Gaddafi's coming victory is a huge strategic setback for the West

malone

Obama has demonstrated what a complete tool of a leftie political geek he really is.

Victor Southern

I think that you mean that he will support any anti-Western group going. Gaddafi's Libya has never been anything other than a rogue state. Blair embracing Gaddafi senior and the Milibands and Mandelson befriending his eldest son, Saif, did not change that pariah status to right-thinking people.

But, let Labour get back into power and they will be all over him once again, best mates.

Scotty

And who should we thank for this indecision - bliar and bush whose actions defined the UN view of the benefits of dealing with arab dictators by their illegal charge into iraq - gaddaffi was always a geater terrorist danger than saddam, and the west knew it.
As a result of bush's stupidity and bliar's self interest(plenty of speaking gigs in the USA after retirement) iran is a real danger, one that saddam would have dealt with in his own way, and gaddaffi will return to being a danger once he has murdered all opposition. I feel for the courage of the civilian arabs in the likes of libya and elsewhere who have been breaver than breave and will now be massacred. I hope the two self proclaimed hero's of the west sleep well through the coming nightmare.

John Montague

Well, according to what I'm being told --- maybe wrong of course --- the forces attacking Ajdabiya have been pushed back. Like the journos Mr Forsyth is relying on, Gadafi's forces are running away.

david

Ah! if only we had our Aircraft Carrier and Harriers we'd have biffed the bugger, hmmm what ever happened to 'em I wonder?

barnacle bill

Blame it all on the "Chosen One", when push came to shove Obama has been found out, as with-out American support nothing could be, nor has not been done.

Mark Popple

The West, us certainly included, is just the biggest load of scaredy cats I've ever heard of. We, along with America, are scared of our own shadow, and we are never going to do anything about this. I'm not a strong militarist, but we don't have to involve war. I believe we still have some nuclear weapons somewhere, might aswell use them up on Libya and Afghanistan, then all these stupid 'wars' can be done with.

yank

No worries, you all on that pile of rocks will be back to trading with Khadaffi shortly, and handling his money, and perhaps throwing in the odd terrorist mass murderer into the bargain as necessary.

Situation normal. Less a few BP contracts, of course, but then empty political yapping does have its consequences. I'm expecting Megrahi to be appointed chairman of the confiscated BP assets there.

But you misread US politics, as usual for you Spectator chavs. Call Me Dave's soulmate Obama would have stumbled into Libya by now, had a certain Mr. Gates not instantly thrown down the gauntlet to the contrary. And Mr. Obama has no choice in the matter, because if he crosses Mr. Gates, it risks him his reelection in 20 months time.

Cross Gates, or Petraeus, or worse, fire them, and the books open up wide. Obama will not survive their opening.

Obama's foreign policy is no longer his own, in other words, not if he values his job.

We have an interesting political system here. Pity nobody there at the Spectator is able to understand or comment upon its intricacies.

Michael

So Vulture, and a number of others here, were right (including me, he said modestly) What happened to the Etonian historic perspective?

Dave B

This is absolute tosh. Regimes know the west is unlikely to intervene already, they don't need Gaddafi to provide an example.

Dave B

"w return to its old role as rogue state and supporter of any Western group going. We can also expect that Gaddafi will encourage a flow of people to try and cross the Mediterranean and seek asylum in Europe. "

Libya had a deal with Italy to stop this. I don't remember hearing the italians calling for Mr Gaddifi's downfall, so I don't see that the old deal can't be renewed.

George Woodhouse

Without out the Bush/Blair adventure in Iraq, to satisfy their egos, maybe the world would be more ready to take action against these dictators. Bush and Blair carry huge responsibilty for changing the world for the worse in many respects.

ssleddon

Our government's very vocal support for the revolutionaries doesn't look like a particularly clever piece of politics now, does it?

An unforced error, if ever there was one.

Verity

Dave shouldn't have opened his hen's arse because out plogged another egg.

The man, in case no one else has noticed, is not bright.

