ARAB LEAGUE CALLS FOR A NO-FLY ZONE IN LYBIA

I think buying off the right people, knowing who to buy and negotiating a good price, is their great skill. Actually going to the mattresses not so much. Saddam yes, Gaddafi yes.

Too bad street brawlers don't make good soldiers.

as we now see in Libya.

You don't know a goddamned thing about the Muslim world, and you must think everyone else here is so stupid you can get away with that ****. Saying that all "Arab" or "Muslim" rulers are alike is about the same as saying that Antonio Salazar, Korad Adenauer and Nikita Kruschev were all the same.

The two major influences in the formation of secular, non-monarchist governments in the middle east have been Pan-Arabism and the Free Officers movement. Pan-Arabism had its roots in a Lebanese cultural movement before the First World War, and then a political movement in the inter-war years. The Free Officers movement (really, a western name, but accurately descriptive the corporate military parties which took over several important Arab nations subsequent to the Second World War) opposed the exploitation of their nations by the western powers--Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak were all members of the Free Officers movement which lead the revolution against King Farouk in 1952. Similar organizations existed in Syria and Iraq, and were given the same name by westerners--but it is as foolish to see this as some pure pan-Arabist movement as it is to claim that all Arab nations are ruled in the same way.

In Syria, military officers and pan-Arabists formed the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party. Evenutally, they formed branches in most Arab nations, but it only took root in Iraq, where it was immediately adapted to political conditions there, and split into two factions. Tribalism is the thing which most Arab states have in common. Assad was the leader of a minority tribal party, which, under the Ba'ath banner, took power in Syria after they had rejected Nasser's Arab Socialist Union and split from the United Arab Republic. In Iraq, the Free Officers [sic] rejected the United Arab Republic before Iraq could formally join. The Arab Socialist Union was justifiably seen as a front for Nasser's attempt to take poltiical control of Syria and Iraq, and this by default empowered the Ba'athists. Saddam Hussein was a minority tribal leader (Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, he lead the tribal faction based on the north-central city of Tikrit), and he held power because he was able to overpower the rival Ba'athist faction, and cordially guaranteed the power of the Sunnis, a minority in Iraq.

Kadaffi was a admirer of Nasser, and was influenced by the successful Egyptian revolt in 1952. He was also a member of what in Libya was described by westerners as the Free Oficers movement. Although emulating those movements in Egypt and Iraq, it would be a mistake to see the Libyan military in general and Kadaffi in particular as just more examples of Free Officers revolutionaries. Kadaffi, like Assad and Hussein, is a minority tribal leader. Unlike either of them, he was not the product of an organized political movement like the Ba'athists. His "political party" is nothing more that a Stalinist style of police state. He employs members of his tribe and tribes who have decided to ally themselves with him as the secret police apparatus. it is estimated that as much as 10% of the population has at one time or another worked in his security apparatus. But Kadaffi is just a brigand chieftan, a robber baron. He has no ideology but his personal power, and uses political patronage to weld the members of his tribe and allied tribes to his state. Tribalism did not motivate the Free Officers of Egypt. Saddam Hussein's tribalism was secured by his assureance of the supremacy of the Sunni minority in the face of a Shi'ite-Kurd majority. Assad manipulated dissatisfaction with the UAR and ASU to get control of the Syrian Ba'athists (and, of course, he successfully left his power to his son), and used Isreal as the boogey mann to stay in power. Kadaffi is nothing like these other rulers.

It is pathetic and absurd to compare Kadaffi to other Arab leaders, and profoundly ignorant to think that all Arab leaders are alike.

Thanks for supporting my point...only Saddam was like Kadaffi, and we should remember that Saddam was very effective at staying in power.... it took the whole might of the US military to dislodge him.

You're just peddling more bullshit. Hussein took power from within the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party, and he was never a member of the military, nor did he lead a coup d'état. You just make this **** up as you go along. You're too dense to see that what i've written contradicts the fairy tale you're trying to peddle.

N0, the most pathetic aspect is that you are again addressing a straw man. You are a liar and I said nothing about the US having the responsibility to overthrow every tyrant. Pay attention, I am the guy arguing against reflexive involvement and you are the one calling for the knee-jerk war.

I said that if we declare war on Libya we will be owners of new responsibility and that if things were to get worse we should be ready to do more than just a no-fly zone considering that we will have helped encourage it to get worse and are no longer a neutral party.

So, now that we've dispensed with the things you've tried to put in my mouth what do you have to say about what I am actually saying? My argument is this: if we declare war on Libya to implement a no-fly zone, and things go south (deteriorate, more people dying) in a way that tactically calls for ground troops we should be willing to commit to it.

I'm saying that we have a moral obligation not to just encourage people to be slaughtered, if we declare a no-fly zone and the rebels start fighting again, and the no-fly zone is not able to preclude their slaughter do you think we are morally obligated to take more painful measures like boots on the ground?

