Yes, I remember all of these things and worse being said about the Germans after they wisely decided to keep out of our Iraq debacle. How fiery was the denunciation; how high was the horse mounted, and the finger! So waggy.

I’m a little surprised that people who should know better didn’t learn their lesson then, before going all finger-waggy again this time. I’m doubly surprised that anyone would lecture the Germans over their “credibility”, after the coalition have just spent an entire week squabbling about who’s in charge, and long after it’s become apparent that they’ve entered this war without a damn clue how to finish it or what an acceptable outcome would even look like.

God knows why I’m surprised, mind. Ever thus.

Well in the light of the fact that William Hague is now calling on Nato to takeover Libya, I think Germany may have been right.

This has mission creep written all over it.

For my part, I certainly think they were wrong to abstain: from the statements they made, it was clear that a No vote would have been a more honest representation of their opinion.

We can all excuse the fact that, with their history, they’re reluctant to make a decision and take responsibility for it – but in that case, why did they accept a seat on the Security Council, and why do they want to make it into a permanent one?

One of the less appealing aspects of German politics over the last few years is the revising of the lesson German politicians learnt from an earlier war in which it was involved: do not go marauding into other countries. I only wish that British politicians, and those in other countries too, would heed by that lesson. Calling it ‘peacekeeping’ or ‘humanitarian intervention’ (pretty sick after Iraq) is no justification. This latest adventure in Libya looks like going the same way as Afghanistan or Iraq: an easy bashing of the ‘baddie’, a whole lot of uncertain consequences.

In the news on Thursday night:

“DERAA, Syria (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad made an unprecedented pledge of greater freedom and more prosperity to Syrians Thursday as anger mounted following a crackdown on protesters that left at least 37 dead. … ”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324

“Reuters) – Syrian authorities have arrested leading rights activist Mazen Darwish, an outspoken critic of Syria’s record on freedom of expression, a rights group said on Thursday.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/syria-activist-arrest-idUSLDE72N1ZL20110324

What measures will we, France and America be taking to deal with Assad’s authoritarian regime in Syria?

@5

Perhaps if the UN calls for action in Syria we could leave it to the Germans to sort out… ?

If we take no current action for measures to deal with authoritarian regimes in Syria – or in Bahrain and in the Yemen – we are effectively abstaining, just as Germany – with Russia and China – abstained in the UN Security Council vote on Libya. But then we effectively also stood back and did nothing about continuing conflicts in Algeria (estimated 160,000 killed) and DR Congo (estimated over 5 million killed).

At the street level in Arab countries, many will likely speculate about the motives for the selection of countries in which British governments choose to intervene.

Possibly one consideration of the Germany government is that the national population there includes 4.3 million Muslims (5.4% of the total).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Germany

Colonel Gaddaffi is advancing brutally against his own people who are trying to make the Arab Spring bloom in Lybia.

Did you used to write Hovis ads?

A nation who want to gain enough credibility to take a permanent seat on the UNSC does not abstain because it might create some local difficulties in local elections. Abstaining is cowardly and was quite different from China and Russia withholding their veto power. I agree with Joschka Fischer who said that the abstention had cost Germany any chance of a permanent seat.

I agree with Joschka Fischer who said that the abstention had cost Germany any chance of a permanent seat.

I think we can all agree that the German government was disgustingly selfish and cowardly when refused to vote for a war that it doesn’t believe in, even though it meant passing up a large political advantage. Damn, they are so very irresponsible and unprincipled.

Truly, things have come to a pretty pass when a country won’t take actions it considers counterproductive and destructive to others, not even out of sheer self-interest.

There are good clear reasons for being against intervention in Libya as the experience from the first Iraq war onwards have demonstrated, including the imposition of the no fly zone in Iraq. Whether you agree with those reasons or not saying that because Germany has made a decision that is different to one that you agree with means that Germany should lose its place at the table seems completely nonsensical to me.

Kevin

As I recall, the performance of the economies of the West German Bundesrepublik and Japan post-WW2 was rather impressive despite neither country being permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Neither country had much of an armaments industry either but their respective electronics, engineering and automotive industries certainly flourished better than Britain’s.

10. flyingrodent

” I think we can all agree that the German government was disgustingly selfish and cowardly when refused to vote for a war that it doesn’t believe in ”

Except, they do believe in the UN resolution. However, they want someone else to so it.

” Berlin – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Germany supported the aims of a United Nations resolution to use military force against the regime of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi.

‘The German government unreservedly supports the targets of this resolution,’ Merkel told parliament. “

Now that the French have become the poodle of Washington, at least Germany are prepared to stand up and not be counted. Considering Russia and China’s lack of veto, it doesn’t make much difference that they merely abstained.

The ‘Arab Spring’?
Almost as putrid as that filth known as ‘Press TV’ and their ‘Islamic Awakening’ moniker.

