The "Fall" Of Tripoli And Other Polite Fictions

You will recall no doubt that NATO air forces have been operating under the authority of a UN Security Council resolution to "protect" civilians caught in the crossfire between rebels and troops loyal to noted humanitarian,  African "King of Kings," and Brother Leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi.  To some of the NATO countries such as Germany and Turkey, even this limited mission was unacceptably broad and all too fraught with the possibility that someone, somewhere, somehow might kill someone else.  To other members, the US, the UK, and France come to mind, the only way to accomplish the prescribed action was through the removal of Gaddafi.

Since all NATO decisions must be made by consensus, it was inevitable that the actual campaign would be fragmented, relatively ineffective, and of dubious utility in gaining an end to the obnoxious regime.  When President Obama ended the active American combat role in Operation Unified Protector and handed the task over to NATO so as to adopt the policy of "leading from behind," the already lurching effort shambled ever closer to the ditch of failure.  It was no surprise that the combination of NATO fecklessness and rebel ineptitude in the arts and crafts of war not only made the loyalist forces appear downright competent in comparison but moved the war to the dead waters of stalemate.

In the past few weeks, the rebels gained new strength, new courage, new competence and went from a stance of barely held defense to one of successful offensive, particularly in the Berber inhabited mountains of the west.  The mainstream media seemed more than a bit shocked by the sudden transformation.  Many attempts at explanation were offered, but only one seemed to gain traction.

The explanation which stood head and shoulders above all others was the redeployment of NATO aircraft from whatever they had been doing to direct, close, tactical air support of the rebel ground forces.  Whenever and wherever the rebels sought to advance they were preceded by (to  use the most common term employed by the amateur fighters of the rebels) "Mr NATO."  Airstrikes preceded and ran in parallel with rebel attacks such that the rebels were always successful at a surprisingly low cost in lives.

The reports from journalists in the field made it abundantly clear that the rebels had not turned into super-troops during the weeks of stalemate.  Often the advances were held up and even routed by a handful of snipers moving from roof top to roof top or apartment block to apartment block. The engagements were almost risible in their small size.  The associated body counts were equally small.  In short, no evidence of either side having fought with skill or mass was evident in all the myriad accounts coming from the frontlines.

As the NATO air attacks grew in number, there was no significant increase in collateral civilian casualties.  That should have raised flags with all observers.  There were darn few dots to connect.  The rebels were suddenly more effective.  "Mr NATO was always there, on time with hot metal on target.  There was no ramp up in the collateral deaths and damage.

Putting together the dots confirms one conclusion: The more robust proponents of getting rid of the obstreperous Leader had authorized the deployment of special forces personnel or operations officers of the clandestine service to provide training, advise, and, most decisively, forward air control.  In the past couple of days, due  in probability to the euphoria of achieving seeming success, the British and French governments have allowed that special forces personnel both active duty and retired had been and continued to be present in Libya.

The Americans have not been so forthcoming--yet.  In a sense there is no real reason.  After all who but Americans would have been driving black SUVs in conjunction with the advancing Berbers and others from the Western mountains?  Who but Americans wearing jeans and bush shirts would have been encountered standing next to the quite atypical for Libya black Suburbans?  Who but Americans would have been using very advanced commo gear and laser designators while parked on a convenient hilltop watching the rebels mount out as "Mr NATO" circled nearby?

Positing for the moment that the jeans wearing dudes glazing Qaddafi tanks and missile launching trucks were either Agency operations officers or sheepdipped special forces members, then Mr Obama has been telling the truth when denying the presence of American military personnel in Libya.  A narrow, technical truth is nonetheless a truth.  The combination of the primarily Berber forces (recall that the Berbers were never well and truly subjugated by the Italians or the monarchy and steamed hot under the heavy oppression of Qaddafi) are made up of men with many generations of guerrilla warfare in their blood and American directed air delivered firepower was highly effective.

