There can be peace in Libya today. It will take one word from the USA President. “STOP.”
The war there is not productive. The rebels have already lost and the bloodshed would have ended weeks ago. However, they appealed to the Western European countries for what was called humanitarian aid.
At first this may have been the focus but it was not enough to get them to intervene in the civil war within sovereign Libya, a member of the United Nations. But the vast amounts of oil in Libya, which is some of the best quality crude oil in the world, appealed to the greed of oil starved Britain, France and the largest consumer of oil, USA. The appeal of oil was the same as the appeal of blood to a vampire. They could not resist.
So, led by these three, the United nations was convinced to intervene for the “protection of civilian lives.” However, it was a reaction unrealistic to the civil war between Western and Eastern Libya, between the tribes in these regions, between rural and urban Libya and between the central legal government of Libya and the disaffected, disillusioned former Libyan army officers who led a rebel army funded by covert Western money including from the USA.
Why unrealistic? Because UN Resolution 1973 gave too much power to the three counties and NATO. It allowed them to make their own definitions as to who was to be considered a civilian. It allowed them to use ,”…all necessary force” in order to “protect” civilians from harm. Unknown to the UN was the friendship between the French and expatriate Libyan living in Paris. The rebel army is merely an expendable pawn in a war of international greed.
Unknown to the UN was that the USA and the NATO military alliance were going to side with the rebel army against the armed forces of the central Libyan government. I say unknown to the diplomats at the Security Council because the charter of the UN does not allow it to condone the use of military force between members States, when such force is used to overthrow the legal central government of that member State. Unknown to the UN because no one foresaw that Britain, France and the USA would declare that the heavily armed but poorly organized rebel army were civilians and therefore the rebel army and its guns, munitions and military vehicles were to be protected against the legal army of the central government in Tripoli. The fact that this rebel army is not popularly supported, (why is it unable to recruit from the general population in sufficient numbers to overwhelm the government?) and that it is a rag-tag group of former Liyban army officers and their followers has become evident by the massive civilian exodus from Libya to the countries of the surrounding region. The civilians are fleeing the rebel army as much as the central government.
And how can the rebel army, ragtag and under organized as it is, be called civilian? They are armed, they attack the central government, they seize control of cities, they attempt to sell the national resource of oil to Qatar without popular and therefore legal approval. Yet, the NATO powers insist on attacking the army of Libya in order to protect the rebel forces. This cannot be denied by anyone since the NATO powers have publically and repeatedly stated their intentions, and since the rebels have repeatedly stated their disappointment that NATO is not using enough military force to help them defeat the central government.
So, we have the United Nations condoning the use of NATO military force against the legal recognized government of Libya, which is a breach of its own core principles. We have NATO engaged in a regional war without the participation of all member states, and we have the USA supporting the regime change in Libya when President Obama stated that Gaddafi must go.
Now one wonders, with the assassination of the terrorist Osama Bin Laden, whether the USA Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will use military assets like the US Navy Seals to invade Libya, and attack Gaddafi, who is recognized as head of the government there, (let’s not play the fool and say that because he is a dictator he is not the head of government. Just ask all the nations that recognize the ambassador of Libya.) Please note the very high significance of the new relationship between the CIA and the Special Forces Units of the USA regular Navy, Army and Air Force. The command and control of the regular armed forces of the USA by the clandestine CIA is highly irregular. It reminds this writer of reports that the treatment of detainees at Abu Grahib was derected by peersons wearing civilian clothing and who’s orders were not to be disobeyed!! Was the CIA involved in Abu Grahib and the Army took the fall?
Obama can order the assassination of Gaddafi but unlike Osama Bin Laden who was a terrorist but also a civilian and therefore a private citizen, (hey, I don’t like it either but it is a fact. As a terrorist, he wore no uniform and was not a recognized leader of any military force. He was not a head of State in any form ((Al Qaeda is not a government)). And although a terrorist, he could still be defined as a member of homo Sapiens and male and Arab and a Muslim, etc.)
