Hi Lego,

While I have read history books, I'm no expert. I don't claim to have answers, mostly questions - I'm curious about how the world works.

Thanks for bringing up the history of oil, I would have thought it was only western technology that made use of it, but apparently the Chinese were drilling for oil in 347 AD. In the 9th century, Azerbaijan oilfields were being exploited. In the 12th century Arab and Persian chemists distilled oil, which was exported to Western Europe. However, you are right is was Western technology that transformed crude oil to make paraffin, kerosene and petroleum.

Thanks also for bringing up the Italian occupation. I knew nothing of it, but it was not quite as nice as you made out. 225,000 indigenous Libyans were killed by the Italians who committed war crimes such as using illegal chemical weapons, mass executions of civilians and lots more. The Italians also expelled nearly 1/2 the Bedouin population so their land could be given to Italian settlers. Many were forced into concentration camps, of the 100,000 internees that went into the camps, 40,000 died.

I'm no apologist for Gaddafi - yes, he looked strange. He was probably a horrible human being - most people like him are. But I don't think he deserved to be killed the way he was - for a man who made sure his people were housed, clothed and fed he died a cruel death, it was a war crime.

And I certainly think the Libyan people deserved more from us. We bombed their country, stole their wealth. and now we have turned our backs on them and their suffering - it is inhuman. They are fleeing a civil war we started, yet we claim no responsibility. Nice.

The thing is under Gaddafi, it is a fact, Libya became a wealthy nation. He came from humble beginnings. While Gaddafi became wealthy, he ensured that the nation's wealth was shared among its people. He deserves credit for that don't you think?

BTW I spoke of a Pan African not Pan Arab coalition.

Hi BJelly

The world works like this.

The history of the world
Reveals a simple plan
H takes who has the power
He holds, who can.

Your little spiel pretended that the poor Libyans were just a bunch of nice guys who were siting around communing with nature, eating lotus leaves, and leaving the rest of the world alone. They were anything but. They were a nation of pirates and slave traders, not unlike seaborne versions of ISIS today. Among your statistics showing just how awful those nasty Italians treated them, you forgot to mention how many European ships they captured, and how many passengers and crews were murdered, raped, or sold into slavery.

When the Libyans attacked and captured two US merchant ships, President Jefferson sent the Libyan Pasha a polite note asking why the Libyans had attacked the ships of a new and neutral nation that had done it no harm? The Pasha replied something like "Because you are just infidels and we are Believers, so you are our slaves." "Pay up, or we will attack your ships."

Jefferson sent the fledgling US navy and Marines to attack Libya and give those damned Muslim barbarians a taste of their own medicine.. He said something like 'We Americans prefer war to any form of tribute, whatsoever." You remember the US Marine Hymn? "From the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli?"

It's funny how you can only see third worlders as victims, never aggressors. It is a characteristic of you incredible mindset. Tthe Italians did civilisation a favour by invading the place, shooting the pirates, slave traders and mullahs, and civilising the place. It is too bad they don't do the same thing in Somalia today and end piracy in that important area once and for all. Today, we are more concerned with the Human Rights of pirates to do what is practical and just hang them.

continued

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You also forgot to mention that Libya supplied arms to the IRA which killed British soldiers. A member of the Libyan embassy in London shot and killed a British policewoman from the embassy grounds, which is a perfect illustration of how barbaric and crazy these Libyan nutters are. Ghaddafi was involved in the Lockerbie bombing, which killed hundreds of US and Scottish people, and it was Ghaddafi's agents who were bombed a German nightclub and put a bomb on a US airliner which killed two US women. Then you wonder why the Euros hated Ghadaffi.

The Libyans were lucky that the USA did not turn all of Libya into a giant sheet of glass, while the Euros cheered them on. But the yanks did bomb Ghaddafi and unfortunately, they did not kill him. But you hero Ghaddaffi suddenly realised that he was not immortal and the yanks could get him if they wanted to, so he decided to behave himself. The rebellion by his own people against his regime was something you can't blame on the yanks or the Euros, it looks like his own people did not think as much about him as you do. He died in the gutter at the hands of his own people which was what he deserved.

