A thought.

[Tarot]

Poor old Libyans.

What chance have they got.Gaddaffi reminds me of that cartoon, where the old bloke with his big Blunderbus gun

pointing at the little birds head.

Bit pointless waiting for the United nations,they seem impotent to me.

[Patrick Smith]

wrong answer Tarot nobody is waiting for United Nations

check the news.

[Tarot]

Did someone ask me a question!

They were talking about it on the radio today,about consulting them.

Now news reporters are getting duffed up.not much difference from Mugabbes regime.

Thats what real despots are like.

[mockney piers]

Political minefield tarot.

Every answer is the wrong answer.

It's no wonder flapping arms frustratedly, making noises about doing something but not doing something, is the response.

I lean on the side of doing something, but every action will have a downside repercussion.

I say do what the CIA did in Yugoslavia, arm the rebels (or Croats analogously) then say you didn't if anyone asks.

[jumpinjackflash]

his skin seems to be turning more green every day..he looks like Shrek with a bad perm

http://photos.thefirstpost.co.uk/assets/library/gaddafi-speech426--129844732759914400.jpg

[Jeremy]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> arm the rebels (or Croats analogously) then say you didn't if anyone asks.

You can arm the rebels, but then in 10 years time you may have to answer questions as to why American/European weapons are being used against our own forces...

[mockney piers]

A bit weak there Jeremy.

We sell arms to some pretty nasty people in a very uncertain world. That you don't know where they will end up is the nature of the beast.

If gadaffi falls, Saudi Arabia will likely be the next, and noone else has as much weaponry bought from the west as they have.

Would a democratic Saudi Arabia or Libya use them against us? Unlikely, but possible depending on which country we next decide to invade in that neck of the woods. Against the Israelis, still unlikely, but certainly more likely.

Ultimately you either back a horse and live with the consequences good or bad, or do nothing, but then don't pontificate about them bombing civilians. If we're talking the talk we really should do something about it, not stand by like bosnia and Rwanda.

Plus I saw footage of a recent military march in Tripoli, those helmets and desert uniforms look verrrrry familiar and you can guarantee hats wasn't all we've been selling them.

[Brendan]

Or just give them Chinese weapons. It will probably be cheaper.

[mockney piers]

In truth I find the concept of muscular libertarian interventionism a highly uncomfortable one, but if limited action is backed by the UN and the Arab league, then we should act fast.

[mockney piers]

"Or just give them Chinese weapons. It will probably be cheaper"

POTW!!! with more than a ring of truth about it (its basically what the yanks did in croatia).

Plus it needs plausible deniability, so selling your own weapons is off limits.

In fact it wouldn't surprise me if this was what was being discussed by that little diplomatic team the other day.

[Brendan]

Piss off tiny witches?

[HonaloochieB]

No Brendan it's PUUTWUU!!! - a drum roll to underscore a punchline - MP eschews 'boom - tish' as he says the cymbal makes his teeth ache.

[Jeremy]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Ultimately you either back a horse and live with

> the consequences good or bad, or do nothing, but

> then don't pontificate about them bombing

> civilians.

Maybe. But who would you give the weapons to? Aren't we talking about a collective of various rebel/opposition groups, with no clear idea of who would end up in power should the regime be toppled? The region is likely to be unstable for a long time, with no clear direction. And maybe tooling these guys up could result in a long and protracted war. Overall... seems risky to me.

[Tarot]

Somebody could at least update their old brooms and crimea type guns.

But on reflection, the west would only get accused of,going after the oil,but every country has that interest at heart.

But the french, and Germans are waiting for Brittain and U.S.A.to make a move ,so as not to sully their image on the world scene.

The Russians,Chinese are all waiting to see who makes the first move.

The world needs fuel, a fact

I reckon their are enough intelligent modern Libyans,to take over and bring the country into the twentyfirst century.

Sooner the better.

Half the machinery will not be working soon, or electricity, no more forum.

[Tarot]

Maybe the powerful muppet European Union will step in,Chuckle chuckle chuckle.

[mockney piers]

Tbh Jeremy I agree with you. As I said, every decision has repercussions and basically every decision will be wrong to some extent.

I have read 'Britain's unfinest hour', and also having spent time in bosnia, it haunts me. Also as a child of the Spanish civil war, betrayed by liberal democracy, my gut tells me to help those who want to overthrow dictatorship.

