I’m still very curious to hear from those people who might see military intervention as an option under certain circumstances. How do you make those judgments? How does the Libya action fit into that view? How does it compare to actions in Iraq?
The last thread seems to have become exclusively a discussion/debate about the merits of non-violence overall, so rather than try to restart the original topic, perhaps a parallel thread is in order. That way the other, distinct conversation can continue unimpeded.
What do you think? I’m especially curious to hear from lefties who support this action. I assure you that your opinion will be respected and heard.
I’ve found myself in the odd position of actually defending–for lack of a better term–Obama’s action in Libya in contrast to Bush’s war in Iraq.
Most of the critiques I think have been misguided. Some folks have called it unconstitutional, some have dismissed the diplomacy and coalition building, some don’t consider the UN resolution to have any merit.
I think it is constitutional. Yes, Congress has the sole power to declare war, but it’s debatable whether there must be a state of war for conflict to be initiated. At this point, it’s pretty much established that Presidents can go on military misadventures as much as they want (about 100 times thus far) so long as Congress doesn’t rein them in. We can question the wisdom of that abdication of war-making authority, but there is no constitutional demand that the President get the legislative branch’s prior permission to bomb shit. The WPR does say he has to get it eventually, and the current Congress sounds like it will ex post facto support Obama for the moment.
From an international law POV, this is also legit. Unlike Iraq, where Bush did not have UN approval (S/RES 1441 only permitted “serious consequences” and not “all necessary means/measures” which means “war” in UN-speak), the US did get permission. And while the Arab League is down on ground attacks, they pushed for the no-fly zone (which makes me wonder why they didn’t use their spiffy fighters we sold them to do the dirty work).
I think the only way to criticize this action is on efficacy and, as I asked below, why Libya and not…all the other places where regimes are skullfucking their populations. I know the geopolitical answer is simple: oil, and Gaddafi isn’t our ally.
Our experience in Iraq post-Gulf War should guide us as to whether NFZs can work. I’m not convinced this will ultimately succeed, though I guess there’s a possibility if it’s implemented better than Northern and Southern Watch were.
… Simply because of the fact that at this stage of the game, I don’t trust the U.S. to do the right thing (meaning “with the best intentions”)in just about anything anymore. Crazy is just too damn part of who we are now.
I linked to a good interview that brings up a lot of good questions over at FBC today.
Well, to begin with, you ignore anything and everything served up as a rationale by our government. And then you need to ask yourself: why us? Are we really in the best position to intervene in a situation like this without messing things up and making it worse for everyone involved? A UN intervention? Perhaps. But U.S. involvement? As ntodd points out above, our “friends & allies” in the region have plenty of toys to do the dirty work themselves — they bought them from us, with money we either gave them for the hell of it, or thru buying their oil. How about they use them for a change?
Then, unlike, say, the Bush & Obama administrations (who both seem equally incapable or unwilling to do anything of the sort), a next step towards deciding whether to intervene or not would be to form an exit strategy. How is this going to end? When are we going to say we’re done, take what’s left of our expensive toys and go home? And then ask yourself again: what’s to ensure that we won’t just leave a bigger mess than was there when we showed up?
Because odds are we’ll somehow screw up and make things worse (either because of nefarious motives or sheer incompetence/yahoo-ism on the battlefield), and it’s not like we’ve got a boatload of goodwill left in the Middle East — even the very people that we sell our expensive military hardware (see above) loathe us. The fact that we don’t just want any old rebels to take over, but rebels with whom we can do business, means that we’re already beyond the altruistic “we’ll provide air cover, you do the rest, good luck!” approach to supporting their revolution. What if the rebels turn out to be just as bad as Gaddafi? Do we then bomb them? If all you have is a hammer (or, in our case, Tomahawk missiles) then it’s so very tempting to push the big button and hope the deux ex machina will somehow fix it. It never does.
Indeed, the fundamental and flawed U.S. strategy:
1) blow shit up, kill some “bad” guys
2) ???
3) Free markets, democracy and ponies for all!
Never, ever works — which is why I’d argue that until we’re facing a genuine threat akin to nazis (and Gaddafi is many things, but he’s no Adolf — nor was Hussein or the Taliban or even Bin Laden) there’s no reason to think our intervention is at all desirable.
We invaded Iraq on cooked up intel that was not only untrue but known to be untrue. No one asked us to invade.
Both countries ruled by murderous tyrants.
