Posted at 03:45 PM ET, 06/30/2011
Senate cancels July 4 holiday recess to work on debt deal
By Rosalind S. Helderman
The Senate will cancel a planned recess next week, returning to Washington after the long Fourth of July weekend to get back to work on a deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit.
Senators were to spend the traditional holiday week in their home states. But after President Obama challenged lawmakers during a press conference on Wednesday to stay in town to work on a debt-reduction package, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Thursday that the chamber will reconvene on Tuesday.
“It is often said that with liberty comes responsibility. We should take that responsibility seriously. I’m confident we do. That’s why the Senate will reconvene Tuesday, the day after the Fourth,” Reid said. “We’ll do that because we have work to do.”
Also Thursday, Senate leaders from both parties invited the president to meet with lawmakers to discuss the debt reduction efforts.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asked Obama to visit the Capitol to talk with Senate Republicans.
“I’d like to invite the president to come to the Capitol today to join Republicans for lunch, or at any time this afternoon that he can make it. That way he can hear directly from Republicans why what he’s proposing won’t pass. And we can start talking about what’s actually possible.”
After canceling the Senate recess, Reid said he has invited Obama and Vice President Biden to meet with the entire Senate Democratic caucus Wednesday. A similar meeting with the White House economic team, including National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, is planned for next Thursday.
At his press conference, Obama had scolded lawmakers for stalling the negotiations when time is running out. The Treasury Department has set an Aug. 2 deadline for Congress to raise the nation’s borrowing limit before it defaults on its debt.
Obama chided Congress for an unusual on again-off again schedule that has ensured the House and Senate have staggered their work in Washington, making cross-chamber negotiations difficult. The Senate has met this week, while House members have been visiting their home districts. The reverse had been planned for next week.
“They’re in one week, they’re out one week,” Obama said. “And then they’re saying, ‘Obama has got to step in.’
“You need to be here,” he said. “I’ve been here.”
His scolding made it virtually impossible for Democrats, who control the Senate, to take the holiday recess, especially after several freshmen Republicans announced Wednesday that they would gum up Senate action unless the chamber returns July 5.
But that doesn’t mean senators aren’t cranky about the decision, particularly because many believe they can make little progress by sequestering the full Congress in Washington. Instead,Obama, Reid and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) need to come to a breakthrough.
“I’m thrilled,” Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) said sarcastically on Wednesday after the president’s press conference. She was leaving a lengthy Democratic caucus meeting to discuss the chamber’s schedule. “I just thought: How awful that I have to go to Maryland, be in parades, go over to the Eastern Shore, have lunch at Old Salty’s with my seafood. Oh, my god. Who would want to do that?”
She added, “The question is not whether the Senate will be here--maybe we will or not--is the Senate actually going to get serious about doing things. To be here, while all we do is huff and puff and hope we can blow the deficit away is just posturing.”
More on PostPolitics.com
The Fix: What Obama’s press conference tells us about 2012
Fact Checker: Fact Checker: The missing facts in President Obama’s news conference
By Rosalind S. Helderman 03:45 PM ET, 06/30/2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
POLITICS_ Reid: Senate expected to vote on a Libya resolution next week
Posted at 03:07 PM ET, 06/30/2011
Reid: Senate expected to vote on a Libya resolution next week
By Paul Kane and David A. Fahrenthold
The Senate is likely to take up a resolution next week that would authorize the conflict in Libya, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday afternoon.
The resolution, approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, would allow U.S. forces to remain in the NATO-led operation for up to a year.
The full Senate was not originally scheduled to vote on the measure until after a recess next week. But that changed when Reid decided to keep the Senate in session. Now, aides said, the bill will first come up for a procedural vote on Tuesday.
That will be followed by a debate, and a final vote is expected next Thursday, aides said.
If it passes, the bill would be a political boost for President Obama, who has faced criticism from many legislators for his handling of the mission in Libya. In particular, legislators feel Obama has disregarded the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which says presidents must obtain congressional authorization after sending troops into hostilities overseas.
Obama has argued that what’s happening in Libya should not count as “hostilities,” because U.S. forces are carrying out mainly support tasks such as intelligence-gathering, surveillance and aerial refueling.
The Senate resolution, as written now, explicitly rejects that argument. It declares that the Libyan conflict does, indeed, amount to “hostilities”--but then it offers Obama authorization to continue it.
Legally, passage of the Senate resolution would not mean very much--at least, on its own. The House recently voted down a similar bill, explicitly declining to give Obama its authorization for the campaign.
By Paul Kane and David A. Fahrenthold | 03:07 PM ET, 06/30/2011
Reid: Senate expected to vote on a Libya resolution next week
By Paul Kane and David A. Fahrenthold
The Senate is likely to take up a resolution next week that would authorize the conflict in Libya, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday afternoon.
The resolution, approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, would allow U.S. forces to remain in the NATO-led operation for up to a year.
The full Senate was not originally scheduled to vote on the measure until after a recess next week. But that changed when Reid decided to keep the Senate in session. Now, aides said, the bill will first come up for a procedural vote on Tuesday.
That will be followed by a debate, and a final vote is expected next Thursday, aides said.
If it passes, the bill would be a political boost for President Obama, who has faced criticism from many legislators for his handling of the mission in Libya. In particular, legislators feel Obama has disregarded the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which says presidents must obtain congressional authorization after sending troops into hostilities overseas.
Obama has argued that what’s happening in Libya should not count as “hostilities,” because U.S. forces are carrying out mainly support tasks such as intelligence-gathering, surveillance and aerial refueling.
The Senate resolution, as written now, explicitly rejects that argument. It declares that the Libyan conflict does, indeed, amount to “hostilities”--but then it offers Obama authorization to continue it.
Legally, passage of the Senate resolution would not mean very much--at least, on its own. The House recently voted down a similar bill, explicitly declining to give Obama its authorization for the campaign.
By Paul Kane and David A. Fahrenthold | 03:07 PM ET, 06/30/2011
NUCLEAR_ Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima
Revealed: British government's plan to play down Fukushima
Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan
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Comments (168)
Rob Edwards
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 June 2011 21.36 BST
Article history
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK. Photograph: AP
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.
"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."
Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.
The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.
"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.
Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.
The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.
The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), on 13 March, two days after the disaster knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima. The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still unfolding and two major explosions at reactors on the site were yet to happen.
"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."
The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.
"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local consequences". But it was raised to level seven on 11 April, officially making it a major accident" and putting it on a par with Chernobyl in 1986.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released more than 80 emails sent in the weeks after Fukushima in response to requests under freedom of information legislation. They also show:
• Westinghouse said reported remarks on the cost of new nuclear power stations by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, were "unhelpful and a little premature".
• The company admitted its new reactor, AP1000, "was not designed for earthquakes [of] the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan", and would need to be modified for seismic areas such as Japan and California.
• The head of the DECC's office for nuclear development, Mark Higson, asked EDF to welcome the expected announcement of a safety review by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, and added: "Not sure if EDF unilaterally asking for a review is wise. Might set off a bidding war."
• EDF promised to be "sensitive" to how remediation work at a UK nuclear site "might be seen in the light of events in Japan".
• It also requested that ministers did not delay approval for a new radioactive waste store at the Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, but accepting there was a "potential risk of judicial review".
• The BIS warned it needed "a good industry response showing the safety of nuclear – otherwise it could have adverse consequences on the market".
On 7 April, the office for nuclear development invited companies to attend a meeting at the NIA's headquarters in London. The aim was "to discuss a joint communications and engagement strategy aimed at ensuring we maintain confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations and nuclear new-build policy in light of recent events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant".
Other documents released by the government's safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".
A spokesman for the DECC and BIS said: "Given the unprecedented events unfolding in Japan, it was appropriate to share information with key stakeholders, particularly those involved in operating nuclear sites. The government was very clear from the outset that it was important not to rush to judgment and that a response should be based on hard evidence. This is why we called on the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to provide a robust and evidence-based report."
A DECC source played down the significance of the emails from the unnamed BIS official, saying: "The junior BIS official was not responsible for nuclear policy and his views were irrelevant to ministers' decisions in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake."
Tom Burke, a former government environmental adviser and visiting professor at Imperial College London, warned that the British government was repeating mistakes made in Japan. "They are too close to industry, concealing problems, rather than revealing and dealing with them," he said.
"I would be much more reassured if DECC had been worrying about how the government would cope with the $200m-$300m of liabilities from a catastrophic nuclear accident in Britain."
The government last week confirmed plans for eight new nuclear stations in England and Wales. "If acceptable proposals come forward in appropriate places, they will not face unnecessary holdups," said the energy minister, Charles Hendry.
The NIA did not comment directly on the emails. "We are funded by our member companies to represent their commercial interests and further the compelling case for new nuclear build in the UK," said the association's spokesman.
"We welcome the interim findings of the independent regulator, Dr Mike Weightman, who has reported back to government that UK nuclear reactors are safe."
Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan
Share471
Comments (168)
Rob Edwards
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 June 2011 21.36 BST
Article history
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK. Photograph: AP
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.
"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."
Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.
The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.
"The government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.
Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.
The Fukushima accident, triggered by the Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, has forced 80,000 people from their homes. Opinion polls suggest it has dented public support for nuclear power in Britain and around the world, with the governments of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Thailand and Malaysia cancelling planned nuclear power stations in the wake of the accident.
The business department emailed the nuclear firms and their representative body, the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), on 13 March, two days after the disaster knocked out nuclear plants and their backup safety systems at Fukushima. The department argued it was not as bad as the "dramatic" TV pictures made it look, even though the consequences of the accident were still unfolding and two major explosions at reactors on the site were yet to happen.
"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this."
The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. "We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.
"Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
Japanese officials initially rated the Fukushima accident as level four on the international nuclear event scale, meaning it had "local consequences". But it was raised to level seven on 11 April, officially making it a major accident" and putting it on a par with Chernobyl in 1986.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released more than 80 emails sent in the weeks after Fukushima in response to requests under freedom of information legislation. They also show:
• Westinghouse said reported remarks on the cost of new nuclear power stations by the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, were "unhelpful and a little premature".
• The company admitted its new reactor, AP1000, "was not designed for earthquakes [of] the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan", and would need to be modified for seismic areas such as Japan and California.
• The head of the DECC's office for nuclear development, Mark Higson, asked EDF to welcome the expected announcement of a safety review by the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, and added: "Not sure if EDF unilaterally asking for a review is wise. Might set off a bidding war."
• EDF promised to be "sensitive" to how remediation work at a UK nuclear site "might be seen in the light of events in Japan".
• It also requested that ministers did not delay approval for a new radioactive waste store at the Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk, but accepting there was a "potential risk of judicial review".
• The BIS warned it needed "a good industry response showing the safety of nuclear – otherwise it could have adverse consequences on the market".
On 7 April, the office for nuclear development invited companies to attend a meeting at the NIA's headquarters in London. The aim was "to discuss a joint communications and engagement strategy aimed at ensuring we maintain confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations and nuclear new-build policy in light of recent events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant".
Other documents released by the government's safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".
A spokesman for the DECC and BIS said: "Given the unprecedented events unfolding in Japan, it was appropriate to share information with key stakeholders, particularly those involved in operating nuclear sites. The government was very clear from the outset that it was important not to rush to judgment and that a response should be based on hard evidence. This is why we called on the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to provide a robust and evidence-based report."
A DECC source played down the significance of the emails from the unnamed BIS official, saying: "The junior BIS official was not responsible for nuclear policy and his views were irrelevant to ministers' decisions in the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake."
Tom Burke, a former government environmental adviser and visiting professor at Imperial College London, warned that the British government was repeating mistakes made in Japan. "They are too close to industry, concealing problems, rather than revealing and dealing with them," he said.
"I would be much more reassured if DECC had been worrying about how the government would cope with the $200m-$300m of liabilities from a catastrophic nuclear accident in Britain."
The government last week confirmed plans for eight new nuclear stations in England and Wales. "If acceptable proposals come forward in appropriate places, they will not face unnecessary holdups," said the energy minister, Charles Hendry.
The NIA did not comment directly on the emails. "We are funded by our member companies to represent their commercial interests and further the compelling case for new nuclear build in the UK," said the association's spokesman.
"We welcome the interim findings of the independent regulator, Dr Mike Weightman, who has reported back to government that UK nuclear reactors are safe."
Ý Kiến- Phê Bình- TRANH LUẬN qua bài viết "Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime"
Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime
Replacing the entire architecture of the Libyan state will lead only to further violence and chaos, argues George Grant.
Libyans celebrate in Benghazi after receiving the news of the ICC warrant Photo: AP
By George Grant
1:20PM BST 29 Jun 2011
31 Comments
For 42 years, the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi terrorised, oppressed and divided the Libyan people. When anti-regime protests flared up on February 17, the reaction was predictable enough: bloody slaughter.
Gaddafi said he wanted to “cleanse Libya house by house”. Using regime security forces, he started doing just that. Whatever the lunatic fringe from Stop the War Coalition would have you believe, it was the international intervention, led by Britain and France, which put a stop to this. Since then, Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders have been categorical in their assertions that Colonel Gaddafi must go.
So what to make of yesterday’s comments by our International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, about the importance of incorporating as much of the existing regime architecture as possible into any post-Gaddafi settlement?
“One of the first things that should happen once Tripoli falls is that someone should get on the phone to the former Tripoli chief of police and tell him he’s got a job and he needs to ensure the safety and security of the people of Tripoli,” he said at a news conference on June 28.
Controversial stuff. But the fact is that Mr Mitchell is absolutely spot on, and his comments are to be warmly welcomed. For the success both of the current campaign to protect civilians and remove Gaddafi, and for the security and prosperity of any post-Gaddafi Libya, encouraging regime figures that they can have an important part to play will be absolutely essential.
