Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

As you said Bil, you're no military strategist. Anyway Bil have you changed your mind on Afghanistan yet?

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The same was said of Saddam in Iraq. Then after he was removed from power all hell broke lose because it turned out that's the only way to keep the place in check.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Sorry Ellis but that wasn't Gaddafi it was Megrahi.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

cool with me..let em kill each other inside their own borders..wasn't planning a holiday in Benghazi anyway

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Now that I do agree with! It's nothing to do with us so let's bring our troops home & let the middle east sort it's own problems out.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

errmm..I may have missed something but isn't that the point you are arguing ?

I wasn't aware NATO troops were stationed in Libya, thought it was just air support and lobbing America's surplus of cruise missiles at him

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

No your not.

It is bordered by Pakistan in the southeast,[note] Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. The territory that now forms Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration.

Its been fought over by Alexander the Great to several British invasions and thats without getting to the latest ones. Russians and the CIA.

Jim

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

No, it was still bloody stupid and arrogant of the yanks to go in thinking they could walk into Afghanistan. No-one has conquered Afghanistan. Not the Yanks, not the russians, not the British raj, and not even Alexander the great.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Who do you think holds the British Politicians hands and babysits them when they dispense their propaganda?

Jim

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Special forces troops are in Libya but I'm talking about the entire region. Regardless of what the pc brigade say people are different. We're educated, we know the earth is round but goat herders in the back of beyond without internet, mobile phones & Sky television still believe that god creates day & night.

The average Afghan knows nothing about 9/11, all he knows is foreign troops have invaded & taken control of their land. As far as they're concerned they're fighting evil with god on their side so unless we destroy the whole country it is physically impossible to win and anyway, why should we build schools for them when we can't even afford new ones ourselves?

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

?

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The Russians were doing fine until the CIA gave the Afghans their latest anti aircraft missiles.

Jim

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Oh c'mon dude. Sure the yanks helped them out, but those afghans are mean mutha****ers. They worked out how to take out the armoured Russian helicopter gunships. They'd do it with machine guns too, which would have been laughable, had it not worked so well.

They'd bait the trap so the russians would send in the gunships, but the afghans would have men with machine guns hidden up on high rock points so that the russians would fly under those points and the afghans would fire down into the unarmoured tops.

The yanks are discovering to their cost that Afghanistan is a tough nut to get into, impossible to hold, and expensive to get out of.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The Hind is very well armoured so very few were shot down by small arms fire. The Mujahideen only enjoyed success against the gunships with US supplied Stingers.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

;)Very few back of beyonds nowadays out of the reach of facebook, twitter, and Al Jazeera. Even goatherds in Leptis Magnae have an iphone.
ciao for now,
'o nonno

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Just watched a clip on this mornings news of the thousands of Libyans queuing up to see Gadaffis body, every single man jack of them appeared to be carrying a mobile of some sort, ready to take a shot.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Strange considering the GSM coverage in libya don't you think :confused: :confused: :confused:

http://www.rangeroamer.com/coverage-maps/gsm-world.aspx

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

:)Not really all that strange. Just think for a moment how we all managed to see Gadaffi's death almost as it happened. By mobile phones/youtube rebroadcasts/internet etc.
ciao for now,
'o nonno

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

I thought we had gone back to the 12th century watching those clips. Not a great start to a new modern democracy is it:ohmy:

Was listening to an Arab on TV and he said it didn't bode well for the country as despite what the media says Gadaffi still had a lot of followers in the country if only for tribal reasons. Most people had free electric and free education. According to foreign news Gaddafi isn't the only one being subjected to this treatment! Savages. Next thing the various rebel factions will be tearing each other to pieces.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Maybe, maybe not. If we had been living under that madman, we might think differently. Had he killed anyone I cared about, I wouldn't seek to penalise the guy that shot him, I'd be looking to buy him a drink.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

As ever doom and gloom.

For me the manner of his death was both justified and understandable.

As for the future who knows, the early signs of forming a democracy look promising, tribal differences are not so critical as elsewhere in Africa and in any event it surely can't be any worse than what's gone before.

Best of luck to them and I hope they enjoy their day of celebration before getting down to business again, which incidently is already surprisingly good.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Those journalists with satellite phones get everywhere don't they? You're not a rocket scientist or brain surgeon by any chance are you ononno? :rofl:

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

What we have seen is disgusting. The papers & news channels have committed war crimes in showing the world just how barbaric his death was but what is most disgusting is the way oil companies are scurrying around for contracts. You might think things couldn't be any worse, but just like Iraq we'll still be discussing this in 10yrs time.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The papers have committed war crimes? I had no idea.

