Is this a just war? The word seems to make people edgy. And the time of reasonable debate (without risk of attracting the thunder of sovereignist neopacifism) on this very old concept of political philosophy one would have thought had proven its theoretical validity, from the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria to the American Michael Walzer, is in the past. Then, let's say inevitable war. Let's say that, confronted with a rabid tyrant, when a people's right to self-determination becomes the right of the tyrant to determine their fate, when he, the tyrant, claims the double principle of sovereignty (a man's home is his castle; what happens within my borders is my affair and mine alone) and of equality of States before the law (a crazy putschist, a professional criminal, is equal to a democrat, therefore nothing and no one has the right to curb his bloodthirsty impulses), moral law dictates, yes, that one must intervene to stop him. This is what has just occurred in Libya. This is what the international community, spurred on by the Arab League and France, has just declared, with one voice, through Resolution 1973 of the Security Council. And anyone who contests that, any doctrinal quibbling that behind intervention one senses a hint of colonialism and arrogance, any abstentionism resembling that advocated by a hyper-conservative Germany currently consumed by short-term electoral considerations and consequently breaking the half-century long pact of "never again that" anti-fascism, any academic objections like those of philosophers waiting expectantly to discover the axioms and canons of the "communist hypothesis" they favor in the popular insurrection of Benghazi -- in short, all these little calculations amount to indifference, cynicism, and, whether one wishes or not, complicity with the crime.
Why Libya? Why not Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen? Even if they contain a grain of truth, let us avoid the contingent replies. The reader can be spared the "because we were there and not someplace else". There is no need to insist upon the absurdity, with its Lewis Carroll-esque quality, of the objection, "since one cannot be everywhere, we must be nowhere". (This is, of course, the exact counterpart of the no less absurd neopacifist theorem whereby one should refuse to save civilians on the pretext of collateral damage that would imply, otherwise put : "for fear of military blunders, we must accept the massacres" or "we must let them die, because we don't want any cadavers".) However, we shall invoke the fortunate chain whereby from a moral action, that is to say one dictated by a maxim based upon a universal principle, other actions of the same nature, at least in thought, will ensue. Thus one will reply that, if an intervention is just, if it is intended to conform to a moral dictate more than the interests of its agents, it will itself provoke a flow of consequences that will threaten other tyrants, purely by its dissuasive effect. Plainly put, giving Gaddafi a free hand would have been tantamount to telling Assad and the other Salehs that they can rest easy, because democratic recess time is over. To stop him is to send the inverse signal and suggest to the same individuals that it is time to slow down, to compromise, perhaps to give up, unless they want to suffer the same fate. Jurisprudence Gaddafi. Dissuasion through Gaddafi. The name of Gaddafi, -- or, inversely, of Benghazi -- as a warning offered by a heretofore unheard of coalition of Western, Arab, and African States. Acting in Libya was, is, intervening in Bahrain, Yemen, and Riyad.
Third question. What happens next? What do you know about your insurgents ? And how do you know that this heteroclite gathering of historical opponents and former servants of the regime will lead to a new Libya? My answer is simple. Obviously, I am not naïve. In Benghazi, as elsewhere, I am past the age of idealism and of angelism. And between now and victory, I cannot see Mustafa Abdeljalil, a former minister who is now the head of the National Council of Transition, absorbing the complete works of de Tocqueville. And yet, there are the facts! We know, for example, that among the eleven members of the Council whose names have been made public, not one is an Islamist. We know that, among the twenty others, whose names are kept secret for the time being for reasons of security, there are representatives of all the regions of the country and that the danger of tribal conflict has been -- intentionally? -- overestimated. And I think that, even if the Council does not institute Churchillian parliamentarianism from one day to the next, it will inject into this broken country, ravaged by dictatorship, ruined by corruption and State gangsterism, a bit more democracy -- and that this "bit more" will be, already, a benediction. Should I add that anything is better than putting back in the saddle a man who assured us, in every possible way, that he had "renounced terrorism" but whose first reflex, on the eve of the intervention, was nonetheless to warn that "for every military plane you destroy, I will shoot down one of your civilian airplanes"? The alternatives in Libya are clear. Either terrorist insanity. Or the humble, patient, difficult, interminable invention of democracy. That's the way it is.
Scott Atran: Why War Is Never Really Rational
Frank G. Kirkpatrick: Is Libya A Just War?
