TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- This is a good thing, right?

This is a good thing, right?

I'm really surprised that this hasn't been brought up yet around here, or at least to my knowledge. Whatever the country's reasons are for doing this or to the degree that they mean to do what they claim--it's got to be viewed as a positive regardless. And it's arguably something that certainly wouldn't have happened had gobal affairs of the past 3+ years occurred differently than they did. I hope Libya means and does what they say, it would be a welcomed, proactive move after years of tension and open hostility. Somehow I'm still somewhat suspect.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/afric....wmd/index.html

quote:

Nuclear watchdog head meets Libyans on WMDs Gadhafi's son: Iraq conflict irrelevant to Libyan offer Saturday, December 20, 2003 Posted: 5:38 PM EST (2238 GMT) President Bush says Col. Moammar Gadhafi has agreed to let international weapons inspectors enter Libya. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (CNN) -- U.N. nuclear watchdog director Mohamed ElBaradei met Saturday with a senior Libyan official in Vienna to discuss Tripoli's plans to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program. "They met this afternoon ... for more than an hour" at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told CNN. Libya's six-member delegation was led by Dr. Matug Muhammed Matug, secretary of the National Board of Scientific Research, Gwozdecky said. Though he said he was not sure whether the group returned to Tripoli, "their official business is complete now." Asked whether further meetings were planned, Gwozdecky said, "I wish I could tell you. On Monday, all will be revealed." Libya announced Friday that, after meetings with U.S. and British officials that began in March, it would get rid of its banned weapons programs. Along with former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, ElBaradei headed the international inspection teams in Iraq before the start of the U.S.-led war. The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi told CNN Saturday that "the capture of Saddam or the invasion of Iraq is irrelevant" to Libya's announcement that it is to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program. "In fact, we started the cooperation even before the invasion of Iraq and we decided to announce it, the outcome of that cooperation, two weeks ago," Saif Al-Islam Gadhafi told CNN's Andrea Koppel. "Really it was a long and tough secret negotiation for nine months, and two weeks ago we closed the deal and we said, 'OK, done deal, announce it,'" he said. However, Blix said he suspected Moammar "Gadhafi could have been scared by what he saw happen in Iraq." Interviewed in Stockholm, Sweden, Blix said Libya's moves were "welcome," although the Libyans "may be exaggerating ... a bit" in their disclosures about what components they may have had. Blix: We have to learn what they have "I think we have to learn what did they have," Blix said. "They say that they will adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty for nuclear weapons. They are already party to that treaty, and they have had inspections for years." (Full story) Gadhafi said Libya's intent in entering into the agreement was to gain access to defensive weapons and banned technology, to have sanctions against it lifted and "to eliminate any threats against Libya from the West and from the [United] States in particular." But family members of those killed by a Libyan bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 -- 15 years ago Sunday -- were not so pleased with the deal. Bert Ammerman, a spokesman for the families of those killed who lost his brother in the bombing, said it was "very cynical" to see U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair call the agreement "a major step forward when they're dealing with an individual that was totally responsible for massacring 189 Americans at 31,000 feet." Earlier this year, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay up to $10 million to the families of each of the 270 people killed -- 259 aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. In September, the U.N. lifted sanctions it had imposed on Libya. U.S. sanctions remain in place, and Bush said it was still too early to consider lifting them. Ammerman said he supports wholeheartedly going after the leaders of countries that sponsor terrorism and that Gadhafi "has a proven track record of state-sponsored terrorism." "If someone else was in power, I'd be here supporting it, saying that today's enemy is tomorrow's friend, but not Gadhafi," he said. 'Libya was under threat' The Libyan leader's son, however, said labeling Libya a sponsor of terrorism was misunderstanding the situation. Two years before the Pan Am bombing, President Ronald Reagan had ordered U.S. warplanes to strike at Tripoli. The bombing killed Gadhafi's adopted daughter. "In the past, we terrorized our enemies and we have the right to terrorize our enemies because they bombed our cities, they killed our people, they terrorized our people and we have the right to retaliate, but now the story is totally different," Gadhafi said. "We don't have President Reagan anymore ... therefore we have to change our policy also and now we have a different administration, a friendly policy towards them." Gadhafi said that "Libya was under pressure, under threat, sufficient American threat" to enter into negotiations. "As soon as we realized there was no hidden agenda, there is no real threat against Libya and we can solve all problems through amicable ways, we responded and we became very transparent," he said. Now, Gadhafi said, the three nations have entered into "a win-win deal" with Libya hoping for more access to defensive weapons and an end to sanctions -- moves Bush said could come to pass but not until it's certain Libya will stick to its end of the bargain. But Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a non-profit, nonpartisan research institute, questioned the administration's play on the deal. "We don't know what to make of these reports coming out from the White House yesterday," Cirincione told CNN. "Some administration officials are playing it up, saying Libya was close to a nuclear capability. I don't think that's likely the case. They didn't have much of a serious effort going on here." (Full story) More importantly, Cirincione said, would be Libya's destruction of its chemical weapons program. "They may have had the capability to produce some biological agent ... as well," he said.

read about this in the guardian yesterday, i think it's very good news, lets hope it will not only be a temporary corporation..

and this proves that diplomacy works!

