Re: Turkey says End The War
And this one:
Libya. The Observer debate: Is it right to be intervening in Libya’s struggle for freedom?
It’s all very simple when you strip away the deluding detritus of history: simple politically, simple morally, a simple matter of common humanity. We – not just in the west, but east, south and north – say, sometimes passionately, that we believe in democracy and the liberating power of freedom. We rejoiced when freedom’s waves rolled over Tunisia and Egypt all unannounced.
We welcomed those revolutions with fair words and soaring Obamaspeak (plus some more lumpen Haguespeak). We may be a bit pensive about Bahrain and the Yemen now, about Syria and Saudi lying somewhere down the line: but there’s still no doubt where we stand or what we led those who rose spontaneously against Gaddafi to believe.
That we shared their aspirations, their anger against corrupt, cruel oligarchies. That we were with them.
And now, a month on, eight days into military action in the skies over Libya, the withering classes are putting such simplicities to one side. Can an elastic UN resolution corral both France and Turkey? Where’s the end of the end game – 30 days or 30 years? Who’s in charge and, if it’s Nato, how do we avoid the tangles and frailties of Afghanistan?
When YouGov speaks, it reveals a British public deeply divided and you only have to glance over at Washington to see another administration mired in apprehension.
Well, of course, no one sending Tornados or Typhoons into battle can guarantee success. Air dominance alone merely helps cancel out Gaddafi’s heavy artillery pounding Benghazi and the rest. Take any coalition of the willing and dubious and you can always reckon on something going wrong.
But try to keep things blessedly simple. If US, French and UK jets hadn’t intervened, then Benghazi, a city of more than half a million souls, would surely have fallen. There’s no need to speculate what Colonel Gaddafi and his faithful (or hired) army would have done then. Retribution was bound to follow swiftly. Ringleaders were bound to be rounded up and shot. Crowds were doomed to be brutally dispersed. It would have been a dreadful spectacle (may yet be, if we waver) and some of the blood would have been dripping from our hands.
We condoned and encouraged uprising; we uttered grave threats via the UN and the International Criminal Court; we welcomed those unfaithful servants who deserted Gaddafi and, in so doing, seemed to presage his imminent collapse.
So what were we to do when his stolen cash and lumbering tank columns turned the tide? Quit when it began to rain? Disregard the poignant cries for help from those who took Misurata and Benghazi itself? Is democracy only the cult of the suddenly deaf?
And if you want gritty reasons for holding firm, they are there in abundance. Libya is not some remote spot on the other side of the globe. It is a boat ride to Malta, inside the borders of the EU. It is already a prime jumping-off point for Africa’s economic migrants.
How would we react if that flow turned to Libyan asylum seekers, with terrible tales of persecution to tell?
In military terms, this is an easy operation, as easy as destroying Saddam’s army in Iraq Mark 1 as it straggled back from Kuwait along an open road.
Operational airfields are close at hand. There’s no need for the Ark Royal, Mr Fox. There’s no need to put troops on the ground. The terrain means Gaddafi cannot win. The only question is when, and how, he loses.
Of course, it isn’t right to attempt assassination by Tomahawk missile. That’s not remotely what the UN resolution says. But the real purpose of a no-fly and no-tank zone is something different: to return this Libyan revolution to its position in the earliest days after Gaddafi started to shoot his own people and ragtag columns of the young and brave began to advance on Tripoli. Then the force was with them. Then, it felt only a matter of hours before the colonel was toppled.
He’s a trained military officer, though, not some bloated, frightened old dictator. If you take up arms against him, he fights back. After his own interior minister turned against him, he decided there would be no more defections, no more collapse from within.
Some of that, to be sure, was tribal, a matter of automatic allegiance. Some of it was finding enough hidden millions to keep his mercenaries loyal.
But much of it, in some desperation, was the hope that somehow the regime could survive, sell oil, oppress its citizenry, pay the enforcers.
The importance of the fire from the skies is that it abolishes such hope. It means that there can be no military victory, nor economic survival as sanctions and blockades bite deeper.