Of course Britain, France, Canada, and Belgium, (the leaders of the NATO operation) all have CIA like agencies and all have special force covert operations teams. Also Russia and Israel have the same. Since these nations have defined the Libyan rebels as civilians, and regard the self-styled “Leader of the Revolution”, Gaddafi, to be a legitimate military target, they could decide to assassinate him. However, the UN resolution does not condone the assassination of the Libyan Head of State. The Russians and others have stated that murdering the Libyan head of State would be illegal. And since the USA is not in a declared war with Libya, and our military must abide by the Nuremberg accords, the Geneva Conventions, and its own Law of Land Warfare manual, it seems that use of USA military forces such as Navy Seals to assassinate the head of the Libyan government would not only be illegal, it would be a terrorist act by our own government against another government. It probably would not be a war crime since by our own statements we are not at war with Libya. However, it might be a war crime since our forces have crossed the borders of Libya through the air, attacked its army and military personnel and bombed its cities and the administration buildings of its government. Such actions by our military personnel without congressional approval and without a publicly stated declaration of war by our forces against their forces is considered by International Law and recognized by our own military to be acts of criminal aggression.
Hey, this article is not a pro Gaddafi article. It is pro America. We are a peace-loving democracy and we want to help others to have the same wonderful democracy as we do. However, in the process of that help we need to watch that we do not fall victim to the idea that “the end justifies the means.” Such legal and moral relativism has consistently been rejected by legal minds and moral leaders. The USA has repeatedly rejected that principle because we recognized that our nation and its leaders are not immune from the requirements of law and morality. (I agree the moral issues can be debated endlessly, that is why we need to adhere to the requirements of the legal issues. And for those Conservative commentators who keep crowing about what they call American Exceptionalism, that is not a credible argument for acting illegally. )
Why am I so keen on keeping the USA within the limits of recognized law, morality and ethics? Because the USA is an exceptional country but our leadership is damaged by recourse to actions which tell everybody that we are above the law. In fact such recourse makes us out laws.
Sadly, in the Libyan conflict, although I am very disappointed that Russia did not veto the UN resolution 1973, nonetheless, they have raised through Putin, objections regarding the conflict and lately made objections to over zealousness by the Canadian led NATO forces as they attempt to destroy the central government of Libya. Personally, I would like the USA to be the one objeting but since we are craven in this regard, I would welcome Russian naval vessels patrolling the Mediterranean Sea near Libya as a warning against possible British, and French contrivance to establish again a colonial imperialist hegemony in North Africa (with covert USA support!).
I dread having written the above paragraph but if the USA will not stop the aggression in Libya, maybe the Russian will do it. After all, Libya is much closer to them than to us and they have large oil interests there under Gazprom. In fact, a Russian naval presence might even serve a warning to Syria to come to grips with the unrest there. Hey, if I were a novelist, I would have the Germans, the Georgians, and the Turks back Russia in such a naval presence which would put teeth in Russian objections to NATO aggression in Libya. In my novel the rationale inside Russia would be regret that they did not veto the whole thing from the beginning and now have found a way to broker progress and peace in the region. In the old days such actions were called realpolitik.
Anyway, this is becoming a doctoral thesis. So, let’s come to the end.
Obama can stop the carnage in Libya by saying to all parties, “Stop.” (I am not an Obama supporter but I sincerely believe the President of the USA can stop this if he has the will to do it.) But he must first decide that he really wants peace, is willing to act as the Nobel Peace Laureate that he is and use the awesome diplomatic authority that is ours to bring about a brokered and fair peace in Libya. That includes a return to first principles, namely, that we do not demand regime change in Libya and it is not our intention to kill Gaddafi, his children or his grandchildren. (I don’t care if no grandchildren were killed, the principle is the same.)
Because Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, he can start fulfilling their expectation by leading peace efforts in Libya. How?
Send a message by official diplomatic courier to Gaddafi saying that this peace effort is real and then prove it by removing USA military Special forces personnel already on the ground in Libya. (If you think that we do not already have SF personnel in Libya thaen you are drinking the cool aid!)
Then ask Gaddafi for his term. YES, his terms. But his terms must allow for non retaliation against the rebel army. Having gotten that far, let our seasoned Libya experts at the State Department go over the terms and counter them, But Obama must insist that our terms include allowing Gaddafi to stay as Leader of the Revolution in Libya while setting up an independent civilian government preparing for internationally supervised elections (send Carter and some Russians).
If we get this far, then we can ask to gain renewal of our defunct oil leases in Libya with a promise to use some of the coporate profits to rebuild Libyan cities and Tripoli for the destruction we caused. (By the way, this also means allowing the new civilian government to rebuild their armed forces, as we do in Iraq!!)
Of course, all of this can fail. It would leave us in a bind. So there must be a second peace plan. However, if we are really big boys and are willing to promote real peace, we will engage the Russians, the Egyptians, the Tunisians, the Turks, etc. in this plan so as to reassure the Libyan government of our sincerity. (all of this without secret protocols,m please. We had enough of that during the colonialist, imperialist, fascist and nazi eras.)
Progressive Politics 