For the past couple of weeks, the Libyan people have been fighting to the death against the oppressive regime that controls their country. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has vowed to cruelly punish the citizens of Libya for rebelling.
Since then, fighting between the regime’s forces and the rebels has led to the deaths of many innocent Libyans. Yet, the Libyan people have continued to fight for their dignity and freedom despite the casualties, because their cause is just and their struggle is legitimate. After weeks of sustaining the regime’s brutal attacks, the Libyan rebellion called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone on Gaddafi’s forces.
For once, the world acted, and even the Western nations were supportive. The UN passed Resolution 1973, imposing a no-fly zone and permitting member states to take “all necessary measures” to oust Gaddafi and protect civilian life.
This course of action is, of course, in direct contrast to our response concerning Bahrain or Yemen. Although people are dying in those countries as well, our strategy is to feign ignorance and implicitly support friendly, though authoritarian, regimes. Luckily for the Libyans, Gaddafi has been previously condemned as the “mad dog” of the Middle East and is an easier target for a principled stance.
Although this UN resolution does correctly legitimize the Libyan rebellion, it has some dangerous consequences for their revolution.
The term “all necessary measures” goes far beyond the concept of a no-fly zone and as recent events prove, makes foreign air strikes and even other types of military involvement possible. France and the United States have now engaged Gaddafi’s forces by air and have not ruled out more intrusive measures.
The Libyan rebels, however, do not want foreign military intervention. The rebels have made their demands quite clear: the imposition of a no-fly zone and recognition of their legitimacy. Recent actions are do not maintain the no-fly zone — in fact, they blatantly ignore the Libyan position. Five countries abstained during the vote on this resolution over concerns of harmful foreign intervention as well.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this resolution is the wording that anticipates long-term engagement. For instance, the accountability system for interfering armies is measured in months, not days.
This is absolutely unacceptable. Long-term foreign intervention may result in a stalemate or worse, the division of the country.
UN Resolution 1973 and the West’s eager military actions prove that preserving civilian life is only a secondary concern.
According to UN representatives themselves, member countries voted in favor of this resolution because “Gaddafi had to go.”
While many people obviously agree with this sentiment, to pass a UN resolution on this basis authorizes military action for regime change, not humanitarian concerns. This basically means that we are getting involved to ensure that Gaddafi is removed and replaced with an acceptable regime.
Implicitly, we are trying to keep out “undesirable” factions of the Libyan opposition by indebting the new government to our military intervention. We are not allowing Libyans to decide the outcome of the revolution and we are not respecting their wishes.
Although the effect of the UN resolution is still unclear, it does pose the threat of aborting the homegrown revolution altogether.
If UN Resolution 1973 is to be used effectively, it must be used sparingly and in line with the rebellion’s demands.
Coupled with mass mobilization of the Libyan people, limited use of international force can topple Gaddafi’s regime without resorting to damaging, all-out foreign intervention.
Don't you love it! Dana telling us what our foreign policies should really be in countries like Libya. As if.
Libya is nothing more than another dysfunctional Islamic state. It's not America's fault this is so. It's not colonialist's fault this is so. It's not imperialist forces making this so. And it is certainly not Israel's fault this is so.
It is Islam's fault this is so. Duh!
There is nothing America CAN do right in Dana's eyes, yet she will be the last one to ever point a finger at Islam for being the true cause of the problem. She will always blame America, or Israel, or colonialism, imperialism, whateverism.
Why is it, Dana, that pretty much every single Islamic country is host to despots, despotic monarchs, despotic theocrats, and whatever other word one can think of for a fascist pig leader?
I'll tell you why.
It's Islam.
Mohammed is considered the perfect man in Islam, and guess what? Mohammed was a leader who set an example. And guess what that example is? That's right, a despot.
Explain to me please, how a no-fly zone can be enforced without foreign military intervention. Also tell me, what is this mass mobilization of the Libyan people that you speak of? The rebels that two weeks ago had seized most of Libya's east are all that have mobilized. In between Gaddafi's cold brutality and individual tribal loyalties it will be difficult for more Libyans to rebel.
go learn what a no-fly zone means and then come talk
I agree with the article. Little or no U.S. intervention is best.
There were several countries that abstained from voting for the no-fly zone in the UN decision: India, China, Russia, Brazil, and Germany. They didn't vote for or against it, which relayed their policy on not intervening inside of another country and its struggle. The U.S. should have followed suit.
