Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Clint Fern,
This is one dictator that the States has never cosied up to.
Sorta. In 2009 John McCain was all over Gaddafi, and wasn't alone, as Salon has pointed out:
What McCain is apparently forgetting is that, apart from the past few weeks, the last decade has been a period of rapprochement between the United States and Libya. It started with President Bush announcing in 2003 that Gadhafi had agreed to give up his "weapons of mass destruction" programs. In 2006 Bush removed Libya from the official list of state sponsors of terrorism. In September 2008 Condoleezza Rice traveled to Libya to have talks with Gadhafi. And just a few days before the 2008 presidential election, Bush signed a settlement under which Libya compensated families of victims of Lockerbie and other '80s-era attacks.
Who else was involved in the effort to forge better ties with Gadhafi? John McCain. In August 2009 he led a delegation of senators, including fellow hawks Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, on a trip to visit the Libyan leader in Tripoli. Discussed during the visit was delivery of -- get this -- American military equipment to Gadhafi (a man with American blood on his hands no less).
"We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of non-lethal defense equipment to the government of Libya," the AP quoted McCain as saying at a press conference. McCain also noted that "ties between the United States and Libya have taken a remarkable and positive turn in recent years."
There was certainly a good argument for some sort of rapprochement, but McCain's political amnesia -- he lately described Gaddafi as "insane" -- is fairly amazing.
This is his (in)famous tweet from 2009:
Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to chris,
Fascism has and will continue to be tolerated in all the other countries and war torn dictatorships that fail to satisfy the above criteria.
Rather raises the question of why the UN didn't authorise the invasion of Iraq, then.
Rather than having all the answers -- or rather, the same set of answers -- in advance, would it not be more productive to actually pay some attention to someone who's been following events?
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to chris,
A clear restipulation that the UN is an instrument of war propelled by the security council’s arms industries, flexing its muscle in conflicts with the scope to
You may wish to consult the comment above yours.
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Hard News: Really good, actually, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
so the whole thing had this weird porno vibe even though it’s a book promoting evangelical christianity.
I think you'll find a correlation between concentrations of evangelical Christianity in the US and consumption of cable porn.
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Also, "cuts" isn't a very useful word on its own.
"Cuts" are about to lead to 75 NIWA staff, including 17 scientists, being sacked.
Given the extent to which New Zealand's economic future depends on our ability to manage our natural environment and resources, hacking away at NIWA is potentially unutterably damaging to our long-term economic wellbeing.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Che Tibby,
another Kosovo?*
It would be good if the goals could be as well summed-up as "Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back", in the words of one NATO spokesman. Not sure if that's the case though.
which is far preferable to “another Bosnia”.
Which was the risk.
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OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Idiot Savant,
The government has screwed up its books and created a permanent structural deficit by giving away tax cuts to the rich. Its time they were reversed.
I agree. The government has damaged its revenue base to the point where it can't govern as it purported it would. Which I think is the issue, in a democratic sense.
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Hard News: Really good, actually, in reply to Jolisa,
"This video is only available within New Zealand due to international rights agreements."
Arrgh. AFAIK, that shouldn't be the case. It just keeps happening. I'll let Emily know and she can chase it up.
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Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
The kitchen and bathroom were done in corporate style
With staff? ;-)
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’m not trolling you, Christopher, but I really think Brown’s earned a bare pass on this – but the worse thing about screwing up is not learning from it and doing better.
Sincere question: what do you believe he could or should have done?