Let’s start this post on the “international effort” to disarm Libya’s militias with the last sentence of the columbiatribune.com article. “The problem is, young Libyans in militias have no incentive to hand over their weapons, which are their only source of security.” So what’s the problem? If the guns are a source of security what’s wrong with having guns? For the [supposed] answer to that question, we return the article’s beginning . . .
Libya, where hundreds of militias hold sway and the central government is virtually powerless, is awash in millions of weapons with no control over their trafficking. The arms free-for-all fuels not only Libya’s instability but also stokes conflicts around the region as guns are smuggled through the country’s wide-open borders to militants fighting in insurgencies and wars stretching from Syria to West Africa.
Ah yes. Whatever happened to the good old days, when Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi ruled the African nation with an iron fist, making sure his government and its allies were armed to the teeth and the populace was not? When the Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya (secret police) murdered dissidents and other enemies of the regime both inside country and out (e.g. Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772).
It seems the international community can’t have its Arab Spring and eat it too. Western nations are upset that Libya has “descended” into a farrago of factions, each with their own armed militia. Russia? Maybe not so much . . .
The lack of control is at times stunning. Last month, militia fighters stole a planeload of weapons sent by Russia for Libya’s military when it stopped to refuel at Tripoli International Airport on route to a base in the south. The fighters surrounded the plane on the tarmac and looted the shipment of automatic weapons and ammunition, Hashim Bishr, an official with a Tripoli security body under the Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press.
In a further indignity, the fighters belonged to a militia officially assigned by the government to protect the airport, since regular forces are too weak to do it.
I wonder if the militia that stole the planeload of Russian weapons is U.S. backed? (Heads-up: Cold War 2.0 is breaking out all over.) In any case, I suspect that all this agonizing over the “flood” of weapons into Libya is political posturing. The market’s worth billions and that much-feared “instability” hasn’t made headlines since Obamas’ Boyz watched terrorists murder Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three fellow Americans. Then again . . .
The weapons chaos has alarmed Europe — just a short distance across the Mediterranean — and the United States. At a conference in Rome this month, Western and Arab diplomats, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, pressed Libyan officials to reach some political consensus so the international community can help the government collect weapons and rebuild the military and police.
The problem is that Europe and the United States simply don’t know who to talk to in Libya, a Western diplomat in Tripoli told the AP. “It’s about whether they are capable of receiving the help,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about the discussions at the conference. He pointed to an international effort to build storage houses in which to collect weapons in the western Libyan town of Gharyan. That project has stumbled, he said, because of the problem of determining “who is in charge and whom we work with.”
Not to mention the obvious fact that no one wants to turn in their weapons.
Several officials told the AP that the government does not know how many weapons there are in Libya, a country of 6 million people. Saleh Jaweida, a lawmaker on parliament’s National Security Committee, said that all figures are speculation but that a plausible estimate is between 10 million to 15 million light weapons — up to an assault rifle — and not counting heavier caliber weapons or armor.
Many of the arms came from the arsenals of the Gadhafi-era military and police, which were looted during the civil war and after the collapse of his rule. Another source is the large amount of weapons shipped to the rebels during the eight-month uprising, largely from Gulf Arab nations.
The hundreds of militias around the country absorb as many weapons as they can because no group knows how well armed rival groups are, creating a climate of “mutual fear,” Bishr said. There is also a strong domestic market for weapons among the public for personal protection. Nearly every household is believed to have at least one gun, but usually it’s several.
Sounds to me like “the Arab spring” in Libya’s proceeding well enough. Well, except for . . .
A 97-page report released in March by United Nations Panel of Experts said weapons that originated in Libya were found in 14 countries, often reaching militant groups. The report said smuggling is mainly from Libyan militias’ arsenals. Sophisticated man-portable, ground-to-air missile systems, known as MANPADS, have reached four conflict zones, including Chad and Mali. “Fears that terrorist groups would acquire these weapons have materialized,” the report said . . .
Zuhair al-Ugli, the head of communications for the Warrior Affairs Agency, said there is no mechanism for dealing with the tide of guns.
“The state is paralyzed in collecting the weapons,” he said.
The state is paralyzed! Around these parts we call it gridlock and say Washington’s broken. (I don’t but statists do.) I bet those who remember the state of the state under Gaddafi might think that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. So . . . now what? Now we find allies to fight the bad guys, even if they’re bad guys too, and who knows because you can’t tell the players without a scorecard and there are no scorecards in the that part of the world – only scores to settle and money to be made.
