Hugo Chavez to Gaddafi

[geomancer]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

In case anyone has a lingering fondness for Chavez, check out his tired leftist demagoguery:

1046: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also spoke to Col Gaddafi by telephone on Tuesday, according to Libyan TV. "President Chavez reconfirmed to the brother leader his solidarity and the solidarity of the Venezuelan people and the peoples of Latin America without exception with the Libyan people in its brave opposition to the conspiracy of suspicious circles, which is targeting the achievements gained by the great victorious revolution and its leader for the cause of freedom, and progress in Latin America in particular, and in the world as a whole," it said. "President Chavez told the brother leader that the Latin American peoples stand side by side and completely ready to make sacrifices in solidarity with the Libyan people and its leader Muammar Gaddafi in confronting this imperialist, Zionist conspiracy, which is targeting security, stability and its national unity."

A classic of the genre. Alas, I missed seeing a reference to the "running dogs" of imperialism. I saw elsewhere that Daniel Ortega and Cuba have also offered their support. Oy.

[zenekar]

First, you are quoting Libyan TV. Second, it's easy to misconstrue words taken out of context, while having only the US media's truncated version of the history of North Africa from the view of US/Europe colonial interest in the region. Same for Cuba and the rest of Latin America.

I'm no apologist for Qaddafi but there is more to his story. Here is another article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...of-kings-.html

Attila
...

[geomancer]

The link is to the BBC - presumably they got it from Libyan TV or some such.

Regarding the Bloomberg article, does generosity to other Africans outweigh bloody murder at home in your personal moral equations?

[zenekar]

Nothing excuses the killing of people -- in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan... I just wanted to give a bit of background of Gaddafi's record as ruler of Libya and proponent of African unity. There is more to that story too but the US (meaning the corporate interests in the US) may have other motives (oil?) to invade Libya and this might be an excuse to take control.

Prof. Horace Campbell: Peace & Justice Movement Should Oppose U.S.-Led Intervention in Libya. Segment of Democracy Now can be seen here, scroll down at the site for transcript. https://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/...stice_movement

_

[geomancer]

Thanks for the link. Personally, I think there is little chance of any US intervention other than establishing a no-fly-zone. Invade Libya with what spare army and what spare money? It's all in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if the resources were available, the bloody disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan have left little appetite in the elites and public for more military adventures. More likely the EU will do something - they will bear the brunt of the refugees if there is a total meltdown.

[Dixon]

Re: Chavez--He's no angel, but is much better than lots of the murderous bastards "our" government has supported. The US government doesn't hate Chavez because he's a bad guy; they hate him because he's not willing to let them use his country and his people as resources to be exploited for the enrichment of the US elite. And his own country's ruling class hate him and try to undermine him because he insists on using the wealth of the country to improve the plight of the poor rather than to further fill the bulging coffers of the rich.

Re: Libya--I hope I'm not breaking WaccoBB rules by doing this, but I'm just gonna copy-and-paste a post I made to a similar thread: One important thing to understand about "our" government's attitude to Gadhafi (and other national leaders) is this: Contrary to their pretensions, our government does NOT decide who to support and who to oppose based on their human rights records. If the US decides to help overthrow the Libyan government, it won't be because Gadhafi is an evil bastard; the US routinely supports evil bastards worldwide, sometimes helping to overthrow democratically elected leaders (Mossadeq, Allende, Aristide, etc.) to replace them with torturing, murdering despots who are friendly to US corporate/government interests. The list of murderous fuckers the US has supported includes the Shah, Marcos, Pinochet, Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Mubarak, the Duvaliers, Rios-Montt, various nameless meat-packing glitterati from Colombia to Burma, and many, many more. So if the US ends up intervening in Libya, it'll be because the ruling class of this country sees it as being in their interest, NOT for the noble sounding reasons they'll claim. As their support of the above-mentioned dictators shows, "our" government certainly has zero interest in promoting democracy or human rights.

[lynn]

..."He's no angel, but is much better than lots of the murderous bastards "our" government has supported. The list of murderous fuckers the US has supported includes the Shah, Marcos, Pinochet, Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Mubarak, the Duvaliers, Rios-Montt, various nameless meat-packing glitterati from Colombia to Burma, and many, many more."...

I figure whatever the reason we, or anyone takes a murderous evil bastard out...One horrible, murderous bastard gone, is one down, many more to go...Isn't it disturbing that our DNA spits out a seemingly endless supply of these evil thugs, and enough people in their own countries admire them enough to keep them in power so long? I guess it's a cultural thing too...
The scary thing about the Middle East is what kind of gov't. rulership will take these leaders places...It's going to be a hard fight for those who are moderate's and really want some decent form of gov't...Much of Islam is so backwards and misogynist it's scary...I'm not positive about their future gov'ts there...

Our huge mistake was abandoning Afghanistan leaving it completely broken and chaotic after the Russians left...A sickening vacuum in Afghanistan made way for the Taliban to take over...

[Dixon]

I figure whatever the reason we, or anyone takes a murderous evil bastard out...One horrible, murderous bastard gone, is one down, many more to go...

Assuming you're not specifically referring to the aforementioned Hugo Chavez here, Lynn, because I don't have the impression that he is a murderous evil bastard, I'm in agreement with you on this principle, with two further caveats: 1. That "we" (or the US government), don't end up ultimately doing more damage than whatever murderous bastard we take out, as in Iraq, for instance, and 2. That we recognize that such a principle is only reasonable if it's applied fairly, across the board, so that the USA' s murderous war criminals such as Bush, Condoleeza, Cheney, Rumsfeld and, yes, Obama, are considered eligible for the same solution we prescribe for other countries' murderous bastards.

I guess it's a cultural thing too...The scary thing about the Middle East is what kind of gov't. rulership will take these leaders places...It's going to be a hard fight for those who are moderate's and really want some decent form of gov't...Much of Islam is so backwards and misogynist it's scary...I'm not positive about their future gov'ts there...

I share your concern about the more extremist Islamic influences, Lynn. In some ways, they seem even scarier than the extremist Christians and Jews who would also love to establish "theocracy". I worry that everyone, including those of us who don't support religious superstition, will be immolated in a holy war between the most belligerent factions of the major patriarchal religions. Scary!

Our huge mistake was abandoning Afghanistan leaving it completely broken and chaotic after the Russians left...A sickening vacuum in Afghanistan made way for the Taliban to take over...

My (admittedly incomplete) understanding of the Afghanistan situation is that the US essentially helped get the Taliban started in order to oppose the Russians (same reason the US supported mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden), and continued to support the Taliban, knowing full well they were murderous bastards, for years after Russia left Afghanistan, until it became clear the Taliban wasn't going to cooperate with the US in exploiting the oil of Central Asia. So again, the US isn't opposing the Taliban because they're murderous bastards; "we" are opposing them because they're no longer our murderous bastards.

[Hotspring 44]

FYI:US, Pakistani and other financing and support of the mujahideen:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahi...ng_and_support

[peggykarp]

For the history of US foreign policy in Afghanistan I suggest Michael Parenti's article "Afghanistan: Another Untold Story" which is available on his website at https://michaelparenti.org/afghanistan%20story%20untold.html