You have to take a bit of pity on Hugo (I, too, am history) Chavez. His good running buddy Muamar Gaddafi has been in an ever growing world of hurt for some days. Hugo owed him something as did his fellow Socialists-for-the-21st-century strongmen, Daniel Ortega, Ewo Morales, and Rafael Correa. At the same time ole Hugo has been getting more and more cozy with Iran's orator-in-chief, Ahmedinejad. The official president of Iran had taken a strong line supporting the assorted "people power" exhibitions across North Africa and the Mideast. Of course, Hugo had no desire to offend such a gifted statesman as Ahmedinejad.
What's a conflicted dictator going to do?
After cogitating on the dilemma for several days, Hugo evidently had a Great Idea. He would become the peacemaker of the day! He would propose--drum roll, please--mediation! What a concept! Why just convene an international (carefully selected) panel of fellow statesmen to chart a course of peace. Everybody (except imperialist powers headed by the ever grasping US) is in favor of peace, right?
Many commentators apparently assumed that the Chavez notion revolved around keeping Gaddafi in power, perhaps with some cosmetic changes in the makeup of his government. The couple of bricks shy of a wall Brother Leader may have leaped to the same conclusion as indicated by his speedy acceptance of the proposal. Number one son, Saafi was less enthused perhaps because due to his greater sophistication in the ways of the world he saw the proposition as being a way of getting dear old dad out of Libya and into the service of Venezuela.
In a completely predicable way the insurgent leadership rejected the offer citing the number of people who had died already in the pursuit of Gaddafi's removal. This made the lukewarm acceptance of the Chavez demarche by Arab League Director General Amr Moussa irrelevant. Also stacking the odds against any effort at "mediation" by Chavez or anybody else was the rapid rejection offered by the US, the UK, France, and Italy. Not daunted by the latter, Chavez pooh-poohed it as typical imperialist blather. In this he was echoed by Fidel Castro.
In all probability Chavez was angling for a way to provide Gaddafi with an off-ramp from his current parlous position. Certainly there would be some advantages for the Chavez regime should Gaddifi pitch his tent on one of Venezuela's attractive islands. Despite the moves taken by the US, UK, and other countries to freeze Gaddafi family money, the cunning old dictator probably has a couple of billion bucks stashed outside the writ of the "imperialist" states. So he would not be a drain on Chavez' resources.
Gaddifi would bring with him a wealth of knowledge about how to mulct oil wealth and turn it to advantage in such activities as acquiring nuclear weapons, purchasing seats of advantageous status in the UN and its ancillary organs, and supporting promising and ambitious thugs in Africa and elsewhere. Assuming the good Colonel has not lost all his marbles and memories under the stress of discovering many of "his people" would rather die opposing him than continue living under his odious thumb, Gaddifi would represent a major asset for Chavez whose mouth so far has far exceeded his positive accomplishments.
There would be a downside to offering the aging Libyan autocrat a retirement facility in Venezuela. The Libyan "leader" might be a fave with Chavez, Morales and Ortega, but he is anathema with most folks living in South America. All too many of those people have had recent experience living under brutally dictatorial regimes and are soundly on the side of the Libyan insurgents. Brazil, still and despite the efforts of Chavez, the preeminent regional power was quick to sever diplomatic relations with the Gaddifi government. Peru was at the head of the list of those countries calling for the imposition of a no-fly zone. Even Ewo Morales has been quite reticent about giving rhetorical support to the embattled regime.
It is likely that most South American governments recognize the danger which would result from Gaddafi taking up residence in Venezuela. An inevitable consequence would be an increase in isolation for the "Bolivarian Revolution" of Sr Chavez.
The Venezuelan jefe grande would also call down upon his head the wrath of all those who desire fervently to see Gaddafi in the dock facing assorted criminal charges. Sr Chavez does not seem to realize just how cordially the Gaddifi regime is detested in so much of the world, "imperialist" and otherwise. The Colonel's heavy thumb has been felt by the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone where dictators supported by the Libyan troublemaker were able to establish their brutal selves. This would undercut the Chavez charm offensive, which has been directed against several West African states. One exception would be Burkino Faso where one Compaore, a graduate of Gaddafi's World Revolutionary Center, came to power by directing the assassination of his friend and president Thomas Sankara in 1987. (The monstrous Compaore sent troops to support Charles Taylor (another WRC alumnus) in Liberia and Foday Sankoh in Sierra Leone.)