When Hillary Clinton talks about his own generals and ministers walking out on Gaddafi, she can seem like a Lady Haw Haw: yet, in fact, that is the exit strategy that the last few days have already put in place. The Arab League and the west have staked too much on preventing slaughter to walk away or pretend to forget what has happened. There is no forgetting; thus there is no escape.
So this series of skirmishes, intervening in a wildly unbalanced civil war, has no precise parallel in modern history. It isn’t, for heaven’s sake, Iraq. It isn’t in any sense Afghanistan. It may be Srebrenica, at least in the potential guilt for inaction attached, but it isn’t Bosnia 1995 because we know the perils of failing to help, of walking by on the other side.
I’ve spent most of my journalistic life opposing war – against Saddam, against the Taliban, even (up to a point) against Argentina. I understand all the pitfalls and disappointments. I await, with resignation, the first botched raid that kills too many we wanted to help (and maybe sets the famous Arab Street against us).
But here the issues, and the imperatives, are hauntingly clear. We’ve been asked a question by millions of young, idealistic men and women who want a better life, a question we’ve longed for them to ask. David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are right. There’s only one honourable answer we can give. It really is a simple as that.
Abdelkader Benali: NO The repercussions will be bloody, fears this Dutch-Moroccan writer
Many Arab leaders will be delighted about the intervention of the west in Libya – but not, sadly, because they would like to encourage the cause of democracy and freedom. Instead, it gives certain Arab regimes – Syria and Yemen certainly – a powerful stick with which to suppress revolts. In Yemen the embattled leader Ali Abdullah Saleh has already tried to discredit the uprising by calling it a Zionist-American plot.
Any popular revolt that has the approval of the west now runs the risk of being discredited as a foreign plot. It will also be much harder for liberal groups within Arab countries to gain support for their cause among the more conservative and religious groups.
Then there is the element of trust. European countries which until weeks ago had far-reaching economical, political and social ties with Gaddafi’s regime are trying to convince the Libyans they are coming in their defence. But – or so opponents of change within the region will ask – can they be trusted?
The western powers were reluctant to give support to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The wait-and-see response gave the mobilising protest groups time to gain credibility as a national uprising. It seemed wise. This meant revolts could not be dismissed as a western plot.
But in Libya the allies feel they should be a partner in changing history. They speak of the humanitarian necessity to stand alongside the rebels, with the oppressed. They are protecting, they say, not attacking. But it seems unclear just who is being protected.
The popular uprising against Gaddafi can seem at times more like a tribal war between competing regions. Power bases are scattered, organisational powers are very poor.
Most opposition leaders have lived outside Libya for many years and seem out of touch with their country. This muddled situation should never be a reason not to save lives but the danger of operating at this level of complexity is that it can only worsen matters.
There is a clear and urgent need to stop Gaddafi from killing more civilians. The word genocide is whispered in the political hallways of Brussels and New York. Gaddafi is slaughtering his people, but genocide? No.
Instead, the only way to bring down the brutal regime of Gaddafi, I would argue, is through a broad coalition of sub-Saharan, Arabic, western and Muslim countries. This sort of coalition would have better access to the rebel groups.
Who is the west really supporting? If the goal is regime change then finding a leader will be extremely difficult. What if in the outcome of this war Gaddafi is dethroned and a new ruthless leader – powered by the west – takes charge? It looks as if the west, at least for the moment, refuses to contemplate this prospect.
The lack of Arab military support is telling. Qatar, it’s true, has offered technical help and jets but Arab leaders are reluctant to send their sons to the desert of Libya. It’s just not in their interest. If things go wrong, the corrupt tactics of the west in the region can be blamed. It’s the crusades all over again. I picture the headlines. And Gaddafi will be portrayed as a latter-day Saladin, the defender of the Arab honour.
It could be argued, indeed, that Arab countries led by autocratic regimes were eager to get the west involved in supporting a revolution – any revolution – in the region in hope of encouraging a new Iraq in the making.
The role of the Arab League says it all. Amr Moussa, leader of the League, supported the intervention but quickly, after one day of bombardments, withdrew his support. Tunisia and Egypt, neighbouring countries and birthplaces of the jasmine revolution, refrained from any involvement. They fear for their citizens living in the country. They are also fearful of looking like puppets of the west.
