Intervene now!

Exterminate the entire existing Libyan population.

Settle Israelis in resort towns along the coast and divide the interior between the major energy companies.

Simple!

“One thing supporters of liberal intervention in 2003 did, as part of their campaign to convince the left they were right, was try and forget that it was a US neo-con Christian with a history in oil deals taking forces into Iraq.”

Why would anyone try to make anyone else forget that Bush was a born again with a history in the oil industry? Although he wasn’t a neo-con as such. You think that Bush was worse than Saddam? If not, what did it matter?

“For them, it didn’t matter who was going to take out Saddam Hussein, just as long as somebody did; their left wing credentials, they supposed, were still intact. Unfortunately for them they were wrong. So should there be similar concerns about Libya?”

Yeah funny about that. Someone might think that you’re claiming Bush was worse than Saddam. How precisely would a pro-Christian, pro-neo-con government in Iraq be anything but an improvement? They were not proved wrong. The people who demonised Bush were. He did not steal their oil. He did not impose a peace treaty with Israel. All he did was give the people of Iraq a chance to vote.

“In 2004 the UK forgave Gaddafi; he was an ally in the fight against Al Qaeda, and was halting development of weapons of mass destruction. Blair liked that.”

As he should. Giving up their WMD programme was a big freakin’ deal. We would be talking about a very different sort of insurgency if Gaddafi had nuclear weapons.

“According to Sergei Shashkov, an independent columnist for New Eastern Outlook:”

In other words, in an attempt to smear Bush you’re forced to rely on a source so fringe that it comes from the fringes of a post-Soviet society in collapse. Great.

“For the West, the prospect of a substantial increase in oil prices and limited access to rich oil deposits while Gadhafi remained in power with contracts in hand for advanced Russian weapons systems was simply too much.”

And so …..? The insurgency is all an American plot is it? Evidence?

“The UK, as everywhere else, should recognise the National Transition Council (as France has done)”

The NTC is going to be hanging from lamp posts by the end of the month. They had their chance. We had our chance to support them. Gaddafi’s army seems to have got their act together and failing mass desertions (something most former Soviet allies were taught to punish by the mass execution of relatives), they will win.

“and foreign presence in Libya should be at the beck and call of the rebels, in order to prove this isn’t racist paternalism in action”

That is precisely what they should not be. British soldiers sign up to fight for Britain. Not for some rebel leaders. We should have no part in taking orders from these people. If the Left has problems with their own guilt, I suggest they learn to deal with it.

“I despair at UK complicity in picking and choosing what interventions are worth engaging in, to prevent systematic violation of fundamental human rights, based upon what appears like mitigating massive fluctuations in oil prices.”

So do I, so do I.

“Doing nothing is no longer an option. The NFZ is a good start.”

So you do support blood for oil?

Good article.

On the other hand, I think you’re expecting too much when you
“despair at UK complicity in picking and choosing what interventions are worth engaging in, to prevent systematic violation of fundamental human rights, based upon what appears like mitigating massive fluctuations in oil prices. ”

Humanitarian concerns for Kurds and regime opponents led many people to hitch a moral ride on GW’s M1 Abrams tanks. Even those of us who knew that Iraq was three disparate provinces yoked together even under the Ottomans, and that, as in Lebanon, the oppressed majority was likely to find its voice under the auspices of organizations more in tune with Iran than with the West, did not grasp the fact that the US and UK leaders had no plans for an effective occupation.

It is sometimes in the interests of modern European states that humanitarian or more democratic values prevail on our doorstep and where we want to do business – especially if we get to be associated with the establishment of those values in the foreign countries concerned, or at the UN and other regional bodies.

I think that’s the best we can hope for. Even NATO’s stance against the Serbs was not primarily a humanitarian concern, but it had to serve some humanitarian purpose to get clearance in the court of public opinion.

If the disaster of the Iraqi occupation can be put to any good use, it is surely that we can now insist on more elaborate assurances from our leaders that the people whom we are about to expose to the risk of collateral damage will be better off at the end of the intervention than they were before.

Yeah funny about that. Someone might think that you’re claiming Bush was worse than Saddam.

Er, no. Disregarding their respective ethics (and, after reading some of Decision Points, I can’t shake the popular opinion that Prez Bush was an eejit) this doesn’t make sense. Imagine that a serial killer has boarded himself inside a building with a gun and three innocent people. If an alcoholic bent copper was spearheading the rescue mission you wouldn’t be saying he’s as depraved if you opposed him.

