The manipulative pro-war argument in Libya

From Glenn Greenwald's blog:

But my real question for Judis (and those who voice the same accusations against Libya intervention opponents) is this: do you support military intervention to protect protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies from suppression, or to stop the still-horrendous suffering in the Sudan, or to prevent the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Ivory Coast? Did you advocate military intervention to protect protesters in Iran and Egypt, or to stop the Israeli slaughter of hundreds of trapped innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon or its brutal and growing occupation of the West Bank?

If not, doesn't that necessarily mean -- using this same reasoning -- that you're indifferent to the suffering of all of those people, willing to stand idly by while innocents are slaughtered, to leave in place brutal tyrants who terrorize their own population or those in neighboring countries? Or, in those instances where you oppose military intervention despite widespread suffering, do you grant yourself the prerogative of weighing other factors: such as the finitude of resources, doubt about whether U.S. military action will hurt rather than help the situation, cynicism about the true motives of the U.S. government in intervening, how intervention will affect other priorities, the civilian deaths that will inevitably occur at our hands, the precedents that such intervention will set for future crises, and the moral justification of invading foreign countries? For those places where you know there is widespread violence and suffering yet do not advocate for U.S. military action to stop it, is it fair to assume that you are simply indifferent to the suffering you refuse to act to prevent, or do you recognize there might be other reasons why you oppose the intervention?

And

In a very well-argued column, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson today provides the only plausible answer:

Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi's tyrannical regime will be disappointed. . . . Why is Libya so different? Basically, because the dictators of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia -- also Jordan and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, for that matter -- are friendly, cooperative and useful. Gaddafi is not. . . .

Gaddafi is crazy and evil; obviously, he wasn’t going to listen to our advice about democracy. The world would be fortunate to be rid of him. But war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standard we set for defiant ones. If not, then please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We'll know this isn’t about justice, it's about power.

More here.

I've been holding off for a few days commenting on this third US military adventure in the Middle East because articulating my position is difficult, to say the least. Really, my problem with this UN sanctioned no-fly zone is more about our ruling establishment's entire approach to foreign policy than it is about the actual intervention itself.

That is, Gaddafi (is that how we're spelling his name in English these days?) is a son of a bitch. Unfortunately, for him, he's not our son of a bitch. If he was, like the Saudi royal family, or Mubarak in Egypt, or any number of other friendly dictators sucking at the American teat in order to fuel and fund the way they oppress their own people, he'd be safe. Safe from us, at least. Likewise, Gaddafi would be safe, like any number of other dictators who don't belong to us, if Libya didn't have any resources that our ruling establishment wants to either possess or control.

In short, the only reason we're involved in this is Libyan oil. Like the excerpt above observes, if our leaders truly had humanitarian concerns, there are many areas around the globe that are in far more need of our military assistance than Libya, and we would already be there. As a rule, we just don't go to war simply to help people who are suffering--I mean, Somalia was an interesting diversion, but something along those lines is not likely to be repeated.

Having said that, it's difficult to get away from the fact that Gadaffi is, indeed, an evil son of a bitch who oppresses his own people, and it's hard not to sympathize with the rebels who oppose him. On the other hand, who exactly are the rebels who oppose him? I have to admit that, like most Americans, I don't know a damned thing about internal Libyan politics, ethnic demographics, factions, etc. But I do know that you're not at all necessarily a good guy simply because you're fighting a bad guy.

So this is all very complicated.

When we invaded Iraq back in 2003, I kind of adopted a rule for myself: I will not support any American wars as long as our government, which controls the military, is in turn controlled by corporations and the super-wealthy. That is, any war we fight these days is going to reflect the interests of the plutocratic oligarchy that has replaced our democratic republic, rather than the interests of the American people. But this Libyan thing makes such a black-and-white stance a bit problematic. I really do wonder if our involvement is going to make things better or worse.

Another problem: as with Iraq and Afghanistan, we have no exit strategy. How do we know when we're done? What is our mission, exactly? We've been in Afghanistan for a decade, and it's still pretty fucked up. We've been in Iraq for eight years, and, even though the US establishment has taken yet another victory lap over there, we still have tens of thousands of American soldiers in the desert nation, and they're not leaving any time soon.

I like that this Libya mission is under a UN mandate. I like that we're fighting an evil dictator. But there's just so much more to consider.

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