John Montague

Gates? Is he as well informed as that idiot Clapper, who said that the Muslim Brotherhood was 'essentially secular' ?

Nah, Yank, it's just the usual isolationist navel-gazing we get every time there's a Democratic administration.

Verity

Agree with Scotty. Iran is the one we should be watching like a hawk.

Those kids who started the demonstrations in Tripoli are just after pity visas to the West. They're not oppressed. Gadaffi's busy with his female body guards and his tents and his pretensions. He's not going to bother anyone.

Iran is the tinderbox. The entire clergy needs to be flattened.

El Sid

Crap. It's a huge strategic success. What happens in Libya isn't terribly important, the West can survive years of turmoil in Libya.

However what happens in Saudi is critical, because the loss of significant amounts of Saudi oil production would send oil prices shooting up, potentially up to the $200-300 mark. Hello double dip - the West just can't afford for that to happen.

So it's not comfortable, but the message we have to send to potential rebels in Saudi is that we are more interested in stable oil production than democracy. We can't afford a revolution in Saudi, so we tolerate the crushing of a revolution in Libya.

PS yank - I think you'll find that the most influential oil company in Libya is a certain Occidental, and that the UK didn't start a rapprochement until the US had gotten over the Lockerbie thing.

Jeremy

It paints a pretty shabby picture of the way in which international politics are currently being conducted.

The Americans have behaved in a disgraceful fashion - sitting on the sidelines, stalling for time, in the hope of winning oil concessions from the Gadaffi regime once it has reasserted its control. But then, I would expect nothing better from them...

The EU has shown itself to be utterly useless. When faced with a major crisis it falls immediately into a state of political paralysis. I suppose that getting the twenty-six (or however many) member states to agree upon any one thing is the longest of shots at the best of times. And this is clearly not the best of times.

And I understand the UN has scheduled an emergency meeting for December of 2012.

The only national leader to come out of this with any credit is Dave. He, at least, has tried his best for the people of Libya, and I am sure that he will continue to do so for so long as hope remains. And thereafter? Yes, and thereafter too. In relation to matters Libyan, Dave has been pretty consistent since he came into office.

Ben G

Sadly, Gaddafi will be in Benghazi long before Hague finds his Mojo.

wrinkled weasel

The mood music in the US is what you might describe as mellow. The reticence to intervene is deafening.

David Frum writes: "The more brutally Gadhafi acts, the more slowly the U.S. responds.."

Even the Republicans aren't shrieking about it. Sure, they talk about principles but nobody is tying themselves to the railings over it.

US public opinion has not reached critical mass in the short period of this conflict. Remember, America plays the long game, as it did over Iraq.

Britain, on the other hand plays the short game - The Falklands comes to mind. At least it does if left to its own devices. In Britain, we are just not temperamentally suited to years of paving the way for conflict, but we are good at responding quickly, if not decisively. That is the strength of our military and of our politicians who send them. I am not talking about right and wrong here, merely method.

There is however, one thing that puzzles me. Not so long ago the US would have ordered Gordon Brown to come before the Senate over Lockerbie. They see the release of the bomber as being utterly indefensible. Lockerbie was a mini 9/11 and yet it has only served to point the finger at British venality. For some reason, the US does not see that Gadaffi, who is quite clearly implicated in the Pan Am bombing, as being an enemy of America.

In order to understand why, you only have to examine, quite gently, the financial repercussions of upsetting Libya. America is doing very nicely thank you trading with them. That will do. That is what always does.

Jim

Because G8 , UN , EU and other quangos didn`t/don`t want to play . They`re all toothless tigers .

TrevorsDen

david - Labour scrapped the Sea Harriers years ago.

But Nato has airbases all over the Med ... so no need to worry about that.

ssleddon - its France who has recognised the revolutionary govt. Pay attention at the back.

Mr Weasel - I do not think anybody will be trading with Gadaffi's Libya for a while. 'Doing nothing' is not an opt out. Libya are back in isolation again.

