General Overview Libya has always been exposed to conflict. If one looks at this map it's easy to see why: The location of this country enables it to be a desirable trading and military post; Through trading, slaves were easily acquired in this region in the 1800's, and, militarily speaking, a U.S. base here enables cost-effective intelligence operations throughout all of Africa and Europe. The discovery of oil within the region makes for a shorter trading route as well. The Transformation Of a Monarchy Into a Big Brother State: The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled one of the world's poorest nations to establish an extremely wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan government's finances, resentment among some factions began to build over the increased concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of King Idris. (If someone could find some information correlating a deal with the King to buy oil and the establishment of a U.S. embassy within the region, I'll post it here). Fast forward 10 years... Gaddafi has claimed power. This is where all of the confusion begins and ends. People say that Gaddafi helped increase the standard of living within Libya. This is true, though misleading. Only those that lived within the general vicinity of major cities (such as Tripoli) and major resource centers saw an increase in their standard of living. This increase wasn't great, still significantly less than the average American - But it resulted in a HUGE class disparity. You had those who had it good and those that were eating dirt. This system of Government was, in essence, a Dystopia similar to what was described in 1984. Gaddafi, as described in bold was paranoid, hungry for power, and delusional. I deduct from this that he viewed his people as a valuable resource and nothing else. The combination of all these things gives his empire more staying power as there is no more valuable of a resource than 'Mass Content' of your subordinates. The Downfall of a 'Great Leader.' Much of the country's income from oil, which soared in the 1970s, was spent on arms purchases and on sponsoring dozens of paramilitaries and terrorist groups around the world. An airstrike failed to kill Gaddafi in 1986. Libya was finally put under United Nations sanctions after the bombing of a commercial flight killed hundreds of travellers. Whatever you believe this information to be, whether true or false, it's undeniable that it resulted in: Which opened a door-way for the Obama administration to approve missile strikes against Libya: So well played out, it's not ill-conceived for one to think that this attack was planned beforehand. So how is Libya going to recover from this mess? (Will Complete when I'm Not Feeling Lazy). Feel free to add any suggestions that I could implement into this thread.
I see this as the reason for all Government actions that favor the people. They will give us just enough to keep us happy and to keep them in power. The fact is, his government was hardly different from ours, or where ours is going at least. There has to be a real movement to change this, and it does not lie with guns or bombs; it lies with the ideas of the people. Once an overwhelming amount of people stood up against his ideas, there would be nothing he could do to stop their dissidence. Unless, of course, you assume that there will always be an overwhelming amount of people who want to use government as a means of "free" stuff. I like to think people are intellectually and socially progressive.
TBH, everybody seems to be taking anybodies side but the U.S.'s on this issue, so naturally, I'm going to be promoting the other side. That's my intention with the formula of the thread.
bumping this...gonna digg for some articles about it being a covert operation and al queada running shit