Libya too?!

Great Debates
621

Because you’re asking for an international crime, that’s why. “No-fly zone” sounds cold and clinical, but you’re basically talking about violating a state’s sovereignty so that you can shoot at their military assets in their own territory. Not everyone is happy with such a concept, especially given the fact that the UN Charter prohibits such actions in no uncertain terms. The only exception (Article 51, dealing with self-defense: Article 51 UN Charter ) hardly seems to apply here, as Libya is threatening no other states.

Granted, NATO has shown over and over again that it could care less about committing international crimes… But it is also somewhat pragmatic in its global imperialism. What would be the point of intervention? It hardly needs another foothold in the region. And its main driving force is already bleeding resources in two quagmires, so it hardly wants to flip a third coin. And without the US, it is unlikely that any of its other NATO lapdogs will choose to act.

Sure, why not arm the rebels with modern ass-kicking weaponry. After all, if they lose, there is absolutely no way that the government forces will take said weaponry for their own use. And if they win, there is absolutely no way that the weaponry will come back to haunt the US, Taliban-style.

So, let’s see. You want two of the UN’s major founding members and some of its greatest proponents to say, “screw the UN.” You want two of the five nations that have a dictatorial-level voice in global politics (via the UN’s Security Council) to undermine their own authority by castrating the very organization that gives them disproportionate power in the first place.

Well, why not; it makes perfect sense to me. Because when you’re sitting on a global throne, it makes perfect sense to say, “Yeah, you know what? Fuck this stupid monarchy.”

622

Readers should note that:

  1. Commissar has argued that the self defense clause does not need to apply to a state that is actually or even thinks that it is actually threatened. That was when he was trying to justify an attack by an anti-Western totalitarian hellhole. Predictably, now that he’s arguing against an attack on an anti-Western totalitarian hellhole, that’s no longer what he’s arguing.

  2. Commisar has argued that The UN Charter does not in fact prohibit nations from initiating military conflict and argued that requiring a conflict to have a valid casus belli under international law and custom was highly improper. That was when he was trying to justify an attack by an anti-Western totalitarian hellhole. Predictably, now that he’s arguing against an attack on an anti-Western totalitarian hellhole, that’s no longer what he’s arguing.

  3. A no-fly zone is most certainly not in violation of the UN charter. Chapter VIII very clearly allows military force to be used in order to deal with breaches of the peace, and for numerous reasons Quadaffi’s actions have ramifications for international peace and security.

623

It is not a crime to stop a crime in progress and if the vile dictatorship it is your apparent job to defend doesn’t like it, that’s too bad.

Besides as far as France and I are concerned Gaddafi is the one attacking the legitimate government and we are coming to the aid of a government that has asked for our help.

624

Just a technical question, and no need for an exact number, but how large should this single ruling party be in your opinion? For example, Libya has about 6.5 million people living in it (down a bit after the past few weeks, of course). About how many people would you want to see in a ruling party to eliminate the whole cult of personality thing? 65,000? 6,500? A ruling council of 650 that answers to a party of 650,000? Just curious.

625

Once again, you’re not even reading and/or understanding what you’re linking to. First of all, that’s Chapter VII, not Chapter VIII. Second of all, Chapter VII refers to military acts authorized by the Security Council, which essentially trumps all force prohibitions. What we are discussing is a no-fly zone imposed without Security Council authority. Chapter VII would not apply, nor would the only remaining exception under self-defense.

I’m afraid that two wrongs don’t make a right under the UN Charter. There is nothing in the Charter that would allow France or anyone else to unilaterally attack Libya because it’s “bad” or whatnot. A Security Council resolution is the only way to go. Can’t get it? Tough luck. It’s war you’re talking about, and the Charter exists to make it more difficult to wage.

Doesn’t matter who you think the legitimate government ought to be. Until it represents the nation in the UN, it is not the government as far as the UN Charter is concerned.

But I like your theory. Let’s see how far we can take it… Let us say that the North Korean leadership believes itself to be the only legitimate government of the Korean peninsula in its entirety. Does this mean that international law allows it to invade the South with no repercussions or liability? Interesting.

I don’t really have a concrete number in mind. Obviously, the party must be large enough to adequately represent and encompass all localities, but not so large as to make it unwieldy… I would estimate that 1 representative for every 1,000 persons should suffice, with most of them being low-level officials. So, about 6,500 for a nation of Libya’s size.

626

That’s actually a good argument. The problem is that UK has already done those things in the recent past, with far less good reasons to do so.
As for France, its prez aint the smartest cat when it comes to diplomacy. But, precisely, since he is currently under heavy fire at home for his diplomatic failings (total blindness to the coming of the Arab revolutions, even though France is supposed to be very in touch with that part of the world. The incredible blunders of his foreign minister, of his amabassadors. And I could go on and on). So, he needs something high profile for the media to feed on.
Sarkozy is quite clueless when it comes to diplomacy, but he’s rather good when it comes to media circuses and short term solutions. So he might very well actually commit to such an operation just to save his ass, even though, on the long term, such a move could be damageable to France’s diplomatic strenght.

627

And there we have it, an admission that no-fly zones are not in violation of the UN Charter and the Argument From Typo.

Not that any further elaboration was, strictly, required. :smiley:

628

Why are people arguing with Commissar?

This is the same guy who has applauded the massacre of peaceful protesters at Tianamen Square and approved of the discrimination against non-Han Chinese.

