Haftar to Take Over Libya

[Novus America]

But elections require order and stability. So I am afraid you are putting the cart before the horse. One government taking control would make it easier to hold elections.

The order and stability required to hold national elections could be achieved by the two sides working together to run the elections, which is what the Libyan National Conference was supposed to be for.

It is already a started process, halted only by this last attempt to establish credibility by using military force.
As soon as the LNA will give up trying to coup their way up to power, the unification process will be able to continue in a institutional and civil way.

It is a “process” that will never go anywhere. Why should we believe this “process” is remotely credible or likely to succeed? Especially since it is clear the GNA just wants to cling to power and rob the country as long as possible?

[Khataiy]

So if the tables were flipped where GNA was marching on Tobruk or Benghazi you would support GNA just because they can bring "stability", that seems directionless and inconstant especially since earlier you complained that Qatar has no "principles" this sort of philosophy lacks principles in my opinion as it is so black and white and has no consideration for the broader effects of this conflict. Libya's civil war is unique and both sides are not that different from the other and are both results of the same thing.

That's the thing, they tried and failed at it.
The very first thing the GNA did as part of their incorporation of their power was support an invasion of Eastern Libya by Islamic Militias. Not exactly something to build good will with the east now is it?

Then it happened again cause Misarta can't stop sticking their dick in East Libya's business and no one has the balls to tell the 'Heroes of the Siege" to stop.

That's partly why the House of Representatives refused to support the new government.

Prior to the civil war there was one government and you keep on failing to acknowledge this and Haftar was part of the government at the time it was a long series of events between 2011 and 2013 that led to the civil war present today leading to a split in the government itself which in turn attracted foreign powers to take advantage of the situation making it worse.

And the people responsible for this split where the morons in the National Salvation Government. They didn't want to give up power and the Militias under their control didn't want to give up power.

That and they wanted to run Libya under Sharia and that's a good enough excuse to kick their ass.

Your comparison to the American civil war is not accurate or relevant I heard Hayat Tahrir al-Sham say the same thing in Syria about attacking other rebels to form a "United Government" the HTS interviewee even told the journalist that "America was divided but united by iron 200 years ago", and like that HTS official who told that journalist that very narrow sighted comparison you too are making the same wrong comparison.

The GNA is not attempting to succeed from Libya as a federation of independent parties and form a new country, if this was the case Haftar's forces has more in common with the south then meaning it would only be right for the GNA to retake what was theirs, in America during the civil war the US federal government didn't even attack the South until the attacks on Fort Sumter either, and this is on top of the fact that Slavery a pivotal issue in the conflict was also still legal in the north during the war.

Except the GNA never had eastern Libya, they were lucky enough to absorb some of the old territories held by the GNC and even then they barely control those areas too.

Neither the South or North in America were trying to replace each other as the sole authority over the US like the way the GNA and HOR are trying to do in Libya, both claim to be the sole representative of the Libyan state whilst rejecting one another and this is the core of the problem, with excessive foreign interventions on both sides which is another thing that is lacking from America during its civil war, Lincoln didn't invade the south because Davis challenged Lincoln's rule in DC, like the way Haftar challenges Seraj's rule in Tripoli.

This isn't exactly true either.

No this would be more compared to if 1862 Europe decided to intervene by setting up a New government in DC consisting of Half Union\Half Confederate and declaring the war over by declaring this new government to be the lawful government of the United States because they say so.

And I think that would have worked just as well in 1862 as it would have worked today. It would have just been a bandaid on the war, it would have inevitably continued one way or another because the root problems behind the war still would have remained.

You're citing events that happened almost 2 years ago, you are saying events from 2 years ago justify the actions of today which in turn are resulting in the deaths of a lot of innocent people, this is pure greed.

[Khataiy]

The order and stability required to hold national elections could be achieved by the two sides working together to run the elections, which is what the Libyan National Conference was supposed to be for.

It is already a started process, halted only by this last attempt to establish credibility by using military force.
As soon as the LNA will give up trying to coup their way up to power, the unification process will be able to continue in a institutional and civil way.

It is a “process” that will never go anywhere. Why should we believe this “process” is remotely credible or likely to succeed? Especially since it is clear the GNA just wants to cling to power and rob the country as long as possible?