Seeing as most of these dictators will be replaced by hardline Islamists who are as far away from liberal as you can get….I fail to see any kind of spring here.
I see a chilling medieval winter.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/praveenswami/100081117/the-humanitarian-hazard-what-if-rebels-cause-carnage-in-order-to-force-us-to-intervene/

waits for Galen to tell me that I am dancing on the graves of innocent Libyans…

@16

“waits for Galen to tell me that I am dancing on the graves of innocent Libyans…”

If the cap fits diogenes…?

You’ve spent the past few weeks pedalling the same line that intervention would be a disaster, and your theory that it will make things worse. This apparently justifies enabling Gaddafi to carry on his butchery, on the basis that the west isn’t morally entitled to intervene (bu then neither are the other Arabs)… so in the meantime, your only “solution” is to tell Gaddafi to hekp himself.

Oh….and linking to anything in the Telegraph!! Are you for real? A Tory AND a cheerleader for Gaddafi…. what a piece of work you are.

Perhaps the solution to the vexed question of the UNSC and the power of the veto is to expand the Security Council to 20 permanent members (the G20 perhaps) and abolish the veto altogether. Then the council should take decisions by majority or qualified majority…. simple really. Then the UN can take decisions based on international law without the fear of the USA, the Europeans, Russia or China blocking progress for their selfish national interests?

Oh….and linking to anything in the Telegraph!!

I think you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel in terms of coherent argument, mate.

Did you actually read the link?

Because the article fully explains why the stance you have taken on this issue is so misguided.

Perhaps the solution to the vexed question of the UNSC and the power of the veto is to expand the Security Council to 20 permanent members (the G20 perhaps) and abolish the veto altogether. Then the council should take decisions by majority or qualified majority…. simple really.

Great idea.

Then we could have a new war every week!!!!!!

19 pagar

I’d no more read the Telegraph than I would Der Sturmer, far less expect it to be right.

Perhaps your horizons are so limited that you “think” one article in a vicious Tory rag “fully explains” anything… don’t expect everyone else on LC to take you (or the article) seriously tho!

Germany should have voted against this brutalist folly.

@20 pagar

“Great idea. Then we could have a new war every week!!!!!!”

Well, at least it would provide the ideological purity the non-interventionists crave?
We keep getting reminded about the double standards involved, and why the west can’t be trusted (or indeed the Russians or the Chinese when it suits their purposes…).

But if people aren’t going to come up with an alternative…..?

If people don’t want narrow national interests to govern in situations like these, they either have to give the authority to a beefed-up UN which has the moral and military resources to do the job, rely on a few nations to do it themselves or with allies either with or without the UN, or simply do nothing.

I’d actually prefer the first option. Perhaps the Germans and people who feel the same way should be pushing for real change, rather than just taking the easy way out and abstaining, whilst saying behind their hands that actually they fully suport intervention.

@ 22 Briar

“Germany should have voted against this brutalist folly.”

So whilst Germany hides behind the skirts of the grown ups… perhaps you’d like to enlighten us as to how you would have stopped the situation in Bengahzi last weekend descending into a bloodbath?

Or are you just another “whaddabouter” content to see thousands die on the basis that we haven’t done enough in other areas, so it’s musch better just to let Gaddafi have his way?

The troops of Gaddafi are not monsters they are men women in the military, even after the German war people were saying look these were just ordinary people before that they were a new alien group of Nazi’s.

This idea that Gaddafi is an evil monster my god is he really then why is it all the leaders of the world flocked to his table.

I really love it last night we attacked ground troops killed many, but lets see in four or five years time how many of us will be saying God help us even Gaddfi did not do this or that.

lets see were Iraq ends up now the Yanks have done the deals for the Oil.

Lets see how Afghanistan ends up.

After all I watched Blair kiss Gaddafi on both cheeks and tell us he was a hero for his people….

@25 Robert

“Carrying out orders” is no more a defence for Gaddafi’s forces than it was for German soldiers carrying out illegal orders.

Many of the leaders of the world did flock to his table when they thought he was (potentially) going to turn away from his previous policies of actively supporting and arming terrorist groups and pursuing programmes to acquire WMD’s. Sadly, a good proportion of the world’s countries are run by dictators; we can either have nothing to do with them, or engage with them. Historically, very few have been totally isolated, even when they probably should have been.

Your “whatiffery” about the future has a mjor flaw: the future isn’t ours to see. Being hamstrung by fears of future bogey men is a recipe for allowing mass murder. It wasn’t right in the past, it isn’t right now.

Gaddafi is a hero to some of his people: that doesn’t make propping up his government the right thing to do. Some Germans supported Hitler right up until the Russians were shelling the Reichstag; many Chinese people support the Communist party in spite of Tienanmin Square; plenty of Serbs still think Milosovic and Karadjic are heroes. We all recall gorgeous George Galloway heaping praise on Saddam. Times change.

