The Civil War in Libya

Miragedriver said:

I don’t see Libya descending into the chaos and disorder that is Afghanistan and Somalia.
Libya has three major things in its favor:
The first being that it has a lot of petroleum that can be purchased and processed and will provide revenue for the nation to rebuild and prosper.
Second: It’s close proximity to Europe.
Third: The European nations will not permit Libya to slide in chaos since it would discredit its intervention there.

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This is still an open-end situation, see:

The members of the Libya INC only see eye-to-eye in the issue of getting rid of Qaddafi, but haven't yet come to any solid conclusion of sort as to what's after that. By the current state of events Qaddafi have already been rendered broken and it's just a matter of time before he ended up shacked and lead to parade in front of TV camera, or as a severed head on a pike for the same. Still, what's after that? If the INC failed to transit into a functioning national government, how could you expect oil companies or foreign enterprises to return to Libya? Sure the oil companies ain't stranger to "technical expenses" to things like make "friends" with local militia or employ PMC to secure facilities, but the risk of having armed men roam around with things more potent than Kalashnikov and RPG-7, and no national army to ask for aid would be...bad, to say the least. Such risk could easily outweigh the potential earning there is, though the oil companies never have any qualm in transfer the cost to the end-user by driving up the gas price at the pump.

On the note of that, while no doubt the army under the INC finally whipped into better shape, they still in way far from being a national army. Hopefully things change towards that direction in the coming future, for Libyan's own sake.

While of course Libya's close proximity to Europe means the latter can't ignore the situation there, the European nations are the shadow of their former selves, thanks to the credit crunch that plagues just about everyone of them - essentially, none of them have the money or stomach to stick their nose out for the long run. For them the best scenario is the Libyan can sort it out themselves and then cut the lion share of spoils to them, but if the former already unreliable, the candies won't come anytime soon. Look, if the Italian finance minister have to half-beg the Chinese to buy more government bonds, think about how bad things are for them.

so many of top tier of libyan rebel were al queda.and remember how the US and western countries support of so call "freedom fighter" in Agfhanistan? which eventually al queda/taliban takeover?

Equation said:

Perhaps, but lets give the Libyans the benefit of a doubt that they can actually pull it through enough for the next election process to be more peaceful than the first. After all what do they got to lose? Who wants to go back to Ghadaffi dictatorship?

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How many Libyans want the current, NATO sponsored, lot?

Miragedriver said:

I don’t see Libya descending into the chaos and disorder that is Afghanistan and Somalia.
Libya has three major things in its favor:
The first being that it has a lot of petroleum that can be purchased and processed and will provide revenue for the nation to rebuild and prosper.
Second: It’s close proximity to Europe.
Third: The European nations will not permit Libya to slide in chaos since it would discredit its intervention there.

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Nigeria has even more oil. The Biafra war forty years ago was a effort by French oil companies to get a part of the loot. From that time on the country has been governed by military presidents with plenty of corruption and poverty for the large majority of the population. Western countries and Western oil companies were happy to operate in that environment. And to what extent is the US worried that their wars against Iraq and Afghanistan will be "discredited" by the outcome?

challenge said:

so many of top tier of libyan rebel were al queda.and remember how the US and western countries support of so call "freedom fighter" in Agfhanistan? which eventually al queda/taliban takeover?

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The AQ of today is more like Seven-Eleven, not necessary ideological pure-blood as they were up till 9-11; besides, Libya is not like Afghan who were used to being poor, illiterate thus susceptible to Islamic fundamentalist teaching that resulted the Taliban, Libyan were far better educated, used to the Western trapping and secular lifestyles, plus Iranian ain't so much a good example (the Iranian could be far more than they are now if not for the fundamentalism), they've to be wised up and can't really choose the Taliban/AQ style of things, especially the coming rebuild phase of Libya have to undertake needs all sort of experts and that means more dealings with foreigners of non-Islamic faith.

So my take on this would be: a slight roll back on the westernization, but not to the kind of ignorant serfdom that was Taliban...still, all rest on if the Libya INC would make the transition into new Libya national government on schedule.

NATO was able to drive Qaddafi out of Tripoli using a disparate coalition of rebels and large scale bombing and special forces but it is now unable to install a coherent government!

delft said:

NATO was able to drive Qaddafi out of Tripoli using a disparate coalition of rebels and large scale bombing and special forces but it is now unable to install a coherent government!

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Watch this, some NTC members will get a power trip and refused the election results claiming fraud, therefore delaying the process of a permanent working democracy in Libya.

delft said:

NATO was able to drive Qaddafi out of Tripoli using a disparate coalition of rebels and large scale bombing and special forces but it is now unable to install a coherent government!

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Well, what did you exspect? That NATO countries, right after the fall of Tripoli, would come up with a group of 10 people they have chosen, put them in place as the new legitimate government and exspect all Libyans to accept that?
Wouldn't you then have been among the first to scream out "Colonialism" ?
I'm all for helping people get rid of oppression, but in the end people must take their fortune into their own hands.
Obviously there will be power struggles as people will try to exploide the new freedoms. Exspecting a picture book democracy right after Gaddafi's fall is a little exaggerated, I think.

People who cannot organize a provisional government after driving away the previous one are not able to organize that driving away in the first place.

delft said:

People who cannot organize a provisional government after driving away the previous one are not able to organize that driving away in the first place.

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That's true...but revolution is so much fun (pun intended)!