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Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of the Élys

Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of the Élysée by newly elected president Sarkozy, four years before. And back then, Khaddaffi was not especially a benevolent dictator. And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have no troops over here to free the people of Eritrea.

mousecorkkey 8y ago
Are you referring to Gaddafi?
- sacado2 8y ago
  Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).
  - mcv 8y ago
    I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi in English. Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.
    - toomanybeersies 8y ago
      It's a transliteration of Arabic. There's no single correct transliteration so it depends on the publisher as to what spelling they use. Here's a very fun Stack Overflow question about using a regex to match the different spellings: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expression-to-search-for-gadaffi https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressi...
    - Koshkin 8y ago
      It's such a mess. We might be better off just translating the damn names (like they did in the remote past)...
      - fapjacks 8y ago
        Yes, but if we did that, the news would get confusing as we tried to sort out which "Grand King King of the Warrior Kings" they were talking about.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Given his name isn’t really written in the Latin alphabet (“معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي”, according to Wikipedia), all these variations are equally [in]correct.
opless 8y ago
He did weed out people he considered his enemies, but he did give people free education, a banking system that was more client friendly (in terms of loans etc) and I understand free utilities. I was of the understanding that the invasion was to increase France's political clout in North Africa, to avoid Ghaddafi's plan of unifying Africa under a gold standard (Gold Dinar) and most importantly to sell oil under the aforementioned currency.
- sacado2 8y ago
  I was of the same understanding, but this is pure speculation, obviously.
mcv 8y ago
I think there were two things that made a difference in Libya: * Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited and mostly denied Khaddafi the advantage of his air force. A thumb on the scale to tip the balance between Khaddafi and the rebels, basically. And in fact, Syria is not so different, although the involvement is on a much larger scale. It's still mostly various rebel factions that do the actual fighting. Iraq, by contrast, was a full scale invasion, and one based on a lie. I'm not saying that makes Libya and Syria completely justified, but it's clearly a different case than Iraq, and much easier to justify, if you accept the legitimacy of the rebels.
- orbifold 8y ago
  Both in Syria and Lybia you had quite a few special forces on the ground and some of the war lords / Kurdish militia got equipment and funding through western intelligence agencies. In the case of the Syrian civil war you could follow the factions and who they were supported by in real time on a google map somewhere.

mousecorkkey 8y ago

Are you referring to Gaddafi?

sacado2 8y ago
Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).
- mcv 8y ago
  I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi in English. Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    It's a transliteration of Arabic. There's no single correct transliteration so it depends on the publisher as to what spelling they use. Here's a very fun Stack Overflow question about using a regex to match the different spellings: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expression-to-search-for-gadaffi https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressi...
  - Koshkin 8y ago
    It's such a mess. We might be better off just translating the damn names (like they did in the remote past)...
    - fapjacks 8y ago
      Yes, but if we did that, the news would get confusing as we tried to sort out which "Grand King King of the Warrior Kings" they were talking about.
ben_w 8y ago
Given his name isn’t really written in the Latin alphabet (“معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي”, according to Wikipedia), all these variations are equally [in]correct.

opless 8y ago

He did weed out people he considered his enemies, but he did give people free education, a banking system that was more client friendly (in terms of loans etc) and I understand free utilities. I was of the understanding that the invasion was to increase France's political clout in North Africa, to avoid Ghaddafi's plan of unifying Africa under a gold standard (Gold Dinar) and most importantly to sell oil under the aforementioned currency.

sacado2 8y ago
I was of the same understanding, but this is pure speculation, obviously.

mcv 8y ago

I think there were two things that made a difference in Libya: * Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited and mostly denied Khaddafi the advantage of his air force. A thumb on the scale to tip the balance between Khaddafi and the rebels, basically. And in fact, Syria is not so different, although the involvement is on a much larger scale. It's still mostly various rebel factions that do the actual fighting. Iraq, by contrast, was a full scale invasion, and one based on a lie. I'm not saying that makes Libya and Syria completely justified, but it's clearly a different case than Iraq, and much easier to justify, if you accept the legitimacy of the rebels.

orbifold 8y ago
Both in Syria and Lybia you had quite a few special forces on the ground and some of the war lords / Kurdish militia got equipment and funding through western intelligence agencies. In the case of the Syrian civil war you could follow the factions and who they were supported by in real time on a google map somewhere.