The " Arab Spring" re-visted

Elyzabeth

Elyzabeth

Member
Location
Bristol, England
Is there any doubt that this was the beginning of the chaos and EXTREME Horrors

we now see in the Middle East?

The Arab Spring laid the seeds for ISIS.


I 'm ashamed to say, as a UK citizen, that the UK dropped bombs on Libya

with no thoughts whatsoever as to what the consequences would be.

The people who are out there now are worse than Quadaffi, or even Sadam Hussein.

and they are attacking us, with a vengeance!

They want to rule the world...

Hmm..... who was the last person who wanted to do that?

oh, it was Hitler!
 

Don't blame it all onto Britain, the US was not so innocent.

The UK, US and France have attacked Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces in the first action to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone.
Pentagon officials say the US and the UK have fired more than 110 missiles, while French planes struck pro-Gaddafi forces attacking rebel-held Benghazi.
Col Gaddafi has vowed retaliation and said he would open arms depots to the people to defend Libya.
Cruise missiles hit air-defence sites in the capital, Tripoli, and Misrata.
Libyan state TV said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the attacks. There was no independent confirmation of the deaths.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12796972
 
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Not my point !

My point is: The "Arab Spring" was not about a desire for democracy....

but to unleash the worst of the worst within the twisted type of Islam espoused by Isis !
 

It turned out ugly but the Arab Spring started out as a revolutionarvforce in Tunisia and spread. The West intervened in the hope of getting more democratic processes in motion, but it backfired badly...
 
With posting this Elyzabeth........................I 'm ashamed to say, as a UK citizen, that the UK dropped bombs on Libya

with no thoughts whatsoever as to what the consequences would be...........what was your point Elyzabeth????, with you just

mentioning the U.K. and no other country that dropped the bombs, it seemed to me you was just blaming the U.K. only for the bombing.
 
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NATO can be blamed for Libya with Hillary Clinton foaming at the mouth to get it done. I think I've read that NATO's mandate is ONLY to protect NATO members but it's been perverted to be a weapon to be used anywhere 'someone' deems it necessary to their agenda. Libya might have had issues before but Gaddafi did take care of his own citizens, free healthcare, free education, a royalty check from their oil for the citizens, support for other African countries. His demise was brought about by his desire to trade his oil for gold currency instead of the dollar and that couldn't be allowed.

So Elyzabeth, your government was simply falling in line and taking orders I think.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33613.htm This article begins with a description of the form of democracy that was present in Libya prior to it's destruction and was written by some guy out of Harvard University.

I think the closing paragraph says a lot about what NATO destroyed:

Muammar Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa . However, by the time he was assassinated, Libya was unquestionably Africa ‘s most prosperous nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy in Africa and less people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands . Libyans did not only enjoy free health care and free education, they also enjoyed free electricity and interest free loans. The price of petrol was around $0.14 per liter and 40 loaves of bread cost just $0.15. Consequently, the UN designated Libya the 53rd highest in the world in human development.
 
Bee said:
With posting this Elyzabeth........................I 'm ashamed to say, as a UK citizen, that the UK dropped bombs on Libya

with no thoughts whatsoever as to what the consequences would be...........what was your point Elyzabeth????, with you just

mentioning the U.K. and no other country that dropped the bombs, it seemed to me you was just blaming the U.K. only for the bombing.
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I think she was more simply lamenting that 'her' country had participated in bringing that country to it's knees as well as setting the stage for what has followed. I feel the same way about Canada's involvement in the destruction of Haiti. We didn't lead, but we sure participated much to our shame. Not that most Canadians even realize that we were there.
 
Debby, did you realise that Elyzabeth is an American living in England with duel citizenship and she does like knocking the U.K.
 
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No one has said the UK is completely blameless, what I said was the US is not so innocent.

Why don't you read the link I posted before you pass comment.
 
I'm afraid that all of Elyzabeths posts are very anti Britain, so much so, that I wonder if she is unhappy living here?None of us here would be so naive as to think our country always does the right thing, but we do know that it doesn't always do the wrong thing either.As Ralphy says, the Arab Spring was a move towards democracy, but it hasn't turned out well.
 
