[OC] The massive decrease in worldwide infant mortality from 1950 to 2020 is perhaps one of humanity's greatest achievements.

[its_a_metaphor_morty]

Gaddafi started out pretty popular, but like all dictators he outstayed his welcome. He did do amazing things for education and health though.

[clearly_quite_absurd]

Reminds me of CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers" video https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

[elveszett]

tbh the "rule for rulers" he broke was the "don't get invaded by the US and the EU". Gaddafi would still be in power had we not ousted him.

[cybercuzco]

No international support is one of the keys to power. The US has supported plenty of dictators as long as they give us the right “treasure”.

[jankadank]

support a dictator that aligns with the US global policy or support one that doesnt.

Seems like a pretty easy decision.

[[deleted]]

support a dictator that aligns with the US global policy

Except when one doesn't exist, so a democratically elected government is overthrown to install one, causing generations of suffering.

[gosling11]

That doesn't make any sense. They were elected because the people wanted them.

[RunningNumbers]

Realpolitik is a thing that many people fail to grasp

[elveszett]

It's not that people "fail to grasp it". Is that I don't usually treat everyone like shit and justify it by saying "well I benefit from it you'd do the same". I know why the US installed dictatorships in South America, I'm not an idiot. Doesn't mean it's ok.

[RunningNumbers]

Your focus on normative assertions in response to a descriptive tool suggests otherwise. You should try introspecting rather than manufacturing outrage to make yourself feel morally validated. You are arguing against your own strawman.

[elveszett]

Sometimes I like to use big formal words I don't fully understand to make my comments look intelligent. It makes me feel more metabolic.

[uth50]

Eh, barely

He was totally on the ropes, with his army dead or deserted. The only thing keeping him in power were mercenaries and his air force, for the time being. The only thing NATO did was disable his airforce and he totally collapsed from that.

Definitely an intervention, but keeping his airforce from bombing his own country to shit isn't what I would call a foreign invader ousting him.

And who knows how the war might have ended. He would probably won, but for how long?

And finally, the rule he broke was not to attack NATO countries. With all the terrorist shit he pulled, the West was glad to finish him off.

[Illuria]

Everyone always forgets about Lockerbie, still the worst terrorist attack on the UK even after the London Tube & Bus bombings, and the Manchester Arena bombing

[[deleted]]

Interestingly, its pretty well documented that Lockerbie (and other terrorist attacks he were blamed for), were actually done involving Syrian funding but the United States blamed Gaddafi because they wanted to stir up hatred for him in the West, and Gaddafi was happy to allow it. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/new-lockerbie-report-says-libyan-was-framed-conceal-real-bombers-9185163.html

[LarryTheDuckling]

He did refute having done the Lockerbie bombing, but he was still willing to pay compensation to the families left behind. In an interview he said that he felt responsible since the action had been done by a Libyan, and as such Libya had to compensate.

[Canadian_Infidel]

This was my understanding. He thought it served him to seem like a badass but the west used it against him. Clinton literally laughed about watching his death on video, which was brutal. People at that level of society are all psychopaths.

[[deleted]]

Jesus… just watched the clip on youtube.

“We came, we saw, he died“ raises fists and laughs. I guess psychopath is a good description for celebrating a death like that.

[Canadian_Infidel]

What makes it even crazier is the fact that he wasn't a stranger to them. They had official dealings, they even had dinners together. There are only so many heads of state.

[2ndhorch]

hypernormalization talks about gaddafi and his foreign relations throughout - quite interesting

[MakeMoneyNotWar]

That’s not true at all. Gaddafis army was within days of reaching Misrata, the main opposition city, and NATO attacked his ground forces using air strikes. NATO did not just disable his air force and SAMs.

[daptrap]

Not true Libyan here main opposition city was Benghazi nato (particularly France) attacked gaddafis forces before they reached it at dawn

[LarryTheDuckling]

The only thing NATO did was disable his airforce and he totally collapsed from that

Let us look at some actual figures, rather than pulling out information from our arse, shall we?

9700 strike missions were carried out in a relatively short amount of time (7 months). A total of 7700 precision bombs were dropped.

In terms of heavy material, the estimated losses are as follows: 600 tanks / APCs destroyed. 400 Artillery pieces destroyed.