Not to put too fine a point on the dagger of reality, any country which provides sanctuary to Gaddafi will be on the feces list of most countries on Earth. So Sr Chavez is running a greater risk than he might believe. It rather seems that if Chavez is convinced of an evildoer's good nature, he believes every correct thinking person in the world must agree with him.
Perhaps by now the Hero of the Venezuelan People has come to regret his calculation and the offer based upon it. If that is the case his best hope is that the offer will fade away from global consciousness. It won't, at least not in many chanceries around the world. This is to the good of all those in and outside Venezuela who hope the "Bolivarian Revolution" will come to an end--quickly. It sure would be nice if the current incumbent of the Oval were to be among this group.
Showing posts with label Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Well,Golly, Really, Someone Ought To Do Something
De facto, Libya has fissioned. There is no longer one Libya other than within the lines on a map. In the real world there is now an East Libya centered on Benghazi and Tobruk (or Tobruq, if you insist on current spelling) and a West Libya comprised of Tripoli and the oilfields to its south. It merits mention that East Libya also has its own oilfields and loading facilities.
The residual government of Brother Leader and associates has no sway over any of East Libya which is now an independent if not yet sovereign entity. The tribes of East Libya have withdrawn all allegiance to the Gaddafi regime while the armed forces have defected in wholesale lots to the insurrectionists. The latter occurred because the attraction of region, of tribe, of clan outweighs all the artifices of Gaddafi's view of socialism, Libyan style.
In West Libya, the man who identified himself as "history," as "revolution," and other abstracts, is having more than a few problems killing enough and terrorizing enough to keep even the semblance of power in the capital and its environs. The mercenary and militia forces currently loyal to the one time strongman have demonstrated a capacity and taste for killing people. This has not yet translated into security for Brother Leader.
The greatest advantage Gaddafi has in West Libya is the absence of a coherent resistance. The uprising in Tripoli unlike that in East Libya has been inchoate from the beginning. While the leaderless uprising has some advantages--it is uniquely invulnerable to decapitation strikes by the status quo--it lacks the organizational and structural integrity which can assure the survival of a resistance movement even under heavy and deadly pressure.
A critical question therefore is why the difference between East Libya, the home of an organized, long standing anti-government movement, and West Libya, the site of a genuine leaderless movement? In a major way the difference between what happened in Benghazi or Tobruk on the one hand and Tripoli on the other is a reflection, even a consequence of Libyan history.
Prior to the forced unification of Libya by Italy in 1931 at the end of a twenty year campaign, Libya had been three quasi-states: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. Cyrenaica is East Libya. Tripolitania is West Libya--absent its oilfields. These are found to the south in old Fezzan. The three divisions are ancient, dating back to the days of Rome and Carthage. The divisions are not simply geographic. Nor are they simply lines on old maps.
The divisions run more across the human terrain than the merely physical. They coincide with tribal and clan homelands, homelands which have existed since the mythic dawn of time. As the Italians discovered when they embarked on their great adventure in imitating Rome, the differences between the three regions were starkest when expressed in the degree of opposition to the new colonials. While none of the three were easy nuts to crack, Cyrenaica was the hardest by far.
The New Rome of Mussolini determined to erase the existence of the historical consciousness of the tribesmen of the newly conquered provinces and for that reason decreed the new "state" of Libya into existence. Decreeing is easy, doing much harder. The Italians were never able to create a unified Libyan state, and their efforts not only were unsuccessful, they became counterproductive.
The Anglo-American forces which occupied Libya from 1943 to the end of the war contented themselves with administering the territory for the convenience of the war effort. This approach, which paid utterly no attention to the nature of the human terrain, continued into the post-war period with the creation of a monarchy far more artificial than organic. The not made in Libya monarchy lasted until it fell to Gaddafi's 1969 coup having been kept alive until then by the Cold War needs of the US and its NATO partners as well as the development of the domestic oilfields. The important fact to keep in mind is that at no time during the quarter century of its existence did the monarchy, the foreign supporters of the monarchy, or anyone else attempt to create a unified national identity for Libya.
