Libya - an open and shut case, right? A brutal dictator unleashes his forces upon his own people, besieging rebels in their last stronghold. The international community fears a massacre and calls for a ceasefire and a no-fly zone, and then decisively enforces it. To save innocent lives.
Stop me if you've heard this one before. Call it Liberal Interventionism if you like.
Maybe it's all about oil - no small thing since it actually underpins all modern civilizations. Rome fought for Grain, Spain fought for Silver, we fight for Oil. Business as usual, since even the most sentimental liberal needs it for their cosmopolitan, urban lifestyle. Tofu won't power ipads.
Or call it empathy. We can't just stand by and do nothing while a dictator suppresses freedom.
Media commentators of all stripes have had fun with all of the above. And yet too many details are still being missed.
- Politicians now over-use the phrase 'protecting civilians'. Yet the rebels are armed combatants, albeit incompetent ones. And the 'opposition' is not one opposition and has no apparent leader. Robert Fisk of The Independent has already identified the Benghazi rebels as warriors from the Senoussi Tribe.
- Gaddafi is said to have broken the ceasefire, thus warranting immediate military action. But the aircraft that was shot down graphically over Benghazi has been identified by The Guardian and Al Jazeera as a rebel plane. It is not clear who shot it down, but it is clear that the rebels, who called for and then cheered the no-fly zone yesterday, breached that no-fly zone today. But western forces have begun attacking Gaddafi's forces.
- French aircraft have already destroyed four Libyan government tanks. But France is not neutral in this - it has formally recognised the Benghazi 'opposition' as a defacto government. France is thus not enforcing a ceasefire - it is aggressively flying top cover for a recognised client. And it was France that led the charge to have this brought before the UN Security Council.
- Fears of a massacre by Gaddafi's forces have been cited as a motivation for protecting Benghazi. Yet Gaddafi's forces have already overrun several 'rebel held' towns, and yet nobody has even hinted at any massacres, ethnic cleansing or fleeing columns of refugees from those towns. And Benghazi is a big city, while Gaddafi's 'beseiging' forces are barely Brigade sized. Nor, according to footage so far, are they particularly well equipped, disciplined or anything like what one expects a militaristic dictator's army to look like. In fact, they don't look that much different from the rebels themselves.
- Aircraft and cruise missiles have already hit numerous targets all over Libya, including Tripoli. A curiously zealous way to protect a ceasefire in Benghazi, with little evidence of a ceasefire breach to prompt such haste. Serbia was given far more time to pull back before NATO was unleashed in Bosnia and Kosovo.
- The Arab nations have apparently given their assent to this. Yet where are they? Egypt has funnelled arms to the rebels, but will not take part in the enforcement of the no-fly zone. Egypt, among others, has benefited from billions of dollars of US advanced aircraft, Abrams tanks and training. Why so coy about enforcing a UN resolution right next door? Why is France so keen to jump in when it dragged its feet so famously over Iraq? Iraq had oil too.
- If it is about oil, why not let Gaddafi do what he has always done, and then just continue to buy the oil from him, just as we have always done? If it is about supporting democratic revolution, then who are the budding democratic parties and why have they not been more clearly lauded? If it's about civilian lives, why have we so clearly taken one side in what may be a tribal war and begun a 'Shock and Awe' air and missile campaign, with its attendant risks of collateral damage?
What is really going on, and if the majority of our media is truly not being so mendacious, doesn't that instead just make them look stunningly incompetent? We pride ourselves in the West on our free press on the assumption that it is more likely to tell the truth. But is it really impartial or even worth a damn?
