ARAB LEAGUE CALLS FOR A NO-FLY ZONE IN LYBIA

@Setanta,

I generally agree with all that Setanta. However, I'm not sure how good the analogy with the French/Chad resistance to Ghadaffi might be.

In the first place that was a fairly typical French post colonial operation in their former empire, in that is was unilateral and done outside the purview and interferences of alliances and the UN. I believe the conditions surrounding any Libyan operation would be very different - many more actors with far more diverse self-interests involved. All of the many internal contradictions besetting the politics of the Arab League would come immediuately to play. All of the many conflicting interests of the great powers represented in the UN Security Council would also be operating, continuing the paralysis of that organization. All of our potential allies would continue hiding behind the pretense of legality offered by the UN - and more to the point, the permanent excuse for inaction it provides.

Indeed these; together with the preoccupation of the United States with the war in Afghanistan; and the preoccupation of our current Administration with European style sappy concepts of legality; are precisely the factors that have paraslyzed the "international" community that Robert, Msolga and others want us to rely on to protect our freedom, interests and justice.

I agree with you that, if we had the carrier forces in the Mediterranean we maintained there until just a few years ago; a president more like Ronald Reagan; and more of our former confidence, we could and would very likely have positioned them in the Gulf of Sidra, taken out a few airfields in preemptive strikes and shot down a few Libyan aircraft, possibly breaking the morale of the hired forces supporting the tyrant at the moment of his greatest vulnerability. Even that would not have been without risks of mishap or greater involvement, but it would likely have succeeded. I think we agree that the moment for such a limited, but effective intervention is either now passed or is passing quickly.

For Robert. I am very familiar with the origins of the fatuous ICC, and, as well with the fact that the major nations of the world, China, India, Russia, and The United States included have rejected its jurisdiction. It is merely the favored remedy of the Liliputians in dealing with their fear of the Gullivers of the world. It was proposed as an international court of compulsory jurisdiction with no democratically accountable power to enforce its judgments - something utterly unprecedented in modern history. You and Msolga have advanced the notion that, if only the United States had endorsed it, the tyrants of this world would suddenly tremble in fear of swift justice impartially rendered and enforced, and the world would become a better place. I find that proposition so contrary to everything I know about human behavior as individuals and, as recorded in history, as tribes or nations or alliances, as to be quite laughable, and beyond serious consideration. It is Aesop's fable of the mice belling the cat retold.

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@georgeob1,

Oh, i acknowledge the loony-tunes adventure of trying to get the UN to do anything, or even NATO, for that matter. The point, though, is that it is possible to support someone militarily without getting dragged into the melodramatic quagmire. Ever since Vietnam, everyone has had "quagmire-itis" and have used it as an excuse to do nothing.

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@Setanta,

No argument there, though the moment for it appears to have come and gone.

It is extraordianry to observe the eagerness for our early involvement in Libys on the part of posters here and political commentators generally who has often bitterly opposed our intervention in Iraq. Even before the Shia uprising Saddam was killing more of his countrymen than is Ghadaffi. I find it both ironic and difficult to understand.

I bought into the argument that we might establish a modern democracy in Iraq - arguably the one Arab country with a good shot at establishing a modern econony - as a rationalization for out intervention under Bush II. Only later did I begin to understand that the enterprise wasn't worth the cost to us and the backbiting we would get from our supposed friends. Then I came to understand our real great error was the first Gulf War. Saddam was broke and exhausted after a decade of war with Iran. He needed Kuwait's money. We had no interest whatever in Kuwait's existence - in Ottoman days it was part of the Basra province, and the Iraq/Kuwait border was drawn by the British for their own interests. Saddam was more useful to us as a counterweight to Iran.

The Europeans have bought into their demographic twilight under bureaucratic rule from Brussels, and can no longer be relied on for much - except illusory "solutions" like the ICC. The emerging powers are China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, and they aren't buying it, and that's where our real interests lie.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

It is extraordianry to observe the eagerness for our early involvement in Libys on the part of posters here and political commentators generally who has often bitterly opposed our intervention in Iraq. Even before the Shia uprising Saddam was killing more of his countrymen than is Ghadaffi. I find it both ironic and difficult to understand.