Maybe a few people will see how dangerous the world is with an isolationist America. Obama peddled what he thought would be a pushover in Afghanistan - its stalled and now he is reverting to type.

yank

Hmmmm, so the US is obligated to shoot at Khadaffi, is it? That's what's being implied here, in the Sid's and weasel's posts, isn't it?

Sorry, no. There is no such obligation.

And don't misunderstand, nobody has any concern about business being done with your mate Khadaffi... as everybody will do that... as we all know. The US did business with the Sovs, and does so with the Chicoms. And their murders dwarf anything Khadaffi ever did, or will do.

However, we do have a concern with convicted mass murderers being released to facilitate those business interests.

The US has never "gotten over" the Locherbie thing, fyi, nor has anybody else civilized. Pity that the fools who released that mass murderer didn't understand that they sanctioned his acts. And if they didn't have the strength of moral character to handle the situation, they should have turned him over to US justice.

That's what's occurred here. The yapping yorkie is carrying all that baggage, but is still yapping.

Baron

yank, your ranting about Megrahi and stuff is beginning to bore more than my yapping about a missile hitting a Tripoli tent with the nutter inside, you should give it up. BP has signed an exploration contract only, it pipes no oil from there. Also, you may like to know, it was the Scots who shipped the guy home, rumour has it they feared Megrahi’s appeal may find his conviction unsafe, bad ramifications for the judicial integrity of the Scottish legal system.

James’s assertion that the farting colonel’s survival will have consequences not only for other dictators’ behaviour, but beyond is hard to refute, it may be one of the defining events that shapes the century. Have you ever asked yourself why do you keep paying for Armed Forces, the hardware of which accounts for 40% of the world’s total, R&D on it 80% of the world’s aggregate, but make use of the might mostly in expeditions that are doomed before the first bullet gets fired, and even then half-heartedly?

few weeks back Andrew Sullivan, a pundit of the MSM phylum, was praising Obama’s skilful handling of the Arabic upheaval in the ST, saying the demonstrators were no longer burning the Stars & Stripes, Obama’s effigies. Bollocks. Nobody was burning flags and stuff because you no longer matter either as a friend to be relied upon, or a feared enemy. If Gates runs your foreign policy what does it tell you about the state of the Union, ha? You’ve lost the plot as much as we have, to bark at us gets you nowhere.

Verity

George Woodhouse - "Without out the Bush/Blair adventure in Iraq, to satisfy their egos, maybe the world would be more ready to take action against these dictators."

Incorrect. The world has no remit to run about the place interfering in other people's countries and imposing their own mores on them.

If enough people don't like a dictatorship, they will eventually get rid of it themselves.

It's not our business. It's going to be hard enough scraping Dave off the bottom of our shoe.

TGF UKIP

Yeah, but the oil price will settle back to below $100 and poor young James is probably most cut up over the humiliation of the Speccie's beloved Dave.

AJK

Please, get help into Benghazi now

Fatbloke on tour

JF

How wrong can the Speccy get?

Post 9/11 the biggest mistake the west, that G"W"B made was putting A'stan onto the back boiler so that Iraq could get all the attention.

A'stan should have been shoot and scoot police action but the focus was elsewhere and the stagnation and the lack of closure allowed the yahoos to re-organise and re-group.

Even today the real action is in the Gulf, specifically the SA vs Iran grudge match. This long awaited fixture promises to be a classic.

Last weeks trial of strength, the West Asia semi final was postponed due to lack of interest but all the action is now in Bahrain.

House of Saud Royals vs Shiite Proxies has been replaced by an interesting clash:

Sunni Elite vs The People

with h'anners provided by the SA National Guard, UAE mercenaries, Iraqi TV and the Iranian RG (undercover branch).

Should be a classic.

In this environment, Libya is second rate.

If MG was on the top of his game he would never have had the problems in the first place and the rebels look to be on the run due to an inability to work a shovel.

