Whatever one thinks of the pre-war regimes of Assad and Qaddafi, the majority of people in Syria were better off before the wars. This so completely undeniable, that anyone who claims otherwise is delusional or a liar (and hopefully on a payroll).
War should have the highest bar of all because, as was noted at Nuremburg, it includes all other crimes, from rape and murder on down, within it.
“We came, we saw, he died,” said Hilary Clinton. Evil. Beyond evil. Anyone with two brain cells, after seeing Iraq and Afghanistan, could predict that the Western allies couldn’t rebuild Libya and that it would be far worse off afterwards.
While not all of Europe’s refugee crisis is Libya- and Syria-related, a lot of it is, and Europeans (who, remember, pushed hard for regime change–especially the French) and Americans are morally, and should be legally, responsible for those refugees. Rather than refusing them, in a just world, they would be required to house and feed them, having been complicit in destroying their countries.
All of this is so obvious it should be beyond question to anyone remotely sentient.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Mallam
The simple truth about Libya and Syria: the people revolted against their dictators, their dictators decided to shoot them with live ammunition, the rebellion fought back. If you think Libya and Syria are at all comparable in terms of body count, well, I’m sorry. Syria would have been better off (not for US and EU interests, but for the people) if he had fallen. You see tens of thousands of bodies in Libya. Yet hundreds of thousands (with hundred thousands more in torture chamber death cells). The entire reason Europe wanted to intervene is because of refugee flows. They export their border to Libya (which is why they’re funding warlords rather than allowing people to come to Europe). Assad would have fallen if Russia hadn’t intervened. Russia and Iran are the imperial powers of that war, the same as KSA’s war in Yemen. Sickening.
When China shoots at Hong Kong protestors, surely, the answer will not be “they’d have been better off if they didn’t rebel”?
Chiron
Hey Mallam, how is Tel Aviv this time of the year? Hope ther isn’t a color revolution in Israel and or Saudi Arabia and that American shekels keep coming in your direction.
Dan Lynch
Ian said “Americans are morally, and should be legally responsible for those refugees.”
The POLITICIANS who supported those wars, along with the media who supported those wars, should be morally and legally responsible for the refugees. Obama, Bush, Cheney, Hillary, etc., should personally be required to house and feed refugees.
But Americans as a whole did not support the war on Libya or Syria, not even with the media constantly bombarding us with pro-war propaganda. I have opposed every war in my 62 year lifetime, even when it was not cool to do so, so don’t blame me.
Tom
As Mallam said, we didn’t start those wars. The dictators did when they opened fire on peaceful protesters and emptied their jails out to discredit the opposition by claiming they were full of Al Qaeda Affiliates.
And it should be pointed out that after Qaddafi was overthrown, Libya had peace for a few years till Sissi in a bid to consolidate his power, backed Hafter in an illegal coup to shore up his western flank with a friendly ruler while the Saudis formed his eastern bulwark.
At no point did the US start these fights.
If Libya and Syria are wrecks today, its because of the Dictators that ruled them, no one else.
bruce wilder
Mallam: “The simple truth about Libya and Syria: the people revolted against their dictators, . . . ”
tedious
“the people” ?? “revolted” ?
so little political curiosity. it would be superfluous to point out the lack of agency or realistic appraisal of circumstances
Herman
@Mallam,
I don’t know if it is as simple as “dictators vs the people” in Libya and Syria. There were/are many different internal factions involved in both wars. I think Ian is right. Both countries seem worse off. In Libya you have black Africans being literally enslaved and sold in slave markets and jihadists have benefitted from both conflicts. It is hard to see an upside here.
I agree that all of the foreign parties have blood on their hands for meddling in the region but I think on balance the West has been much more detrimental to the region, and this goes back to the Cold War. As far as I know the USSR/Russia never supported the worst reactionary jihadist elements in the Muslim world but the USA and its allies have done just that in order to undermine secular nationalists and socialists.
S Brennan
So far, two commenters have, [unwitting?] appeared to confirm this assessment:
“anyone who claims otherwise is delusional or a liar (and hopefully on a payroll.)”
Ian, may I offer up for your consideration…a delusional liar would find thirty pieces of silver irresistible.