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As Edmund Burke observed in the wake of the French Revolution, replacing a despotic leadership, even by force, is sometimes right and necessary. Replacing the entire architecture of the state, on the other hand, will lead only to further violence and chaos. We learned this lesson the hard way in Iraq in 2003, when almost every vestige of the Ba’ath administration was replaced wholesale, with the resultant dearth of knowledge and expertise proving catastrophic for the country’s subsequent development.
A repeat of this mistake in Libya could have equally deadly results. The opposition Transitional National Council (TNC), though long on ambition, is woefully short on expertise. Yes it has some notable former regime figures amongst its ranks, including its Chairman, the former justice minister Mustafa Jalil, but it is also populated by men with no prior experience of running a country whatsoever. Former university professors, lawyers and a clutch of PhD students hold some of the most important posts in the TNC, and with the best will in the world, they’re going to need some help.
This problem is still further compounded by the fact that Jalil, admirably in many ways, has stated that TNC office-holders should not take advantage of their current status and stand in the first post-Gaddafi elections. Others within the council, including its spokesman Abdul-Hafiz Ghoga, take a different view, but either way the problem remains.
As for the opposition police and security forces, their lack of expertise is well documented. Indeed, many Libyans privately maintain that the most competent fighting force on the opposition front line is the Islamist 17th February Brigade.
Moreover, if regime figures are to be persuaded to abandon Gaddafi now, they need to know that to do so won’t just be an exercise in out of the frying pan, into the fire. In spite of much-trumpeted rebel advances in recent days, by far the most desirable outcome to this conflict remains an internal coup d’état inside Gaddafi’s regime.
Monday’s announcement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it had issued warrants for the arrest of Colonel Gaddafi, his son Saif, and the country’s spy-chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, on charges of crimes against humanity, will doubtless have given those still loyal to Gaddafi pause for thought. Indeed, it is imperative that those charged with the most serious crimes are brought to justice. But it is equally important that others in the regime can be confident that they will not be tarred with the same brush, and that there can be an important place for them in a post-Gaddafi Libya.
The key now will be to hear similar remarks to Mr Mitchell’s from the TNC itself. Understandably perhaps, many amongst Libya’s opposition hold deep reservations about such a strategy. Within Benghazi itself, there have been serious divisions in recent weeks over the question of whether or not to employ former regime security forces, and there have also been sporadic assassinations of former regime figures; a telling microcosm of what might be in store down the road.
But for the sake of all Libyans, in east and west, it is imperative that such divisions are put to one side. This troubled country simply cannot afford revenge and retribution. Mr Jalil and others within the TNC need to have the courage to extend the olive branch, both publicly and through private channels. Failure to do so will be costly indeed.
George Grant is the Director for Global Security at The Henry Jackson Society, and the author of “Towards a Post-Gaddafi Libya”, a report on the conflict released in April 2011.
***
Showing 25 of 31 comments
lordbarnett
Today 12:34 PM Recommended by 1 person
We have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,countless thousands of Afgans,anybodys guess in Libya,I wonder where we will be starting next,not Mugabe,he is too black, Chavez? no, its still looking like Iran,suggestions please to Cameron,warmonger,loads of billions to spend,Downing St, London.
randomobserver
Today 12:13 AM Recommended by 1 person
For the record, I have no view on whether the Henry Jackson society is neocon or not. Given their conservative Democrat namesake, there are pros and cons to that definition.
The intervention in Libya can be fairly well characterized as neocon, although it is also just flat out human-rights/R2P/internationalist liberal. Equally nauseating.
But the policy outlined here is antithetical to the neocon approach as it has emerged in the past decade and some. Keeping regime elements in place to ensure stability? Just the opposite of what they had been doing before.
If everything is neocon, then the term has no meaning at all.
randomobserver
Today 12:11 AM
SO no constituency at all then for just maintaining a naval watch and letting them kill one another?
Or, I suppose, since we have now alienated the Qadhafis and must eliminate them as a future threat to us, what about just killing the rest of them and a few hundred close allies to even the sides, and then letting the sides go at it as they clearly wish?
Given the relative remoteness of the oil, this might not even completely interrupt supply for long.
bear_of_very_little_brain
Yesterday 11:51 PM Recommended by 1 person
ah, the famous 'we'- who he?
'we' the most un_Conscious word 'ever'.
rpmcestmoi
Yesterday 10:25 PM Recommended by 1 person
Oh, really? No quick reboot button for countries? How primitive.
Life is hard work.
bear_of_very_little_brain
Yesterday 11:52 PMgood sense, rare bunny.
giuseppesapone
Yesterday 09:53 PM Recommended by 4 people
It was The Telegraph itself that broke the news that the Libyan 'rebels' are led by Al Qaeda leaders and that its core troops are Jihadists who have returned from killing NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
George Grant obviously missed it. If he had read it he would realise why Colonel Gaddafi has so much support amongst the Libyan people.
stonewood
Yesterday 09:30 PM Recommended by 7 people
"Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime."
We? It's got bugger all to do with us. Cameron should shut his intellectually challenged gob and NATO should get the hell out of it.
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:04 PM Recommended by 6 people
This article under pins what many have been saying for months what is surprising it takes the UK media so long to catch up, it is like dealing with the Boys Own magazine !
However the news today that France through the French news paper le Figaro dropped over 40 tons of arms grenade launchers during this month and missiles is a flagrant breach of the UN resolution at the same time UK government has been aware of this but only confirms this to us now and we have to get the news of what is going on not from our own government but from the french paper le Figaro clearly the UK government has not been transparent on what is going on in Libya to British people , what other information will we read perhaps from the Yemen press about the UK and UN members are involved who will, no doubt know much more about what is going on than the British people
Not only is the UN taking sides ,escalating deaths from 500 before the resolution to 20,000 after and now climbing thanks to a further 4o tons of weapons , they have been going for regime change targeting members of the regime
Now to cap it all the UK are now breaking and sanctioning the breaking of their own UN arms embargo and sanctions on the country by allowing the dropping weapons to the rebels by France not to mention Qatar .
The whole twisting and bending of the resolution make the UN look like a the master of ceremonies for a group of contortionists in a circus, controlling and training banned wild animals !
This is a complete disgrace bearing in mind a cease-fire should have been implemented months ago .
This is the final crossing of the Rubicon in so many crossings of the Rubicon and there must be full investigation, this makes a complete mockery of the whole democratic system in the UK , why was the house of commons was not informed of this development , why was this information suppressed
Even the US senate has censured their own government over Libya, it seems that Libya is not like any other country in that any things goes as far as the UN is concerned .
It is time in the name of democracy and accountability that we do the same to our own government
This is the closest thing anyone has seen to a turkey shoot and it is all being done in the name of the UN !!
themoneysystemisascam
Yesterday 06:57 PM Recommended by 3 people
A complete load of neo-con warmongering bull. They should go back to being Trotskyites.
mammal
Yesterday 06:47 PM Recommended by 9 people
You got to love Neocons if we invade enough countries surely we'll get it right in the end. Practise makes perfect. So it stands to reason that eventually we will conduct the perfect war.
George Grant and other neoconservative moral perverts love nothing better than switching the ethical polarity and hoping nobody notices. Greed is Good, War is Good, temperance is weak, pacifism is deranged....oh right, well OK then silly me for being hopelessly old fashioned.
i'd like to beat him up to prove the elementary point that you can still oppose a war and not be a pacifist. But perhaps he would have trouble even then in retaining this simple lesson because he suffers from amnesia or something, because he forgot to mention the Wahhabi-Saudi dictatorship and others but particularly the Saudi Dictatorship - yes, that rather conspicuous country not a million miles to the East of Libya, where women are virtually forbidden an existence except to service men and they hack the heads of Indonesian Maids when they tire of being raped and resort to desperate measures. Where the security services are offered out to Bahrain to quell democracy far more efficiently than Gaddafi. Anybody notice that? If you want to quell democracy speak to the Saudis they are the Regional champions.
randomobserver
Today 12:07 AM
And again, the neocon worldview spends far too much time on democracy and freedom and other such crap and far too little time on useful things like securing resources for the West at other people's expense.
Please stop conflating the latter, sensible policy with the former people's idiotic, moralizing, essentially liberal human rights obsessions.
randomobserver
Today 12:05 AM Recommended by 2 people
In Iraq at least, if the greed for oil had been the motive of US policy the only sensible course would have been to make a deal with the Saddam regime, in 1990. he was not an idiot.
Zeal to uphold the sovereignty of Kuwait could be characterized as endorsing the new world order notion of expansive international law, as a realist approach to world affairs stressing the inviolability of borders, or as an also realist approach to propping up a client state in the Gulf. And it kept US access to Kuwaiti oil on at best semmi-decent terms. But it was nowhere near as good for oil-greed as a deal with Saddam would have been. It cannot be understood as an oil focussed strategy.
In the more recent war, cutting a deal with Saddam would still have been the better policy for oil. The actual US policy has not benefited them AT ALL with regard to oil, nor could it have been expected to nor was it. At best, French companies benefited from the oil auctions.
So once again, US policy cannot be sanely understood as a quest for oil. If that is all they wanted, their policy would perhaps have been more violent at the margins, but much more sensible than what they did.
I wish that WAS what they had been doing all these years. I also want cheap oil, lifeblood of our civilization for the time being. Beyond that, I don't give a damn who governs Iraq or how many people he slaughters.
All of which also goes for Libya. The Qadhafi regime would have been better for oil than anything that will replace it.
j_striker
Yesterday 11:02 PM
one by one we'll get there in the end. saudi is propped up by oil don't forget. we nned that oil so we need stability in saudi.
if loons like you had their way we'd have an oil spike to make 1973 look like the era of cheap gas. we'd then have rampant inflation, disastrous unemployment and the possible threat to liberal democracy via extremism that brings with it.
in other words you are incapable of seeing more than 1 move ahead on a chess board.
loucipher
Yesterday 04:18 PMRecommended by 20 people
Never mind Gaddafi’s Libya. I'd like to see a dismantling of the despotic EU regime
randal
Yesterday 03:53 PM Recommended by 16 people
"Gaddafi said he wanted to “cleanse Libya house by house”. Using regime security forces, he started doing just that. Whatever the lunatic fringe from Stop the War Coalition would have you believe, it was the international intervention, led by Britain and France, which put a stop to this."
LOL! I see two fringes of lunatics in the field of international affairs. One is the pacifist fringe on the left, including some of the Stop the War Coalition, and the other is the neocon fringe who have infiltrated the political right, exemplified by the Henry Jackson Society which seems to have a permanent pulpit at the Telegraph.
Of the two, the neocons are by far the worst.
Of course, the reality is that there is no convincing evidence that the Libyan government intended anything more than the suppression of armed revolt, with the usual state violence that accompanies such activity by any government. The claim that the western interference in the Libyan civil war "averted a massacre" is pure self-serving propaganda, becoming ever more ludicrous as the costs to the Libyan nation of the ongoing civil war mount.
How much taxpayers' money are the Henry Jackson Society and its deep-pocketed sponsors going to reimburse, by the way, when we've finished paying for war, and then for cleaning up the aftermath of war?
randomobserver
Yesterday 11:58 PM
Keeping regime elements and clients in place is the antithesis of the neocon model, for good or ill. Presuming that the term neocon was meant here to have any genuine semantic content rather than be a mere term of generic abuse.
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:29 PM Recommended by 2 people
Hi Randal sorry I misunderstood what you were saying which i agree with but the use of the word war is interesting bearing in mind this is meant to be peace keeping operation, it shows how far gone the government and the UN is !
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:22 PM
This is not meant to be a war this is meant to be about implementing a UN resolution and cease fire pointone of the resolution where are you getting these words of war from , we are not at war with libya . There is no offiical declaration of war by the UK , do try to keep some sort objectivity and balence
jbtutor
Yesterday 10:25 PM
The UN resolution has wording like the Korean War, except citing civilians rather than an East Libya or some such. That's why the French think they're perfectly justified dropping arms to Libyan civilians (whether rebels or not, they are "civilians" after all, and not uniformed soldiers).
As long as it's not ground troops, I suppose. But I pointed out to people at the time that nuclear weapons wouldn't be ground troops.. and this resolution wording is so open-ended, legally, nukes could be used and UN approval could be cited.
Hence, "not meant to be a war".... no. It was meant to be deniable, but it was absolutely meant to be a war, and a war the West would win. And it hasn't won. Not yet anyway.
Peter Hirsch
Yesterday 08:59 PM Recommended by 5 people
Thank you, Randal. Good to see the truth being told.
We seem to be repeating all the mistakes made in the second Gulf War. I was in Libya around 1960, before Gadaffi took power. The place was impoverished. From what I have seen in newspaper reports, a lot of progress has been made and people have achieved a far, far higher living standard with Gadaffi in power. So his rule cannot have been all that oppressive. That is reflected in the support he clearly still has in Tripolitania.
I have seen the allegations of massacres. I have seen no evidence. Ss you say, "here is no convincing evidence that the Libyan government intended anything more than the suppression of armed revolt, with the usual state violence that accompanies such activity by any government.." I suspect this is another war based on a lie but cannot tell if the lie is from ignorance or is deliberate.
The next mistake is that there seems to be no preparation to rebuild the infrastructure the bombing has demolished. That cost dear in Iraq.
Grant did learn the importance of continuity from the sacking of the Iraqi Police and Army. Have the decision makers?
besarion
Yesterday 03:44 PM
Cleanse the stables.