If MG was up against the Soviet Red Army in Leningrad siege mode Benghazi would be a hive of digging and the rebels foreign minister would have invented a new flammable / portable IED.

Neither of these two things appears to be happening.

Give it six months and things will have settled down with only the asylum backlog noticeable from Main Street.

porkbelly

The message from the White House to the House of Saud is quite clear - "you're on your own". They now must realize that they will have to deal with an unchecked nuclear-armed Iran - ironically the only help they are likely to get will be from Israel.

And how will Col. Mad Dog feel about the BP concessions now that Dave has shot his mouth off? Dave had better have his tailor sew kneepads into all his suits.

Dimoto

Germany learned a hard lesson about medium sized nation states that want to act all bellicose, and now concentrates on chumming up with everyone (thank God).

UK, perpetually peering out from behind Uncle Sam's frock coat, has proven to be a remarkably slow learner.

With a massive debt to get under control, and a programme of reforms which would make Trotsky wince, Cameron must have taken leave of his senses to become embroiled in this "little local difficulty".
A few muted tut-tuts would have been sufficient.
Mrs T knew how to pick her battles, Cameron doesn't.

yank

What are you off on now, Baron?

"defining event that shapes the century"? Hyperbole much?

Look, the yapping yorkie wants the US military to fight a foreign war, for which the yapping yorkie is singularly incapable of fighting. The yapping yorkie can't even defend Londonistan for crisakes. It needs the US military to do it, as always.

So all that's left here is the hypocrisy of the yapping yorkie having released a convicted mass murderer to the same freak they now claim to find it impossible to share the planet's surface with. Whine about that all you want, but that's the essence of this.

Maybe the yapping yorkie should go over and show the rebels how to dig a hole and bury a bone, as Fatbloke implies necessary.

FYI, there are currently weighty issues in other regions of the world, not that the yapping yorkie cares about them... BP being critical and all.

yank

Fatbloke,

I wouldn't bet too much on the Saudi gangstas going down, or there being much of a fight even. The rivers of blood those rotten thugs generate will make an Asian tsunami look like raindrops rippling gently on a pond.

Oh, and Afghanistan didn't go FAR ENOUGH onto the back burner. That should have been a punitive expedition exclusively. Even the Brits, for all their imperialist stupidity, got that one right sometimes. It can be best to go in, do your work, and pull back. That's all you can do. In Af, that's REALLY all you can do. This nation building nonsense is pure folly.

Gates knows this, and ain't even taking the first steps into the Libyan quicksand. Smart boy, unlike Obama, who frickin TRIPLED our troop counts in Afghanistan, the fool. That decision is likely going to cost him the White House in 2012.

yank

John Montague
March 15th, 2011 8:42pm

Nah, Yank, it's just the usual isolationist navel-gazing we get every time there's a Democratic administration.

.

Actually, you should write for the Spectator, as you don't seem to understand much about the US. The Left has put the US into all of its wars, to include this century's.

MairT

@Baron
yank, your ranting about Megrahi and stuff is beginning to bore more than my yapping about a missile hitting a Tripoli tent with the nutter inside, you should give it up. BP has signed an exploration contract only, it pipes no oil from there. Also, you may like to know, it was the Scots who shipped the guy home, rumour has it they feared Megrahi’s appeal may find his conviction unsafe, bad ramifications for the judicial integrity of the Scottish legal system.

Being a Scot, I get very tired of the people south of the border who seem to pin the release of Megrahi on the Scottish populace. You are the only person to date that shares the same view as myself regarding the appeal. Might I add, there is enough division in this country without England v Scotland mentality rearing its ugly head........

@ Yank

Kenny McCaskill is Scotland's shame.

