BrownsVillan Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Qaddafi laughs at our feeble attempts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 If you think we should also be acting simultaneously in the various countries you listed then how do you propose we resource and pay for that? I don't think we should. I was asking the question of whether we would and if not why not. My opinion is that if a government (or governments or whoever) is going to claim an apparent moral position then it should at least try to be consistent on that otherwise it undermines, in my view, that position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 If you think we should also be acting simultaneously in the various countries you listed then how do you propose we resource and pay for that? I don't think we should. I was asking the question of whether we would and if not why not. My opinion is that if a government (or governments or whoever) is going to claim an apparent moral position then it should at least try to be consistent on that otherwise it undermines, in my view, that position. Okay. Has Cameron done wrong or right by committing the UK to intervention in Libya? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted March 19, 2011 Moderator Share Posted March 19, 2011 Snowy, simple question, what in your opinion should the UK have done in the case of Libya? That's a good question. I was against any sort of interventionist policy earlier in the thread, but given the situation today, I think what we're doing is the right thing to do. You were right. It's been a mess from start to finish - our man Mr Gadaffi was our initial concern, he was (reasonably) stable as a leader in the region and was financially woven in to Western governments - so I think it's likely that our first instinct would have been to protect him. I guess that was made more difficult by the popularity of the revolt in Egypt - I'd imagine it's hard to back a pet tyrant when your people want to side with the good guys. I think we probably took a little too long in making up our minds on him. Once we'd decided he was expendable, I think we should then immediately have done everything in our power to make sure that the revolution was a success - it's the failure of the revolution that makes things so difficult and we were again maybe a little slow to throw our lot in with the people. We can't very well cosy back up to Gadaffi now that we've told the world he's a very bad man, but we equally can't sit on our hands whilst he publicly punishes the population. Again, this wasn't my view at the time, although I was more hopeful then that the revolution would succeed. I think in terms of what we should have done, there aren't very many scenarios that come out better than the one we've got. I think we've done a reasonable job of keeping the shitty end of things at a good distance and we're doing pretty well in a very messy situation - I guess it's worth mentioning too that we've ensured that oil production was largely unaffected throughout which I'm guessing is pretty important to the folks that make the choices. What we will do is even more difficult. We obviously can't go back to the status quo, the bridge has burned and he's got to go - but getting rid of him is suddenly very hard, the revolution is dead and with it goes the moral high ground. If the people overthrow Gadaffi and we are the peoples friend then there's a very good basis for a positive future. If we have to put troops on the ground to ensure regime change on foreign soil, well that's a different story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Okay. Has Cameron done wrong or right by committing the UK to intervention in Libya? Quite obviously, given my position on war and military action (which you know full well), I couldn't condone any choice for military action. :? I can see the case that Cameron and others make; it has some merit but it, like anything else, has to be questioned. Those questions are multifarious and include looking at the motives, the practicalities, the implications, the aftermath, &c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Okay. Has Cameron done wrong or right by committing the UK to intervention in Libya? Quite obviously, given my position on war and military action (which you know full well), I couldn't condone any choice for military action. :? Sometimes the choices are simple and stark: Get involved militarily or sit back and allow a massacre of biblical proportions to take place. Much as you may dispute it, not supporting the former is effectively condoning the latter - and Gaddafi had made clear his intention to achieve that outcome in his various "no mercy..kill the cockroaches" speeches. I respect the fact you personally could never support military intervention but the flip side of that (imo) is acknowledging the consequences of inaction and rationalising that outcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Sometimes the choices are simple... I think that viewing any choice as grave as that as 'simple' is to ignore all of the possible outcomes and problems. Much as you may dispute it, not supporting the former is effectively condoning the latter. The way in which you've phrased that appears to suggest that you believe your opinion on the matter to be indisputable, mate. It isn't. ...the flip side of that (imo) is acknowledging the consequences of [military] inaction and rationalising that outcome. And the flip side of governments and nations intervening militarily in some places and not others, of supporting some oppressive regimes whilst using force against others and of claiming their terrorists are the bad guys but others' aren't is acknowledging the consequences of that military action and subjective opinion and rationalizing the outcomes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Sometimes the choices are simple... I think that viewing any choice as grave as that as 'simple' is to ignore all of the possible outcomes and problems. No it isn't. There are certainly a variety of possible outcomes following intervention however the outcome of non intervention was a certainty. No amount of 'weaving' can avoid that fact so in that sense the choice is indeed a simple one. Much as you may dispute it, not supporting the former is effectively condoning the latter. The way in which you've phrased that appears to suggest that you believe your opinion on the matter to be indisputable, mate. It isn't. It's not about my opinion it's about simple logic. Inaction is itself a course of action. If chosen it logically has consequences. ...the flip side of that (imo) is acknowledging the consequences of [military] inaction and rationalising that outcome. And the flip side of governments and nations intervening militarily in some places and not others, of supporting some oppressive regimes whilst using force against others and of claiming their terrorists are the bad guys but others' aren't is acknowledging the consequences of that military action and subjective opinion and rationalizing the outcomes. See 'weaving'.....with some 'dodging' thrown in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 Sometimes I think this thread is better than watching CNN etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 It's not about my opinion... It is your opinion, Jon. The rest is just 'weaving'. flip sides stuff See 'weaving'.....with some 'dodging' thrown in! You, me or both of us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDon Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Aren't some of the planes we're sending over to enforce the no fly zone some of the ones that are being scrapped with no replacements? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracker1234 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 BreakingNews Breaking News US launches first missiles inside Libya - NBC News BreakingNews Breaking News U.S. warship launches cruise missiles against Libya - CNN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Good luck lads, smash the crap out of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
