If WW2 was a bar fight this is how it would look. Now, there are some details left out but it is fairly descriptive.

This site displays a large quantity of contemporary events which show that WW3 is building. This was written before the friction in Egypt and Libya started to happen/build. Also, I believe the unfortunate catastrophic blows to Japan will be a large factor in leading to a world depression (even more than what is already going on in that field)

There is a LOT of information to go over, there. However, it is very difficult to simplify if you want a real explanation. Here is a way to look at it which is a bit easier to absorb.


Study history in great detail (modern and ancient). Pay attention to subtle details of current events. Pay attention to motives by the U.S war machine (military) which just looks for justifications and moralization to invade (or "protect") foreign countries. It's all in plain view. All we have to do is pay attention and be willing to see what is difficult to admit. I could go on for a while about historic trends (e.g. Problem/Reaction/Solution) used to devastate certain countries or groups of people and get what they want (Power).

Oh wow so we're experts now... didn't think I had accidentally logged in to discoverychannel.com, my mistake.

The West needs constant justifications to show their voters on why billions are being spend on the military budget every year. At the same time, military personnel can gain experience from real war situations, which beats training any day. Also, wars means factories continue to churn out arms and supplies, which keeps jobs, which keeps the defence lobbyists happy.

We just enjoy reading thought-provoking opinions backed up by facts as opposed to one-line statements. It's more fun for all parties involved, and it encourages other people to make an effort; if you can't be bothered to type out your opinion beyond one sentence, why should we be bothered to care? A debate or even an argument doesn't go far if you just post one sentence describing your opinion with nothing to back it up. It's a statement. Nothing more. Do you see where I'm coming from?


"One line posts that aren't even funny are stupid... didn't think I had accidentally logged in to the BBS, my mistake."

First off, thanks for elaborating on one of TUN3R's classic one-line semi-troll posts.

WW1 started because of a complex systems of alliances that meant that once a couple of countries declared war on each other, everyone who had treaties with them got pulled into it as well. That's as simple an explanation as there needs to be. They knew it was a "full-fledged war" because war was officially declared. It took a year or so for them to realize just how long it was going to take to resolve, and they had to discover how much more bloody it would be than other wars, but they certainly didn't just wake up one day in the middle of it.

Likewise WW2 grew directly out of consequences of WW1 and the worldwide depression, and again, once war was declared, the involved countries knew they were in it (and due to WW1, they had better understanding of what to expect). You could argue that parts of it were sneakily ongoing at first--Japan's imperialism in China, Germany bringing other countries into the Fatherland--but while both those situations can be directly traced to WW2, they were not part of it directly.


I'm skeptical of a site that goes on to explain The New World Order. Further, beyond just the conspiracy theory stuff, the author is writing everything in a framework of a massive, massive assumption:
That is, to say the least, a very unscholarly approach to discussing whether we're in WW3 at the moment (another huge claim the author takes for granted). I would not consider that to be a reasonable... well, anything, but it's just not a very good source.


The problem with history, is that though it can inform current events, it is still very very poor at predicting future ones. There is always some kind of war, skirmish, or revolt happening somewhere-- it does not suggest global involvement or even necessarily global effects. Perhaps one day we'll look back and see that the events unfolding now contributed to the development of a mass war, but this is not a proper "world war" at the moment. The world wars to which we refer to, which have already taken place, were single, large-scale conflicts: not one incident here, one incident there, these couple of countries committing some troops, etc.

And no, we can't just assume things are self-evident and "in plain view" if we just look-- humans and everything associated are far too complicated for that. For one thing, many things are not in plain view, and for another, it's quite a trick to accurately interpret what is.

Was Vietnam a world war? By these loose criteria, it would be.


As unalisaa has pointed out, you can't have a debate just slinging around cryptic one-liners. We're in the Debate Room. If you are uninterested in intelligent debate conducted through, say, paragraphs, perhaps this is the wrong sub-forum for you. I mean, why bother saying anything here if you don't want to elaborate on it thoughtfully?

Point taken, I'll STFU from now on.

To be honest if Gaddafi's going to keep up his regime someone is going to kill him sooner or later, i don't agree with Gaddafi but i don't agree with the rebels actions. My father has a brilliant explanation: Egypt asked their dad (leader) for an xbox, their dad said no so Egypt put a fight Egypt's dad eventually let them have an xbox, then Libya saw that Egypt got an xbox so Libya asked their dad for an xbox but Libya's dad is a bit of bastard an decided to slap Libya around.

I'd rather you just elaborated more on things you do say.

Edit: oh, just noticed the "banned" tag...uh...never mind?

Wait what? When did we trade freedom for an Xbox? I want a recount!