I’d no more read the Telegraph than I would Der Sturmer, far less expect it to be right.

I suggest you brush up on your Orwell. Or just grow up a touch, whichever suits.

@27 Tim J

The type of “grown ups” I’ve seen who read and agree with the Torygraph aren’t people I’d want to associate with… anymore than those who read the Mail; why is that so difficult to understand?

@ Gallen

If people don’t want narrow national interests to govern in situations like these, they either have to give the authority to a beefed-up UN which has the moral and military resources to do the job, rely on a few nations to do it themselves or with allies either with or without the UN, or simply do nothing.

Your memory is satisfactorily under control but you got there in the end……………

Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge, which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.

28 – Equating the Telegraph with Der Sturmer is more than a bit twattish. And, as I said, Orwell is rather sounder on this than you are.

@29 pagar

Yes, very sixth form lit-crit., and entirely predictable of course. As trite as the rest of your views; stun us with another.

You still haven’t addressed the issue tho have you (again.. entirely true to form….).

If you disagree with intervention in this case (or indeed others) what would you actually suggest? The current way of organising things obviously doesn’t work, and simply letting things take their course seems rather callous….. so if we aren’t prepared to surrender some sovereignty to a supra-national authority, your answer is what? Splendid isolation?

@ 30 Tim J

I wouldn’t want to read either. That doesn’t mean I don’t see any differences between the two. I realise that Mein Kampf and John Major’s autobiography aren’t the same too… I can still find both distasteful.

The current way of organising things obviously doesn’t work, and simply letting things take their course seems rather callous…..

It does, but history tells us that the unintended consequences of intervention almost always produce worse outcomes in the medium and long term.

The cure is considerably more damaging than if the malady had been allowed to run its course.

@33 pagar

I suppose that’s the issue in a nutshell.

“The cure is considerably more damaging than if the malady had been allowed to run its course.”

You see the imminent death of thousands of people in a much more sanguine way than I do. Perhaps your view of realpolitik demands it, and you can live with the virtually inevitable aftermath of a decision not to intervene in Libya late last week.

Much the same argument was made previously in Bosnia; fail to intervene early enough because everyone is too busy having “angels on a pin head”arguments, and trying to second guess the future, then when it’s gotten really messy and lots of people are dead, intervene too late and half heartedly…. then use the mess as a post-hoc rationale for why we were right to be so cautious in the first place.

The unintended consequences argument is really just a cop out. None of us know which of the many possible “future histories” will actually come to pass. For all any of us know, the risks of not intervening could be higher.

Your approach really amounts to nothing much more than sitting back and waiting for them to exhaust themselves.

@1: “Yes, I remember all of these things and worse being said about the Germans after they wisely decided to keep out of our Iraq debacle. How fiery was the denunciation; how high was the horse mounted, and the finger! So waggy.”

LOL! An important current clue about straws in the wind is that while NATO has readily agreed to take on the responsibility for maintaining the NFZ over Libya, there is no reported agreement on responsibility for other military operations, the command-and-control of which stays with the coalition of America-Britain-France.

As we learned from reports of the operation to rescue those two fliers from the crashed USAF F-15 fighter plane, American boots are already on the ground in Libya:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/03/marines-libya-rescue-f-15-odyssey-dawn-032211/

@34: “Your approach really amounts to nothing much more than sitting back and waiting for them to exhaust themselves.”

Just as we stood by and waited for events to unfold in Algeria, DR Congo and Zimbabwe etc without intervening – as well as the repression in Tibet and the continuing construction of illegal settlements on Israel’s occupied territories in Palestine which blocks the Palestine peace process. British governments are very selective about where they choose to intervene so few believe the claimed high-blown motives about humanitarian concerns and the potential threats to Britain’s security.

@35 Bob B

So you think we should have taken on China over Tibet then…. or perhaps have told them to sling their hooks when they came for Hong Kong? Similarly I’d like to see the Israelis accept the pre-1967 borders…but I can just imagine the sqeals of protest from the non-intervension brigade when we have to start taking on the Israeli military to enforce it.

I agree that “we” as in the international community should have had the likes of Mugabe behind bars by now (not that the South Africans seem to keen to do anything constructive to help….), perhaps even the Burmese junta…

..as has been said a fair bit over th past few weeks, we shouldn’t let the fact that we haven’t intervened everywhere in the past, stop us intervening where we CAN actually make a difference.

@36 Galen10: The problem is, that anti-interventionists like me don’t believe for one second that our armed forces are intervening to make a benevolent difference. Our intervention will make a difference, undoubtedly, but I would say only the naive think for one moment that that difference will be of benefit to Libyans and not instead to the benefit of our own nations.
I hope I’m wrong.

Pagar,

The current way of organising things obviously doesn’t work, and simply letting things take their course seems rather callous…..

The cure is considerably more damaging than if the malady had been allowed to run its course.

