War On Libya - Here We Are Again

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The R2P crowd -- Responsibility to Protect? YOu use the term as an insult, it appears -- what is wrong with them? I would think that people of all political stripes would advocate protecting the weak from being brutalized by despots.

 

Not an insult but an expression of my profound scepticism about the probable effects of hollowing out national sovereignty in pursuit of moral(istic) goals. That's about the one thing I agree about with John Bolton, to an extent. The final guarantor of human rights is the state. Nobody else is capable to enforce them. To hollow out national sovereignty in pursuit of human rights is sawing off the branch you're sitting on. R2P is a subversive concept.

Traditionally, sovereignty is absolute. Unless there is a flood of refugees or a spill over of the fighting, what Qathafi does is an internal Libyan affair, and, since Libya is a sovereign country, none of anybody's business. So if you intervene, and I can understand why, just call it a bloody war in pursuit of national interest, and be done with it.

The other aspect is who in the past has invoked R2P, and where it has been invoked. It has usually been the West who used it, usually to intervene where they at least also pursued other political goals. I remember that that Operation Horseshoe was more about assertion of a humanitarian crisis than about a real crisis - I specifically recall our then defence minister Scharping lying in a press conference while presenting footage as evidence, that analysis quickly revealed as being a couple years old. My impression is that where there are no other political goals R2P has rarely been invoked. The Kosovars were not what the intervention in Kosovo was about, they just happen to have benefited from it.

The other aspect of R2P is that, if adopted as a universal principle (which it is so far not), it can be applied on anybody (US, Russia, China etc pp) to serve as a justification of a military intervention - not just crappy little countries like Libya or Kosovo and the like. That alone explains the US, Russian and Chinese etc pp reluctance to embrace the concept. Unaffected by such concerns its the NGOs that push it, for reasons that I think are benign, but, as I lined out before, they are IMO blinkered or indifferent towards the effect of R2P legally.

You can justify a lot of things that are of a very worldly nature (strategic access, regime change, ideology, extending influence, rolling back countervailing influence etc pp) with R2P. What I am saying is that I am not wholly persuaded that, as adopted by policy makers, R2P is not just a pretext, a convenient rationalisation to not have to be frank about goals and intentions.

 

Anyone else finds the "hot potato" handling of the Lybian campaign by the Nato funny.
They were all so quick to start, but now...

 

I hope the Gadhafi regime will be removed from power.

About political motivations (or interests), this war is supposed to be the war of Europe, as far as the military operations are concerned. A chance for Europe to demonstrate that it still matters a little bit in international warfare.* And some boost is needed for French military industry too, they have been unable to sell any Rafale planes to other countries so far, no matter how much they wanted.

*With the support of United States (last I read, the airspace restriction over Lybia will cost billions of dollars to the US), maybe it's possible. Lybia is a good practice area for European powers; weak, but still strong enough to practice and demonstrate some power. There are several problems with European military in more aspects, e.g. it lacks several weapon types/equipment that would be handy for Lybia. To summarize, Europe and the French can demonstrate some power now, even though it surely won't compensate too much the fact its military is jack.

 

I hope that actually comes to pass. I'd say that France and Britain also have a much greater economic interest in getting things under control there. While France and Britain don't consume nearly the amount of oil that the US does, a good chunk of what they use comes from Lybia. Lybian oil is what is called a "light crude", and the majority of refineries in France and Britain are designed specifically for light crude. The US, OTOH, have more refineries capable of processing "heavy crude", because most of the oil we use - whether produced here or imported from the Saudis - is heavy crude. Last I heard, the US doesn't purchase any oil from Lybia.

 

Ragusa, my friend, it pains me to say this but I'm afraid you are trying to have it both ways: On the one hand, you believe strongly in international law, that there are limits to how sovereign nations can conduct themselves within the world community, while at the same time you claim that "sovereignty is absolute." I'm sort of guessing at the term absolute, since you preface that remark with the term "traditionally." It never seems to bother you to beat the US, -- or even Israel for that matter -- over the head with "international law," but as soon as it is Iran, or now Lybia, it's "an internal matter" and an issue of "sovereignty."