Until the turn of the century the middle east has been entirely controlled by strong despots who've brutally maintained tight control over their populations. The result was a status quo of sorts. The US upset this arrangement by invading Iraq and bombing Libya. The results have been very disturbing indeed, but I'm convinced the same falling into chaos would have occurred sooner or later without Western intervention, because the middle east was extremely unstable anyway and when the oil ran out all hell was bound to let loose. So while the US was wrong to intervene (very wrong) there was no way to avoid what is happening and no way to fix it now.
 
I think Elyzabeth does not favour Canada, either, but considers us to be a suburb of America, or so she stated to me shortly after I joined sf. Perhaps her comments are tongue in cheek, but appear to indicate a certain bias against Britain and possibly some members of the Commonwealth. Patriotism toward our country of origin is all very well, but all gov'ts involved in this mess should be held to the same standard of accountability.
 
Bee said:
Debby, did you realise that Elyzabeth is an American living in England with duel citizenship and she does like knocking the U.K.
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That may be, but her point is well taken and I'm hopeful that she also recognizes America's involvement in all of this.

And having said that, I'm here in Canada, pointing out over the months, the conflicts caused and supported by the USA and supported by Canada, Britain and France, etc. Conflict is conflict and it's high time we all admitted our countries culpability because change only comes in the light of knowledge.
 
Josiah said:
Until the turn of the century the middle east has been entirely controlled by strong despots who've brutally maintained tight control over their populations. The result was a status quo of sorts. The US upset this arrangement by invading Iraq and bombing Libya. The results have been very disturbing indeed, but I'm convinced the same falling into chaos would have occurred sooner or later without Western intervention, because the middle east was extremely unstable anyway and when the oil ran out all hell was bound to let loose. So while the US was wrong to intervene (very wrong) there was no way to avoid what is happening and no way to fix it now.
Click to expand...


Did you happen to read the link I showed here on Libya Josiah? According to reports, Libya was not in chaos and the folks there actually had it pretty good until they were bombed by NATO/the USA. What's more, in 1991, the Pentagon made the explicit decision to destabilize the ME and General Wesley Clark is on record (on video at several speaking engagements) attesting to that fact.

So while that area may have had issues, American involvement has deliberately exacerbated the situation and continues to do so, with the most recent result being your administrations (with full knowledge) result of the creation of ISIS.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-...ed-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-is...-the-fall-of-mosul-and-ramadi-in-2012/5451363

So in light of the recent release of Pentagon documents stating that they knew that ISIS was developing but continue to fund their so-called 'moderate' opposition fighters to the Assad government and Clark's statement regarding ME destabilization, is it really reasonable to suggest that there 'was no way to avoid it'?

I'd say that the 1991 decision has been a resounding success. And the big bucks continue to roll into the coffers of the military industrialists (all of whom have stables of lobbyists talking to your politicians).
 
Debby said:
That may be, but her point is well taken and I'm hopeful that she also recognizes America's involvement in all of this.

And having said that, I'm here in Canada, pointing out over the months, the conflicts caused and supported by the USA and supported by Canada, Britain and France, etc. Conflict is conflict and it's high time we all admitted our countries culpability because change only comes in the light of knowledge.
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My point about Elyzabeths original post is, she made it sound as if it was only Britain that bombed Libya when in fact it wasn't.

If Elyzabeth had said that both Britain and the U.S had bombed Libya then that would have been fair enough and I wouldn't have got involved in a discussion in the first place.

Oakapple is correct in her post where she says that Elyzabeths posts are all anti British and myself and one or two other U.K. members have proved her wrong before in what she has said.
 
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Perhaps this is true Bee... however, it's not too much unlike the anti-American sentiment we see here at times.. a whole lot more times in fact.. Lot's of "pots and kettles" here I may add.
 
Well I think you'll have to agree that I for one don't spare my government any criticism Quick Silver. No pot/kettle thing going on here :D!

I have a long list of bookmarked stories calling out (especially) the current government for multiple wrongs, but frankly seldom do threads on them because I'm guessing that as the group here is mostly American, there would be little interest. It would more often than not, be a conversation with myself I think.

Just for fun though, as you know we will be having an election in October and one of the candidates is the son of a past Prime Minister. He's 43, is good looking and charming and loves being among the people. Really sociable unlike our current PM.

One of our current Conservative PM's methods of bad mouthing him is to continually say that Trudeau (the Liberal leader) 'isn't ready to be PM because he's inexperienced'. So let's compare them:

Harper:

-became PM when he was 47
-worked for Imperial oil in the mail room and as a computer technician (where he probably got to say "did you try turning it off and then on again";) a lot)
-got his Masters in Economic and finished that when he was about 28 whereupon, he started up the political ladder so he never actually worked as an economist.