The close cooperation of the Americans with the Western mountaineers also had the advantage of putting some blue sky between Washington and the forces controlled (if that is the correct term) by the Transitional National Council in Benghazi.  The conflicting agendas and presence of advocates of violent political Islam in the TNC makes the development of an alternative locus of political authority desirable.  The Western towns and tribes are under represented in the TNC which makes an alternative locus not only desirable but necessary.  The key role played to date by the Western mountaineers in the "conquest" of Tripoli assures that the future government of Libya will be more inclusive--a key American policy goal.

The results to date make manifest the effectiveness of the direct training, command, and control as well as forward fire direction services provided by British and French military personnel.  Without these critical components as well as the equally important intelligence and targeting assistance coming from the Europeans, the rebels would still be dithering around many, many klicks to the east of Tripoli.  In short, the discrete assistance made the rebels something more like a fighting force and much less of a source of comedic relief.

The important take away is the "victory" to date of the rebels is not a credit to NATO per se but rather to the decisions taken by three major members of the alliance. NATO has not come back from the graveyard of obsolete political assemblies.  Rather the effectiveness of "Mr NATO" and the rebels came despite the alliance not because of it.  On the ground, under the pressure of real world events, what started as a purported out-of-theater operation by NATO became a "coalition of the willing" in the same model as that patented back in 1990 by George H.W. Bush.  But, as a polite fiction the credit will be given to NATO.

A second, parallel polite fiction is already being written by the Obama administration and its supporters in congress and among We the People.  That fiction holds Mr Obama as a pillar of triumphant diplomatic policy and his "leading from behind" policy paradigm as the most important new foreign policy development since the Marshall Plan.  Hooey!  Obama did what he did in the way he did for domestic political reasons alone.  He attended closely to the polls which showed We the People had no inclination for one more war in a Muslim majority country.  This political reality was reinforced strongly by the simple fact that the US had no definite, marketable national interest in play in Libya other than a vague, emotional commitment to the ideal of democracy and a strong distaste for Qaddafi.  There was neither reason nor way in which even the most limited of wars could be sold to We the People and congress--and Obama did the only thing he could do other than abandon the UK and France as well as the Arab League to their own devices with the result that US influence would go even deeper in the tank than it is now.

There is a final polite fiction.  That is the tale of the "fall" of Tripoli.  Leaving aside the tragi-comic features of the last twenty-four hours, the fact remains that Tripoli is not under any sort of rebel control, military or governmental.  The companion fact is that even if Tripoli becomes fully under TNC authority, it does not mean the war is over let alone that a new Libya is well under construction.  The simple, ground truth, the brute fact of life in Libya is that the Libyans will have to be very, very lucky and careful in order to prevent the start of a long, bloody, and destructive set of internal wars.  Beyond that, a successful outcome (defined as a stable Libya with some plausible semblance of democracy) will depend upon the outsiders--the British, the French, the Americans, the UN, the brigades of ever ready NGOs-- to do very little.

The danger from outside Libya is that the well-intentioned foreigners both governmental and NGO will try to do too much rather than too little.  Particularly if there is a period of settling scores, of payback violence, of armed quest for political authority, there will be an almost irresistible temptation to interfere, to impose and keep the peace, to "teach the Libyans to elect good men."  No matter what happens, no matter how much blood might flow, no matter how loud and obnoxious the rhetoric might become, it is critical, utterly central, that the outsiders keep their hands off.  For Libya to emerge eventually as a stable, peaceful, hopefully democratic society and polity, it is imperative that the processes leading to that end state be organic to Libya and the Libyan people.

A new polite fiction is emerging to the effect that we, particularly the British but also the Americans, have learned the big lesson of the dreadful and avoidable experiences in Iraq.  That may be true in an abstract, academic way, but down deep in the emotional brain which drives the really big decisions, it is not.  Should Libya enter a period of adjustment marked with retribution and revenge, it is doubtful that the Deep Thinkers in government and media throughout the US, the UK, France, and elsewhere will be able to kick back and remind the critics, inform the anguished humanitarians, chastise the eager to intervene, that this time the mistakes of Iraq will not be repeated.

The biggest challenge ahead for Libya and its people will not be the capture or killing of Qaddafi.  It will not be which way should the TNC go in preparing for its eventual demise.  It will not be transforming the fighters of the deserts and mountains into a professional constabulary capable of keeping the internal peace.  It will not be who will try the criminals of the former regime.  None of these begins to match the really, really big challenge.