How many times do you need to have it pointed out to you that no one asked us to invade Iraq (no home-grown rebellion was pleading for our intervention)? Do you really need to have a distinction drawn for you between enforcing a no-fly zone and sending more than 150,000 troops in on the ground to slug it out with a large, relatively modern military? Please, do us a favor and drop this snide line which has already been exposed once in this thread.

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We had no interest whatever in Kuwait's existence - in Ottoman days it was part of the Basra province, and the Iraq/Kuwait border was drawn by the British for their own interests.

This is false. English merchants appealed to King William III to establish diplomatic relations with the emirate of Kuwait before 1700. He did not act on the request before his death in 1701, and therefore, those relations were established early in the reign of Queen Anne--long before an interest in petroleum was discovered in the devoted hearts of all true Englishmen. You're peddling Ba'athist propaganda there, O'George, although i'm sure you didn't know it.

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Saddam was more useful to us as a counterweight to Iran.

Oh yeah . . . and we set 'em up in the weapons of mass destruction business for precisely that reason--or at least your hero Ray-gun did. That's how we got that wonderful picture of Rumsfeld with a ****-eatin' grin on his face shaking hads with Hussein who is glaring at him. That whole administration was a loose cannon.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

How many times do you need to have it pointed out to you that no one asked us to invade Iraq (no home-grown rebellion was pleading for our intervention)? Do you really need to have a distinction drawn for you between enforcing a no-fly zone and sending more than 150,000 troops in on the ground to slug it out with a large, relatively modern military? Please, do us a favor and drop this snide line which has already been exposed once in this thread.

That's not really true. There really was a rebellion of Kurds and Shia going on in Iraq, and the Kurds in particular had asked for our assistance as had some dissident elements withing the Sunni minority (remember Adnan Chalabi , now a senator in their new goverment ?). The threats to Saddam were no where near as immediate and compelling as those facing Ghadaffi, but there were resistance, contacts and requests to be sure. Moreover that is a rather slim and vaporous distinction on which to base the endorsement of one intervention and the condemnation of the other. In particualr the moras in which we eventually found ourselves in Iraq, even though it was worsened by our own many errors, is a reminder that "intervention light" is often only an illusion - one gets sucked in even without the intention of doing so.

It isn't merely a "snide line". It is instead an unexplained and curious contradiction on the part of a large segnent of domestic and foreign observers, commentators and perhaps officials.

With respect to Kuwait

Setanta wrote:

This is false. English merchants appealed to King William III to establish diplomatic relations with the emirate of Kuwait before 1700. He did not act on the request before his death in 1701, and therefore, those relations were established early in the reign of Queen Anne--long before an interest in petroleum was discovered in the devoted hearts of all true Englishmen. You're peddling Ba'athist propaganda there, O'George, although i'm sure you didn't know it.

True enough, but beside the point - The Emir was a local functionary in the admittedly loosely administered Basra province of the Ottoman Empire. The British drew the border beteween it and their Iraqi creation after WWI precisely to isolate (under their control) one of the then know key oil discoveries in Kuwait (the other was in Bahrain).

Your objections notwithstanding, Saddam was indeed a very effective counterweight to Iran.

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@georgeob1,

The Marsh Arabs had asked for help in Gulf 1, it was promised, then not given. I'm opposed to any Libyan intervention (except humanitarian in neighboring countries) and I think the French are fools to be recognizing rebels. Anyway, could you look into the earthquake thread re nuclear emergency? Tks.

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@georgeob1,

You still don't get that these are not analogous situations. The Kurdish "rebellion" was in a static state, and the Shi'ites had been crushed in 1991 while Pappy Bush was resolutely not enforcing the no-fly zone established at the end of that war.

But that's hardly the point. No one is calling for all out, indiscriminate bombing such as that which killed tens of thousands and probably more than one hundred thousand Iraqis at the beginning of the 2003 war. No one is calling for tens of thousands of troops to go in on the ground. You continue to sneer at people who don't support such irresponsible military action predicated on a pack of lies but who would support a measured, "at arms length" military action in Libya. Frankly, your politically motivated drivel here is getting tedious.