I tend to an opposite view really – after all, if you notice intervention and actions of various types have occaisionally been successful. South Korea is not part of a madman’s pseudo-communist dictatorship for example. More recently, Greater Serbia does not exist at the expense of the other inhabitants of Kosovo and Bosnia. Iraq is now a democracy. The Taliban do not rule in Afghanistan (or Pakistan). People who believe in indiscriminately lopping off limbs are not running half of Siera Leone.

What are the unintended consequences there – terrorists and rebels existed anyway. I would argue that it is better to have Al’Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan fighting their pointless wars rather than having Sadam Hussain and the Taliban in power. If you only focus on the negative, you ignore the positive. In truth intervention causes problems, but it has generally recently caused a somewhat better situation for those in the countries in question. Unless you believe that tyranny, nationalism and the threat of random violence are good things for the inhabitants of states?

@37 Cylux

It’s not naive to think our intervention will benefit Libyans, you only have to watch the news to see that it has. I’m frankly staggered that you can be so blase about it, and think that the only difference it will make to Libyans will be negative.

Of course nations have to make a cost benefit analysis of whether the risks of intervening are outweighed by the potential benefits, and whether there is a moral imperative to do so. In some cases, however bad the oppression, the calculation is going to be that we shouldn’t intervene: Tibet, N. Korea, Israel/Palestine, Algeria.. all for different reasons.

In other cases, it ought to be a no-brainer that “we” (the international community) should intervene to stop imminent catastrophe; Bosnia, Kossovo, Libya, the Kurds in Iraq, Rwanda (from whence a lot of the central African problems orginated); in many of these cases, an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure.

Are there other motivations for our intervention? I’m sure there are. Show me any state out there that has totally altruistic motives. To try and insist however that the ONLY motivations for intervention are sinister just makes you and many other non-interventionists sound like either hopelessly idealistic pacifists who wouldn’t intervene under any circumstances whatsoever, or dogmatic ideologues who are content to sacrifice a decent tho risky outcome because a perfect but guaranteed risk-free outcome isn’t possible.

@39 Galen10 I’m inclined to wait for a couple of months, if not longer, before declaring that our intervention has helped the Libyan people. Recent history shows the folly of declaring “mission accomplished” with indecent haste.

As for why in this case I believe our intentions to be sinister, are you arguing that Cameron and Sarkozy, the two main pushers for the intervention, are actually concerned by the humanitarian plight faced by uprising foreign rebels?

@40 Cylux

I’m more inclined to believe that Sarko and Cameron have (amongst other) motives a concern for the humanitarian plight not only of hamnitarian rebels, but innocent civilians in the crossfire, than I am inclined to believe the protestations of non-interventionists about their concern, yes. I may profoundly disagree with their politics, but I’m prepared to give them credit when they do the right thing. Similarly, I’m prepared not to give credit in this case to non-interventionists whose politics I might otherwise agree with, on the basis that I think their position is profoundly misguided and lacks compassion.

You are correct that we may have to wait months until the outcome is clear. It may have been easier had the international community acted decisively earlier, but it was not to be. As we have seen from the current attempts by NATO to make a drama out of the crisis as they aregue who should be in charge.

I have never said the mission would be easily accomplished; I have argued that it was necessary even taking into account the risks.

The Americans are the smart cookies in this conflict, get NATO to run it. They know the Arab states will ultimately unite against the west if things go wrong.