That challenge?

Simple, bucko, the make-or-break of Libya's future is found in a short and easy question: Can the High Minded and Lofty Thinking of the West keep their hands off and their mouths shut.

If the past is any guide, the answer is short and bitter: No.

One More Time--UN "Peacekeepers" Can't Keep The Peace

The Geek has been a harsh critic of UN peace keeping operations most of the past thirty or so years.  While there have been some exceptions, the general rule is simply that the blue helmet crowd is not worth a fraction of what it costs the UN, which is to say the American taxpayer.

One more splendid example of the common rule comes from Sudan.  You might recall that after forces from South Sudan ambushed a UN aid convoy protected by units of the Khartoum army, the northerners responded by an attack on the contested border town of Abyei.  The incursion and concomitant looting and burning lasted two days during which thousands of residents hit the dust for points south.  During the festivities, the UN peace keeping force drawn from the army of Zambia hunkered down in its dug in compound, heads between their no doubt quavering knees.

This aspect of the story was widely, one is tempted to write "universally" ignored by the MSM of the world.  An honorable and lonely exception was Reuters Africa whose correspondent investigated this neglect of duty with a fine degree of assiduousness.  The article notes in several places that the UN is both "livid" and is "investigating" the incident.  The Zambian mission to the UN had no comment.  Wow!  What a shock.

This is not the first time that the Zambian contingent has determined that discretion was the better part of valor.  Nor is it likely to be the last.

The Abyei fiasco is typical of UN peace keeping operations in Africa.  In the Congo the blue helmet bunch has been recurrently unable to furnish protection to local civilians besieged, raped, and murdered by one or another of the assorted "rebel" groups.  This has been true even when the UN outpost has been within easy earshot of the rapine.  Nor was the performance of peacekeeping force notably better elsewhere from the Ivory Coast to points east.

The usual reasons given for the under performing nature of the peacekeepers is that they are drawn in the main from the poorest of the poor undeveloped countries.  Thus the personnel are underpaid, undertrained (if trained at all) under equipped (if equipped at all) and very, very poorly officered.  All of this is true.  It is also irrelevant.

There is no explicit requirement that the UN peacekeeping office use forces of this nature.  Rather, these are the only forces generally available.  More developed countries with professional armies seem to be reluctant in the extreme to deploy in the service of humanity.  There are normally valid domestic political imperatives behind this stance.

(Arguably even the presence of a Western professional army is no guarantee of success.  Recall that the small Dutch contingent present at Srebrenica as Ratko Mladic demanded the handover of all Muslim males could not offer resistance, and their request for air support was ineffective as it was submitted on the wrong form.  The result was eight thousand Muslim dead.)

The notion of peacekeeping is flawed in several essential respects.  The first is the requirement that peace already exist--at least in principle--before the blue helmet boys arrive to maintain it.  There is no writ for the UN force to impose peace and then keep it.  The second is the need for the government of the recipient country to request or approve the UN move.  In the context of Sudan the offer of Ethiopia to provide additional peacekeeping troops is contingent upon both Khartoum and Juba signing off on the proposal.  Thirdly, the peacekeeping forces are almost always too small and too lightly armed to intimidate effectively any and all locals inclined to fighting.

The final flaw is the one demonstrated by the Zambians at Abyei.  There is no real stomach for the idea of getting killed in the middle of someone else's war for the abstract of "peace."  This is a very commonsense approach.  It is bad enough to risk one's only skin in a conflict in which one's nation has a direct stake and in which one fights under one's own national command.  It is far less appealing to die for someone else's notions of peace or victory.  For societies and polities barely beyond the tribal stage of abstract loyalties (if that far along the continuum of political abstraction), the desire not to die in a truly meaningless conflict is all the more potent.

For a Zambian or anyone else from any country, there is no inbuilt loyalty to the supreme abstractions expressed in the UN.  Dying under the baby blue banner has no appeal, brings no glory, has no intrinsic reward potential.  When the bullets are flying, the best thing to do is what the Zambians did--dig a deep hole and stay there until the noise ceases.