DMC
Indeed. If Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have taught us nothing else, it’s that there are things demonstrably much, MUCH worse than standard issue, bloody-handed dictators. Crazed jihadis, Neo-con directed mercenaries, and ethnic purists of all stripes come to mind. We haven’t been the only parties throwing money and weapons around. You don’t have to think too hard to deduce who benefits and who suffers by a militarily imposed Sunni hegemony, and therefore who’s really doing the financial heavy lifting, funding these various regime change endeavors, and on whose behalf the U.S and E.U. got suckered into these various “foreign entanglements” in the first place.
mago
Tres PC there DMC.
Ché Pasa
Wow. I don’t know why this particular pot is being stirred but since it is…
Recall that in 1997, neoCon Project for the New American Century was published listing a series of Middle East and North African countries, including Libya and Syria, to be subjected to overthrow, conquest, liquidation, whatever was necessary to project US power and protect US/Israeli interest. After 9/11 the project became doctrine, and here we are.
The project itself is a grave error in judgment and a crime against humanity, but note: despite intense discussion, protest, and opposition for decades, the US government and military has been unable to separate from the project and have not even been able to lower the levels of death and destruction. No, in fact when Trump came into office the levels of death and destruction in project countries, or what was left of them, increased.
And further, the final target of the project, Iran, was front-burnered for the first time with the US abrogation of the nuclear treaty.
Every step of the way, the project has been an utter and very bloody disaster, leading to sheer madness as dozens and dozens of cities, towns and villages are destroyed, millions and millions of people displaced, wounded or dead, and one functioning nation after another thrown into complete chaos from which people understandably flee only to be met with the back of the hand from the nations and governments responsible for their misery.
No, it was not the dictators of their own lands who did this; it was the insane neoCon interventionists and their fellow travelers who convinced themselves that there was no other way to bring about and secure their fantasy of Pax Americana and protection of Israel.
Every bit of it has been evil which the victims know full well.
The fear of the refugees in the US and Europe is as understandable as the refugees’ anger and despair. Resolution is a long way off, if it ever comes at all. Initially, the US and Europe hailed the project’s destruction and massive death toll as “the birth of the New Middle East” yet nothing new has been brought forth. It’s just one old horror after another. By now it should be obvious there is nothing positive underpinning the project at all, and there never was.
Yet those responsible are still yammering for more war in more places, and lusting openly for the final push to conquer Iran.
It’s insane.
Ten Bears
Thank you Che`, how’s it feel to be the voice of reason? I don’t know whither or no to take you people seriously any more. Weather, “climate”, the atmosphere, the thin layer of potentially toxic gases we live in that envelopes the only ball of rock we know of we can live on, does not recognize the boundaries of “nation/states”. No, you’re not going to stop millions or tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions, of people determined to leave someplace that has become uninhabitable by just saying “no”. That is without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. A part of the world is rapidly becoming uninhabitable, and the people are leaving. You’re not going to stop it. You won’t stop it. It can’t be stopped.
And it is playing out equally on both sides of the planet:
When we look to the middle east and beyond the wars over oil and religious insanity we find drought. Mega-drought, rapid desertification, and the outright theft of one nation/state’s water by her neighbor to the south. And famine. That population is fleeing north. It can’t be stopped. It won’t be stopped.
So too on our side of the pond, something I’ve been pointing to for several years but only recently catching the attention of the mainstream with the advent of drumpf uck’s ooga-booga caravan of Central American refugees fleeing not just crime and violence but drought. Mega-drought, rapid desertification and famine. That population is fleeing north. It can’t be stopped. It won’t be stopped.
You can’t stop the migration. Ask the Neanderthal.
Really doesn’t have anything to do with Israel, or the House of Saud. They’re just stirring the pot for their own profit. Usurers: profit from another’s pain.
Welcome to the future, you bought the ticket, take the ride.
Andy Sprott
The Syrian / Libyan role in the European refugee crisis is a little different from generally interpreted.
Directly, Libya is almost completely a non-factor – hasn\’t cracked the top ten in terms of countries of origin at any point. Its chief significance is as a transit point – at present, mainly for economic migrants (as indicated by the demographic mix of the population flow).