I believe it was right for germany, china, india, russia and all the other countries that decided not to vote. I am not for Gaddaffi in any way shape or form. BUT these countries did not want blood on their hands, its easy for us in the UK where it is very unlikely that another country will air raid us just because of protests against governments, when the students took over Westminster and the police did a poor job of control, some were violent, some were accused and recently proved to be in direct violations of laws they are supposed to upkeep, all the students wanted the government to get lost but just because they didn’t get what they were protesting for, should another country come destroy all the police stations or even intervene. Libya will be in caos for a long time, and many more have died then would have, Iraq was an illegal war, it did not stop us fighting with US, how many of our soldiers have died over weapons of mass destruction that clearly never existed, the media is very powerful in making a small protest and amplifying it, hence creating an ever bigger protest that somewhere down the line got out of control. I believe libya should have been liberated but not in this way, the media was hyped up from Eygpt and caused the craze that went into libya and tunsia. If the media had not made such a big deal, then maybe the threats from Gaddaffi would not of come into effect and maybe politically the UK and US could place sanctions that ultimately would have forced Gaddaffi out, but it is the case that Libya provides the world with the most Oil from any other North African country and so I believe that was their motive. Eygpt managed to overthrow their leader, even the army that was turned against the civilians refused to take the measures they were instructed against unarmed people, but did you notice how the rebels were always armed in Libya from the very start.
The reason why the Arab league agreed and backed the UN resolution is due to a deal which effectively meant a blind eye and plenty of time would be given to Bahrain and Saudi to calm their civilians if they were to back this slaughter from the skies. Just because the air raids are targeting places of military interest it does not mean civilians and loved ones are not dying. We in the first world find it easy to blow up third world countries, we forget that our democracy wasn’t born over night, that many people sacrificed their lives for it. Around the world black people did not have rights till relatively recently. Palestinians still don’t have rights, they were air raided just the other day, one person died in a bus bomb that was in retaliation of Israel’s missiles and every day civilian killing, is any coalition going to take out the Israeli air force? NO! The Gaza War was a three-week armed conflict that took place in the Gaza Strip and Southern Israel during the winter of 2008–2009 the conflict resulted in between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths. Was any sanctioned placed or any justice dealt? absolutely not, the west hardly even raised a voice. I have been born and bred here in the UK and I consider myself to be British thru and thru yet I do not agree with the hypocracy of politics. I pay over £100k in taxes and claim no benefits, even ones I may be entitled to I do not know about them, yet you will find that people who can hardly speak English know how the system works and how to get everything free, like they say about criminal knowing their rights better than their wrongs. Giving away things like the labour party is so famous for and calling it welfare in my opinion is very wrong, even right now when they are not in power they are cutting front line services in all the councils that they still control and blaming it on the cuts from the coalition. UK and US are famous even historically for saying one thing but doing another, we send our troops to fight for oil and call it saving lives, our soldiers die as well as theirs. If military bases were bombed in this country how many loved ones would also die? whether they be soldiers or civilians from the surrounding area (Collateral Damage this is called when done in the third world) does it make a difference to a father and mother, to a wife and child that their Son, Husband or Dad has been killed by people from another country in the name of saving lives? People don’t think at all, we are in a crisis of our own, Japan is in a major crisis and has asked for our help, but we put more into killing than saving lives. The mass public believe anything, the media plays propaganda in this country as much as anywhere else. There are many hidden motives and people with power and influence can do many things you wouldn’t believe. This is why this website exists. You can’t say Germany or any other country are wrong, would we not be much much better off if we never went to war with Iraq, we burrowed and spent so much on arms and the war, lost many of our own, price of oil sky rocketed and many more died in the last decade+ of war in Iraq than during Sadddam Hussains reign after the first Gulf war with Iraq. Did the US and UK accomplish anything, is Iraq free now? did we find Osama bin Laden? the weapons of MASS destruction that could annihilate Britain or any other western country within 45mins? It was a made up fact that we went to war for; and then we let them hang Saddam after saying we as a nation do not do such things. Not that I liked Saddam either, but are we right to have double standards? we say its bad when other countries use extreme measure of torture but we do the same, all we do is fly them to another country where it is allowed and then do it. Like US and Gwuntanamo which they rent from Cuba or some country just to do that. When it comes to going to war I think we should refrain from it, we should look to other diplomatic ways of which there are many to solve our concerning issues in foreign countries. We should be straight forward people who say what they are going to do and then do it. If we are fighting for civil liberties we should do it everywhere including Israel not just Syria which is probably going to be the next Libya. I wait to hear your views about my comment, I strongly believe that we should stop all this war we inflict in other countries and let them get on with evolution, that is how we progressed, and we should use our money to pay for education not weapons, imagine how good UK would be if everyone went to University and was educated to a high standard, living standards would be high. Imagine how much we could invest in the public and private sector if we weren’t spending millions a day on wars in other countries that are no real threat to us. If they are, it is because we are the ones that sold them the weapons to become what they are, people forget America put Saddam there, that Mubarak was also put in power by US and even Osama bin Laden was trained and equipped by US. and now the UK want to arm the rebels in Libya? has the world lost the plot! those rebels aren’t even trained to use weapons, what is stopping them taking justice into their own hands, killing their own over greed, they are all in poverty as it is. Equip people with no for-site and all you get is more caos. Hope the majority agree with me even if too scared to admit it.

@43. Zee

“Equip people with no for-site and all you get is more caos. Hope the majority agree with me even if too scared to admit it.”

Sadly for you, the majority appear not to agree with you (assuming they could wade through a post as bereft of punctuation as it was of any semblance of common sense or compassion).

Amongst your pearls of wisdom, the following non sequitirs shine through like beacons in a sea of muddle headedness:

1) “I believe libya should have been liberated but not in this way,….”

OK, so how was it going to be liberated; and in particular how do you propose that Gaddafi’s forces were prevented from storming into Bengahzi last weekend, killing hundreds, or more likely thousands of innocent civilians? In comparison, any collateral damage inflicted by the intervention has been miniscule…. (did you see the supposed “evidence” of collateral damage produced by Gaddafi’s forces and reported by John Simpson on the BBC last night? So unconvincing it was almost comical) so shouldn’t you be applauding the fact that many more people are alive this weekend, than they would have been if we had followed your advice?

2) “Eygpt managed to overthrow their leader, even the army that was turned against the civilians refused to take the measures they were instructed against unarmed people, but did you notice how the rebels were always armed in Libya from the very start.”