TomTom

Cameron can always apologise - Blair was food at that - and employ "soft power". He could send Hague to mend fences and ""enter a dialogue". Maybe we could sell Ghadaffi one of our carriers - there's one available online for £5 million

derek barrow

On March 11th, @Publius posted "So that's Libya off the agenda then" in response to the breaking post on the Japanese earthquake by Peter Hoskin : A disaster film. There were 11 comments in total, one of them mine:

The issue is more whether Gadaffi's strategy changes as a consequence of knowing eyes are diverted. The Guernica moment predicated by the UN refers to the high casualties required to re-take Benghazi. Gadaffi has such superior firepower over the rebels. He could bring it forward and seek advantage of the focus being elsewhere. However such a move could equally backfire especially if Japan's natural disaster translates into a heightened sense of international co-operation. That could translate into enough international consensus for rapid intervention in Libya. However the Japanese are so well-organised the media may have little new to film after a few days. So it is unlikely Gadaffi could use the opportunity to take Benghazi. Although if he did so he would sidestep the Benghazi Guernica moment. Unlike General Franco, whose bombardement of Guernica in 1937 did not prevent him ruling until 1975, Gadaffi and sons will probably find such a spectacle of brutality impossible to recover from in the long term.

Publius responded: "The Japanese are coping pretty well (no surprise there)."

Those above comments explored the possible effect on Gadaffi of attention switching to Japan before the crisis at the nuclear plant emerged. So it is worth noting the nuclear crisis probably accelerates Gadaffi's determination to bring forward his effort to re-take Benghazi. The certain thing about this current nuclear crisis is it provides continuity in extended disaster coverage in Japan and a better diversion cover for Libya. It is still to be seen if Japan's disaster can translate into the higher sense of international co-operation to get a NFZ approved.

Extranea

Strategic set back? Like cosying up to gaddafi in the first place? Selling arms to middle eastern despots? or the deafening silence of Cameron and Obama over Bahrain. Its all very sad. http://bit.ly/fIfMQl

Fergus Pickering

I love this word humiliation. It's used in sport a lot. You don't just lose a game, a race, a series. You are humiliated. Similarly, if things out there in the big bad world go tits up then we are humiliated. Dave says lets have a no-fly zone. We dont get a no-fly zone. Dave is humiliated. It seems the only way not to be humiliated is not to play, never to do anything. But then we hve lost our mojo, haven't we? Whatever that may be. Libya reverting to the dictatorship of the farting one will be nasty for many poor Libyans who will be tortured and killed. It would be nice (perhaps) to be able to prevent this. To try and to fail is not necessarily a humiliation. And even if it were, what would it matter? As in the sports wrld the teams rise up from their terrible humiliations and next week are back again playing. It's a silly silly word. Let's not use it again.

Moraymint

What do we intervene with? Aircraft carriers and Harriers? Er, wait a minute ...

Keith D

Yank doesn't half talk a load of rubbish.He displays breathtaking hypocrisy when complaining about the Megrahi release,which was oiled by Brown and co in Westminster.Kenny McAskill was the scapegoat,end of.But coming from the nation that honoured the trigger happy moron that shot down the Iranian airbus it's a bit rich.Or the nation that destroyed any chance of maintaining our interests in the ME by its unpardonable folly in Iraq.The US,yank,with the criminal Blair's connivance,is directly responsible for all the deaths that followed.
Any dog in the street could have told Bush that Iraq was no friend to AQ and a bulwark against the depraved lunatics in Teheran.But of course it wasn't about the war on terror was it?
No,it was because the Saudi's still felt threatened by Saddam.And when the Saudi's said jump,Bush did somersaults.

On Libya,Obama is just running true to form.A limited city apparatchik(think North Lanarkshire councillor) with no understanding of our world,and rose tinted spectacles when it comes to Islam that few of us share.
Isolationist Presidents are seldom viewed kindly by history.This one I suspect will be remembered for his impersonation of Nero.He was unlucky to follow on from that idiot Bush,but a wise hand would have prevented the unprecedented decline in American influence both among friends and adversaries.
But who are we to complain? We've got Cast Iron Dave shouting for Libyan democracy all the while denying us our own.

PayDirt

I agree with Flatbloke. Saudi vs Iran as the long-awaited grudge match, but as a semifinal? What is the final? And who the other semifinalist duo?

