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Gadhafi regime crumbling...and fast

Discussion in 'Tilted Philosophy, Politics, and Economics' started by Baraka_Guru, Aug 21, 2011.

  1. redux

    redux Very Tilted

    Location:
    Foggy Bottom
    Until the War Powers Act is declared unconstitutional, I support its use in limited circumstances with limited existing conditions:
    * first and foremost -- NO US ground troops​
    * it must be part of a broader UN mandate​
    * it must be in support of a popular uprising and protecting civilians -- not a unilateral decision to invade a sovereign country​
    * the action must have the support, at some level, of the other powers in the region in question.​
    IMO, this did not commit us to war. This was a limited US action in support of the UN, NATO and the Libyan people.
     
  2. Bodkin van Horn

    Bodkin van Horn One of the Four Horsewomyn of the Fempocalypse

    While I appreciate the downfall of an evil dictator just as much as the next guy, I have a hard time doubting the notion that this outing requires a fair amount of to legal shenanigans. Why else would we need to rely on torturing the English language with phrases like "kinetic military action"? Do you want to know what another word for kinetic military action is? War.
     
  3. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    You need to go further: griping about the U.S. legality of military action is completely missing the point.

    Many understand the continued role of the West in ensuring a proper transition of power in Libya, rather than leaving it to the mercy of opportunistic seizing of power. There were some divisions amongst the rebel forces. Now it's a matter of bridging these divisions and creating a government that adequately and fairly represents the people of Libya.

    How kinetic would you consider the military actions within the parameters of a cold war?
     
  4. Derwood

    Derwood Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    How is a conflict where the US has a) no casualties and b) no troops on the ground considered a "war", much less an illegal one?
     
  5. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    i think there were a lot of reasons for the international community to have involved itself. remember that this was the first action to come out of the wave of actions that followed from tunisia to have involved direct military action undertaken by a regime against its own people. remember that the northern powers have an interest in trying to appear to be in front of or in support of such actions so long as it appears possible that they will succeed. the northern powers have an interest in not appearing too tied to the previous regimes even though they supported those regimes. there was also a humanitarian dimension. there was also a motivation for the preservation of nato, which really has no obvious functions in a post-cold war world. so there is an assertion of continued viability for aspects of the post world-war 2 system of stabilizing institutions in this new context. which is peculiar to think about. there was also a jockeying for continued influence in an important oil-producing country---the model for american geo-politics with respect to oil has for some time been predicated on maintaining influence, which is cheaper than trying to maintain control, though control is ok so long as it is exercised primarily through military contracts (witness egypt). there is also the problems that attend the continued process of separation of contemporary network states from older form of nation-states, so of economic from political power, and questions about legal justifications for actions in a network state context that cannot be resolved from within the legal frameworks available to any given nation-state. so it's about a lot of features of the world as it is coming to be and not the world as it once was, which is where conservative ideology traps its faithful. what must be particularly galling for the right is that the centrality of the united nations is a direct obvious defeat for the entire logic of the bush people, which was to tell the united nations to fuck itself and assert the "right" of the american military hegemon to act whenever it liked, even in useless, capricious ways like the ongoing fiasco in iraq. and, somewhere down on the list, it is about the libyan movement to overthrow gaddhafi.
     
  6. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    this is a pretty useful summary of the main developments of the past 2-3 months, past the point where the international press decided libya was taxing attention spans no reason to keep tabs on it.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/22/battle-for-tripoli-libya-gaddafi

    sky news apparently has been well head of the other networks in getting footage out from the rebel frontlines:

    http://news.sky.com/home/

    they have a crew that have been rolling with them and have good access. they were apparently particularly on point when the rebels were rolling through tripoli yesterday. cnn's main correspondent was trapped in the hotel where gaddafi's people had gathered the press they were trying to use to get their version out internationally.

    al arabiya has a headine that says gaddafi's on the run, but the article doesn't seem to follow that line. it's a little confusing, but their coverage is still quite good:

    http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/08/23/163596.html

    it appears that there is still quite heavy fighting going on. gaddafi's compound has been reported as destroyed and not destroyed several times. so.

    which isn't so unusual in this particular information fog. apparently saif has and has not been arrested at the same time:

    http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Libya
     
  7. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
    This whole situation is worrying.

    I don't object to the overthrow per se, Gadhafi was a cruel dictator who committed crimes against his people and had to go. I've been saying for years that one of the biggest US blunders of the late 20th century was the idiotic decision to keep the F-117 as an ace in the hole against the Soviets in 1986; had we flown them, Gadhafi wouldn't have had those few minutes' notice that he did and would have died in that air raid. But I digress.

    The state of affairs in Libya is that the people receive free education, free healthcare, government-funded higher education, and even a grant from the government equivalent to around US$50,000 when they get married to start a household. The oil industry is nationally owned and the central bank has its own stable currency. The Transnational Council has already declared the formation of their own central bank long before victory was certain, and when victory could only come with the support of the UN. When have the leaders of a revolution ever taken time from a struggle for their independence from tyranny to establish a central bank in the middle of a fight of such epic proportions? More importantly, why would they do this?

