So action shall be taken against Libya by the UN with a broad church of nations intending to assist with personnel and artillery. It is for individuals to decide whether this is an unavoidable step borne out of principle or unpardonable folly. Or something inbetween.
I hope that Iraq has taught us that we should not involve ourselves too heavily in shaping the destiny of another sovereign nation but I don’t see anything wrong in giving a helping hand to the side that we are rooting for from the sidelines. If a no-fly zone and even aerial strikes on strategic targets can help reach this objective then I for one have no problem with it.
There is oil involved, there is regime change and there will be a poll bump for the coalition. However, I hope that, for a change, this will be seen to be the right decision for the right reasons and if Gaddafi, despite his promises to “get crazyâ€, can be removed swiftly, then I hope Libya can soon follow into a transition to democracy as orderly as Egypt’s has seemed to be.
It’s a crazy mixed up world out there, more full of baddies than we would like; sometimes the goodies need to do more than just watch on passively.
#1 by Aldos Rendos on March 18, 2011 - 10:22 am
But where do we draw the line? Should we have gone into Zimbabwe to assist the opposition there? What about Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, China, Burma? What about the USA who continue to execute their own citizens? Should we be aiding opposition parties/groups in these countrys to carry out a revolution?
#2 by Jeff on March 18, 2011 - 10:36 am
For me we draw the line at the point where our resources become stretched unless there is an urgent need to act.
Not that I’m an expert(!), but these strikes should be relatively straightforward if there are military targets that can be picked off with hopefully zero or at least minimal loss of life. And given the breadth of nations involved, this will not use up much of individual nations’ resources and capital.
Cases like Zimbabwe and Burma, while clearly deep problems, don’t involve a simple solution and diplomacy rather than action remain the best options. A city of ‘rebels’ (just everyday people like you and I) are about to be massacred. That same urgency to act doesn’t exist so much although I would personally like to see the UN get more involved in Africa where mass killings occur and the rest of the world does seem to turn a blind eye.
Hugely complicated though and probably beyond my comprehension if I’m being honest.
Where do you think the line should be drawn?
#3 by Aldos Rendos on March 18, 2011 - 11:26 am
Well I think you need to try and define the situation. Is there a real risk of genocide or is this a civil war? In this instance I believe there is a civil war. Where as in Kosovo and Srebrenica civilians were rounded up starved and eventually slaughtered. Of course it is possible similar events are happening in Libya, Saudi Arabia, China and Bahrain. I suppose we need to rely on our intelligence agencies to bring us significant evidence of mass slaughter and base our policies on their researh. But given their wretched record in Iraq its understandable that the public are incredibly cynical this time around.
#4 by Jeff on March 18, 2011 - 12:13 pm
Yes, fair points for sure. Are we acting because the media just happens to be focussing on this issue as opposed to any other out there? Is it more political pressure (gain?) than principle? It’s easy to get swept away in the moment I suppose without pausing to consider the appropriateness.
I’m still in favour but maybe a bit less so now!
And even if it is a civil war, when the odds are so heavily stacked against one side, is that reason enough to try to level out the playing field?
#5 by Daniel J on March 18, 2011 - 12:17 pm
That’s the thing.. is it helpful? There are plenty of nasty regimes around the world that we decide to turn a blind eye to.
#6 by Daniel J on March 18, 2011 - 12:21 pm
Just to add, I’ve just heard on the radio some of the things that Gadaffi has been saying and I think there’s reasonable grounds to be concerned for the civilian population in Benghazi.
#7 by Daniel J on March 18, 2011 - 11:44 am
My problem is to do with the timing and situation on the ground. It’s been clear for a while now that the rebellion looks to have lost the momentum and has been steadily falling back. A quick look at a map on the BBC website which shows the control of major cities the rebels only hold one in the South and a few in the East.
To what end is this no fly zone for? It doesn’t look like the rebels can do anything with the air cover. Perhaps it will hearten people to revolt? If not I wonder what can it achieve.
#8 by Jeff on March 18, 2011 - 12:37 pm
My understanding is that the no-fly zone is to stop Gaddafi’s forces conducting bombing raids on the ‘rebels’. (they need a better name than that)
#9 by Daniel J on March 18, 2011 - 12:49 pm
They’re also allowed to attack tank columns, artillery positions attacking Benghazi.. They should effectively be able to stop any further advance and bring us to a stalemate
#10 by Shuna on March 18, 2011 - 12:16 pm
I was listening to the World at Night last night driving back home – and one of the things that chilled me was the suggestion by an ‘expert’ that Gadaffi would use civilians as a shield to any advancing ‘army’ so that if UN troops took a shot at them then civilians would be among the dead – a tactic used in Bosinia apparently- collatoral damage but propaganda for Gaddafi. So maybe not so straight forward Jeff.