But why is Benghazi low on medical aid as run by the improving BBC? Surely Cameron's record aid bonanza would supply drugs and equipment to the side we are fighting alongside? Libya is the Soul of the conscience of the World.Let's help it free itself and see a glorious future.
Mohamed Ahmed
Yesterday 03:05 PM Recommended by 3 people
Just to clarify one point, I urge you to ask your leaders why they do not mention that the Libyan TNC intends to reimburse the costs.
simon_coulter
Yesterday 03:02 PM
I have suggested several times it would have been a lot cheaper to dismantle Gaddafi - period.
The machinery that secured his power for 40+ years involves a pyramid of clients all now scared as to their fate when those they oppressed have a free hand to deal them rough justice. It is in their interest to preserve the status quo - which is why it must go.
Mohamed Ahmed
Yesterday 03:01 PM Recommended by 5 people
The ballot box is always better than the ammunition box. But I would trust elections in Libya in the presence of Gaddafi only if they were planned, set up, conducted and supervised by God Almighty. And I do not only mean trust the results, but trust that my privacy and safety will be safeguarded in any elections held while Gaddafi is still in power. This might be difficult for an outsider to understand, but ask any Libyan opposed to Gaddafi and they will give you the same response. He will be opposed to any setup he cannot manipulate in order to win, and agreeing to whatever conditions he imposes would be tantamount to rubber-stamping his presence as 'leader'. Free elections in the presence of Gaddafi in any shape or form is an oxymoron.
As for the cost of the war, I can understand any Western citizen's concern for where their tax money is spent. But I wish to inform or remind leosharpe that the Libyan Transitional National Council and many other opposition officials and figures have repeatedly stressed that Libyans want to reimburse all costs. I agree with that position. Not only would it be fair, it would also avoid an independent Libya remaining in political hock for financial reasons they have no difficulty dealing with in view of about 150 billion dollars of frozen assets. At present, however, the TNC is having great difficulty getting access
to even small amounts for buying basic needs for the population.
Unfortunately, I have not heard a single Western leader or official point that out, and reflecting on their motives makes me uneasy. I believe that it is an important question and people in the nations involved should press their leaders about it. I urge you to do so.
____________
Các anh chị có ý kiến, phê bình gì về đề tài " Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime" George Grant đưa ra để mọi người trên tòan thế giới cùng "tranh luận" , bày tỏ suy nghĩ, ý kiến về "Cuộc Chiến" tại Libya và những vấn đề liên quan .
Con người khác con vật ở chỗ biết suy nghĩ, biết lỹ lẽ, biết phân biệt phải quấy, đúng sai, sự khác biệt giữa tốt xấu cũng như thiện ác ..
Trong hoàn cảnh có thể được lên tiếng bày tỏ ý kiến, con người lại để quyền hành, thế lực, bạc tiền, danh vọng .. chi phối hòan tòan tư tưởng, thì "con người" lúc đó không khác chi con vật .
Và trên đất nước VN thân yêu của chúng ta, còn đáng tội nghiệp hơn nữa là có những kẻ từ con người đáng trân quý, lại tự nguyện TUỘT xuống để làm chó mặt người, tự nguyện bán cả liêm sỉ, tự nguyện làm những con vật để cho bè lũ thú vật Việt gian csVN sai khiến, điều khiển .. cam tâm làm tay sai cho lũ bán nước buôn nòi csVN thì thật đáng khinh bỉ, đáng phỉ nhổ vậy.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
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Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01072011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Replacing the entire architecture of the Libyan state will lead only to further violence and chaos, argues George Grant.
Libyans celebrate in Benghazi after receiving the news of the ICC warrant Photo: AP
By George Grant
1:20PM BST 29 Jun 2011
31 Comments
For 42 years, the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi terrorised, oppressed and divided the Libyan people. When anti-regime protests flared up on February 17, the reaction was predictable enough: bloody slaughter.
Gaddafi said he wanted to “cleanse Libya house by house”. Using regime security forces, he started doing just that. Whatever the lunatic fringe from Stop the War Coalition would have you believe, it was the international intervention, led by Britain and France, which put a stop to this. Since then, Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders have been categorical in their assertions that Colonel Gaddafi must go.
So what to make of yesterday’s comments by our International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, about the importance of incorporating as much of the existing regime architecture as possible into any post-Gaddafi settlement?
“One of the first things that should happen once Tripoli falls is that someone should get on the phone to the former Tripoli chief of police and tell him he’s got a job and he needs to ensure the safety and security of the people of Tripoli,” he said at a news conference on June 28.
Controversial stuff. But the fact is that Mr Mitchell is absolutely spot on, and his comments are to be warmly welcomed. For the success both of the current campaign to protect civilians and remove Gaddafi, and for the security and prosperity of any post-Gaddafi Libya, encouraging regime figures that they can have an important part to play will be absolutely essential.
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As Edmund Burke observed in the wake of the French Revolution, replacing a despotic leadership, even by force, is sometimes right and necessary. Replacing the entire architecture of the state, on the other hand, will lead only to further violence and chaos. We learned this lesson the hard way in Iraq in 2003, when almost every vestige of the Ba’ath administration was replaced wholesale, with the resultant dearth of knowledge and expertise proving catastrophic for the country’s subsequent development.
A repeat of this mistake in Libya could have equally deadly results. The opposition Transitional National Council (TNC), though long on ambition, is woefully short on expertise. Yes it has some notable former regime figures amongst its ranks, including its Chairman, the former justice minister Mustafa Jalil, but it is also populated by men with no prior experience of running a country whatsoever. Former university professors, lawyers and a clutch of PhD students hold some of the most important posts in the TNC, and with the best will in the world, they’re going to need some help.
This problem is still further compounded by the fact that Jalil, admirably in many ways, has stated that TNC office-holders should not take advantage of their current status and stand in the first post-Gaddafi elections. Others within the council, including its spokesman Abdul-Hafiz Ghoga, take a different view, but either way the problem remains.
As for the opposition police and security forces, their lack of expertise is well documented. Indeed, many Libyans privately maintain that the most competent fighting force on the opposition front line is the Islamist 17th February Brigade.
Moreover, if regime figures are to be persuaded to abandon Gaddafi now, they need to know that to do so won’t just be an exercise in out of the frying pan, into the fire. In spite of much-trumpeted rebel advances in recent days, by far the most desirable outcome to this conflict remains an internal coup d’état inside Gaddafi’s regime.
Monday’s announcement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it had issued warrants for the arrest of Colonel Gaddafi, his son Saif, and the country’s spy-chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, on charges of crimes against humanity, will doubtless have given those still loyal to Gaddafi pause for thought. Indeed, it is imperative that those charged with the most serious crimes are brought to justice. But it is equally important that others in the regime can be confident that they will not be tarred with the same brush, and that there can be an important place for them in a post-Gaddafi Libya.
The key now will be to hear similar remarks to Mr Mitchell’s from the TNC itself. Understandably perhaps, many amongst Libya’s opposition hold deep reservations about such a strategy. Within Benghazi itself, there have been serious divisions in recent weeks over the question of whether or not to employ former regime security forces, and there have also been sporadic assassinations of former regime figures; a telling microcosm of what might be in store down the road.
But for the sake of all Libyans, in east and west, it is imperative that such divisions are put to one side. This troubled country simply cannot afford revenge and retribution. Mr Jalil and others within the TNC need to have the courage to extend the olive branch, both publicly and through private channels. Failure to do so will be costly indeed.
George Grant is the Director for Global Security at The Henry Jackson Society, and the author of “Towards a Post-Gaddafi Libya”, a report on the conflict released in April 2011.
***
Showing 25 of 31 comments
lordbarnett
Today 12:34 PM Recommended by 1 person
We have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis,countless thousands of Afgans,anybodys guess in Libya,I wonder where we will be starting next,not Mugabe,he is too black, Chavez? no, its still looking like Iran,suggestions please to Cameron,warmonger,loads of billions to spend,Downing St, London.
randomobserver
Today 12:13 AM Recommended by 1 person
For the record, I have no view on whether the Henry Jackson society is neocon or not. Given their conservative Democrat namesake, there are pros and cons to that definition.
The intervention in Libya can be fairly well characterized as neocon, although it is also just flat out human-rights/R2P/internationalist liberal. Equally nauseating.
But the policy outlined here is antithetical to the neocon approach as it has emerged in the past decade and some. Keeping regime elements in place to ensure stability? Just the opposite of what they had been doing before.
If everything is neocon, then the term has no meaning at all.
randomobserver
Today 12:11 AM
SO no constituency at all then for just maintaining a naval watch and letting them kill one another?
Or, I suppose, since we have now alienated the Qadhafis and must eliminate them as a future threat to us, what about just killing the rest of them and a few hundred close allies to even the sides, and then letting the sides go at it as they clearly wish?
Given the relative remoteness of the oil, this might not even completely interrupt supply for long.
bear_of_very_little_brain
Yesterday 11:51 PM Recommended by 1 person
ah, the famous 'we'- who he?
'we' the most un_Conscious word 'ever'.
rpmcestmoi
Yesterday 10:25 PM Recommended by 1 person
Oh, really? No quick reboot button for countries? How primitive.
Life is hard work.
bear_of_very_little_brain
Yesterday 11:52 PMgood sense, rare bunny.
giuseppesapone
Yesterday 09:53 PM Recommended by 4 people
It was The Telegraph itself that broke the news that the Libyan 'rebels' are led by Al Qaeda leaders and that its core troops are Jihadists who have returned from killing NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
George Grant obviously missed it. If he had read it he would realise why Colonel Gaddafi has so much support amongst the Libyan people.
stonewood
Yesterday 09:30 PM Recommended by 7 people
"Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime."
We? It's got bugger all to do with us. Cameron should shut his intellectually challenged gob and NATO should get the hell out of it.
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:04 PM Recommended by 6 people
This article under pins what many have been saying for months what is surprising it takes the UK media so long to catch up, it is like dealing with the Boys Own magazine !
However the news today that France through the French news paper le Figaro dropped over 40 tons of arms grenade launchers during this month and missiles is a flagrant breach of the UN resolution at the same time UK government has been aware of this but only confirms this to us now and we have to get the news of what is going on not from our own government but from the french paper le Figaro clearly the UK government has not been transparent on what is going on in Libya to British people , what other information will we read perhaps from the Yemen press about the UK and UN members are involved who will, no doubt know much more about what is going on than the British people
Not only is the UN taking sides ,escalating deaths from 500 before the resolution to 20,000 after and now climbing thanks to a further 4o tons of weapons , they have been going for regime change targeting members of the regime
Now to cap it all the UK are now breaking and sanctioning the breaking of their own UN arms embargo and sanctions on the country by allowing the dropping weapons to the rebels by France not to mention Qatar .
The whole twisting and bending of the resolution make the UN look like a the master of ceremonies for a group of contortionists in a circus, controlling and training banned wild animals !
This is a complete disgrace bearing in mind a cease-fire should have been implemented months ago .
This is the final crossing of the Rubicon in so many crossings of the Rubicon and there must be full investigation, this makes a complete mockery of the whole democratic system in the UK , why was the house of commons was not informed of this development , why was this information suppressed
Even the US senate has censured their own government over Libya, it seems that Libya is not like any other country in that any things goes as far as the UN is concerned .
It is time in the name of democracy and accountability that we do the same to our own government
This is the closest thing anyone has seen to a turkey shoot and it is all being done in the name of the UN !!
themoneysystemisascam
Yesterday 06:57 PM Recommended by 3 people
A complete load of neo-con warmongering bull. They should go back to being Trotskyites.
mammal
Yesterday 06:47 PM Recommended by 9 people
You got to love Neocons if we invade enough countries surely we'll get it right in the end. Practise makes perfect. So it stands to reason that eventually we will conduct the perfect war.
George Grant and other neoconservative moral perverts love nothing better than switching the ethical polarity and hoping nobody notices. Greed is Good, War is Good, temperance is weak, pacifism is deranged....oh right, well OK then silly me for being hopelessly old fashioned.
i'd like to beat him up to prove the elementary point that you can still oppose a war and not be a pacifist. But perhaps he would have trouble even then in retaining this simple lesson because he suffers from amnesia or something, because he forgot to mention the Wahhabi-Saudi dictatorship and others but particularly the Saudi Dictatorship - yes, that rather conspicuous country not a million miles to the East of Libya, where women are virtually forbidden an existence except to service men and they hack the heads of Indonesian Maids when they tire of being raped and resort to desperate measures. Where the security services are offered out to Bahrain to quell democracy far more efficiently than Gaddafi. Anybody notice that? If you want to quell democracy speak to the Saudis they are the Regional champions.
randomobserver
Today 12:07 AM
And again, the neocon worldview spends far too much time on democracy and freedom and other such crap and far too little time on useful things like securing resources for the West at other people's expense.
Please stop conflating the latter, sensible policy with the former people's idiotic, moralizing, essentially liberal human rights obsessions.
randomobserver
Today 12:05 AM Recommended by 2 people
In Iraq at least, if the greed for oil had been the motive of US policy the only sensible course would have been to make a deal with the Saddam regime, in 1990. he was not an idiot.
Zeal to uphold the sovereignty of Kuwait could be characterized as endorsing the new world order notion of expansive international law, as a realist approach to world affairs stressing the inviolability of borders, or as an also realist approach to propping up a client state in the Gulf. And it kept US access to Kuwaiti oil on at best semmi-decent terms. But it was nowhere near as good for oil-greed as a deal with Saddam would have been. It cannot be understood as an oil focussed strategy.
In the more recent war, cutting a deal with Saddam would still have been the better policy for oil. The actual US policy has not benefited them AT ALL with regard to oil, nor could it have been expected to nor was it. At best, French companies benefited from the oil auctions.