At the time King Idris left to nobody's real sorrow, the old divisions continued to exist with some small changes. Due to the development of the oilfields of West Libya there had been a degree of integration between Fezzan and Tripolitania. There had been no such process with regard to Cyrenaica, the population centers of which were separated from Tripoli by some five or six hundred kilometers of sand crossed by a single all weather road and a number of ancient caravan tracks.
The proving of oilfields in Cyrenaica during the early Gaddafi years served to reinforce the separate identities of East and West Libya, or, to use the old terms, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania/Fezzan. Then as a matter of policy driven by a deep fear of military coup, Colonel Gaddafi reinforced the ancient divisions by not only refusing to integrate tribes and regions in national institutions including the army, but by deepening and widening the divisions.
His version of divide and conquer may have been successful in precluding a military coup but did so at the price of assuring profound disaffiliation in Cyrenaica. For at least the last quarter century there has been a palpable and growing sense of "Cyrenaica for the Cyrenaicians." When Gaddafi ordered the prison massacre in Benghazi in 1996 he gave this growing movement a shot of growth hormone.
Since 1996 the anti-government sentiment in Cyrenaica has developed silently but profoundly with results which were stunningly obvious in the first seventy-two hours of the insurrection. Bluntly put, the Gaddafi regime lost Benghazi and Tobruk and the other towns of East Libya almost instantly. Local army units changed sides in a heartbeat and took their weapons with them. Air force and navy units did something similar, at least defecting to foreign shores rather than shoot on fellow tribe and clan members. Cyrenaica for the Cyrenaicians!
The fact that Gaddafi moved in foreign mercenaries from Chad and sub-Saharan Africa shows he well understood that the loyalties of tribe and clan would trump any appeal held by his "revolution." He knew and knows that his heavy heel has an Achilles tendon. The foreigners were the splint for this potentially fatal weakness.
Whether the Rent-A-Killer forces will prove sufficient along with those Libyans who have a vested or visceral interest in the status quo to keep Brother Leader in power in West Libya remains to be seen. One can be more certain about Gaddafi;s political will. If nothing else he both believes his own propaganda and understands that he has no retirement haven waiting for him. He has to stay and fight it out, to die in place if that is the way it plays out. The same applies to his two most visible sons.
The dissidents of Cyrenaica have the political will as well. They well understand the price of failure and the Egyptian border may prove to be a line in the sand too far should the Colonel and his killers gain the upper hand. The so far successful insurrectionists of East Libya (Cyrenaica) also have both the organizational and material means to wage prolonged defensive war. In addition, the majority of the population is with them.
This implies the war within the borders of Libya could continue for a long and bloody time absent sufficient outside pressure to end it. East and West Libya could exchange inconclusive blows for weeks, months, even years if the oil continues to flow in sufficient amounts and can be exchanged for the necessities of life and war. It would not be pretty.
It is this far from unlikely eventuality which makes the insipid reactions of the Obama administration and other governments so disheartening. The Security Council limiting itself to a "press statement" would be risible were it not both tragic and, given the long standing policies of China and Russia, predictable. Far more disturbing was the absence of UN Ambassador Susan Rice from the Security Council vote.
Ms Rice who has worked herself into an excellent imitation of war fever over the plight of people in Darfur was off to South Africa for a confab on "global sustainability" and thus too preoccupied to consider the situation in Libya. Her boss, President Obama, is also absent. Sure, his press flack assures us the Clueless Guy in the Oval will have something to say apropos Libya today or tomorrow, but that is scarcely the sort of laid back approach the situation demands.
Gaddafi has to be forced out quickly. He has to be made to go--alive or dead--before the cycles of killing reach the point that Bosnia will look like a Baptist Sunday Social in comparison. The US and other civilized states such as the UK and Italy can freeze bank accounts, impose travel bans, put sanctions in place, prohibit arms sales, order their national corporate citizens to halt all activity, even use NATO assets to impose naval and air blockades. None of these require a great deal of head scratching, consultations, joint communiques, but all demand action.
Somebody really, really has to do something. All the somethings are well understood. All are easy to do. None require the UN do anything. All demand the civilized states including the US put pens on paper, sign the required orders, and apply the pressure.