GNA may want to cling to power but if that is the case Haftar's forces are not that different as he wants power as well he hardlt even represents the HOR anymore he represents himself and is using the HOR and his Madkhali and Ghaddafist loyalist fighters as pawns in his campaign to take power for himself, I respect Haftar and I think of him as a reasonable man and he isn't the worse that there is but he is making serious mistakes in this operation, he may not be entierly at blame as he is backed many different parties but this shows that he can't make his own choices and is somewhat incompetent, he's also very old and has been hospitalized many times.

[Novus America]

It is a “process” that will never go anywhere. Why should we believe this “process” is remotely credible or likely to succeed? Especially since it is clear the GNA just wants to cling to power and rob the country as long as possible?

GNA may want to cling to power but if that is the case Haftar's forces are not that different as he wants power as well he hardlt even represents the HOR anymore he represents himself and is using the HOR and his Madkhali and Ghaddafist loyalist fighters as pawns in his campaign to take power for himself, I respect Haftar and I think of him as a reasonable man and he isn't the worse that there is but he is making serious mistakes in this operation, he may not be entierly at blame as he is backed many different parties but this shows that he can't make his own choices and is somewhat incompetent, he's also very old and has been hospitalized many times.

Anyways you support military coups and dictatorships established by brute force in Iraq, so why are you so different in regards to Libya?

Sure the HOR is not ideal, but have been more open towards elections.
Not that elections can be properly held until there is a single stable government anyways.

So really it is not because the HOR and Haftar are great, they are not.
Just they seem the better bet at this juncture.

If they take Tripoli they will actually control the country, for the most part.
And have fewer Islamist ties (not none, but fewer) and do not tolerate slave markets.

So I support them solely because they can bribing some unity and curb some of the worst practices. Not that I think they will turn Libya into some utopia.
I do not think they will make it good, simply a less bad.

[Khataiy]

GNA may want to cling to power but if that is the case Haftar's forces are not that different as he wants power as well he hardlt even represents the HOR anymore he represents himself and is using the HOR and his Madkhali and Ghaddafist loyalist fighters as pawns in his campaign to take power for himself, I respect Haftar and I think of him as a reasonable man and he isn't the worse that there is but he is making serious mistakes in this operation, he may not be entierly at blame as he is backed many different parties but this shows that he can't make his own choices and is somewhat incompetent, he's also very old and has been hospitalized many times.

Anyways you support military coups and dictatorships established by brute force in Iraq, so why are you so different in regards to Libya?

Sure the HOR is not ideal, but have been more open towards elections.
Not that elections can be properly held until there is a single stable government anyways.

So really it is not because the HOR and Haftar are great, they are not.
Just they seem the better bet at this juncture.

If they take Tripoli they will actually control the country, for the most part.
And have fewer Islamist ties (not none, but fewer) and do not tolerate slave markets.

So I support them solely because they can bribing some unity and curb some of the worst practices. Not that I think they will turn Libya into some utopia.
I do not think they will make it good, simply a less bad.

Iraq is much different from Libya and like I said I do not oppose Haftar, Saddam Hussein (A martyr if God wills) was protecting Iraq from Iranian domination and internal strife that would needlessly fragment the country and he remained firm in defending and uniting Arab states whilst remaining sensible and compassionate to their brothers in othee Arab nations, but admittedly the invasion of Kuwait was wrong and the current chairman of the Baath Party Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri who is also the former Vice President of Iraq and currently the true/rightful president has even admitted this.

Haftar isn't fighting Iranian death squads or trying to fend off their imperialism and hegemony in the Arab and Greater Islamic world his offensive in Libya actually enables them and serves their interests by keeping Arab and Sunnis disunited fighting over something so petty, Haftar should be using his militarh might in Yemen to vanquish the Houthis then send his troops to Syria to remove Bashar and the Party of Satan, infighting does no good and Saddam Hussein knew this when he fought for the liberation of the Ahwaz.

[The Lone Alliance]

You're citing events that happened almost 2 years ago, you are saying events from 2 years ago justify the actions of today which in turn are resulting in the deaths of a lot of innocent people

If the actions two years ago hadn't happened the HOR wouldn't have the excuse to reject the GNA and this situation never would have happened, at least not as it is, Haftar might still be a warlord but he'd be a warlord withou

Funny enough the GNA offered to make Haftar the supreme leader of the Libyan army if he stopped supporting the HOR and switched to supporting them.

