O/T I bet the people of Zimbabwe wished they were an oil producing nation.

[Lenny Rider]

This country would have invaded them years ago and removed Mugabe.

 

[Milton Keynes Seagull]

To be fair to Gaddafi, he's only just become a "tyrant", only a few years ago good old New Labour was busily arranging arms deals with him. Our former great prime ministers Brown and Blair had no qualms about meeting him then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=856HOHH5UJE

 

[KZNSeagull]

They have got Diamonds

 

[Mackenzie]

This country would have invaded them years ago and removed Mugabe.

Yep.

 

[readingstockport]

Zimbabwe is also heavily supported by the chinese. Invading, or in anyway attacking them, would risk open conflict with the Chinese. And I doubt any intelligent politician would want to risk that.

Which begs the question of how come bush didn't attack them.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Which begs the question of how come bush didn't attack them.

Because he couldn't pronounce it, let alone spell it?

 

[sydney]

he thought it was a desert......similar to a trifle but with donuts instead of sponge. Wife is from Zim.......Mugabe deserves to suffer for what he has done to his own and his neighbouring countries, utter greedy ,meglomanic kant. apparently he was sexually assaulted by the "brothers" when he was at school in the uk , this explains why he has such a problem with europeans. utter kant.

 

[The Spanish]

To be fair to Gaddafi, he's only just become a "tyrant", only a few years ago good old New Labour was busily arranging arms deals with him. Our former great prime ministers Brown and Blair had no qualms about meeting him then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=856HOHH5UJE

hes hardly just become a tyrant. blowing up planes over Britain, supplying the IRA with weapons, inadvertantly caused the death of a British policewoman on a London street, none of which recent events. I dunno about you but he has always been a total cnt in my eyes. its not a recent demonisation in the west by a long chalk.

Politicians meeting odious people is part and parcel of it. that gadaffi had to buy weapons off them is just a fact of life.

as for 'if zimbabwe had oil' line. Libya doesnt have that much. what sickens me about our attitudes zimbabwe is the fact that british people in zimbabwe were left for f***ing dead as it was not PC or a bit embarassing to intervene on their behalf, as much as anything. if we had gone in then we could have helped stop it going completely down the shitter for everyone there too. our selling zimbabwe out happened long before mugabe took over.

 

[Buzzer]

Agree with the Spanish. The Libyans were training Eta, PLO, IRA and the Rote Faktion for years. They supplied arms and banking facilities too.

Gaddafi has always been a naughty so and so, in my eyes but the last laugh is on him as he seems to have employed a plastic surgeon who has made him look like that clay model of Lionel Richie in the Hello video.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

As far as I understand it, the African Union were against intervention in Zimbabwe (although that has never been known to stop the Yanks) but the Arab League were for intervention in Lybia. Simplistic, I know.

 

[Brovion]

...

as for 'if zimbabwe had oil' line. Libya doesnt have that much. what sickens me about our attitudes zimbabwe is the fact that british people in zimbabwe were left for f***ing dead as it was not PC or a bit embarassing to intervene on their behalf, as much as anything. if we had gone in then we could have helped stop it going completely down the shitter for everyone there too. our selling zimbabwe out happened long before mugabe took over.

I think there's an element of truth in that. The white farmers were seen a bit as imperial throwbacks to 'Rhodesia'. But also remember Britain didn't like Ian Smith and his supporters that much for thumbing their noses at Britain with their UDI in 1965 (I think it was 1965, can't be arsed to google it) and were instrumental in setting up the constitution that eventually got rid of the white minority government and brought in Mugagbe. Not sure whether that's had any bearing on our official approach to the issue.

Personally I was also slightly nauseated by the press in this country who could calmly report on thousands of thousands of black African deaths in countless civil wars in a very off-hand manner, but if a Zimbabwean farmer was killed by 'war veterans' it would be "WHITE PERSON KILLED IN ZIMBABWE! SHOCK HORROR OUTRAGE! TEN PAGE EXCLUSIVE INSIDE!"

 

[vegster]

Oh dear, its not quite that simple ! If oil supplies were the defining factor in regime change surely President Chavez of Venezuala and earlier, President Suharto of Indonesia would have felt the "hand of History " upon their collars ?

Most African nations are notoriously corrupt or factionist and very few " democracies" in Africa are truly transparent. Also they tend to stand together against outside interference from the West, this would have led to very confused and muddled ideals when dealing with dodgy African nations. In short, it's best to keep out of African affairs no matter how tragic and awful the civil wars and tribal ethnic cleansing.

Finally, Zimbabwe's geographical postion does not lend itself to easy access to " peacekeeping " forces. The US and Britain and most EU countries have no logistical bases in the area at all and I'm sure that the countries surrounding Zimbabwe would not willingly allow land forces through their territories lest they themselves were to be highlighted over the abuses to their own people.

 

[beorhthelm]

They have got Diamonds

but ofcourse, no one except De Beers really gives a crap about diamonds.

As far as I understand it, the African Union were against intervention in Zimbabwe (although that has never been known to stop the Yanks) but the Arab League were for intervention in Lybia. Simplistic, I know.

simple, yet really at the hear tof the problem. we couldnt go int to Zimbabwe without neighbouring countries support. it does stop even the US as they dont like to overfly airspace without permission.