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@georgeob1,

By the way, your buddy Chalabi is not either an elected or appointed member of the Iraqi government. His credentials as an Iraqi patriot before the war are dubious at best. But he sure was a darling of the lobbying rubber chicken circuit before that invasion, when the neo-cons were cobbling together a tissue of lies to justify the invasion. Just your kind of guy, O'George.

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Quote:

"It's very sad to see Gadhafi crush an uprising so brutally. But we know very little about the insurgents. They may be even worse than Gadhafi. One data point is especially disturbing:
"As one report put it, 'On a per capita basis, though, twice as many foreign fighters came to Iraq from Libya -- and specifically eastern Libya -- than from any other country in the Arabic-speaking world. Libyans were apparently more fired up to travel to Iraq to kill Americans than anyone else in the Middle East. And 84.1% of the 88 Libyan fighters in the Sinjar documents who listed their hometowns came from either Benghazi or Darnah in Libya's east.'
"Do we want to take the chance of replacing Gadhafi with a Mediterranean Somalia? Tribal leaders, fighting each other, inspired by Islamic ideology -- all just 300 miles from the coast of Sicily? We could have 300,000 refugees showing up on the NATO side of the Mediterranean. Better stick with the devil we know. The bloodletting cannot last much longer, stability will return soon."
An active Obama preference for Gadhafi's survival makes sense of the administration's otherwise baffling inaction.
Then, when the shooting is over, the administration can express regret for the loss of life -- and urge Gadhafi to reform his bloody ways. And when criticized, the excuse will be ready: We wanted to act, really and truly -- we just ran out of time

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/14/frum.obama.libya/index.html?hpt=T2

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Ah yes, the devil you know . . .

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I have already made it clear that i refer to those Libyans who are rebelling as the ones asking for a no-fly zone. If you want to be a lawyer about this, then you're just quibbling, and looking for something to argue about. I suggest that this is because your position is so weak.

My quibble was a clear one, and had nothing at all to do with any lacking clarity about who you were talking about. It was in your silly notion that America would not be resented in Libya just because some of the rebels are in favor of American intervention. Libya is one of the most anti-American places on earth, and while those few rebels have called for it you have no basis upon which to argue that this would make any but those few pleased.

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You claim you have not said that we would be obliged go in on the ground?

No. I made very clear that if we are going to declare war on Libya we are morally obligated to be willing to do more than that. I do not think that it is a strategic inevitability though, like some who argue against the no-fly zone claim.

Quote:

What the hell does this mean:

You wrote:
Do you really disagree that if the no-fly zone does not work, and the situation escalates (this is what I meant by "go south" in case it was unclear) that we should not automatically be willing to put boots on the ground?

If we declare war against the current regime (which you agree that the no-fly zone is) then I think we are no longer neutral bystanders and have a responsibility to try not leave Libya worse off than prior to the whole declaring war on the other country thing.

It means that I think that folks who argue in favor of the no-fly zone by saying that they don't think we'll need to put boots on the ground should be willing to do so. If we declare war we will have moral obligations that I think many aren't as willing to commit to as a "no-fly zone" which they seem to think is going to be very antiseptic in nature. I don't think it will be, but aside from the tactical arguments I have against the no-fly zone I think that there needs to be a willingness to take ownership of responsibility if we declare war.

Quote:

I do not recall agreeing that operating a no-fly zone constitutes a declaration of war, and i have repeatedly pointed out that the rebelling Libyans have firmly stated that they don't want foreign troops in Libya. You have no argument, and now you're just quibbling in a pretense of having offered a cogent argument.

How convenient for you, I magically just don't have arguments. Whatever works for you dude.

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@Robert Gentel,

I did not state nor imply that we would not be resented by any Libyans, my point, which i made clear, was that we (the West) were being asked by those Libyans who are rebelling to institute a no-fly zone. Once again, you're quibbling, and, as usual, you're erecting a straw man in order to do so.

It is a fantasy of yours that we are "morally" obligated to do more than enforce a no-fly zone if we elect to do that. It is also not a basis upon which you can claim, as you did, that you didn't call for troops to go in on the ground.