Fatbloke on tour

PayDirt @ 9.14

Luck of the draw.

The other semi final in the West Asia Regional Superpower Cup is, geography students look away now -

Egypt vs Turkey.

Not so long awaited, I think their history only goes back 400 odd years rather than the 1400 years of the other 2.

The losing quarter finalists were Syria, Iraq, Jordan and the Yemen.

Israel wasn't invited and anyway they don't play internationals anymore apart from their bi-annual pre season tour of Lebanon (South).

PayDirt

I was struggling a bit with "West Asia", geography teachers instilled in me the notion of Near East. Of course if you really want to show off geography knowledge you bring up the Maghreb. I don't reckon much on Egypt though, that tie is postponed. How about Turkey vs Europe (best XI)?

Ian Walker

If the UN doesn't intervene in Libya, just what is the point of the UN?

I realise that's a largely rhetorical question.

TomTom

"If the UN doesn't intervene in Libya, just what is the point of the UN?"

It has a SECURITY COUNCIL and under the Charter IT decides.

It did not involve itself in Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Hungary in 1956 or Poland in 1962 or 1982.

The Security Council Members PAY FOR ALL military action from their taxpayer funds. I have not seen a Supplementary Budget to pay for wars only Defence cuts

yank

Well, Mr. Keith D, you should understand that many generations of your government, like all of the West, have supported the West’s policy in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, to include both blunting Sadaam’s Kuwaiti adventures in 1991, and his overthrow in 2003. And it doesn't matter whether I favor or decry those actions, or the one in Afghanistan, or particularly how they were executed, as I truly don't. But they are in line with previously stated and accepted policy... accepted by all. Deal with it.

It’s policy because the Euros needed oil to rebuild, and the many billions of US taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of US troops stationed there to keep you from having to type that post in German or Russian, and all the US taxpayer cash poured into your economies, also necessitated the follow-on geostrategic policy of maintaining oil supply to you Euros. You’ve lived by others’ leave, in other words. You’re welcome.

It’s policy. It has been policy. Whining today about that policy does you no good, because you’ve supported it for decades and decades. You vote for politicians who support that policy, yet today. If there is significant disturbance in the Arabian Peninsula today, Brit forces, meager and ineffective though they might be, will go into action there. It’s policy. It’s been policy. Carry on with your whining, then.

Now, as for me, since you and I are about the business of fantasizing another version of geostrategic policy here, I’m all for cutting you Euros loose, and exiting the costly business of coddling you types. The US can be self sufficient in crude, without a drop of imports, and for several centuries, at least. It just needs to choose to do so. But that would mean cutting loose Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Oz, NZers, VIETNAM, Indonesia, and many other friends. Now, I figure the US could supply all of those friends as well, quiet as it’s kept, and surely with Canuck and Mexican crude thrown into the mix it’s plenty doable.

But that’s all just speculation on proposed policy. The real policy is in place, and you’ve bought into it. Stop whining.

Oh, and you’re welcome.

And no need decrying Obama, because he and your Torybot hero Cameron are mirror images… leftists… the kind who get into wars. But the adults have taken over here, and Obama won’t have his splendid little war, sparing you all from it as well, as you’re not even capable of getting your citizens out of Libya on your own, let alone prosecuting a war there.

Pity that you children have no adults about, and are left with degenerate greedhead politicians and banksters, releasing mass murderers and scuffling for Khadaffi’s cash pile, and yapping for others to fight foreign wars for their economic interests, particularly as they’re already committed to the real war that would be fought, if existing geostrategic policy called for it. Not that the impotent yappers would contribute much to that war, because obviously they can't.

That's the policy, you know, the policy that adults have previously formulated, and left for the children of today, including your boy Dave, who's too dumb to understand it all.

And get ready to suffer the consequences, because Call Me Dave’s childish yapping is going to have consequences. Count on it.

salieri

@FoT:

"Egypt vs Turkey.

