Our Blood and Treasure, for Britain and France
There is not a no-fly zone over Zimbabwe, where an oppressive dictator capriciously murders its citizens while condemning them to a life of poverty. There is not a no-fly zone over Bahrain, where the Saudi National Guard is reinforcing a regime shooting its people in the streets. There is not a no-fly zone over Yemen, which is also shooting demonstrators. There is not a no-fly zone over Syria, where the Assad dynasty is once again killing the opposition, and where decades earlier — without a hiccup from the international community — it destroyed the entire city of Hama to suppress an uprising.
None of the pious rationales for intervention in Libya seem to square remotely with the way in which the international community generally, and the United States specifically, deals with tyrants.
Just days prior to our intervention in Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was before the cameras admonishing everyone that no-fly zones don’t work, using Iraq as a case in point.
So what changed?
If we are to believe Andrea Mitchell, the Arab League convinced Hillary Clinton to persuade the administration to bring down the murderous Libyan dictator. This explanation is so comical that it should be a skit for Saturday Night Live. The Arab League is made up of some of the most ruthless, oppressive, and illegitimate regimes on the planet. The league is best-known for issuing the infamous “Three Nos of Khartoum,” condemning Israel for its very existence, and lobbing fiercely just weeks ago for a UN human rights accolade for the same Libyan dictator it asserts that it now wants to remove from power.
Persuaded by the Arab League, so the story goes, Hillary Clinton found an ally in UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and these “courageous women” joined forces to get the administration to support the UN no-fly zone.
This tale of the Arab League and Hillary Clinton seems to be one of those typical contrived leaks for which Washington is famous. Indeed, within twenty-four hours, the Arab League shifted sides, and is now condemning the Western powers for the fierce bombing.
Libya has a no-fly zone because the British and French want Libyan oil, and they no longer view the ever-bellicose and irrational Moammar Gaddafi as a responsible partner. Nations have interests. They do not have friends. They have allies as a matter of ephemeral convenience.
When CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt reinstalled the Palavi dynasty in Iran after the CIA-sponsored coup that eliminated Mohammed Mossadegh, among Mohammed Palavi’s first acts was to replace the Anglo-French oil companies with American oil companies.
If Zimbabwe had oil, it too might get a no-fly zone.
Britain is so desperate for drilling rights in Libya that it engineered the release and repatriation of the Libyan bomber of Pan American Flight 103, ignoring international outrage. France is one of the major importers of Libyan oil, and France accepted trivial compensation for a Libyan mid-air bombing of one its flights, UTA 772. The incident, like Pan Am 103, was settled by Gaddafi’s government paying monetary compensation to the victims’ families.
After tolerating the murder of its citizens in order to get access to Libya’s easily refined oil, Britain and France saw in Libya’s uprising the handwriting on the wall. Gaddafi might end up on the scrap heap of history, and what Britain and France needed was a new Libyan partner.
With Britain and France ostensibly standing up for the “democratic” opposition and the media bringing the visual horror of Gaddafi’s words and deeds to the world, the Obama administration could not continue to sit on the sidelines. Yet the media has been beating the drums over the “democratic” opposition, but there has been no real analysis of what the opposition will bring to the political process, if they do win.
In the meantime, Hillary Clinton’s earlier warning that no-fly zones are ineffectual because they don’t stop troops and tanks has been superseded in this conflict by the French. Their air force has been doing more than just keeping Libyan planes out of the air. They shot up Libyan tanks and armor, carving out seemingly new rules of engagement without objection, until the Arab League began to complain.
If the Arab League wanted to stop Gaddafi, they didn’t have to wait until his forces were near victorious, nor did they really need the West to carry out the attacks. Egypt and Saudi Arabia alone could have defeated Gaddafi, but ultimately they had no desire to do so. What they had was the desire to rhetorically enter the fray and to posture appropriately for the international community when it appeared Gaddafi would win. After all, the continual fall of Arab tyrants and despots threatens the Arab League itself, an organization comprised of despots and tyrants.
Obama has dragged us into yet another endless war in the Islamic world, a war where the military mission is clear, as it was in the early days of Iraq, and where the strategy and endgame are totally undefined. Britain’s and France’s strategic interests in this conflict are unambiguous. America’s? They are no clearer than they are in Zimbabwe and a host of other places where people are wantonly oppressed and killed by tyrants.