The lofty thinkers behind the concept of the UN as a peacekeeper in the violent internal affairs of a state and nation which are, at least in theory, sovereign and independent, need to get a grip on the realities as perceived through the eyes of men sent far from home for little material reward to risk themselves in pursuit of something which is utterly meaningless to them.  If the lofty thinking, high minded people at the UN are serious about the notion of armed intervention in the bloody internal politics of a state or establishing an armed presence on the line dividing two combatant states, they need to stop outsourcing the duty to the unfortunate poverty ridden lesser states of the General Assembly--even when these states are eager for the "honor"of doing the dirty work.

Peacekeeping is a form of mercenary warfare.  Period.  This means the forces employed must be heavily armed enough and well disciplined enough to overawe the local combatants.  Overawing means the probability of actual shooting and dying is reduced.  A clear superiority in the task of killing means killing will be less likely.  Beyond that, it means that should the locals not stay properly impressed, the peacekeepers will have the ability to kill without being killed.

This approach would be more expensive to the UN (or the US which is the single largest financial supporter of these missions).  It also means the forces will have to be drawn from the most militarily competent members of the UN, the Great and Near Great Powers.  This, in turn, will open a very large box of political problems for the leaders of these Powers (with the exception of authoritarian regimes--and we all know who these are).  The political problems will in their turn make the Powers a bit more reluctant and circumspect in their handling of interventions under the blue flag.

An increase in reluctance would not be a bad idea.  While the notion and optics of internal violence or border skirmishes with clouds of emotionally appealing refugees is disconcerting, the bitter reality of the utility of both the violence and its consequences must be recognized.  The problems which produced the violence will not be settled by outside intervention, foreign interference.  They may be tamped down, made less visible, but they will still exist to be dealt with by future violence of an increased nature.  All peacekeeping efforts accomplish much of the time is kicking the can down the road.

It would be far better in the long term for the violence to produce a solution to the problem as contrary to the cliche so loved by the lofty thinking sort, violence does settle problems.  History is replete with examples.  It is also filled with examples of how prematurely truncated violence breeds a further outbreak of even bloodier violence.

The world was not produced by Walt Disney.  Nor is the human race given to peace, love, and flower power.  Political and social evolution is often propelled by suffering and dying, by instability and conflict.  The sensitive sort of person might wish it were otherwise, but the dreary history of the human race at least since we left the Eden of hunting and gathering shows the opposite to be the case.  Organized social and political life is characterized by redness of tooth and claw.

Nature is far more gentle and kind creature than is the human.  Get a grip on it.

The Libyan "Moment" Has Come--And Gone

Not that many years ago the phrase "cheese eating surrender monkeys" was applied by crotch-grabbing, red blooded, red meat eating, American hyperpatriots to the French.  The French government of the day had refused to go along with the Bush/Cheney Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq.  As a result, some of We the People were not only unimpressed, they wanted to rename French fries something more suitable.

Now the term can be applied to the West generally--provided the French and British are specifically exempted.  In diametric opposition to the stance adopted by President Obama and his "foreign policy team," the French have moved quickly to recognize the rebels as the legitimate government of Libya.  In conjunction with David Cameron, President Nicholas Sarkozy called for the immediate imposition of a no-fly zone days ago.

In short, the French are waving the banner of defiance in the face of the American surrender monkeys who evidently prefer to chomp political cheese while Gaddafi moves closer to victory.  In a stunning show of total indifference not only to the upcoming slaughter in Libya but core interests of the US and its allies, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton rejected a no-fly zone after having met with insurgent leaders in Paris.

The secretary waved the White House's white flag with the usual blather about the necessity of the UN Security Council authorizing any such action.  Ms Clinton knows that at least China will veto the idea.  The Russians are inclined in that direction as well but have preferred to use the stall approach demanding operational details before considering any resolution.

Any invocation of the Security Council in the context of the Libyan Question is akin to imploring the Great Ju-Ju with sacrificial maidens in order to avert a total meltdown of the incandescent reactor cores in Japan.  Ms Clinton knows this.  So does President Obama.  Both are simply looking for the safest way out of a very real dilemma.  They want the Libyan Question to answer itself so that Mr Obama will not have to abandon his successful political posture as being anything and everything George W. Bush was not.

