When people take up arms against a government what is the typical outcome?

[howaboutme]

If any citizenry took up arms against their government what would be the outcome? Massacre might be one descriptor depending on viewpoint whether it be the UK or USA or Libya. The Egyptians were smart. They presented a common front of peaceful protest instead of a threat.

What ever happened to the concept of sovereign nations? Globalism has become the apparent answer. It is impossible to blindly defend Ghaddafi but I'm also not going to blindly believe the US media and government. They have a knack of turning anyone into a pariah, if the incentive offers them a profit and political incentive.

I'm cynical in that I believe little about anything that either government or the media projects, because most is about swaying public opinion so that a few bankers or capitalists or oil companies can get richer and politicians gain power.

When bombs and missiles fly it is always innocent civilians that are killed, taxpayers pay, and the elite are never at risk. I 100% oppose the intervention by the Obama administration. We should reduce our military by 75% and that would reduce the incentive to use it by 75%.

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. At DU, at least...

...the typical outcome is getting written off for backing the wrong horse.

[rfranklin]

3. What are you trying to say?

Not exactly clear.

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. The rebels didn't win right off the bat...

...having had the misfortune to discover Qadaffi is a bigger bastard than Mubarak was prepared to be, and the military didn't come in on their side, the side of the rebels, so they're shit out of luck.

Nothing we, or anyone else can do -- they just get rolled up, slaughtered in reprisal, and the lucky handful become refugees.

Oh well. So it goes. They should have been more organized.

[JuniperLea]

2. Every case is different...

Our revolutionary war went well, for example.

[Adsos Letter]

4. And with French help.

[TorchTheWitch]

31. France didn't join the war

They helped by secretly selling ammunition and gunpowder to the Patriots, gave some of their military strategists "vacations" so they could come and help with training and general military strategy, allowed Patriot war ships to land on French coasts, etc. Once France signed the Treaty of Alliance which formally recognized the United States, Britain immediately declared war on France. Thereafter, France was battling Britain not to help the US but because they were then involved themselves in war with Britain. Most of the involvement even at that point was by the French Navy.

France didn't get involved because of some special love for independence and freedom (though some Frenchmen like LaFitte personally felt that way), they got involved to oppose their long time enemy, Britain, liking the idea of another power being also against Britain to be allied with (and perhaps as revenge for the lose of Canadian territory) - they didn't want to get involved directly.

The alliance between France and the US was broken when France became angry that peace negotiations between the US and Britain that acknowledged the independence of the colonies was done secretly without France being told or involved.

Due to the amount of money France used to help the Patriots, by the end of the war they were dead broke and in serious financial trouble. France's State Secretary wanted to fix the deficit by raising taxes on the nobility and clergy - he was dismissed and exiled for this idea (so guess who foot the bill? - average French citizens). France became further incensed that after all their help the US did not chose to engage France and a trading partner which France really needed to help their depleted economy and chose to do most of their trading with the enemy, Britain.

[Adsos Letter]

33. I understand that; still, we would have been even more hard pressed to win without them.

they provided necessary arms and ammunition to sustain Washington's army from destruction during the crucial 1776-77 period; provided advisors on the ground (as you suggested) and also supplied at least 8,000 troops in North America, primarily after 1781. Their commitment to the siege at Yorktown was significant, that battle being the decisive one in the American war.

[TorchTheWitch]

40. The troops weren't supplied until they themselves were at war with Britain

Those troops weren't to aid the Patriots alone. Britain declared war on France when France signed the Treaty of Alliance formally recognizing the colonies as the United States of America (an independent nation) in Feb/March, 1778. Once they were at war with Britain it wasn't about the Patriots anymore it was about themselves... they were then involved in a war with Britain themselves, and since their ally Austria was taking care of France in Europe, France dealt with THEIR war with Britain on the second front - that being our shores. It is only indirectly that they helped us at Yorktown... they were fighting Britain for THEMSELVES on the second front, which they really had to do since they couldn't defeat Britain's massive fleet on their own. Therefore, the only real success against Britain for France was to fight them with the combined fleets of France's ships and ours and of course that had to be on our shores. But, if Austria wasn't dealing with Britain in Europe on France's behalf, you bet your sweet bippy they would never have sent a single ship or soldier to the second front (our shores).