privateer Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Good luck lads, smash the crap out of them. 110 Tomahawks launched so far in addition to British and French aircraft flying sorties. The crap smashing has commenced in a big way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 If we take an action tomorrow rather than today and in the meantime a predictable wrong has occurred, then we should not claim that we should be judged only by the narrowly defined effect of what we did, rather than the consequences of what we chose to defer. By a similar token if we take an action today under the apparent auspices of intending only one thing whilst all the same intending something else (using the first as an expedient moral justification) and, in the future, the potential consequences that we initially chose to ignore become reality, by what ought we to be judged? By our stated intentions, by our apparent intentions if there is reason to believe they are different, by the consequences of our actions, and by the likely consequences of our actions if different to the actual outcome. In the case in question, the outcome of failing to take military action would clearly have been murder on a grand scale, as Gaddafi's troops move from house to house hunting down the "rats and cats" and killing them with enough theatre and publicity to reinforce a further generation of fear. I wonder why you seem to think that if some of the actors in the anti-Gaddafi coalition may have wider aims, that becomes something which should stop the agreed action rather than stop their further agenda. What is happening in Bahrein is wrong. If we chose to focus on that instead... Who has said 'instead'? I haven't. You have chosen to run down that road in the hope of running far enough away from the actual question that you do not hear it. Please help my failing hearing by articulating the actual question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Legitimacy is in the gift of the giver That's rather trite. But the legitiimacy granted to our actions is not less because our motives are suspect... It depends upon how one defines legitimacy (hence the previous point about things in this sphere being moot). No, it's not trite. It draws your attention to the ability to the people who grant legitimacy (in this case the UN and the Arab world) to deny legitimacy if the actions of the coalition stray beyond what has been agreed. That is why the resolution was drawn loosely enough to permit certain action, and tightly enough to exclude an Iraq-style invasion. It is also why Gaddafi's tactics, like the "ceasefire" declaration, will be aimed at trying to undermine the legitimacy of the operation by making current supporters think it has been abused. Many of the people supporting the action may doubt the motives of eg the UK and US. As I said, they are right to do so, given our track record. But the legitimacy they have been prepared to grant is expressed in the resolution and the voting behaviour, and is no less because there may be doubts about our motives. In fact, the current resolution emerged as a direct consequence of finding out exactly what would command enough support, didn't it? And a more sweeping form of legitimacy was not granted. It's the normal political process. The UN have not given a blank cheque; they have given a certain latitude, and they can take it away again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 No, it's not all about morality. Cameron has clearly stated that there are both moral and practical concerns, and he is right to admit this. He may be right to admit it but where he may be wrong is to use the one to support the other. In respect of the moral concerns, numbers and methods do matter. Do you have a table indicating the respective numbers and methods which breach each particular moral barricade? Are there some specific matrices that ought to arouse an increased moral interest? As for considering potential consequences and what you do after, nice idea, bit harder in practice. Of course it's **** hard. It's the world. If it were piss easy then some people knocking their heads together on a football forum would come out with the solution and we could all **** off home. Cameron has his agenda, other people have theirs. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't. If he supports a course of action that I think right, I really don't care too much that his motives for doing so may be different to mine, though I may care very much when his actions start to diverge from what I think has been agreed. I imagine many people who are actually working with him on this take a similar view. That's the political process; working with people you know you disagree with, where there is a limited common agenda. If you didn't do this, you'd be working with a remarkably small number of others. A table and matrices for moral issues: yes I did have one, but I lent it to Jeremy Bentham, and the bastard never gave it back. Real world: my point is that events in Libya require us either to act or not act, today. We have gone into this thing without a long-term plan and an exit strategy. The time pressure made that impossible. That's why I say it's a bit harder in practice than in theory to define potential consequences and responses beforehand. There is no "solution" that can be worked out beforehand like a crossword puzzle. I'm surprised you should think there may be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracker1234 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 SkyNewsBreak Sky News Newsdesk by themaxshaw Libyan State TV claims a French plane has been shot down in Tripoli Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
privateer Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 SkyNewsBreak Sky News Newsdesk by themaxshaw Libyan State TV claims a French plane has been shot down in Tripoli Doubt it, the pilot probably surrendered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cracker1234 Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I was thinking of a comment to put under the quote, but what you put fits perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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