They were not proved wrong. The people who demonised Bush were. He did not steal their oil. He did not impose a peace treaty with Israel. All he did was give the people of Iraq a chance to vote.

And now tens of thousands have perished and millions are refugees while its government still tortures and closes unions. Can I get a hoo-rah? No.

“foreign power will taint the revolution”

A very successful revolution, the American one, made no bones about getting help from the French, who had its own imperialist dog in that particular fight.

And I would make a guess that if the “foreign powers” weren’t western, the people who say that wouldn’t be so sensitive to their tainting powers.

“A pivotal moment came in January 2009 when Gadhafi announced that Libya might nationalize foreign oil companies if the price of oil on the world market increased to $100 per barrel. He added that prices at that level would let Libya control its oil industry without foreign involvement and stressed that “nationalization is our legal right”.”

Shows that Ghaddafi is even more of an idiot than I thought he was.

For yes, governments do have the right to nationalise. But they also have the duty to pay compensation when they do. And the higher the oil price at the moment of nationalisation, the higher that compensation they would have to fork out.

When oil is $10 a barrel is when to nationalise, not when it’s $100.

“A pivotal moment came in January 2009 when Gadhafi announced that Libya might nationalize foreign oil companies if the price of oil on the world market increased to $100 per barrel. He added that prices at that level would let Libya control its oil industry without foreign involvement and stressed that “nationalization is our legal right”.”

This is bollox. It was in fact because the oil price had dropped right down that Gadafi was talking about nationalisation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/21/us-libya-gaddafi-oil-idUSTRE50K61F20090121

“They were not proved wrong. The people who demonised Bush were. He did not steal their oil. He did not impose a peace treaty with Israel. All he did was give the people of Iraq a chance to vote.”

“And now tens of thousands have perished and millions are refugees while its government still tortures and closes unions. Can I get a hoo-rah? No.”

Ben Six – what about over 75% of people in Iraq under death threats went and voted in consecutive general and provincial elections –

Yes people died – and I too agree a big mistake was made by Paul Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi Police and Iraqi National Army – If he did not the bloodshed would have been definitely less and democratic Iraq could have had some public administration infrastructure to build upon.

However, mistakes following the invasion does not automatically repel the arguments for the invasion.

We have a choice – and there is a very clear choice:

Either we choose to live in a world where we accept ethnic cleansing should continue and despotic regimes that kill and torture thousands of its own people or we don’t

If we don’t we all realise we cannot invade China or Russia – and despite all their failings those governments have not been brutal as Saddam Hussein or even Mugabe. China, even with its history of Tianamen Square have done a lot to life millions of people out of poverty and does not go discrminately killing people just because they are tibetan or Han chinese etc etc.

But where there is ethnic cleansing going on – where the State is using heavy weaponry to kill thousands of its own people to oppose its own rules – yes we as the international community do have a moral responsibility to act.

Although enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human rights, this was challenged by many idiots including George Galloway and loonies such as yourself – but in 2008, the UN Secretary General along with the Pope called for something as ” the Right to Protect” – pretty much using the same arguments of Blair in his 1999 “liberal intervention” speech- where they argued there is a moral imperative to intervene.

It is coming from the UN secretary general – but the UN as an institution is flawed because with China and Russia having veto powers – it would never allow any intervention on human rights ground considering their own dubious record.

In fact Bosnia/Kosovo was not authorised by The UN Security Council either – and I think and the vast majority of the people in the world think that was the right thing to do – otherwise we were letting Kosovar Muslims being annihilated for the crimes of being Muslim and nothing else.

Similarly, today many Libyans are going to be tortured and crushed under tanks because of their audacity to question one man/family’s autocratic rule – and you say we have no right to intervene.

The world said the same thing when thousands and thousands of Kurds were killed by Chemical Ali using nerve gases including many many children and women.

And you and your lot (the loony left led by the self loathing industry builders of George Monbiot and Seamus Milne) think you are morally superior and the morality is your monopoly – think again.

Using hyperbolic rhetoric and being sarcastic is well and good and might get you slaps on the back from the loonies such as yourself but trust me doesn’t give you an iota of credibility beyond that church where self laothing is more important than what is right.

We cannot police the world ourselves but where we can and get enough support to do the right thing – we should and we must.

@8 shamit

Well said.