Obama’s ineptitude made him an easy patsy for the strategic interests of Britain and France. American blood and treasure will be needlessly spilled because we have elected a president who is too disengaged to lead and too naive to understand the consequences of his actions.
Great piece of writing, its almost a repeat performance that in the end will bring USA down, down down, and it will be an historically triumph of the forces of history!
A pretty good assessment. I want to add Cameron is in need of a quick boost for public approval. Standing for “democracy” and a fearless “no-fly” was easy, especially given the fact most of the assault will not be from a relatively paltry Brit military.
Also for readers here, take a look at some of the commentary on the Daily Mail’s article headlining the US shooting innocent people apparently coming to the aid of the downed American pilot. A whole bunch of damned ugly Brit hatred and demonizing. To the contrary, the rebels completely understood.
Our wonderful allies and a President heeding the lead of the “international community.”
There is more to this story than we are getting. The French and the English have been sucking up to Ghadafi for years, appeasing him, taking his blood soaked oil money, educating his children, allowing him to infiltrate their society, contribute to their universities notably the London Business School where a dean steps down due to these ackward connections. Also look at Tony Blair and the rest of these hypocrites. Gordon Brown Jack Straw and the rest of these Bozos. The Brits most likely want to bring him down to bury the real story of their betrayal and defense of this thug. They negotiated the release of the Lockerbie bomber for example so this murderer could live out his sorry life in Libya rather than dying in a Scottich prison. The Brits and French in short are hiding something! So let’s do a Bill Clinton. You got a problem with Monica, start a war somewhere to divert the atttention of the masses.
Trouble is we were not born yesterday and their mendacity is plain to see. I can assure your readers that the Libyan misadventure will backfire because the participants are clueless and only involved for sham reasons. Look at our community organizer in chief. What a complete spectacle and embarrassment. he should be impeached for stupidity!
What a jerk Obama is. We are wasting all this time and effort on a country like Libya, which is basically known only for its oil and sand. The real key to the Middle East is Iran and we did nothing, absolutely nothing, while the mullahs were slaughtering their own people in the streets after the 2009 election. That shameful act of negligence on the part of both Obama and Clinton will haunt them for the rest of their miserable lives, simply because we squandered our best opportunity for regime change in Iran at very little cost to the United States.
No, but now we have a “humanitarian mission” in Libya. Sure, and what makes Libya so special? What about all the real humanitarian disasters and CIVIL WARS in black Africa? Why are we not, or at least the U.N., intervening in places like Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Ivory Coast, or Nigeria, all places where almost constant civil wars are taking a horrible toll on the people in those countries?
If the French and the British want Libya, they can have it. Hand over combat operations to them as soon as possible (like today) and let them work it out. Those countries made fun of George W. Bush’s efforts to bring change in Iraq. They said that we had no plan for what would come AFTER Saddam Hussein was deposed. They said that we did not have enough troops on the ground to get the job done properly. Well, what’s their plan for Libya? Do the French and the British know what’s going to come after Gaddafi? Do the French and the British know what type of government will take over this tribal nation once Gaddafi goes away or is killed? Will the French and the British actually put troops on the ground to maintain order once the Libyan military is either defeated or disbanded? And are the French and the British willing to stay for about 10 or 15 years in Libya until that country stabilizes into a functioning pro-western type of government?
No, they will not. In the “best-case” scenario, they will end up with a U.N. “protectorate,” as in Kosovo (and we all saw how “well” that turned out). In the “worst-case” scenario, you’ll have Somalia on the Mediterranean, a country fractured by tribal warfare for years to come. Yep, the British and the French sure thought about what would come AFTER Gaddafi leaves. The hypocrites.
America is in this up to it’s eyes, Exxon, Marthon, ConocopPhillips, Oxy and others…. ring a bell? Their leases are lost if Gadhafi lives (the most likely outcome now that it has been bungled).
The best option was to arm both sides and kill the winner.
Have a nice day.
Mud, sad but true. Everyone has big words to explain all this. Do the background on Libya and BP and Lockerbe Bomber. A documentary was made or released in 2009 and it aired on Link TV. It was about Britain’s involvement in developing Libya with musuems and tourism and The historical significance of the country, all using British money. Light bulb!
Sanctions were lifted, K-Daffy cleaned up and given to the public. The bomber released.