And thank God for that last part. As always the universal desire to make money – and our country’s expertise in that regard – is America’s best hope for influence in that part of the world. Support your friendly neighborhood arms dealer, I say. What say you?
MANPADS…
Who comes up with these names?
When a jihadi gets PMS he reaches for a….well, that’s just plane obvious.
MAN-Portable-Air-Defense-System
MANPADS
It actually makes sense to me.
Stay out of the phugging mess. Let Libya decide what’s best for Libya. If they want a nation they’ll have one. If they want to go back to warring tribes, let them. Or install another iron fisted dictator.
Eventually door #3 will take place. The strongest warlord becomes the government. It’s the tribal pattern.
Dictators and tyrants are the norm for most of history and for most of the world today.
Americans have been blessed with the level of freedom we have had in our country for most of our history. We were the lone exception over two hundred years ago and despite the legitimate concerns we speak of on this site about the burgeoning police state; we are still the lone exception when it comes to the level of freedom we still enjoy today; especially around our second amendment freedoms.
I’ve always believed that this is because, except for indigenous peoples, we do not have tribes and tribal homelands to which first allegiance is given. Politically, Americans’ first allegiance is to country, and secondarily, if at all, to individual states. (Excluding, of course, Congress, where what is best for America in the annual budget battles takes a back seat.)
I agree with you, jwm. It’s their own problem to deal with or not. It’s not really any of our government’s business.
I concur let the sandscum foul things up as they may. They had a good time buggering Khadaffi with a bayonet before they put a bullet in his noodle.
Ah yes, the “weapons chaos”. Of course, simply referring to it as chaos is out of the question; they need to create the association between the weapons and the chaos. I also love how the article in question mentions that American and Europe are “alarmed” at the influx of hardware. First of all, countries are made up of people, they are not sentient beings. As such, a country cannot feel any emotion, or feel anything for that matter, although the people who reside in said country can. And second, I gotta love the blatant manipulation, referring to the “alarm” of powerful countries, making it sound as if the proliferation of firearms (particularly military-grade ones) in a mid-sized African country that has no stability is a serious threat to said powerful countries. Enjoy the blatant manipulation while you can, antis! Your movement is dying.
They were much better off when all the little unarmed people would just die quietly in their death camps. Don’t they know how progress works? All this struggling against genocide just keeps increasing the time until glorious utopia comes. Just a couple more years and deaths and it would have been a paradise for rich tourists from Europe. None of those poor people bitterly clinging to their guns and religion struggling to live in the poor economy founded on enriching the political elite. Now they may lose the senate in 2014 and plans may have to be pushed past 2016.
Man I love this article and I love a lot of the posts on here, like this one! You guys are my people!!! And here I thought I was on an island…
As long as they’re using their guns to fight each other and not us…who flipping cares?
And just a thought,,,since Libya has had a profoundly negative experience in the recent past of extreme centralized control, maybe what they need as a government model is a collection of territories with general autonomy running their own internal affairs, with a relatively weak central government with the purpose of providing for the common defense of the nation and negotiating treaties with foreign countries. The “problem” of the country being awash in arms can simply be solved by legalizing the civilian ownership of all modern weapons. I think a similar thing was tried before…but then what do I know.
“I think a similar thing was tried before…but then what do I know.”
A lot more than a lot of people nowadays.
Nah, what a crazy idea! Nobody anywhere tried such a thing. Ever.
Dear Mr. Farago,
Though I typically agree with many of the conclusions that authors on this site come to regarding US Gun laws, I think the application of that logic to the Libyan situation is a gross oversimplification and borders on negligent.
While I agree that free people around the world should have access to a means to protect themselves, the issue at hand here is that the people have formed militias that are actively working to prevent stability in the country.
Are they doing this because they have weapons? No. Will disarming them stop all this violence? No. For a state to exist there must be rule of law and a state must have a monopoly on the LEGITIMATE use of violence.
The US government has such a monopoly, the libyan government does not an is unable to establish it at the moment. There is really a catch 22 here. The armed militias are preventing a state from forming and the lack of a state necessitates the formation of militias to provide for security. I digress.