I find it to be encouraging. The guy with the funny hats has decided that it is much worse for his country, and thusly himself, to be considered a pariah and lose virtually all trade with the outside world. Especially considering that Libya was one of the most prosperous oil producing countries in the 1970s and 1980s before the UN sanctions cut off that revenue.

MrS

I wouldn't be overly optimistic about Libya's annoucement, hell I'm not really optimistic at all about Libya being absolutly clean and upfront about it. But then again, it may be like the South Africa situation...

When it comes to that particular region of the world I will take any good news that comes out of it. I am happy to see that the U.S. and Great Britain negotiated with a Middle East regime for a satisfactory outcome, now if only those other two parties could do the same with each other, Israel and the Palestinians that is.

one of very very very very... very few things bush has done right

Why are all of you giving Bush credit for this?

Ghadafi has been moving towards this situation for the last several years. He handed the intelligence officers who built the Pan Am bomb years ago and the settlement with the families of PanAm 103 and the AirFrance incident have been in the works since before Bush got elected.

The only person who deserves any credit on this is Ghadafi himself. International pressure helped but the pressure of the US alone means nothing. We bombed tripoli in the 80s and killed one of his children in response to the Berlin nightclub bombing that killed 2 US servicemen but that did nothing to change his ways. A decade of a total embargo on virtually all trade by the UN is what did it.

Just because the current administrations of the US and the UK are patting themselves on the back over this does not mean they actually had any real effect on the outcome.

MrS

you're right, guess i was just being gullible and hoping bush did something right

wonder how the nk and iran situation will turn out. im guessing iran is being truthful about its nuclear power development, or israel would have already bombed the site.

quote:

Originally posted by MrSquirrel Just because the current administrations of the US and the UK are patting themselves on the back over this does not mean they actually had any real effect on the outcome. MrS

Ummm...sure. Okay. So if there were no US and Britain, Qaddafi still would have made the speech that he's giving up his WMD program?

This is a dividend from the Iraq war. The behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Libya agreement started the day before the coalition launched air strikes on Baghdad, when it was clear that obstinate nations would not be able to play around with the UN anymore. You're kidding yourself if you believe that allied actions in the last year had nothing to do with this decision.

quote:

this proves that diplomacy works!

Diplomacy works between two sane parties, I'll agree to that. There are many circumstances where no amount of diplomacy will ever work to solve a problem. Hate to say it, but as long as two people want the same thing (or two different things, for that matter), there will always be war.

quote:

Originally posted by imokruok Ummm...sure. Okay. So if there were no US and Britain, Qaddafi still would have made the speech that he's giving up his WMD program? This is a dividend from the Iraq war. The behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Libya agreement started the day before the coalition launched air strikes on Baghdad, when it was clear that obstinate nations would not be able to play around with the UN anymore. You're kidding yourself if you believe that allied actions in the last year had nothing to do with this decision.

I did not say they had no effect on the outcome, but sying that this is a direct result of the policies of this administration alone is more naive than you accuse me of being.

This is a complex issue where the credit does not deserve to go to one party alone. That is naive and unrealistic.

I was not meaning to praise the Colonel as the savior or anything, I was pointing out that history does not start and end with Sept 11 2001 or the election of Bush. Too many people in this forum act that way, probably because they are too young to have been looking at these issues for very many years.

MrS

quote:

Originally posted by imokruok Ummm...sure. Okay. So if there were no US and Britain, Qaddafi still would have made the speech that he's giving up his WMD program? This is a dividend from the Iraq war. The behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Libya agreement started the day before the coalition launched air strikes on Baghdad, when it was clear that obstinate nations would not be able to play around with the UN anymore. You're kidding yourself if you believe that allied actions in the last year had nothing to do with this decision.

Well, maybe the War in Iraq was what tipped the scale in the end but Ghaddafi has been moving Libya towards west for the last 10 years, probably mainly because the sanctions has really ruined it's economy. Not even Libya's compensations to the victims of the Lockerbie disaster (even though they officially never admitted to have anything to do with it) helped them get that ""rouge" nation stamp whiped away. This is most probably a savy politcial move by Ghaddafi since it's the best possible time ever for a country in the mid-east to say it will destroy it's WMD stockpile.