Let Libya handle this on it's own.
JMA,
How long do you think you can pull the wool –make that burka — over our eyes?
It is NEVER Islam's fault is all I ever hear from Muslim apologists like you. Yet why is it wherever we find Islam we find despots, or severe repression, or minimal rights for Jews and homosexuals and women, and some form of Sharia law? (A law that, by the way, is by definition repressive and detrimental to freedom and individual rights.)
JMA, quit blaming all of Islam's self-inflicted wounds on everyone but Islam. Give it a rest. We were not born yesterday.
For a hundred years Catholicism was associated with dictatorships, trampling on minority rights, and a monolithic religious sect that had its grubby hands in everything. (Google how McKinley was a Catholic Manchurian Candidate.) The evidence? Latin America, Spain, and Italy were not democratic, and the Catholic Church actively repressed the Revolutions of 1848. Yet all these countries democratized in the Third Wave along with hordes of other non-Catholic countries. A lot of the hatred toward Catholics came from anti-Irish and anti-Italian bigotry. Groups like the Know Nothings and the KKK capitalized on anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment, and it was so bad that Oregon nearly outlawed Catholic schools via their proposition process, because everyone knew the Catholics were trying to brainwash everyone into their Catholic way of thinking and turn the US into a Catholic rather than Protestant nation.
Sound familiar? History repeats itself, and your arguments were heard a hundred years ago.
History proved these bigots wrong, and history will prove you wrong too. Remember that until 30 years ago, democracy was a very uncommon form of government. But hey, I must be some burqa wearing fool that wants Shari'a law despite being an atheist.
Dana writes, "Yet, the Libyan people have continued to fight for their dignity and freedom despite the casualties, because their cause is just and their struggle is legitimate."
What does this really mean?
Is this similar to what the people of Iran did in 1979 when they deposed the Shah of Iran?
Remember back then how men and women were dancing in the streets of Tehran as the Ayatollah flew back?
Well now women caught dancing in the streets of Tehran are imprisoned or killed.
Is this what the Libyans are fighting for too, as they work to overthrow another one of Islam's insane despots?
Be careful what you wish for…
Page 1.
Hillary,
No argument with you here about Christianities history.
Where you are absolutely wrong, though, is in drawing any comparison between Christianity/Catholicism (or any religion) and Islam.
Christ was not interested in power. He said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's."
Hillary,
I agree with much of what you write about Catholicism, but your knowledge of comparative religion is terrible.
Christ said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's…" While for Mohammed no amount of power was enough.
The difference between Christianity/Catholicism and Islam is like day is to night.
Yes Catholics and Christians have committed sins that defy belief, but when they've done so it was in direct and clear violation of Christ's teachings. In contrast to this when Muslims read chapter and verse from the Qur'an before cutting someone's head off it is as Mohammed wished.
Go Arafat!
go stupidity!
Stupidity? I believe stupidity is actually believing that the Muslim World actually wants democracy. Westerners, generally speaking, are politically naïve when it come to radical Islam. They tend to believe that Islamists are freedom loving people like everybody else while history proves that these monsters use democracy to place themselves in governments but once they are in, they demolish all component of democracy and physically eliminate anyone who advocate it in the process. Rest assured you could never go wrong with them. They are so predictable! We know that Islamists love to use a moment's freedom to implement Shariah law and strip away that moment of freedom. Why do you think there are Shariah courts in the UK?
Look JMA, it's your people http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/24/thousands…
This will be happening in Europe before this century is over. Isn't world domination on the to-do-list? Zionism is as much of a threat to democracy as Islam, whether you want to admit it or not?
(Actually, Islam is far more of a threat)
Geert I guess you’re saying we should have ignored France's history when it wanted a democracy because Napoleon used a democratic system to rise to power and then demolished it. Also remember these countries are further behind in their devolvement then the first world countries like Canada, America, England, and a host of others.
I notice your link points to the burnings of churches should I then post a link to the crusades in my post? Have you so easily forgotten that what the Islam did is not too far off what most of Catholics did a few hundred years ago and some are currently doing? There is no one issue for the war it is a combination by all nations involved and rare is it that one nation whether that be a religious nation or a nation-state is at fault at any moment.