Prior to Obama's decision to bomb Libya, I had posted an argument opposing armed intervention (http://blogs.courier-journal.com/pointtaken/2011/03/17/reality-demands-restraint). The argument has grown only stronger in the days since our attack.
As I wrote earlier, sure, Gaddafi's a bad guy. Perhaps he stayed a bad guy even after his "rehabilitation" after he renounced Libya's nuclear ambitions back in 2003. But the fact is there was pretty much nothing of interest coming out of Libya until the wave of protests swept the Middle East this winter.
The problem with the Libyan protest movement is that unlike that of Egypt and Tunisia, Libya's turned violent. It was at this point that Gaddafi and the Libyan military pushed back. No question, Gaddafi's threatening to "burn all Libya" if the protests continued poured much fuel to the fire of humanitarian intervention. The UN Security Council's No-Fly Zone approval certainly considered Gaddafi's penchant for peculiarity as justification for its vote.
However, the UN Security Council is not the United States of America. American attack on foreign nations must have the support of Congress, but they were totally ignored. Perhaps if Congress had truly considered it we would have refused to support an attack on Libya (but as Iraq shows this is no guarantee, not by a long shot).
The President, echoing Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, says the attack was necessary to protect the protestors and that the goal is not removal of Gaddafi, but protection of Libyans. However, surely he knows that mere bombing of airfields and other strategic targets will do nothing to stop Gaddafi’s boots on the ground from doing whatever they want. Also, can Obama guarantee none o four missiles will kill innocents? Indeed, reports are that we have killed non combatants already.
Further, this mission has no end game. Rarely have we blundered into attacking another nation with so little definition—of purpose, of plan, of possible outcomes, etc.
This smells like another neocon end-run using the veneer of humanitarianism as a smokescreen to hoodwink--ONCE AGAIN—an unwitting public. This attack on Libya may not be as bad as the hugely immoral, illegal and counterproductive full scale war in Iraq, but that does not mitigate the wrong.
Richard F. Dawahare 3/21/11
1 comment:
I don't like this bombing of Libya, either. You might want to check out "Instead of Bombing Dictators Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs" at the PINKtank Blog ~ http://codepink.org/blog/2011/03/instead-of-bombing-dictators-stop-selling-them-bombs/.
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