Btw, in our local newspapers this morning they mentioned that
voices has been raised towards Israel to step away from it's nuclear program due to Libyas somewhat unexpected move. Not suprisingly the muslim countries in the mid-east are the loudest proponents of this but could one think there is some merit to it now when it could be argued that mid-east is on the dismantling course?

quote:

Originally posted by MrSquirrel the credit does not deserve to go to one party alone MrS

how do you know? what if it was one person who somehow convinced Gadhafi not to fook around? you shouldn't say things like that about situations that evolve behind closed doors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/22/o.../22SAFI.html?th

quote:

I Remember Muammar By WILLIAM SAFIRE Published: December 22, 2003 Columnist Page: William Safire United States International Relations WASHINGTON As American tanks began to roll through Iraq to overthrow Saddam, Libya's longtime terrorist, Muammar Qaddafi, came up with a strategy to avoid being next on the regime-change list: pre-emptive surrender. Nobody calls it that, of course. Diplomats and doves want to treat the dictator's epiphany as the result of patient negotiation stretching back for decades. Some Republicans claim he was softened up by a bomb dropped his way in the Reagan years. But three years after that, his terrorists murdered 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am 103. Subsequent sanctions led to economic pain and the threat of a coup. After acknowledging Libyan responsibility, he has been trying to get U.S. oil companies back by promising to pay damages to the families of his victims. That was not what caused this tyrant suddenly to confess to buying and developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and to promise to reveal all to inspectors. He was transformed into a pussycat by the force of American arms in stopping the spread of mass-destruction weaponry. Why did Qaddafi have his spy chief, Musa Kussa, approach Britain's Tony Blair � not France, Germany or the milquetoast U.N � to get off George W. Bush's short list of rogue nations? The reason: Britain was America's primary ally in the war against Saddam and was the bridge to Washington. This shows that it pays to be a staunch friend of the U.S. in extending freedom and does not increase a nation's strategic importance to be America's political adversary. France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schr�der may at last be taking this lesson to heart. Only because American antiterrorist resolve in Iraq was not lost on the ayatollahs of Iran, and because tens of millions of young Persians hunger for the democracy they can see in store for neighboring Arabs, were French and German diplomats able to elicit vague promises of W.M.D. restraint in Teheran. And because unemployed French and German workers were angry at Chirac and Schr�der when the Pentagon announced that no Iraqi reconstruction jobs would come their way from U.S. taxpayer funds, those erstwhile foot-draggers last week rushed to embrace Bush envoy James Baker. The awful prospect of missing out on a chunk of our huge investment in rebuilding Iraq made them eager to consider forgiving billions in odious loans they had happily extended to Saddam's tyranny. Not all rogue nations have gotten the word. North Korea, the source of missiles to both Libya and Iraq, remains intransigent as China vainly tries to induce the U.S. to appease Pyongyang again. Syria, reported to be concealing billions of Saddam's money, claimed last week it shook $23 million out of Qaeda money smugglers, but won't let us interrogate them and wants to keep the proceeds in Syrian-occupied Lebanese banks. On the whole, however, the post-9/11 Bush foreign policy � to remove the global threat of terror enabled by regimes opposing freedom � is succeeding. Events are proving that we and our coalition allies were right to root out the sources of terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the skin-saving d�marche of Qaddafi demonstrates, introducing freedom to countries long denied it has a powerful effect on the actions of regional neighbors. The euphoria of my fellow Wilsonian idealists, though understandable after this early winter of our discontent, is premature. Casualties will continue over there; Al Qaeda will likely attack us over here. Vladimir Putin, given a free pass by Bush and triumphant in Russian elections, will continue to ship nuclear fuel and scientific know-how to Iran, making it easier for those ayatollahs to break their promises to overly trusting Europeans. I remember Colonel Qaddafi's underground poison-gas factory � "Auschwitz in the Sand" � and wonder where he bought Libya's present stock of centrifuges. As a Syracuse University dropout and trustee, I visit the memorial on campus to the 35 college students aboard Pan Am 103 whose blood can never be washed from his hands. It may be, "for reasons of state" � like Musa Kussa's help in penetrating terrorist-protecting parts of Syrian and Saudi intelligence services � we should ultimately permit our investors to revive Libya's oil industry. But we should verify and never trust, and neither forget nor forgive Muammar Qaddafi.