Did not talk much about oil. The whole world fell to the feet of a lunatic
(UN) that all knew was unstable. Can anyone here remember the nightmare that was Yasar Arafat. Same thing.
The actions taken in Libya are as unwelcome in the UK as is the coalition Government that has taken them.
The actions taken by the former Government when it conspired to release the Lockerbie Bomber where similarly unpopular.
We don’t want or need to spend our “treasure” or spill our soldiers’ blood for Libyan anything.
How interesting, however, is the American view, that we should blindly follow you into various Middle Eastern ground wars, but that you shouldn’t join us in policing a no-fly zone.
Indeed, it is an extremely special relationship.
How interesting however, is it that the British and French who’ve been colonially associated with North Africa since the 1790′s and Central, South and West Asia since much, much earlier…and more lately with such hubristic papers as the Sykes-Picot Agreement….seem to have been most willing to accept American blood and treasure expended inside those presently nasty cauldrons. It might be said that our interventions there were in lieu of those by the British and French in their own respective former colonies.
This current Libyan eruption pales in its struggling for even the remotest comparison.
This American objects strenuously to others’ problems becoming American problems. Not being privy to what’s not being said publicly, I can only offer a personal opinion.
“Perfidious Albion” is a term going back to Roman times.
The reason so many stooooopid people in the US are deluded into thinking that we have an obligation to intervene where our interests are not at stake, is because of our own nefarious media pundits who drum up public fervor for foreign wars.
I was outraged to hear that drivel from Bill O’Reilly. “Protecting the innocent from being slaughtered,” he said.
Well, O’Reilly, there are no innocent people on either side in Libya. Absolutely NONE! On one side you have Gadaffy and on the other side you have al Qaeda. The only sensible thing for the US is to stay out entirely, with a warning to BOTH sides that any future attacks upon US lives or property will be met with immediate retaliation in the form of bottled sunshine.
Any president who contemplates risking US blood and treasure on behalf of any Muslim nation, tribe, organization, or individual, is a traitor, and deserves the punishment customarily visited upon the same.
The problem with Mr. Miller’s analysis is that Ghaddafi was certainly the guarantor of the delivery of oil to Europe and backing the “rebels” not only risks destruction of the oil fields, but Western intelligence certainly knew of the Islamist inclinations of the anti-Ghaddafi revolt.
The reason for Europe’s inexcusable rush to war is to prevent the endless wave of Libyan refugees into Europe. This war is “crowd control.” It is Europe’s reckless attempt at an “immigration policy.”
Mr. Miller is correct: BHO has been a patsy to Euroopean leaders. He is so intent on demonstrating that HE, unlike his predecessor, can please Europe AND be “multilateral” in one fell swope, he relied on ridiculous notions of political critical theory rather than on actual intelligence and strategic interests. As a result, he has left the world’s greatest military at sea for a goal, metrics or an exit strategy.
What he has done is gotten the nation into a war that has distracted us from Iran, set Iran free to unleash its agents across the Gulf region (and Yemen), set up Israel for dire dangers, and, in the not so long run, so undermined the United States that when BHO’s term expires, the nation will evict him from the White House in a landslide. But it will probably be too late: Much of the region will have been “fundamntally changed.” How ironic. One of the ways to assure the fall of an empire is involvement in too many wars. This war is more than unnecessary and quixotic: It will likely have numerous dire consequences. Henry Kissinger has already observed that we have no exit strategy and Libya has no history of decent governance.
POTUS BHO-US (prounce in the Roman fashion if you please) does indeed have a foreign policy: It is not just that the U.S. can live with fundamentalist Islam. It is that the U.S. MUST live with fundamentalist Islam. And in one fell swope, this bungler has fulfilled his own foreign policy doctrine in a manner and to a degree that will shortly mortify the American public — as well as its allies.
Congress needs to immediately defund this war. I propose that it even hold hearings and do something unique in American history: Vote “No Confidence” in the current administration. G-d save the United States of America.
Dear Dr. Bones,
I guess Col. McAmmar from County Killdaffy must be *really* insignificant, Mac-and-O insignificant: the WCGFA, Wingnut City Grassfundin’ Agency, does not mind that half of their operatives should be agitproppin’ FOR the latest aggression like Grand Ayatollah Mikey Bin Ledeen [*] over on another sleeve of today’s pajama, while, whight here, you may examine a hirelin’ “emeritus professor of political science” who agitprops AGAINST. And ’twould be easy to multuiply both neospecimens by a dozen or a hundred.