The fear of losing his identity as I-Am-Not-George-Bush, the Clueless Guy in the Oval is quite willing to see Libyans die.  Worse, he is willing to place the present and future national and strategic interests of the US in peril--great peril.

There is no doubt but Mr Obama and the rest of his "team" will soon embrace the new narrative being written rapidly by assorted members of the American and European "elites."  The new version of life in Libya has the Colonel "winning" so quickly and convincingly that the imposition of a no-fly zone would be too little and too late to be of value to the insurgents.

There is a good deal of truth to the "new" narrative.  As the Geek has noted in several previous posts, the insurgents' initial buoyant optimism was unwarranted in the extreme.  Their attempt at victory through a rapid escalade were doomed to fail and then time would be on the side of Gaddafi and company.  As has been obvious from the beginning, Brother Leader's forces had better organization, better training, better equipment, and a high degree of motivation which extended from the top down.  In comparison, the insurgents were a disorganized, badly equipped mob with an attitude.

Gaddifi may speak and act like a nut job, but he falls in the old cliche of "crazy like a fox."  He has shown a very real talent for manipulating perceptions in the West as well as playing the divide and conquer game domestically.  As he has a total disregard for the lives and well being of the Libyan people, there has never been any doubt about his willingness and ability to keep power while standing on a mountain of bodies.  In short, he can kill his way to victory--at least a temporary victory.

Even if his continued tenure in office is measured in months, or a couple of years at most, his capacity to do damage, even create havoc should and must not be underestimated.  At present--in largest measure due to the need of President Obama and many other Western leaders such as Ms Merkel for a spine transplant--the Colonel is going to emerge victorious.

Over the longer haul the combination of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation will fatally weaken the Gaddafi family enterprise.  The weakening will occur faster if the insurgents are able to switch to a guerrilla war operational doctrine.  Assorted Western analysts have concluded this is what the future bodes.

Perhaps.  The Libyans of the western region have a history of effective and prolonged guerrilla war.  The campaign against the Italian occupiers was centered in the region surrounding Benghazi, Cyrenaica.  In the end, of course, the Italians prevailed, largely because they were willing and able to kill their way to victory.  Given the resources available to the Gaddafi regime, there are good reasons to assert the government today can do the same only much faster.

This is not to say the insurgents cannot successfully attack the overextended government forces and their very long and highly vulnerable land line of communication.  They can mount attacks.  They can inflict damage and casualties on the Gaddafi loyalists.  They can prevent the Colonel's killers from enjoying unquestioned success, of sleeping soundly after the victory party.  Still, the probability of toppling the Gaddafi regime by means of guerrilla war is slim.

No matter how the cake is cut, the result is the same.  Without foreign assistance, the insurgents will lose.  This means Gaddafi will be back--bigger and badder than ever.  He may not last that many months, but he can make those months pure hell for Libyans--and others as well.

This implies with strength and vigor that some country among the civilized states must take the lead.  It is no use invoking the magic of the United Nations.  The UN Security Council due to the domestic policy considerations so critical to both China and Russia will remain the "god that failed."  NATO is also a non-starter given the position adopted by the Merkel government and supported in principle by other countries as well.  The same applies to the European Union.

Nor can the Libyans and the world look to the US.  President Obama is a genuine "cheese eating surrender monkey" quite willing to sacrifice the national interests of the US on the alter of personal ambition and before the totem of fearing to be seen as one more George W. Bush.

And so the world spins.  Downward--at least from the perspective of the US and other civilized states.

Sic 'Em, Dave, Sarko

David Cameron continues to take the hardline regarding the imposition of a no-fly zone on Libya.  Reportedly he has told his cabinet that there is no need for a UN Security Council resolution in order for the UK or any other country to place Libya under aerial interdict.  In this view Cameron has been joined by Nicholas Sarkozy.  The rather mercurial French president has gone so far as to recognize the rebel national committee as the legitimate government of Libya.