Iraq: no active rebellion,
no organized opposition even in exile (Chalabi was a movement in his own mind).
US and others invaded
imposed a government (headed by a certain resident of Chester, VT)
dissolved most institutions.
fought rebellions
set off a civil war
spent billions and killed tens of thousands at the least.
Iraq: real rebellion
rebels asked for help
Arab league requested a no fly zone
UN resolution 1973 called for action
as for the rest we shall see
Yes, it is easier when there is an ANC which is able to force the regime to end itself and is able to become the government. But the ANC began in a constitutional if not democratic state and began as a political movement only taking up arms when the apartheid regime took away the few rights it and black and coloured citizens had. But remember, the apartheid regime was elected by a white electorate who faced with an economy going south, increased taxation, and having to send their children off to a hopeless war, did what electorates do, the threw the bums out voting 2 to 1 to end apartheid.
Yes, I think going into Libya is the right thing while Iraq was both wrong and criminal.
The differences, in short, a rebellion, a request for help, a request for help from neighbors, an initially peaceful process vs no rebellion, no request for help, conquest, imposition of the conquerer’s people as the government.
On the one hand the US Pentagon exists solely to transfer taxpayer dollars and debt sold to China into the hands of war profiteers on the lives of American and foreign children – Us Soldiers that have little other work available than catching bullets or the brown-skinned children out children are killing.
But on the other hand I don’t want to stand around and let other murderous regimes (other than our own) slaughter their populace, like in Bahrain and Libya, and now Syria.
But I don’t know what the solution is. Burning of 5 years of NPR funding in one hour of cruise missile strikes doesn’t seem like the way to go. As Jon Stewart said, ‘You can’t simultaneously fire teachers AND tomahawks.’
What I don’t like is the hypocrisy: we attack Libya, but not Bahrain. I understand why, because the 7th Fleet is renting the kingdom of Bahrain and the war profiteers don’t want to piss off the landlord, so we attack Libya and hope the American people wont ask questions about Bahrain.
Next, Kucinich is right. Doesn’t the President at least have to inform congress that the Pentagon wants to have a war? Or does the US Constitution really not apply anymore and the War Profiteers can start wars whenever they want?
I understand that the Security Council approved and it was at the behest of the Arab League, but doesn’t US law have any effect in this?
So I don’t know. It would be nice for the middle eastern countries to have actual democracies and without rampant corruption and nepotism, but then again it would be nice to have a Democratic Party that actually represents the Democratic Voters.
As others have noted, I think it’s a very tricky situation. I certainly agree with Comrade Rutherford’s points above noting the double-standard of intervening in Libya but not Bahrain, Yemen (et al) seemingly because the U.S. has relationships with certain dictators but not others. Above all else, I have strong doubts about any altruistic claims made by any State and it’s military apparatus.
What I thoroughly reject are arguments like “why us?” or “what’s in it for us? what are the U.S.’s interests?”. The fact is, we all have an interest in the freedom of everyone else on this planet, and that includes freedom from tyranny, dictatorship, and unnecessary want and suffering. Gaddafi has slaughtered an untold number of Libyans who have stood up and spoken out over the past few weeks, and by his own words (and his own history) we can be sure he’d slaughter unknowable thousands more if no one did anything. “Why us?”- well, at least part of that answer is that it is completely immoral to sit aside idol while people are oppressed or even murdered for little more than their demand for expanded freedom and rights. This is what led Northerners, and whites, to join the Southern Civil Rights movement in the 50’s and 60’s; this is what leads men to fight for women’s rights, and countless other examples. It’s called solidarity.
As for questions of “how do we know the rebels will be any better than Gaddafi? how do we know they’re fighting for something better?”. I guess we don’t really know- I haven’t been able to find anything whatsoever about the political or idealogical leanings of the rebels in Libya. But this makes me think of Camus’ Rebel– in which he makes the argument that we should support all true rebellion; defining such as the fight by those who are oppressed in one way or another (in anyway) against those who oppress them. By very definition, those rebelling in Libya are saying they’re fed-up with life under a brutal dictatorship and they want more for themselves and their ilk. Of course the vacuum that would eventually be created by Gaddafi’s departure will be filled, quite likely by the military or at least by a force (the rebels, or a bureaucrat within the current regime who can gain the trust of the military while allowing/pushing for increased liberalism for the population- that is exactly what we’ve seen in Tunisia and Egypt and by the very nature of power and wealth in a globalized world that is all that we can expect, for the most part, at this time. Global conditions will have to drastically change for something other to be possible.
