No Fly Zone over Libya - Rhetoric/Implications

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Originally Posted by AtLastHome

It does make me crazy that leaders in these countries have ruled with iron hands and ripped off the people taking oil money and common people live in poverty. No social services, intra-structure. Nuts, when you think about how much money is involved which is a resource of the people. They end up without education and opportunity and these ruling families stash the money away.

So hard to trust politics!

This doesn't apply to Libya.

I worked in Benghazi for almost a year way back in the early 80s and I can vouch for the fact that although Ghadaffi is indeed a total head case (don't even get me started on his 'Little Green Book') - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...0-quotes/full/ - he has done a lot of good for the Libyan people as a whole.

True, there's not much in the way of democracy, Ghadaffi being the power hungry nutcase that he is, but even way back when I was there, there was plenty of education and opportunity. Libya actually has quite a long history of spending small fortunes on educating its new generation of young graduates abroad, all expenses paid, to ensure that they get the best possible education. Obviously, it has motives for doing so but even so, it would be wrong to say that educational opportunites have never existed/do not exist today.

As to poverty, to the best of my knowledge, all Libyans have access to food, healthcare, and shelter - which is a lot more than can be said for many living elsewhere, democracy or no democracy.

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