Such a position would have likely given him untold absolute power over Libya military wise and would have likely made it even easier for him to coup the country because then both sides would be forced to obey him.

But he turned it down.

this is pure greed.

No this isn't pure greed, the LNA already holds most of Libya's wealth now as it is, all the oil wells and most of the production facilities in Libya are under his side's control.

This is more an execution, the theory I've heard is Haftar has been paid off by the Saudis to finish off the GNA before the elections.

[Yusseria]

The UN-backed government, for whatever reason, has decided to accuse France of supporting Haftar and ended their cooperation together.

Yay, I guess?

[Khataiy]

The UN-backed government, for whatever reason, has decided to accuse France of supporting Haftar and ended their cooperation together.

Yay, I guess?

It isn't an accusation France has been heavily backing Haftar, there was even a group of French trying to enter Libya from Tunisia and they were arrested, Italy has also been at odds with France over their backing of HOR.

[Asherahan]

So what your saying is that the pro western backed revolution has gone a full circle and will end with Libya having a dictator and a Gaddafi in government?

[Khataiy]

So what your saying is that the pro western backed revolution has gone a full circle and will end with Libya having a dictator and a Gaddafi in government?

Please do not insult General Haftar by comparing him to or calling him a "Ghaddafi", Ghaddafi left him to die in Chad and exiled him from Libya, Haftar is nothing like Ghaddafi who was a tyrannical insane maniac that used his country like a toilet, Haftar is a respectable man with respectable aspirations and reason, unlike the insane Ghaddafi.

[Asherahan]

So what your saying is that the pro western backed revolution has gone a full circle and will end with Libya having a dictator and a Gaddafi in government?

Please do not insult General Haftar by comparing him to or calling him a "Ghaddafi", Ghaddafi left him to die in Chad and exiled him from Libya, Haftar is nothing like Ghaddafi who was a tyrannical insane maniac that used his country like a toilet, Haftar is a respectable man with respectable aspirations and reason, unlike the insane Ghaddafi.

I am not and also you didn't refute what I said as not the truth.

[Khataiy]

Please do not insult General Haftar by comparing him to or calling him a "Ghaddafi", Ghaddafi left him to die in Chad and exiled him from Libya, Haftar is nothing like Ghaddafi who was a tyrannical insane maniac that used his country like a toilet, Haftar is a respectable man with respectable aspirations and reason, unlike the insane Ghaddafi.

I am not and also you didn't refute what I said as not the truth.

Comparing him to Ghaddafi is a major insult it is offensive to compare anyone to him

[Asherahan]

I am not and also you didn't refute what I said as not the truth.

Comparing him to Ghaddafi is a major insult it is offensive to compare anyone to him

Okay now your sounding like me when I talk about Stalin. Still not refuting that his taking over as Dictator and has Ghadaffi in his entourage.

[The Lone Alliance]

So what your saying is that the pro western backed revolution has gone a full circle and will end with Libya having a dictator and a Gaddafi in government?

Not exactly. To sum up the Wikipedia time line.
The revolution happened, they had elections, the parties that took over were religious nuts who believed they had God's will to rule, the various private armies and rebel groups promptly realized that without a revolution to fight they'd have to go back to being unemployed, so they all collectively badgered the government to keep paying them while many of them degenerated into being a more civilized gangs.

Then Benghazi happened and the US got pissed over this and demanded the government do something. The government tried but then the Militias tried to coup them for it and the government backed off after defeating the coup.

Meanwhile the new government did all the typical wonderful things Islamists do when they take power, you know impose Sharia, oppress women, do stuff to further piss people off. Oh and attempt to delay elections more and more to remain in power.

A few cities broke off into city states that did what they want the Islamist government refused to do anything to stop the various war crimes and other crazy things the militias are doing and the people grew jaded and disgruntled with the government.

Finally Haftar got fed up with everything and in Feb 2014 he attempted to launch a coup, said Coup mostly seemed to exist only on paper and more or less amounted to Haftar telling everyone to stop being idiots, he was promptly ignored.