Let's shoot down Levy's argument like an Iranian civilian airliner:
The UN resolution was not a declaration of war. And "the international community" did not support even that resolution. That is why India, China, Germany, and Russia abstained, and India, Russia, China, and the head of the same Arab League whose authority Levy invokes have gone further, and oppose the bombings.
The only lesson other tyrants will draw from the attack on Libya---because it is Libya that Levy is attacking and not Qaddafi---is that if you have resources the Western pirates want, you had better get your nukes on.
Then, showing again, his total lack of respect for our country and its citizens he waits 9 days after the conflict begins to address his country and citizens.
However, while in El Salvador (his final stop on his Latin America Trip) he had the time to speak with that country's reporters about the Libya situation
Makes us American Citizens feel just great when the leader of our country, who WORKS FOR US, ignores us but keeps other countries, who he does NOT WORK FOR, fully informed. Brings back memories of how he ignored the American Citizens and shoved the ObamaCare bill down our throats.
How can the American Citizens have respect for our president when he leads in such a manner?
But for America, there's a problem BHL doesn't have to consider, which is that Obama initiated this war illegally, without authorization from Congress, and asserted that the President has the right to do that in the future. Congress would have probably approved it, had they been asked, but effectively we're being told that being elected to lead a democracy gives him the same military powers and lack of control that a corrupt crazy dictator has. So while BHL doesn't need to call for Obama to be impeached, Congress does.
It's like saying to a life guard: How dare you save that child in front of you from drowning! There are children in other places downing too!
But does possession of such a pile bestow upon its occupier a divine, in contrast to a democratic, right to rule?
“what happens within my borders is my affair and mine alone”
So the state of being human carries no entitlement, nor duty? To attempt attainment of a level of interaction surpassing that of other animals. Then we, and they, are surely doomed. By virtue of that absent virtue.
“Why Libya? Why not Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen?”
The longest journey starts with a single step.
“one should refuse to save civilians”
if they are on the other side? Embrace that reasoning, and we might as well all be Gaddafis. We have you completely surrounded, for one purpose only. Purely that we may converse in peace.
“Third question. What happens next?”
When and if we can devise and deliver the physic that cures their ills. Perhaps we’ll see fit to treat ourselves.
“a benediction”
Be twice blessed. First by a constitution that enshrines the principle of polices mandated by the majority. Second, by the principle of one-being one-vote.
“Either terrorist insanity”.
Or, that madness that manifests when all real alternatives are barred.
Even Gandhi conceded that in the face of tyrants bent on mass slaughter, nonviolent opposition could very well fail.
"CAIRO - An Egyptian committee set up to investigate violence during demonstrations that toppled Hosni Mubarak has laid charges against the former president for the murder of protesters, a state newspaper said.
The committee had also accused the former interior minister of ordering police to open fire at demonstrators, Al Ahram newspaper said on Wednesday.
The Public Prosecutor later referred Habib al-Adli and four other high-ranking officers for trial on charges of killing protesters, disrupting stability and of spreading “chaos in the country“ that harmed Egypt’s economy, a statement said.
More than 360 people died in the uprising and thousands were injured when police fired rubber bullets, live ammunition, water cannon and tear gas at peaceful protesters."
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2011/03/23/17727261.html
But NOW we have to make an example
So what's the real problem this time? Is it oil? I don't know, but what I do know is this humanitarian spin is a flat out ridiculous lie
Executives, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the rapidly moving situation, believe their companies could be targeted, especially if their home countries are taking part in air strikes against Mr Gaddafi. Allied forces from France, the UK and the US on Saturday unleashed a series of strikes against military targets in Libya.
“It is certainly a concern. There are good reserves there,” said one executive at a western oil company with operations in Libya. “We have lost some of our production [because all operations have stopped] but our bigger concern is what will happen to the exploratory work as that gives you a future rather than the immediate impact,” he added. "
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67d1d02a-5314-11e0-86e6-00144feab49a.html#axzz1HuG9EEKT
That speaks volumes.
All of these points were decided without consulting the people. And as for that ambassador, I'd trust him as much as you would Benedict Arnold.
Really, which part of the "The Libyan public" are you reff
erring to ?
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, he fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan.
He has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
Idriss Deby , Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html
It has been the stimulas of all these revolutions. But once again the west is eager to substitute a FREE VOTE for all the Prospertiy and Justice the people seek.
Was America create for a vote. NO, individual rights and free choice.. America has lost its way and cannot find which end is up or down. Which is so obvious. Rich on one side and poor on the other