The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders and until last year President Sarkozy's foreign minister, have long been champions of "the right to protect" -- that is, the right of the international community to intervene if a sovereign is committing crimes against his own people.
It is thus no surprise that BHL (as he is known in France) was involved behind the scenes
in moving President Sarkozy to take the lead in Libya. Here is my conversation with him about the lead up to the strikes against Gaddafi's forces, the aims of the military campaign and the nature of the Libyan rebels France has recognized:
NATHAN GARDELS: It's been said that you have played the key role in convincing Sarkozy to enter into this war.
BERNARD-HENRI LEVY: The key role, I don't know. President Sarkozy is certainly old enough to know what he has to do. Especially since, as you may know, I am a fierce opponent of his policies. I didn't vote for him in 2007. I will not vote for him in 2012. And he knows it.
GARDELS: Then why is it that you were present on March 10th, at the Elysée, when he received the representatives of the National Council of Transition and recognized them as the legitimate representatives of the Libyan people?
BHL: Well, that's something else. I was there because I was the one who arranged the meeting. I am the one who convinced Sarkozy to receive these three men and who had suggested this "diplomatic recognition" to him. I was in Benghazi covering a story in the liberated section of Libya. As luck would have it, I met these people from the National Council of Transition and, in particular, its president, Mustafa Abdel Jalil. And it's true that I called the president of my country from Benghazi to tell him, "There are people here, good people; these people hold the same values as we do, and they're going to die to the last one if we allow Gaddafi to go on to the conclusion of his criminal logic. Would you accept to receive them in Paris and thus send a strong signal to the butcher?" Nicolas Sarkozy immediately said yes. And he confirmed his agreement the following Monday, on the morning I returned, when I went to see him at the Elysée.
GARDELS: Fine. But why did you operate in secret? And place your partners, in particular the Europeans, before the fait accompli?
BHL: Because talking about this idea, verbalizing it, revealing it, would have meant its failure. When you consider everything that happened afterwards -- squawks of protest from one and the other, dilatory maneuvers of all kinds -- you can imagine what would have taken place beforehand: The operation would simply have been drowned in the flood of quibbling and neo-Munichesque blah-blah-blah. It would have been sabotaged before it had even begun. It had to be secret. For this powerful political act, this decisive act of sovereignty, this act that would break with all custom, all diplomatic rules, all conformisms, the effect of surprise was absolutely necessary. Nicolas Sarkozy understood that. And I am grateful to him for that.
GARDELS: From your point of view, what is the purpose of the operation?
BHL: The purpose is written in the resolution. To protect civilians. To prevent the bloodbath Gaddafi is anticipating. And, beyond that, to break the military machine that Gaddafi, as you know, had turned against his own people. Protecting civilians, then, is putting the army and the power of Gaddafi out of commission.
GARDELS: Have we accomplished this?
BHL: The coalition has smashed the military airports, destroyed the heavy artillery, cut off the supply lines. But, for the time being, it has been unable to prevent him from sending his last tanks into the heart of Misurata, transforming the city's inhabitants into just so many human shields. Gaddafi has hunkered down in the cities. Imagine a Hitler whose bunker would have been all of Berlin. That is Gaddafi today.
GARDELS: Do you have any news from Misurata?
BHL: Yes. This afternoon (March 24). From one of the city's teachers, whom I reached by phone. Gaddafi's mercenaries are firing on the hospital. Killing the wounded. The city dwellers no longer leave their homes for fear of being gunned down like rabbits by snipers. Blood is flowing in Misurata.
GARDELS: What does one do when the rebels go on the offensive under cover of the no-fly zone and then are caught on some front line, locked in battle? Does the coalition have to support them?
BHL: It all depends on what you mean by "support." If it's sending troops on the ground to accomplish the Libyan revolution in the place of the Libyan people, no, that is not in the mandate voted by the United Nations, that is not what the National Council of Transition is requesting, and it is not what the president of the French Republic said to its emissaries at the Elysée. His words were quite clear and he hammered on them several times: "No one is going to come and accomplish your revolution in your place; the Libyan revolution belongs to the Libyan people and to them alone. We, the French, I can tell you we would have hated for this people or that to come and steal our 1789." On the other hand, we must arm the insurgents. Arm them and train them. I believe that is what the Egyptians are doing. And perhaps the French.
GARDELS: If France goes too far, won't you lose the legitimacy the support of the U.N. confers?
BHL: This is what I am telling you: One of the major differences between this war, inevitable, and the war in Iraq, detestable, is the mandate of the United Nations, its absolutely legal framework. It would be regrettable to stray outside of this legal framework. And I believe France will not do so.