As much as we like it or not the Government needs a monopoly on the use of force. We live under a government that has such a monopoly and have for quite some time. Libya needs to establish this before they can bring peace to the country.
The answer is not to go out and try to round up all the weapons, but neither is allowing whole sale access to RPG’s, Tanks, Heavy machine guns, Grenades, Bombs, Artillery, and the like that are being used to actively prevent a stable nation from forming.
Full disclosure, I am a grad student studying international affairs with an emphasis on post conflict reconstruction and development. I enjoy reading this site daily and will continue to do so.
Respectfully,
vothmr
This is the equivalent of a concurring legal opinion
A government with a monopoly on the use of force is a dictatorship/police state.
Research and get back to us.
I said legitimate monopoly on violence. Here is an example, go start shooting at a hospital, when the police come, tell them to fuck off and run away. Chances are you will be shot and very few people would bat an eyelash if you were. That is a legitimate use of the monopoly of violence. No one would give a shit if you said that the hospital was full of satanists and you needed to religiously cleanse them for providing help to abortion doctors. Your dead and people view that as legitimate. If you lived in a country full of satanists who loved to help abortion doctors and did the same thing, when the government, who did not share your beliefs, shot you, it would be viewed as illegitimate. Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, had the later but they had a monopoly on force and the people could do nothing. In the US, Europe, Modern Japan, and others, the government and the people are generally in agreement and we view the use of force in the situation i described above as legitimate. Try thinking objectively and imagine what living in a country would be like where if you said fuck off and shot at the police they said ok and left you alone. It would look something like Somalia, Congo, Rwanda, Mali, etc. Like it or not the government does have a monopoly on violence, most violent things the government does are viewed as rational and legitimate and if one person stood up and tried to resist they would be cut down in an instant. The whole nation? That’s another argument (collective action problem etc). I’m not trying to troll but think about it without ideological goggles on.
You’re still wrong on the state needing a monopoly on legitimate violence. Take your own scenario of someone shooting up a hospital. Giving the state a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence would mean it would be prohibited for anyone but an agent of the state to use violence to stop that individual.
Having the police show up to stop someone who is shooting up a hospital is certainly a legitimate use of violence, but it must also be legitimate for an armed citizen to have the option of using violence to stop such an individual when the armed citizen is targeted.
In short, if it is legitimate for a citizen to use violence to defend himself, then that breaks the monopoly. Your use of the word ‘monopoly’ would mean that ONLY an agent of the state can be allowed to use violence in any situation.
Even if we exclude an individual defending himself from a criminal attack and focus only on large scale uses of violence like militaries or militias, it would still be legitimate for a citizen militia to organize and help repel an enemy conquest. That would also break a state monopoly on legitimate violence, would still be in line with the rule of law and would not negate the existence of the state itself.
The problem in Libya is not that citizen militias are employing violence but that the non-state violence is being employed to destabilize the country instead of to quell destabilizing influences and enforce order.
In short, again, there is no fundamental need for the state to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. Neither for the state to exist nor for there to be rule of law. There only needs to be no large scale illegitimate violence, which is not the case in Libya.
Whether or not the particular players in Libya could ever, in all practicality, stop destabilizing each other and agree to stay out of each other’s businesses and help stabilize the country is an entirely different question, but there is no illustration here of any fundamental need for the state to be the only viable outlet of legitimate violence.
Vothmr : Study our own history; the Founders and the founding documents. The norm for our country has been the “monopoly of violence” to maintain order was supposed to be concentrated in the hands of the common people as an organized and unorganized militia with a weak federal military to be supported by said militia.
This was the norm for most of our history; after a build up of a military during a declared war, the military would be disbanded back to a weak state and the militia would then be the strongest armed force to be used for immediate response to an emergency.
This balance of power between the people and the central government really began to shift to the central government in the early 1900’s with the creation of the national guard and especially after the build up of a large standing military after WW II and the beginning of the Cold War.
So no, the “monopoly of violence”, for us historically and by the constitution; is supposed to be concentrated in the hands of the people.
Your argument is THE slippery slope to end all slippery slopes. The only “legitimate” form of violence is self-defense. I would also remind you this country ran for a long time with no police force.
Legitimate violence by lawful government… yes. A monopoly… no. Government monopoly on violence is the antithesis of that which our nation was founded. That you are a “grad student studying international affairs with an emphasis on post conflict reconstruction and development” and didn’t know that is both disappointing and disturbing.