Several points here seeing as France helping in our revolution has several times been brought up as being equivalent to our involvement in Libya, and in many ways it is, but not for the reasons people have been tossing it out there for. France didn't want to get directly involved and only agreed to helping in ways that did not involve actually directly take part in our revolution as our bombing in Libya certainly does, and they kept it secret because they knew the international community would chastise them for taking any part at all even indirectly with money, ammunition, advisers, etc., and that in retaliation Britain would declare war on them. Though they later tried to claim it was for love of freedom, etc., everyone knew the reason they did get involved in any way at all was for the selfish reason of desiring to destabilize their long time enemy, Britain, and form an alliance against Britain with the new leaders of the new independent country. Once the war was over, they didn't get what they wanted - trade with the new USA and a new alliance against Britain because we secretly went behind their backs and negotiated with Britain without France even knowing about it establishing future trade with the enemy Britain and not with our helper, France. France was also massively in debt from all the money they poured in to help us and to fight the resulting war Britain declared on France, and we not only didn't continue the alliance with France, we didn't trade with them and didn't pay back any of the debt they incurred by all their help... that debt was paid on the backs of the average French citizens excluding the nobility and clergy (read: the wealthy).

The only ways France's involvement in our revolution are comparable to our involvement in Libya now are not for the reasons those tossing that comparison out there for, and actually are comparable in ways those people have been attempting to refute.

[Adsos Letter]

43. I never said it was equivalent. I do believe French help in our revolution

was important at key times; with supplies during the 1776-1777 period which allowed Washington's army to survive, and during Yorktown. Their role at Yorktown was hardly indirect; they formed part of Washington's army there, and their navy played a significant role (if not to the degree Washington would have liked); according to Gordon Wood, British strategy was based on control of the entire colonial seaboard, something the French naval action at Saratoga precluded. Their entrance into the war also forced the British to draw off forces to other areas, such as the Caribbean.

I understand that open French involvement was part of a larger war againt Britain; indeed, as you pointed out, it was France's formal acknowledgement of the Americans that initiated a renewal of age-old conflict between England and France via Britain's declaration of war against France.

I agree that the French acted with greater self-interest than the I believe the US is in Libya, and it cost them dearly (as it may well cost us). According to George LeFebvre, the financial cost of supporting our revolution was fundamental to the events leading to France's own revolution in 1789.

Anyway; I appreciate your analysis, and I agree that French involvement is often tossed out there for the wrong reasons. But to the degree that our revolution was also a civil war (at least between revolutionaries and loyalists in the colonies) we were truly helped by French involvement. The thing we aren't commiting to Libya is a ground contingent (aside from target spotters, I assume), nor should we.

Edited to add a sentence and correct spelling and punctuation :dunce:

[TorchTheWitch]

50. I didn't mean to imply that you believed it was equivalent

Just that other people had been tossing it out there as though it was.

Most certainly the French helped us. Frankly, without them I don't believe we would have had a prayer. Rather sucks though that with all their help and all it cost them we ended up giving them the big middle finger.

As far as Libya is concerned, there's going to be ground troops. Perhaps not our own troops, but someone's. Whether or not Gaddafi stays or goes (and fat chance that with the West's involvement at this level we'll allow him to stay) there's going to be retaliation happening by one side or the other without continued involvement. Some countries were already supporting or calling for boots on the ground even before the UN vote. At this point I see no other way around it. Once the West got involved by dropping bombs we were in too deep already to take our marbles and go home.

[Adsos Letter]

51. And the government that results from Gadaffi's ouster

may give us the finger as well.

I agree with you that he is a goner, one way or another. I have thought this since he warned those nations condemning his crackdown that there would "be consequences;" this, before the decision to intervene. :hi:

Edit: how is Philly? My daughter went to Med School there, and I enjoyed every visit I made. Great city!

[spin]

36. self delete. replied to wrong poster.

[Rex]

5. True.

You cannot just generalize something like war and predict the outcome. To many variables.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. One thing about our revolutionary war, we were far from the rulers.

And we had international help.

What do you think would happen if we took us arms in this country now? Libya would look like a family picnic compared to what our government would do to put down an armed rebellion here.

[bobbolink]

10. If I remember correctly, the colonies received help from some on the Continent.

Wadda concept.........

