> France had no problem supporting the conflicts in Libya and Syria that sought to accomplish similar outcomes as in Iraq (remove & replace Gaddafi and al-Assad).

And if the US had argued for invading Iraq on that basis, maybe we'd've supported it. But of course we're going to oppose an invasion when its proponents are basing their arguments on a blatant lie like the 45 minute claim.

(If the US/UK thought there was a good case for invasion on genuine grounds, why did they feel the need to lie?)

Indeed, if we look back France committed 18,000 troops for the first Gulf War that was widely considered a just cause. Similarly most of the NATO allies supported the USA in Afghanistan.

But that going into a war on a false pretext is morally corrupt, and fortunately most Western governments were above that.

Not to mention that the French total had a cosy relationship with Saddam Hussein's government after they negotiated in 1997 for access. It was really not in the interest of France to have a war in Irak

Both Libya and Syria conflicts were started by their respective dictators massacring people.

Khaddaffi (not sure about spelling) was a friend of France just a few years before he got killed. He was even invited to put his tent in the gardens of the Élysée by newly elected president Sarkozy, four years before. And back then, Khaddaffi was not especially a benevolent dictator.

And there are tons of counter examples. For example, Eritrea is recognized as one of the worst dictatorship in the world, and we have no troops over here to free the people of Eritrea.

I think there were two things that made a difference in Libya:

* Khaddafi ordered his soldiers to shoot non-violent protesters * There was (as a result) an active rebellion against him that could use some support

There was no invasion by western forces, and I think the air support was mostly to stop Khaddafi from massacring his own people. I don't think western forces ever assisted in an attack; it was fairly limited and mostly denied Khaddafi the advantage of his air force.

A thumb on the scale to tip the balance between Khaddafi and the rebels, basically.

And in fact, Syria is not so different, although the involvement is on a much larger scale. It's still mostly various rebel factions that do the actual fighting. Iraq, by contrast, was a full scale invasion, and one based on a lie.

I'm not saying that makes Libya and Syria completely justified, but it's clearly a different case than Iraq, and much easier to justify, if you accept the legitimacy of the rebels.

Both in Syria and Lybia you had quite a few special forces on the ground and some of the war lords / Kurdish militia got equipment and funding through western intelligence agencies. In the case of the Syrian civil war you could follow the factions and who they were supported by in real time on a google map somewhere.

He did weed out people he considered his enemies, but he did give people free education, a banking system that was more client friendly (in terms of loans etc) and I understand free utilities.

I was of the understanding that the invasion was to increase France's political clout in North Africa, to avoid Ghaddafi's plan of unifying Africa under a gold standard (Gold Dinar) and most importantly to sell oil under the aforementioned currency.

I was of the same understanding, but this is pure speculation, obviously.

Are you referring to Gaddafi?

Given his name isn’t really written in the Latin alphabet (“معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي”, according to Wikipedia), all these variations are equally [in]correct.

Yep, we call him Kadhafi in French (and this time I checked the spelling).

I notice Wikipedia now spells it as Gaddafi. I thought it used to be Khaddafi in English.

Interestingly, Dutch Wikipedia now calls him al-Qadhafi.

It's a transliteration of Arabic. There's no single correct transliteration so it depends on the publisher as to what spelling they use.

Here's a very fun Stack Overflow question about using a regex to match the different spellings: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5365283/regular-expressi...

It's such a mess. We might be better off just translating the damn names (like they did in the remote past)...

Yes, but if we did that, the news would get confusing as we tried to sort out which "Grand King King of the Warrior Kings" they were talking about.

The reports that Ghaddafi was massacring people were rumors and were widely publicised when Genevieve Garrigos (Head of Amnesty International) appeared on French TV to report it.

6 months later, the same head of Amnesty International claimed that they had sent in investigators between Feb and July, and those investigators found no evidence that Ghaddafi had hired mercenaries to attack civilians.

Of course that was too late. The French/UK/US operation had already begun well before the investigation took place, and they weren't interested in evidence.

But your media probably didn't report on that.

There are a couple dozen vile governments all over the world doing terrible things to their people at any given time. That alone doesn't explain why France is so aggressively interested in keeping the US in the Syria conflict. That same exact justification that you just mentioned applied equally to Iraq, Saddam had massacred and brutalized his own people for a long time.

You don't see France egging on the US to get militarily involved in Venezuela for example. What's going on there is a human disaster of a similar scale as Syria, with the Maduro dictatorship brutalizing and starving the people, and millions fleeing the country. There is rarely a shortage of civil wars and other assorted internal conflicts to get involved in around the world. So why is France specifically so amped up to keep the US in Syria?

Iraq wasn't in the state of unrest at the time of invasion, although yes, in principle Saddam was as murderous dictator as the other two. Arab spring would most decidedly have flared up his Iraq as well.

Venezuela crisis is not anywhere on the scale of outright war in Syria and Libya. It is also well outside the reach of feasible French force projection. France however is involved in a number of conflicts elsewhere in francophone Africa, relatively low profile as the interventions have stabilizing effect.

With Libya and Syria we also had as close to A/B test in history as we get. What if we interfere in a massacre, and what if we watch from the sidelines in exchange for deal with Iran? The answer is apparently two orders of magnitude more deaths, displacement and human suffering.

It's about the refugees. Many EU countries lack basic decency and risk to destroy EU because of Syrian refugees.

Solving the crisis there is indirectly one of the interests of the EU. The current situation also strengthens the position of Russia in the Middle East which is not in European interest.