 

[readingstockport]

he thought it was a desert......similar to a trifle but with donuts instead of sponge. Wife is from Zim.......Mugabe deserves to suffer for what he has done to his own and his neighbouring countries, utter greedy ,meglomanic kant. apparently he was sexually assaulted by the "brothers" when he was at school in the uk , this explains why he has such a problem with europeans. utter kant.

I thought it was more to do with the treatment of his first wife and his treatment over the death of his first son, the death if whom is suggested by some to have started his real descent into the tyrant we know and love today. Certainly when I was in Zim in the early 1990's there was nothing to suggest the place would descend into what it is today.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Just a few points.

From the Zim white farmers that I have spoken to about it, Zim only started "going down the shitter" when a credible opposition to ZANU-PF came along at the end of the 90's. The land invasions were not racially oriented, although Mugabe liked to promote that line, but power oriented. He peddled the lie that whites owned 70% of the land - whites owned 70% of commercial farmland, amounting to about 14% of the land. The Zim government owned more that before the land invasions. It was not just white farms he invaded, but any farm that was owned by his opponents, black or white. As an example, there was one hugely successful collective farm (i cannot remember the name) which exported vegetables to Tesco's etc, that was previously white owned, but was turned into collective by the white owner, which trained and economically empowered thousands of black farmers, that was seized. It now produces nothing.

The UK or anyone else would not get any support from southern African states to invade Zim as Mugabe is seen as a "liberator".

 

[spring hall convert]

Just a few points.

From the Zim white farmers that I have spoken to about it, Zim only started "going down the shitter" when a credible opposition to ZANU-PF came along at the end of the 90's. The land invasions were not racially oriented, although Mugabe liked to promote that line, but power oriented. He peddled the lie that whites owned 70% of the land - whites owned 70% of commercial farmland, amounting to about 14% of the land. The Zim government owned more that before the land invasions. It was not just white farms he invaded, but any farm that was owned by his opponents, black or white. As an example, there was one hugely successful collective farm (i cannot remember the name) which exported vegetables to Tesco's etc, that was previously white owned, but was turned into collective by the white owner, which trained and economically empowered thousands of black farmers, that was seized. It now produces nothing.

The UK or anyone else would not get any support from southern African states to invade Zim as Mugabe is seen as a "liberator".

That's the point here, it's not just southern African states that have this view of Mugabe as liberator, I've just spent some time in West Africa and discussed this point and the majority of people I spoke to there subscribe to this view as well. South Africa would have to be instrumental in any kind of movement against Mugabe, yet they don't seem to have the appetite for it.

The Libyan scenario has been made slightly different by the prospect of a full scale massacre if Gadaffi reclaims Benghazi. Many of the world powers are still smarting after theirv own failures to do anything about Screbrenica & Darfur.

 

[spring hall convert]

hes hardly just become a tyrant. blowing up planes over Britain, supplying the IRA with weapons, inadvertantly caused the death of a British policewoman on a London street, none of which recent events. I dunno about you but he has always been a total cnt in my eyes. its not a recent demonisation in the west by a long chalk.

Politicians meeting odious people is part and parcel of it. that gadaffi had to buy weapons off them is just a fact of life.

as for 'if zimbabwe had oil' line. Libya doesnt have that much. what sickens me about our attitudes zimbabwe is the fact that british people in zimbabwe were left for f***ing dead as it was not PC or a bit embarassing to intervene on their behalf, as much as anything. if we had gone in then we could have helped stop it going completely down the shitter for everyone there too. our selling zimbabwe out happened long before mugabe took over.

Unless I've grossly misread the situation Milton Keynes Seagull was using this;

Irony - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You may have noticed it in televisual comedy programs.

The giveaway I think was the quotation marks surrounding tyrant, good old New Labour. Surely if that didn't set your suspicions off then the reference to Gordon Brown as a Great Prime Minister should have.

 

[readingstockport]

Can i just say.
Ghaddafi may be a nasty little git but I personally, having read The Flight From Justice and much other stuff, still have severe doubts over Libyas involvement in the Pan Am bombing. Much of the evidence instead seems to point to Syria and the Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine, specifically a cell of the PFLP in Germany who were convicted for possesion of detonators of exactly the type used over Lockerbie.

 

[daveinprague]

What I find funny about Lockerbie is how people, for their own political reasons, keep banging on about an attack on British soil...no... it was an attack on an American economic target that due to flight delays exploded over Scotland instead of the sea as planned.....but the times ive seen it described as a terror attack on Scotland is unbelievable...

 

[vegster]

Just seen the Panorama special on the Libyan crisis, Yep, it's all about oil. Lots of CIA sponsored Libyans whipping up trouble by violently rioting against the benevolent Col Gaddafi and his secret police. They even threw rocks and some homemade petrol bombs at heavilly armed soldiers.

It's amazing how many well educated Libyan people the CIA bought in order to forment and find an excuse for us to protect them and ultimately seize the country's oil reserves.