Though the Arab League gave its support to protect Libyan citizens from being attacked, it did not condemn the invasion of Bahrain by the Saudi government.
The members of the League sit back quietly watching the west dilute the Arab revolt. There is no “clean” human intervention, in spite of what military technology promises in its PR leaflets. There are no smart bombs capable of not killing innocent citizens. A great possibility is that sooner or later western bombs will kill Libyan civilians.
And even if Gaddafi is ousted, the ties between the new powers and the west will be extremely tense. Any government that will govern the new Libya will have great difficulties forging a credible alliance with European powers.
There is even more trouble ahead by choosing intervention. The only way to force a decisive victory is by sending in ground troops. These ground troops will attract al-Qaida and religious copycats. Libya could become a new Iraq, internally divided and externally weak. Tension on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders will increase – creating growth in anti-western feeling in Cairo – and illegal migration to Europe will explode.
To the Arab person in the street, it is increasingly persuasive to see the intervention as a change pushed forward by internal affairs in the allied countries. For instance, the would-be leader of the allied, Nicolas Sarkozy is desperate to reverse his slide in the polls.
As for Nato, the lack of Turkish involvement in the operation indicates the growing split within the organisation. A very dangerous development.
The biggest mistake might ultimately prove to be a lost opportunity to forge an alliance between the west and the Muslim world, an alliance dedicated to creating a front against oppression and dictatorship.
For now, the outcome is unclear. The rebels, though they are advancing, are poorly equipped and look overwhelmed by the task ahead.
History never develops along the wished-for steady paths. So though the regime of Gaddafi will eventually fall, there’s still plenty of potential for tragedy.
The best practical move would be to form a provisional government made up of the rebels’ principals and those opposition leaders who were chased out of their country. The latter live in the west. It will be up to them to convince the Libyan people attacked by the west that they are not the enemy. Gaddafi was.
Phyllis Bennis
The people of Libya, like those in neighbouring countries, are paying a huge price for their resistance to a brutal dictatorship. Unlike the others, Libya’s uprising became an armed battle and Libyan activists said they wanted international support. But what they got may have far different consequences than intended. The US and UK claim their military involvement in Libya matches the UN resolution. But why should anyone believe that “protecting civilians” is really their only goal when top officials in London and Washington openly trumpet regime change?
By stating Gaddafi has “lost his legitimacy”, western leaders are dramatically narrowing the space for a ceasefire and negotiations which could provide for a more peaceful removal of the Libyan leader. Why do we think another US-UK-Nato attack against another Middle Eastern Muslim country will lead to democracy? What if a stalemate leaves Libya divided, with military attacks continuing? What if these attacks lead to an escalating, rather than diminishing, civil war? In Iraq, the no-fly zone caused hundreds of civilian casualties – what if that happens in Libya?
The UN acknowledged this could be the beginning of a very long war. The resolution asks the secretary general to report on military developments in Libya “within seven days and every month thereafter”. So much for “days, not weeks”.
Phyllis Bennis is the director of the New Internationalism Project, Washington
Marwan Bishara
Just when we thought the revolution sweeping through Tunisia and Egypt has spared us the false choice between oppressive autocrats and imperial cynics, a defiant Gaddafi presented us with an ultimatum: “My rule or rivers of blood.” Devoid of any moral consciousness, he didn’t hesitate to use the bloodiest means against his own people. His actions, reminiscent of those by the foreign colonialists he has often condemned, have provided them with the pretext to intervene once again in the region.
But a pretext isn’t the equivalent of moral justification for western military intervention in the Arab world.
Limited intervention is legal and has a reasonable chance of deterring Gaddafi. But not exactly as a last resort carried by a “legitimate authority”. With their colonial past, recent imperial interventions and appeasement of Arab autocrats, including Gaddafi, to advance their narrow economic and strategic interests, the west lacks the moral legitimacy to call the shots on Libya.