GARDELS: What about the faltering Arab League?
BHL: I wouldn't say it has "faltered." All right, it's wavering a bit. You have a guy at the head of it, Amr Moussa, who has some political ulterior motives and who's playing both sides, it's true. But on the whole, the league is hanging on. Don't forget, it was the league that launched the first appeal to save the Libyan people from the predicted slaughter. And, at the time I'm speaking, fundamentally, it has not changed its position and thus still supports the allied operation.
GARDELS: Arabs seem at odds with the French effort to overthrow Gaddafi? Why?
BHL: What Arabs? Not Arab public opinion, at any rate. The Egyptians, for example, the intense strength of the new Egypt, support their Libyan brothers, are stirred by them and suffer with them and, contrary to what Monsieur Moussa may believe, have no problem with the presence of American, English and French planes in the skies over Libya.
GARDELS: The successful Arab revolts -- in Egypt and Tunisia -- have indelible legitimacy because they were totally indigenous. Will French intervention coupled with the Americans and British undercut the legitimacy of the Libyan revolt, playing into Gaddafi's hands on his claim that this is Western imperialism after Libyan oil?
BHL: The oil argument is an idiotic argument. Had the problem been oil, the easiest solution would have been to maintain Gaddafi's presence. One can "deal" very well with dictators.
GARDELS: If the French aim is successful and Gaddafi falls, who are the rebels the West is allying with? Secularists? Islamists? And what do they want?
BHL: Secularists. They want a unified Libya whose capital will remain Tripoli and whose government will be elected as a result of free and transparent elections. I am not saying that this will happen from one day to the next, and starting on the first day. But I have seen these men enough, I have spoken with them enough, to know that this is undeniably the dream, the goal, the principle of legitimacy. I would add that this National Council of Transition does not represent, as I have read all too often, only Cyrnaica.* All of the regions are represented there. All the tribes. Including Gaddafi's tribe or the tribes that are allied with it.
GARDELS: President Obama has argued for action in Libya because Gaddafi is killing his own people. But so are they too in Bahrain and Yemen, Western allies in "the war on terror." Isn't there a case for intervention in those places as well?
BHL: Yes, certainly. But for now, let's take down Gaddafi. You shall see that this will serve as a warning for all the other dictators. We cannot intervene everywhere. But an intervention can set a tone, serve as an example and a dissuasive factor. If Gaddafi wins, it will be the death knell of the Arab spring. If he is beaten, a fair wind of democracy will blow once again -- and even harder.
GARDELS: What are the parallels, or lack of them, to Bosnia, Kosovo and, in the French case in particular, Rwanda?
BHL: The parallels are obvious. Beginning with the hatred of the cities, the urbicide temptation, that Gaddafi shares with the Serb Radovan Karadzic or the Hutu perpetrators of genocide. The difference is that in Bosnia, or Rwanda, it was allowed to happen. Whereas in this case, intervention was decided upon very rapidly. And that is to the honor, this time, of the international community.
(*Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.)
© 2011 GLOBAL VIEWPOINT NETWORK; DIST. BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES.
James Zogby: Libya, Congressional Critics and Lessons Not Learned
United States to bomb Iran on Israel's behalf for many years.
That fact cannot be disputed, neither can his highly selective human rights causes, directed at Iran and ignoring the suffering caused by his benefactors around the world.
It should be ALARMING to anyone paying close attention to Libya that BHL was in Libya on day one of their armed insurrection-revolution. That's too big a coincidence, considering that he is the intellectual Godfather of the neoconservative movement today.
It should be equally alarming the the French foreign minister is beside himself that Sarkozi and BHL were conducting private foreign policy behind the back of the foreign minister's office. This is identical to what happened when Colin Powell was irate that Doug Feith and the necons were conducting private foreign policy behind his back in the United States.
This is what we refer to as a "shaddow government". Liberals have been accusing necons of running think tank and industry funded private diplomacy in the shaddows since 2003. Here, we have another fine example. Had BHL not been so full of himself and willing to go on the record about it, we wouldn't even know. I'm sure Sarkozi knew the risk that BHL can't keep secrets.
BHL said he he knows the People enough. I guess, like President Bush was able to look into Putin's soul through his eyes, BHL has been able to do the same looking through the eyes of the Opposition.
He must be a good judge of Souls, if after discussing with the Opposition within a week, he was able to know their end game after Gadhafi ceases to be President.
We shall see what happens few years down the line. We shall know how much of a good judge BHL has been in dragging the world into this war.
