Open Libya Thread

By Isaac Butler

I have no fracking idea what I think about what's going on in Libya and/or our involvement with it. Or, rather, I think many, many things, all of them contradictory.

But if you need an open forum to discuss it, go right ahead in the comments below. I may make an appearance or seven.

Comments

[herxanthikles]

I'm right with you. There's no question that military intervention averted a massacre. I hold sour memories of the West dithering while allowing Bosnian Serbs and Rwandan Tutsis to be wiped out, and I'm glad that didn't happen here. But War is War and now who knows what is going to happen. Maybe the rebels are swell chums and maybe not. Maybe there will be a protracted civil war. Maybe Quadaffi will be replaced by a fellow whose main qualification will be not being totally nuts.

As easy as it is to cast the policy decisions in moral terms, it's easy on both sides. It seems moral not to go to war (again) and use the money to help suffering here. It seems moral to do what you can so people are not slaughtered. But the fact is, people die and suffer as a result of whichever decision you make. There's no common sense and decency stand to take here. In the end, I suspect that the competency with which the operation is run and the quality and quantity of luck will determine whether this was a colossal error or principled use of military force against a psychopath.

[herxanthikles]

Whoops just meant "Bosnians" natch. Got carried away with parallel modifiers.

[99]

I have to say that the comparisons to the Bosnians and the Rwandans leave me fairly cold. It's not an ethnic or racial minority that's being targeted, not overtly. It's a rebellion. Granted, the Libyan government's response was brutal and indiscriminate, but it's motivated by maintaining power and order, not ethnic cleansing or anything. I don't really know if we have a clear parallel to the situation.

I do think stepping in was the right thing to do, but more on the security/geopolitics front. This wave of revolutions is a good thing and this would have stopped them. Man, that sounds cold-blooded when I read it. Still. I'd rather we stick to that frame than tread into mushy moral ground.