The U.S./NATO intervention, command of which is gradually being shared with other European and North American allies (as well as token contributions from a small number of Arab states), has divided opinion on the left, with one side arguing that the humanitarian crisis posed by Gaddafi’s threat to wipe out his domestic enemies justified military intervention by Western powers, and the other side remaining distrustful of the motives, legality, and putative beneficial consequences of Western military interventions into resource-rich African and Middle Eastern lands.
Exemplifying this division is the debate between Juan Cole and critics of his “Open Letter to the Left on Libya“, which argued the justice of the (UNSC sanctioned / NATO executed) intervention follows from its humanitarian aim, its Libyan support, its international legality, and its limited scope. In short:
… in Libya intervention was demanded by the people being massacred as well as by the regional powers, was authorized by the UNSC, and could practically attain its humanitarian aim of forestalling a massacre through aerial bombardment of murderous armored brigades. And, the intervention could be a limited one and still accomplish its goal.
Left critics of the intervention have questioned all of these premises, including Gaddafi’s power to successfully carry out his threats to annihilate his opposition. (See for example this overview of Socialist literature on the subject.)
In my last post, I argued that the selective application of humanitarian intervention exposes it as whitewash.
The touted degree of international support can also be doubted. As Philip Hiro discusses, the foreign intervention in Libya has exposed divisions within and among international security institutions — the Arab League, EU, NATO, UN Security Council — and has served as an occasion for the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to “adopt a unified stance on a matter of war and peace.”
The BRIC countries, representing 40% of the worlds population abstained from the Security Council vote, while the Asia Times clarifies that Arab League support for the intervention was really a “House of Saud led operation” — “only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone.” (Nevertheless, as Siddharth Varadarajan points out, this fact alone does not “absolve them of their failure to mount an effective political challenge to the drive for war.” Thanks to MTK, SF mayoral candidate and friend of the blog, for pointing to these discussions in comments).
The pro-intervention forces may have taken the steps to secure international legality for the operation, but its legality has been questioned on domestic legal grounds, since according to the U.S. Constitution the President lacks the authority to make war without Congressional approval. Ohio Rep. Kucinich is the leading the charge on this point, insisting that the rule of law should also apply to the President.
But Cole’s most contentious premise is his faith that the intervention can be limited in scope. That is why the implausibility of a humanitarian motive is important to consider, for once its talons puncture flesh, the imperial eagle is unlikely to release until it is time to feed.
T. Miles exposes Cole’s false dilemma succinctly:
…as past history going back to the 1880s shows, that inviting the global imperial power to save them will enslave the Libyan people to a more subtle yoke in the coming years. This may be better than Gadaffi’s death squads, but that accepts the fallacy which goes completely unnoticed by Professor Cole that there are not simply two choices: domestic tyrant or Pax Imperia.
Along these lines, another of Cole’s reasons to support intervention — that the leaders of the uprising in Bengazi are “simply the notables of the city” — has been rendered untrue by the logic of intervention itself: it is now Canadians and expatriate residents of Langley, VA that are filling leadership roles.
Cole’s narrow focus also misses how the attack sends a clear message to other outlier regimes: “no matter what, no matter the inducements or pressure, never ever give up chemical weapons or a nuclear weapons program. Doing so will not ensure that the U.S. does not attack you—on the contrary, it will make it much more likely.”
The U.S. has extended its Drone War into Libya, as if to commemorate the centennial of the first aerial bombardment of history, when Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gaviotti dropped hand grenades from a Taube monoplane (pictured above, let) on targets near modern Tripoli.
