Tuesday 1 March 2011

Libya 2011 Iraq 2003

2011 and an anti-western leader of an oil rich country is being threatened with military action by the West?
Been here before haven't we in 2003 when an anti-western leader of an oil rich country was threatened with military action by the West.
Yes Gaddafi is a vile tyrant and yes he is killing his own people but so was Saddam and look how that turned out when we went steaming in all guns blazing.
David Cameron has said that he has not ruled out military action in Libya and the Pentagon has said it is moving naval and air forces into positions near Libya in case military intervention is required.
A no-fly zone looks an increasing possibility to deter Gaddafi from using his planes to attack demonstrators but that is exactly how Iraq began and developed into the monstrous mess it is now.
The West cannot stand by and watch obviously but the military option is a disaster waiting to happen and opens Cameron and Obama, quite rightly, to the same accusations levelled at Blair and Bush of just going after the oil.
As he is showing in Pakistan, Obama is not averse to dropping bombs on countries he has no right to be dropping them on. He has also, in contradiction to the peace loving President we expected to get, stepped up attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan with horrific results. President Hamid Karzai issued a denunciation of American military operations just last week after 64 civilians were killed by an American helicopter assault in Ghaziabad.
Another similarity to Iraq and the absurd idea that we can make things better with our missiles is the arming of Gaddafi in the same way as we did Saddam.
We are the people who wanted to be both there friends so we could buy their oil and sell them arms knowing full well that both were unhinged tyrants, but that didn't bother our conscience.
When they showed their true colours, the West threw up their hands in disgust and make threats. Both Saddam and Gaddafi accussed the West of betrayal and they are both right. Neither has shown to be anything other than what we expected while it is us faking the moral outage as if we are appalled that they used the arms we sold them for anything other than peaceful means.
The momentum is moving at pace towards a NATO led (not UN rubber stamped you notice) invasion into another oil rich country, coincidentally the one with the largest oil reserves in Africa.
It seems we just don't learn, even as the folly of Iraq and Afghanistan rumbles on.
Opponents of the Gaddafi regime based in eastern Libya said they did not want any foreign intervention in the country and Cameron and Obama should keep the US and UK military as far away from Libya as possible.
Recent history shows that when we do attacks on 'humanitarian grounds' we kill more civilians, stoke more anti-western feeling, increase the long term damage and end up controlling the oil wells when we get all Rambo on leaders who were once our good friends.

9 comments:

yazza said...

100 percent agree Lucy, its not up to the uk or us government to decide who governs libya its up to the libyan people. us and uk have have interfered enough in other countries.

Cheezy said...

Tricky situation... Of course the huge chasmic difference between Iraq 2003 and Libya 2011 is that, with the former, key figures in the US government always had designs on it because of its huge unexploited oil wealth*, whereas you can't really say that about Libya. I'm not saying it doesn't have oil, or that there would be voices pushing for the commercialisation (i.e. transfer of wealth into private hands) of Libya's reserves, just that, all things considered, the government of the US (and the UK) would prefer to not have this conundrum at the moment. Resources are a bit 'stretched' elsewhere, to say the least. And we're all broke (or so they keep telling us).

*Albeit for different reasons i.e. the PNAC neocons wanted to open it all up to private multi-national interests to break the OPEC monopoly, whereas the more 'old school' people (e.g. Bush Snr) wanted control of the area to actively stop any pumping, in effect to prop up OPEC control of oil prices. Hence the massive division in the US ranks when it all started to go pear-shaped.

Cody Bones said...

"The West cannot stand by and watch obviously"


Why can't we do just that?

Lucy said...

I see Dave backed down on the idea of a no fly zone now. Turns out he scrapped all our aircraft carriers.

You wouldn't want us to send humanitarian aid Cody?

Nog said...

An invasion would just be foolish. But insofar as a no-fly zone might serve as a leveling force between parties that the powers, thru their weapons, made unlevel, I would keep it as an option on the table. For the no-fly zone, I'd make the decision based on what the majority of Libyans seem to want. If they prefer to suffer under the despotism of Gadafi before having the least shred of outside help, so bit it. But helping them not get bombed by planes that the French, British (eh, maybe not), and Russians sold Gadafi is the least the big powers could do.



-Nog

Cody Bones said...

Humanitarian aid for Libya unfortunately needs to be shipped and distributed by people with guns, or all your doing is enriching the present regime.

Cheezy said...

The UN World Food Programme is known for just making big drops though, no guns required. Off the top of my head, I recall they did lots of this, saving many lives, during the civil war in Somalia. I'm not sure if this is appropriate for Libya, but I believe there's very large areas now populated solely by people who would cheerfully jump on Qaddafi's face, so I guess it might be.

I agree that it's absolutely crucial to not get involved in any sort of military engagement whatsoever. Now that would be dumb.

Cody Bones said...

Somalia doesn't have an air force capable of shooting the drop ships out of the sky. I must have missed where Libya has become a humanitarian crisis like Haiti.

Cheezy said...

I'm not advocating the UN doing drops where there's a risk of them being shot down, but there are ways of finding these things out. Bottom line: If there's any doubt, stay on the ground.

I certainly don't think there currently exists a humanitarian crisis of the magnitiude of Haiti, but the potential for one if a full civil-war breaks out is pretty obvious.