¿What do you suppose Massa Tom Donohue [**] is up to this time?
Happy daze.
–JHM
___
[*] I never encounter the Rev. Mikey but my liver leaps with asudden inward joy to reflect that His Eminence is on their team rather than ours.
[**] http://j.mp/cwQAd5
Today’s unheard-of dogmatic-slumber garment — one Party Neocomrade (sixth class) A. H. Miller — seems like a throwback to the bad old days before Mr. Huntin’ton of H*rv*rd invented, or,as the case may be, discovered, _Le clashisme en Amérique_:
Except as regards choice of sides, that attempted analysis might have come from the late Comrade Engels or Comradess Luxemburg, _¿no es verdad?_ Or from Mr. — what was his name — Mr. Hobson.
The unexpected anachronism leads me to wonder what Massa Tom and the CCUSA would want their Tank Thinkers to bark in favor of a hypothetical aggression that really *was* all crude material Marx an’ no lofty _geistlich_ Huntin’ton.
Sooner or later, Lord Sam’s temporary self-exceptionalism in the world as we have known it since the year of religionism 1364/1945/5705 is bound to decline to the point where _der Marxkrieg_, so to call it, becomes thinkable once again. Think, for example, of the doo-doo that ‘we’ shall be in on the day when Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla — also perhaps Neocomrade Dr. Gen. Petrolæus of Princeton and West Point — wake up to find that they cannot procure rock oil for their murder vehicles any cheaper than champagne. For three days or a week, maybe all the wingnutettes an’ wingnuts can party on the remainin’ bubbly with Wally an’ Cindy an’ Dubya’s ‘David’ an’ the Rev. Bin Ledeen — ¡no teetotalitarian is Mikey! After that, however, ¿ . . . ?
Massa Tom — or, to be realistic, say “the next CCUSA General Secretary but six” — will be obliged to agitprop for rogersimonpure economic selfservicement, for a type of foreign-and-aggression policy no Party neocomrade has been reduced to barkin’ for in livin’ memory. Predictions about the future are to be avoided as rigorously as Count Dracula avoids garlic frappes, but I cannot help wondering whether our G.O.P. Geniuses and AEIdeologues will be much good at Marxwar. At very least, ¿May their freelordships an’ their freelordships’ hired hands , ex-perfesserial scribblers an’ violence pros alike, not need quite a long warm-up period before they can speak Force to Economics with assured fluency — an’, more important, with a reliably satisfactory R. O. I.?
But this sitiuation is not brand’ neo-, after all: remember how things went from Pearl Harbor down through the Kasserine Pass, Dr. Bones. Father Zeus takes care of our Divine Homeland™, sure enough, even more so than He attends to drunkards, and sparrows, and idiot children, and fieldlillies. But ’tis not Himself’s way to leap to the assistance of US Wunnerful instantly. Ruin our moral fibre, that would.
(( ADDENDUMB. It occurs to me in passing that one might fit that reflection into the PNC6 AHM neomechanism’s own framework: ¿How if Himself is tempering the wind to us shorn lambs by making Froggestán and Airstrip One revert to Marxwar first and take all the heavy initial casualities, so that Lord Sam will not have to do so when we jump on the gravy train later on?
(( I don’t mean to endorse the substance of the emerital bozodom, you understand. I only point out that it *could* be extended in that direction by anybozo who likes this neoproduct an’ wants more. Actually, if Torycomrade Cameron and M. du Sarkozy be not at least 98.6% out for _la gloire_ rather than for _das Gewinn_, I am Marie of Roumania. ))
Wasn’t there an article recently here on PJM about the effects of dropping acid?
An alternative to the “courageous women” narrative is that the French rather than the Arab League made the convincing case for intervention. The last hot potato the French handed off to the US recall was Vietnam. Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
There is no compelling moral or strategic argument for our intervention in Lybya.
A) Obama is not naive or inept. Every action he has taken is designed to weaken and dismantle America.
B) While I strongly disagree with this action, we ask a lot from our allies and we should back them up in the rare cases they ask the same of us.
As aside to the other comments here. The UN as the arbiter of lawful international actions against sovereigh nations who are, for the time being, out of favour with the “allies” of the West.
