Washington and its NATO allies have bungled the Libya crisis. Unless they change course, they face endless entanglement in an interminable civil war in North Africa. The only worse option would be to double down and escalate.
Allied intervention in Libya makes no sense. No security issues of note are at issue. Libya is only a modest oil producer and Western military action does not guarantee stability. In fact, tepid U.S. and European intervention has deepened and prolonged the crisis. Even if the Europeans felt their stake in Libya's strife to be significant, Washington had no reason to get involved.
President Barack Obama's professed humanitarian case is weak: Muammar Gaddafi is an autocratic thug, but no more so today than last year, when he feted by the West for having abandoned terrorism and proliferation. The developing civil war was awful because there was combat, not because there was genocide. Gaddafi's blood-curdling rhetoric was not implemented when he previously recaptured rebellious cities. And the allies shamelessly ignore repression and bloodshed elsewhere when it suits them, which is often.
Almost as bad as an unnecessary war is a bungled war. The allies purport to be protecting civilians, but have been trying to oust Gaddafi on the cheap. Despite insistent cries that the Libyan tyrant must go, the U.S. and other NATO members refuse to devote the forces necessary to defenestrate him. Led by France and Britain, the alliance has saved the opposition from defeat, but not enabled it to win. The result has been a longer conflict, which has led to more casualties, both combatants and civilians. And no end is in sight.
At last week's NATO foreign minister summit, British and French officials cut pitiful figures, begging the other 26 members to lend them a few planes to fight their war. But they were turned down by everyone, including Washington. Nicolas Bonaparte Sarkozy has been threatening every Arab ruler but lacks the weapons and munitions to defeat just Gaddafi. The heirs to Churchill in London have overstretched what is now a second-division power and risk dropping it another level. Still, Britain began stretching those resources even more, targeting Qaddafi's communication networks.
All the governments in America, France, and Britain could agree on was a joint newspaper op-ed, proclaiming unity and steadfastness while failing to set a coherent objective or explain who would provide the means necessary to achieve whatever the ultimate end. At least failure matters little to the U.S., which has largely abandoned ongoing operations. But the Europeans face far greater public embarrassment and geopolitical harm.
As a result, the mission is creeping upward as pressure increases on the allies to do more. France wants to rewrite United Nations Resolution 1973 to authorize expanded military operations, but in this campaign Paris is a bandwagon of one. Such an effort might not even win a majority of Security Council votes, let alone escape a Russian veto. Anyway, approving another piece of paper won't add any military forces to the allied effort.
With the search for additional airpower looking to be a dead end, the Siren Call of ground troops beckons. Already Special Forces from various nations are thought to be operating in Libya. France and Britain have just announced that they are taking a second step: sending military advisers to assist the rebels. Italy is contributing ten instructors as well.
At the moment the objective is limited. London said that its "military liaison advisory team" won't even train rebel soldiers. However, British MP Sir Menzies Campbell warned that sending advisers "must not be seen as a first installment of further military deployment. Vietnam began with a U.S. president sending military advisers."
The Obama administration declined to join the advisory project, but has announced the provision of $25 million worth of "non-lethal" military supplies. Capitol Hill advocates of arming the rebels say the door is now open for weapons transfers.
Moreover, the European Union, separate from NATO, has indicated its willingness to undertake a military mission, EURFOR Libya, to provide humanitarian aid, if requested by the United Nations. In theory it's another limited operation, but this proposal could easily lead to geographic "safe havens" guarded by allied troops, as advocated by former British Foreign Secretary David Owens.
Warned Simon Tisdall in the Guardian: "the creep is on."
Alas, half steps are unlikely to defeat Gaddafi. The opposition faces a number of debilitating internal challenges. For instance, two of the top military commanders are currently waging a messy and public struggle for control. An opposition victory looks far away.
Stalemate will increase the temptation to initiate a ground assault. British Gen. Lord Dannatt, former British army head, dismissed concerns over creeping escalation: "Some will always say 'mission creep,' but [Britain should] interpret the UN mandate broadly to avoid mission collapse."
