Libya

[Enoch]

There's a decent legal argument to make that, in a non-emergency situation, the Prez should ask Congress for permission to apply military force. But whenever the issue has been litigated in the past, the courts haven't had the cojones to stake their institutional legitimacy on telling the Prez that his war is illegal. So there are some rather permissive precedents on the books.

 

 

A cynic's view of this campaign is that the West was perfectly happy to see Qaddafi brutally beat back the protesters and insurgents ... up until the point where he attacked various oil facilities (the port at Ras Lanuf, oil pipelines to Sidra, the larger facilities at Brega). Once it became clear that Qaddafi was willing to sacrafice the country's oil infrastructure* to win, foreign governments got a lot more assertive. Staving off chaos and revolution via brutal repression is fine, but don't mess with the one reason why the outside world gives a **** what happens in Libya.

 

* Libya's oil infrastructure isn't much. The technology of the last 25 years or so-- developed and weilded mostly by American, British, and Dutch companies-- makes a much more efficient use of oil fields, but there are a lot of countries where they don't operate much because of concerns about sovereign risk (nationalization), poor history in honoring contracts, corruption, reliability of local workforces/governments, and/or the safety of their employees. Libya has been one such place, for reasons that are now apparent. (Others include Russia, Iran, and Iraq.) But that doesn't mean that the existing infrastructure isn't worth a lot to the nation, as well as to the nations that buy Libya's oil (primarily Italy and France).

[obyknven]

Senator Barack Obama, December 20, 2007,

Edited March 21, 2011 by obyknven

[Purkake]

Cost of war

 

 

[Gfted1]

TBH, the US should have stayed out of it and let the French handle this. They and the UK were all gung-ho for action, let them deal with it.

 

Besides which, a civil war in another country is none of our damn business.

[Volourn]

"Besides which, a civil war in another country is none of our damn business.

"

Disagree. helping innocents against evil scumbags is always good people'

s business.

 

but, hey, next time (not that this occurs a lot lol) I see a woman getting raped in the alley as I walk downt eh street and she cries for help, I'll just tell her.. it's none of my business, and just keep walkin' and living my life. Hey, some gal getting raped is none of my business right? RIGHT?

 

Oh, i forgot, the magicalm borders makes it okay not to care and ignore other people's plight since only I'm allowed to have freedom since I got lucky to be born in a free country? No, I don't think so.

 

K.

[Monte Carlo]

Besides which, a civil war in another country is none of our damn business.

 

Don't know where to start, really. Pax Americana has been a fact of life since 1945. You have full spectrum dominance, African commands, European commands and Asian commands, you have the largest global military budget and enough nukes to destroy the universe. Twice. There isn't a single square foot of this planet you can't surveil, bomb or put boots on the ground. Every single international organisation concerning Western defence is predicated on American approval and strategic direction. You've spent ten years (not unreasonably) stirring up some of the most unpredictable hotspots on earth in order to avenge an attack on your sovereign territory, and you've resorted to extra-judicial measures to achieve it. It's been a helluva ride.

 

As a result you've had the world more or less they way you wanted it for for almost seventy years, believe it or not. You've had your ups (Ike, Reagan, LBJ) and your downs (Carter, Nixon, Bubba) but all things being equal I don't think you've done a bad job so far. So that's a tick in the 'Least Worst World Superpower' box. And what's really, really clever about the Pax Americana (and I say this as an admirer) is how you've dressed it up as something not even remotely imperialistic - your cultural and economic hegemony trumps the military and diplomatic ones in most folk's minds. Let's say burgers and Levis 501s versus the USS Nimitz and the NSA.

 

You know there's a but, right? But ,the quid pro quo, old bean, is that you have put yourselves in a position where it is your freaking business. The Colin Powell doctrine (You broke it, you fix it) can be applied to all sorts of cause and effect. Iraq stirred up the pot and the Gaddafi rapprochment with the West (hey, at least he's our bastard) made him bold. Now he needs putting back in his box.

 

To an outsider, the American duality where one minute you want to play Team America with a glint in your eye, the next an isolationist good ol' boy who simply wants to sit on his porch and watch the sun goes down is truly baffling.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Monte Carlo

[Gfted1]

"Besides which, a civil war in another country is none of our damn business.

"

Disagree. helping innocents against evil scumbags is always good people'

s business.

 

but, hey, next time (not that this occurs a lot lol) I see a woman getting raped in the alley as I walk downt eh street and she cries for help, I'll just tell her.. it's none of my business, and just keep walkin' and living my life. Hey, some gal getting raped is none of my business right? RIGHT?