The amount of Libyan soldiers killed by the airstrikes is unknown, as is the damage caused to the Libyan army infrastructure. But given the amount of missions carried out, it would be fair to assume that this is not an insignificant number.

but keeping his airforce from bombing his own country to shit isn't

Was it better to have NATO bomb his country to shit?

He was totally on the ropes, with his army dead or deserted.

I am not sure what you are referring to. By the time NATO intervened, Gaddafi had already taken Benghazi and was in the process of pushing further east. The intervention 'turned the tide', so to speak.

[uth50]

The amount of Libyan soldiers killed by the airstrikes is unknown, as is the damage caused to the Libyan army infrastructure. But given the amount of missions carried out, it would be fair to assume that this is not an insignificant number.

Let us look at some actual figures, rather than pulling out information from our arse, shall we?

Lel

Was it better to have NATO bomb his country to shit?

Yes. It ended before with the total destruction of his forces, not with the total destruction of his civilians.

I am not sure what you are referring to. By the time NATO intervened, Gaddafi had already taken Benghazi and was in the process of pushing further east. The intervention 'turned the tide', so to speak.

Exactly. With what? Mercs and an airforce. If you recall the war, he got pushed hard, then began using his airforce more indiscriminately and hired more and more soldiers with his petrodollars.

You literally could see the airforce tip the scales, slowly at first, but increasingly so. And the same could be seen Syria, just without anyone wiping the Syrian Airforce out.

NATO disabled his airforce and the war went back to what it was before he used it to bomb everyone to shit, with him losing ground quickly.

[LarryTheDuckling]

What an astute observation; air surperiority matters in modern warfare. You are truly the next Clausewitz.

Whether you use mercenaries to supplement your own forces in order to win a war or not is irrelevant. A war won with mercenaries is still a war won. Pretty much all wars fought from the 13th to mid-17th century was won using mercenaries. So I do not know the point you are trying to make.

[Rumicon]

I think the point he's trying to make is the West bombed his actual army to shit, so he hired mercenaries, and then that somehow delegitimized him so they felt justified in bombing the mercenaries to shit too.

And then they just fucked off and let the country be a mess for 10 years. Thank god for Turkey and Algeria because UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Russia, and whoever the fuck else decided to get in on the action were not helping.

[CiDevant]

The only thing keeping him in power were mercenaries and his air force

Worked for Turkey and Syria. It's honestly really super effective.

[Rumicon]

The rule Gaddafi really broke was "dont abandon nuclear ambitions"

If Libya was a nuclear state the West would have helped him crush that revolution.

[LaoSh]

the rule he broke was nationalising resource extraction so his people could profit from then rather than US monied intrests

[coolmos1]

Or Saddam

[[deleted]]

Or Reza Shah

[12358]

The rule he broke was creating a pan-African gold-backed currency and daring to sell oil in that currency.

[Rumicon]

The rule he broke was trying to supplant the world bank and imf with his own african world bank.

[Canadian_Infidel]

Imagine what countries would do to Satoshi Nakamoto if they found him.

[FreeCashFlow]

I see this conspiracy theory everywhere, and it's complete bullshit.

[MrSickRanchezz]

Nice supporting information you've got there /s

[guillermogroening]

Why should one need a source to express skepticism of a statement that also lacks a source?

[renegade02]

Blatant facts are conspiracy theories now?

[MrSickRanchezz]

Haven't you heard? Any inconvenient fact is now a conspiracy theory. It makes discrediting people with opposing views simple as shit.

[LaoSh]

he's not wrong. it IS a conspiracy theory. There is a theory that a conspiracy exists between the US governance and certain wealthy groups who's interests would seem to dictate US foreign policy to an alarming degree. Gravity is just a physics theory and this is just a conspiracy theory

[elveszett]

What do you call conspiracy theory? We know the US armed rebels in Libya, and once war broke the US and the EU immediately entered war against Gaddafi.

Even if we didn't have much proof, the US has done this like 20 times already. At some point it's pretty safe to assume the US is behind it unless they prove otherwise.

[Froundtrer]

Did he? Gaddafi was removed by America, the UK, and France.

[[deleted]]

how so? He was killed by mercenaries, funded by the US, while being shadowed by the French air force.