Even symbolic actions, the freezing of funds for example, would undercut the willingness of the mercenaries to stay in Libya and embolden even the leaderless movement in West Libya to keep on keeping on. If, at the same time, the civilized states would make the right sort of noises exempting low ranking trigger pullers from prosecution, the pro-Gaddifi forces would be weakened even more. There are other easy to take and quick to operate measures as well, but this roster gives some indications of the great number of tools available to assist in the ending of the Gaddafi madness.
But, someone has to go first. That is what the US formerly did. What is wrong now, Mr Obama?
The residual government of Brother Leader and associates has no sway over any of East Libya which is now an independent if not yet sovereign entity. The tribes of East Libya have withdrawn all allegiance to the Gaddafi regime while the armed forces have defected in wholesale lots to the insurrectionists. The latter occurred because the attraction of region, of tribe, of clan outweighs all the artifices of Gaddafi's view of socialism, Libyan style.
In West Libya, the man who identified himself as "history," as "revolution," and other abstracts, is having more than a few problems killing enough and terrorizing enough to keep even the semblance of power in the capital and its environs. The mercenary and militia forces currently loyal to the one time strongman have demonstrated a capacity and taste for killing people. This has not yet translated into security for Brother Leader.
The greatest advantage Gaddafi has in West Libya is the absence of a coherent resistance. The uprising in Tripoli unlike that in East Libya has been inchoate from the beginning. While the leaderless uprising has some advantages--it is uniquely invulnerable to decapitation strikes by the status quo--it lacks the organizational and structural integrity which can assure the survival of a resistance movement even under heavy and deadly pressure.
A critical question therefore is why the difference between East Libya, the home of an organized, long standing anti-government movement, and West Libya, the site of a genuine leaderless movement? In a major way the difference between what happened in Benghazi or Tobruk on the one hand and Tripoli on the other is a reflection, even a consequence of Libyan history.
Prior to the forced unification of Libya by Italy in 1931 at the end of a twenty year campaign, Libya had been three quasi-states: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. Cyrenaica is East Libya. Tripolitania is West Libya--absent its oilfields. These are found to the south in old Fezzan. The three divisions are ancient, dating back to the days of Rome and Carthage. The divisions are not simply geographic. Nor are they simply lines on old maps.
The divisions run more across the human terrain than the merely physical. They coincide with tribal and clan homelands, homelands which have existed since the mythic dawn of time. As the Italians discovered when they embarked on their great adventure in imitating Rome, the differences between the three regions were starkest when expressed in the degree of opposition to the new colonials. While none of the three were easy nuts to crack, Cyrenaica was the hardest by far.
The New Rome of Mussolini determined to erase the existence of the historical consciousness of the tribesmen of the newly conquered provinces and for that reason decreed the new "state" of Libya into existence. Decreeing is easy, doing much harder. The Italians were never able to create a unified Libyan state, and their efforts not only were unsuccessful, they became counterproductive.
The Anglo-American forces which occupied Libya from 1943 to the end of the war contented themselves with administering the territory for the convenience of the war effort. This approach, which paid utterly no attention to the nature of the human terrain, continued into the post-war period with the creation of a monarchy far more artificial than organic. The not made in Libya monarchy lasted until it fell to Gaddafi's 1969 coup having been kept alive until then by the Cold War needs of the US and its NATO partners as well as the development of the domestic oilfields. The important fact to keep in mind is that at no time during the quarter century of its existence did the monarchy, the foreign supporters of the monarchy, or anyone else attempt to create a unified national identity for Libya.
At the time King Idris left to nobody's real sorrow, the old divisions continued to exist with some small changes. Due to the development of the oilfields of West Libya there had been a degree of integration between Fezzan and Tripolitania. There had been no such process with regard to Cyrenaica, the population centers of which were separated from Tripoli by some five or six hundred kilometers of sand crossed by a single all weather road and a number of ancient caravan tracks.
The proving of oilfields in Cyrenaica during the early Gaddafi years served to reinforce the separate identities of East and West Libya, or, to use the old terms, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania/Fezzan. Then as a matter of policy driven by a deep fear of military coup, Colonel Gaddafi reinforced the ancient divisions by not only refusing to integrate tribes and regions in national institutions including the army, but by deepening and widening the divisions.