    At the same time, ask yourself why Western powers would jump into the fight when they sat idly by as events unfolded in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain (which has brought back military courts to try pro-democracy protesters.) Why would they sit by as mostly secular forces fought for the same causes and jump in to support Libyan rebels with significant numbers of Islamists and outright Al Qaeda members among their ranks? The answer, of course, is that they have a vested economic interest in seeing Gadhafi go down, and with him the stable Libyan currency and nationalized oil industry.

    I'm making some predictions that I'm not going to backpedal on. If I forget to look back one year from today, remind me. I want to go over these and see if I'm right or wrong, because they're going to sound conspiracy-theoryish.
    1: The stable Libyan currency will be abolished and replaced with a currency pegged to either the US Dollar or the Euro
    2: The national oil industry will be partially or entirely privatized.
    2b: It will be maybe two months before BP is in Libya exploring new prospective oil wells.

    I also predict that because of the above, the social programs offered by the current Libyan government will collapse, resulting in an overall decrease in literacy, life expectancy, and quality of life.
     
  8. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Disaster capitalism at its best...

    I tend to agree with MSD on these predictions.
     
  9. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Well, as the capitalists would say, "The free ride is over."
     
  10. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    i wouldnt be surprised at that. but dismantling the redistribution of oil wealth arrangement will come with tremendous political risk for the rebel's organization. its already quite fractured. and there's apparently a new complication in that the main drivers in the move into tripoli are from the mountains and not from around benghazi. it is entirely likely that shutting down the redistribution of that money would tear libya apart...

    so while that's a plausible scenario, it's not so easy to be know whats going to happen because, if the present (as i understand it) is any guide, there's no balance of forces amongst the rebels that'd be in a position to take that risk.

    and at this point, who in their right mind would listen to neo-liberals?
     
  11. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    This could be the last stand of the neo-liberals.
     
  12. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    I wish the media would focus on these aspects of why their lifestyle might be better than ours... Not that life in Libya was perfect, and it's not as good as it was in the 'liberal' years before Gadhafi, but the economic theory that everyone HAS TO work, when you have these large corporations making lots of money using up the natural resources, and the basic lifestyle doesn't require it.

    The same thing happens with Venezuela and Cuba when they 'nationalized' their oil and industries, they become 'evil'.

    The only thing I would add is 3. Immigrants in Europe would be incentivized to travel back to Libya. 4. Islamic conservationism will take hold.
     
  13. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    msd: where are you getting your information about the social composition of the rebels? it doesn't quite jibe with what i've been seeing from sources outside the united states.
     
  14. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
  15. samcol

    samcol Getting Tilted

    Location:
    indiana
  16. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    there's lots of strange fruits. for example, a former bush people official who now works for that fine firm bechtel was an advisor to gaddafi. he suggested the al qeada idea. have a look:

    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/2011831151258728747.html

    and apparently john mc-cain thought gaddafi hadn't been rewarded enough for his help with american "counter-terrorism" operations a couple years ago and promised to help push through new weapons sales. you know, the kind of expressions of love and appreciation that conservatives prefer to give.

    at the same time, there's lots of reasons to be ambivalent about the way this game has played out. for example, there was nothing in the rules that allowed french and british special forces to be operating on the ground. there was nothing in the rules that allowed nato to actively participate in overthrowing gaddafi--even as it was obvious from jump that this was the only endgame that made the least bit of sense. as msd mentioned above, there's a quite alarming possibility that this will turn into another instance of that neo-liberal pathology called shock therapy and that the ordinary libyans will find themselves fucked over because of it--you know, the right's libertarian aversion to the idea of the state, which operates in a reality-contigent space--would lead those whose misfortune it is to take that framework seriously for whatever aesthetic reasons to imagine that privatizing the oil industry and its profits serves some imaginary optimizing function that actually redistributing profits to the people does not. but it's a twisted, stupid frame that results in twisted, stupid outcomes. what's funny is that it all comes wrapped in utilitarian ethical claims that, in turn, function in the same reality-contingent space so cannot be falsified by the obvious failure of all neo-liberal policies to deliver anything beyond increased class polarization.

    but yeah. the problem is the action itself.

    please.
     
  17. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
  18. redux

    redux Very Tilted

    Location:
    Foggy Bottom
    Putting aside the nonsense of PrisonPlanet.com as a reliable source of anything, (hell, any dictator can pull together a rally of supporters and against NATO/US from among those on the payroll), I would expect that there is an al queda-affiliated or related presence in Libya, just as there is in the transition in Egypt and Tunesia.

    But there is nothing to suggest that it has either a meaningful role in the establishment of a military or civilian transitional government in Libya or that such a presence has any measure of popular support.

    Its clear that the National Transitional Council does not want a NATO presence on the ground and that is a good thing. We should free up the frozen assets and encourage other regional organizations like the African Union or the Gulf Cooperation Council to take a greater role in supporting the establishment of democratic institutions.

    No one expected a transition in these countries to be quick or easy. To play the al queda card is a bit premature and w/o merit at this point.
     
  19. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
  20. redux

    redux Very Tilted

    Location:
    Foggy Bottom
    MSD. I dont dispute the fact that there are al queda-affiliated fighters among the rebels and even among the leadership.

    But I have not seen anything to suggest they have any measure of influence with the National Transitional Council or any level of popular support. Hence, IMO, its too soon to play the al-queda card.