Thread by @OzKaterji

Owen Jones' repeated attempts to equivocate the UNSC-mandated Libya NFZ with the invasion of Iraq is repugnant, hysterical, historic revisionism that tramples on the lives of Libyans. It's disgusting the Guardian continues to publish him on anything to do with the Middle East.

Here's the kicker too, Owen Jones actually praised the Libyan revolution before the UNSC-mandated an NFZ to protect Libyans from Gaddafi's air force. He has now deleted the tweet, because as soon as the international community moved to protect civilians, he turned against it.

Here is his new position, that not only did Britain help to "destroy Libya" by applying an internationally agreed 7 month NFZ, backed and approved by the UN Security Council, but that the British commentators who called on the world to protect Libyan civilians are also to blame.

Libya has many problems today, especially considering the Western-backed warlord Haftar is bearing down on the capital Tripoli, a city controlled by the UN-recognised government, but also struggling with its own warlords and armed factions. Nobody is pretending Libya is a utopia

But Owen Jones is deliberately misrepresenting the situation there to score partisan points, regardless of how much Libyan blood he needs to erase to make that point. Libyans asked for the NFZ, and they asked the international community to stay out of Libya. The IC complied.

There have been significant political mistakes made since the 2011 NFZ. But accusing the NFZ of "destroying Libya" is either tacit approval for Gaddafi remaining in power, or it is blaming post-NFZ issues on state that was a dictatorship for nearly 40 years.

There were way to mitigate some of those issues, forced disarmament would have been one of them. That would require a whole lot more involvement and boots on the ground, all of which Owen opposes.

As I said, Owen throws the word Libya in there with all of his sweeping assessments of the Middle East, despite having never spent a second covering the conflict there or talking to Libyans about their own country.

He's a morally-bankrupt intellectual fraud who has no business discussing the Middle East, a topic he has been consistently wrong on since he started his career as a pundit. It's shameful that he continues to get away with these malevolent distortions of reality.

Imagine, with a straight face, saying you hope it's game over for "savage" Gaddafi, then, as soon as Gaddafi starts using his air force to bomb civilians, turning around and saying he should be allowed to do so with impunity and opposing the UN Security Council's plan to stop it.