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Originally Posted by Toughy
I keep looking for that article I read talking about covert and overt military actions in Libya over the last 40 or so years. Haven't found it but will keep looking. Certainly, you can say we did not 'officially' partake in military actions against Libya except on occasion, however I don't believe it. We certainly sanctioned Libya for most of those years in terms of trade. I get my info from a variety of sources also and that's probably why I can't find the article.....laughin...I will keep looking.
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Toughy;
So are you saying that we should treat the situation 'as if' it were true that we've been bombing Libya for 36 of the last 42 years because it could be possible that we have been, even though there's no evidence for it? If that's the case then why on Earth should anyone get exercised when someone on the right says something along these lines. "Now, I can't find any evidence that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a biblical literalist and pro-Goldwater Republican who believed that in small government and lower corporate taxes, but let's say that he was. Since he *was* these things, he wouldn't support the Occupy Wall Street movement." Is it true? No. But the Republican party would like to talk about King as if it *were* true and so they assert, for the sake of the discussion, that is *is* true whether there is evidence for it or not. Or, perhaps even closer to what you are saying is this gem from the current Republican party hit parade: "okay, you claim there is ample evidence for climate change. I have no counter evidence. But I reject that what you claim is evidence is actually evidence. Evidence only counts if it shows that climate change isn't happening. Any evidence to the contrary, is just proof that there's no evidence either way, which means that there is evidence that it isn't happening." Because that's pretty close to what you're doing above, my friend.
It may come out, one day, that we were involved in covert actions in Libya but I doubt it. I doubt it for a number of reasons:
1) From 1970 to 1989 Libya was a Soviet client state. While we had conflicts with Libya we did not have conflicts with them that would have provoked the USSR into believing their interests were being challenged. Since Libya was one of the primary suppliers of oil to the Soviet Union, we were going to watch our steps and the Soviets were going to keep a lid on the Libyans. We also had limited trade with ALL Soviet client states because we didn't want to prop them up.
2) If anyone here ever spent time at the CIA I apologize for what comes next. The CIA is and has been pretty incompetent particularly in human intelligence since the late 50s. During the *entire* Cold War the CIA never managed to penetrate the Kremlin. Never. At all. Not even close. Our human intelligence efforts in the Middle East, the Near East and nations surrounding the southern Mediterranean (northern Africa) have never been even as good as what we had in Eastern Europe and we *sucked* in Eastern Europe! We couldn’t develop assets in countries where the CIA had people who had cultural knowledge. We certainly didn't develop any assets in places like Libya. Ever.
3) While the CIA sucked, the KGB was all over the CIA. They managed to put moles high up in the CIA and the FBI and the Brits MI-6. There's a reason why the CIA stopped trying to run covert ops in Europe by the mid-60s and it was because every time they cultivated some spy or dropped some operatives into a country behind the Iron Curtain those people got picked up time and time again because the CIA was leaky like a colander! We couldn't have pulled off a decent operation in a Soviet client state if our lives depending upon it! We certainly didn't have any assets that could have done anything in Libya that would have been at all effective.
Yes, Toughy, we did sanction Libya after they blew up a disco in Germany and then, as an encore, blew up a Pan Am plane while it was 30,000 feet in the air. That seems reasonable to me.
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It's kind of like how we were enforcing 'no fly zones' in Iraq since the first Iraq War........nobody would admit it yet it was happening.
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What do you mean nobody would admit it was happening? It was all over the news! The only people who didn't know that there was a no-fly zone happening were people who weren't paying attention. Every time the Iraqis locked on to an American aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone, that radar got destroyed and there was a news story on all the networks that night. Every time the Iraqis tried to challenge the no-fly zone and sent up a helicopter or one of their remaining fighters and had it shot down, there was a news article. So who wasn't admitting that the no-fly zone was in effect? I remember constant articles in left-leaning magazines about the no-fly zone throughout the nineties so I'm not sure why you think there was a cover up. The US government admitted that there was a no-fly zone. The United Nations kept reauthorizing the no-fly zone. NATO kept supporting the no-fly zone. The Saudi Arabians kept allowing the US to use air bases in that nation in order to enforce the no-fly zone which, as it turns out, was one of the things that Osama bin Laden mentioned in his 1998 fatwa declaring war against the United States.
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AND Obama says ALL troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year.
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Yes, because the Status Of Forces Agreement dictates that it should be so. Once hostilities have ended, we can't be in any country that doesn't consent to have us there. If Iraq will only allow US troops on their land under specific conditions (as is their right) and we reject those conditions (as is our right) then there's no agreement and our troops can't stay. If we try to keep them there despite what the host country has stated it wants, then that is an act of war. Before anyone says anything, there will be Marines at the embassy. These do not count because there are Marines at *every* embassy. These are not 'troops in Iraq' they are 'Marines on embassy duty'. And yes, I know that they're keeping a bunch of contractors in-country. These are not troops, they are mercenaries. When they put the uniform back on, I'll dignify them by counting them amongst our troops but until then, they are mercenaries who are loyal to whomever is signing the cheque.
Cheers
Aj