His version of divide and conquer may have been successful in precluding a military coup but did so at the price of assuring profound disaffiliation in Cyrenaica. For at least the last quarter century there has been a palpable and growing sense of "Cyrenaica for the Cyrenaicians." When Gaddafi ordered the prison massacre in Benghazi in 1996 he gave this growing movement a shot of growth hormone.
Since 1996 the anti-government sentiment in Cyrenaica has developed silently but profoundly with results which were stunningly obvious in the first seventy-two hours of the insurrection. Bluntly put, the Gaddafi regime lost Benghazi and Tobruk and the other towns of East Libya almost instantly. Local army units changed sides in a heartbeat and took their weapons with them. Air force and navy units did something similar, at least defecting to foreign shores rather than shoot on fellow tribe and clan members. Cyrenaica for the Cyrenaicians!
The fact that Gaddafi moved in foreign mercenaries from Chad and sub-Saharan Africa shows he well understood that the loyalties of tribe and clan would trump any appeal held by his "revolution." He knew and knows that his heavy heel has an Achilles tendon. The foreigners were the splint for this potentially fatal weakness.
Whether the Rent-A-Killer forces will prove sufficient along with those Libyans who have a vested or visceral interest in the status quo to keep Brother Leader in power in West Libya remains to be seen. One can be more certain about Gaddafi;s political will. If nothing else he both believes his own propaganda and understands that he has no retirement haven waiting for him. He has to stay and fight it out, to die in place if that is the way it plays out. The same applies to his two most visible sons.
The dissidents of Cyrenaica have the political will as well. They well understand the price of failure and the Egyptian border may prove to be a line in the sand too far should the Colonel and his killers gain the upper hand. The so far successful insurrectionists of East Libya (Cyrenaica) also have both the organizational and material means to wage prolonged defensive war. In addition, the majority of the population is with them.
This implies the war within the borders of Libya could continue for a long and bloody time absent sufficient outside pressure to end it. East and West Libya could exchange inconclusive blows for weeks, months, even years if the oil continues to flow in sufficient amounts and can be exchanged for the necessities of life and war. It would not be pretty.
It is this far from unlikely eventuality which makes the insipid reactions of the Obama administration and other governments so disheartening. The Security Council limiting itself to a "press statement" would be risible were it not both tragic and, given the long standing policies of China and Russia, predictable. Far more disturbing was the absence of UN Ambassador Susan Rice from the Security Council vote.
Ms Rice who has worked herself into an excellent imitation of war fever over the plight of people in Darfur was off to South Africa for a confab on "global sustainability" and thus too preoccupied to consider the situation in Libya. Her boss, President Obama, is also absent. Sure, his press flack assures us the Clueless Guy in the Oval will have something to say apropos Libya today or tomorrow, but that is scarcely the sort of laid back approach the situation demands.
Gaddafi has to be forced out quickly. He has to be made to go--alive or dead--before the cycles of killing reach the point that Bosnia will look like a Baptist Sunday Social in comparison. The US and other civilized states such as the UK and Italy can freeze bank accounts, impose travel bans, put sanctions in place, prohibit arms sales, order their national corporate citizens to halt all activity, even use NATO assets to impose naval and air blockades. None of these require a great deal of head scratching, consultations, joint communiques, but all demand action.
Somebody really, really has to do something. All the somethings are well understood. All are easy to do. None require the UN do anything. All demand the civilized states including the US put pens on paper, sign the required orders, and apply the pressure.
Even symbolic actions, the freezing of funds for example, would undercut the willingness of the mercenaries to stay in Libya and embolden even the leaderless movement in West Libya to keep on keeping on. If, at the same time, the civilized states would make the right sort of noises exempting low ranking trigger pullers from prosecution, the pro-Gaddifi forces would be weakened even more. There are other easy to take and quick to operate measures as well, but this roster gives some indications of the great number of tools available to assist in the ending of the Gaddafi madness.
But, someone has to go first. That is what the US formerly did. What is wrong now, Mr Obama?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Watching A Regime Crumble?
Saif al-Islami Gaddifi, the usually well oiled, politely mannered, western-style number one son of the Libyan Brother Leader has become the public face of the embattled regime. Given Brother Leader's unusual shyness this is an expectable move. Saif is seen both inside Libya and by foreign observers as a rational, reform-minded, and totally adult sort of guy, quite unlike either his father or younger brothers.