Personally like DD, I really could not give a sh'it about gaddaffi or the means of his going.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

I think there is something in the Geneva convention about showing such things as videos:confused: I don't/didn't care about Gaddafi but found the whole thing sickening and barbaric and it demeans the human race.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

I doubt you'd be ranting on so much about the manner of his passing had the lives of yourself and those close to you been ruined or destroyed by his horrific deeds and rule of fear, which no doubt touched on a large part of the Libyan population to one degree or another, including many of those who finally caught up with him.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

You may well be right, however, I think it was useful having that image sent round the world. It might make people like Assad of Syria think twice about the road he is on. Seeing Gaddafi die like that might make him think about cutting a deal, democracy for immunity, or something like that.

If that were to happen, then Gaddafi would have done some good after all.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Good point. Crossed my mind too. :thumbup:

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

.........and the best thing of all, is that it was the people whom he had been abusing for so many years, who finally gave him a taste of his own medicine. He was "lucky" in not being tortured and made to "dissapear". unlike so many of his victims

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Yeah, how would you fancy standing there when they had hold of him and saying "I say chaps, I really think we should give him a fair trial..."

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Under the circumstances I thought his captors were extremely generous in giving him a bottle of water whilst deciding his fate.
Doubt very much that he was ever quite so considerate.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Doesn't anyone consider it ironic that both Germany and Poland were the only two NATO countries that refused to go to war against Libya.

I am surprised, well not really.

Jim

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

I love the way people complain about 'horrific deeds', that is afterall what we have all witnessed in the news this last few days.

Even with the support of Nato it took 8 months to beat Gaddafi. That should tell you that he had a hell of a lot of supporters that are prepared to fight for him. They had a leader that they were happy with, now they have a government imposed on them by the west.

What do you think these supporters will do now? Let me give you a clue, the same thing happened in Iraq & civil war is still raging now because of it. More Iraqi's have died in Iraq since the 2003 than ever died under Saddam's reign (& that's including casulaties from his war with Iran).

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

What????? Gaddafi promised oil deals with several western countries (including the UK). These deals were dependent on Megrahi being released. When Megrahi was freed, Gaddafi went back on his word, & made the deals with China instead. France & Italy then struck deals with the rebels (before nato airstrikes even began). The rest as they say, is history.

So no the Syrians only concern is selling oil to China & India that the west wants. You could investigate some of the brutality that goes in in Saudi Arabia, but they'll never be invaded because they sell oil to the US.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The clue is in the word 'might'. Syria may fall, it may not. I don't know, and neither do you.

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Absolute cobblers.

First the time factor.

Nato could probably have bombed the place to buggery and ended it all pretty damned quick.
Instead they were patient and selective taking out targets when they became available and when it was reasonably safe to do so, with very few mistakes, and so limiting civilian casualties to a minimum.

Limiting innocent victims was the order of the day NOT the time factor.

Secondly Gadaffis support.

Now for a guy you claim had a hell of a lot of support how do you explain the fact that he needed to use so many merceneries from other countries or indeed use any mercenaries at all ?

Mercenaries who were not only used to fight the rebellion, but also to put the fear of death into his own population as well as any members of his own army who had thoughts of defecting.
Little wonder those guys fought to the finish.
They knew they had no other option because they were so despised by the vast majority of Libyans who would obviously have little sympathy for them at the end of the day.

Yes his ppl.really loved him didn't they just as he repeatedly claimed in his repeated broadcasts ?

Loved him so much that he was hard pressed to get more than a hundred of them on show at a time when he called in the Worlds press for his staged events supposedly showing where innocent citizens had been hit by Nato airstrikes.
Despite his repeated efforts, both the press and public came to the conclusion that the claimed damage had obviously been staged and more than likely the small handful of so-called supporters on show were there under duress.

Whatever happened to, or where on earth were the 60,000 troops he said were defending Tripoli alone ?

For me when the dust settled the most surprising thing of all was just how LITTLE SUPPORT he really had, apart from family, paid mercenaries, and members of his tribe.

As I said a totally different situation to that in Iraq or maybe I've been following a different war to you. :confused:

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Gaddafi dies in the middle of conflict when passions are high, killed by the people he opressed for so long.

Osama is executed by the US, in a sovereign state, without their permission, in a clear act of revenge.

So, how's the UN investigation into the OBL murder going on?

Or isn't it murder if the Yanks do it?

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Possibly the biggest problem they face is if, as some pundits state, sharia law is used instead of some form of our type of law. It could then sweep across Northern Africa.

Graham

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

Only if the religious nutters get into control. People who favour democracy don't usually go a bundle on Sharia.

Would you vote to put the UK under religious law, and hand all our rights over to the church?

Re: GADAFFI IS DEAD.
 

The islamist party is the favourite for the elections in Tunisia. Been a lot of burning and looting shops selling Western music and DVD's and various other incidents. Egypt is turning backwards, wanting women back in headgear and burning Christian churches, usually with Christians inside. The Muslim brotherhood is strengthening.

Initially in Libya will be NTC have a big fall out, they have already bumped off one of their members.