Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
Looks like the strategy is moving along well. I think Obama is playing this one perfectly...
d) Actually, if was Qadaffi who was ordering the bombing of civilians and not Maria Carey or Fiddy Cent
Considering the complexity and variability of the situation, its actually not looking all that terrible. Obama seems to have been pretty careful to not make statements or promises we can't keep, something very different from Bush.
And if the UN does impose a no fly zone in Lybia, who's going to stand behind the Lybian Govt? The Sudan??? I'm not sure the regime can survive...
While we don't want to get into a real battle, it does seem like Ghaddafi has crossed the line with his actions...they're going to squeeze him until he pops.
I think the bigger piece is that Khadaffi is now seen as damaged goods by even much of the Arab leadership.
Bush would have made some dramatic remarks about standing up for those who seek freedom, the neocons would have had a circle jerk, and then they'd do nothing.
Justification is because the Libyan government has turned to using the military against their own people without much regard. It looks like they've been bombing and shelling killing just about anyone. I've really some really gruesome stories.
As for Obama's statements, I thought they have been pretty clear on this. While the position of the Administration is that Ghaddafi should go, the legal resolution is only to protect the civilians and as such that is the direct mission.
They appear to be very mindful of the slippery slope and also the strategic situation.
And I think that's exactly the concern...another Rwanda like slaughter.
I wouldn't call this a "war"
Preemptive (or worse preventative) war isn't the same thing as an internationally legal humanitarian mission and you know it...
To assert that killing, bombs etc... is war because it's ugly...well duh.
I heard that today there were aircraft from Qatar over Libya under the UN resolution. This is pretty remarkable.
The situation in Libya is real. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians was occurring.
The situation was deteriorating and heading towards a likely genocide.
-spence
|
I'M SHOCKED!!!
Boston Globe /Opinion /Op-ed Alan J. Kuperman
False pretense for war in Libya?
By Alan J. Kuperman
April 14, 2011
EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women.
If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.
Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. “If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’’ Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.
But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.
The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.
Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.
But Khadafy’s acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide.
Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’
If bloodbath was unlikely, how did this notion propel US intervention? The actual prospect in Benghazi was the final defeat of the rebels. To avoid this fate, they desperately concocted an impending genocide to rally international support for “humanitarian’’ intervention that would save their rebellion.
On March 15, Reuters quoted a Libyan opposition leader in Geneva claiming that if Khadafy attacked Benghazi, there would be “a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda.’’ Four days later, US military aircraft started bombing. By the time Obama claimed that intervention had prevented a bloodbath, The New York Times already had reported that “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda’’ against Khadafy and were “making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.’’