However the message delivered by Saif was not one of peace, reform, and good feelings. Rather he warned darkly of "civil war" and "hundreds of thousands dead" in appearances on state television. Events over the past twenty-four hours show his remark must not be taken as hyperbole.
Neither should his observation that his father would fight to the "last man, last woman and last bullet." The blood spilled in Benghazi coupled with the horizontal escalation of the violent protests to other cities including Tripoli show the matter has become existential to the regime--and family. The uprising is already existential for the protesters. If they fail in their goal of ending the Gaddafi regime, the agents of the regime will end them, if not today than certainly in the days and weeks to come.
When conflicts are seen by both sides as directly existential, it not only increases political will, it assures the struggle will become continually more lethal until one side or the other in effect is obliterated. This has raised the Libyan internal conflict well above those waged in Egypt or Tunisia--and perhaps above that in Bahrain where voices of compromise are still speaking.
As the Gaddafi government stepped up its suppression with the use of fast mover aircraft, it accompanied the purely military and Saif's propaganda with pro-Brother Leader demonstrations in Green Square, Tripoli. The carefully orchestrated show of popular support for the Gaddafi regime was unintentionally undercut by reports of both airstrikes and automatic weapons fire being heard not far from the Square as the demo went down.
Nor is the legitimacy of the Gaddafi regime enhanced by such high profile kicks in the crotch as the mass resignation of the Libyan delegation to the UN under the leadership of its deputy permanent representative. It is not known if the Libyan ambassador to the UN shares the views of his mission. What is certain is the families of the dissident diplomats back home in Libya are not good life insurance risks now--unless the regime collapses.
Perhaps more alarming to the Gaddafi family enterprise is the reported defection of members of the armed services. Reportedly the defectors include two air force officers who took their jets to Malta rather than attack civilians in Benghazi. One of the two pilots, both of whom claim to be colonels, has taken the wise precaution of requesting political asylum. Can't be too safe--if the insurrection fails of its goal.
Other, far lower ranking defections from the army and other security forces have also been alleged. The allegations are most probably accurate, particularly if those changing sides belong to the same tribe or clan as those being attacked. Clan, tribal, and regional loyalties trump mere institutional affiliations in Libyan life. They can even trump religion qua religion.
The National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the primary opposition group among the rudimentary political culture which has survived the forty years of suppression, is ginning up for a return home. Its Washington based spokesman, Ibrahim Sahad, has not received much play in American media but has been quoted overseas as predicting that this time the Brother Leader cannot survive. He offers no reasons for this conclusion beyond the self-evident and widely known failures of the Gaddifi regime and the impetus given by the use of mercenaries, heavy weapons, and aircraft against the demonstrators.
While no objections can be offered as to Mr Sahad's arguments regarding the weakness of the regime, his group can not yet offer a clear vision of what must be done the day after the regime collapses. Nor does he make any useful suggestions for the role which might be played by Western governments in facilitating regime change in Libya. These lacks are indicative of the large, very large problems which will confront the Libyans in the wake of a collapse of the Gaddafis, particularly if the collapse is preceded by a welter of blood letting, a potential which must be taken seriously by outside observers.
Considering that the web of internal security and domestic intelligence organizations involves as many as one in six Libyans, there are a lot of asses in the sling potentially. This implies there will be no going gently into that good night of exile. Considering further the conflicting tangle of tribal, clan, and family alliances both for and against the status quo and the large number of potential scores to be settled, betting on a peaceful and orderly transition (such as is pro forma called for by any number of outsiders) is about as likely as a cold day in August in the dunes south of Tobruk.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is, sadly, almost certainly correct in averring that "rivers of blood" will ensue unless the protests stop. As there is no high likelihood of the anti-government folk packing it in and waiting to be arrested by the internal security wallahs, the number of bodies is doomed to grow--perhaps exponentially.
The US, the EU, and the UN have been dithering too long already. It is more than passingly strange that the Security Council can get its collective panties in a twist over a person being killed in Lebanon but remain totally unconcerned about the looming slaughter in Libya. It is equally interesting that the US, which has shown a remarkable capacity to work itself into a lather over other, less bloody exercises in repression, has been tongue tied about Libya. Then there is the EU. That organization can work itself into the highest of high dudgeons over the allegation of a single Palestinian dying at the hands of the IDF but has confined itself to the barest sighs of concern over the use of heavy weapons against civilians in Libya.