 

Oh, i forgot, the magicalm borders makes it okay not to care and ignore other people's plight since only I'm allowed to have freedom since I got lucky to be born in a free country? No, I don't think so.

 

K.

 

If youre going to construct a no-win situation at least have some panache: A school bus full of retarded nuns is teetering on a cliff ledge. Grabbing the bumper has a slight chance of saving them, or more likely will drag you off with the bus. What do you do?

 

But back in reality what we are talking about is not a lone victim being attacked unprovoked but instead an uprising of armed people trying to overthrow their government for and realizing they bit off more than they can chew. As soon as they start getting their asses kicked they cry for help from the rest of the world. Not our problem.

 

(Un)surprisingly, one of the countries with the most to lose (France) all of a sudden grows a pair and wants to drag everyone else into their problem. Weird how they didnt care about the poor mistreated Iraqis.....oh wait, thats because they were too busy selling Saddam all his missles.

[Masterfade]

"Besides which, a civil war in another country is none of our damn business.

"

Disagree. helping innocents against evil scumbags is always good people'

s business.

 

but, hey, next time (not that this occurs a lot lol) I see a woman getting raped in the alley as I walk downt eh street and she cries for help, I'll just tell her.. it's none of my business, and just keep walkin' and living my life. Hey, some gal getting raped is none of my business right? RIGHT?

 

Oh, i forgot, the magicalm borders makes it okay not to care and ignore other people's plight since only I'm allowed to have freedom since I got lucky to be born in a free country? No, I don't think so.

 

K.

 

Woman getting raped in an alley is more akin to an invasion of one country by another. The proper analogue for a civil war would be a woman coerced to non-consensual sex by her husband in their home. Are you going to break in their house and beat up the husband? You may choose to do just that, but it's also perfectly legit for others to think it's none of their business.

[Gfted1]

To an outsider, the American duality where one minute you want to play Team America with a glint in your eye, the next an isolationist good ol' boy who simply wants to sit on his porch and watch the sun goes down is truly baffling.

 

 

I think the difference being Libya hasnt done anything to us lately. Our current wars are based on payback. Afghanistan harbored Al Queda and Iraq, well, that was a waste of several trillion dollars but Im hoping we get a sweethart of an oil deal out of it. My gas is getting friggin expensive!

 

Im not even adverse to "regime changing" if a country has something we need, but seriously, weve got no business in Libya. Let the French fight this one.

 

Awesome post btw.

[Purkake]

The important difference here is that the international system of states is still an anarchy with no central government or police, unlike a state.

 

Plus there's a healthy dose of "you break it, you buy it" and no one likes peacekeeping operations.

[Enoch]

Monte is glossing over the Soviet influences, particularly in the '60s and '70s, but he's certainly not wrong in his description of the current state of the world.

 

The U.S. is in there right now because reducing the anti-air capabilities (both air-to-air and ground-to-air) of the Libyan military to cinders is easy for us, while it wouldn't necessarily be quite so easy for our allies. The Brits and French and Italians, etc., if acting without American help, would almost certainly defeat Qaddafi's forces on the field. But U.S. help at the early stages in the form of blowing up anything larger than a pickup truck that can shoot back makes the whole operation go much smoother, with fewer allied casualties. Consider it a positive check in the "international relations karma" column. (And, after the whole Iraq thing, a badly needed one.)

Edited March 21, 2011 by Enoch

[Volourn]

"Are you going to break in their house and beat up the husband? You may choose to do just that, but it's also perfectly legit for others to think it's none of their business."

 

Only if their scumbags.

[Zoraptor]

The important difference here is that the international system of states is still an anarchy with no central government or police, unlike a state.

What is badly needed is an equivalent of the US supreme court that is able to say to any UN body"well, actually, the UN charter says you cannot do that".

Edited March 22, 2011 by Zoraptor

[Enoch]

The important difference here is that the international system of states is still an anarchy with no central government or police, unlike a state.

What is badly needed is an equivalent of the US supreme court that is able to say to any UN body"well, actually, the UN charter says you cannot do that".

A judicial authority doesn't mean squat without the means to enforce its decisions. (E.g., The US Supreme Court started issuing unanimous decisions calling for de-segregation in 1955, but nobody did much about it until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in '64 and got some serious resources committed to forcing states to comply.) And enforcement means that you have to give the blue-helmets a dedicated source of funds, independent command, control, recruitment, and intel, and the capacity to overwhelm resistance from any recalcitrant nation(s). Toss in how hopelessly compromised-out-the-wazoo the UN charter actually is, and you get the recipe for a Very Bad Idea.

 

(The UN has a role as a forum for international discussion and for the granting and revoking of legitimacy for certain international endeavors, but in its current state, the world is much better off with a toothless UN.)