The issue here is the militias don’t believe the group trying to control the country is legitimate. If there was a coup here and a group of senators/politicians seized control of Washington, throwing out the system of checks and balances crafted by our founders, you’d better believe groups would be undermining their attempts to exert control.
Peace is not worth letting bad people win. I’m fairly certain that’s how the people of Libya and Ukraine feel, and I can commiserate with that emotion.
vothmr,
What every country needs is the rule of law, not the rule of men. And it needs to be common law: if there is no human victim that suffered a personal injury, there is no crime. (A person suffers a personal injury when an attacker damages a person’s body, reputation, property, and/or liberty.) Who or what stands up for the people to defend personal liberty and common law is immaterial.
Think about it. If the state was standing up for personal liberty and common law, the people would rally around the state. The problem with states around the world is they don’t care about preserving liberty and common law. Their only focus is preserving power and consolidating that power with “laws” enacted by legislative or dictatorial fiat. And that is when conflicts arise.
“Stability” is not stability at all if the state and violent criminals deny the inherent dignity of human beings and harm thousands of good people every day.
I say, stay out of it.
Where have I heard that recently? Connecticut?
McCain and half of the US congress were in Libya hobnobbing with Gaddafi until he got friendly with China and started talking about trading oil for gold instead of using the hallowed Petrodollar… Gaddafi and Libya became enemy number one all over again and we rubbelized the country, turning it into a failed state.
Pretty much, Gaddafi was ousted because of oil and his unwillingness to play ball with the European banks. It seems like this is becoming the typical response to any country that doesnt want to bow down to the EU or the US and it’s allies. It will be interesting to see how they handle the mess in Crimea. Gaddafi was the dictator of a small oil rich country 2.5 times the size of Texas. Vladimir Putin is the leader of a huge country (a former superpower) with endless resources and manpower.
Nothing will happen in Crimea. Putin was dealt a straight flush: a strong military on the border with easy access, a population that mostly welcomed his troops, and a complete absence of counterbalancing military force from Ukraine or the EU. Putin will consolidate his power there, and no one will do anything about it. There will be –indeed cannot be–any military response. There will be no concerted economic response either because the EU depends on natural gas flowing from Russia.
Natural gas which Putin has threatened to turn off. That happened a few years ago with bad effects on Europe. Result of this iteration: Russia can’t play with the G8 any more. So there!
Fo those who believe everyone should be able to have a firearm for self defense I say this: guns don’t have morals or culture. These are the human ingredients which make life in groups civil. Heinlein was not right. An armed society is NOT necessarily a polite society. I give you Somalia or Libya or Lebanon or any of a thousand heavily armed societies with a weird and untamed culture. Unleashing all the demons that mankind is capable of harboring. Guns don’t have morals. Guns are a force multiplier of whatever the underlying society has in terms of morals. An intensifier of force in cutural intrractions. So where the people are trapped in these weird societies (germany, libya, somalia whatever) guns make things … interesting.
The problem with the states you mention is not that they are armed, but that there is an extreme imbalance in the ownership of firearms. Most people in those place cannot afford a gun even for protection, and the ones that do usually have to resort to violence against the ones that don’t in order to survive.
Not really. Guns are so cheap there that anyone can buy one with a little effort. They do have an imbalance of people willing and able to use them, though.
True to form, I’ll question the examples. The problem in Libya (pre-ouster) and Somalia wasn’t that everyone had an AK. The problem was that only certain groups of oppressive bast_rds had AKs, or plastique…or name your weapon.
When the ownership of arms is very widespread the adults eventually have to negotiate a way to act collaboratively to fend off external rivals and protect their foreign trade. You see that slowly at work even now in Libya: Foreign governments (including the U.S. and its recent use of SEALs to capture an oil tanker off Larnaca) will intervene to prevent foreign trade by rival militias dealing in stolen oil. That will eventually force the militias to make a deal with each other. As for the weapons…everybody is shipping them to Syria, not just the Libyans!
We once made a deal under similar conditions, back in the 1780’s: The deal was to maintain the primacy of our states, but to permit a new federal republic to exercise limited powers to defend all the states against foreign aggression and to prohibit individual states from oppressing non-resident citizens, subject to prohibitions on the new federal government from, by its actions, denying residents of individual states certain rights through federal action. Well, my, things have changed. Over time factions, groups, of states decided to empower the federal government to kick the arse of some other group of states. Over time all these grants of power led to, well, a federal government which regulates everything and everyone in all the states. Surprise.