You complain about US torture and the abuse of the Pals by Israel, [which I agree with], yet in the face of human rights violations by one of the most abusive regimes on the planet, it is now an interal matter?

But I believe we have had this debate several times in the past.

 

The principle of absolute sovereignty is a difficult one -- on the one hand, these are human beings being slaughtered by military aircraft / gassed in concentration camps / being hacked up by machete wielding thugs / what have you. I find it very difficult to say, on a philosophical level "oh, it's an internal matter, therefore we shouldn't take steps to help those victims on that basis." That sort of reasoning strikes me as immoral.

However, on a practical level, there is the question of "what can we really do?" Many people have no qualms about smashing Saddam, Quaddaffi, Taliban folks, etc -- for Western nations these are soft, easily toppled targets. But what about big boys like Russia or China? They are doing horrible things to their citizens, right? And the idealistic part of me wants to help those victims too. But I would opine that even if all of NATO and / or the Western Democracies decided to intervene militarily in a Chinese situation, we'd be looking at dead in the millions, maybe the tens of millions. So realistically, we can't always enforce our civil rights agenda via the military.

In addition, countries like Canada and the US face frequent hassles regarding their treatment of Aboriginal peoples. Would we tolerate a military incursion from ANYONE on that basis? We'd scream "sovereignty" at 2000 decibels.

Finally, I have to say that I agree with Ragusa in that the desire to help the "poor, suffering victims" is often a smokescreen for a desire to advance one's own economic / political / religious / ideological interests.

But the idealistic few who are primarily concerned with helping the victims have my respect, because it's never a bad thing to truly care about the suffering of others.

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-21-2011/america-s-freedom-packages

 

I'm moving this from the Egypt thread

No I don't see any difference. The only reason I can come up with for us spending a couple of hundred million launching Tomahawk missiles is for humanitarian reasons (which is kind of ironic if you think about it). At least with Iraq there was the threat of WMDs, but even without that as a humanitarian issue Sadaam had been killing, torturing, and using poison gas on his citizens for years. Not really much of a difference if you ask me.

All of the arguments used against Bush for Iraq still hold true for Obama in Afghanistan and now Libya, it is just that strangely nobody seems to care any more. The media used to love reporting on deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, now you don't hear a peep. There used to be marches and protests, and you could always find someone holding a sign somewhere protesting, now not so much. It is almost eerie. Cindy Sheehan used to follow Bush around the country and was in the news almost daily, when was the last time anyone heard from her?

 

OK, I will ask you. Big Difference: Did Saddam order the bombing of PAM AM flight 103? And then bargain for the release of the actual killer and give him a hero's welcome?

Also, don't let it escape your notice that once upon a time, in the not too distant past, Saddam was one of our "good buddys" in the ME. Some of the "supposed" WMDs could have had coporate America's brand names on the packaging.

Sorry, that would be Bush/Cheney in 2001.

 

Err, nope, no there wasn't, and they knew it.

A couple of other differences that spring to mind are UN involvement/approval vs. lack of same, as well as the initial scenario of the US joining a conflict that is already taking place vs. starting one.

 

I agree with Chandos, Afghanistan is all on the "Ettin" we knew as Bush/Cheney. Though I was hoping that Obama would of tried to get us out by now. I am sure he is tyring, but politics are what they are, politics... we will probably be stuck there for a long time. Though if we are lucky enough to have some great hero mount the head of Osama Bin Laden on a standard , I wonder what that will mean for our presence in Afghanistan...

 

Everything you guys have posted is all just smoke and mirrors. Trying to say that WMD's were corporate America's fault, or that they didn't exist, or trying to deflect about Afghanistan doesn't change the fact that the left and media are completely silent as to if it is illegal for us to attack Libya. They and you just don't care.

And as to international support there were more UN resolutions against Iraq then there are for Libya.

This absolutely slays me. If it wasn't so true it would be sad.

 

Smoke and Mirrors? I dare you to tell that to those who lost family members on 103. You are not in the conservative echo chamber atm, Snook.

Well, yes. We sold many of them to him:

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1991/C231.html

Err, one day they MAY find them, somewhere....