What if the only way to prevent "mission collapse" is to introduce ground forces? The Misrata Judicial Committee has formally requested an allied invasion of their beleaguered city in Libya's west. "We need a force from NATO or the United Nations on the ground now," explained committee member Nouri Abdullah Abdulati.
Two weeks ago U.S. Gen. Carter Ham testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee: "I suspect there might be some consideration" of using American ground forces. So far the secretary of defense, vice president, and president have dismissed that option. Are they prepared for either endless stalemate or embarrassing withdrawal?
The allies appear to believe that time is on their side. But there is no evidence that Gaddafi is ready to flee or about to be deposed. The Clinton administration took the same approach against Serbia in 1999: drop a few bombs and Slobodan Milosevic will surrender. That air campaign went on for 78 days before he made a deal and forced concessions in the ultimatum originally presented by Washington. Had the allies made regime change their objective, the war would have gone on much longer.
To avoid another Kosovo, Michael Hirsh of the National Journal advocated that President Barack Obama toss aside his earlier promise and "consider ground troops." Anthony Cordesman of CSIS proposed an even more dramatic escalation, though without ground forces.
Wrote Cordesman: "France, Britain, the U.S. and other participating members of the Coalition need to shift to the kind of bombing campaign that targets and hunts down Qaddafi's military and security forces in their bases and as they move -- as long before they engage rebel forces as possible." Moreover, added Cordesman, "Hard, and sometimes brutal, choices need to be made between limited civilian casualties and collateral damage during the decisive use of force and an open-ended war of attrition."
Hirsh's and Cordesman's advice makes a certain sense -- but only if there is no alternative to war in Libya. To his credit, Vice President Joseph Biden dismissed the argument that only America can resolve the Libyan crisis: "it is bizarre to suggest that NATO and the rest of the world lacks the capability to deal with Libya -- it does not." The problem, he said, was will, not capacity.
There is an even more important point. The stakes do not warrant escalation. The vice president pointed to America's strategic concerns elsewhere, including next door in Egypt. Libya barely registers. Nothing there warrants Washington's involvement.
Indeed, U.S. involvement in this conflict is simply stupid. The stakes are minimal, the objectives are confused, the benefits are negligible, the resources are inadequate, the costs are excessive, and the consequences are dangerous. A month ago the president was right to reject the use of ground forces. Today he should end U.S. participation in Libya's civil war.
Gian P. Gentile: Without Strategy, Libya Will End in Disaster
Jane Wells: Creating A Vision Of The End of Atrocity
Yusra Tekbali: Libya and Tunisia: Open borders, Humanity at work
Obama not only did not get Congressional approval before starting a new war, he lied and promised it would only be for a couple of days to set up a no fly zone. More than a month later, we are still bombing as part of NATO and have spent over a billion dollars. Lastly, Obama had no clue that the 'rebels' he is helping, are allied in large part to al Qaeda, an option even worse than the evil Gadhafi. Blunders all over by the White House. Obama has no perspective on foreign policy, never had any experience in foreign policy and will get us in so deep that like Iraq and Afgan, we will not be able to extricate ourselves from the quicksand that he has stepped in.
A case can be made that what was (and is) happening in Libya is not our problem. Yes, a ruthless dictator had threatened to kill large numbers of civilians within his country, but that isn't a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination. Stalin and Mao killed millions, "ethnic cleansing" between various groups routinely destroys entire towns, killing men, women and children indescriminently. Terrible, but it is not the job of the United States to stop.
The case for intervention is much more nuanced, and must acknowledge that there is a tinge of hypocrisy involved as well. Civilians being killed in Libya matter, civilians being killed in Gaza, not so much, and as for civilians in Sierra Leone, well, most of us don't know which continent we'd be going to if we wanted to help them.
But, even acknowledging the hypocrisy I would say that helping those people break free of a ruthless dictator is a good thing. Even the most liberal among us shed no tears for Saddam Hussain. We may have questioned the methods, but removing him made the world a better place.
We're trying a different method this time. Support the local population in their struggle. Will it work out better than Iraq? Only time will tell.
Had we supported the Iraqi rebels that rose up shortly after the first Iraq war, we might have been able to avoid the second one while leaving an Iraqi-led country in place. Or, maybe not. We'll never know, as we waited patiently on the sidelines while Saddam butchered his own people. Only years later, for reasons that the Cato Institute supported, did we fight another major war that we're still not entirely done with.
