anyone else following Egypt on Aljazeera?

[Lethevich]

Still shelling cities. Stay classy, Gaddafi.

[Florestan]

Still shelling cities. Stay classy, Gaddafi.

Wait a minute! Didn't some US general in charge of the operations make known to the world yesterday that the bombings were "very effective"? Then how come Gaddafi can still shell cities?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Wait a minute! Didn't some US general in charge of the operations make known to the world yesterday that the bombings were "very effective"? Then how come Gaddafi can still shell cities?

Er...does anyone know who our allies are in Libya? I mean, who precisely are we supporting here? Doubtless there are loads of Jeffersonian democrats, adherents to limited government, and scrupulous separators of mosque and state holed up in Benghazi (or wherever they are). Have we identified them yet?

[Florestan]

Er...does anyone know who our allies are in Libya? I mean, who precisely are we supporting here? Doubtless there are loads of Jeffersonian democrats, adherents to limited government, and scrupulous separators of mosque and state holed up in Benghazi (or wherever they are). Have we identified them yet?

Never ever let common sense, realism and cautiousness stay in the way of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" --- even if you end up having the wrong "friend", he'll have plenty of enemies as well. 

[Lethevich]

Wait a minute! Didn't some US general in charge of the operations make known to the world yesterday that the bombings were "very effective"? Then how come Gaddafi can still shell cities?

Human shields. The mandate is to establish a no fly zone, and that was fully successful - that statement is just PR. The no fly zone is the easy part. Technically and legally they are not supporting the rebels, and to keep up that appearance will be the main challenge.

Clearly outside of mandates it is highly desirable that Gaddafi goes, and as a result there is a theoretical desire for the rebels to succeed in fighting his forces off. What the air forces can do is destroy supply chains and hope that the rebels are able to take care of the forces currently in or near the cities.

[Florestan]

it is highly desirable that Gaddafi goes

For whom?

and as a result there is a theoretical desire for the rebels to succeed in fighting his forces off. What the air forces can do is destroy supply chains and hope that the rebels are able to take care of the forces currently in or near the cities.

I join Velimir: who are these rebels? What do they stand for? What do they really want? What warranty do they offer they'll not be just as bad or even worse than Gaddafi? Is the US prepared to face and join a full-fledged civil war on the ground in order to secure their victory? Hope has never made a wish came true unless backed by action. 

[Lethevich]

I join Velimir: who are these rebels? What do they stand for? What do they really want? What warranty do they offer they'll not be just as bad or even worse than Gaddafi? Is the US prepared to face and join a full-fledged civil war on the ground in order to secure their victory? Hope has never made a wish came true unless backed by action. 

They don't stand for anything other than the deposition of Gaddafi, because they aren't a unified movement with any fixed ideology - none of the protest movements have been.

Is the US prepared to face and join a full-fledged civil war on the ground in order to secure their victory?

No country is, and nobody would support their country doing it.

For somebody who just decried the concept of "the enemy of the enemy is my friend", you seem quite content with the idea of Gaddafi's tyranny continuing just in case something happens to come along that might be even worse.

[Florestan]

They don't stand for anything other than the deposition of Gaddafi.

Reminds one about how the "Afghan Freedom Fighters", i.e. the Mujaheedin / Taliban, stood for nothing else than the deposition of Najibullah, or how Trotsky stood for the deposition of Stalin --- this didn't make them Jeffersonian democrats. 

For somebody who just decried the concept of "the enemy of the enemy is my friend", you seem quite content with the idea of Gaddafi's tyranny continuing just in case something happens to come along that might be even worse.

Gaddafi is a tyrant whose downfall I clearly stated I could hardly wait for, see a few pages above. But I am not convinced that the best way to achieve it is by repeating the errors of the past. 

Actually, have you ever been to Lybia? I haven't. How do we know then which percentage of the people really hate Gaddafi and which percentage really support him?

[Scarpia]

Human shields. The mandate is to establish a no fly zone, and that was fully successful - that statement is just PR. The no fly zone is the easy part. Technically and legally they are not supporting the rebels, and to keep up that appearance will be the main challenge.