Not so long awaited, I think their history only goes back 400 odd years rather than the 1400 years of the other 2."[ i.e. Saudi Arabia and Iran]

I tread warily when trying to understand your utterances, because of the language barrier, but I deduce that history may not have been your favourite subject at school.

Fatbloke on tour

Italian porn director @ 3.40

You are right I was more of a geography man at school.

And you are right instead of 400 years I should have put it at 550.

However if you don't agree with this I would love to hear your alternate history regarding the Turks / Ottomans and their conflicts / rivalries / relations with the Egyptians?

Whatever your thoughts on this I still feel that Egypt vs Turkey would be a bit a grudge match in the West Asia Regional Superpower Cup.

Archie

Harumph!

Keith D

yank@1:50 You're still whining about Megrahi and accusing others,namely the Brits,of the same trait.Its called projection I believe.The Vincennes incident and its aftermath hardly gives you the right of moral superiority now does it?
And what on earth is a Euro the way you mean it?
I cant believe you actually pretend that without the US we'd be speaking Russian or German now and you wouldn't.If you think we're not grateful for the intervention in WW2 or deterring the Russians then you're wrong.Thank you for being on the same side however reluctantly but it was self preservation only.Had Britain caved in in 1940/2 the nazis would have had the bomb first and easy control of the atlantic.You would have been next.Ditto the Russians,but don't worry about it.You're welcome.
Now in 21st century Europe we're faced with twin threats,from a fifth column recently imported here,and a probably belligerent new region on our southern flank.Oil is oil no matter where it is,and you forget its the UK you're addressing rather than the "Euros".We have our own,its just off a place called Scotland.
Re Obama and Cameron,agreed.So do we meekly accept that these idiots should be free to screw things up,or do we make a noise about it?.Your tea partiers seem to be doing just that.
We're entitled to do the same.

John Montague

Yep, it's truly amazing that somebody who pretends to be a hard headed adult can believe that the US's interventions in Europe's conflicts were motivated by something other than national interest and self-preservation.

America prospered from Europe's cataclysms, and would have been reduced to the margins had either Germans or Russians managed to control the Old World entire. Prosperity allowed the US to be a major capital exporter during 50 golden years.

Nowadays though, it owes everybody money. The trade deficit is the size of the US defence budget. Americans guzzle oil like nobody's business, and Yank's oil shale fantasies have never been put to the test on any significant scale. Somehow, I don't think that's because US investors are dumb, although perhaps Yank does.

yank

Oh don't be silly, children. Nobody was ever going to conquer the United States. Heck, absent the limey commie spies you all sent over, I doubt the Sovs would have a nuclear weapon yet today.

No, you speak English today, and not German or Russian, courtousy of the US taxpayers... as our gift... since you never paid the price for it... not like you and your frog allies made Germany pay at Versailles, anyway.

You're welcome.

And no, you don't have any oil to speak of. We do, and always have... centuries worth of it, in fact. We've long facilitated your supply, again courteousy of the US taxpayers.

You're welcome.

Now, this Libya thing does serve a purpose, as it's a good primer for you kids, and gives you a chance to grow up. Whatever problems you Euros face are going to soon belong strictly to you, especially with the likes of Call Me Dave stumbling about, pissing people off. And let me give you a little hint here... you better start learning Russian and German... and fast. We held off the dogs for you for near 3/4 century now, but you've blown the chance, and now it's time to face your new masters, as you go into stagflation and economic decline.

And hey, no worries. I like the hun, and the Roooshian, too. They'll straighten you all out, right quick!

In the meantime, you all best be polite to Mr. Obama over there, or he'll send out that quick text message to the US Fed: "Dump the limey paper". ;-)

Keith D

yank@08;09 My apologies for addressing you as a sentient adult.My bad.

Y Rhyfelwr Dewr

@ Keith D and John Montague

While Yank's ideas about oil may be optimistic, he's bang on the money when he says that we can't even evacuate our own citizens from Libya, never mind fight a war there.

