Barack Obama is secretly pro-Gadaffi - or he's a *****.

[DinoDoc]

Not seeing it as our problem would be the correct way to put it. And it wasn't.

[Cort Haus]

Mobius, where is the genocide in Libya that you are talking about?

I see a civil war.

[Lonestar]

According to your rethoric you should be happy that finally the UK and France can play their game and project power into a country that is close enough to home.

After the USN and USAF leveled the Libyan air defense network. Don't kid yourself.

[Cort Haus]

Also, M, where did Arrian or anyone else say that committing genocide was fine?

You're not helping yourself here, really.

[Whoha]

Lonestar: I really hope that we don't end up "taking ownership" of this thing
-Arrian

We touched it last unfortunately.

As for our new strategic allies:

In recent years, at mosques throughout eastern Libya, radical imams have been "urging worshippers to support jihad in Iraq and elsewhere," according to WikiLeaked cables. More troubling: The city of Derna, east of Benghazi, was a "wellspring" of suicide bombers that targeted U.S. troops in Iraq.
...
That's the background. Flash forward to 2008: A West Point analysis of a cache of al Qaeda records discovered that nearly 20 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Libyans, and that on a per-capita basis Libya nearly doubled Saudi Arabia as the top source of foreign fighters.

The word "fighter" here is misleading. For the most part, Libyans didn't go to Iraq to fight; they went to blow themselves up — along with American G.I.'s. (Among those whose "work" was detailed in the al Qaeda records, 85 percent of the Libyans were listed as suicide bombers.) Overwhelmingly, these militants came "from cities in North‐East Libya, an area long known for Jihadi‐linked militancy." [UPDATE: West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center refused to comment on its own report.]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/u-s-bombs-libya-helps-jihadists-20110321

[Arrian]

Mobius: I don't hate you blindly. I don't hate you at all, though I do think you're a troll.

My thoughts on R2P are simply this: the case has to be *extremely* good, and there needs to be multilateral support for action, which must be as clearly spelled out as possible. And even then I'm going to be skeptical. This means that, yes, I will often be arguing that we should "stand idly by" (which is itself a ridiculous frame, since we're talking about things takign place in foreign countries we do not rule) while people are being killed (which people do all the time). I was against the intervention in Kosovo (sold entirely on humanitarian grounds), and I think I was right to be in hindsight. I was against Iraq, which was sold, in part, on humanitarian grounds (that was the selling point for liberal interventionists, some of whom bought it). I was pro-Afghanistan at first, as it was in direct response to an attack. Mission creep, alas, set in long ago.

The United States can do a lot of good in the world - primarily by making our own country a good place to live, accepting immigrants, and trying not to be incredible *******s abroad. That's my preferred model for interacting with the world, and it obviously differs significantly from our actual interaction.

You, on the other hand, are taking a strong stance in favor of liberal internventionism, which as far as I can see is essentially neoconservatism except liberals prefer more multilateral action. While that's a plus, the core remains: the use of military force as a tool to make the world a better place. I largely reject this as a viable course of action, in no small part because history shows that there is nothing "simple" about such action.. it's warfare, and it's ugly, messy and difficult to predict by its very nature (indeed, if one were serious about R2P, one would need to have an entire corps of people trained up and ready to go at a moment's notice as quasi-military/quasi-diplomatic support staff who understood, for instance, the tribes in Lybia or the tribes in Pakistan, spoke the local language(s), etc). No, not the State Department (or, if so, a greatly expanded one). You would need, even moreso than we have now, the trappings of Empire. I see this is: a) inadvisable (boy with hammer likes to use it, see: our military and its use); b) expensive; and c) unlikely to work all that well, even if it was better than the ignorance we bring to the table now.

For this, you claim

you're the kind of guy that's happy to stand idly by and watch an easily preventable genocide unfold before your eyes - in fact why not give the bad guys some weapons to help them out as well...

Which is either trolling (likely) or sincere, but incredibly poor reasoning (possible). Nothing about what's happening in Lybia, Yemen, Bahrain (to name some current ones) makes me happy (though it's unclear to me that any of them qualify as genocide, a term that is typically used glibly in debates such as these because it's basically the same as whipping out Hitler). I no more stand idly by than you do, unless you have signed up to go fight - personally putting your life on the line to "prevent genocide." If it's just voicing your support and paying taxes, hell I pay my taxes too, which just leaves opinions on message boards. Whoopy-****ing-do for you there on your "caring." I have no idea whatsoever what you mean about giving the bad guys weapons - I do not support the arming of Gman, or our support past/present support for nasty autocracies. I would much prefer our foreign policy be quite a bit different, and I've been quite consistent about that for as long as I've been posting here. I do not, alas, control US foreign policy (which, sadly, seems to vary little between the parties).

