More bombs bursting in Libya. What for?
This is an intervention straight from Bill Clinton’s 1990s playbook, in other words, and a stark departure from the Bush administration’s more unilateralist methods. There are no “coalitions of the willing” here, no dismissive references to “Old Europe,” no “you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Instead, the Obama White House has shown exquisite deference to the very international institutions and foreign governments that the Bush administration either steamrolled or ignored.
This way of war has obvious advantages. It spreads the burden of military action, sustains rather than weakens our alliances, and takes the edge off the world’s instinctive anti-Americanism. Best of all, it encourages the European powers to shoulder their share of responsibility for maintaining global order, instead of just carping at the United States from the sidelines.
But there are major problems with this approach to war as well. Because liberal wars depend on constant consensus-building within the (so-called) international community, they tend to be fought by committee, at a glacial pace, and with a caution that shades into tactical incompetence. And because their connection to the national interest is often tangential at best, they’re often fought with one hand behind our back and an eye on the exits, rather than with the full commitment that victory can require.Bombing people costs money
Gingrich Was for Libyan Airstrikes Before He Was Against Them
Tribes With Flags
Tribes With Flags
David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The Times, wrote an article from Libya on Monday that posed the key question, not only about Libya but about all the new revolutions brewing in the Arab world: “The question has hovered over the Libyan uprising from the moment the first tank commander defected to join his cousins protesting in the streets of Benghazi: Is the battle for Libya the clash of a brutal dictator against a democratic opposition, or is it fundamentally a tribal civil war?”Our World: America’s descent into strategic dementia
How You Get to Be One of Gadhafi's Virgin Bodyguards
Libya: Can Britain and France really run this conflict?
Here's How The US Seized $30 Billion Of Qaddafi's Funds In Just 72 Hours
Same Nations Shelling Gadhafi Peddled Him Weapons
Some of the very same European countries now leading the charge to destroy Moammar Gadhafi’s weapons were pushing each other out of the way to sell him those same weapons just months earlier, according to a survey of international arms sales. France, the UK, Russia, and Italy have all been jockeying for position as Libya’s top arms dealer for years, Miller-McCune reports, and Russia alone says it will lose $4 billion because of the UN weapons embargo.
Though sales of conventional arms have been “very low,” since the embargo was lifted in 2003, an EU report from January indicated that France, Italy and Germany had been “steadily increasing their business ties with Libya.” Russia, the top arms dealer to Libya, will lose $4 billion thanks to the new embargo, the director of the state-run weapon exports company said Friday. The US once tried to sell arms to Libya as well, but Congress shot the deal down.
No comments:
Post a Comment