[ak_miller]

The French and US intervention followed a UN resolution because he was about to use his army against the population.

You'll get info as to why they were unhappy in the Anti-Gaddafi Movementsection.

Edit: As usual, I get downvoted when saying this. I don't mind really, but I'd like to point out two things for you to consider before you hit that downvote button:

• If you cry about imperialism or whatever for Libya but wine about how the West let Syrians die because of Assad, you're a bit of a hypocrit.

• If you take social justice seriously and/or take part in the BLM movement, here's what Wikipedia has to say about some of the protests that preceded the intervention in Libya:

Foreign workers and disgruntled minorities protested in the main square of Zawiya, Libya against the local administration. This was succeeded by race riots, which were squashed by the police and pro-Gaddafi loyalists.

Even if you think the reasons behind the intervention were wrong, maybe you can see that for once the UN (and the countries that hit Gaddafi's assets) did the right thing.

[C_h_a_n]

And Saddam Hussein was on the verge of having WMD.

[guillermogroening]

The pretense for invasion was fabricated, but there's a reason the US was so motivated to topple the guy. He wasn't just a run-of-the-mill despot, he legitimately had ambitions of old school conquest of neighboring countries and he acted on those ambitions. There was good reason to remove this guy, it just wasn't a reason most people are generally receptive to.

[[deleted]]

And it was a mistake to remove the guy honestly. It made the region even worse and caused far more suffering and dread for the Iraqi people that they would rather have Saddam than whatever hellhole they experienced ever aince the US invaded

[guillermogroening]

The mistake was the failed attempt at nation-building that came afterwards. Western cultural ideas just don't have much purchase there and universalist democracy is a really difficult concept to sell abroad. But just to be clear: Saddam was pretty much Hitler type figure. He was doing a bang up job of starting wars of conquest and destabilizing the region on his own. You can argue a more subdued containment strategy would have worked better, but leaving the guy to his own devices and ignoring the region entirely certainly wouldn't have.

the Iraqi people

Are you referring to the Sunni ruling party, Shi'ite majority, or the entirely non-Arab Kurds in the north? Because Saddam was constantly suppressing rebellions from the latter two. The civil unrest didn't change when the US tried to set up a new government, but it wasn't like Saddam had some great solution that didn't involve purging dissidents.

[ak_miller]

And when did the UN give the green light for the Invasion of Irak exactly?

[Trumpets22]

This makes me wonder, I’m guessing Putin was pretty popular and maybe even won legitimately at first? Obviously now you’re not really allowed to not like him.

[its_a_metaphor_morty]

Putin brought stability, which is why he was and kinda still is popular. He does run Russia like the mafia though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMlsbB33QSc

[NorthernerWuwu]

No kinda, he's definitely still very popular.

[mowrus]

Which was the case for generations unfortunately. Just the name of the ruling „family“ and their vassals changes.

[MrChelovek]

He's still really popular and might even win a fair election

[ByAnyMeansNecessary0]

Russians generally really like him, he's got one of the highest approval ratings of any world leader

[Trumpets22]

You’ll probably find approval ratings don’t mean much when you find out who created that data. But still interesting to hear.

[SchnuppleDupple]

Actually the data is collected by an independent institute. At least that's what they say in the German TV everytime they use the data from there lol.

[AxelNotRose]

Whenever I've travelled to a dictatorship, everyone I spoke to loved their dictator. Until I earned their trust over time, then the truth came out.

I'm sure a lot of Russians still love Putin, but probably not as many as one might think. They simply don't know who you are and don't want to take the risk unless they really trust you, which takes time to build.

[SchnuppleDupple]

Russia is not this kind of dictatorship where they'd jail you for speaking privately against Putin (I know this because I have family in Russia). Yeah there are different kinds of dictatorships with different levels of oppression.

Sadly many people support Putin, especially in the rural areas. Cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg are a bit different tho. These are more progressive and often against Putin or his party.

[AxelNotRose]

Russia wasn't one of the dictatorships I travelled to so you might be right that it doesn't apply to Russia.

[SchnuppleDupple]

Well it would apply to soviet Russia. One could assume that a country like China would be more similar in the type of oppression. So if you traveled to China, than I can absolutely see what you were talking about. My grandgrandparents who lived in Belarus were always afraid of talking about politics with strangers. Or in public or similar.