So once again, US policy cannot be sanely understood as a quest for oil. If that is all they wanted, their policy would perhaps have been more violent at the margins, but much more sensible than what they did.
I wish that WAS what they had been doing all these years. I also want cheap oil, lifeblood of our civilization for the time being. Beyond that, I don't give a damn who governs Iraq or how many people he slaughters.
All of which also goes for Libya. The Qadhafi regime would have been better for oil than anything that will replace it.
j_striker
Yesterday 11:02 PM
one by one we'll get there in the end. saudi is propped up by oil don't forget. we nned that oil so we need stability in saudi.
if loons like you had their way we'd have an oil spike to make 1973 look like the era of cheap gas. we'd then have rampant inflation, disastrous unemployment and the possible threat to liberal democracy via extremism that brings with it.
in other words you are incapable of seeing more than 1 move ahead on a chess board.
loucipher
Yesterday 04:18 PMRecommended by 20 people
Never mind Gaddafi’s Libya. I'd like to see a dismantling of the despotic EU regime
randal
Yesterday 03:53 PM Recommended by 16 people
"Gaddafi said he wanted to “cleanse Libya house by house”. Using regime security forces, he started doing just that. Whatever the lunatic fringe from Stop the War Coalition would have you believe, it was the international intervention, led by Britain and France, which put a stop to this."
LOL! I see two fringes of lunatics in the field of international affairs. One is the pacifist fringe on the left, including some of the Stop the War Coalition, and the other is the neocon fringe who have infiltrated the political right, exemplified by the Henry Jackson Society which seems to have a permanent pulpit at the Telegraph.
Of the two, the neocons are by far the worst.
Of course, the reality is that there is no convincing evidence that the Libyan government intended anything more than the suppression of armed revolt, with the usual state violence that accompanies such activity by any government. The claim that the western interference in the Libyan civil war "averted a massacre" is pure self-serving propaganda, becoming ever more ludicrous as the costs to the Libyan nation of the ongoing civil war mount.
How much taxpayers' money are the Henry Jackson Society and its deep-pocketed sponsors going to reimburse, by the way, when we've finished paying for war, and then for cleaning up the aftermath of war?
randomobserver
Yesterday 11:58 PM
Keeping regime elements and clients in place is the antithesis of the neocon model, for good or ill. Presuming that the term neocon was meant here to have any genuine semantic content rather than be a mere term of generic abuse.
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:29 PM Recommended by 2 people
Hi Randal sorry I misunderstood what you were saying which i agree with but the use of the word war is interesting bearing in mind this is meant to be peace keeping operation, it shows how far gone the government and the UN is !
pfbulmer
Yesterday 09:22 PM
This is not meant to be a war this is meant to be about implementing a UN resolution and cease fire pointone of the resolution where are you getting these words of war from , we are not at war with libya . There is no offiical declaration of war by the UK , do try to keep some sort objectivity and balence
jbtutor
Yesterday 10:25 PM
The UN resolution has wording like the Korean War, except citing civilians rather than an East Libya or some such. That's why the French think they're perfectly justified dropping arms to Libyan civilians (whether rebels or not, they are "civilians" after all, and not uniformed soldiers).
As long as it's not ground troops, I suppose. But I pointed out to people at the time that nuclear weapons wouldn't be ground troops.. and this resolution wording is so open-ended, legally, nukes could be used and UN approval could be cited.
Hence, "not meant to be a war".... no. It was meant to be deniable, but it was absolutely meant to be a war, and a war the West would win. And it hasn't won. Not yet anyway.
Peter Hirsch
Yesterday 08:59 PM Recommended by 5 people
Thank you, Randal. Good to see the truth being told.
We seem to be repeating all the mistakes made in the second Gulf War. I was in Libya around 1960, before Gadaffi took power. The place was impoverished. From what I have seen in newspaper reports, a lot of progress has been made and people have achieved a far, far higher living standard with Gadaffi in power. So his rule cannot have been all that oppressive. That is reflected in the support he clearly still has in Tripolitania.
I have seen the allegations of massacres. I have seen no evidence. Ss you say, "here is no convincing evidence that the Libyan government intended anything more than the suppression of armed revolt, with the usual state violence that accompanies such activity by any government.." I suspect this is another war based on a lie but cannot tell if the lie is from ignorance or is deliberate.
The next mistake is that there seems to be no preparation to rebuild the infrastructure the bombing has demolished. That cost dear in Iraq.
Grant did learn the importance of continuity from the sacking of the Iraqi Police and Army. Have the decision makers?
besarion
Yesterday 03:44 PM
Cleanse the stables.
But why is Benghazi low on medical aid as run by the improving BBC? Surely Cameron's record aid bonanza would supply drugs and equipment to the side we are fighting alongside? Libya is the Soul of the conscience of the World.Let's help it free itself and see a glorious future.
Mohamed Ahmed
Yesterday 03:05 PM Recommended by 3 people
Just to clarify one point, I urge you to ask your leaders why they do not mention that the Libyan TNC intends to reimburse the costs.
simon_coulter
Yesterday 03:02 PM
I have suggested several times it would have been a lot cheaper to dismantle Gaddafi - period.
The machinery that secured his power for 40+ years involves a pyramid of clients all now scared as to their fate when those they oppressed have a free hand to deal them rough justice. It is in their interest to preserve the status quo - which is why it must go.
Mohamed Ahmed
Yesterday 03:01 PM Recommended by 5 people
The ballot box is always better than the ammunition box. But I would trust elections in Libya in the presence of Gaddafi only if they were planned, set up, conducted and supervised by God Almighty. And I do not only mean trust the results, but trust that my privacy and safety will be safeguarded in any elections held while Gaddafi is still in power. This might be difficult for an outsider to understand, but ask any Libyan opposed to Gaddafi and they will give you the same response. He will be opposed to any setup he cannot manipulate in order to win, and agreeing to whatever conditions he imposes would be tantamount to rubber-stamping his presence as 'leader'. Free elections in the presence of Gaddafi in any shape or form is an oxymoron.
As for the cost of the war, I can understand any Western citizen's concern for where their tax money is spent. But I wish to inform or remind leosharpe that the Libyan Transitional National Council and many other opposition officials and figures have repeatedly stressed that Libyans want to reimburse all costs. I agree with that position. Not only would it be fair, it would also avoid an independent Libya remaining in political hock for financial reasons they have no difficulty dealing with in view of about 150 billion dollars of frozen assets. At present, however, the TNC is having great difficulty getting access
to even small amounts for buying basic needs for the population.
Unfortunately, I have not heard a single Western leader or official point that out, and reflecting on their motives makes me uneasy. I believe that it is an important question and people in the nations involved should press their leaders about it. I urge you to do so.
____________
Các anh chị có ý kiến, phê bình gì về đề tài " Why we cannot simply dismantle Gaddafi’s regime" George Grant đưa ra để mọi người trên tòan thế giới cùng "tranh luận" , bày tỏ suy nghĩ, ý kiến về "Cuộc Chiến" tại Libya và những vấn đề liên quan .
Con người khác con vật ở chỗ biết suy nghĩ, biết lỹ lẽ, biết phân biệt phải quấy, đúng sai, sự khác biệt giữa tốt xấu cũng như thiện ác ..
Trong hoàn cảnh có thể được lên tiếng bày tỏ ý kiến, con người lại để quyền hành, thế lực, bạc tiền, danh vọng .. chi phối hòan tòan tư tưởng, thì "con người" lúc đó không khác chi con vật .
Và trên đất nước VN thân yêu của chúng ta, còn đáng tội nghiệp hơn nữa là có những kẻ từ con người đáng trân quý, lại tự nguyện TUỘT xuống để làm chó mặt người, tự nguyện bán cả liêm sỉ, tự nguyện làm những con vật để cho bè lũ thú vật Việt gian csVN sai khiến, điều khiển .. cam tâm làm tay sai cho lũ bán nước buôn nòi csVN thì thật đáng khinh bỉ, đáng phỉ nhổ vậy.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01072011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
AFRICA_ Russia: France May Have Violated UN Arms Embargo on Libya
June 30, 2011
Russia: France May Have Violated UN Arms Embargo on Libya
June 30, 2011
VOA News
A rebel fighter sitting in a captured Gadhafi forces truck with a mounted weapon is received by comrades occupying high ground overlooking the town of Bir Ghanam, 100 km (62 miles) south of Tripoli, June 30, 2011..Russia says France may have violated a U.N. arms embargo on Libya by air-dropping weapons to rebels fighting troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi earlier this month.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday Moscow has asked Paris to explain the arms drop to rebels in Libya's Western Mountains region. He says that if the incident is confirmed, it is a "flagrant violation" of a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed an arms embargo on Libya in February.
French ambassador to the United Nations Gerard Araud said Wednesday the arms drop complies with a separate Security Council resolution adopted in March, establishing a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians. He says the French weapons are meant to defend Libyan civilians from attack by Gadhafi's forces.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday the alliance has no involvement in the French arms drop. France is a part of the NATO mission that has been carrying out weeks of air strikes on Libyan government targets to pressure Gadhafi into giving up power.
The Libyan leader has been using his forces to fight a pro-democracy rebellion that erupted in February against his 42-year autocratic rule.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday that London is sending body armor, police uniforms and communications equipment to the Libyan rebels. He says the supplies include 5,000 sets of body armor, 6,650 police uniforms and 5,000 high-visibility vests.
Hague says the equipment will help Libya's opposition Transitional National Council to "better protect" rebel representatives and international aid communities in rebel-controlled areas.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman responded to a question about the French arms drop by calling on countries to avoid taking any action that goes beyond the mandate of the U.N. resolution authorizing the no-fly zone. China and Russia abstained from voting on that resolution.
French military spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said Wednesday that France air-dropped light weapons into the Jebel Nafusa region of western Libya, including machine guns and rocket launchers.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Russia: France May Have Violated UN Arms Embargo on Libya
June 30, 2011
VOA News
A rebel fighter sitting in a captured Gadhafi forces truck with a mounted weapon is received by comrades occupying high ground overlooking the town of Bir Ghanam, 100 km (62 miles) south of Tripoli, June 30, 2011..Russia says France may have violated a U.N. arms embargo on Libya by air-dropping weapons to rebels fighting troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi earlier this month.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday Moscow has asked Paris to explain the arms drop to rebels in Libya's Western Mountains region. He says that if the incident is confirmed, it is a "flagrant violation" of a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed an arms embargo on Libya in February.
French ambassador to the United Nations Gerard Araud said Wednesday the arms drop complies with a separate Security Council resolution adopted in March, establishing a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians. He says the French weapons are meant to defend Libyan civilians from attack by Gadhafi's forces.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday the alliance has no involvement in the French arms drop. France is a part of the NATO mission that has been carrying out weeks of air strikes on Libyan government targets to pressure Gadhafi into giving up power.
The Libyan leader has been using his forces to fight a pro-democracy rebellion that erupted in February against his 42-year autocratic rule.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday that London is sending body armor, police uniforms and communications equipment to the Libyan rebels. He says the supplies include 5,000 sets of body armor, 6,650 police uniforms and 5,000 high-visibility vests.
Hague says the equipment will help Libya's opposition Transitional National Council to "better protect" rebel representatives and international aid communities in rebel-controlled areas.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman responded to a question about the French arms drop by calling on countries to avoid taking any action that goes beyond the mandate of the U.N. resolution authorizing the no-fly zone. China and Russia abstained from voting on that resolution.
French military spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said Wednesday that France air-dropped light weapons into the Jebel Nafusa region of western Libya, including machine guns and rocket launchers.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
THE WORLD_ Scientists reveal asteroid hit-list
Scientists reveal asteroid hit-list
AGENCIES
June 30, 2011, 6:57 am
•Space rock dangers
Days after a near hit from an asteroid, scientists have revealed where would be worst affected by an asteroid strike.
Scientists have released a list of countries they say would be worst affected by an asteroid strike - as a piece of space rock about the size of a large garbage truck hurtled past Earth two days ago.
China tops the list because of its sheer size and population, but others in the top ten include Indonesia, Japan, the US, the Philippines, Italy, Britain, Brazil and Nigeria.
The list has been compiled by researchers from the Britain's University of Southampton.
Countries which face devastation to infrastructure are Canada, the US, China, Japan and Sweden.
"The threat of Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by humanity," Nick Bailey, of the University of Southampton, told The Daily Mail Newspaper.
"The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a result of an impact are enormous.
"Nearly one hundred years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object (approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air.
"While it only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could have devastated everything within the M25.
"Our results highlight those countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in mitigating the threat.’
The latest "near miss" occurred on Monday when a chunk of space rock measuring five to 20 meters in diameter, followed the same near-Earth path that scientists had earlier predicted, looping around the planet in a boomerang-shaped trajectory.
Its nearest approach took it times farther away than the International Space Station, which orbits the planet at a distance of 400km.
An object about the same size as Monday's near-Earth asteroid, designated by scientists as 2011 MD, zips past the planet at about the same distance every six years.
Even if an asteroid the size of 2011 MD ever entered the Earth's atmosphere, it would likely burn up and cause no damage to the planet, according to NASA.
Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter
AGENCIES
June 30, 2011, 6:57 am
•Space rock dangers
Days after a near hit from an asteroid, scientists have revealed where would be worst affected by an asteroid strike.
Scientists have released a list of countries they say would be worst affected by an asteroid strike - as a piece of space rock about the size of a large garbage truck hurtled past Earth two days ago.
China tops the list because of its sheer size and population, but others in the top ten include Indonesia, Japan, the US, the Philippines, Italy, Britain, Brazil and Nigeria.