Just as hard cases make bad law, the fact that neo-con freaks managed to construct a flawed case to stage an unnecessary invasion of Iraq, and then compounded their stupidity and arrogance by making a hash of it, does not forever obviate the requirement to take action where it is feasible.

Shamit – The irony of your overwrought, moralistic rants against my, er – overwrought moralism is so nad-cripplingly evident that it could be presented to Alanis Morissette for education. What have I got to do with Sheamus Milne? Who said I’m on “the left”? Who knows. But at least don’t follow this stream of abuse with a critique of my “hyperbolic rhetoric”; these ribs can’t bear the strain.

(Sarcasm? Well, fair enough.)

The important thing about a “responsibility to protect” is that it doesn’t imply a “responsibility to act”. If one’s actions, or those of another, wouldn’t benefit the victims of scenario X an intervention wouldn’t be protecting them at all. So, if our serial killer has taken people hostage you’d wouldn’t be abrogating a responsibility to protect by not blundering in and putting all their lives at risk. Without much desire to sound like a pretentious sack of shit it should be consequentialist, not deontological.

That’s why the Iraq invasion wasn’t worth supporting and that’s why – though I’ve got no cast-iron opinions myself as I’m no expert on Libya, nor a strategist and nor, well, someone who sees the point – there’s no shame in not demanding intervention here. It’s not ideological fanaticism but pragmatic scepticism – which, as I’ve said, is the same reason that you wouldn’t demand action over North Korea.

If we do intervene, it shouldn’t be about evening the sides. Douglas Hurd was wrong about pretty much everything to do with Bosnia, but he had a point in that it’s not a good thing to create a level killing field.

Intervention has to give the rebels the ability to take out Gaddafi quickly, or it’s just enabling a longer civil war.

@10 Ben Six

“…..which, as I’ve said, is the same reason that you wouldn’t demand action over North Korea.”

No, it isn’t the same thing at all because intervention in N. Korea would very likely end in WW3. The situations aren’t the same at all. There are tens of thousands of US troops in S. Korea, Seoul is close to the border, and N. Korea has missiles capable of reaching Japan and other neighbouring states.

There is shame in opposing intervention in Libya if it involves standing by and watching thousands die the way we did in Bosnia, Kossovo and Kurdistan.

@ 11

Yes, he was wrong on that too. Arming the Bosnians wouldn’t have levelled the killing field, it would have prevented the Serbs butchering near defenceless Bosnian Muslims and Croats…… much the same as will happen in Libya, and has been happening to the anti-Gaddafi forces facing jets, tanks and heavy artillery with kalashnikovs. It’s not rocket science guys; either arm them, help them, or accept your giving Gaddafi a free reign to take them out.

12 – The risks are different but the principle, that it’s unclear if intervention would be harmful or good, is the same. Would inaction be shameful if there was a worthwhile strategy? Yes, I quite agree. But I’m not fit to judge and, frankly, nor are people who (correctly) fume against Gaddafi but don’t offer valuable tactics.

(Correction: the principle’s not quite the same as intervention would be of obvious harm in North Korea. What I mean is that they’re judgements based upon utility, not ideology.)

Dammit, Galen, hold your horses.

Perhaps there are good reasons why the big powers are doing very little to solve Libya, apart from the fact that it is Libya’s internal affairs. Russia would like a high oil price and a few good conflicts in the middle east ensure that. China doesn’t care about sanctions so if Gaddaffi wins China is the only one buying their oil. And the USA might have decided not to interfere to prove to the world that a bloodbath ensues from not interfering. There might be all sorts of agendas out there it’s just a shame that possibly hundreds of thousands of Libyans will probably be murdered by Gaddaffi to meet these agendas.

@14 Ben Six

“The risks are different but the principle, that it’s unclear if intervention would be harmful or good, is the same. Would inaction be shameful if there was a worthwhile strategy? Yes, I quite agree. But I’m not fit to judge and, frankly, nor are people who (correctly) fume against Gaddafi but don’t offer valuable tactics.”

Nobody can, or indeed should, claim to have all the answers; there are many possible outcomes. All that can reasonably be done is to make the best judgement you can after weighing up the options. There are “valuable tactics” which can be advanced upto and including troops on the ground (altho’ I think there is little appetite for that).

The thing is that relatively restricted action now is “likely” tho’ by no means guaranteed to avoid much more serious instability and loss of life later. The costs of not taking action in my view outweigh the risks, and are likely to result in the scale of disaster seen in Bosnia if Gaddafi isn’t stopped. By the same token, the invasion of Iraq was wrong because not only was the premise flawed, but the risks far outweighed the potential benefit, and there was no coherent strategy for what happened after (indeed Rumsfeld and his cronies explicityl repudiated the very detailed State Department plan, thus helping to sow the wind…).