[pmp10]

The important difference here is that the international system of states is still an anarchy with no central government or police, unlike a state.

What is badly needed is an equivalent of the US supreme court that is able to say to any UN body"well, actually, the UN charter says you cannot do that".

A judicial authority doesn't mean squat without the means to enforce its decisions.

I'd be more worried how you could maintain consent and participation in such organization.

Even if you had some way of enforce your resolution on countries like US or China the whole idea is a bust since they will simply leave the organization.

It

[Zoraptor]

Superheavies like the US or China ignoring rulings would certainly happen and is not a change from what happens now when they either veto stuff in the first place or basically ignore (or actively work against) them as with entities like the ICC. The second tier powers like France and Britain that like to dress things up in a veneer of legality though? They'd have far more difficulty being told that "resolution x contravenes the UN Charter" and then blithely continuing.

 

It won't happen anyway so it's just an idle thought.

[Moose]

Erm no, not Britain. Remember the Iraq war? Wasn't *that* long ago.

[Walsingham]

Awesome post btw.

 

Agreed. You are Hugh Bicheno, and I claim my five pounds.

 

In fact I'd tend to agree with American non-intervention on this one, on several levels.

 

1. Obama was voted in on a soft power ticket. He has a note rom his mum to avoid this sort of thing.

2. US energy security doesn't depend on Libya, nor (I'm guessing now) will US oil prices rise much in comparison to European levels

3. Now would be an excellent time to remind Europe about not expecting the US to act as a charitable defence organisation. Particularly not as we are cutting defence budgets like an ill-advised perm. We can afford to, and probably ought to police the mediterranean.

4. It is particularly telling that Italy - who depend on Libyan supplies more than anyone, and to a significant degree - aren't taking part. They clearly think Ghaddafi Inc. is going to be in charge when the dust settles. And I'd have to agree with them.

 

Having said all that, I don't agree with Numbers about the necessity of attacking other large players. If I find a rat and a bear in my kitchen I can hate both yet be excused for only poking the rat.

 

 

 

~~

 

Aside: Masterfade, wtf? Non-consensual sex with her husband is rape. The notion that is isn't is some old testament hangover about ownership implied by marriage.

[Walsingham]

Particularly good article discussing the Italians' studied apathy.

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-b...article1949552/

[Gfted1]

Agreed. You are Hugh Bicheno, and I claim my five pounds.

 

I have revisionist interpretations of the American Revolution? I see. Perhaps you need to lie down? Tell you what, keep the fiver and go buy yourself a beer. >_

[213374U]

Having said all that, I don't agree with Numbers about the necessity of attacking other large players. If I find a rat and a bear in my kitchen I can hate both yet be excused for only poking the rat.

 

Mind, I wasn't suggesting that we target the PRC next. It was just a reduction to the absurd of what you said were the reasons for the strikes. Those, along with the sham that is "international law" are so much bunk. It's always about the money, and if Libya wasn't where it is, the poor (un)armed Libyan rebels would burn for all we care, as have the Somali, the Uyghur or the ****ing Congolese.

 

Humanitarian bull**** and the international legality window dressing are just tools at the opinion manufacturer's disposal to hit the part of the masses' psyche that is still governed by the judeo-christian ethos that defines Western culture.

 

Democracy, **** yeah!

[Gfted1]

I would love to see what would happen if some country did that to the U.S. Lets say the American Indians have had enough of this mistreatment and decided to rebel. The government smacks them down but at the 11th hour China decides to set up a no fly zone over the Southwest United States to protect the poor downtrodden American Indians. There would be absolutely nothing we could say about it.

[Monte Carlo]

The big difference is that Native Americans have recourse to generous civil remedies and enjoy universal suffrage. Furthermore, the past has been in part bought out via the Reservation system. Ideal? Probably not, but it's something. Take your proposition to the the UN and you'd get laughed out, even as the ATF burn down their compound by accident.

 

Freedom fighting and rebellion is what happens when people genuinely have no reasonable political, democratic recourse left to a reasonable and lawful aspiration. Terrorism is the reverse.

Edited March 22, 2011 by Monte Carlo

[Hildegard]

Finally war in Libya, those large stockpiles of cruise missiles were getting awfully close to expiration date. And I do hope that after the war all Libyans will be able to experience the joys of McDonald's! Hip hip hurray for democracy!!!

Edited March 22, 2011 by Hildegard

[Volourn]

"And I do hope that after the war all Libyans will be able to experience the joys of McDonald's! Hip hip hurray for democracy!!!"

 

The awesome thing about your sarcasm here is that they'll also be able to choose not to eat at McDonalds. Imagine THAT!