Then in May he tried again and declared war on all the Islamist Militias in the country starting with the ones responsible for the 2012 attacks along with most of the other out of control Militias.

While this was going on then came the election, and due to the fact everyone in Libya now saw the government as a laughing stock almost nobody voted. Still of who did vote it turns out everyone was pretty much fed up with religious rule, so a bunch of Liberal and nationalists won leaving the people in power with only less than a year of power left.


So they had the Libyan supreme court declare the election invalid and the new congress illegal!

And while Haftar's forces were fighting in Tripoli the new congress tried to take over too only for both Haftar's forces and the new House of Representatives to be collectively driven out of Tripoli at gun point, leaving Tripoli and most of West Libya in the hands of the now not recognized former government and their bands of religious nuts.

The country split in two with Tripoli and most of West Libya either being held by the Islamist government, (with a few pro Haftar and even a few Gaddaffi towns), a Haftar and HOR controlled east Libya, and Benghazi and Central Libya a muddled no mans supposedly held by the western government but mostly in the hands of Islamist groups with only loyality to themselves.

And then in 2015 central Libya fell to ISIS who allied with the Islamist groups in east Libya fighting Haftar.

So for most of 2015 west Libya was fighting ISIS while East Libya was fighting the Islamists in Benghazi and Derna.

The UN realized that having two governments fighting independently was bad so they bullied both sides into trying to form a new Coalition government by threatening to Sanction anyone who refused to join up. This bullying resulted in some new government replacing the Islamist one though in theory this new government mostly just took over the Islamist party part of West Libya. East Libya tried to get on board but eventually backed out and refused to recogonize the GNA.

The UN got very mad at East Libya and revoked their recognition for the GNA, which was eventually able to defeat ISIS by late 2016.

For most of 2017 West Libya continued to run around being incompetent while East Libya continued their war against the Islamists, some factions in the GNA attempted to help the Islamists but for the most part Haftar was able to hold his ground by besieging the city. Finally Benghazi fell and the Islamists in it fled to west Libya.

Then in 2018 Haftar went after Derna, had a stroke, was out for two months, then came back and destroyed ISIS and Al Qaeda in Derna.

After that he started slowly moving south and west while the GNA continued to do nothing but talk, and despite both parties having another meeting there was no agreement.

By the end of 2018 Haftar controlled 3/5th of Libya while the GNA continued to do nothing, he then advanced south and west in the beginning of 2019, taking most of the empty desert over from the nomadic groups and Militias that lived out there.

And finally he moved back north and now he's trying to finish off the GNA.

The house of Representatives are supposed to be in control of Haftar but because they don't own Tripoli and they aren't recognized by the UN, they have no reason to meet so Haftar does everything.

As far as what Haftar's goals are, it seems for the past 5 years or so Haftar has had the same goal from the beginning, to stop all these acts of run away banditry from the Militias, on the surface it looks like he did all this because he was tired of seeing Libya look like a set of Mad Max because a bunch of former rebels were having too much fun playing soldiers for Allah.*


*It seems the best way he found how to do what would be to force the Militias to fight one another, including the Militias under his own command by rekindling the Revolution by turning it on the Islamist groups in Libya.

Of course the biggest problem for Haftar will be the same problem for the previous revolution, if or when he wins, he'll have a ton of Militias under his command with nothing to do and no reason to exist. And many of them are only obeying him because of the money flow, if the money dries up they'll abandon him.

That's why I'm questioning his ability to be a long term dictator, his entire alliance is out of mutual self interest between groups that likely barely get along.

[Khataiy]

Comparing him to Ghaddafi is a major insult it is offensive to compare anyone to him

Okay now your sounding like me when I talk about Stalin. Still not refuting that his taking over as Dictator and has Ghadaffi in his entourage.

Ghaddafi, Stalin, Assad, Nour Maliki and Khomenei all belong in the trash bin of history

[Rabbitz]

I am not and also you didn't refute what I said as not the truth.

Comparing him to Ghaddafi is a major insult it is offensive to compare anyone to him

Both of them tried to reform Libya in the way they seem fit. I just hope that one of them doesn't go too far off from the political spectrum. Either way, major change won't happen until one official remakes the government and enforces it.