Is this a good result or a deplorable one? The answer certainly depends on your own situation, but it is surely not the result the founders sold to the state conventions. One by one U.S. corporations are building their cash stockpiles and factories offshore. One by one they are reincorporating in tax havens. Who is stuck with the debt that paid their unemployed workers? That will substitute for their pension plans? You. Enjoy.
We did make a deal among ourselves in the 1780’s. And shortly after, in the 1790’s, a bunch of PA back-country farmers decided they hadn’t made that deal. They didn’t like the idea of paying tax on whiskey, and in 1794, George Washington himself led troops out to put the rebellion down.
That’s the thing with revolutions – sometimes there are people who don’t get the memo that the revolution is over. Hopefully the people in Libya end up with a wise leader like we had to help get them through this.
Read more history. Alexander Hamilton was a Federalist crony who was still loyal to the crown and working with European bankers. He instituted the tax as the first Treasury Secretary. He wanted to consolidate state war debt and national war debt and make it funded to be paid by the federal government. The Whiskey tax was one of such taxes and just like today you have government in bed with companies and larger distilleries ended up paying less taxes than the smaller part time distilleries. In the farmers’ minds this was precisely why they just fought the war! So indeed the revolution had not ended for them. And the federal government put them down through intimidation…hmmm…sound familiar?
America’s strength is based upon Conscience, Morality and Rights.
Conscience, definable in part as, ‘a quality present within most every person with the potential to serve the individual in some circumstances as a restraint upon certain actions, and in other circumstances as a calling to act’.
Morality, definable in part as, ‘a simple code of individual thought and conduct’.
Rights, definable in part as, ‘the natural status of each person’.
“The simple code of Moral conduct merely requires that each person conduct oneself in such a manner as to avoid intentionally violating the actual ‘Rights’ of another person or persons.”
Consider as you may that the intentional violation of another persons actual ‘Rights’ constitutes the basis of an actual criminal act.
Simplistic as this may well seem to many — application of the quality of Conscience; adherence to simple codes of Moral thought and conduct; and
recognition of / and respect for the ’Rights’ of each individual represent no less than the critical elements separating ‘humans’ from all other animals.
( The ‘Being’ in ‘Human Being’. )
For those who may not have thought about it in quite this way —
Conscience, Morality and Rights are the very basis of the strength of an individual’s ’constitution’;
the foundation upon which the ideas, ideals, principles, standards and values embodied in the truly unique “American Constitutional Republic” form of government has been fashioned and implemented; and
upon which continuance of the Republic depends.
Do No Harm / Successfully Defend
I love the United States, defended it in war, help uphold its laws in peace, but America was not built by idealism. It was built with guns to subdue Indians and force them west to reservations. It was built by the gift of fabulous natural resources (water, forests, iron ore, coal, oil) that were not yet owned by some Baron or Duke. It was built by masterful politician/businessmen. I’ll give you an example. Andrew Carnegie is taught as an example of can-do spirit, inventiveness and spine. Yet he built his first steel factory with capital and guaranteed orders from whom? Tom Scott, his former boss at the Pennsylvania Railroad. The greatest boom in U.S. history extended from 1870 to 1895. It was fueled by the flexibility and power of the new open-charter corporation, first grabbed from a legislature by whom? Tom Scott, President of the Pennsylvania railroad. What fueled the incredible boom? Endless supplies of immigrant labor that didn’t know a thing about “the rule of law” or “the protestant ethic.” God bless America. Conscience, my arse.
Oh now RD, if we were as you describe; we would have looked like Somalia or Libya as they are to day. Our revolution was based on a majority vote by all the colonies; our constitution was voted in by majority rule, not by force of arms.
The difference between our country and most of the rest of the world is that we have mostly acknowledged and followed the rule of law and the allowed the exchange of power between competing factions by voting and not by who has the most guns and the willingness to use them.
That is changing; we are becoming more Balkanized and fractured; our government is taking on the aspects and trappings of an oppressive police state trying to use the mailed fist over competing tribal groups rather than of a country with a common sense of being one people.