Disclaimer: I'm from Germany. We have a shift to the right in most EU countries. One of the reasons the Britains left the EU was the refugee crisis - populists used this to scare the voters. This concept was also very successful to get votes in Germany with AfD (alternative party for Germany, right-wing).

Would love to hear other opinions instead of getting downvotes.

The countries most upset by refugees, are those who have the least. This has also been the case in the UK (communities who hate immigrants and want less don’t have any) and from what I’ve seen of German voting patterns in recent elections.

The fear of them has been amplified, but I don’t believe the actual refugees are the problem.

And, in case you’re wondering about me mixing up refugees and migrants, part of the problem in the UK is that angry people can’t tell them apart, so I don’t actually know which they’re really objecting to.

> I don’t believe the actual refugees are the problem.

I don't think so, too. The underlying problem is growing inequality of wealth and opportunities. The very far right-wing people fear that the refugees will worsen their situation (and many are simply xenophobic, too).

I think it's a shame that there is no differentiation between these problems of inequality and helping people who get attacked by their own government. It seems that many people here in Europe don't understand that it's our duty to help people who get killed in their home countries (by our own moral standards).

- - -

France (and other European nations) care about the Syrian conflict because of the fear that more refugees will seek shelter in the EU (most European countries could handle this, but they won't do it because they aren't humanitarian which is pretty sad to see). Bringing peace to Syria is therefore a critical part of EU's solution to this (another wave of refugees would seriously risk the EU because the people here seem to have lost their connection to humanism - we could easily handle it if we want to). I have a hunch that I got downvotes because people interpreted my opinion as being contra refugees, but I'm actually telling the opposite. The problem is that many European countries (i.e. people) have decided that it's not their problem when people are in life-threatening situations and die while trying to get into those countries.

I think the key is "stay" (vs. initiate)

U.S. started the war on Iraq for no reason but pulling out the troops too early was a mistake that allowed ISIS to exist.

Pulling out of Syria in its current form might create a similar vacuum of power that allowed ISIS to exist.

Asking the U.S. to stay in Syria is not comparable to how U.S. started the Iraq war.

Assad is genuinely using chemical weapons against a civilian population so I don't think this makes the point you're trying to make.

Not sure why you've been downvoted there. Regarding Syria, the same thing happened as with Iraq.

In Iraq, the US and UK said "Saddam has mass destruction weapons, we must attack him", and the French said "okay, just show us the proof, and we'll be on your side". USA said they had a proof but didn't want to show it. France did not support the attack.

In Syria, USA, UK and France said "Bachar use chemical weapons on his population, we must attack him", and Russia said "okay, just show us the proof, and we'll be on your side". France said they had a proof but didn't want to show it. Russia did not support the attack.

OPCW has provided the proof of multiple incidents perpetrated by Syrian government. That you decide to support Assad is a matter of conscience, not absence of facts.

First, let's not call each other names. I certaninly don't support Assad, just as the fact you (or I) don't support Assad certainly doesn't mean you (or I) support ISIS. Our ennemies' ennemies are not always our friends.

Now, I just reported the fact that France said back then "we have evidence", but didn't show it at that time. Then they published an official report [1] a few days later, basically saying "oh, we have good reasons to think it's true, with a high degree of confidence" (haut degré de confiance). Basically, that document says

1- there was probably a chemical attack a few days ago 2- it would be strategically a good idea for Assad to use chemical weapons. 3- we have not heard about rebels acquiring chemical weapons. 4- therefore, Assad is responsible.

That's what happened at that time. Now, if you have a document from April 2018 giving factual proofs, and not just mentioning a "high degree of confidence", I'd be glad to revise my knowledge of the situation.

[1] https://www.defense.gouv.fr/layout/set/popup/base-de-medias/... [pdf][French]

OPCW reports are publicly available, all detail is there. Ignoring those to provide leeway for murderers means supporting them.

https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/wp-content/uploads/s_2...

I wanted to know what happened so I read the report.

I have to say that the "details" are scarce in the report. The investigator not even went to place where the attack happened (because of the danger).

The conclusions are also interesting, because they accuse ISIL, and not Assad. While sometimes ISIL and Assad have shared interests in the ongoing war, that doesn't mean they are the same. After all, we have seen some USA/Iran cooperation in the area too.

So, I find your accusation to the grandparent of "provide leeway for murderers " when he is just saying that the facts are not clear dishonest.

You didn't really finish the report, did you?

Page 33:

> On the basis of the foregoing, the Leadership Panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.

You are right, unwisely I commented before finishing it (it's a long document). I offer my excuses.

I found specially damaging for the Syrian version the point 24 and 26 in the annex II: "The Syrian Arab Republic informed the Mechanism that the pilot had later been shot down and was missing in action. "

"During a briefing given by the Syrian Arab Republic to the Mechanism in Damascus, a representative of the Syrian Arab Air Force stated that no aircraft of the Air Force had attacked Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017. This contradicted the public statement made by the Government [..]"

Thanks a lot, I'll have to read that. It's from 2017, though, I was especially talking about what happened in April 2018 in the great-grandparent-or-something post.

How do you mean no proof? There's numerous reports by impartial agencies documenting the use of chemical weapons since early 2014.

There is no failure to provide evidence, only the usual conflicts.

I'm talking about the 7th of april to 16th of april, between the moment an attack happened and France/US/UK decided to attack because they had proof Assad was the author of this precise attack. If you could point me to one of these reports, I'd be grateful.