The list has been compiled by researchers from the Britain's University of Southampton.
Countries which face devastation to infrastructure are Canada, the US, China, Japan and Sweden.
"The threat of Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by humanity," Nick Bailey, of the University of Southampton, told The Daily Mail Newspaper.
"The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a result of an impact are enormous.
"Nearly one hundred years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object (approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air.
"While it only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could have devastated everything within the M25.
"Our results highlight those countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in mitigating the threat.’
The latest "near miss" occurred on Monday when a chunk of space rock measuring five to 20 meters in diameter, followed the same near-Earth path that scientists had earlier predicted, looping around the planet in a boomerang-shaped trajectory.
Its nearest approach took it times farther away than the International Space Station, which orbits the planet at a distance of 400km.
An object about the same size as Monday's near-Earth asteroid, designated by scientists as 2011 MD, zips past the planet at about the same distance every six years.
Even if an asteroid the size of 2011 MD ever entered the Earth's atmosphere, it would likely burn up and cause no damage to the planet, according to NASA.
Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter
INTERNATIONAL_ Aust dollar hits 26yr high against pound
Topics:International Australian Dollar & Currency News.
On Thursday 30 June 2011, 17:06 EST
Aust dollar hits 26yr high against pound
•New high for Aussie dollar
The dollar has hit a 26-year high against the pound making it one of the strongest performing economies.
The Australian dollar has surged to a 26-year high against the pound, as fears of a possible Greek default ease.
CMC foreign exchange dealer Tim Waterer said the Aussie dollar was one of the strongest performing currencies on Thursday, after encouraging news that Greece's parliament had passed a key cost cutting package.
"(It was) a pretty remarkable rebound, really, when you look at the course of events this week," Mr Waterer said.
Greek politicians voted overnight for a package to slash 28.4 billion euros ($A38.9 billion) from government spending by 2015.
It was the first of a two-part vote aimed at unlocking emergency finance from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The second vote is on Thursday.
The Australian dollar rose to 66.68 pence on Thursday, the highest level since 1985.
Against the US dollar the Australian dollar rose to a three-week high 107.46 US cents.
The Australian dollar also rose against the euro and yen.
78 comments
On Thursday 30 June 2011, 17:06 EST
Aust dollar hits 26yr high against pound
•New high for Aussie dollar
The dollar has hit a 26-year high against the pound making it one of the strongest performing economies.
The Australian dollar has surged to a 26-year high against the pound, as fears of a possible Greek default ease.
CMC foreign exchange dealer Tim Waterer said the Aussie dollar was one of the strongest performing currencies on Thursday, after encouraging news that Greece's parliament had passed a key cost cutting package.
"(It was) a pretty remarkable rebound, really, when you look at the course of events this week," Mr Waterer said.
Greek politicians voted overnight for a package to slash 28.4 billion euros ($A38.9 billion) from government spending by 2015.
It was the first of a two-part vote aimed at unlocking emergency finance from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The second vote is on Thursday.
The Australian dollar rose to 66.68 pence on Thursday, the highest level since 1985.
Against the US dollar the Australian dollar rose to a three-week high 107.46 US cents.
The Australian dollar also rose against the euro and yen.
78 comments
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
WORLD_ Nato reviews Libya campaign after France admits arming rebels
Nato reviews Libya campaign after France admits arming rebels
French defence chiefs admit providing weapons for push on Tripoli in apparent defiance of UN mandate
Share83
Nick Hopkins
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 June 2011 19.24 BST
Article history
New Libyan rebel recruits train near Benghazi. France today admitted arming rebels in partsof the country, in apparent defiance of the UN mandate Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS
Nato was today urgently reviewing the conduct of its military campaign in Libya after France admitted arming rebel fighters in apparent defiance of the UN mandate.
The revelation surprised officials in Nato's headquarters in Brussels and raised awkward questions about whether the French had broken international law – UN resolution 1973 specifically allows Nato nations to protect civilians in Libya, but appears to stop short of permitting the provision of weapons.
Nato has consistently said it would not provide arms to rebel commanders, saying it was beyond its remit. But that pledge came under scrutiny after military chiefs in Paris confirmed that French planes had dropped machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles to rebels in the western Nafusa mountains.
A report in Le Figaro said the French had parachuted "large amounts" of munitions to help the rebel push on the capital Tripoli earlier this month.
This was confirmed by the armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard. He said the French had initially provided humanitarian aid including water, food and medical supplies to civilians in the region who were under seige from regime forces.
"There were humanitarian drops because the humanitarian situation was worsening and at one point it seemed the security situation was threatening civilians who could not defend themselves," Burkhard told Reuters.
"France therefore also sent equipment allowing them to defend themselves, comprising light weapons and munitions." The munitions were "self-defence" assets, he said.
It appears France did not inform any of its Nato allies about the weapons drop, or Nato headquarters, where officials were today desperately seeking clarification from Paris about exactly what it had done and why.
Nato was also trying to establish what legal basis France had for taking this apparently unilateral action. Officials expressed surprise over what had happened and insisted its military approach had not changed.
"Nato knows what its mission is and that the mandate allows certain things," said a source.
France's admission highlights tensions within Nato over the conduct of the campaign, and will raise new questions over whether the coalition should be doing more to hasten Gaddafi's downfall.
Some countries are privately likely to welcome any sign of a more pro-active effort to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
The Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has previously claimed that the UN resolution should not prohibit providing weapons to the rebels, saying this could be "morally justified."
In a further sign of growing frustration, the Dutch defence minister Hans Hillen today criticised the Nato campaign, saying those allies who had thought bombing would force Muammar Gaddafi to step down "naive". He also insisted that Nato's mission should be confined to its mandate to protect civilians.
"If it changes into driving out a dictator, then the question is whether Nato should accept this as a new task. Libya is too big and all the military goals too big. The solution should be a political solution."
The Ministry of Defence said British forces had not supplied any weapons to to the rebels, though the foreign office admitted the UN resolution could be interpreted in different ways by different countries.
"Our position is clear," a spokesman said. "There is an arms embargo in Libya. At the same time, UN resolution 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populations from the threat of attack. We think that the UN resolution allows in certain limited circumstances defensive weapons to be provided. But the UK is not engaged in that. Other countries will interpret the resolution in their own way."
The rebels are known to have received some arms from Qatar. But speaking on Tuesday, after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and rebel chief Mahmoud Jibril, National Transitional Council Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said it had not asked for any further military assistance.
___________
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Theo các anh chị, việc Pháp "arming rebels" có phải "had broken international law " ???
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Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
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Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
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Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
French defence chiefs admit providing weapons for push on Tripoli in apparent defiance of UN mandate
Share83
Nick Hopkins
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 June 2011 19.24 BST
Article history
New Libyan rebel recruits train near Benghazi. France today admitted arming rebels in partsof the country, in apparent defiance of the UN mandate Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS
Nato was today urgently reviewing the conduct of its military campaign in Libya after France admitted arming rebel fighters in apparent defiance of the UN mandate.
The revelation surprised officials in Nato's headquarters in Brussels and raised awkward questions about whether the French had broken international law – UN resolution 1973 specifically allows Nato nations to protect civilians in Libya, but appears to stop short of permitting the provision of weapons.
Nato has consistently said it would not provide arms to rebel commanders, saying it was beyond its remit. But that pledge came under scrutiny after military chiefs in Paris confirmed that French planes had dropped machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles to rebels in the western Nafusa mountains.
A report in Le Figaro said the French had parachuted "large amounts" of munitions to help the rebel push on the capital Tripoli earlier this month.
This was confirmed by the armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard. He said the French had initially provided humanitarian aid including water, food and medical supplies to civilians in the region who were under seige from regime forces.
"There were humanitarian drops because the humanitarian situation was worsening and at one point it seemed the security situation was threatening civilians who could not defend themselves," Burkhard told Reuters.
"France therefore also sent equipment allowing them to defend themselves, comprising light weapons and munitions." The munitions were "self-defence" assets, he said.
It appears France did not inform any of its Nato allies about the weapons drop, or Nato headquarters, where officials were today desperately seeking clarification from Paris about exactly what it had done and why.
Nato was also trying to establish what legal basis France had for taking this apparently unilateral action. Officials expressed surprise over what had happened and insisted its military approach had not changed.
"Nato knows what its mission is and that the mandate allows certain things," said a source.
France's admission highlights tensions within Nato over the conduct of the campaign, and will raise new questions over whether the coalition should be doing more to hasten Gaddafi's downfall.
Some countries are privately likely to welcome any sign of a more pro-active effort to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
The Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has previously claimed that the UN resolution should not prohibit providing weapons to the rebels, saying this could be "morally justified."
In a further sign of growing frustration, the Dutch defence minister Hans Hillen today criticised the Nato campaign, saying those allies who had thought bombing would force Muammar Gaddafi to step down "naive". He also insisted that Nato's mission should be confined to its mandate to protect civilians.
"If it changes into driving out a dictator, then the question is whether Nato should accept this as a new task. Libya is too big and all the military goals too big. The solution should be a political solution."
The Ministry of Defence said British forces had not supplied any weapons to to the rebels, though the foreign office admitted the UN resolution could be interpreted in different ways by different countries.
"Our position is clear," a spokesman said. "There is an arms embargo in Libya. At the same time, UN resolution 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populations from the threat of attack. We think that the UN resolution allows in certain limited circumstances defensive weapons to be provided. But the UK is not engaged in that. Other countries will interpret the resolution in their own way."
The rebels are known to have received some arms from Qatar. But speaking on Tuesday, after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and rebel chief Mahmoud Jibril, National Transitional Council Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said it had not asked for any further military assistance.
___________
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào về "Nato reviews Libya campaign after France admits arming rebels" ?
Theo các anh chị, việc Pháp "arming rebels" có phải "had broken international law " ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Ý Kiến Thảo Luận qua bài viết "Gaddafi warrants expose the limits of global justice"
Gaddafi warrants expose the limits of global justice
Gerry Simpson
June 29, 2011 - 10:20AM
A man walks past caricatures of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (left) and his son Saif near a courthouse in Benghazi1. Photo: Reuters
Many Western officials have hailed the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son, Saif and his intelligence chief Abdualla Al-Senussi for crimes against humanity as a breakthrough in the war against Libya's leader.
It also has been described as a great advance for international criminal justice, but while the warrants themselves contain some surprises, the move has two great dangers — for the Libyan people and for the ICC.
The discredited Gaddafi regime is threatened on three fronts — the rebels appear to be closing in on Tripoli, the NATO airstrikes continue and now legal proceedings have started over the regime's response to the rebel uprising.
The warrants are based on information documenting a pattern of attacks on civilians by the Libyan armed forces, Gaddafi's security forces and mercenaries fighting on behalf of the regime. They paint a predictably grim picture of a regime intent on punishing resistance to Gaddafi's rule. But the warrants contain some surprises. There is no reference to war crimes, for example. This suggests that the ICC chief prosecutor may not have believed that the rebel uprising and accompanying repression reached the level of intensity required under the legal definition of "war". In any event, the result is that the warrants seriously underplay the existence of an armed rebellion in eastern Libya (indeed I could find no reference at all to this rather significant feature of the situation).
It is striking, too, that the court has sought the arrest of Gaddafi's son. For some years, Saif Gaddafi, a darling of the West, has been the respectable, modernising face of Libya. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and has been making the right noises about reform and democracy for many years. Human Rights Watch reports suggest, too, that any improvements in the treatment of citizens may have been attributable partly to him. His inclusion in the warrant, then, effectively ends any hope of a Gaddafi-led transition to a more decent form of government.
The issuing of the arrest warrants also carries dangers for the Libyan people — it may prolong the war by deterring the Gaddafis from voluntarily giving up power. Indeed, the warrants close off some escape routes for Colonel Gaddafi. Some of the countries (for example. Venezuela) to which he might flee are now barred by their international obligations from giving him sanctuary. Of course, the ICC move may encourage further defections from his regime and hasten its end but there is no guarantee of this.
Another danger is that these arrest warrants may diminish the credibility of the ICC. It is not the ICC's fault that British Foreign Secretary William Hague expresses delight with its decisions but the result might be a growing perception that the court (for all its recent achievements in Africa) has become the judicial arm of NATO and that judicial interventions fall meekly into line with Western military interventions. And, after all, there was no sustained call for international criminal trials while Gaddafi was committing serious and systematic cruelties on his own people before the recent rebellion and during the period of his decade-long rehabilitation. All this may give the impression that international criminal law is for enemies of the Western powers. In the light of this, the ICC still needs to prove that it is a global court whose laws are applicable to friends and enemies.
But perhaps this is all part of a much deeper problem for international criminal justice and one that the ICC (given the rules it operates under) will find difficult to confront: namely that international criminal justice is embedded in a system of governance that forecloses the prosecution of officials of the great powers (in particular the US, Britain, China, Russia and France). Not a single official from one of these states has been indicted before an international criminal court since 1945. From this perspective, the Libyan arrest warrants look like business as usual.
Professor Gerry Simpson holds a Chair of Law at Melbourne Law School and is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.
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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gaddafi-warrants-expose-the-limits-of-global-justice-20110629-1gpt1.html#ixzz1Qf0gi3Gl
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19 comments so far
You gotta laugh, Bush and Blair bomb and kill thousands based on false information and not only get away with it, make money by writing books on their criminal behaviour and travelling the world giving speeches.
If this Gaddafi man is so bad why has he spent 25 billion on a water pipeline for the people to pump fossil water from an ocean of fresh water deep below the desert ? This will make Libya self sufficient in food and no need for expensive distillation plants that turn sea water into drinking water.The pipeline has taken 5 years build.