Multi- cultural anyone? Divide and conquer; it works. Which is another reason the Liberal/progressives push this meme. If we are fighting among ourselves, as distinct tribal groups instead of one people, as Americans, it is easier to control us if we can’t unite.
“An armed society is NOT necessarily a polite society. I give you Somalia or Libya or Lebanon or any of a thousand heavily armed societies with a weird and untamed culture”
It will be, ultimately when those who believe political power flows from the barrel of a gun are effectively opposed by those who want them to go away and leave them alone. We are the friends of freedom everywhere, but guardians only of our own. Democracy cannot be imposed, it must be grown.
You could say that Obama did the same thing to Libya that he did to America: He thoroughly discredited central authority, shredded the social fabric and left society much more balkanized, impoverished, chaotic and heavily armed than he found it.
Just sayin’. 😛
He is the no. 1 gun salesman in America. And even ran a successfull export business in firearms to Mexico with Holder as a partner.
I think it terribly unfair that you give so much credit to Obama, and so little to Valerie Jarrett. Her grandfather was received with more dignity in Iran than in Chicago. Suddenly, we’re soft on Iran. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but I’m a big believer that people carry forward the perceptions of the world cultivated within their families and among their once-young friends.
Funny… but also kind of true.
Sometimes I really wonder what that guy is thinking.
Can we get Mr Peace in our time Arab Spring Obuma and Madam Cankles into Libyan collect this Russian hardware then ship it into Ukrania?
I wish I could go down the road to BillyBobs place and buy a belt-fed.
I recall after the Ghaddafi government fell, I heard an NPR news report on the aftermath. One of the key points their “expert” trotted out, was the importance of how the “international community” and the UN would now convince the rebel militias to turn in their arms.
I LOL’ed so hard, if it weren’t so infuriating. Their attitude was simply, “boy it’s great that we could let these people grab some guns and do our dirty work for us – now that they pulled it off, what’s the quickest way we can return them to serf status again?”
Pure elitist arrogance.
I had the same take on it. With the prevalence of information today, I wonder how many others actually see the arrogance and injustice. I fear that only those with a real grasp on the concepts of inalienable individual Liberty and what it takes for a people to remain free would see it that way; and that number is probably smaller than I’d like.
“militia fighters stole a planeload of weapons sent by Russia for Libya’s military when it stopped to refuel at Tripoli International Airport on route to a base in the south.
The fighters surrounded the plane on the tarmac and looted the shipment of automatic weapons and ammunition..”
^This^
I guess we should institute background checks there?
“Libya, where hundreds of militias hold sway and the central government is virtually powerless, is awash in millions of weapons with no control over their trafficking.”
Does Carnival Cruises call on the Port of Tripoli? Because this sounds like a kick ass helluva fun time shore excursion. I don’t want to hurt anybody, of course, but it sure would be fun to pop off a few thousand rounds into the empty desert, full auto and otherwise, from all sorts of guns.
Robert, I suggest you read up on this subject before posting on it. I hope I am not violating sight policy by saying you don’t know what are you talking about. These folks with guns are not locals trying to establish civil society as you like to think of it. They are all some flavor of anti-western Jihadi and not some defender of the Bill of Rights.
People who focus on Benghazi miss the real story. Benghazi was the logical outcome a failed policy driven by Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power that empowered known Salafists just to do away with Colonel Qaddafi. At the same time they were claiming Qaddafi was committing genocide they were calling Bashir Assad a “reformer.” Qaddafi was the least worst alternative.
Yeah Libyas going the way of Somalia…
like that LMG, a MANPAD might be fun….
tdiivna is correct, to be fully informed on Benghazi I recommend reading Benghazi: The Definitive Report by Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb, this book tells it like it is, not how the main stream media (both left and right) would have you believe.
When I was still gainfully employed in the Intelligence Community I was beating the drum against administration’s “Arab Spring” policy. Obama, Jarrett, Rice and Powers were/are active supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Clinton was just reliving the glories of the Balkan Wars. If you couldn’t figure that out after the Egyptians kicked the MB to the curb then there is no hope for you or you like the policy. Everything this administration does in the Middle East is designed to ultimately isolate and then destroy Israeli. (I know a number you like that idea.) The reason that Obama originally courted Assad was that he was an essential part of anti-Israel coalition. As He envisions it, the combination of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s puppets in Lebanon and and the Ayatollah’s friend in Damascus the anti-Israel new neo-Nazis like Rice and Power saw a winning combination. Like every other Obama administration policy this one has blown up in his face as Israel and Egypt are again working together to eliminate Hamas. The reason that Obama is so hot to help Iran get nuclear weapons is that Iran is now the only hope of wiping out Israel.