It is conventient for me that you have failed to articulate a sound argument against what i have proposed. You find it necessary to erect straw men which do not describe my argument, and you find it necessary to invoke some nebulous "moral obligation." When we used a battleship to shell east Beirut and the Syrian troops there and east of the city, we were under no obligation to send troops in on the ground. The great tragedy of our involvement in Beirut was that Reagan's administration did send troops in, interferring with military judgments and made a target of those troops. We were under no obligation in international law, under no obligation to anyone with whom we had engaged, and under no moral obligation to do so.

It's probably too late to make a difference with a no-fly zone. But if we had, or if we (once again, the West) do, it will not entail any moral obligation to send in troops on the ground, especially not in contravention of the explicitly stated objections of those Libyans who are rebelling.

And that's why you have no argument.

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Isn't the argument a bit fatuous now? The "International Community" has made it very clear it isn't willing to do jack **** to rid the people of Libya of their tyrant. The Organization of African States has said and done nothing - though some members are apparently providing mercenary supplements to Ghadaffi's forces. The Arab League mobilized itself to call for someone else (not them) to establish a no fly zone, but only after it was too late. The UN (whose Human Rights Council appointed Ghadaffi's government to membership) remains paralyzed, and our European allies in NATO and the G8 are resolutely opposed to intervention in any form. Amidst all this, the threats of imposed and unaccountable "justice" at the hands of the vaunted ICC are as empty as they have always been.

I find Robert's assertion that we might have been "morally obligated" to insert ground forces to be both unrealistic and inconsistent. Are we morally obliged to overrthrow every tyrant in the world who inflicts harm on those who resist him? The list is a pretty long one.

The situation in Libya is fast-moving and rather unclear. We don't really know the main actors behind the revolution or just what political forces would be empowered by their success. There was a moment during which we might have been able to topple Ghadaffi with a few air strikes - if we had forces on scene, which we didn't; and if we had allies willing to help with basing, which we also didn't. Anything beyond that would have exposed us to verty high risk of becoming involved in a continuing struggle that could conceivably have spread across North Africa and lasted a very long time. We would almost certainly have found ourselves quite alone in the struggle and once again the subject of brickbats from around the world. It just isn't worth it.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I find Robert's assertion that we might have been "morally obligated" to insert ground forces to be both unrealistic and inconsistent. Are we morally obliged to overrthrow every tyrant in the world who inflicts harm on those who resist him? The list is a pretty long one.

The most pathetic aspect of it is that he provides no basis for this claim of moral obligation. He just states that it is so, and then expects it to be a consideration in the arguments of those who don't agree with him. I'm not going to clog the thread, but there are examples throughout history of nations taking military action on behalf of one party or another to a lethal quarrel, while not undertaking to interfer in the field with troops. The Royal Navy attacking the Turks in aid of the Greek rebels leaps to mind--no one in England seemed to think their army should be sent into Greece to assure the outcome. It would be a far more interesting debate if RG actually articulated reasons why we would be morally obligated to go in on the ground.

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I suspect that it's all over but the shouting in Libya now. The army looks like winning, and that's going to silence any waverers. It may be a bloody hard slog, but the government will very likely prevail. The time when a no-fly zone would have made a substantive difference is past. Those who have rebelled in arms will probably continue to fight, and perhaps their families will try to flee. Their lives are forfeit now, so they might as well die fighting.

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@Setanta,

So much for those who wish to put their trust in "the international community" or any other extra national organizations, courts or forums.

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Well, i think that's a bit thick, although i have little or not respect for "the international community." This rebellion was well under way before any of the Libyans began calling for air support. They were embarked on their career before it occured to them that they might suffer from a distinct military disadvantage.

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we are indeed living in interesting times.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

They were embarked on their career before it occured to them that they might suffer from a distinct military disadvantage.

More like they assumed that Gaddafi would fall just as the other Arab leaders have fallen at the hands of popular revolt. Thing is Arab leaders tend to be royalty/thieves who often dont do a good job of battling the street, but Gaddafi has always been and always will be a street fighter thug before all else. This guy is crafty and wiry.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Thing is Arab leaders tend to be royalty/thieves who often dont do a good job of battling the street,

bullshit. battling the street is their greatest skill.

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ARAB LEAGUE CALLS FOR A NO-FLY ZONE IN LYBIA

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