If he is so bad why does he provide free health care, education and subsidised housing ? Why do Libyans enjoy the highest standard of living and life expectancy in Africa, equivalent to the Western world ? Libyan debt is 3% of GDP, US debt is 90%. Is this a bad thing to run your country at very low debt levels ?
Gaddafi made the mistake of using the Libyan resources to improve his peoples standard of living.The IMF do not want any country self sufficient, and are against Muslim countries/banks because they do not charge interest.
Why are they in Libya ?
They want a private usury Central Bank to fleece the place. End of story.
What was the first thing the 'freedom fighting' rebels do of course, set up a Central Bank. Now, who do you think are funding those rebels ?
street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM
Perfectly put street professor.
together | japan - June 29, 2011, 11:35AM
That's not the way the world works street professor. Possibly get a post grad uni degree and you'll realise the ways of the world, and stop preaching your street views
James | GAP Year - June 29, 2011, 11:35AM
Excellent article. It is becoming more apparent that the ICC is run by western governments for western governments. Otherwise we would see warrants issued for George W Bush and Mr Cheney and Mr Blair and co. NATO has already admitted killing civilians in Libya in a conflict that has not been declared as a war, so where is the ICC in this area? do they agree that certain NATO countries have committed acts against humanity, or are we to believe that only those who are perpetrated by the western media as culpable, matter to the ICC?
You cannot instil faith in a judicial system, where that system would seem to be turning a blind eye to the actions of some, but choosing to pursue action onto others. And yet that is what the ICC has done.
jonjo | Sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:36AM
I can only criticise the writer's moderation, then again in the Australian university system to go after the western imperial world government institutions, trumped up R2P bogus international law revisionism and imperial aggression, or people like the International Crisis Group's Gareth "Biggles" Evans or some ICC supporting jurist or an out of control foreign minister is career limiting or "brave" in public service speak. So good luck Gerry we'll be watching.
And for the others, here is what the commander of US forces Admiral Mullen and Defence Secretary Robert Gates had to say in response to questions of whether Ghaddafi had killed civilians "we've seen no confirmation whatsoever". Fat lot of good that restraint did, they went straight in.
And remember Moreno announcing off cuff that the Gaddafi's would be prosecuted for supplying drugs for troops to use to rape civilians. Where was the resignation when he was proved an idiot who doesn't observe any rule of evidence? And where did the real psychedelic drugs turn up?
Crime under international law of Westphalian derivation is committed when the ICC pulls incentivised witnesses out of conflict theatres in order to lay charges against leaders of regimes that the west wants to overthrow by any means. In every instance more civilians get killed than would otherwise if not for intelligence led operations and insurgencies that launched the conflicts from abroad. This applies to all the "pet" R2P justifiers like Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo etc.
ciao - June 29, 2011, 12:27PM
Can any one image what would have taken place if Hitler had been arrested and tried on an ICC warrant instead of the war continuing and millions of jews being killed?
If Gadaffi has lost his opportunity to flee to other countries, is that not good? He can only stand trial instead of seeking refuge.
The ICC has yet to stretch its wings. Let it do its job.
@ street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM hasn't the ICC already had Gaddafi's and his families bank accounts around the world frozen? With billions of dollars in those accounts? And what about real estate Gaddafi and his family have bought around the world?
A dollar for the people and ten dollars for the Gaddafi family is not a country benefiting from its existing rule. Oh, I don't know actual figures. The dollar for ten dollars is an example and nothing more.
cb - June 29, 2011, 12:33PM
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I understood the difference to be that George W Bush and Mr Cheney and Mr Blair ordered that civilian casualties (collateral damage) were to be avoided or minimised. They never allowed civilians to be primary targets but Muammar and Saif Gaddafi are accused of ordering civilians to be primary targets as well as other atrocities. I do not know the law here but from a legal perspective is that a reasonably large difference?
peteg3 | sydney - June 29, 2011, 12:34PM
Below find UK's Daily Telegraph on the line in the UN security council resolution regarding ICC prosecutions that creates impunity for the actions of all non ICC signatory foreign aggressors in the Libyan conflict theatre whether in uniform or covert.
quoteThe key paragraph said that anyone from a non-ICC country alleged to have committed crimes in Libya would "be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction" of their own country. It was inserted despite Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, saying that all those "who slaughter civilians" would "be held personally accountable".
Speaking to reporters outside the council chamber, Gerard Araud, the French UN ambassador, described the paragraph as "a red line for the United States", meaning American diplomats had been ordered by their bosses in Washington to secure it. "It was a deal-breaker, and that's the reason we accepted this text to have the unanimity of the council," said Mr Araud.
unquote
Of coarse the pro establishment Tele coloured it by talking about Ghaddafi's African mercenaries who turned out to be regulars or just black gust workers that the racist Benghazi's were stringing up on sight at the time and needed a justification for their actions.
Players call it law. The law of the jungle.
For antijihad, you know those Coptics you are so concerned about in Egypt? Yes that was an Israeli-American spy held for cultivating with cash the same sort of jihadi wahhabist as in Libya to attack those so dear to your heart.
ciao - June 29, 2011, 1:00PM
@ street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM hasn't the ICC already had Gaddafi's and his families bank accounts around the world frozen? With billions of dollars in those accounts? And what about real estate Gaddafi and his family have bought around the world?
A dollar for the people and ten dollars for the Gaddafi family is not a country benefiting from its existing rule. Oh, I don't know actual figures. The dollar for ten dollars is an example and nothing more.
cb - June 29, 2011, 12:33PM
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You don't think Western leaders benefit from leading their countries ? You realise the links between western politicians and the banking, oil and arms industries ?
Majority of the money that has been "frozen" belongs to the Libyan Investment Fund (LIA), which is a sovereign wealth.funds, and therefore holds assets on behalf of the nation it represents. A sovereign wealth fund, by its very nature, can not serve to hide personal fortunes.
The ones who should be made accountable of robbery are the US and the EU, who have diverted each, respectively, 32 billion $ and 45 billion euros, belonging to the Libyan people, under the pretext of "freezing Gaddafi's money".
The board of trustees managing the LIA is composed of Libyan officials / list available on Internet. There is no Gaddafi family member among them. This initiative to "fund the resistance" is nothing but pillage and plunder
street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 1:09PM
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Các anh chị có ý kiến, phê bình gì qua bài viết "Gaddafi warrants expose the limits of global justice" và một số ý kiến phê binh trên của đọc giả ???
Những tên độc tài đã từng nhúng tay vào MÁU của thường dân dù là dân của nước họ hay bất cứ dân của nước nào khác CŨNG PHẢI ĐỀN TỘI.
Các anh chị có suy nghĩ gì về sự tồn tại trên ngai vàng của độc tài Gadhafi trên đầu người dân Libya, có phải tự bản thân độc tài Gadhafi có khả năng "thống trị" người dân Gadhafi hay đã được "nuôi dưỡng" bởi những thế lực nào khác trên thế giới ???
Và đâu là nguyên nhân chính đưa độc tài Gadhafi đến kết cuộc ngày hôm nay ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Gerry Simpson
June 29, 2011 - 10:20AM
A man walks past caricatures of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (left) and his son Saif near a courthouse in Benghazi1. Photo: Reuters
Many Western officials have hailed the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son, Saif and his intelligence chief Abdualla Al-Senussi for crimes against humanity as a breakthrough in the war against Libya's leader.
It also has been described as a great advance for international criminal justice, but while the warrants themselves contain some surprises, the move has two great dangers — for the Libyan people and for the ICC.
The discredited Gaddafi regime is threatened on three fronts — the rebels appear to be closing in on Tripoli, the NATO airstrikes continue and now legal proceedings have started over the regime's response to the rebel uprising.
The warrants are based on information documenting a pattern of attacks on civilians by the Libyan armed forces, Gaddafi's security forces and mercenaries fighting on behalf of the regime. They paint a predictably grim picture of a regime intent on punishing resistance to Gaddafi's rule. But the warrants contain some surprises. There is no reference to war crimes, for example. This suggests that the ICC chief prosecutor may not have believed that the rebel uprising and accompanying repression reached the level of intensity required under the legal definition of "war". In any event, the result is that the warrants seriously underplay the existence of an armed rebellion in eastern Libya (indeed I could find no reference at all to this rather significant feature of the situation).
It is striking, too, that the court has sought the arrest of Gaddafi's son. For some years, Saif Gaddafi, a darling of the West, has been the respectable, modernising face of Libya. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and has been making the right noises about reform and democracy for many years. Human Rights Watch reports suggest, too, that any improvements in the treatment of citizens may have been attributable partly to him. His inclusion in the warrant, then, effectively ends any hope of a Gaddafi-led transition to a more decent form of government.
The issuing of the arrest warrants also carries dangers for the Libyan people — it may prolong the war by deterring the Gaddafis from voluntarily giving up power. Indeed, the warrants close off some escape routes for Colonel Gaddafi. Some of the countries (for example. Venezuela) to which he might flee are now barred by their international obligations from giving him sanctuary. Of course, the ICC move may encourage further defections from his regime and hasten its end but there is no guarantee of this.
Another danger is that these arrest warrants may diminish the credibility of the ICC. It is not the ICC's fault that British Foreign Secretary William Hague expresses delight with its decisions but the result might be a growing perception that the court (for all its recent achievements in Africa) has become the judicial arm of NATO and that judicial interventions fall meekly into line with Western military interventions. And, after all, there was no sustained call for international criminal trials while Gaddafi was committing serious and systematic cruelties on his own people before the recent rebellion and during the period of his decade-long rehabilitation. All this may give the impression that international criminal law is for enemies of the Western powers. In the light of this, the ICC still needs to prove that it is a global court whose laws are applicable to friends and enemies.
But perhaps this is all part of a much deeper problem for international criminal justice and one that the ICC (given the rules it operates under) will find difficult to confront: namely that international criminal justice is embedded in a system of governance that forecloses the prosecution of officials of the great powers (in particular the US, Britain, China, Russia and France). Not a single official from one of these states has been indicted before an international criminal court since 1945. From this perspective, the Libyan arrest warrants look like business as usual.
Professor Gerry Simpson holds a Chair of Law at Melbourne Law School and is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.
Follow the National Times on Twitter:
@NationalTimesAU
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gaddafi-warrants-expose-the-limits-of-global-justice-20110629-1gpt1.html#ixzz1Qf0gi3Gl
***
19 comments so far
You gotta laugh, Bush and Blair bomb and kill thousands based on false information and not only get away with it, make money by writing books on their criminal behaviour and travelling the world giving speeches.
If this Gaddafi man is so bad why has he spent 25 billion on a water pipeline for the people to pump fossil water from an ocean of fresh water deep below the desert ? This will make Libya self sufficient in food and no need for expensive distillation plants that turn sea water into drinking water.The pipeline has taken 5 years build.
If he is so bad why does he provide free health care, education and subsidised housing ? Why do Libyans enjoy the highest standard of living and life expectancy in Africa, equivalent to the Western world ? Libyan debt is 3% of GDP, US debt is 90%. Is this a bad thing to run your country at very low debt levels ?
Gaddafi made the mistake of using the Libyan resources to improve his peoples standard of living.The IMF do not want any country self sufficient, and are against Muslim countries/banks because they do not charge interest.
Why are they in Libya ?
They want a private usury Central Bank to fleece the place. End of story.
What was the first thing the 'freedom fighting' rebels do of course, set up a Central Bank. Now, who do you think are funding those rebels ?
street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM
Perfectly put street professor.
together | japan - June 29, 2011, 11:35AM
That's not the way the world works street professor. Possibly get a post grad uni degree and you'll realise the ways of the world, and stop preaching your street views
James | GAP Year - June 29, 2011, 11:35AM
Excellent article. It is becoming more apparent that the ICC is run by western governments for western governments. Otherwise we would see warrants issued for George W Bush and Mr Cheney and Mr Blair and co. NATO has already admitted killing civilians in Libya in a conflict that has not been declared as a war, so where is the ICC in this area? do they agree that certain NATO countries have committed acts against humanity, or are we to believe that only those who are perpetrated by the western media as culpable, matter to the ICC?
You cannot instil faith in a judicial system, where that system would seem to be turning a blind eye to the actions of some, but choosing to pursue action onto others. And yet that is what the ICC has done.
jonjo | Sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:36AM
I can only criticise the writer's moderation, then again in the Australian university system to go after the western imperial world government institutions, trumped up R2P bogus international law revisionism and imperial aggression, or people like the International Crisis Group's Gareth "Biggles" Evans or some ICC supporting jurist or an out of control foreign minister is career limiting or "brave" in public service speak. So good luck Gerry we'll be watching.
And for the others, here is what the commander of US forces Admiral Mullen and Defence Secretary Robert Gates had to say in response to questions of whether Ghaddafi had killed civilians "we've seen no confirmation whatsoever". Fat lot of good that restraint did, they went straight in.
And remember Moreno announcing off cuff that the Gaddafi's would be prosecuted for supplying drugs for troops to use to rape civilians. Where was the resignation when he was proved an idiot who doesn't observe any rule of evidence? And where did the real psychedelic drugs turn up?
Crime under international law of Westphalian derivation is committed when the ICC pulls incentivised witnesses out of conflict theatres in order to lay charges against leaders of regimes that the west wants to overthrow by any means. In every instance more civilians get killed than would otherwise if not for intelligence led operations and insurgencies that launched the conflicts from abroad. This applies to all the "pet" R2P justifiers like Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo etc.
ciao - June 29, 2011, 12:27PM
Can any one image what would have taken place if Hitler had been arrested and tried on an ICC warrant instead of the war continuing and millions of jews being killed?
If Gadaffi has lost his opportunity to flee to other countries, is that not good? He can only stand trial instead of seeking refuge.