ROzcFailed policy? LOL. What coherent foreign policy do we have? From Kosovo, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,etc.we DON’T HAVE A CLUE. Weapons of mass destruction? Sure. Start a trillion dollar war. Can’t kill Bin Laden? ‘Cause Pakistan hides him? Stay a dozen years. I have a bit of insight though. My oldest son works for the government. Speaks Arabic, EX army. Been to Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt. Very recently spent months in Jordan. His tv community had no CLUE the mso-called Arab Spring would spin out of control like it has. Robert Farago doesn’t know what he’s talking about? How about NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT. The Muslim world is completely & totally screwed up. Every country, even the “moderates”. Most of Europe being overrun by Sharia. Britain “inviting” Muslims to invest, set Sharia courts, exclusive Muslim
The pendulum has swung back the other way to a point bordering on fully armed religious/political anarchy. It also should stand as a strong caution regarding U.S. foreign policy anywhere,…actually, make that, everywhere in the Muslim world.
This is tribalism in all its glory…..4th century tribalism, except with 20th century, military firearms. Giving modern firearms to a 4th death cult whose primary objective is the subjugation and enslavement of the entire planet, is not what most reasonable people would consider a bright idea. We had the devil we know, but now we have lots of devils we don’t. They’re all devils. Hypocrites as well.
Since the AK-47 seems to be the preferred choice of the Muslim cultists the only arms dealers making any profit here are mostly likely Russian. Cheer for that? We should not be giving any U.S. weaponry to barbarian 4th century Muslim recidivists. Send them nothing. I’m sure they would do the same for us.
Well put. Actually it’s 7 th century. I’ll add the Muslim world only understands authoritarian rule & subjugation. Kinda’ like Russia.
Bull, it is actually it is 21st Century faux Libertarianism in action.
I always thought it “unfailr” that Iraqis had a right to own fully automatic weapons, yet we couldn’t back home.
I seem to be the only one in the pro-freedom camp beating this drum, but here goes:
This is what happens when weapons are made for governments and governments buy them. Weapons are weapons period. If they exist they will fall in all kinds of hands. The genie is essentially out of the bottle.
Nobody in the anti-freedom, anti-gun camp has a problem w/ nation states having all sorts or weapons yet this is exactly what happens when they do. They sell their old arsenals to pay for the upgrades. Even when they sell to other (smaller) nation states, we know that many/all of these are corrupt and that many of the weapons will simply be sold (or stolen) to the highest bidder. As if there were not AK’s in Africa before the fall of Gadaffi.
ANY GUN CAN GO ANYWHERE.
Didn’t our Bozo in charge say he wasn’t going to interfeer any longer in other nations civil wars? Or am I mistaken in this thinking, They have told so many lies I can’t keep them straight. This is what happens when you make regime changes. I agree whoever has the most guns wins here.
Long live Bashir Assad in Syria!!!!
“…U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, pressed Libyan officials to reach some political consensus so the international community can help the government collect weapons and rebuild the military and police.”
“He pointed to an international effort to build storage houses in which to collect weapons in the western Libyan town of Gharyan.”
And those two statements summarize the purpose of the UN Small Arms Treaty, supported by President Feckless Obama and the Democrat party.
The reaction of Americans to this weapons confiscation scheme is the same as the reaction of the people in Libya: “There is also a strong domestic market for weapons among the public for personal protection. Nearly every household is believed to have at least one gun, but usually it’s several.”
Can’t argue with that.
And thank God for that last part.
Support your friendly neighborhood arms dealer, I say. What say you?
Yep! 🙂
tdiivna, I know, the private contractor I used to work for sent guys into Libya when things started getting nasty, I unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), was working in the Afghanistan at the time. All these armed militias are affiliates of AQ and and are primarily comprised of al- Shabab fighters. Now I am focusing in my degree
vothmr: “I think the application of that logic to the Libyan situation is a gross oversimplification and borders on negligent.”. Negligence requires someone to be harmed; who are you suggesting that party is?
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