It’s important to look beyond Libya to the greater region where overzealous western intervention could only hamper the spirit and authenticity of the Arab revolution. Be that as it may, the endgame hasn’t changed. Gaddafi must go. Not because Obama or Cameron said so, rather because the courageous Libyans, like other Arab revolutionaries, insist “the people want to bring down the regime”.
Marwan Bishara is al-Jazeera’s senior political analyst
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis
Obviously we had to intervene in Libya because there was going to be a bloodbath, but in my opinion we left it too late. We should have done something when Gaddafi began bombarding the rebel forces when they had reached the outskirts of Tripoli and there was everything to gain. Now, we are in a defensive position. Now, we have to establish whether the objectives as outlined by the UN resolution have been achieved and, if not, we need to be told why.
It has been said the British and the French may be manoeuvring to have a new mandate from the Security Council; while I believe the British prime minister and President Sarkozy were right to push for military intervention, I think they are now pushing for it to continue because it distracts from their domestic problems.
We have to move away from the military operation and into the diplomatic and political phase. It is possible there may need to be troops on the ground to avoid further confrontation, but if this is the case they must be from Arab League or African Union countries.
Also, Gaddafi has to go. It seems to me that from the moment we decided to protect the population of Libya from Gaddafi then ultimately it had to mean the end of Gaddafi. This is where the political and diplomatic negotiations come in. If we are to succeed this is the only way.
Jean-Christophe Cambadélis is foreign affairs spokesman for the French Parti Socialiste
Ulrike Guérot
Is it right to intervene in Libya? The answer should be yes. Moral impetus often struggles with international law: from Kosovo to Rwanda, from Sudan to Iraq.
In Libya, it is evident that the air strikes have prevented massacres and displacement of thousands and the situation is improving in the encircled towns of Misurata and Al Zintan. The chances of the opponents of the regime to overthrow Gaddafi have increased. The EU has declared that Gaddafi must go. This time, the intervening countries will be able to say that they did something to make this happen.
Ulrike Guérot is head of Berlin office, European Council on Foreign Relations
Ed Husain
We had the perfect opportunity to support Libya’s rebels in every way possible, but without committing western armed forces to battle. Libya’s strategic importance to western security is minimal. It is not home to terrorism, either. Will we now intervene in Yemen, Syria or Saudi Arabia? Western interests are more immediate in those countries, but we are weaker after Libya when we need to be stronger. With undefined aims, lack of Arab support, unknown rebel forces and no clear exit strategy, there is a real risk of being drawn into a protracted conflict.
Ed Husain is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington
John Nichol
It is clearly right to order a military intervention in an attempt to prevent civilians being massacred.
That said, the contradictions in this operation are obvious. Why Libya and not Syria? Why now and not five weeks ago? What happens if – perhaps when – the intervention backfires?
There is a danger we may be stuck in a quagmire of Middle Eastern politics. Or worse; in a future victory, the “rebel” forces we currently support may turn on their opponents in a bloody orgy of revenge.
Just because the options pose moral uncertainties, is that a reason to avoid taking a risk? What price the lives of innocent civilians? These dilemmas exist on many levels.
Many years ago, I intervened when two thugs attacked a lone policewoman. Why? I felt I could truly help. It was a personal risk but luckily I emerged relatively unscathed, as did the policewoman. I also recall deciding not to confront a gang of youths who were vandalising the train carriage I was in. Why? My intervention would have been fruitless and I have no doubt I would have been badly hurt.
This is the dilemma we will continue to face as the world becomes a more dangerous place in the coming years.
Put simply, at this moment, we have the means to intervene and protect lives in Libya. I hope we can live with our decisions.
John Nichol is a former RAF navigator who served in the Gulf, Bosnia and the Falklands
Denis MacShane
Stopping the extermination of the resistance was worth sending a few planes. The initiative is now removed from Gaddafi. But Cameron has no next-stage policy as so far his response is tactical, not strategic. France is right that Liam Fox’s insistence that the operation is now stamped by Nato will turn Arab nations and Islamist ideologues against military activity. We spend just £3m on democracy promotion via the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Now is the time for muscular soft power to get support with the creation of a well-resourced foundation.
Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former FCO minister
Dennis J Kucinich
On November 2, 2010 France and Great Britain signed a mutual defence treaty , which included joint participation in “Southern Mistral” (www.southern-mistral.cdaoa.fr), a series of war games outlined in the bilateral agreement. Southern Mistral involved a long-range conventional air attack, called Southern Storm, against a dictatorship in a fictitious southern country called Southland. The joint military air strike was authorised by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution. The “Composite Air Operations” were planned for the period of 21-25 March, 2011. On 20 March, 2011, the United States joined France and Great Britain in an air attack against Gaddafi’s Libya, pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 1973.
Have the scheduled war games simply been postponed, or are they actually under way after months of planning, under the name of Operation Odyssey Dawn? Were opposition forces in Libya informed by the US, the UK or France about the existence of Southern Mistral/Southern Storm, which may have encouraged them to violence leading to greater repression and a humanitarian crisis? In short was this war against Gaddafi’s Libya planned or a spontaneous response to the great suffering which Gaddafi was visiting upon his opposition?
Members of the United States Congress are wondering how much planning time it took for our own government, in concert with the UK and France, to line up 10 votes in the Security Council and gain the support of the Arab League and Nato, and then launch an attack on Libya without observing the constitutional requirement of congressional authorisation.
Libya was attacked, we have been told, because Gaddafi allegedly had killed 6,000 of his own people. But is this true? It should be remembered that in 2006, a full 18 years after the Lockerbie bombing, the US lifted sanctions against Libya, which was welcomed back into the international fold.
Now, as Gaddafi faces armed internal opposition backed by a UN Security Council resolution and faces powerful external opposition backed by the military of the US, the UK and France, he is told he must give up power. But to whom? What is the end game?
The US has been dancing around the regime change issue, (since that is not sanctioned by the UNSC Resolution) but as in most cases one has to watch where the bombs are falling to determine whether or not regime change is the policy.
The newest argument for regime change is that if he is not ousted Gaddafi can be expected to attempt Lockerbie-type retaliation against the west in response to the attacks seeking to oust him.
This bloody enterprise is beginning to sound a lot like Iraq: “Saddam was killing his own people, will kill his people, or will kill us if we don"t get him first.”
So did the Bush Administration pump up the fears of the American people that we were next, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had the intention and capability of attacking the United States.
The Iraq war begins its ninth year at a long term cost to US taxpayers of in excess of $3 trillion.The intelligence making the case for the war was “sexed up”. President Bush and Vice President Cheney made a false case for war. An expensive lie. In the name of saving the people of Iraq, we bombed the country, invaded, changed the regime and it is still a carnival of death. In the end it was China, not involved in the war, which received a multi-billion oil deal.
The war in Afghanistan, with no end in sight, has already run a decade and will inevitably cost trillions.
The war against Libya will cost the US $1 billion for the first week.
But we in America are being assured that since Nato is taking over, our role will change. In addition to funding the Libyan war from our own Pentagon resources, the US provides 25% of the funding of Nato, the UK 9.1%, France 8.72%. For all intents and purposes the coalition is handing control of the war over – to itself.
As the funding switches to Nato, we in the US will get the Libyan war at a 75% discount, and our allies in the UK and France will have to pay considerable sums from their own treasuries for a war which is sure to cost billions. Of the 28 members of Nato, I think of Iceland which provides 0.0450 of Nato’s military budget. If member nations are assessed accordingly, poor Iceland, whose economy has imploded, will pay $45m for each billion spent on the war in Libya.
Expensive membership dues.
This sleight-of-hand-over to NATO is an attempt to quell popular dissent to the war by making it appear that no one nation is taking up the burden of saving Libya. But it will beg more questions such as who or what is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and how did they work their way from the North Atlantic to the Gulf of Sidra, not to mention in Afghanistan on the Chinese border?
This war is wrong on so many fronts. The initial stated purpose, protecting Libyan civilians, will soon evaporate as it becomes clear that the war has accelerated casualties and enlarged a humanitarian crisis. Debates over the morality of intervention will give way to a desperate search for answers as to how and when do we get out, and how and why did we get in.