Most ideally, a large and organized ideologically revolutionary force of common people would have been present and prepared to head to Libya to aid in the self-defense of the people of Libya. That was what we saw in Spain during their 1930’s civil war, as well (to a lessor degree) as what happened in Russia before, during, and after the October Revolution. In the case of Russia, outside help was generally rejected by the native population, partially because of their own prejudices and nationalism, and partially because such large segments of the revolution were co-opted by the Bolshevik Party who were of course against powers, people and forces which did not tow their Party line. In the case of Spain, massive intervention by the Soviets on the one hand and the U.S. and Britain on the other proved simply far too much for a genuinely revolutionary movement to survive.
In today’s world, not only does such an organized, ideologically revolutionary force exist in extremely small numbers (comparatively), but the expansion of individualism, as well as religious and racial tensions between class-allys between the Western and Muslim worlds, are potentially far too great to be overcome. At least in the immediate. This all being so, putting a halt to the impending genocide in Libya- and potentially furthering the rebellion- are not idol pursuits. Of course, we know the U.S., France, Britain, et al have their own agenda for taking action. Still, do we decry intervention because it’s not altruistic and watch thousands get murdered?
Finally, the very good questions about “how does one fire teachers at the same time firing tomahawks?”. Listen, I was 8 when I took my saved-up allowance money and bought one of those “It’ll be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the army has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber” t-shirts (much to my conservative parents’ chagrin, no doubt). That being said- so far, no supplemental appropriations have been used or need for this campaign; meaning the bombs have already been built, bought and paid for and were just sitting on the decks of aircraft carriers in the Sea. I’m not justifying our ridiculous military spending (a moral outrage of proportions which I doubt many of us truly grasp). I’m only suggesting that budgetary concerns, at this stage in the conversation, are a bit convoluted; we haven’t spent any money that wasn’t already spent or in the hands of the military. The problem of our military spending, and our economic model in general, is completely legit. Waiting until now to get upset about it is a strawman, as far as I can see.
So yeah, I find this situation very tricky. I disagree with war waged by nations, yet find it unconscionable to sit doing nothing while thousands are murdered and it could have been prevented.
I see the war in Iraq as an illegal venture without any support from the biggest international body. The war in Afghanistan was a poorly-defined revenge action, albeit, it was legal and had international support.
In Libya, we’re stopping a madman from killing thousands more people. I look at it from several angles others here may not, but I also support some sort of action in Bahrain, Algeria, Syria, and Yemen.
But that’s not a popular position.
Deciding When To Fight ain’t something we decide. I wish we would put our energy into deciding who to fight. And that would be our Rich Bastard Corporate Reich, which has already fired the first shots in Wisconsin, etc.. If we don’t have justice at home, will will always be at war with peoples’ movements in the world. I find it more than somewhat insidious that our focus has turned away from how the top 1% in this country continually get away with disenfranchising the working class, robbing the people and the country, re-writing the Constitution (Corporate Personhood), and then making war for profit. Saddam & Gaddafi would make good Presidential candidate material over here. Which one would get the Tea Party support?
I’m especially fond of the first principle, but all of them are helpful when it comes to guideposts for making a decision.
I don’t think there are hard and fast rules, because it’s always possible for new circumstances, technologies, strategies, and tactics to take a monkey-wrench to seemingly easy black & white questions. But it’s worth looking at any proposed military adventure through the filter of the principles BEFORE starting.
as Sue said in “part 1”, like a tin piano, imo.
Opening line in the story of every conflict begins the same: “___ ___ is a brutal dictator”.
The Middle East is becoming an inferno we send our young men & women into to die or be maimed for the rest of their lives as the rest of the world ignores it all.
We should be out of Afghanistan & Iraq. Afghanistan government is a mess & completely corrupt. Clearly, we cannot afford another conflict regardless. US should only be a last resort for very limited engagement & only as part of a coalition effort.
Thomas Friedman had the most balanced version of the facts I have seen & I agree with his analysis.
Tribes With Flags
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03…
Additional context:
Bloggingheads: Friendly Arab Dictators
http://video.nytimes.com/video…
US described as being ‘behind the curve’ in other ME conflicts, as though our response & resulting assistance is expected, I found disturbing.