HIV medics released to Bulgaria

[Skybird]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6912965.stm

A rotten rogue has decided to stop continuing with a dirty trick, and released victims of kidnappings that were held hostages and were used to blackmail the West, and for this decision to stop gpoing on with a state crime he was ennobled by Ms Ferrero-Waldner saying that it marked "a new page in the history of relations between the EU and Libya". That is sick.

Is somebody a noble man just because he decides to stop continuing a crime?

Wouldn't it be smarter to stop sending potential victims into such countries? we have no technical or moral obligations towards such countries. Let the people living there clean up things and issues b etween them and their corrupt criminal governments. Their citizens can travel, they can see how it is oin other places of the world, they can learn from that, and bring the knowledge back to their homes and press for adjustements and corrections. We do not need to go there.

There are two ways of teaching. The one, and worse, way is to lecture people in advance. The other, and better, way is to wait for the student's questions, and answer them. If the student cannot come up with such quesitons, he will never learn how to ask questions, and what are good and what are useless questions. That way, most answers will be in vain anyway, and he will stay to be dependant on others, and never will become an independant thinker himself. Translating this into a slightly difefrent context, this is one of the reasons why so much o aid efforts and develoepment projects in the third world often is in vain. Developement aid workers can sing a song of this.

Sarko is travelling to Lybia to thank the great and most skillful leader him for stopping to behave like an inhumane a$$h0le.

Every european tax-Euro payed into that fund that pays compensation to the Lybian families is one euro too much, even if Tripolis seem to shoulder the lion's share of it.

Six innocent people that were willing to help - have payed for that with loosing nine years of their lives , during that time living in fear of death. will there also be a fund to pay compensation to them?

What have we learned? Blackmailing Europe pays off. Please send more hostages for later use.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/...495974,00.html

[bradclark1]

If you haven't noticed the in thing in the west is to good-guy, guilt-trip ourselves to death and it's only accelerating.

[Heibges]

Although the actions of these countless strongmen in Africa is disgusting, I have to think that when the European powers divided up Africa into colonies with a straightedge at the Congress of Berlin in 1870, they kind of took at least a little bit of responsibility for it.

Edit: To me this is the same reason the United States cannot just pull out of Iraq.

[Skybird]

We in the West have come to understand that the colonial age was not doing our ancestor much compliments. While some dicatators in those former colonies today have picked up the behavior of the colonial powers back then, and obviously have learned nothing but to intentionally mimic faults and crimes our ancestors oince have done.

We better stop to limit their guilt of their acts today by endlessly putting the living present into relation to the already dead past. Those nurses taken hostages were not taken hostage because the europeans once were a bunch of colonial imperialists, but to be sacrificed for hiding the Lybian government's incometence and it's deeply corrupt nature, and to gain a win from blackmailing Europe.

[Heibges]

I agree. But, like those South Koreans in Afghanistan, it also shows how brave humans are. It is really amazing that there are always people who volunteer to put themselves in danger, to help those less fortunate than themselves, regardless of the circumstances.

These folks aren't commandos. They are nurses, doctors....regular civilians.

All I meant was, that if creating liberal democracies was the goal in Africa, the colonial governors should have put liberal democrats into the positions of power.

[bradclark1]

If they kill those Koreans every country should send a force to that region, surround it then close in and kill. If they can't prove they are from some village there then kill them. That, they'll understand.

[Heibges]

My friend who was with the 82nd in Vietnam says that the only folks the NVA/VC were really scared of were ROK marines and Nigerian rangers.

[Skybird]

Somehow it escaped my attention (due to system re-install the last two days...), that the payoff for Lybia is pretty big. The French will deliver them a nuclear reactor - something that would have been considered impossible to even imagine just short while ago. Even the Left and the Green in Germany is protesting the French deal, naming it a highly dangerous move with extremly high risks. Unimpressed, Sarko shakes hands over there as if it was about setting a new record, and everybody talks about normalisation, with the French pressing to add that it is about illustrating to the Oriental world that they very much allow and even encourage the civilian use of nuclear energy. But why Lybia, then...

What bright smartheads. I for myself feel deepley offended that institutions that claim to speak in my name even consider normalisation of ties with a proven regime of mass murderers and terrorists, not to mention: kidnappers and hostage-takers and blackmailers.

Very normal indeed, at least as long as it is at the cost of the West. No uproar? No public outcry? No hysteric mass demonstrations? Does reason and cultural superiority prohibit Western people to use their voices?

Why caring for Iran's nuke program, if Lybia gets the stuff for free, and intentionally. Knowledge and technology from that French gift will start to spread throughout the Arab world - promised and 100%ly guaranteed.

Have I overestimated Sarko's intelligence?

[Happy Times]

I missed that also. They want the oil, gas and beaches...

[XabbaRus]

But then Libya might get Rafales too, the only export customer after Algeria I think. God knows the French need a sale of that aircraft just to save face.

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by Skybird

What have we learned? Blackmailing Europe pays off. Please send more hostages for later use.

Not just Europe, buddy. It works for the RIAA and MPAA. It works for corporate lobbists and unions, trial lawyers prosecuting class-action lawsuits, Diebold and their computerized voting systems, and Scientologists.