[Kennah]

16. During our Civil War, the correct side won, but the event was rather awful

[bobbolink]

28. And the struggle in Libya is not a civil war... it is a revolution.

Libya Hurra!

[Adsos Letter]

44. I think it's probably also a civil war at this point, bobbolink

since not all of Gaddafi's forces are mercenaries, and he still seems to have support within his population. I could certainly be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. :D

[bobbolink]

45. I don't think its free will, if you know what I mean. There are payments, bribes and threats.

With a man who has tortured and killed so many, it would be hard to think that many could be that brainwashed. I'm guessing there is a lot of fear as a motivation.

There is a recent report that 75% of the population is with the revolutionaries. Given the fear, I think that is a high percentage of the population. Come to think of it..... that would be about the same percentage as our teabaggers and far RW. ^_^

But, like you, I am not there. It is hard living through history, because we don't know how it turns out. ^_^ We can't flip forward to the ending. ^_^

[Adsos Letter]

46. "But, like you, I am not there. It is hard living through history,

because we don't know how it turns out." Absolutely, bobbolink. The whole "rule" of unintended consequences, always at work.

I supported this with reservations, and I seem to drift toward one side or the other as things progress. I hope this works out for the best for the Libyan people in the long run. I also hope this country will come to the sanity of slashing our military budget, and turning our money and effort toward domestic social and economic problems. :hi:

[dkf]

27. If we hadn't won would we be Canada?

[bobbolink]

8. The Egyptians were smart. They chose to live in a country with a dictator that opted to step down.

[Brigid]

12. And Mubarak wasn't mentally ill.

Ghadaffi, on the other hand, is clinically insane.

[bobbolink]

13. If the Libyans were smart, they would have chosen to be born in Egypt.

Too late now. :(

[Bluerthanblue]

25. pffft-

such silly fools eh?-

:hi:

[indimuse]

9. Thank you!

I rec'd and it's STILL 0...What happened to DU?

[emulatorloo]

34. Because it seems to ignore the actual facts of the Libya situation

As presented in

Libya began as peaceful protests...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=734103&mesg_id=734208

Which is the post right under yours.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. Libya began as peaceful protests...

This story from Human Rights Watch posted February 16 -

Libya: Arrests, Assaults in Advance of Planned Protests
(New York) - Libyan Internal Security forces have arrested at least 14 people as protests began in connection with peaceful demonstrations planned for February 17, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. The Libyan authorities should immediately free all activists, writers, and protesters detained solely for their role in preparing for the February 17 protest and allow Libyans the right to protest peacefully, Human Rights Watch said.

Egypt's military refused to attack the protesters and they were not rounded up and arrested enmasse.

And this is a peaceful protest from February 24 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZjOkDV45QQ

Ghaddafi, chose to use the military to crackdown on protesters. The military followed orders rather than refuse as the did in Egypt.

If you do the research, you will find that Ghaddafi gave his people no other option, his way or death. They chose to fight after trying for peaceful change.

I will also say that Human Rights Watch is not your typical capitalist tool.

[JuniperLea]

14. Good reminder...

Time to get back to facts after all the spin lately. I cannot believe the BS about "who are these people" etc. What a crock.

[bobbolink]

20. "Who these people are". All that information is right here at DU, and has been since this started.

That line... "who these people are" is just about word for word what is said on Faux.

[JuniperLea]

54. Yep, that's what I'm talking about...

This entire movement was tracked in the InterTubes... that's why Mubarak shut the 'Tubes down. Worrying about "who these people are" is about as disingenuous as it gets.

[bobbolink]

55. Wait! *I* know who they are... the ones who are...

drinking the hallucinogenic Nescafe!

[Iterate]

22. I've never heard them refer to themselves as other than simply "Libyan people".

Good enough for me.

What I don't understand is the twisted logic that claims offense at picking winners and losers, but insists on a predictable outcome and a new reliable government before being supportive.

Truth is, the safest prediction is that they will do things we admire and things we abhor. They will screw up and they will be brilliant. They will experiment, fail,and succeed. They've been barred from joining or creating any type of organization for nearly 40 years, and yet, spontaneously, for that week or two between the mass marches and the worst of the crackdown, they joined together, cooperated, and had started to put a civil society back on its feet.