Nice attempt to re-write history there…. did you think we just wouldn’t notice, or are you so ill-informed you’ve actually convinced yourself it is true? The situations aren’t the same, because the Egyptian army quickly made it clear it wasn’t going to crush the uprising. The deaths there (which were awful enough) were due to Mubaraks thugs and security services, not the army…. thankfully for the demonstrators, they didn’t have to face shelling by tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft the way the Libyan opposition did.

3) ” If we are fighting for civil liberties we should do it everywhere including Israel not just Syria which is probably going to be the next Libya. I wait to hear your views about my comment,….”

There has been an extensive debate both here and elsewhere about this issue: it’s called “whaddabout Iraq/ Yemen/Burma/Congo”. Go and read Sunder Katwala’s riposte to it on Next Left if you are interested in hearing why your position is not just wrong, but immoral.

There will be some situation we can’t help in, and others we might make a judgement we can’t. Similarly, the fact that Iraq was disasterously mis-handled, and a mistake from the start, doesn’t mean that we should simply give up, and never intervene anywhere, ever.

Has it ever occured to all of those who are so convinced that non-intervention is right, and that a few thousand dead Libyans are a price worth paying, that the best hope for the Palestinian cause in future will be the advocacy of several democratic Arab regimes, pushing for a just settlement? It isn’t going to happen otherwise from what we’ve seen over the past few years, or indeed from the more recent bout of tit for tat attacks there.

Interesting that Hamas acted to prevent people demonstrating in support of the Arab Spring…. perhaps they are worried they’ll go the same way as Mubarak, and hopefully Gaddafi, Assad, the President of Yemen and the Emir of Bahrain.

Hopefully they’ll all end up in adjoining cells at the Hague.

Interesting that Hamas acted to prevent people demonstrating in support of the Arab Spring…. perhaps they are worried they’ll go the same way as Mubarak, and hopefully Gaddafi, Assad, the President of Yemen and the Emir of Bahrain.

Incidentally – on this happy, dreamlike day when all tyrants and murderers are banished to the prisons…

Who’ll be left?

@45 Ben Six

Well… I know lots of people who would probably be cheering as the cell doors clang shut….

…..not sure about some others…you know, especially the ones who thought it was [delete as aprropriate]:

best just to leave them to it because it was none of our business;
we can’t afford it;
we have a bad track record;
whaddabout all the others!!;
whatif it all gets worse!!
the sky will fall down because everyone on earth will hate us (apart from the ones we saved from imminent death, but we can safely ignore them because their lives aren’t as important as all the reasons earlier… and as a non-interventionist they have these magic dark glasses anyway that allow them to blind ourselves to the near certainty of a bloodbath now, but see with astonishing clarity the vague possibility that things in the future might go wrong…..)

You misunderstand me, Galen, I’d be pleased to see them all in Court. Alongside, though, would have to be Aziz, Karimov, Cheney, Blair…

You see why I don’t think this is likely, yes?

Try this on the downstream consequences of earlier interventions in Libyan affairs:

Kickbacks between Libya and the west have helped Gaddafi cling to power

All Gaddafi’s rapprochement with the west has achieved is to give him the resources to tighten his grip on the Libyan people
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/25/gaddafi-libya-deals

Well done, Tony Blair.

@47 Ben Six

What is likely and what actually happens are two different things.

Many anti-interventionists in here have spend weeks trying to convince us that it is likely (often in their view overwhelmingly likely) that any intervention would make matters much worse in the medium to long term, and that therefore any short term gains (even if that included saving many Libyan lives on the ground) was therefore illegitimate.

As others have pointed out, their future history is nowhere near as likely as they maintain, and also excludes the alternatives which may end in something more positive.

Few people had the foresight to see the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet domination of Eastern and Central Europe. Few people saw the coming of 9/11. Fewer still I would imagine saw the coming of the current wave of protests across the Arab world when an unemployed Tunisian immolated himself as a protest a scant few weeks ago.

Things won’t always fall easily into place, nor will outcomes always be optimal. the international community will make mistakes, it will react too late or not at all… but it can also do good, and sometimes stop bad situations getting worse. The internationsal and particularly European, response to the Bosnian and Kossovan crises for example was pretty poor.

However, for all the tardiness of our responses however, and the thousands of needless deaths, which is something everyone in our countries should feel deeply ashamed of. the end result has to be viewed as better than the alternative: a Greater Serbia dominated by the nationalist thugs who masterminded and enacted ethnic cleansing and the mass murder of civilians. Whilst not perfect, the current settlement promises a somewhat brighter future, and not one that everyone would have predicted in the 1990′s.