Obviously we can’t accuse him of being a troll or a liar, but since we have to assume that he’s telling the truth, we have to assume he doesn’t believe in the rule of law and thinks the world is better off run by totalitarian despots.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily make his good or bad, smart or stupid, but it does mean that arguing with him about human right is fairly pointless.

629

Oh, I’m not. Or at least I don’t mean to. The only place I’ll respond directly to him is in the Pit. Here I’ve just been pointing out his factual errors and/or letting those reading along know about his curiously malleable set of double standards and interesting contradictions that always seem to pop up on certain topics.

630

Indeed. I was wondering the same.

631

That’s hilarious coming from someone who made this post.

Where’d you pull that from? Plenty of counries had legitimate governments without being represented in the United Nations.

Well, the North Korean government does consider itself to the only legitimate government of Korea. And it did attack South Korea. And you hand-waved that away with a pretense that North Korea was not the aggressor. Also, North Korea sank a South Korean naval vessel and bombed an entire town for no valid reason.

And how would one go about selecting those representatives? Perhaps by a vote?

632

It makes the thread more interesting if it has at least one person taking Gaddafi’s side. And who else would?

633

Still so sure?

634

I believe that the West should stop playing world policeman .

I agree when organised crime, drug smuggling to the West and exporting terrorism is involved then yes we should do something about it.

But we shouldn’t jump in every time we get excited about events in different cultures.

Just because a group of people are rebelling against an autocracy it doesn’t mean that they’re lilywhite, peace loving democrats.

And the West sticking its oar in doesn’t mean that their going to feel a debt of gratitude to us when we’re no longer useful to them.

Of course the rebels will throw around plenty of spiel about freedom and human rights etc.while they’re trying to gain outside support to achieve their ends, but this so very often fades away once they’ve got their hands on the actual power.

The result of the Egyptian popular uprising is to have replaced an absaloute ruler with a military Junta.

The unelected military with absaloute power are making nice fluffy noises at the moment but there is no guarentee that they are going to deliver on their promises in the future.

Lets hope that they do.

And we all know what the result of the popular uprising against the Shah in Iran resulted in.

Another uprising cheered on by clueless, well meaning western liberals, who were noticeable by their silence when the ayatollahs took over.

And as for these sudden converts to decency and democracy in Lybya.

Where were their street demonstrations when Quadaffi was sending assistance to Western terrorists?

Where were their demonstrations after the Lockerbie atrocity ?

They were out on the streets alright being VERY vocally supportive of Quadaffi, the self same people who have suddenly “seen the light of democracy” in recent days.

Associates of mine who were in country at the time of THOSE demonstrations said that there didn’t need to be much orchestration to get them off of the ground with massive, genuine support.

I’ll just finish by saying that the U.K. P.M. Cameron and his side kick Hague should stop trying to get themselves into the international limelight as stateman wheelers and dealers, with their harebrained and overly dramatic actions.

And stick to trying to sort out their domestic problems at home.

Neither of them have been in office for more then a few minutes, have no experience whatsoever of the game of nations, do not have the respect of their international counterparts and have , I suspect really, really, pissed off the Americans with their antics.

I would not be stunned with amazement if these total amateurs have seriously pissed of their own professional people.

One of the drawbacks of democracy is that you get clowns like these in a position where they can do serious damage and undermine years of hard, but undramatic work by various organisations of H.M.G.

To sum up we should not get involved in any of these currently trendy uprisings.

635

Didn’t we act without UN permission when bombing Kosovo? Besides, I have the unfortunate feeling that the rebellion will fail, primarily because the worlds attention has been shifted to the Japanese earthquake, indecisiveness of the EU and US, and the rebels lack of military discipline.

636

From a cold, realpolitk point of view, we’ve burned our bridges with Qaddafi. It would’ve been fine to let the rebels do the mopping up and trade guns, buildings and computers for oil with them afterwards but the French are in! And the brits tried (succeeded?). Who knows what’s up with the italians…

There are lucrative and strategically important things at stake here. We need to be number the number one ally in the eyes of the rebels, and we’ve gotta make sure they succeed. Things are not looking good for them at the moment.

Now if we only use covert ops to boost the Intel of the rebels (what Qaddafi troops are up to) and lend some of our telecom capabilities to them (via the ships nearby, sat phones, etc.) without giving them weapons, it might be low key enough not to help Qaddafi raise loyalty.

As it is now, we are clearly hostile to him already in the hopes of scaring off his pals, like the two ministers so we are already involved so won’t that also help him cast us as the bad guys?

In for a penny, in for a pound I say. No bodies in the ground, crater the airfields, don’t shoot pilots but try to scare them off. No bodies on the ground is the important thing.

Some reporters might get executed in retaliation and that just gives us justification. It’s an act of war after all.

637

Yes, when I read the headlines that some American reporters were captured I was taken aback for a couple seconds, then I realized that they won’t get executed for that very same reason.

638

The Arab league just backed a “no fly zone”.

639

Things are progressing in a glacially slow manner while Qaddafi has regained the momentum. This Arab league approval isn’t enough, they say. They want a UN resolution.

Russia will veto because this is an awesome situation for them to be in economically and it’s politically groovy because they don’t care about muslims dying, what with the Chechnya bad blood and all.

China will veto it because they think voting is whack and they are trying to make sovereignty holy after being “raped” repeatedly by foreigners for half a century, sometimes literally.

So basically, this is all ceremonial. The UN won’t authorize it, NATO won’t authorize it and the arab militaries are too crappy to do anything well.

640

An interesting viewpoint, one I’d never thought of.