You are talking out of your ass, as usual.

-Arrian

p.s. Re: genocide - there may have been a fairly strong case in Rwanda. I'm no expert on that (I had just graduated high school and did not keep up with events the way I do now, and I haven't made a study of it since, other than reading the odd article here or there), but as I recall it was largely one tribe slaughtering the defenseless other tribe. Whereas in Lybia you have an armed rebellion fighting a dictatorship. Go rebels, I guess, but it's not the same thing. This distinction is ignored by glibly throwing around "genocide." It's almost as if the term doesn't mean anything other than "people killing other people."

[Arrian]

This thread is pretty amusing if you re-read it start to finish. Moby cannot keep his story straight for more than 2 posts at a time.

-Arrian

[MOBIUS]

Mobius, where is the genocide in Libya that you are talking about?

I see a civil war.

Yeah, my bad, how about massacre or slaughter instead...

Oh wait, there isn't one because the no-fly zone and the routing of Gaddafi forces from Benghazi prevented it.

[MOBIUS]

Also, M, where did Arrian or anyone else say that committing genocide was fine?

You're not helping yourself here, really.

Well, I figure that if you're happy to stand idly by and let one happen when it's easily in your power to stop it, you are in effect condoning it.

[BeBMan]

There are a lot of questions about the currrent action Libya, what it will or can achieve and how this would even work all out in the end, but the prob I do have with the "let's stay out of this" stance (which my gov happily adopted for mostly domestic reasons I personally think) is that it essentially sends the message that some dictator like Big G just needs to be ruthless enough in putting down his opposition and he will get through with it. And this in an - IMO - quite historic situation where you have regimes all over the Arab world in trouble with their own people.

There is surely no guarantee that what will come out of this will be only Westminster-style democracies with only happy people we love in power. But I don't see how the status quo (which meant mostly: stagnation or even worse) in the Arab world was great for either them or us in the "west" anyway.

[MOBIUS]

Mobius: I don't hate you blindly. I don't hate you at all, though I do think you're a troll.

My thoughts on R2P are simply this: the case has to be *extremely* good, and there needs to be multilateral support for action, which must be as clearly spelled out as possible. And even then I'm going to be skeptical. This means that, yes, I will often be arguing that we should "stand idly by" (which is itself a ridiculous frame, since we're talking about things takign place in foreign countries we do not rule) while people are being killed (which people do all the time). I was against the intervention in Kosovo (sold entirely on humanitarian grounds), and I think I was right to be in hindsight. I was against Iraq, which was sold, in part, on humanitarian grounds (that was the selling point for liberal interventionists, some of whom bought it). I was pro-Afghanistan at first, as it was in direct response to an attack. Mission creep, alas, set in long ago.

The United States can do a lot of good in the world - primarily by making our own country a good place to live, accepting immigrants, and trying not to be incredible *******s abroad. That's my preferred model for interacting with the world, and it obviously differs significantly from our actual interaction.

You, on the other hand, are taking a strong stance in favor of liberal internventionism, which as far as I can see is essentially neoconservatism except liberals prefer more multilateral action. While that's a plus, the core remains: the use of military force as a tool to make the world a better place. I largely reject this as a viable course of action, in no small part because history shows that there is nothing "simple" about such action.. it's warfare, and it's ugly, messy and difficult to predict by its very nature (indeed, if one were serious about R2P, one would need to have an entire corps of people trained up and ready to go at a moment's notice as quasi-military/quasi-diplomatic support staff who understood, for instance, the tribes in Lybia or the tribes in Pakistan, spoke the local language(s), etc). No, not the State Department (or, if so, a greatly expanded one). You would need, even moreso than we have now, the trappings of Empire. I see this is: a) inadvisable (boy with hammer likes to use it, see: our military and its use); b) expensive; and c) unlikely to work all that well, even if it was better than the ignorance we bring to the table now.