I have little doubt they were reusing needles. They may have been doing blood transfusions with only cross-typing because they didn't have the lab equipment necessary for the titer.

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...496914,00.html

[bibi]

I think this deal is a good deal. Regardless of the Khadafi clown and all his past (now supposedly he is a 'new man'), as long as the Lybians carry on rejecting military applications for their nuke program and they carry on working with IAEA in full transparency, there should be no obstacle for them to get access to nuclear energy.

It is a good example of realpolitik. No doubt other countries would have liked to secure a civilian nuclear deal with Lybia (or deals with another form of energy).

This affair has angered a lot of leftists, ecologists and anti nuclear energy lobbies in France and other countries so I really think it is good thing lol. Strangely enough, Washington has expressed its support to this deal.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Why caring for Iran's nuke program, if Lybia gets the stuff for free, and intentionally. Knowledge and technology from that French gift will start to spread throughout the Arab world - promised and 100%ly guaranteed.

Have I overestimated Sarko's intelligence?

One can look at this throught 2 different perspectives. The message of this deal is Arabs countries have the right to develop nuclear program as long as they reject military development and they work in cooperation with IAEA. And if they do that, they will receive help and not sanctions. So the Iranian posture ("the West is trying to prevent other countries from accessing nuclear energy, blablablabla") becomes invalid.

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

But then Libya might get Rafales too, the only export customer after Algeria I think. God knows the French need a sale of that aircraft just to save face.

At the very least, get your facts correctly...
The 1st export customer for the Rafale should be Morocco not Algeria which just bought tons of Russian hardware.
Moreover, exports are not about 'saving face', they are about money and funding further developments.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by bibi

One can look at this throught 2 different perspectives. The message of this deal is Arabs countries have the right to develop nuclear program as long as they reject military development and they work in cooperation with IAEA. And if they do that, they will receive help and not sanctions. So the Iranian posture ("the West is trying to prevent other countries from accessing nuclear energy, blablablabla") becomes invalid.

You believe the promise of a mass murderer and major criminal, then. I don't. Last year they promised this year would be a clean tour de France. and the year before. And before. The very same people today have been revealed to have carried on with the doping system until today.

Promises are cheap. Control is better. but the best is not to sow evil seed.

Let Lybians have normalized their relations with the outer world, okay - but not before they have raised in rebellion and sent their criminal and unscrupellous regime to hell. That is their responsebility, not ours.

you think Gaddafis word to cooperate is worth something? Look at the terror killing record of this regime, and look at how they evaded responsebility for being unable to manage their health system, look how hundreds got infested and many got killed by that, look how they took foreing help workers/nurses as hostage, and how they blackmailed europe with these, and then ask yourself one question - is this the kind of people I want to put my trust into and whose words I consider to be of worth, even more so when it comes to a highly critical issue like nuclear facilities? wake up, you are talking about a murder, and terrorist, and the people you want to see as separate from him - accept him, do not try to get rid of him.

And of course the usual reminder that the separation of civilian and military use of nuclear technology cannot really be taken as serious. If Lybia gets this reactor, it will export the knowledge, and later the technology. And what the IAEA reports about that will have to say once it has started, will be little importance then. Facts weigh heavier than deeds. Of course, nobody then will have known it in advance, nobody will be responsible, and France will battle against sanctions or other measurements to protect it's fincial investement in Lybia.

IAEA inspectors also make formidable hostages, btw - like nurses.

You get judged by the company you seek, and by the people with whom you surround yourself. If you seek close ties with people like Gaddafi, the assessment of yourself will be accordingly. Fly with the crows, get shot with the crows.

Concerning the Rafaels, arms trading always is trading of weapons, and no "funding of further developements". Trading military goods and wapons I always consider not only to be totally immoral, but a huge mistake. You do not give somebody else the knife that eventually lands between your ribs, or kills other people you do not knopw and have no quarrel with. That is no Realpolitik, that is simply silly. And it has caused the world a whole heap of troubles and wars and mass killings and support of dictatorships and tribal wars and ethnic cleansings and the whole bloody mess you see in places like Africa. that are Russian, Chinese, european and american weapons people in Darfhur get slaughtered with.

[bibi]

It is spelled Rafale (squall) not Rafael. And for the moment a sale of Rafale to Lybia is just a rumor, like there are other rumors about Eurofighter going to Lybia or Sukhoi and Mig going to Lybia.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Concerning the Rafaels, arms trading always is trading of weapons, and no "funding of further developements".

I disagree, arms trading is about trading weapons AND funding of further developments lol.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Trading military goods and wapons I always consider not only to be totally immoral, but a huge mistake. You do not give somebody else the knife that eventually lands between your ribs, or kills other people you do not knopw and have no quarrel with. That is no Realpolitik, that is simply silly. And it has caused the world a whole heap of troubles and wars and mass killings and support of dictatorships and tribal wars and ethnic cleansings and the whole bloody mess you see in places like Africa. that are Russian, Chinese, european and american weapons people in Darfhur get slaughtered with.

I am afraid the whole world is immoral and that is not going to change anytime soon. You must not be very happy with the sale of Eurofighter to Saudi Arabia then.