[nashoi]

Unfortunately Mockney, you and Fukuyama may have several centuries to wait (that's assuming you're right of course and I have serious doubts). The role of the PICC, in particular, has so far shown the limitations of internationalism.

They announce Gaddafi is to be investigated. Unsurprisingly Libya doesn't recognise the court. Not a problem as the security council can vote to force compliance. Fine then, except that China, Russia and the US don't recognise it either. So you have a situation in which countries which don't recognise a court, vote to send the leader of a country which also doesn't recognise it to be tried in it. Hmm. In the meantime the announcement limits any negotiating position the opposition may have had (admittedly Gaddafi doesn't seem like the surrendering type though).

[Tarot]

I dont think he would surrender either,he was bitter and twisted after he got injured in the bombing.

Whats worse is his got a mini me, in the shape of his son.

I dont think he cleared the people in that town on the news, more like they all left for the Tunisian border.

What is puzzlingis,they said the rebels had tanks,where have they got them from?

Has the army split,

They are swooping down on all reporters so we wont know.

[mockney piers]

Cheers for the grandmother eggs lesson there nashoi. Back to the covert operations then, a bit like, errrrr the Croats. (do you see what I was saying there now?)

Plus the court works for wherever you go, same reason why certain generals won't come fo treatment to London anymore. Hence why Libyan planes have been nipping off to Belarus recently. All those hundreds of millions will buy a nice dacha I'm sure.

[mockney piers]

Plus Fukuyama!?!? Could you be more patronising? Did you see what I said there about the ghoulish cynicism and resultant suffering that liberal democracy tolerates or engenders or were you too wrapped up in thinking you were clever?

[nashoi]

Apologies MP my post has obviously caused personal offence which I certainly didn't mean it to and I assure you I wasn't trying to patronise you. You're clearly very knowledgeable on these areas and you're the forumite whose related posts I find most interesting to read.

In my defence I would just say my point about how the ICC's operating at the moment wasn't really meant for your benefit, but I was assuming (perhaps wrongly) that not everybody reading this thread would know that.

I mentioned Fukuyama because in the past you have described your support for the idea of transnational justice and I have been meaning to bring this up for a while as it's an interesting area, this was obviously not the right time though.

[mockney piers]

Apologies returned. Unnecessarily snappy and sensitive from me.

I do support transnational justice, but I'm not naive enough to think that currently it doesn't dance to a whole host of agendas, and we have nothing like a punitive world for crimes against humanity.

But baby steps.......

[nashoi]

Yes this is early days, but unless you can see a time in the future when the big nations and their client states are willing to sign up to it in a meaningful way, and I can't, there is a serious danger of it backfiring. The interviews I've read with arabic commentators in the last few days keep bringing it back to Israel and these certainly aren't supporters of Gaddafi.

My view is that nations acting to enforce the rule of law domestically will be more effective. Towards the end of its last term Labour introduced the 2010 Bribery Act rigorous enforcement of this would achieve far more. Unfortunately the cynic in me wonders if this will just end up giving opposition backbenchers a few windmills at which to tilt, but surely it's easier to enforce British law in British courts against British citizens. The ICC has so far spent 100s of millions of dollars and convicted no-one, I can't help but think this would be better spent aiding the justice systems in the countries involved.

[mockney piers]

A few salient points packed in there Nashoi.

Yes we need to make sure that we lead by example. That was why Al Yamamah was such a low point and single handedly dropped us about 5 places in the corruption index from which we have yet to recover perception wise.

The likes of Berlusconi hanging on to immunity from prosecution also tarnishes the image of European justice.

It is early days for supranational justice, and whilst I agree the ICC has been slow and seemingly toothless, we have had the judicial tribunals into crimes in Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda with some success, and of course we have a very successful expression of supranational justice, it's called the EU. Only recently it has forced Hungary to rollbakc legislation designed to curb the freedoms of the press.

We lead the world in Europe and step by step we'll hopefully bring the world into line.

But as you say, there are countries yet to sign or ratify the treaty. When Russia's way of dealing with internal issues is to send FSB murder squads or shell Grozny killing 50,000 (mostly ethnic Russian) inhabitants, we can hardly be surprised.

But baby steps....

Back on topic, an interesting point about Benghazi having sent more volunteers to Iraq than any other city, so perhaps the erbels aren't to keen on UK/US intervention (it also adds some weight to Jeremy's point...not that we're in Iraq anymore)

[Huguenot]

Can you pack in salient points? Doesn't a salient point need to stand out, rather than pack in?