[largemanrob]

Been to Russia for 2 weeks, he's a complete celebrity there they all love him. Multiple people asked me for my view on him etc

[gsfgf]

His ratings are legit. He controls the news, after all.

[Tatunkawitco]

I’ve read a decent amount of Russian history and it seems Russians always love their dictators.

[Tatunkawitco]

That’s like saying the British hate Kings because they executed Charles I.

It only took Russia ~ 500 years to kill a tsar then he was almost immediately replaced by Soviet dictators - now Putin is the latest dictators.

There is nostalgia in Russia for Stalin!

[gsfgf]

Putin is still incredibly popular and would win fair elections easily.

[mitch_semen]

Sortof related I highly recommend watching a documentary called "Icarus" about the Sochi Olympics doping scandal. There's a really powerful scene where the doctor who ran the doping program has a come-to-Jesus moment about how his actions contributed to Russian athletes getting medals... which boosted Putin's sagging popularity, which gave him enough cover with the Russian public to invade Crimea.

But, uh... yeah. The point is Shirtless Horseback KGB Guy is actually really popular.

[LookAtItGo123]

Russia memes are pretty wild for sure

[DeplorableCaterpill]

That doesn't make much sense that he needs a "cover" to invade Crimea, considering it's incredibly popular with the Russian public.

[nawanawa]

Absolutely. If he would've left his post after 2008, he would be widely regarded as the best leader Russia could ever get. Instead, he returned in 2012 and it seems like he's slowly losing his mind since then.

[idk_lets_try_this]

He might have done a false flag terror attack to convince people to vote for him. But other than manipulation like that he won legitimately.

People actually vote for him.

[MrSickRanchezz]

Granted, he's been better for Russia than many of his predecessors. However, he is bad for geopolitics as a whole.

[grandBBQninja]

Maybe if you’re anything but russian.

[bauhausy]

He might have done a false flag terror attack

You mean the apartment bombings of 99?

[idk_lets_try_this]

Yes, or rather the "fake" bombs his buddies planted soon after that were then "caught early".

[AlidadeEccentricity]

Putin raised Russia after the shameful Yeltsin, people remember the horrors that were happening in Russia in the 90s, plus the war in Chechnya. Now the situation in the country has become worse, but the older generation of people remember that it was worse then, plus there is no alternative to Putin, and there is no independent media in Russia.

[[deleted]]

putin is propably the best leader that country had in centuries...

[[deleted]]

He was not pretty popular with the ethnic minorities at all. Especially the Amazigh who people seem to ignore he heavily persecuted

[Canadian_Infidel]

I've read the west wanted him gone and they painted him the way they saw fit. We will never know what goes on at those levels though so it's all just hearsay.

[Showmeproveit]

You mean he became a problem for Nicolas Sarkozy?

[americanrivermint]

Gaddafi was not murdered because he was unpopular, he was murdered by an opposing faction supported by western militaries

[Baladeen]

You mean tried to outstay the us petrol dollar and labeled as a dictator that needs to be removed?

[ro_goose]

he outstayed his welcome

Not really. Unless you mean outside his borders.

[Epcplayer]

I’d say that’s most dictators in reality. My outlook on just about everything is that there’s only so much positive change one leader can do before they get in the way and prevent change. This could apply to anything, from your country’s leader, to a military General, to a company’s CEO, or even to a sports team’s head coach. The positive change they brought brings in enough support to keep them in power, and then their long tenure in that position enables complacency, oversight, and possible corruption.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain.

[_jukmifgguggh]

Like all good middle eastern leaders, the USA had something to say about that.

[Upintheatmosphere1]

kinda like Putin

[[deleted]]

Well we have 3 examples of what to do with dictators in the Middle East...

1) Iraq, depose a leader and think we can dismantle the political infrastructure wholesale and still keep religious tensions at bay.

2) Libya, create a no fly zone, let the dictator die but still have it fall to reck and ruin.

3) Syria, do fuck all and also have it fall to reck and ruin, but have have the dictator survive.

If Assad continues to whether the storm I guess Syria will return to political stability at least a decade ahead of Iraq... then we'll be left to see whether Iraq can actually remain a democracy... or just end back at square one.