Obama’s Libyan Disaster

Anyone who believes that NATO’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi is a “success” for President Obama’s foreign policy should listen to the speech of Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council, at the “liberation day” celebrations in Benghazi: “We are an Islamic country,” the de facto president of Libya proclaimed to the crowds shouting “Allahu Akbar.” “We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.”

“Perfumed Saudi princes” stinking of rosewater (or is it Brut Cologne..) & more than a few glasses of whiskey, spreading and funding Wahhabism and (fund-a-mental Islam) around the world, incl. the West.

No doubt Ghaddafi was involved in terrorism, and even sided w/ quite a few ‘undesirables’ like Idi Amin & Slobodan Milosevic. But, in the last decade he wasn’t a threat to the West.

nuconvert: Sure, Ghaddafi viewed AQ as a threat to Libya & himself, and sent death squads overseas to assassinate threats to Libya. Obviously, Libya wasn’t a representative democracy, so, he feared AQ for personal reasons as well. On this point, for example, the Shah employed the wrong strategy w/ Khomeini et al. On this note, we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq because we saw persons there being threats to us, you know, the “pre-emptive” stance ...

If the issue is international terrorism, past & present, S. Arabia, IRI & Pakistan should be dealt with as a matter of priority - they are the top 3 worst offenders in the moslem world, and around the world.

Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot of bowing & never ending ‘diplomatic solutions’ going on with the mentioned 3 horrors. On the one hand Hillary wants Afghanistan to ‘reconcile’ w/ the (democratic /s) Taliban, which has always been a product of Pakistan, funded by Saudi petro$$$$$. And, on the other hand, Hillary’s boss has been going after ‘soft targets’, and ‘dictators’ in Libya & Egypt.

Quite a few contradictions ...

He was a bad man who needed to be put on trial for what he did. They could have found him guilty and executed him properly.
Buttttt.........only a strong dictator could possibly keep these uncivilized savages in line.
Don’t think ordinary folks realize what kind of things go on in these Muslim countries. They only understand brute force.

If this was 1984/88 and we had the ability to go get Kadaffy, then by all means, go for it. In recent years, he was behaving and doing what we wanted him to. Aside from shooting off his mouth, he was not a problem and despite his past, if that was the case now, I'd be willing to leave him be. Yes, he must answer for his actions in the 1980's, but overall between his rule and rule by Sharia, Kadaffy is the much better choice. Although he had socialist tendencies, he did improve the lives of many of his people by putting them in homes that had electricity, A/C, running water and so on along with preaching the message of Africans helping themselves. He also allowed capitalism in Libya with generally enough freedom, their economy was growing at 10%, IIRC. Along with that, at least women had equal rights.

Yes, he did evil things, especially in the 1980's by supporting terrorists and he should answer for them, but I think we took a devil we know (and behaving) and put in a devil we don't know and is much, much worse.

You're right, they have no foundation or benchmark for a republican form of government and they would in the end vote for a dictator and/or Sharia law. Kadaffy at least kept the radicals under control.

excerpt from the link at #61:

Libya's construction sector is fast becoming one of the most active in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with outstanding growth recorded in 2009. Historic growth levels combined with substantial infrastructure investment plans have guided an upward revision in our growth outlook for Libya's construction sector over the short term, with real growth of 8.5% and 7.9% expected in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

There are a number of factors driving our optimistic outlook for Libya's construction sector:

• Construction industry real growth for 2009 was reported at 9% year-on-year (y-o-y), making it one of the best performing countries globally, despite a difficult backdrop in terms of risk aversion and reduced oil revenues. Nominal growth came in at 26% y-o-y, however, this is cause for some concern, indicating high inflation levels in the construction sector.

• Substantial investment plans have been announced for the housing and infrastructure sectors, with a US$100bn, four-year (2009-2012) investment plan currently being executed. In June 2010, this was further increased by US$52bn, meaning a considerable amount of money will be directed to the construction sector.

• A healthy budget surplus is propping up investment plans, making them easily feasible. In 2010, BMI estimates that Libya's budget surplus was 14.7% of GDP, and will remain in the double digits in both 2011 and 2012 (11.9% and 10.3% respectively). This is enabling the government to procure large-scale and capital-intensive construction projects...

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