The UN please note that has both Libya AND Zimbabwe sitting now or in very recent times, on the UN Council of Human Rights. Which Council decides human rights violations in the present and the far distant past of the USA, Great Britain, France, you get the picture.
What a farce. And the “leaders” of the Western nations, ALL in trouble with their own populations, ALL unable to manage their own populations and nations effectively without massive gangster like tactics, are now “concerned” about the “revolutionaries in Libya”. Are praised by their propaganda media and movers and shakers for their “brave” and costly impulsive actions in agreeing a no-fly / bombing action in Libya.They do take their populations for mugs. And it seems they are right to do so.
Are Western nations ever again to have “leaders” not flexing their puny little muscles to show what big men they are.
This article misses the point in two regards. First, if Libya’s oil supply stops, this will drive up the cost of oil and gasoline worldwide, regardless of whether we buy it here or not. Sort of like when Clinton released the strategic oil reserve because gas prices were too high, and the result was mostly a lowering of gasoline prices…in Europe. Second, we have a perception problem with the Arabs and the Muslims. Sitting on our hands watching while Kaddaffi kills off the opposition, with the President taking a break from his NCAA brackets to weakly denounce the Colonel’s latest offensive against the rebels, makes us look weak, callous, cowardly, and nefarious (because the Arab world supposes we want Kaddaffi in power). I’d rather we were respected or at least feared.
As it stands, someone had to do something. Of course it would be us, regardless of the rhetoric about NATO and the UN and so forth having a hand in this. Everyone in those countries is taking what I now refer to as the Bill Maher approach: “Let someone else handle it.” He devoted much of his show last week (I don’t watch, but my wife does in the next room, and I intermittenly hear what he says) to this high-minded principle.
The Arab League is posturing, and not for the international community. Most of the leaders there are dictators or royalty, and they all imagine that they can convince their own citizens that the protests around the middle east are fomented by outside forces. They know differently. They’re not stupid, but they think their citizenry is (and for the most part they’ve been right). The goal is to convince that citizenry that the people encouraging protest are subversives who will undermine the nations efforts (to destroy Israel, build a robust economy, whatever) and that another 10 years of dictatorship or unrestrained royalty or whatever will bring those goals closer. If they can do this, then the Saudi regime will continue to plow along enriching its enormous royal family while the rest of the populace lives rather less well, to be diplomatic about it.
One commenter posited that Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be involved militarily in Libya. Leaving aside that Egypt reportedly *is* involved (with small numbers of special forces units training Libyan insurgents in the use of weaponry, and supplying it to them) and that Saudi Arabia is involved suppressing the rebellion in Bahrain (they’d look pretty stupid supporting one rebellion and suppressing another), leaving aside those things, the idea of the Egyptians running a successful military operation of any size across the desert this quickly after Mubarak’s government fell is not very credible, and the idea of the Saudis doing anything that far from their own country is frankly very far-fetched. If something’s going to be done, we’re going to be the ones to do it, or a lot of it anyway. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
“In Bosnia, as in Libya a generation later, the standard-bearer of American power had a stark choice: It was either rescue or calamity. Benghazi would have been Barack Obama’s Srebrenica, the town that the powers had left to the mercy of Ratko Mladic and his killers”
Ajami- Opinion: Obama’s Holbrooke Moment http://on.wsj.com/fGNDBU
Sorry not buying your war for oil bullshit. Heard it before from the left.
Amr Moussa the Arab League secretary, was touted as a possible Egyptian head of state after Mubarak went on permanent vacation. Now he’s voicing outrage on behalf of the Arab League at the coalition imposing a no-fly zone at their behest. How many times will the world need to stare in the face of duplicity to actually see it for what it is?
Well said. I have written a couple of similar pieces on my blog.
Of recent note is the Mainstream Medias conversion of the term “Libyan Rebels” to “freightened Libyan populace” in less than the span of one news cycle. I have yet to see any of the MSM bring up the issue of BP’s recent agreement with Gaddafi for 100% of the development of Libya’s Offshore Oil resources.I guess they feel that such stories might “cloud the issues” at hand.
This is a classic realist interpretation of the recent interest in an obscure country known for little more than its oil and its brutality. I’m inclined to believe it. Nothing else makes sense—certainly not intervention based on humanitarian concerns.