Italy and the UK both have large direct investments in Libya, Italy is the preferred destination of any and all of those who can board a boat on the Libyan coast. It surpasses understanding why both London and Rome have not become directly, substantially, and materially involved in ending the crisis in Libya before the worst realistic case comes to pass.
Admittedly, Brother Leader is not the poster boy of rational policy or carefully considered reaction to outside influences, but that is no reason to sit back with folded hands as the escalating dance of death continues in Libya. As the American ambassador to the Court of St James is reported to have said yesterday, Her Majesty's Government bears a measure of responsibility for enhancing the international legitimacy of the Libyan dictator.
The fact that the enhancement occurred during the previous New Labor government is all the more reason the Coalition has both the political freedom and ethical responsibility to take the lead in the EU to seek ways of effective intervention in the Libyan crisis. While Italy may have a greater direct stake in the outcome of the events in Libya, the current political state of affairs in that country shifts the load to the UK, which has both means and justification for seeking action on the part of the EU and UN.
The US can and should play a supporting role to any British initiative. The current weakness of the US not only in the region following the incomprehensible veto of the West Bank settlement resolution in the Security Council as well as the all too obvious working both sides of the street during the "Lotus revolution" has drastically curtailed our diplomatic influence and prestige and thus ability to directly operate in Libya. But, we can still back the play of another responsible actor--and the UK is the best candidate for the role.
It is critical that the end of Gaddafi come before the body count grows much more. As is the case in every internal war in human history (and most all inter-state wars as well) the dead dictate policy. The more protesters who are killed the more vengeance will be demanded. The more vengeance which is feared by partisans of the status quo, the more desperate and lethal the attempt to suppress. The cycle is clear, and, once started, not easy to interrupt before it has run the full course, until people are simply sickened by the slaughter they have perpetrated and suffered.
Time is running out. It is running out for the Gaddafi regime. It is running out for the international community (whatever that might mean in this context) to take measures intended to limit the suffering, end the killing, and start a new clock on a new future.
However the message delivered by Saif was not one of peace, reform, and good feelings. Rather he warned darkly of "civil war" and "hundreds of thousands dead" in appearances on state television. Events over the past twenty-four hours show his remark must not be taken as hyperbole.
Neither should his observation that his father would fight to the "last man, last woman and last bullet." The blood spilled in Benghazi coupled with the horizontal escalation of the violent protests to other cities including Tripoli show the matter has become existential to the regime--and family. The uprising is already existential for the protesters. If they fail in their goal of ending the Gaddafi regime, the agents of the regime will end them, if not today than certainly in the days and weeks to come.
When conflicts are seen by both sides as directly existential, it not only increases political will, it assures the struggle will become continually more lethal until one side or the other in effect is obliterated. This has raised the Libyan internal conflict well above those waged in Egypt or Tunisia--and perhaps above that in Bahrain where voices of compromise are still speaking.
As the Gaddafi government stepped up its suppression with the use of fast mover aircraft, it accompanied the purely military and Saif's propaganda with pro-Brother Leader demonstrations in Green Square, Tripoli. The carefully orchestrated show of popular support for the Gaddafi regime was unintentionally undercut by reports of both airstrikes and automatic weapons fire being heard not far from the Square as the demo went down.
Nor is the legitimacy of the Gaddafi regime enhanced by such high profile kicks in the crotch as the mass resignation of the Libyan delegation to the UN under the leadership of its deputy permanent representative. It is not known if the Libyan ambassador to the UN shares the views of his mission. What is certain is the families of the dissident diplomats back home in Libya are not good life insurance risks now--unless the regime collapses.
Perhaps more alarming to the Gaddafi family enterprise is the reported defection of members of the armed services. Reportedly the defectors include two air force officers who took their jets to Malta rather than attack civilians in Benghazi. One of the two pilots, both of whom claim to be colonels, has taken the wise precaution of requesting political asylum. Can't be too safe--if the insurrection fails of its goal.
Other, far lower ranking defections from the army and other security forces have also been alleged. The allegations are most probably accurate, particularly if those changing sides belong to the same tribe or clan as those being attacked. Clan, tribal, and regional loyalties trump mere institutional affiliations in Libyan life. They can even trump religion qua religion.
