Anyone else find it amusing that recently the largest suppliers of Col. Gadhafi's forces are actually from the EU?

I don’t know enough about the UN and the nature of its dealings with Italy, Malta and Germany. I would guess private corporations from these countries cannot be sanctioned by their own goverment to sell arms even to countries sanctioned by the UN. There were reports last week that female sharpshooters from Columbia are working for Gaddafi killing rebels.

The US generally arms its enemies. It’s because we have no clue about what happens to dictators. We don’t look past the end of our noses. We just want stability for our companies that make the oil flow. Never mind the people. So we arm those who will one day be enemies.

Sanctions are in place and EU countries support it. Before Gaddafi started killing his own people, Libya was a normal trade partner.

@mazingerz88 yeah, I heard about the female sharpshooters, they’re part of FARC, so it’s kinda of to be expected that they would be willing to help out.

@wundayatta hahaha, good point, just like Osama, huh?

and it’s not just privatized companies either… anyone wanna guess what ulterior motive is going on as well?

(If you think about it, after we did that first bombing strike to kill Gahdafi – was it back in 2001? – we were out to kill him since he was a major source of money for Al Qaeda. We killed his son instead of him and he stopped funding Al Qaeda, think that some of the Western World wants to keep him in power to kinda ensure Libya won’t fund terrorists in the near future?)

Sure. How do you think nutty third world dictators got most of their arms in the first place? Western powers happily sold them arms when they were fighting communists or selling us oil. Shockingly, the type of backwards thinking that makes you think a power-hungry, essentially law-and-order communist is worse than an arbitrary, mentally ill religious fundamentalist* had the lack of foresight (I’m looking at you, Donald Rumsfeld) to see that these weapons don’t go away immediately after the immediate conflict is over, when it’s time for the dictator to turn them on his own people.

* Religious nuts are always arbitrary because any action they take can be justified as coming from God

No. I don’t think it is amusing, I think it is quite serious actually. Just as serious as when the US arms nutcases as well.

In the past it was the Soviets who sold Libya weapons. Now it is Italy, Malta, and Germany who are currently selling Libya weapons. Surprisingly, this time around the US actually has little in the way of munitions in Libya

If you sell weapons such as cluster bombs to a dictator you can hardly hold up your hands in horror when he actually uses them. There is some humour in the situation but it isn’t funny at all for many people.

Funny thing is that cluster bombs are both forbidden to use in conflict or manufacture. Funny how shit seems to grow on trees I suppose

@Winters – It only became illegal to manufacture or use cluster bombs on 1st August 2010. Those that have been found have been traced to batches manufactured before the ban came into effect. Munitions have a long shelf life. They’ll still be turning up for many years to come.

@gmander correction, it actually came into affect in May of 2008. It became international law in August 2010.