For this, you claim



Which is either trolling (likely) or sincere, but incredibly poor reasoning (possible). Nothing about what's happening in Lybia, Yemen, Bahrain (to name some current ones) makes me happy (though it's unclear to me that any of them qualify as genocide, a term that is typically used glibly in debates such as these because it's basically the same as whipping out Hitler). I no more stand idly by than you do, unless you have signed up to go fight - personally putting your life on the line to "prevent genocide." If it's just voicing your support and paying taxes, hell I pay my taxes too, which just leaves opinions on message boards. Whoopy-****ing-do for you there on your "caring." I have no idea whatsoever what you mean about giving the bad guys weapons - I do not support the arming of Gman, or our support past/present support for nasty autocracies. I would much prefer our foreign policy be quite a bit different, and I've been quite consistent about that for as long as I've been posting here. I do not, alas, control US foreign policy (which, sadly, seems to vary little between the parties).

You are talking out of your ass, as usual.

-Arrian

p.s. Re: genocide - there may have been a fairly strong case in Rwanda. I'm no expert on that (I had just graduated high school and did not keep up with events the way I do now, and I haven't made a study of it since, other than reading the odd article here or there), but as I recall it was largely one tribe slaughtering the defenseless other tribe. Whereas in Lybia you have an armed rebellion fighting a dictatorship. Go rebels, I guess, but it's not the same thing. This distinction is ignored by glibly throwing around "genocide." It's almost as if the term doesn't mean anything other than "people killing other people."

Gaddafi was poised to massacre the population of Benghazi and retake control of the entire country most likely resuting in a reign of terror for anyone unable to flee if the west did not intervene.

Either you're happy to see that happen, or you're not - end of story.

[MOBIUS]

There are a lot of questions about the currrent action Libya, what it will or can achieve and how this would even work all out in the end, but the prob I do have with the "let's stay out of this" stance (which my gov happily adopted for mostly domestic reasons I personally think) is that it essentially sends the message that some dictator like Big G just needs to be ruthless enough in putting down his opposition and he will get through with it. And this in an - IMO - quite historic situation where you have regimes all over the Arab world in trouble with their own people.

There is surely no guarantee that what will come out of this will be only Westminster-style democracies with only happy people we love in power. But I don't see how the status quo (which meant mostly: stagnation or even worse) in the Arab world was great for either them or us in the "west" anyway.

Exactly.

[Cort Haus]

Well, I figure that if you're happy to stand idly by and let one happen when it's easily in your power to stop it, you are in effect condoning it.

It is first important to consider that the cry of 'genocide' is an emotive plea that is too often made for the precise motive of encouraging military action when the genuine circumstances are something very different. Governments eager to drum up public support for militaristic over-reactions are highly prone to this, and the value of atrocity-porn propaganda is highly attractive to warmongers seeking to justify their actions when a more sober analysis might rightly conclude that they are, in fact, aggressors attacking a sovereign state.

Libya is seemingly in a state of civil war where an undoubtedly unpleasant dictator is facing armed opposition and is using unsurprising methods in his attempts to maintain his power. Saddam Hussain demonstrated similar credentials to opposition over his long reign and his behaviour was taken by some, including one Tony Blair plus many others, to provide a sound moral imperative for regime-change. I see little difference between the motives and enthusiasm of Tony Blair to effect change in Iraq, all in the name of sparing the lives of innocent potential victims of the monster, and those painting the Libyan conflict in a similar way.

The Iraq campaign turned out to be a bloody disaster, as I'm sure most people here would agree, and people are still dying in depressingly large numbers, on a daily basis to this very day. Saddam would have to have been very busy to have inflicted the number of casualties that the Iraq war has tragically precipitated, but it is important to remember that the messianic Tony Blair genuinely believed that he was undertaking an heroic action to spare the lives of innocents and to prevent what he would certainly have considered to be the kind of 'genocide' that people like to pretend they are averting by declaring war on Libya today.

The 'stand idly by' accusation is a cheap and shallow analysis which attempts to paint opponents of dangerous militarism as morally-bankrupt appeasers while ignoring the disastrous track-record of previous interventions which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Those trying to suggest that their support of this militarism is on the side of the angels would do well to carefully consider the catastrophic outcome of the great crusade against Saddam Hussain.

[Egbert]

I wish I'd said that.

[C0ckney]

arrian and cort