My impressions don't count though, not in the least. All I'm obligated (and permitted) to do is to help see that they don't get massacred. That's it, and that's sufficient. The rest is up to them.

[bobbolink]

26. Trying to understand twisted logic will do nothing except win you a headache.

We need to remember that this country we live in didn't do it all smoothly, either.

We got off to a very rocky start... plus there were slaves and their owners, genocide of Indians, subjegation of women, etc.

No, the formation of a new country is never rosy.

But I have tremendous faith in the Libyan people.

Libya Hurra! :toast: :bounce: :toast:

[Iterate]

30. Now that you mention it...

It's hard to think of another nation that did worse and better than we did. Ha, let them dare try to top that.

You know, I have a memory I can't get out of my head and can no longer document of a young Egyptian during the early days of Tahrir Square. On video, he said simply, "Why can't we live like Sweden? why can't we have a peaceful life like they do?"

This was at a time when all of the pundits were talking about the facebook effect and twitter and fears of the MB. But that guy said it all.

Damn those Swedes, look at all of the revolutions they've started.

[howaboutme]

35. The Swedes have a semi socialist nation instead of a corrupt oligarchy

The Swedes look after their country instead of corrupt bankers and capitalists and mouthpieces that are and own the media and government, and they use that power and wealth to sway the huddled masses to only believe their message, and to vote in favor of the rich and against their own interests.

There is a case to be made that the USA has been purposely re-structured so that of its people accept the role as followers instead of the independent revolutionaries and fighters that supported a Bill of Rights and never took guff from politicians. We are now officially sheeple.

This guy had it on target: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[Iterate]

42. You had me there.

I don't know what I expected, a Swedish firebrand maybe, but not Carlin. Loved that guy and was lucky enough to see him a couple of times and watch his career and philosophy grow.

I remember on a couple of occasions when my thinking lagged behind his and I'd catch a performance and think "no, he's gone too far". Within a few days, I'd think back on it and realize, not only was he right, he hasn't gone far enough.

I think you're right about the purposeful restructuring, even if no one group specifically planned it or thought it through in great detail. I tend to see it as a consequence of consumerism and its more pernicious effects. Just today I read from someone on DU who was upset about the reporting (or lack of it) of a story on CNN. I remember thinking, of course they wouldn't report, they are not journalists, repeat, they are not journalists. The are in the news consumption business.

They take an event, free to them, and at the lowest possible price they repackage it in a form that is most exciting to the news consumers. Certain events are more profitable to repackage, and those are the ones they sell. When it isn't available, they luvs them press packages and cheap talking heads, hot-headed ones, freaks, numbskulls. Best of all the viewer video, what a deal, the consumers send you the resource for free, then you sell it back to them and they love you for it.

But then it muddies the water, and confuses the issue of being a well-informed citizen. Are you being a news consumer? or are you being a good citizen?

And I won't even get into politics as a consumer enterprise.

Anyway, sorry, sorry, I've taken myself on an off-topic rant and didn't mean to go on, but thanks for the Carlin pick-me-up.

[bobbolink]

49. Carlin: I often think that people who are that far ahead of their time, with such clear vision

must be burdened and suffer with it. Unless they are really hard-core introverts. But even then...

Whatever one thought of his style, there is no doubt that he was a visionary.

[JuniperLea]

53. The rest is up to them

Yep... well said.

[Fire1]

15. True that. How quickly we forget. n/t

[derby378]

17. Isn't the Egyptian revolution crumbling?

The military is in charge, and last I heard, they're getting ready to install "their boy" in the President's office.

[Davis_X_Machina]

18. They may have to do it twice.

....the French certainly did, and the Russians, twice in 1917.

[Catherina]

23. They're still fighting. It's off the US news for a good reason;

we're supporting the counterrevolution, trying to reshuffle the same old regime people as change, and the people are up in arms about it.

[Ohio Joe]

19. Which came first, the massacre or the taking up of arms?

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. "100 percent" chance Gadhafi regime will be prosecuted.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor believes the Libyan strongman will face justice.

How dare they. Gadaffi is exercising the inherent power any sovereign has to put down a rebellion, and nit-picking the how and the when that gets done isn't our business, or that of the international community.

The rebels wanted this outcome, they should have contrived to win on the battlefield.

