Odyssey Dawn: a military operations in Libya thread.

from leninology again:

The humanitarian argument presupposes the foreclosure of options that was built-in to the intervention in the first place. It's quite right that opponents of the war have pointed out that there were a number of alternatives to a bombing campaign from the start, if the motive was to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Those being, as I review the antiwar blogs, columns and newspapers: the handing over Libya's frozen funds to the Transitional Council to enable them to arm themselves; a regional intervention building on extant support provided by Egypt; a diplomatic settlement, in the event that outright military victory on the part of the rebels was out of the question. But when people ask what your alternative to bombing is - "what would YOU do?" - they are asking us to hypothesize, to speculate, and to do so in a terrain in which most people, including the advocates of humanitarian intervention themselves, have no experience whatever. That is, they're asking for a speculation concerning military logic, in which most are not trained, as it might play out in a situation where do not have intelligence, or networks of associates or informers. And such hypotheses are necessarily less immediately compelling than the seeming obviousness and corporeal bluntness of imperialist solutions. The question, once addressed, should be reversed: the burden of justification is on those who are doing the bombing or supporting it. The option that needs to be interrogated is the one being pursued: bombing. And it won't do to justify it on the basis of abstract humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a contested, political term, and arguments predicated on it can only be assessed and settled in the political sphere.

And the fact is that the political bases for such a war are hopelessly confused. It can't be justified on the ground of liberal internationalism, since we're not talking about spreading democracy or promoting a liberal world order - that idea has taken a serious knock in the last decade. But the Realist grounds for the war seem even more incoherent. This is hardly a power-balancing operation, and any 'security threat' that can be conjured up is both less than convincing and potentially liable to fly back in any scaremonger's face if the same 'threat' is imputed to the rebels themselves. As for any attempt to justify the bombing on leftist internationalist grounds, of supporting the revolution, that is perhaps the least convincing of all. The logic of this, if taken to its conclusion, is that should air strikes fail to result in Qadhafi's overthrow, then the US and its allies should invade and finish the job. Any ideas where that might lead to? The US has a long history of intervening in revolutionary situations: the Spanish-American War, the Mexican revolution, the Russian civil war, the Greek civil war, the Vietnamese revolution, indeed a whole series of anti-colonial and leftist revolutions in Latin America, Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East. In not one of them has the United States military been a pro-revolutionary force. In this case, the US and its European allies have been consistently intervening in the region on the side of the counter-revolution. Expecting such forces to be part of any revolutionary transformation of the Middle East is frankly unworldly. In the last analysis, there seems to be no coherent, intelligent way to defend this war.

These are the same people who have pushed the incorrect and unhelpful argument that Qadhafi carried out the Lockerbie bombing

whoa hold the phone

As for any attempt to justify the bombing on leftist internationalist grounds, of supporting the revolution, that is perhaps the least convincing of all. The logic of this, if taken to its conclusion, is that should air strikes fail to result in Qadhafi's overthrow, then the US and its allies should invade and finish the job.

I don't see how this follows.

revolution - regime change

well, if you want "the revolution" to succeed then you want to overthrow gaddafi, ergo if airstrikes don't work you need to ratchet things up to the next level.

You can be willing to go so far in aiding revolution, and then be willing to admit that it's failed. Being willing to do something leading to an end does not necessitate doing anything to achieve this end. I'm a socialist internationalist who supports this intervention but there is nothing about that stance that requires me to support a ground invasion of Libya.

there are some "boots on the ground" btw

well, you know what i mean.

dowd interesting! are you saying you thought airstrikes might have been enough to lead to an outright rebel victory? (and hence your support for the airstrikes?) what do you think the endgame is, or ought to be?

i sort of wonder what it would be like to live in a non-NATO country and "support the revolution".