One of the few good things that came from that war was that Saddam was toppled, although it's hard to argue that the war made the world a better place, and I'm not going to try.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/americas-foreign-policy-valkyries-hillary-clinton-samantha-p-5047
The experience of the West through Hitler et al has sensitized all to protect the most vulnerable. We oppose the absolute dictators of the world and seek to neutralize their actions. But where do we go from here?
Photo-journo Tim Hetherington''s unfortunate death will cause a few days of blip coverage but the media is already COMPLETELY IGNORING the REAL STORY ON THE GROUND, that the so-called "rebels" would be nothing, NOTHING, without NATO's ridiculous intervention.
We now return you to ongoing coverage of the Tea Party, "The Donald," and the Royal Wedding. Can't make it up.
One has to follow the money. Who profits from war? The MIC. Who make up the MIC: the top 2% of wealthy Americans. Who owns the politicians: the top 2% of wealthy Americans.
Who has to fight the wars and pay for them? The bottom 98%.
Is a revolution coming?
I hope so.
The sad commentary about American politics is that is all about elections and garnering votes. Libya happens to rank on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to what is on the voters' minds. The Obama administraÂtion has more to lose from decisively acting in Libya than gaining traction in the polls.
The war in Balkans dragged on until the Clinton administraÂtion decided that it was politicallÂy expedient to act. I am afraid Libya may be on the same political itinerary as Bosnia was in mid 90s.
look into the reality of the downstream from funding a group of 10 000 yogic flyers
Yale journal of conflict resolution judged the program feasible when it published an article about temporary groups of 1000 yogic flyers or less, as money allowed, gathered together in Lebanon on 7 occasions and in each case the civil war went into immediate ceasefire, drop in war deaths of ~80% etc
a seminar with Dr John Hagelin is needed for some background ;
but as with any over the horizon " technology " it remains unfathomable untill demonstrated and actualized and implemented permanently given sufficient money ; Peacemakers [ not in the military meaning ] peace creators have traditionally not had the most amount of money.
in global press conferences from 2002 till 2006 DR Hagelin liked to say " for less than the cost of wings on a stealth bomber we can create peace " and that everywhere
[ an endowment fund of about $ 1.1 billion is needed ]
http://www.permanentpeace.org/
Director, Institute of Science, Technology & Public Policy: jhagelin@mum.edu
Hello? There's already a war in Libya. But it's still an open question whether it's going to be a total war, where the sides are stopped only the limits of their ability to kill and destroy, or whether it's going to be a limited war, where the sides forgo some options in order to avoid strategic consequences such as those that could result from foreign action. It's still unknown whether this will end in a situation that convinces other rulers that the US and the international community are toothless, or one that convinces them to heed what diplomats say. It's still unknown whether it will be a long war or a short one. It's still unknown whether thousands of dissidents will quietly vanish after Qaddafi regains control, whether Libyans will suffer under a new despot, or whether there will be a better life for those six million people.
We certainly need to avoid a situation where being there because we're there looks like compelling logic. But knee-jerk isolationism is almost as senseless as leaping blindly into war. In fact, knee-jerk isolationism may lead us to avert our eyes until the pendulum swings, at which point we do jump blindly.
I don't have all the answers. But I know enough to be able to say that neither does the Cato Institute.
The USA did not go to war against Hitler until Britain had been fighting him for two years and the USA was directly threatened by Japan and Hitler unwisely declared war on the USA.
Now the USA ggoes to war when it benefits the military industrial complex, who make money from warfare. Fighting for democracy is all smoke and mirrors.
The USA has always supported dictators like Gaddafi and Mubarack and Saddam Hussein.
>>> The USA has always supported dictators like Gaddafi
For one, I don't think that US involvement in Libya has to do with oil. For two, your point about Hitler and US involvement in the war is justified. For three and four, I do not believe this has to do with the "military industrial complex" nor that fighting for democracy is all smoke and mirrors. Lastly, you are correct that the USA has supported some very smelly actors on the world stage.