Some (though sadly not all) of the perpetrators of war crimes in the Balkans have faced justice. Hopefully we will be able to say the same of some of those responsible for killing innocent civilians in Arab countries now. Given the upheavals everywhere, I am perhaps a little more optimistic that it may happen than you are. It is certainly more likely than trying to indict the likes of Cheney, Blair et al by trying to draw some spurious moral equivalence between their actions and those of Gaddafi, Assad, the President of Yemen and the Emir of Bahrain.

Left-of-centre blog implicitly advocating imperialist war? How left-of-centre are you?

Germany shouldn’t have abstained, they should have voted ‘no’, and they shouldn’t have sold €83m of arms to Gaddaffi in the past four years, either. Killing more people isn’t really the most efficient way to prevent killing, is it?

@50 Andi Sidwell

“Left-of-centre blog implicitly advocating imperialist war? How left-of-centre are you?”

How stuck tin the 1970′s are you exactly? Quite apart from the fact that regimes of the left have hardly been slow to intervene when it suited them (Cuba in Angola, Raussia in Afghanistan, Vietnam in Cambodia, China in Vitenam anyone….?), has it slipped your mind how much Russian weaponry has been supplied to various middle eastern dictators over the decades?

This isn’t (whatever your little red book tells you) an imperialist war; it’s a UN sponsored intervention to prevent thousands of innocent Libyan civilians being butchered by their regime…. whose “right-on” jamahariya encapsulated arming the IRA, murdering British police officers in the street from the cover of their embassy, blowing up Pan-Am jets, and cosying up to characters like Mugabe (500 of whose trrops are reported to be helping fight the Libyan opposition even as we speak).

“Killing more people isn’t really the most efficient way to prevent killing, is it?”

Depends on the situation doesn’t it? Unless you are advocating a totally pacifist outlook…. killing Gaddafi’s armed forces over the past week has undoubtedly saved thousands of innocent people in Benghazi, and may hae stopped his forced crushing the remianing outposts of the revolution in Western Libya.

You don’t have to be a right winger to support intervention. You do have to have had a compassion bypass to advocate non-intervention to burnish your ideological certainty that this is an “imperialist war”. Ordinary Libyans fighting Gadaffi aren’t interested in your dogmatic appraisal, which is the modern equivalent how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Superb points Galen. I agree totally.
Gaddafi should rot in hell.

Except you also seem under the delusion that a BIG part of the rebels is not made up of fanatic Jihadists. When it is.

They are only welcoming (before this they were sending out suicide bombers to kill them) Westerners intervention to gain power.
And once in…Jihad warfare makes Gaddafi’s thuggish tactics look tame indeed.

As such…Why are we, The West, The Infidel, helping frothing at the mouth Jihadists (who have continually fought us until now) gain overall power of a country?

So like I said…Leave them to it.
If Gaddafi dies, good. If Jihadists die, good.
The only way we lose is if we help either side.
OOPS. Look like we lose.

@52 Dave

So actually, not only do you not agree with me totally, you have invented a weird alternate reality where the opposition is wholly made up of crazed islamo-fascists?

You are as misguided both as Gaddafi, who attributed the opposition to drug crazed yoof and Al-Quaeeda, and the continuity non-interventionists who spout the same misguided crap as you.

I can do without the approbation of a wing-nut who is in his own way even worse than the Gaddafi enablers whingeing on about how it will all end in tears. Your lack of compassion and wrong-headedness is even less pleasant than theirs.

Apologists! I love ‘em.

How about some facts;

A report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center revealed that over the last few years, more jihadists per capita entered Iraq from Libya than from any other Muslim country – and most of them came from the region that is now spearheading the revolt against Gaddafi.

From ‘Rolling Stone’

America is now at war to protect a Libyan province that’s been an epicenter of anti-American jihad.

In recent years, at mosques throughout eastern Libya, radical imams have been “urging worshippers to support jihad in Iraq and elsewhere,” according to WikiLeaked cables.

More troubling: The city of Derna, east of Benghazi, was a “wellspring” of suicide bombers that targeted U.S. troops in Iraq.

By imposing a no-fly zone over Eastern Libya, the U.S. and its coalition partners have effectively embraced the breakaway republic of Cyrenaica….

A West Point analysis of a cache of al Qaeda records discovered that nearly 20 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Libyans, and that on a per-capita basis Libya nearly doubled Saudi Arabia as the top source of foreign fighters.

The word “fighter” here is misleading. For the most part, Libyans didn’t go to Iraq to fight; they went to blow themselves up — along with American G.I.’s.
Overwhelmingly, these militants came “from cities in North?East Libya, an area long known for Jihadi?linked militancy.”

A WikiLeaked cable from 2008 explained that Cyrenaicans were waging jihad against U.S. troops as “a last act of defiance against the Qadhafi regime.”
After the U.S. normalized relations with Qaddaffi in 2006, Cyrenacians believed they no longer had any shot at toppling him:

The epicenter of Libyan jihadism is the city of Derna — the hometown of more than half of Libya’s foreign fighters, according the West Point analysis.
A surprisingly readable cable titled “Die Hard in Derna” makes clear that the city “takes great pride” in having sent so many of its sons to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

Need more!?