I think the revolution would have failed without intervention - I think arming Libyans directly would be a great help; I don't think having the change carried out by foreign militaries in it's entirety would lead to anything good. Ultimately I can't see the rebels succeeding unless the stress-lines within the Gaddafi camp fracture. I suspect the most likely (rebel friendly) outcome would be palace coup/increased defections leading to a somewhat liberal democracy.
The endgame will be a bourgeois revolution at best - I have no illusions about a socialist Libya (in the sense I would define it). At the moment the progressive forces in the middle east/north Africa are capitalist/democratic in nature, and I'm (somewhat) marxist enough to believe that this is a desirable stage of development. (It is, of course, complicated to tell how progressive these elements can be within a world of global capitalist exploitation rather than 18th century western Europe)

But basically, if the attempts to destroy Gaddafi's military advantages over the rebels fail, then I think that's a tragedy, but I wouldn't just keep ramping up force.

i just can't help thinking this intervention has guaranteed failure of the revolution, at least in the sense that the non-defector, non-CIA revolutionary wing wanted.

If you mean that with Gaddafi refusing to give in to protestors who became rebels, feet on the ground are probably needed and that Gaddaffi's well-paid inner circle and troops are not turning on him, well yes.

Here's a problem with this intervention courtesy of the Washington Post:

"Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time."

A spokesman for the Misurata City Council appealed for NATO to send ground troops to secure the port that is the besieged city’s only remaining humanitarian lifeline.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some-munitions-in-libya/2011/04/15/AF3O7ElD_story.html?hpid=z1

Clearly the time is ripe for the US to invade Britain and France.

Obama turns heel

Last time they proved to be somewhat of a bad influence.

Libya “has not been a very big war. If [the Europeans] would run out of these munitions this early in such a small operation, you have to wonder what kind of war they were planning on fighting,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank. “Maybe they were just planning on using their air force for air shows.”

Zing!

Obama's busy doing his deficit dog and pony show appearances this week-- no time to think about Misurata

restrepo director and a pulitzer prize nominated photographer were killed in misrata

http://www.avclub.com/articles/restrepo-director-tim-hetherington-reportedly-kill,54857/

tracer are you really quoting lenin's tomb upthread?

lol

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/more-than-48-killed-in-weekend-fighting-in-misrata/article1997836/

tracer are you really quoting lenin's tomb upthread?

lol

Again, I respectfully request you actually say something. Give it a shot.

Like, I'm perfectly open to a brief explanation of why I should disregard what that guy says but "lol" is perhaps too brief.

Italy now onboard

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italian air-force jets will carry out strikes against Libya as NATO seeks to break an impasse in the nine-week struggle to oust Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.

Italian planes will target military installations in Libya, Berlusconi told reporters in Rome today after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Italy, once Libya’s colonial ruler, announced yesterday it will change course and join in airstrikes on pro-regime forces that threaten civilians

this is where we cluck at the spectacle of buying Obama's humanitarian horsehit upthread

http://www.thenation.com/blog/160177/hawks-want-libya-escalation-will-obama-agree

tracer isn't this enough?

These are the same people who have pushed the incorrect and unhelpful argument that Qadhafi carried out the Lockerbie bombing

incorrect?

I have no idea.

this is where we cluck at the spectacle of buying Obama's humanitarian horsehit upthread

http://www.thenation.com/blog/160177/hawks-want-libya-escalation-will-obama-agree

― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 3:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i dont understand, this article asks a question that you seem to be claiming it answers

Those, including “humanitarian interventionists” who are congratulating themselves over the coalition’s success in rescuing Benghazi from Qaddafi’s forces at the start of the NATO campaign, ought to be counting the dead on both sides now.

So what is he suggesting? That there should have been no intervention and Libya would have been better off with Qadaffi only counting the dead and congratulating himself on subduing Benghazi and elsewhere?

And I don't trust the thinking of the neo-cons either but knee-jerk reactions that we have to do the opposite of what they want is not exactly a nuanced approach.

Libya would have been better off

You keep bringing up Qadaffi killing Libyan people as Surely A Bad Thing. Granted, but this doesn't justify our killing some other Libyan people as Surely A Good Thing.

Foreign policy can't simply be measured by whether some other country might be better off for it. Especially when the policy means we are engaged in killing people. There are far too many damsels in distress for the USA to go charging around saving them all and too many evil-doers for us to ever kill them all. Another justification is required.

If we weren't still mired in Iraq/Afghanistan and had the troops and materiel to help, I would have favored an intervention here a lot more than I did the invasion of Iraq.