Clearly outside of mandates it is highly desirable that Gaddafi goes, and as a result there is a theoretical desire for the rebels to succeed in fighting his forces off. What the air forces can do is destroy supply chains and hope that the rebels are able to take care of the forces currently in or near the cities.

And where will Libya be with supply chains disruption, oil industry shattered, and "rebels" running things and seeking to exterminate Qadaffi loyalists to consolidate power?   I feel it is highly likely that when the dust clears the country will be much worse off and whoever ends up in power will have the population thinking of Qaddafi rule as the golden age for Libya.  Reform comes from within a country, not from a foreign invader.  The soon Obama turns this campagn over to the EU the better.  Before long combat in Libya will be between the French in the British.

[Florestan]

I feel it is highly likely that when the dust clears the country will be much worse off and whoever ends up in power will have the population thinking of Qaddafi rule as the golden age for Libya. 

Much as I dislike Gaddafi, I would like to be pointed to a really fair and accurate assessment of his achievements --- if any -- in creating a better country than that which he found when taking power 40 years back. Anyone knows a trustworthy source?

[Lethevich]

Actually, have you ever been to Lybia? I haven't. How do we know then which percentage of the people really hate Gaddafi and which percentage really support him?

Me neither. This is definitely something that makes Libya stand apart from some of the other countries where these actions took place. Gaddafi's propaganda machine portrays him as a kind of everyday freedom fighter, opposed to an aloof royal. A lot of the population buy into that, which is why this seeming journey towards a status quo or potential partition is rearing its head: a lot of people are happy to be ruled by him so long as they don't question him and he doesn't decide to shoot them. The other guys - I'm on the side of keeping them safe providing it can be done relatively clinically.

And where will Libya be with supply chains disruption, oil industry shattered, and "rebels" running things and seeking to exterminate Qadaffi loyalists to consolidate power?   I feel it is highly likely that when the dust clears the country will be much worse off and whoever ends up in power will have the population thinking of Qaddafi rule as the golden age for Libya.  Reform comes from within a country, not from a foreign invader.  The soon Obama turns this campagn over to the EU the better.  Before long combat in Libya will be between the French in the British.

You keep saying that about all of these protests, dire warnings of doom So little gets done without idealism, and so much of what is worthwhile in life demands risk. Your mention of "reforms from within" is partly what makes this different from Iraq. Iraq was all about arbitrarily removing a loathed ruler and no regard for any other factors. Libya is about crippling his ability to commit human rights abuses as cheaply and effectively as possible - no messy ground wars.

It's still blatently idealistic intervention, but it's less dangerous all-round, and the local perception that this is as much about self-determination of a group of people than simply an imperialist fancy should make it a lot easier to establish hearts and minds in the areas under rebel administration.

[Florestan]

a lot of people are happy to be ruled by him so long as they don't question him and he doesn't decide to shoot them.

But that pretty much describes the situation of most people along most of the recorded history --- panem et circenses being its Western incarnation until very recently.  Nothing peculiarly Lybian here.   

The other guys - I'm on the side of keeping them safe providing it can be done relatively clinically.

That's precisely the problem: it can't, period.

It's still blatently idealistic intervention, but it's less dangerous all-round, and the local perception that this is as much about self-determination of a group of people than simply an imperialist fancy should make it a lot easier to establish hearts and minds in the areas under rebel administration.

Self-determination with military foreign aid? An oxymoron if there ever has been one. 

[Scarpia]

You keep saying that about all of these protests, dire warnings of doom So little gets done without idealism, and so much of what is worthwhile in life demands risk. Your mention of "reforms from within" is partly what makes this different from Iraq. Iraq was all about arbitrarily removing a loathed ruler and no regard for any other factors. Libya is about crippling his ability to commit human rights abuses as cheaply and effectively as possible - no messy ground wars.

Iraq also had its internal rebellions, which were put down by Hussein, and its horrific civil war after the US invasion, which was put down by bring in another 60,000 US troops and bribing Sunni groups with cash that al Qaeda countn't match.  Iraq with the "shock and awe" aerial display and no invasion would have been worse than Hussein and worse than what they have now.