That said – I am relieved that action is finally being taken. And in such a way as to help the rebel forces (or legitimate rulers depending on how you see it)
Re the drawing of line – and the why didn’t we go into here and there and everywhere – because it just isn’t that straight forward. I wish it were.
I pray for a swift end to Gaddafi’s tyrany and a period of peace and rebuilding/restructuring for the Middle East.
As much as I don’t like him and think he dithered on his fence for too long – I have been impressed by David Cameron’s manouvering on this one – from ditherer to leader. But don’t worry I aint going through a conversion 😉
#11 by Jeff on March 18, 2011 - 12:42 pm
Yes, credit to Cameron here. He’s led from the front and called it all right as far as I can see. Not bad for a tv PR executive (or whatever it is his detractors call him).
Fair enough that it’s not as straightforward as finding a target and blowing it up if there are human shields but I still think there are strategic targets that should be easily picked off. By that I mean hardware and artillery, rather than individuals. The innocents are on both side so the sooner people abandon Gaddafi’s regime the better.
Isn’t the UK opening up visas to people with deposits of £5m+? Perhaps we should let the Gaddafis and extended family live out their days in Hampstead and just be done with it. Seems to be the most painless solution.
#12 by Gryff on March 18, 2011 - 12:36 pm
For me this all shows up the folly of Iraq, because of that misadventure British and American legitimacy is massively compromised, and it has made action far harder. I do think Britain should intervene sometimes, but it should do so for clear reasons, where there is a clear objective, and where their is a good chance of success.
I think I would be fairly happy with a ground war in Libya, if the resources could be spared for a straight decapitation of the regime.
#13 by Indy on March 18, 2011 - 6:17 pm
Britain has absolutely no right or basis to unilaterally intervene in other countries. Neither does the US.
However this is a United Nations operation and therefore a very different kettle of fish.
#14 by Alec Macph on March 18, 2011 - 10:52 pm
I wonder if Indy’s post @ 1817hrs was sardonic. If it was, good on him. If not, oh dear.
The inevitable comparisons with Iraq – y-e-e-e-e-s, a chance to resurrect that one! – can be divided into one of four categories.
i. Supported Iraq and support this.
ii. Supported Iraq and oppose this.
iii. Opposed Iraq and oppose this.
iv. Opposed Iraq and support this.
There’d be a number of reasons for arriving at each category, so I’ll speculate on only some.
Category i. has consistency about it, and could be down to a love of war or profiteering. Or it could be down to a desire to free the respective populations from totalitarian and brutal rulers.
Category ii. is unlikely to be based on legality given the dispute about Iraq – note, this is not the same as declaring Iraq illegal – so might be based on weariness after Iraq. Or something else.
Category iii. again has a consistency about it. It might be principled, but if opposition to Iraq was expressed in terms of legality there really is no leg to stand on here. Transparent, opportunistic twat springs to mind.
Category iv. might be due to views on legality, and would be principled in that respect. Just not very humane ‘cos it would imply the speaker was happy to leave Iraqis to life under Saddam on some dry legal point.
Of course, comparisons between Iraq and Libya miss a fairly obvious point… an invasion and occupation is not being proposed here. What’s being proposed is somparable to the situation Iraq was in in the early 90s.
Let’s stop talking about Iraq. The war’s been over for anywhere between six and eight years, and the enemy leader is as dead as Napoleon.
Oh, yes, and we all know how that came back to bite Salmond. Still, the even better thing about his being completely and utterly wrong was the positive outcome for Kosova and FYR… as Salmond knows with his opportunistic, pseudo-religious remarks about Macedonia.
~alec
#15 by Alec Macph on March 18, 2011 - 10:59 pm
Once someone has become a utopianist, there really is no going back.
I oppose the death penalty, but those being executed in the USA have – in theory, at least, and quite a lot of fact – committed extremely brutal murders. It is arrant nonsense to compare them to the victims of murder.
~alec
#16 by douglas clark on March 19, 2011 - 7:32 am
Seems to me that Sarkosy is either the hero or the villain in this story, depending on your viewpoint. Which must be kind of tough for Daily Mail readers to swallow.
Gryff is right that the whole idea of humanitarian intervention was kind of jiggered by the Texan mafia and their Westminster apologists, but this does seem to be a clear case of acting under UN sanction, something that the blessed Tony had to forego over Iraq.
I think that we ought to support the freedom fighters so this is the right decision IMHO.
#17 by Alec Macph on March 19, 2011 - 12:17 pm
Macedonia? Of course I meant Montenegro.
~alec