Here's an article for everyone who thinks that a) War can never produce any good, and b) The US and UK didn't play a major part in Libya's decision. It pretty much makes it clear that the Iraq war was the reason Libya did what it did.

quote:

Bill Sammon Washington Times 22 Dec 2003 Libya's decision to give up its weapons of mass destruction is making it harder for Democrats such as Howard Dean to disparage President Bush's war against Iraq, which prompted Libya's move. Mr. Dean, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been uncharacteristically silent about Mr. Bush's bombshell announcement on Friday that Libya has agreed unconditionally to relinquish its chemical-, biological- and nuclear-weapons programs. Although Mr. Bush pointed out that the disarmament offer coincided with the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March, a Dean spokesman yesterday downplayed any causal relationship. "Look, the agreement with the Libyans is good news and an important step forward in the effort to combat weapons of mass destruction," conceded Dean spokesman Jay Carson. "But the agreement is the result of years of diplomacy and sanctions, conducted in concert with the international community, which Governor Dean believes is the most effective means of pursuing that goal," he added. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi made it clear that his decision to disarm was prompted by Operation Iraqi Freedom. "I will do whatever the Americans want because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid," Mr. Gadhafi told Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to a Berlusconi spokesman who was quoted in yesterday's Telegraph of London. "I haven't seen that quote," Mr. Carson said. "It's tough for me to respond to something I haven't seen." Mr. Dean has staked his candidacy on the notion that it was wrong to wage war against Iraq, even though Operation Iraqi Freedom was supported by 70 percent of the American public. Support remains nearly that high in the wake of postwar developments, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein and Libya's decision to disarm. Although U.S. forces have not found Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- which the president cited as one of the main reasons for deposing Saddam -- the decision by Libya to surrender its weapons complicates Mr. Dean's recent assertions that America is no safer since Saddam's capture or even since September 11. "You have Howard Dean saying that our nation and our world are not safer with Saddam Hussein in custody," said Christine Iverson, press secretary for the Republican National Committee. "You have [Senator] Joe Lieberman, who says that our nation and our world are safer. "I mean, those are radically divergent views on a very central foreign-policy question," she added. "The Democrats continue to undermine their own position by failing to agree on even the most basic foreign-policy questions." Libya's disarmament also appears to undermine statements by other Democratic hopefuls, including Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Shortly after Saddam was captured last week, Mr. Edwards criticized the president's policy on weapons of mass destruction. "This administration's approach to protecting America from weapons of mass destruction can be summed up simply: Wait until our enemies gather strength, and then use force to stop them," Mr. Edwards said. "We should be exercising every option we have to stop the spread of deadly weapons before war becomes our only option." Mr. Bush said the Libya agreement was made possible by nine months of "quiet diplomacy," which prompted criticism from Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. "Ironically, this significant advance represents a complete U-turn in the Bush administration's overall foreign policy," Mr. Kerry said. "An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military pre-emption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through diplomacy. "If the president can put aside his go-it-alone unilateralism to engage with a longtime enemy like Gadhafi, why are the ideologues in this administration so hesitant to negotiate with North Korea to end their nuclear-weapons programs?" he added. "Why not rally the United Nations and NATO to forge a new cooperative effort to combat proliferation around the globe?" Other Democrats also treated Libya's disarmament as an opportunity to criticize the president. "Libya's certainly good news, but we've got a long way to go before we can feel we've really made the American people safe in a time of terrorism," Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said on "Fox News Sunday." "There are failures that are still bedeviling us on a number of other fronts. "We've got North Korea apparently going ahead and making nuclear weapons," he added. "And we still don't have the international help in Iraq that we should have gotten a long time ago."

Libya is turning around. First they take blame & pay the families of Victims from that Pan Am hijacked airplane in 1988. Then they see Iraq & what happened. Then Moammar Gadhafi saw in 8 Months Saddam Hussain go from a gazilion dollar, 25 palace, 700k army, brutal torturing Dictator turn into a rat living in a hole with bugs & snakes. Gadhafi doesnt wanna have the same fate as Saddam so he is making efforts to shed a differnt light of his Regime & country. Which Gadhafi will also benefit from trade sanctions lifted by the UN for his moves & will boost Libya's struggling economy. Now if only North Korea started to smarten up things would be a heck of alot better.

quote:

Originally posted by jonSun Now if only North Korea started to smarten up things would be a heck of alot better.

sadly, they already have nukes and aren't obliged to listen to anyone.

quote:

Originally posted by Dopey sadly, they already have nukes and aren't obliged to listen to anyone.

An exact representation of what is wrong with the world, here is a man in Kim Jong-Il that has a nuclear program while his population starves. Ironically they primarily depend on U.S. Food Aid, along with China. The same U.S. that is so nefarious. Why aren't there any protesters demonstrating against Kim Jong-Il and what is happening to the North Korean people. This isn't U.S propoganda, the North Koreans who have managed to escape to the South and not returned by China to North Korean prison camps tell their stories daily, but of course who is listening. Where is HRW, Amnesty International, Koffi Annan's criticisms on behalf of the U.N. for the North Korean regime. Still waiting for that day.

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.