The really key drivers for Europe are Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq – IIRC, together they account for the bulk of total flows. The interpretational challenge here really comes with the timing, which is better associated with American / western forces having largely left the various conflicts (which then intensified), or Russian forces acting as regime stabilizers.
450.org
Don’t forget, Yemen gets included in this list and Yemen is squarely on Trump’s and Pompeo’s shoulders with their unflagging support of Saudi Arabia and more specifically their emphatic, zealous support of Mr. Bonesaw himself, Mohammed bin Salman.
When it comes to war and destabilizing countries, there is no left or right. They are all peas in a pod when it comes to war and the blood sacrifices demanded by their one true God, Mammon.
S Brennan
Yeah right Shey,
I remember the protest in the streets when Obama/Hillary war-crimed Libya & Syria…doesn’t everybody.
Uhm no, not one Obama backer I know lifted a finger in word or deed.
The only guy [in power] who tried to stop the madness in Syria was Gen Flynn…and Obama/Hillary supporters were falling all over themselves to help USA’s “intelligence agencies” lynch him when when Trump came to power. The only guy who knew where the bodies were buried, the one guy who could steer the ship away from these crazy wars and reign in, the out of control, “intelligence agencies” and liberal[D]s helped the most nefarious elements of empire destroy the one man who showed integrity when it mattered.
Indeed, just reading Shey’s screed above it appears Yemen, Libya & Syria started in Jan 2017…truly Owellian.
DMC
mago:
Let’s call it “flying underneath the algorithmic radar” by not saying the names. One avoids unwanted attention from “certain parties” who scan for the use of “certain terms”. A winks as good as a nod to blind horse and Bob’s yer uncle.
StewartM
Herman
As far as I know the USSR/Russia never supported the worst reactionary jihadist elements in the Muslim world but the USA and its allies have done just that in order to undermine secular nationalists and socialists. </i.
Bingo! It's the end results of St. Ronnie's foreign policy.
And kudos to CP and Ten Bears on this being the desserts of our oil fixation, also the end result of St. Ronnie's energy policy.
Herman
By the way, this post highlights one of the reasons why Steven Pinker and other Panglossians like him are so wrong about the world getting better. Can anyone seriously say that the Greater Middle East region (including countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan) is better off today compared to say the 1970s or even the 1980s? Women and ethnic/religious minorities were definitely better off in the past and I would even go so far as saying the same is true for most of the general population.
S Brennan
StewartM:
“Bingo! It’s the end results of St. Ronnie’s foreign policy…As far as I know the USSR/Russia never supported the worst reactionary jihadist elements in the Muslim world but the USA and its allies have done just that in order to undermine secular nationalists and socialists.”
Actually StewartM;
St. Carter, under the tutelage of the still revered Zbigniew Brzezinski began the policy you attribute to Ronald Reagan…I was there, I was paying attention. I’m not sure whether your misinformation is that of agency, or, unlearnedness, in either case, it is Orwellian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
Ten Bears
All roads, S, lead to Iron Mountain. None dare, call it …
StewartM
SBrennan:
St. Carter, under the tutelage of the still revered Zbigniew Brzezinski began the policy you attribute to Ronald Reagan…I was there, I was paying attention.
You’re right, but Reagan greatly expanded “Operation Cyclone”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
different clue
@Ian Welsh,
When DMC says . . .” Let’s call it “flying underneath the algorithmic radar” by not saying the names. One avoids unwanted attention from “certain parties” who scan for the use of “certain terms”. A winks as good as a nod to blind horse and Bob’s yer uncle.” . . .
I don’t want to totally humiliate myself by admitting to DMC by name that I don’t know ( and may not even be smart enough to understand) what certain terms and certain parties DMC is talking about.
Since you have had a wider exposure to the world of blog comments than I have, do you have an idea or perhaps some guesses as to what certain terms and certain parties DMC means?
Because if we all knew, we could all participate. But if DMC and mago are the only people who get to know, then the rest of us will be left helpless to understand and will receive zero intellectual or informational benefit from the discussion about certain terms and parties. In a seven-billion population world, that could be anybody.
Sid Finster
Anyone who thinks we made war on Libya and are making war on Yemen and Syria for humanitarian reasons should no longer be considered a sentient being but a muppet.
mago
Quite so DMC.
You’re shitting us, right different clue?