They're just trying to get the courts to overturn unfavorable facts on the ground.

[Iterate]

39. No sovereign has the right to commit a war crime or a crime against humanity.,

And let's not forget that this sovereign took power in a coup, and that the world community has put up with (and sometimes benefited from) decade's worth of crimes.

But finally, this was the one crime they didn't walk away from.

I assume you're not a fan of RtoP. But consider this: it may be applied now to limit the power of a sovereign, but over time it will be seen as a limit to interventions by all states, because the intervention will not get approval unless it goes through the UN and meets the standards written into the charter.

[Davis_X_Machina]

41. Now if they had no oil...

...or if Bono frequently visited there, then we could be confident that there is no capitalist or imperialist taint, and could intervene with a clean, non-capitalist, non-imperialist conscience.

[Iterate]

47. Sure. No denying that's a task for the future.

So how do you determine that the nations acting under UN charter resolution don't have any narrow-self interest whatsoever in mind?

I don't really know, and neither do the people who have worked on the issue for years. Purity of heart and motive don't come to mind when I think of any concentration of power sufficiently strong enough to enforce any given resolution.

But to me, you try anyway, you think about it and try again and that seems to be the consensus at the UN and with the peace and human rights activists who have developed this. The damage that's done by massacre and genocide, besides the immediate deaths, reverberates through the generations and causes wars far in the future, because wars beget wars, beget wars. You can't just walk away from it, you can't always enforce it evenly (at least at first, these are still early years), and you do have the problem of who does the enforcing.

So it's a hundred-plus-year project to get to the goal of few wars, genocides, massacres, and interventions. How do you start to have an enforcement?

Almost no nation would support a UN force of its own that would be large enough, bad idea. Not the US, or anyone else, would support another nation building their own military power large enough to pull it off. You can't select a subset of nations who have not committed some sort of atrocity in their past, and if you did the nations excluded would have a fit, and that would be an unnecessary source of conflict in itself. You can't compel members to military action. So it's up to nations that form a coalition.

Best of all would be for each nation to have a small and capable military, too small to act on their own, but large enough to do anything necessary when joined together under a resolution. I'm sure you think that would be good idea for the US, and I sure do agree.

Anyway, the way it's handled now is to admit that it doesn't really matter. The initiation of an intervention is limited by a set of conditions that must be met beforehand, and limited in scope by the resolution. When the standards for protection are met, it's over.

The problem of imperialism or exploitation is left for the living to solve. There is a certain logic to that, because a nation with an intact poulation is more able to defend itself from those kinds of predators.

If Bush & Co hadn't fucked things up, we'd be ten years down the road to a better peace. On the other hand, it was their actions, the inaction in Rwanda, and the lessons learned from Bosnia/Kosovo that prompted the RtoP.

Ug. I know I'm not being clear and probably not convincing, but it's 5am and time to hang up the phone. Cheers.

[vicarofrevelwood]

24. One Word,

Brilliant! :toast:

[malaise]

29. And the same Western governments that are now

bombing Libya supported Gaddafi. He was quite legitimate when it suited them.

[quaker bill]

32. They die, usually in large numbers

occasionally they win anyway.

[spin]

37. The interesting question is why we have have the longest lasting written Constitution ...

in the world when we allow citizens to own firearms.

Could it be that firearms in the hands of the people deter dictators and tyrants?

[Cerridwen]

38. A long time ago...the outcome was the United States of America. n/t

[Romulox]

48. It really all depends...How many barrels are they sitting on? nt

[howaboutme]

52. Khmer Rouge in Cambodia killed 2 million people and nothing happened

This action in Libya is about maintaining a foothold in countries with oil, maintaining the world's oil price, while installing puppets. It is not about humanity. We did the same thing in Iran by fomenting civil unrest in the 1950s when the oil interests took out their democratically elected leader and installed the Shah because he elected leader opposed allowing BP and others to strip the resources of Iran.

One of the largest genocidal purges in history was done by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia when 2 million were killed and nothing was done, but they didn't have a commodity that the global financiers and leaders and markets wanted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

Instead we hear justifications for seemingly arbitrary actions against some while there is no action against others from the globalists. They say you do what you can to save those that you can (if they have oil). I think Clinton once said something like that.