The faster Obama hands off this ill conceived adventure to France and Britten the better.

[MishaK]

Some excellent points here, but the arguments you made about the impossibility of implementing democracy " unless the target country has a pre-existing civil society and legal system that it can fall back upon, and those things can't be developed overnight and not through overt pressure from an outside power of which the population is distrustful" are equally pertinent for the Marshall Plan. Germany, France, Italy and other European countries at its receiving end were just as Western as the US with respect to the civil society and the legal system (totalitarian experiments notwithstanding), mentality, customs and manners, and certainly did not feel they were overtly pressured by an outside power they distrusted. This is hardly the case with Iraq, Lybia, Egypt or other Arab countries, with their centuries long history of radically different civil and legal systems, mentality, customs and manners and their deep distrust of the "Crusaders", i.e. the Western world.

I don't think "cultural similarity" matters, however you would measure that. For one thing, France and Germany have legal systems that are extremely different from that of the US. India's legal system (English style common law) is more similar to that of the US than Germany's or France's (civil law - Prussian Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and French Code Napoleon, respectively). The US has more in common with some African and Asian members of the British Commonwealth than with Europe, as regards civic institutions and legal systems. What *does* indeed matter is the attitude of the more powerful outsider towards the post--conflict country, i.e. in the case of Western Europe, the white Americans in charge felt a certain cultural affinity towards the Germans and French from whose countries their own ancestors derived, whereas they treated the Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese with overt racism and a sense of superiority. It's to a degree similar with the US treatment of the Arab world, especially post-9/11 among conservatives. That attitude doesn't bode well for a welcoming reception of even well intended advice. In that respect you're right.

A "Marshall Plan" for the Arab world sounds great in theory but the probablity of its coming into being is nil.

A Marshall plan for any part of the world has a probability of nil at the moment, because everyone is obsessed with deficit cutting (because we lived beyond our means during good times and allowed too much graft and waste) and belief in the power of collective large-scale public infrastructure projects with long term dividends but high startup costs is zero. That will have to change, not just for the good of the Arab world. Japan is showing us what havoc an inadequate, outdated energy infrastructure can wreak even in a highly developed country. We can't afford to keep pushing the ball down the road, while continuing to overtax our outdated 70-year old grids, 40-year old powerplants and 100-year old railway lines, or our pothole-strewn highways, if we want to have a successful future, especially in light of diminshing finite resources. The whole world needs a Marshall Plan and Brazil, China and India are neither in the position to fill the void, nor should they necessarily be trusted even if they could.

[Todd]

Yes, Russia has a perspective. Does it come with an argument about principle or is it narrowly self-interested?

We can't be everywhere, but that's not a good excuse to be nowhere.

The implication of the first line is that the US acts on principle and not (solely) narrow self interest.  I'm not convinced this is the case.  I also don't know if it should be the case.  Pursuing some vague "principle" can lead to unending warfare.

The second statement is also the call of the manipulative cynic.  How, for instance, could a small US intervention in Rwanda have made things go any more wrong there? 

Basically any commentator on this subject - reporters who have been following individual countries for years, etc - all say that this is unprecedented. Everybody from journalists to the American government thought Egypt was the most stable country in the middle east (although Saudi Arabia comes close). Everybody thought that Arab countries were so diverse that movements like this would always be dissident and localised. I don't get how anybody could've even guessed about the sweeping extent and flash-fire nature of these events, although feel free to offer some examples.

What's happening is largely unprecedented, though prior upheavals fostered by imperials powers to other ends have occurred, and the speed has been both amazing and alarming.  There's no doubt of that.  There is doubt, at least in my mind, as to whether the people of Egypt and Tunisia, and other countries, will really end up better off.  I certainly hope they do.  I won't be surprised if they don't.

As to Egypt and Saudi Arabia being stable, well, I don't follow the Middle East in great detail, but even I knew that Egypt faced a variety of problems, including economic or demographic (eg, a huge youth population and extremely high unemployment), and that it suppressed dissidents of all types.  That is not a stable situation.  Saudi Arabia is apparently harsher yet, but they also dole out goodies more freely, and have done so in a more accelerated way in the past few weeks.  Maybe the House of Saud can reform the political and economic structure of the country sufficiently to prevent another revolution.  Maybe not.