Trudeau:

-grew up at the knee of one of Canada's Prime Ministers and spent his young years surrounded by and influenced by numerous political leaders from around the world
-got his BA in education and even spent time studying engineering (although he did drop out)
-worked as a teacher for nine years, worked as a ski instructor in his early years
-was the Chairman of the Board for some group called Katimavik (Canada's premier national youth learning through volunteer service organization) which had 900 young people working there at the time
-united the Liberal Party at a time when they were crushed and down
-is running to be Prime Minister at the age of 43.

So the 'bad' is that Harper tries hard to portray the 'next' guy as weak, inexperienced and deficient even as Harper, the economist, has shepherded the country through rough times and is so capable. What is ignored is that just before the Conservatives took over, the Liberal party left a huge surplus to them which they proceeded to use to 'save' the country in the 2008 financial collapse after which they ran deficit after deficit. At least Trudeau had real and significant jobs, worked with 'real' people with 'real' concerns instead of insignificant jobs and then spent his time with 'politicians'. So basically our PM works secretively and offers lies and innuendo to support why he should be voted in again.

And then there's Harper's decision to not support a nuclear free world as proposed by the UN.......I could go on and on.
 
Then to add another 'story' about Canadian politics, our current government told the taxpayer that the F35's they wanted to buy would cost $48 billion when in fact they would actually cost about $56 billion which would eat up Canada's military budget for the next three decades. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...er-programs-life-expert-says/article18325378/

Harper initially came to power promising to abolish the Senate, then proceeded to appoint about 35 more Senators several of whom are in the RCMP cross hairs for bilking the taxpayers of Canada out of a few million on illegal expenses. And indeed one of his MP's has just been sentenced to jail time for committing fraud in the course of his election campaign.

Like I said, I have a long list, but I'm hoping that I've proved the point that I'm neither a 'pot' nor a 'kettle'.

I'm not saying that there aren't good people who set out to do good things in the political world but it seems to me that there is overwhelming evidence that multitudes of those people in which ever country you want to mention, who become corrupted by the power, the prestige, the perks and prospects and proceed to do their own thing at the expense of the people.
 
My countries are both America and the UK


Was America dropping bombs on Libya?

I think it was just the "raised in a wealthy bubble" Prime Minister David Cameron

that insisted on dropping bombs on Libya.. which should not have been done...
it was none of his business and look where it got us !!!!

Perhaps I'm wrong, if so, please enlighten me

According to an article in a 2011 issue of the Guardian: America offered ground support.. BUT The UK bombed them !!!
 
I do Not "like Knocking the UK" Bee.. I read the news about America and the UK very closely and on a daily basis

Had you a bit more l knowledge you would perhaps have been aware of the many

times that I have been quite unhappy with several American policies...

and that I am ashamed that George Bush was ever an American President


Over here, I am very annoyed with the " voting policies "... once every 5 years?

mark X in a box. for the old boys network to pick their leader..?

I also think that the UK should have a constitution, as all other developed countries, do.

Those are the two areas which I have spoken out about

As an American I believe in bringing to the daylight areas which I feel the government is failing in.

Wheras the people of the UK, tend to view any criticism as "dissing their country."

... and usually tell me to go back to where I came from by the way !

Some people are a bit more limited in their views and understanding...

and will tell those who think differently to go back to where they came from
 
In reply to BEE :



The US did NOT bomb Libya they "offered ground support" (
(According to The Guardian )

Perhaps you would like to get a bit more knowledge , before you make statement such as that ?
 
Elzabeth , to the best of my knowledge, all your posts regarding Britain have been critical even of our way of voting!you can hardly be surprised, if you are always critical that people will say ' go home then , if it's so wonderful there'.
I have never stated any anti American things on here, or anywhere else for that matter, and have never heard any of my friends say anything critical about the US or the President. why would you say that David Cameron was raised in a wealthy bubble? a lot of politicians come from well off backgrounds in all countries, but it doesn't mean they can't do the job.
 
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Also, Elzabeth, perhaps you should be a bit more aware that in all matters Middle East , your own country has dropped quite a few bombs as well.Rightly or wrongly.
 

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