The ICC has yet to stretch its wings. Let it do its job.
@ street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM hasn't the ICC already had Gaddafi's and his families bank accounts around the world frozen? With billions of dollars in those accounts? And what about real estate Gaddafi and his family have bought around the world?
A dollar for the people and ten dollars for the Gaddafi family is not a country benefiting from its existing rule. Oh, I don't know actual figures. The dollar for ten dollars is an example and nothing more.
cb - June 29, 2011, 12:33PM
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I understood the difference to be that George W Bush and Mr Cheney and Mr Blair ordered that civilian casualties (collateral damage) were to be avoided or minimised. They never allowed civilians to be primary targets but Muammar and Saif Gaddafi are accused of ordering civilians to be primary targets as well as other atrocities. I do not know the law here but from a legal perspective is that a reasonably large difference?
peteg3 | sydney - June 29, 2011, 12:34PM
Below find UK's Daily Telegraph on the line in the UN security council resolution regarding ICC prosecutions that creates impunity for the actions of all non ICC signatory foreign aggressors in the Libyan conflict theatre whether in uniform or covert.
quoteThe key paragraph said that anyone from a non-ICC country alleged to have committed crimes in Libya would "be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction" of their own country. It was inserted despite Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, saying that all those "who slaughter civilians" would "be held personally accountable".
Speaking to reporters outside the council chamber, Gerard Araud, the French UN ambassador, described the paragraph as "a red line for the United States", meaning American diplomats had been ordered by their bosses in Washington to secure it. "It was a deal-breaker, and that's the reason we accepted this text to have the unanimity of the council," said Mr Araud.
unquote
Of coarse the pro establishment Tele coloured it by talking about Ghaddafi's African mercenaries who turned out to be regulars or just black gust workers that the racist Benghazi's were stringing up on sight at the time and needed a justification for their actions.
Players call it law. The law of the jungle.
For antijihad, you know those Coptics you are so concerned about in Egypt? Yes that was an Israeli-American spy held for cultivating with cash the same sort of jihadi wahhabist as in Libya to attack those so dear to your heart.
ciao - June 29, 2011, 1:00PM
@ street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 11:21AM hasn't the ICC already had Gaddafi's and his families bank accounts around the world frozen? With billions of dollars in those accounts? And what about real estate Gaddafi and his family have bought around the world?
A dollar for the people and ten dollars for the Gaddafi family is not a country benefiting from its existing rule. Oh, I don't know actual figures. The dollar for ten dollars is an example and nothing more.
cb - June 29, 2011, 12:33PM
___________
You don't think Western leaders benefit from leading their countries ? You realise the links between western politicians and the banking, oil and arms industries ?
Majority of the money that has been "frozen" belongs to the Libyan Investment Fund (LIA), which is a sovereign wealth.funds, and therefore holds assets on behalf of the nation it represents. A sovereign wealth fund, by its very nature, can not serve to hide personal fortunes.
The ones who should be made accountable of robbery are the US and the EU, who have diverted each, respectively, 32 billion $ and 45 billion euros, belonging to the Libyan people, under the pretext of "freezing Gaddafi's money".
The board of trustees managing the LIA is composed of Libyan officials / list available on Internet. There is no Gaddafi family member among them. This initiative to "fund the resistance" is nothing but pillage and plunder
street professor | sydney - June 29, 2011, 1:09PM
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_____________
Các anh chị có ý kiến, phê bình gì qua bài viết "Gaddafi warrants expose the limits of global justice" và một số ý kiến phê binh trên của đọc giả ???
Những tên độc tài đã từng nhúng tay vào MÁU của thường dân dù là dân của nước họ hay bất cứ dân của nước nào khác CŨNG PHẢI ĐỀN TỘI.
Các anh chị có suy nghĩ gì về sự tồn tại trên ngai vàng của độc tài Gadhafi trên đầu người dân Libya, có phải tự bản thân độc tài Gadhafi có khả năng "thống trị" người dân Gadhafi hay đã được "nuôi dưỡng" bởi những thế lực nào khác trên thế giới ???
Và đâu là nguyên nhân chính đưa độc tài Gadhafi đến kết cuộc ngày hôm nay ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Libya blasts 'political court' over ICC arrest warrants
First Published: 2011-06-28
Libya blasts 'political court' over ICC arrest warrants
Gathafi regime says ICC ruling 'cover for NATO' as Libyan rebels see 'justice had been done'.
By Jan Hennop - THE HAGUE
Gathafi had ordered the shooting of civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers
The International Criminal Court issued a war crimes arrest warrant for Libya's Moamer Gathafi as Tripoli dismissed the ruling saying the court had no authority and was a tool of Western powers.
But Monday's move was hailed by rights bodies and the West on the 100th day of a NATO bombing campaign.
Libya rejected the warrants issued for Gathafi, 69, his son Seif al-Islam, 39, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, 62, for atrocities committed in a bloody uprising that began mid-February.
The ruling is a "cover for NATO which is still trying to assassinate Gathafi", said Libya's justice minister, Mohammed al-Gamudi.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said the ICC "functions as a European foreign policy vehicle.
"It is a political court which serves its European paymasters," he said, adding: "Our own courts will deal with any human rights abuses and other crimes committed in the course of conflict in Libya."
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought the warrants as thousands died in fighting and an estimated 650,000 people fled the country with Gathafi clinging to power despite NATO strikes easing the siege of key rebel cities.
The Libyan government said Monday that a luxury bus parked at the leader's Tripoli residence had been destroyed in the latest of the raids, which started on March 19.
The White House hailed the ICC warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, describing the move as "another indication" that Gathafi has lost all legitimacy.
Britain, another leading member of the UN-mandated effort to protect civilians against Gathafi's forces, also welcomed the decision. "Individuals throughout the regime should abandon Gathafi," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the warrant "confirms that the question is not whether Gathafi should leave power, but when he will leave power".
The ICC said the three men were wanted for their roles in suppressing the revolt, in which civilians were murdered and persecuted by Libyan forces, particularly in Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata.
Al-Gamudi noted that his country was not a signatory to the tribunal's founding Rome Statute, and "does not accept the jurisdiction of the court".
The only other warrant issued by the court for a sitting head of state, for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in March 2009, has yet to be executed. Bashir on Tuesday began a state visit to China, which is also not a signatory of the statute.
The head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, told a news conference in the rebel capital of Benghazi that "justice had been done".
In The Hague, rebel justice minister Mohammed Al-Allagy told reporters outside the ICC: "We are going to arrest them."
Al-Allagy said: "First arrest them, we will decide afterwards where to prosecute them."
In his submission, Moreno-Ocampo said Gathafi had a personal hand in planning and implementing "a policy of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and demonstrators and dissidents in particular".
"Gathafi's plan expressly included the use of lethal force against demonstrators and dissidents," the prosecutor contended.
The Libyan strongman ordered the shooting of civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers, said the submission, and his forces carried out a systematic campaign of arrest and detention of alleged dissidents.
"Gathafi's plans were carried out through his inner circle, which included Seif al-Islam, Gathafi's de-facto prime minister and his brother-in-law al-Senussi, considered to be his right-hand man," the document said.
Moreno-Ocampo's investigation follows a referral by the United Nations Security Council on the Libyan conflict on February 26. The prosecutor's office launched its investigation five days later. On May 16, Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for the warrants.
The prosecutor will react to the decision at a press conference on Tuesday.
The ICC is the world's only permanent, treaty-based court set up to try those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if the accused's own country cannot or will not do so.
Michael Bochenek from Amnesty International said in a statement: "A failure to arrest and prosecute the accused men would send a disturbing message that such crimes can continue to be committed with impunity."
_____________
Các anh chị có ý kiến, nhận xét hay phê bình gì về bài viết "Libya blasts 'political court' over ICC arrest warrants" ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Libya blasts 'political court' over ICC arrest warrants
Gathafi regime says ICC ruling 'cover for NATO' as Libyan rebels see 'justice had been done'.
By Jan Hennop - THE HAGUE
Gathafi had ordered the shooting of civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers
The International Criminal Court issued a war crimes arrest warrant for Libya's Moamer Gathafi as Tripoli dismissed the ruling saying the court had no authority and was a tool of Western powers.
But Monday's move was hailed by rights bodies and the West on the 100th day of a NATO bombing campaign.
Libya rejected the warrants issued for Gathafi, 69, his son Seif al-Islam, 39, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, 62, for atrocities committed in a bloody uprising that began mid-February.
The ruling is a "cover for NATO which is still trying to assassinate Gathafi", said Libya's justice minister, Mohammed al-Gamudi.
Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said the ICC "functions as a European foreign policy vehicle.
"It is a political court which serves its European paymasters," he said, adding: "Our own courts will deal with any human rights abuses and other crimes committed in the course of conflict in Libya."
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought the warrants as thousands died in fighting and an estimated 650,000 people fled the country with Gathafi clinging to power despite NATO strikes easing the siege of key rebel cities.
The Libyan government said Monday that a luxury bus parked at the leader's Tripoli residence had been destroyed in the latest of the raids, which started on March 19.
The White House hailed the ICC warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, describing the move as "another indication" that Gathafi has lost all legitimacy.
Britain, another leading member of the UN-mandated effort to protect civilians against Gathafi's forces, also welcomed the decision. "Individuals throughout the regime should abandon Gathafi," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the warrant "confirms that the question is not whether Gathafi should leave power, but when he will leave power".
The ICC said the three men were wanted for their roles in suppressing the revolt, in which civilians were murdered and persecuted by Libyan forces, particularly in Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata.
Al-Gamudi noted that his country was not a signatory to the tribunal's founding Rome Statute, and "does not accept the jurisdiction of the court".
The only other warrant issued by the court for a sitting head of state, for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in March 2009, has yet to be executed. Bashir on Tuesday began a state visit to China, which is also not a signatory of the statute.
The head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, told a news conference in the rebel capital of Benghazi that "justice had been done".
In The Hague, rebel justice minister Mohammed Al-Allagy told reporters outside the ICC: "We are going to arrest them."
Al-Allagy said: "First arrest them, we will decide afterwards where to prosecute them."
In his submission, Moreno-Ocampo said Gathafi had a personal hand in planning and implementing "a policy of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and demonstrators and dissidents in particular".
"Gathafi's plan expressly included the use of lethal force against demonstrators and dissidents," the prosecutor contended.
The Libyan strongman ordered the shooting of civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers, said the submission, and his forces carried out a systematic campaign of arrest and detention of alleged dissidents.
"Gathafi's plans were carried out through his inner circle, which included Seif al-Islam, Gathafi's de-facto prime minister and his brother-in-law al-Senussi, considered to be his right-hand man," the document said.
Moreno-Ocampo's investigation follows a referral by the United Nations Security Council on the Libyan conflict on February 26. The prosecutor's office launched its investigation five days later. On May 16, Moreno-Ocampo asked the court for the warrants.
The prosecutor will react to the decision at a press conference on Tuesday.
The ICC is the world's only permanent, treaty-based court set up to try those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide if the accused's own country cannot or will not do so.
Michael Bochenek from Amnesty International said in a statement: "A failure to arrest and prosecute the accused men would send a disturbing message that such crimes can continue to be committed with impunity."
_____________
Các anh chị có ý kiến, nhận xét hay phê bình gì về bài viết "Libya blasts 'political court' over ICC arrest warrants" ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
THE WORLD_ 'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'
'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'
''Life exists on other planets''
A top astronomer says the human race will soon make contact with alien life.
The West Australian
June 29, 2011, 7:42 am
AP_ 'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'
A top Russian astronomer says humans will make contact with alien life in the next two decades - but "they may have different colour skin".
"Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years," Russian Academy Of Sciences Applied Astronomy Institute director Andrei Finkelstein said.
"The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms."
Ten per cent of known planets circling suns in the galaxy resembled Earth, so Mr Finkelstein said it was inevitable that life could be found there, The Sun has reported.
"At an international forum dedicated to the search for spacemen, he also said that aliens would most likely resemble humans, with two arms, two legs and a head," The Sun said.
"Finkelstein went on to say that he believes those looking for evidence of extra-terrestrial life have been doing it the wrong way.
"Most scientists searching have been scouring the galaxy for radio signals sent out by alien civilisations. He insists it should be us who should be making the contact with them and not the other way round."
Meantime this week an unexplained object was spotted flying over London.
Take a look at the video below.
Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter
______________
Các anh chị có tin "'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'" ?
Và gần đây có nhiều người đã "nhấp nhổm" về tin "Tận Thế", các anh chị có từng "tin" qua ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
''Life exists on other planets''
A top astronomer says the human race will soon make contact with alien life.
The West Australian
June 29, 2011, 7:42 am
AP_ 'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'
A top Russian astronomer says humans will make contact with alien life in the next two decades - but "they may have different colour skin".
"Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years," Russian Academy Of Sciences Applied Astronomy Institute director Andrei Finkelstein said.
"The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms."
Ten per cent of known planets circling suns in the galaxy resembled Earth, so Mr Finkelstein said it was inevitable that life could be found there, The Sun has reported.
"At an international forum dedicated to the search for spacemen, he also said that aliens would most likely resemble humans, with two arms, two legs and a head," The Sun said.
"Finkelstein went on to say that he believes those looking for evidence of extra-terrestrial life have been doing it the wrong way.
"Most scientists searching have been scouring the galaxy for radio signals sent out by alien civilisations. He insists it should be us who should be making the contact with them and not the other way round."
Meantime this week an unexplained object was spotted flying over London.
Take a look at the video below.
Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter
______________
Các anh chị có tin "'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'" ?