One thing I'm hoping can be averted is yet more war.  I don't care if it is endless civil wars or some type of regional war, by which I mean a war between Israel and various Arab states.  Some of the international "stability" that existed in the region is gone, or has at least eroded, and this may not lead to peace. 

[Todd]

A Marshall plan for any part of the world has a probability of nil at the moment, because everyone is obsessed with deficit cutting....The whole world needs a Marshall Plan and Brazil, China and India are neither in the position to fill the void, nor should they necessarily be trusted even if they could.

There can be no Marshall Plan in the current world because the necessary conditions do not exist.  The US did not undertake the policy out of the kindness of its collective heart, it did it for strategic reasons.  There is nothing in the current world anything like what existed in the late 40s.  The whole world does not need a Marshall Plan, either; that is grandiose imperial thinking to make even someone like Cecil Rhodes shudder.

[Florestan]

I don't think "cultural similarity" matters, however you would measure that. For one thing, France and Germany have legal systems that are extremely different from that of the US.

Correct, but the assumptions behind these systems are the same. Could you say that the assumptions behind the US legal system and that of Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Lybia are the same?

India's legal system (English style common law) is more similar to that of the US than Germany's or France's (civil law - Prussian Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and French Code Napoleon, respectively).

That's particularly interesting, because India's legal system is nothing else than a colonial inheritance --- do I need to remind you how horrified were the English colonial authorities by the Indian practices prior to the English common law being literally forced upon the Indians?

The US has more in common with some African and Asian members of the British Commonwealth than with Europe, as regards civic institutions and legal systems.

Oh sure: the Liberian constitution is basically a copy of the US one. Yet the two countries are galaxies apart.

What *does* indeed matter is the attitude of the more powerful outsider towards the post--conflict country, i.e. in the case of Western Europe, the white Americans in charge felt a certain cultural affinity towards the Germans and French from whose countries their own ancestors derived,

Are you being serious? 

White Americans in charge of Western Europe? Then what were Adenauer and de Gaulle? Some bushmen puppets of their WASP masters?

This is colonial arrogance at its best and purest and I'm flabbergasted by your adopting it. 

A Marshall plan for any part of the world has a probability of nil at the moment, because everyone is obsessed with deficit cutting (because we lived beyond our means during good times and allowed too much graft and waste) and belief in the power of collective large-scale public infrastructure projects with long term dividends but high startup costs is zero. That will have to change, not just for the good of the Arab world. Japan is showing us what havoc an inadequate, outdated energy infrastructure can wreak even in a highly developed country. We can't afford to keep pushing the ball down the road, while continuing to overtax our outdated 70-year old grids, 40-year old powerplants and 100-year old railway lines, or our pothole-strewn highways, if we want to have a successful future, especially in light of diminshing finite resources. The whole world needs a Marshall Plan and Brazil, China and India are neither in the position to fill the void, nor should they necessarily be trusted even if they could.

Nothing to disagree with here.

[Scarpia]

Where did Qaddafi get all those nice tanks and attack aircraft anyway.  Defense manufacturers get to sell him the hardware, then get to sell the hardware used to blow it up.  A win-win situations, no?

[Florestan]

The implication of the first line is that the US acts on principle and not (solely) narrow self interest.  I'm not convinced this is the case.  I also don't know if it should be the case.  Pursuing some vague "principle" can lead to unending warfare.

This is of course common sense, a rarity among policy-makers, it seems. A war based on narrow self interest will surely have an end: either the interested party achieves it, or the other party is strong enough to resist ---in either case, a peace will sooner or later be established. But a war based on principles will never end, especially when the two parties disagree completely as to what principles are to prevail.

[Florestan]

Where did Qaddafi get all those nice tanks and attack aircraft anyway. 

Ask Monsieur Sarkozy. It is he who received Gaddafi in Paris with the highest honors and allowed him to mount his tent at the Louvre --- aiming precisely at selling him weapons.

Hypocrisy, thy name is politics.