The National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the primary opposition group among the rudimentary political culture which has survived the forty years of suppression, is ginning up for a return home. Its Washington based spokesman, Ibrahim Sahad, has not received much play in American media but has been quoted overseas as predicting that this time the Brother Leader cannot survive. He offers no reasons for this conclusion beyond the self-evident and widely known failures of the Gaddifi regime and the impetus given by the use of mercenaries, heavy weapons, and aircraft against the demonstrators.
While no objections can be offered as to Mr Sahad's arguments regarding the weakness of the regime, his group can not yet offer a clear vision of what must be done the day after the regime collapses. Nor does he make any useful suggestions for the role which might be played by Western governments in facilitating regime change in Libya. These lacks are indicative of the large, very large problems which will confront the Libyans in the wake of a collapse of the Gaddafis, particularly if the collapse is preceded by a welter of blood letting, a potential which must be taken seriously by outside observers.
Considering that the web of internal security and domestic intelligence organizations involves as many as one in six Libyans, there are a lot of asses in the sling potentially. This implies there will be no going gently into that good night of exile. Considering further the conflicting tangle of tribal, clan, and family alliances both for and against the status quo and the large number of potential scores to be settled, betting on a peaceful and orderly transition (such as is pro forma called for by any number of outsiders) is about as likely as a cold day in August in the dunes south of Tobruk.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is, sadly, almost certainly correct in averring that "rivers of blood" will ensue unless the protests stop. As there is no high likelihood of the anti-government folk packing it in and waiting to be arrested by the internal security wallahs, the number of bodies is doomed to grow--perhaps exponentially.
The US, the EU, and the UN have been dithering too long already. It is more than passingly strange that the Security Council can get its collective panties in a twist over a person being killed in Lebanon but remain totally unconcerned about the looming slaughter in Libya. It is equally interesting that the US, which has shown a remarkable capacity to work itself into a lather over other, less bloody exercises in repression, has been tongue tied about Libya. Then there is the EU. That organization can work itself into the highest of high dudgeons over the allegation of a single Palestinian dying at the hands of the IDF but has confined itself to the barest sighs of concern over the use of heavy weapons against civilians in Libya.
Italy and the UK both have large direct investments in Libya, Italy is the preferred destination of any and all of those who can board a boat on the Libyan coast. It surpasses understanding why both London and Rome have not become directly, substantially, and materially involved in ending the crisis in Libya before the worst realistic case comes to pass.
Admittedly, Brother Leader is not the poster boy of rational policy or carefully considered reaction to outside influences, but that is no reason to sit back with folded hands as the escalating dance of death continues in Libya. As the American ambassador to the Court of St James is reported to have said yesterday, Her Majesty's Government bears a measure of responsibility for enhancing the international legitimacy of the Libyan dictator.
The fact that the enhancement occurred during the previous New Labor government is all the more reason the Coalition has both the political freedom and ethical responsibility to take the lead in the EU to seek ways of effective intervention in the Libyan crisis. While Italy may have a greater direct stake in the outcome of the events in Libya, the current political state of affairs in that country shifts the load to the UK, which has both means and justification for seeking action on the part of the EU and UN.
The US can and should play a supporting role to any British initiative. The current weakness of the US not only in the region following the incomprehensible veto of the West Bank settlement resolution in the Security Council as well as the all too obvious working both sides of the street during the "Lotus revolution" has drastically curtailed our diplomatic influence and prestige and thus ability to directly operate in Libya. But, we can still back the play of another responsible actor--and the UK is the best candidate for the role.
It is critical that the end of Gaddafi come before the body count grows much more. As is the case in every internal war in human history (and most all inter-state wars as well) the dead dictate policy. The more protesters who are killed the more vengeance will be demanded. The more vengeance which is feared by partisans of the status quo, the more desperate and lethal the attempt to suppress. The cycle is clear, and, once started, not easy to interrupt before it has run the full course, until people are simply sickened by the slaughter they have perpetrated and suffered.
Time is running out. It is running out for the Gaddafi regime. It is running out for the international community (whatever that might mean in this context) to take measures intended to limit the suffering, end the killing, and start a new clock on a new future.
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