There is no question of the growing humanitarian crisis in Libya. The people in Libya, who have lived under a repressive police state for decades, want to be free. Gaddafi, instead of having the good sense to gracefully bow out, has decided to hold onto state power at all costs, unleashing a campaign of terror and violence against the people of Libya that very easily constitutes crimes against humanity. The crisis in Libya has catapulted itself onto the world stage and into the consciences of people far and wide.
Early on we began to see calls for intervention in Libya. Among the first was from the Wall Street Journal. One needn’t be a radical to question the humanitarian concern of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Then it was Senator John McCain, who earlier called the pro-democracy protests sweeping the Middle East a “virus,” announced that the US needed to get “tough on Libya.” John Bolton, who had previously wanted to invade Egypt in order to prop up the Mubarak regime, seemed upset that the US had not taken more meaningful steps against Gaddafi, including recognizing the provisional government set up by protesters. Though to be fair to Mr. Bolton, his exact reasoning for doing this was that it was “our interest to that oil continue to pump, to put it into the global market, but to make sure the revenue obviously doesn’t fall into Gaddafi’s hands.” Spoken by a true champion of freedom and democracy. Others to jump on the intervention bandwagon include President Obama’s former mentor Senator Joe Liberman and The New York Times. Additionally, Foreign Policy Initiative authored a letter signed by figures such as Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, to Obama calling for military action in Libya, mirroring a move taken by their successor organization Project for A New American Century when it sent a similar letter urging President Clinton to invade Iraq. John Yoo, who helped design Bush's torture program, has also expressed support for US intervention in Libya.
Of course, it’s not just the right that is calling for military intervention, but many liberals as well. Longtime members of the liberal wing of the antiwar movement, such as Rep. Mike Honda and Rep. Keith Ellison, have expressed support for an intervention. And they shouldn’t necessary be chided for the company they keep. While it is right to cast aspersions on the humanitarian motivations of the creepy cabal of neocons who have never met an oil-rich Middle Eastern country they didn’t want to “liberate”, unless it was Saudi Arabia, Mubarak’s Egypt, or any of the other US approve authoritarian regimes in the region, some liberals are motivated by a humanitarian concern. After all, politics often makes strange bed fellows.
Missing, of course, from this broad-based coalition for freeing the Libyan people is the Libyan people. The National Libyan Council has repeatedly stated that it does not want US intervention, a claim echoed by the defected minister of Justice. The Guardian recently published an op-ed from a Libyan protester explaining why they did not want Western intervention. Some may wonder why the Libyan people reject Western intervention, but such a question is rooted in imperial hubris. A more modest question may be--why on Earth would that want it?
Many may forget (or simply just not know) that virtually every war has been a humanitarian intervention. Not because they were fought for humanitarian purposes, but because even in the most stark cases of naked aggression the aggressor has been cynical enough to claim some sort of humanitarian impulse on their part. Humanitarianism was one of the driving justifications for colonialism--it was the white man’s burden(or perhaps his responsibility to protect) that led him to colonize. These nauseatingly vulgar appropriation of the language of humanitarianism and human rights are not forgotten by the postcolonial world (which is why many in the postcolonial are skeptical of such projects such as responsibility to protect, not because they are backwards and somehow lack our enlightened liberalism).
It’s also worth noting that there is great skepticism as to whether humanitarian intervention even works. When Noam Chomsky was asked by UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon to address the General Assembly on the issue of “responsibility to protect,” he noted that the worst Serbian atrocities were committed after the NATO bombing had begun, and later noted in a response to criticism of his speech that when Milosevic was indicted only one count referred to instances from before the NATO bombing. This was acknowledged by General Wesley Clark at the time, when he stated that spike in atrocities was "entirely predictable." Former UN aid worker(including in the Balkans at the time of NATO intervention) and author of The Thin Blue Line:How Humanitarianism Went To War Conor Foley has also argued that humanitarian interventions have more adverse effects than positive ones.
Finally, there is the issue of Gaddafi himself. Gaddafi is no doubt a tyrant and a thug, but for decades he managed to carve out a mantle of legitimacy for himself by adopting an “anti-imperialist” ideology (recent years though have shown that Gaddafi’s “anti-imperialism” is akin to the Wall Street Journal’s humanitarianism). While this does nothing to absolve him of the many crimes he has committed, it does lead to some rather bizarre outcomes (his friendship with Nelson Mandela being one of them). A Western intervention could very easily give credence to Gaddafi’s self-professed claims of anti-imperialism, as well as delegitimize the protestors--inverting reality. When the US (or NATO) accidentally bombs a pharmaceutical factor or some other target (and we will) the families of the dead aren’t going to be thrilled with us. And Gaddafi could very easily (but wrongly) lay the blame at the feet of the popular movement for democracy. There’s a reason Gaddafi chose the site of Ronald Reagan’s illegal bombing of Libya for one of his bizarre nonsensical speeches--a bombing that will meant to kill Gaddafi merely resulted in the death of his 15-month year old adopted daughter and 60 Libyan civilians.
I stated earlier that people should not (always) be judged for the company they keep as politics makes strange bed fellows. However, when people stand in the name of humanitarianism in direct opposition to the expressed desires of the popular movement for democracy in Libya and with cynical hawks who appear on Fox News to express concern over Libyan oil reach global markets it’s time for some reflections. Those of us who stand with the people’s revolution in Libya, also stand against Western intervention.
Chip Gibbons
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