I do, and I think there is clear moral arguments for this that reasonable people can disagree on, without putting words in my mouth.

I think that is accurate, but perhaps incomplete. Do you also believe that, had the slaughter been even worse in Libya, we or any other nation would have a moral obligation to intervene to try to reduce 0r stop the killing? I don't think that you ever said exactly that, but it may be that the implication was there nevertheless. Assuming your answer is negative, then a very good reason to avoid getting involved is precisely to avoid any further moral obligation.

That of course was precisely the motive of the Levite and the priest in Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. An interesting dilemma.

How do you interpret the unfolding events in Libya in light of your expectations and assertion that we should rely on the "international community" for justice? I expect that many people in Libya would disagree with you.

No, you are a liar because i did not say you had said anything about the US having the responsibility to overthrow every tyrant. Additionally, i did not call for any kind of war, knee-jerk or otherwise.

You have said we would be obliged to go in on the ground on a moral basis. You have provided not even a shred of a logical basis for such an assumption. That's pathetic. Only now have you cobbled together some kind of excuse for your claim about a moral obligation--you did not articulate this in the past. I have specifically denied that "we" (i have never exclusively stipulated American action) would be obliged to declare war on Libya. Reagan did not declare war on Libya when he bombed Tripoli. He did not declare war on either Syria or the Lebanon when we shelled Syrian positions in and east of Beirut, or when he sent Marines to a pointless death at the airport in Beirut. Ford did not declare war on Cambodia or the Khmer Rouge when they seized the Mayaguez. I guess you've never heard of the war powers act. I did not specify the United States as a sole agent in a no-fly zone. I specifically denied that we would be obliged to declare war on Libya in order to act. Even if the United States had declared and implemented a no-fly zone, it would not have been necessary to have declared war. You're just attempting, once again, to impose your terms on the argument.

Perhaps you can address what i've actually written, without putting words in my mouth.

It is possible to disagree - even seriously - without calling your interlocutor a liar. Moreover, though different interpretations abound in these conversations, I am not aware than anyone has lied.

Without either denying his claim, nor supporting it, i would like to point out that it was O'George who advanced the idea that we might be obliged to overthrow every tyrant in the world--it was not i. So stop peddling lies about what i've written, RG, to attempt to prop up your feeble argument.

I do hope you're addressing your remark to RG, who introduced the notion that anyone in this debate is a liar.

You are lying again. Here is what you said:

"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 said no such thing and this is just your quotidian intellectual dishonesty at play.

Not an obligation, no. I do think that ignoring it is not as good as not ignoring it but do not think that we are obligated to do good, just obligated not to do harm.



I think I agree with you, I don't see it as a reason not to get involved but a reason to be more cautious about it than the hawks in this debate (such as France, Kerry, etc).



I think the administration is playing it almost (I think Gates went overboard in showing his contempt for the very concept of the intervention) pitch-perfectly so far. I think there will be an intervention eventually but they didn't rush to commit to a tactically useless and reflexive war sold as a no-fly zone.

I think they held back that pressure and are working on forging something that makes more sense. Right now it is looking like the first step will be to have non-US assets secure Benghazi with air strikes and the plans being developed are multi-lateral, politically intelligent (the biggest risk of becoming involved IMO is that of polarizing Libya into ongoing sectarian violence after Gaddafi falls), and are likely to get Russian and Chinese abstention instead of vetoes.

Absent a consensus in the UN, I would have a much more difficult scenario and I think we should intervene without legal basis only to prevent genocide, and at this point I think intervention is about as likely to cause it as prevent it depending on the nature of it.

Having America be criticized for being too uninvolved is much better than too involved in this patch of the woods and I am glad the US is being cautious about becoming involved in yet another war.

I'm personally elated to see the Arab League beginning to take some action without US involvement in their decision making. I could support the US in a support function, but not direct military action. We never know how to take ourselves out of messes we get involved in which ends up costing us lives and treasure. This way, an exit strategy would be much easier.

Here we go again. No, it's you who is the ******* liar . . .



I did not say that you said anything about the US having the responsibiolity to overthrow ever tyrant. That was a comment by O'George. You cannot even keep track of your own bullshit. You're pathetic.

You got my thumbs up on your post.

I know what he said, and you quoted his claim and went on to expound on it with a lot of bullshit of your own. It's not like anyone can't just go back and read it for themselves so I really have no more to say about that.

Your check is in the mail.

Sure you have no more to say about, you lied about what i said as opposed to what he said, and now you're trying to weasel out of it, and once again you do so by changing the terms of your argument. You've done nothing but address me abusively since you came into this thread, and lie about what i've written. You seem to be completely unaware of the war powers act, and have attempted to insist upon a discussion based on a false claim that we would have to declare war on Libya, and then be subject to some illusory moral obligation to send in ground troops.

I'm glad you have nothing more to say, because i'm sick of being abuse for no damned reason by someone as clueless as you who is, apparently, a legend in his own mind.