Again…Like in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining a major power hold now (want to Google how the, already mistreated, Christians in Egypt feel about that?)….don’t think for one micro-second that those dictators being replaced are being replaced by anyone other than hardline Islamists who would see you fucking burn.

The difference here though between Egypt and Libya, is that we weren’t fucking stupid enough to help the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood get into power by sending our armed forces to help them!

Don’t take my word for it though…Take that peaceful, tolerant, level-headed, guru of love’s word for it in Iran:

(Reuters) -
Iran’s supreme leader saluted on Friday what he termed an “Islamic liberation movement” in the Arab world, and advised the people of Egypt and Tunisia to unite around their religion and against the West.

In a sermon punctuated with chants of “Death to America” from a congregation that included Ahmadinejad, Khamenei said: “Our revolution has been able to inspire hope, to set an example.”

Want a more specific example of this ‘uprising for democracy’ in Libya?
Okay then.
Take it away Iran…. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166418.html

“The Islamic Republic of Iran deems the Libyans’ uprising and their rightful demands in line with the region’s Islamic awakening”.

It is certainly more likely than trying to indict the likes of Cheney, Blair et al by trying to draw some spurious moral equivalence between their actions and those of Gaddafi, Assad, the President of Yemen and the Emir of Bahrain.

Let’s take Cheney, Galen. He’s a proud torturer and unrepentant warmonger: there’s every reason to equate him with his comrades in crime.

On the other hand, I don’t deny that very bad people sometimes do good things, even if it’s incidental. (And by good, of course, I only mean “make things better”, not “spread peace and harmony”.) See, for example, the Vietnamese in Cambodia.

54 & 55 Dave

Your selective individual “facts”, even if true, don’t serve as some joker card for your frankly whacky world view.

The population of Libya is around 6.5 million. No doubt there are islamic extermists amongst them, just as there are in many parts of the world. Libyans (and more exactly those from E. Libya) may even be over represented amongst those apprehended in Iraq, but I fail to see how that translates in your head into a good reason NOT to intervene in the current situation.

Militant Islamists and the medievalist butchers in Iran hate Gaddafi and people like him as much as the hate the liberal, democratic westerners. The Libyan uprising isn’t anymore a militant islamic movement any more than that in Tunisia or Egypt.

No serious commentator takes what the nut-jobs in Iran say about Libya seriously. Similarly, there is no real evidence that the muslim brotherhood is in any position to “take power” in Egypt, with or without our help. It is a large and influnetila group with deep roots in Egypt, but it was consistantly wrong footed and out manoeuvred during the Egyptian uprising by a broad movement that was and is secular.

So….your “facts” are looking more like the opinions of a not very well informed and hyperbolic fantasist with an anti-muslim agenda. Stun us with another.

@56 Ben Six

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the neo-cons in particular don’t have a lot to answer for, as do dupes like Blair; my issue is with drawing some sort of equivalence between them and the others.

I don’t, and never have, bought the argument about them being war criminals, or indeed that the Iraq war was illegal; it was a huge mistake and monstrously ill planned and handled particularly after Saddam fell, but the over-concentration about whether it was illegal or not deflected from the more pressing concern about holding to account those responsible for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Galen…Damned by your own apologist words!

Libya is no more an Islamist uprising than where? Egypt?!
oh. okay then!!

Egypt’s fundamentalist Salafists rise in wake of Mubarak’s fall

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/egypts-fundamentalist-salafists-rise-in-wake-of-mubaraks-fall/2011/03/25/AFZmnblB_story.html

Secular democracy on the march!
“Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub:
“Results of Egyptian Referendum Were in Favor of Islam, and Whoever Is Unhappy about It Is Free to Leave to Canada or the US,”

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2874.htm

Egypt:
Muslims attack Christian, cut off his ear: “We have applied the law of Allah, now come and apply your law”.
The Muslims claimed they were applying Sharia law because Mr. Mitri allegedly had an illicit affair with a Muslim woman.

http://www.aina.org/news/20110325223845.htm

Yep! Looking good there for your ‘Arab Awakening’. yeah..lots of progressive, liberal, thought here.

You apologist/appeasing scum are as bad as any suicide bombers! ALL of you on here are part of the Islamic PR that will see Islam destroy all your supposedly precious liberal ideals

we are helping a strongly Islamist (western troops killing Islamist) rebel force that once in power, with Jihadist zeal, could well be a threat.

FACT is as British and American troops are dying in other places at the hands of Jihadist/Islamist fighters…In Libya those same armed forces are helping those very same fighters take power!

It’s a total farce!

Read and fucking weep (or cheer if you’re you guys!)

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne … links.html

Muslim Brotherhood rising in Libya, envisions government on “Qur’anic principles”
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/afric … tml?hpt=T2