The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: EC on February 19, 2017, 02:08:00 pm
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Libya's transition has been bogged down by insecurity and chaos, leaving the country looking like a "failed state" six years after the uprising and Western military intervention that ended Muammar Gaddafi's rule.
"We got rid of one dictator only to see 10,000 others take his place," said Fatma al-Zawi, a Tripoli housewife, bemoaning the multitude of warlords and militias which have run the North African country since the armed revolt which erupted in mid-February 2011.
Ordinary Libyans were showing little enthusiasm in the lead-up to the anniversary, which authorities marked on Thursday with cultural and sporting events in Martyrs' Square in the capital.
“It’s not entirely a failed state. There is a government structure in place which more or less operates,” said FRANCE 24’s chief foreign editor Robert Parsons. “But if you’re an ordinary Libyan at the moment, the picture is certainly not a pretty one,” he said. “Six years after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, they would have hoped for something much better. They were optimistic six years ago and that optimism was quite clearly been misplaced.”
More: http://www.france24.com/en/20170217-libya-six-years-after-uprising-struggles-endure-gadaffi-anniversary
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Part of the Obama legacy.
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"We got rid of one dictator only to see 10,000 others take his place,"
Instability and unrest in the ME gets more troop transports aka "refugees" safely into the West.
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UK also issued that report, on their role in the Libyan invasion. Chillicothe(?) report.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedbromund/2016/09/30/britains-report-on-the-libya-fiasco/#13baffaae8df
The remarkable conclusion to all of this is that President Obama and former Prime Minister Cameron, having come to power in large part because of public discontent with the aftermath of the Iraq War, went ahead and did exactly what they criticized President George W. Bush for doing: launching a war without having a plan for finishing it.
We haven't heard the last word on this yet.
There are times when countries may well need to intervene; doing it when it isn't needed, hurts the cause when something actually needs to be done.