Lastly, we get to your assertion that the west 'stole Libya's oil." How is inventing the internal combustion engine, creating a resource from what the Libyans once thought of as a pollutant, building oil fields and refineries in Libya, and buying Libyan oil at OPEC prices, theft?

One wonders what would have happened if the Israel had the oil that Libya has? Israel would be the richest nation on earth and the leader in scientific research. But no amount of oil money can do anything for the Arab Muslims. Like lower class lottery winners, they will spend it all and then be back on the dole.

Lego,

I can't claim to know if Libyans are worse or better people than the rest of us, but I suspect most of them are normal people wanting to live their lives in peace. I expect they liked having stable jobs, houses to live in, food to eat, a stable government, and a welfare system to help them in bad times. I think the fact that 1/3 of the population have left since our "humanitarian" intervention says something.

Maybe they are more like you say and they enjoy being surrounded by murderous thugs with no rule of law? No safety and no future for their children. Is that what they deserve?

Lego I don't understand your argument that Libyans using oil refining technology etc is stealing. Science and technology doesn't belong to the nation which invented it. Technology is shared. How can it possibly be wrong for people to exploit their own natural wealth? I think foreign companies who gain access to wealth from exploiting natural resources, without giving proper compensation to the people of that country, by corrupting or threatening governments are the immoral ones.

I don't know about Gaddafi's connection with the IRA, Libyan embassy shooting and Lockerbie bombing. I think there are some who question the official stories about the embassy shooting and the bombing. Being a military leader he no doubt committed terrible crimes, but like you say, that didn't stop the west being friends with him when it suited them.

What did stop everything was when he took steps to use gold backed Dinars (a single African currency) to trade oil. That was what sealed his fate. Terrorism is one thing, but you don't mess with the bankers. The US wouldn't take that - they are the world's biggest debtor nation. Their economy unravels if it isn't propped up artificially by petrodollars and military force.

I take no joy in it, as all of us are in danger of experiencing poverty not seen in living memory if the global banking system goes kaput.
Check out this article about the possible demise of the Petrodollar.
https://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/demise-petrodollar

Gee, BJelly. If you don't know much about Ghaddafi's role in arming the IRA, the Red Brigades, the Baader Meinhoff gang, the bombing of US Airliners, the murder of PC Evonne Fletcher in London, and the bombing of German nightclubs hosting US troops, then you don't know much about your "hero."

The Libyan people are Muslims, and such people have been inculcated at birth to think more about the afterlife than worrying too much about the present. They want the wealth of the western world but their religion forbids them to use their brains to obtain it. They have been inculcated since birth to think that they the Chosen people of God and everybody else is an untermenschen. They are incapable of figuring out that all of their woes are caused by their stupid religion, because criticising or even trying to improve Islam is Apostasy, and apostates are murdered.

It was hoped in the west that the "Arab Spring" might be something like the Polish "Solidarity" movement which saw the collapse of International Socialism in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the weakening of the USSR to the point of economic collapse. We hoped that the Arabs might come to their senses once they had overthrown the nut jobs like Ghaddafi and their mullahs, and instigated something resembling democratic freedoms. That is why we helped the Libyans get rid of that nut job Ghaddafi. But we are dealing with Muslims, and they don't think like Europeans. The Egyptians even voted in a fundamentalist Muslim government that wanted to turn Egypt into an Islamic republic like Iran. Smart huh?

All the "Arab Spring" resulted in was more instability, more tribalism, more religious persecution, more fundamentalism, and Jihad. Don't blame the west for that. They just can't get over their stupid superstitions and all they want to do is to kill each other off, and everybody else who gets in the way. Muslims are a problem everywhere, and we don't want them in our countries causing trouble anymore.

This is an insightful article by this author

It would go a long way to stopping a lot of this
misery, war and poverty in the world, if World Aid was
spent immediately, on providing medical clinics, that provide
contraception free, in lieu of aid money, for women
Aid should go directly there and not to male leaders.

Until I see male leaders in the United Nations stand up and demand
this, I do not think they can blame the West for the miserable
hellholes they have created for themselves, and their women and children.

It should have been done 40years ago, at least, with the means of
contraception that has been available and the amount of aid that has been poured into a lot of these troubled countries.

Oh look, it's the big white elephant. Can't you see it.