Both are strong fighters for civil rights and strong proponents of Western intervention in the Balkans wars and in Darfur.
Both are also Socialists.
Both are confirmed and hardline Zionists, dedicated to Israel, but critical of the current government.
If I had to guess why BHL opposed the Iraq invasion, it was probably because he foresaw its failure from day one, whereas Kouchner was hopeful of its success. My feeling is that both men want the same thing and are sort of liberal neocons.
And yet, I, a fierce opponent of Israel (as well as of Hamas and Hezbullah) agreed with them on the Balkan wars and only wish, like they, that the US-led international intervention had occurred BEFORE the massacres of civilian populations because it could have save at least 500,000 lives and bitterness that will probably lead to wars in future generations!
On the Libyan intervention, I trust BHL's view of the Libyan rebels. As a Jew and fierce defender of democracy, he has zero reason to claim that the Libyan insurgents are democratic when, in fact, they are Islamic terrorists, perhaps linked to al-qaeda, as some opponents of this venture conveniently want to believe.
I also trust BHL's political judgement more than I do Kouchner, and I suspect so does Sarkozy, which is why he supported this operation.
But we shall see in very short order: Either the insurgents will quickly beat the govt troops, despite their heavy artillery and tank advantage, given their superior willingness to fight and their air cover OR, this will turn into a prolonged conflict that could only hurt the alllies' and rebels' cause, not to mention, set back the cause of democracy in the Arab world.
My bet is that this will be over by mid-summer at the latest!
Link: http://french-foreign-legion.com/
More Coffee...
R/ PRONESE
Libya is going to be a failure for the Presidents of France and the USA. The continued fighting will result in French forces having to help the Arabs who are on one hand freedom fighters and on the other rebels attacking their own country who had failed, as do most rebellions, until the big boys attacked on humanitarian terms.
The government of Libya told the rebels if they did not surrender the military would attack and kill any and all who opposed them. This would mean the destruction of the cities they were hiding in and destroying each block when attacked. To the world this was a declaration of willingness to destroy an entire tribe. The reality was a statement of what may happen because you have become traitors against the country and government. Stop, give up the leaders and it would not happen. The war would have been over and oil flowing. France, who is interested in expansion thinks it can now take North Africa. I suspect ten time the number of civilian deaths will occur until the Arabs in North Africa again throw the colonial Europeans and possibly US military out.
But, in regards to "who gets helped and who doesn't" I think there is a lot more involved than is reported. Every country in the UN has different relationships with every other country. Through trade, history, treaties, past dis agreements etc... Wading through all of that in order to determine when and where and who in situations like this must be quite a difficult task. The news in its ever ending quest to keep things interesting, I think, because its boring. Or because they genuinely just aren't privy to that information.
There is also the fact, and this is my cynical side coming out, that all of our governments are designed and conspiring at all times to keep the public in the dark about most of what goes on.
I do genuinely believe that matters such as these are extremely complicated though and personally I don't envy anyone in charge of making those decisions.
Our founding fathers were unique because they were idealistic enough to give us freedom. A lot of freedom in fact. Idealism, when it meets reality, forces us to live somewhere in the middle. Without idealism I think this world would be a much worse place than it is.
BHL, the enabler of NATO and Israel's massacres might as well as have said I saw their souls and it was good a la Bush over Putin.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, until February 22, 2011 was the Minister of Justice in the Libyan government
And General Younis, the rebel commander was the Minister of State Security (and one of the original coup plotter with Quadaffi back in 1969)
Of course BHL has to bring Munich and Hitler, why is he not talking about France and its own genocides (Vietnam and Algeria) and all of its interventions in Africa to propup various dictators or its involvement in the Rwanda civil wars supporting the Hutus.
The UN resolution is now transformed into "Regime Change".
Note that the telephones are still working. So much for warring on civilians. And where are the pictures of apartments destroyed by the Libyan military. It is easy to find those pictures for Grozny in Chechnya. And where was BHL and France then?
Of course people do not agree with BHL MUST have some political ulterior motives. But not BHL or France (despite their long records of advocating repression)
BHL is already warning us: After the West wins do not expect quick changes.
And do not expect NATO or France to protect civilians in Bahrain or Ivory Coast or Gabon or Congo (it is only 6 Million dead).
What hypocrisy.
- Bonjour, Hillary, can you clarify us the position of your government about the possibility of replacing Gadahfi in Libya?
- To tell you the truth, pas la moindre idée. . . . . read the rest http://robbingamerica.blogspot.com/2011/03/financial-reform-bill-just-as-bad-or.html