Have you noticed how, although Cameron may be calling for a no-fly zone, he wants somebody else to do it for him? 'Great' Britain sure as hell can't. And that somebody else would be ... oh yes, the Americans. You remember them don't you? They're the people we don't need and who never do anything for us.

And Keith D ... your ideas about World War 2 are distinctly cock-eyed. Germany couldn't win a war against Russia, which, for all its geographical size, had an economy roughly the size of Belgium's. How would it have won against the USA, which had more industry in Pennsylvania than there was in the whole of the Soviet Union?

Your comment about Germany having an atomic bomb before the Americans (even if that were true, which is questionable), it wouldn't have done them much good when their primary bomber had a range of about 600 miles.

As for your assertion that America would have been the next country Germany invaded is just idiotic, given the Herculean effort that was necessary simply to cross the English Channel, never mind the Atlantic Ocean!

It's understandable that you've taken offence at Yank's hardly delicate criticism, but can you think of no better response than to retreat into a la-la fantasy land? Can you not see how much weight your comment added to Yank's point?

Y Rhyfelwr Dewr

@ Yank: "you better start learning Russian and German... and fast"

French might be more appropriate, and Flemish. That's what they speak in Brussels. Although German would probably come in handy.

John Montague

*** Warning.. Trolling alert ***

No, Keith, Yank is just a typical internet troll, but quite a fun one. After all, one learns more from having all one's preconceptions questioned than from polite agreement. The world would be a duller place if such things did not lurk under the bridges of sane conservation.

Trolls are often amusing when discussing counterfactuals, such as what would have happened if the Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbour, if Britain had withdrawn to its island in 1941 and had eventually become an economic subject of the victor, and if America had consequently stayed out of the war.

Most reputable studies conclude that information obtained from the Manhattan Project speeded up Soviet atomic weapons research, but was not fundamental to its success. If Russia had won the war unaided, and Communists or Soviet-sponsored governments had taken power in Britain, France, Italy, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the whole of Germany, Poland and Hungary, India, possibly part of China (depending on what deal was struck with Japan) , Africa from Rabat to Cape Town and the Middle East, the mineral wealth, weapons output, manpower resources and scientific competence of this Ruski empire would have exceeded those of the US. (Remember, most of the key Manhattan Project physicists were European academics originally. There were many who did not emigrate).

There would have been no massive capital investment in Europe with corresponding capital returns, no trade stimulus, and probably much slower missile and aircraft technology research. Remember the panic over Sputnik? Remember the old joke when the US got to the moon before the Soviets? “Ah well, that just goes to show, your Germans were better than our Germans.”

The US could have gone its own way. I very much doubt it would have been invaded. It just wouldn't have been anything like as important, or rich, or powerful. Eventually it might have tried to fight, to gain access to all the metals it is short of, and it would have been defeated and further marginalised. After all, to stretch a point, when has America ever fought and won alone against a sizeable opponent? The American War of Independence and 1812 were essentially conflicts between Britain and France. In the Great War, most of the fighting was over when the US entered. In the Second World War, well over 90% of the German divisions were tied up on the Eastern Front, which is where the vast majority of German casuaalties were incurred. China stopped the US in Korea. Even Vietnam proved too much. And in this fantasy, we're assuming a much poorer US, which could not finance a military budget on anything like the scale of the America that lives in the real world, the one it enjoys thanks to Britain's critical and above all timely role during the war, in Greece, the Middle East, and at sea.

Of course, in the real world, no sensible US president would have allowed any power to dominate all the other continents. Americans should thank their lucky stars that a Yank wasn't in charge.

Yank, ever heard of Philip K Dick? Try “The Man in the High Castle”. Very funny about the Japanese conquerors appreciating traditional American culture, in the form of antique Mickey Mouse watches.

yank

Well, no need to read that useless drivel.

But at least it's typed in English. You're welcome.

John Montague

So predictable

one citizen

down with dirty NATO airstrikes on civilians.
down with crazy kadafi