You were the one who brought it up. That would make it YOUR feeble attempt at deflection.

Fact? Did you say "fact?"



Let me give you more "facts" about the Left and Libya that you won't find within the protection of your echo chamber.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143033

I even used the Israeli National News for a source. How's that? We can guess how Israel must feel about an attack on Libya. I love watching your Republican politicians, all twisting in the wind, trying to defend Libya from big, bad, mean Obama.

But even though you were ill-informed on some items, I still have one question: Did you support the War in Iraq? Or Afghanistan? If you didn't, then you should be comfortable with Dennis. But if you did, and you suggest that they really are "the same thing," it seems odd to me that you would attack Obama for something that you support. ... It's not really about any of those things, is it, Snook?

MSNBC, and even the Daily Show? OMG!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/jon-stewart-criticizes-obama_n_839391.html

 

Allow me to explain. I'm not saying attacking Libya was wrong, I've been in favor of it for decades (ever since Reagan did it). I'm only pointing out the hypocrisy. It isn't like you and rest of the left have had a burning desire to bomb Libya in justification for Pan Am 103 which happened 23 years ago. You are only using it to try to defend your guy against the exact same thing you savaged Bush for for all those years. I'm sure if you search hard enough you can find more examples of liberals speaking out against Obama and Libya, but the truth is, the left is essentially silent about it. In an honest assessment could you truthfully say the left (and yourself) are exhibiting anywhere near the level of outrage you had against Bush and Iraq. If I had to estimate it, I would say it is at best around 10% of the outrage. That my friend is hypocrisy.

 

Snook, aside from the fact that the action in Libya actually has profound international support where Iraq most assuredly did not, there is a single deeply profound difference between Libya and Iraq that you seem to ignore. The Arab League requested our intervention in Libya. The importance of this cannot be understated. The Arab League was opposed to the Iraq war, and going against them de-stabilized the region and irreparably tarnished our image in their eyes. This is an opportunity for us to actually do everything we said we were trying to accomplish in Iraq while at the same time beginning to repair our tattered relationship with the Middle East.

We said that Iraq supported Al-Quaida. Qadaffi really did (and still does). We said that invading Iraq would spread democracy in the Middle East. It didn't, but the actions in Libya are supporting a true Arab awakening towards more democratic and, even better, moderately secular governance. I'm glad Saddam is gone, but we invaded Iraq without cause, international support, or the support of its neighbors in the middle east. I'll be glad when Qadaffi is gone, too, but this time we have a legitimate reason to invade -- not only is Qadaffi indiscriminately brutalizing his own people right now, but the entire Arab world, even arguably despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia that are assisting Bahrain in putting down the uprising in Bahrain, supports this intervention. That's pretty ****ing different than the situation in Iraq, and refusing to act now would be foolish.

Sorry Chandos. Sorry Ragusa. I agree with most of your facts and reasoning, but am drawn to a different conclusion. I support our actions in Libya (at least so far).

 

I hope you have a mirror close at hand.

So your attack is really on the left and not on Obama? Even though I have clearly demostrated to you that the Left, and the liberal media, including MSNBC, The Daily Show and the Huffingtion, [we don't have all that many outlets] are critical of Obama on Libya? In fact, even suggesting impeachment? ...And even though you...support what Obama is doing...you are complaining that the Left is not complaining enough about the attack on Libya to satisfy you? Even though you now claim to support Obama's actions on Libya.... I'm glad you made all that perfectly clear....

...Or did you complain that the Left was "silent" on the issue?

You really will never learn, will you, Snook?

 

I think the Libyan campaign is much more similar to Kosovo really than it is to Iraq. The west is simply taking the opportunity to get rid of another international pariah practically unopposed. Iraq was a much more complicated war with less international support. Not to mention that there was really no acute reason to go for that war in the first place. Also the Libyan campaign is also so far a lot more limited in scale (again similar to Kosovo). We'll see how it plays out but I don't thin any of the western powers have real interest in occupying Libya any time soon.

 

Drew - I agree with them as well, with some reservations. I don't think anyone deserves this more than Gadhafi.

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