You may not be fit to judge, but others are going to have to. History will (indeed already has in my view) judge those who allowed the Serbs free reign in Bosnia and Kossovo harshly. Similarly, only the most blinkered neo-cons and Blairite ultras actually believe the Iraq fiasco was a good idea.

Burke (probably never) said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

@16 VE Bott

“Dammit, Galen, hold your horses.”

Why? What is it about the pace or direction of my horses you disagree with exactly?

Whilst this is a horrible situation, in the end the choices are fairly simple. We (meaning the international community as a whole, not just the UK) can either:

1) do nothing, and just see how the situation develops. The smart money in this scenario must be on the anti-Gaddafi uprising being crushed, thousands dying in the violence, and thousands more of his opponents being killed, disappeared or imrisoned afterwards;

2) provide tea and sympathy, aid to refugees, freeze Gaddafi’s assets, tell him he’s a rotten cad, stop selling him arms and signing contracts to help his oil industry etc. Likely outcome…. see 1 above, but we’ll all feel a little less guilty;

3) try to put together some limited military intervention, hopefully involving the UN and or Arab states, with western countries taking a back seat; recognise the National Committee, impose a NFZ, arm the rebels, impose a blocakde on Gaddafi held territory etc. Likely outcome: people will still die, but hopefully not as many – Gaddafi won’t be able to ride into Benghazi on a golf buggy and institute some intensive “re-education” for the drug crazed, al-Qaeeda supporting dupes of western imperialism he tells us are in charge there;

4) we go a bit “shock and awe” on his ass. Not that likely given our track record in Iraq.

Seems to me that some varaint of 3 above would be preferable, and that it wouldn’t be too wise to take months organising it if we don’t want to see sme strange fruit hanging from the lamp-posts of Bengahzi.

Feel free to suggest something you feel is more sensible however.

@19 Well, them’s some interesting strategic manouvres, General Maximus. I like the odd game of Risk too, but I’d be slower to move men and fighter jets around than counters.

What happens if the NFZ is put in place, and then option 1) happens anyway? You know, uprising crushed, thousands dying in the violence, and thousands more rebels being killed, disappeared or imrisoned afterwards, with a load of NATO jets banging around achieving not a lot over the bloodshed?

Because at the moment, it seems to me that that’s a lot more likely than 3), at present. If that’s the case, maybe we could dial back tha Morals Outrage! to a vaguely bearable level?

@ 20 flyingrodent

I don’t think a NFZ alone would be a good idea; it would have to be backed up with other measures to stop Gaddafi’s forces simply steamrollering over the opposition, in much the same way the Serbs did in Bosnia, since they had the overwhelming superiority in armour, heavy artillery and (initially) air power.

Agreed, 1) *could* still happen if they tried the option of a NFZ with no way of stopping Gaddafi’s armour, transport and heavy weapons. It is much less likely to happen if the rebels are given more material support, both in terms or armaments and C3 by outside forces.

I still say 3) is entirely practicable, and that we can and should do everything we can to avoid 1). This rather presupposes not wringing our hands, and having endless debates about the danger of another Iraq / getting bogged down / armageddon / losing our left wing credentials.

Frankly, I’m unconcerned by the fact you find the volume of my moral outrage unbearable. I think it is probably more appropriate than your apparent willingness to tolerate a continuing bloodbath because you have qualms we might be moving too fast; I doubt the anti-gaddafi forces share your patience.

Absolutely nobody in government is talking about the kind of military operation you’re laying out here, General Ripper, sir. There is exactly no chance of an aggressive intervention against Gaddafi’s forces.

To be clear – you’re advocating a pie-in-the-sky military assault that even you know full well won’t happen; making grandiose claims about its hypothetical prospects for theoretical success and loudly urinating over the suggestion that this fantasy bombardment may create unforeseen difficulties.

Your wildly overblown Morals Outrage! is the least comical thing about your comments, General sir. It’s a good bit less ridiculous than your total indifference to reality, your hostility to the threat of punctures in your little Guns ‘n’ Ammo bubble and your jumped-up Why do you love murdering civilians cabaret act.

If you’d like to push little soldiers around a board, I suggest that this…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon:_Total_War

…Would be rather more appropriate for you than accusing everyone who doesn’t buy your fantastical schemes of personally crapping on the dead.