Like, I'm perfectly open to a brief explanation of why I should disregard what that guy says but "lol" is perhaps too brief.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, April 26, 2011 11:37 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

he's called 'lenin's tomb': he's SWP: you'll find any amount of apologias for totalitarians of various stripes on his blog: and he's appeared on press tv

Especially when the policy means we are engaged in killing people. There are far too many damsels in distress for the USA to go charging around saving them all and too many evil-doers for us to ever kill them all. Another justification is required.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 17:50 (38 minutes ago) Permalink

It does not look like there is any justification that would satisfy your beliefs. And no one is advocating that the USA can save "them all."

the US CAN'T intervene everywhere it should, simply from a practical standpoint (case in point - Syria). but where we can and we have a moral obligation to do so (as I believe we did in Libya), then we should.

And I don't trust the thinking of the neo-cons either but knee-jerk reactions that we have to do the opposite of what they want is not exactly a nuanced approach.

also very otm

can it really be a moral obligation to do something that isn't possible?

xp

There are many quite strong and well-established justifications for going to war against a country and it I have no problem with them whatsoever. For example, if that country's armred forces invades or attacks your country, or it blockades your ports, or seizes ships at sea that sail under your flag. There are other, similar causus belli and I won't bother to name them all. They are united by the simple fact of violent aggression against your country.

However, invading a country, or bombing it, because your country doesn't approve of its internal policies and you desire a change of government more amenable to your way of thinking is only another form of colonialism, no matter how you dress it up.

Getting the sanction and approval of a bunch of other, third party countries before you bomb the country you all agree "deserves it" may be a step in the right direction, perhaps, but it is still pretty damn shaky ground, imo, because it still amounts to aggression and should not be touted as some moral high ground.

I prefer the shakey ground of the current Libya approach to your isolationist one.

So, to leap straight to Godwin's you would have been fine with the Nazis killing 6 million people if they hadn't breached another country's borders?

just to be clear here, aimless thinks colonialism is worse than genocide. sounds great.

lol xp

because your country doesn't approve of its internal policies and you desire a change of government more amenable to your way of thinking

Also -- some of the people in Libya don't appear to be too pleased with their government. It's not a situation involving some cliched colonialist power trying to impose its values.

he's called 'lenin's tomb': he's SWP: you'll find any amount of apologias for totalitarians of various stripes on his blog: and he's appeared on press tv

― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I'm not marrying the guy. I haven't signed up to some kind of blood-pact. I just think he has some sensible things to say about Libya.

xp Using force against a country because it has attacked a third nation, rather than your own, has a legal and moral justification stretching back centuries. The idea of intervention because a government has attacked a subsection of its own population is newer, and more controversial, but it's tough to make an absolute moral distinction. There's never really been any suggestion in the modern era that your own state needs to be at direct or indirect risk.

The weird thing to me is, our new doctrine seems to be, "If you can get ahold of some guns and start a war against your dictator, we'll help. But if you stick to nonviolence, you're on your own."

Is that where the "moral obligation" comes from? The fact that the Libyan rebels decided to use technicals and mortars and raise a small army?

xp

Isolationists do not believe in getting involved in the far off wars of other countries.

At present the USA is bound by treaty to involve itself in wars if one of our many, many, many treaty allies are attacked from without. I would not not renounce these treaties, even though the number of countries we are obliged to protect probably number around 50 or 60.

If it is isolalionist to say we ought not as a rule seek out and aggressively start wars, that protect neither ourselves, nor our allies, then I guess I am isolationist. But that seems a damned peculiar way to define isolationism. Basically, if any war is proposed, and any reason can be produced for starting it, opposing it becomes "isolationist", by your apparent definition.

x-post Again, they started with non-violence and were attacked by their state.

just to be clear here, aimless thinks colonialism is worse than genocide

another case where 2 + 2 = 22.

There's never really been any suggestion in the modern era that your own state needs to be at direct or indirect risk.

And what a lovely era it has been, too.

If you can get ahold of some guns and start a war against your dictator,

uh

dowd I'm kind of aware of that. So did protestors all over the middle east. But they're not getting rewarded with an air force.