Và gần đây có nhiều người đã "nhấp nhổm" về tin "Tận Thế", các anh chị có từng "tin" qua ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Statement by Christine Lagarde on Her Selection as IMF Managing Director
Statement by Christine Lagarde on Her Selection as IMF Managing Director
IMF
Press Release No.11/ 260
June 28, 2011
Ms. Lagarde speaks to press after meeting with IMF Board last week on June 23rd (IMF photo).
Ms. Christine Lagarde issued the following statement today after the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) selected her as the IMF’s next Managing Director, the 11th since the Fund’s inception in 1944:
“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund has just selected me to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Managing Director for a five-year term, starting on July 5. I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me by the Executive Board. I would like to thank the Fund’s global membership warmly for the broad-based support I have received. I would also like to express my respect and esteem for my colleague and friend, Agustín Carstens.
“The IMF has served its 187 member countries well during the global economic and financial crisis, transforming itself in many positive ways. I will make it my overriding goal that our institution continues to serve its entire membership with the same focus and the same spirit. As I have had the opportunity to say to the IMF Board during the selection process, the IMF must be relevant, responsive, effective, and legitimate, to achieve stronger and sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability, and a better future for all.”
IMF
Press Release No.11/ 260
June 28, 2011
Ms. Lagarde speaks to press after meeting with IMF Board last week on June 23rd (IMF photo).
Ms. Christine Lagarde issued the following statement today after the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) selected her as the IMF’s next Managing Director, the 11th since the Fund’s inception in 1944:
“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund has just selected me to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Managing Director for a five-year term, starting on July 5. I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me by the Executive Board. I would like to thank the Fund’s global membership warmly for the broad-based support I have received. I would also like to express my respect and esteem for my colleague and friend, Agustín Carstens.
“The IMF has served its 187 member countries well during the global economic and financial crisis, transforming itself in many positive ways. I will make it my overriding goal that our institution continues to serve its entire membership with the same focus and the same spirit. As I have had the opportunity to say to the IMF Board during the selection process, the IMF must be relevant, responsive, effective, and legitimate, to achieve stronger and sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability, and a better future for all.”
WORLD NEWS_ IMF name first female chief
France's Christine Lagarde was named on Tuesday to be the first-ever female chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 » 07:29am
BIGPOND NEWS
France's Christine Lagarde has been appointed as the first-ever female chief of the IMF.
The French finance minister, widely respected for her leadership during Europe's financial crisis over the past three years, was chosen to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned abruptly on May 18 after being arrested in New York for the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid.
Lagarde said she was 'honoured and delighted' by her nomination.
'I am honoured and delighted that the board has entrusted me with the position of MD (managing director) of the IMF!' Lagarde said on the Twitter online message service.
In a statement, the IMF said: 'The executive board of the International Monetary Fund today selected Christine Lagarde to serve as IMF managing director and madame chairman of the executive board for a five-year term starting on July 5, 2011.'
Lagarde, the IMF said, was 'the first woman named to the top IMF post since the institution's inception in 1944'.
Lagarde, the French minister of finance since June 2007, was up against Mexico's Agustin Carstens.
The 24-member board called both Lagarde and Carstens 'well-qualified candidates' and that it decided on Lagarde 'by consensus'.
Lagarde won the job on the back of her successful record as finance minister and also because of her deep inside understanding of the eurozone crisis, which initially will be the new IMF chief's principal challenge.
She played on her international stature and also sought to broaden it during a whirlwind, marathon charm offensive in recent weeks when she criss-crossed the globe to argue why a European and French national should continue to head the fund.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 » 07:29am
BIGPOND NEWS
France's Christine Lagarde has been appointed as the first-ever female chief of the IMF.
The French finance minister, widely respected for her leadership during Europe's financial crisis over the past three years, was chosen to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned abruptly on May 18 after being arrested in New York for the alleged sexual assault of a hotel maid.
Lagarde said she was 'honoured and delighted' by her nomination.
'I am honoured and delighted that the board has entrusted me with the position of MD (managing director) of the IMF!' Lagarde said on the Twitter online message service.
In a statement, the IMF said: 'The executive board of the International Monetary Fund today selected Christine Lagarde to serve as IMF managing director and madame chairman of the executive board for a five-year term starting on July 5, 2011.'
Lagarde, the IMF said, was 'the first woman named to the top IMF post since the institution's inception in 1944'.
Lagarde, the French minister of finance since June 2007, was up against Mexico's Agustin Carstens.
The 24-member board called both Lagarde and Carstens 'well-qualified candidates' and that it decided on Lagarde 'by consensus'.
Lagarde won the job on the back of her successful record as finance minister and also because of her deep inside understanding of the eurozone crisis, which initially will be the new IMF chief's principal challenge.
She played on her international stature and also sought to broaden it during a whirlwind, marathon charm offensive in recent weeks when she criss-crossed the globe to argue why a European and French national should continue to head the fund.
WORLD_ Post-Gaddafi Libya 'must learn from mistakes made in Iraq'
Post-Gaddafi Libya 'must learn from mistakes made in Iraq'
Libya stabilisation report submitted by UK to Benghazi opposition outlines priorities after ceasefire
Share15
Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 June 2011 19.17 BST
Article history
Libya after Gaddafi: Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, says the stabilisation process must be UN-led. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Britain is calling for a "politically inclusive settlement" in post-Gaddafi Libya that will take heed of the mistakes made in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
A detailed "stabilisation document", overseen by the Department for International Development, has been submitted to the Benghazi-based Libyan opposition and sets out priorities after a ceasefire between the regime and rebels.
It assumes that Gaddafi – wanted by the international criminal court for alleged crimes against humanity – will leave or be forced from power, but it does not predict when that will happen. "It (the stabilisation process) must be Libyan-owned and United Nations-led," Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, said on Tuesday. "The work seeks to ensure that the international community learns the lessons of what happened in Iraq."
Issues range from preventing looting and revenge attacks to providing basic services, and ensuring effective communications to ensure Libyan citizens know what is happening at a time of uncertainty. Unarmed UN monitors would most likely police a ceasefire if the environment was "benign" but there are discussions about a heavier peacekeeping force. Turkey, Nato's only Muslim member, is expected to play a key part.
Britain, playing a leading role in Nato's bombing campaign, has ruled out contributing to any peacekeeping force on the principle that it will not put "boots on the ground", insisted Mitchell.
Security and justice are the second of five priorities, with the recommendation that Libya should not follow the Iraqi example of disbanding the army, which has been seen by some officials as a strategic mistake that helped fuel the insurgency in the sensitive and volatile circumstances after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
"The report has learned the lesson of Iraq about the importance of using to the maximum possible extent existing structures," Mitchell said. "One of the first things that should happen once Tripoli falls is that someone should get on the phone to the former Tripoli chief of police and tell him he has got a job and he needs to secure the safety and security of the people of Tripoli. Of course, at that stage the sanctions on assets will be unfrozen and money will be able to flow much more easily than it is at the moment so as well as having a job he might actually get paid."
Benghazi's rebel leaders "have spent some time working out who to call at that point and who to engage with to demonstrate the importance of good order". The US, Britain and the UN would have "strong input" into a post-Gaddafi political settlement; the EU, Nato and the UN would take the lead on issues of security and justice; Australia, Turkey and the UN would help with basic services; Turkey, the US and the international financial institutions would lead on the economy. But, added Mitchell: "It is incredibly important that the whole of this process is Libyan-owned. This has been done as a service to the Libyan people."
The 50-page report, which includes recommendations on infrastructure, oil exports and basic services such as education, water and health, was produced by the UK-led international stabilisation response team, and is expected to win Libyan opposition, international and Arab approval at a meeting of the Libyan contact group in Istanbul in mid-July.
"The position for Colonel Gaddafi is getting more and more difficult every day," said Mitchell. "In military terms he has lost half of all his capacity. The international criminal court arrest warrants … have sent a signal to Gaddafi's militias and his supporters. In the days of the mobile phone you can photograph human rights violators and war criminals in action. People at all levels, including in his militias, are leaving and defecting. All of this suggests that his time is limited."
______________
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến, nhận xét, phê bình gì về bài viết "Post-Gaddafi Libya 'must learn from mistakes made in Iraq'" ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào về mở đầu của bài viết :
"Britain is calling for a "politically inclusive settlement" in post-Gaddafi Libya that will take heed of the mistakes made in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
" ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào về kết luận của bài viết ? Nghĩ thế nào về hình ảnh đội "nữ binh với cờ xanh" xuất hiện trước báo chí truyền thông thế giới với "ý chí, quyết tâm bảo vệ" độc tài Gadhafi??
Và với những người dân VN BỊ TRỊ, đặc biệt tuổi trẻ VN trong nước khi xuống đường "chống tàu xâm lược" với hình tên quốc tặc hồ chí minh trên đầu và những bài hát ca tụng cái đảng thổ phỉ chó đẻ buôn dân bán nước csVN, nghĩ gì qua sự việc độc tài Gadhafi phải dùng tới "nhục sách" "trang bị vũ khí tận răng" cho "đội nữ binh đàn bà con nit" bảo vệ cái ngôi vị đã 42 năm trên đầu người dân Libya ???
Và những người VN bị MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC diệt chủng BÁN NƯỚC csVN nghĩ gì, nhớ gì, học gì qua những diễn biến tại Iraq và Libya ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Libya stabilisation report submitted by UK to Benghazi opposition outlines priorities after ceasefire
Share15
Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 June 2011 19.17 BST
Article history
Libya after Gaddafi: Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, says the stabilisation process must be UN-led. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Britain is calling for a "politically inclusive settlement" in post-Gaddafi Libya that will take heed of the mistakes made in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
A detailed "stabilisation document", overseen by the Department for International Development, has been submitted to the Benghazi-based Libyan opposition and sets out priorities after a ceasefire between the regime and rebels.
It assumes that Gaddafi – wanted by the international criminal court for alleged crimes against humanity – will leave or be forced from power, but it does not predict when that will happen. "It (the stabilisation process) must be Libyan-owned and United Nations-led," Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, said on Tuesday. "The work seeks to ensure that the international community learns the lessons of what happened in Iraq."
Issues range from preventing looting and revenge attacks to providing basic services, and ensuring effective communications to ensure Libyan citizens know what is happening at a time of uncertainty. Unarmed UN monitors would most likely police a ceasefire if the environment was "benign" but there are discussions about a heavier peacekeeping force. Turkey, Nato's only Muslim member, is expected to play a key part.
Britain, playing a leading role in Nato's bombing campaign, has ruled out contributing to any peacekeeping force on the principle that it will not put "boots on the ground", insisted Mitchell.
Security and justice are the second of five priorities, with the recommendation that Libya should not follow the Iraqi example of disbanding the army, which has been seen by some officials as a strategic mistake that helped fuel the insurgency in the sensitive and volatile circumstances after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
"The report has learned the lesson of Iraq about the importance of using to the maximum possible extent existing structures," Mitchell said. "One of the first things that should happen once Tripoli falls is that someone should get on the phone to the former Tripoli chief of police and tell him he has got a job and he needs to secure the safety and security of the people of Tripoli. Of course, at that stage the sanctions on assets will be unfrozen and money will be able to flow much more easily than it is at the moment so as well as having a job he might actually get paid."
Benghazi's rebel leaders "have spent some time working out who to call at that point and who to engage with to demonstrate the importance of good order". The US, Britain and the UN would have "strong input" into a post-Gaddafi political settlement; the EU, Nato and the UN would take the lead on issues of security and justice; Australia, Turkey and the UN would help with basic services; Turkey, the US and the international financial institutions would lead on the economy. But, added Mitchell: "It is incredibly important that the whole of this process is Libyan-owned. This has been done as a service to the Libyan people."
The 50-page report, which includes recommendations on infrastructure, oil exports and basic services such as education, water and health, was produced by the UK-led international stabilisation response team, and is expected to win Libyan opposition, international and Arab approval at a meeting of the Libyan contact group in Istanbul in mid-July.
"The position for Colonel Gaddafi is getting more and more difficult every day," said Mitchell. "In military terms he has lost half of all his capacity. The international criminal court arrest warrants … have sent a signal to Gaddafi's militias and his supporters. In the days of the mobile phone you can photograph human rights violators and war criminals in action. People at all levels, including in his militias, are leaving and defecting. All of this suggests that his time is limited."
______________
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào, có ý kiến, nhận xét, phê bình gì về bài viết "Post-Gaddafi Libya 'must learn from mistakes made in Iraq'" ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào về mở đầu của bài viết :
"Britain is calling for a "politically inclusive settlement" in post-Gaddafi Libya that will take heed of the mistakes made in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.
" ?
Các anh chị nghĩ thế nào về kết luận của bài viết ? Nghĩ thế nào về hình ảnh đội "nữ binh với cờ xanh" xuất hiện trước báo chí truyền thông thế giới với "ý chí, quyết tâm bảo vệ" độc tài Gadhafi??
Và với những người dân VN BỊ TRỊ, đặc biệt tuổi trẻ VN trong nước khi xuống đường "chống tàu xâm lược" với hình tên quốc tặc hồ chí minh trên đầu và những bài hát ca tụng cái đảng thổ phỉ chó đẻ buôn dân bán nước csVN, nghĩ gì qua sự việc độc tài Gadhafi phải dùng tới "nhục sách" "trang bị vũ khí tận răng" cho "đội nữ binh đàn bà con nit" bảo vệ cái ngôi vị đã 42 năm trên đầu người dân Libya ???
Và những người VN bị MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC diệt chủng BÁN NƯỚC csVN nghĩ gì, nhớ gì, học gì qua những diễn biến tại Iraq và Libya ???
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
29062011
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
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