@ 22 flyingrodent

Oh do get off your high high horse. If you allow the red mist of righteousness to clear for a while, you will see that I’ve never said I thought it was likely. I’m under no illusion that our leaders, whether at the UN, NATO, the EU or Westminster will “do the right thing”.

However, saying it won’t happen is a brave prediction on your part. I wouldn’t have thought the Arab League would have taken the action they have, so who knows what more will change? It is of course entirely possible that everything will turn out rosy, and Gadaffi will do nothing. It’s more likely perhaps he will kill a lot more of his own people.

I don’t see your arguments in particular as any threat to what you call my “bubble”, mostly because your arguments have no substance. You haven’t advanced any convincing counter arguments to the points above… merely the usual; “oh, it’s all too difficult, let’s just do nothing….” mantra beloved of so many clueless knee-jerk non-interventionists.

If you are right, and there is effectively zero chance of any intervention… why aren’t you outraged too?

11:07 am, March 13, 20112. So Much For Subtlety

I think you’ll find in quoting from that very useful article by Sergei Shashkov I was demonstrating the long and dubious history of oily money, that affected business interests between Libya and the West. In so doing, I was illustrating that oil has always been a gamechanger in the nature of relations between Libya and the West, and though this *could* be the impetus with which the West chooses to pursue operations in Libya today, this should not necessarily deter us from supporting it, but it does prove problematic for calling it “humanitarian intervention”. As it stands, though there’s reasonable historical grounds to suspect the West of having alterior motives, we cannot so far substantiate upon them, so at this point I’ve no doubt measures called for within the UNSC are to avert humanitarian crisis. Certainly this is what I’m positively in favour of.

– So you do support blood for oil?
Er, no.

@Galen

Syntax, not politics, I’m afraid. Hold your horses… as in rein them in?

@Carl

But if you follow the link to Reuters in @7, you’ll see that the article you quoted is fundamentally flawed. It claims that Gadafi threatened to nationalise the oil in January 09 because it was reaching a high, when it fact it was at a low, and that was what he was complaining about.

The article is interesting about the arms sales though, IF it’s correct.. People often put too high a premium on oil as motivator for US policy. What they really want to do is screw everybody who buys Russian rather than US weapons. That’s why Serbia got bombed. The Albanian Kosovar’s were just the pretext.

24. Carl – “I think you’ll find in quoting from that very useful article by Sergei Shashkov I was demonstrating the long and dubious history of oily money, that affected business interests between Libya and the West.”

I am sure that article is very useful, I just doubt it is very accurate. Quoting Soviet, or former Soviet, sources, especially in fringe publications even for the former Soviet Union proves little.

Given that the rest of the comments based on it are just as dubious.

For what it’s worth, I think there should be intervention. Allowing Gaddafi to storm into Benghazi and kill half the population in retaliation for their disloyalty (as he probably will, if allowed to do so) would be appalling. I think the population of the Muslim world would also see it as appalling.

Ideally, we’d have a limited intervention which would turn the tide against Gaddafi’s forces, but not involve us occupying the country and/or taking over the Libyan economy.

I appreciate this is a naive expectation: if the intervention is on such a scale to allow it, Western leaders will obviously seek a pre-election ‘recovery plan’, probably involving a gargantuan tax-free bonanza with oil concessions and massive privatisation.

But for all that, if no-one intervenes, the situation could be immeasurably worse.

But, Jungle, the population growth of Libya has been phenomenal.

Surely the old way of population control, back in the days of the Four Horsemen, was the ideal. You know, Plague and War and Famine and the other Horseman [not Obesity, that's for sure.]

Why would you care one way or the other if the population of Cyrenaica were halved? Or quartered?

Or if Cyrenaica and the Fezzan were to be seized by Egypt?

Libya comprises 6.4 million people. GDP per head is estimated at $14,000.

The GDP per head is sufficient to be considered by exclusive clubs such as the EU. Turkey has a similar GDP per head to Libya. Turkey cannot be accepted by the EU until it consistently acts as a liberal nation.

Libya has a chance, post war. So long as it remains free from internal conflict, Libya could join clubs.

Carl, I find your logic a bit strange. The real reason to attack Qadhafi was likely his decision to expand local share of oil profits from 50 something to 80% on reservoirs controlled by foreign companies. So do you distinguish the rights of Libyan workers and the rights of British workers?