While the UK lacks the resources to do the no-fly job on its own, the British could do so in conjunction with the French.  Considering the recent agreement regarding joint military operations, the possibility of this happening moves up the list of likelihood.

If Cameron continues to feel muscular on the Libyan Question, President Obama will be more isolated in his calculated posture of apparent prudence and cautious statesmanship behind which lurks the fear of being seen as George W. Bush reincarnate.  The pressure ramped up ever so slightly yesterday when Secretary Gates clarified his earlier remarks on the difficulty of imposing a no-fly zone.  The secretary allowed in Manama that the US could do the job all on its lonesome should "President Obama so order."

With the Arab League having unanimously passed a resolution approving a no-fly zone and demanding that the Security Council act accordingly, the assorted member states have picked up a good measure of the political consequences which would ensue should the no-fly zone result in civilian casualties.  This move will reduce, albeit marginally, the negative narrative which will be written by anti-Western elements in the Arab and Muslim majority states generally in the wake of even a very pacifistic airspace denial effort.

The real questions do not involve the ability of the US or the Anglo-French duo or any other major power to impose and maintain a no-fly zone.  The most trenchant question is: Will a no-fly zone actually benefit the insurgents in a significant manner?  As important is this: What actions will follow the imposition of an unproductive no-fly zone.  And, of course, there is the most fundamental question of all: What is the goal of the exercise?

To take the last question first: The actual goal of any intervention either by air or ground must be that of utterly defeating the current regime.  The US and the rest of the West cannot afford a Gaddafi in power after his crushing of the insurgency.  It would not be a return to the status quo ante.  A victorious Gaddafi at best would be the Gaddafi of the worst of the bad old days.  You know, the Gaddafi of PanAm 103.  The Gaddafi who supported any and every movement or regime which opposed the West.  The Gaddafi who sought weapons of mass destruction with an ardor which surpassed that demonstrated by Saddam Hussein.

Preventing this version of Gaddafi, the basic Gaddafi 1.0 who strutted and terrified in the years before the US invaded Iraq, must be the highest priority of any and every responsible Western government, our own included.  All other goals pale into insignificance in comparison.

Now as to the first question: Would a no-fly zone really matter?  Would it preclude a Gaddafi victory?  The answer is simple, blunt, and unpleasant.  The answer is: No!  It is possible that Gaddafi would not even challenge the zone.  He has no need to do so.

The air attacks may scare the untrained, inexperienced people down range, but so far the effect of the attacks has been negligible.  The pilots--whether Libyan or hired hands from Syria or Sudan--have not shown the ability to hit targets.  As a consequence, the strikes have been acoustically and visually impressive but militarily useless.

The winning weapons for the Gaddafi forces have been of the indirect fire sort.  Unguided rockets, tube artillery, the backbones of standoff warfare have done the heavy lifting for the Colonel's killers.  Only after extensive preparatory fire has the armor moved forward to finish the job.

The untrained, poorly organized, massively inexperienced insurgent fighters lack all the basic wherewithal to withstand the physical and morale effects of standoff, indirect fire weaponry.  The same applies to facing down armor, even antiquated main battle tanks and similar vintage infantry fighting vehicles.

In a combat between a small but well equipped force such as the four or so battalions commanded by Gaddafi's kids and a mob, the small force will win.  To put it a slightly different way, the Gaddafi forces enjoy the bravery of being out of range.  Their possession of standoff weapons allows the Colonel's thugs to kill without the risk of being killed.  Any number of wounded insurgents quoted in Western MSM have moaned about the melancholy reality that the Gaddafi troops are never seen let alone shot at but stay safely out of AK-47 or RPG range and pound the holy hell out of the rebel positions.

Conclusion?  A no-fly zone will not tilt the battle in favor of the insurgents.  They are doomed as long as Gaddafi's forces can continue to move slowly along the one road, stopping to shell any insurgent held area into powder until they finally fetch up at the center of resistance, Benghazi.  At that moment it is all over for the insurgents.  Those who can run will fast step to the Egyptian border; those who can't will stay and be blown into small bloody fragments by the Colonel's artillery, rockets, and armor.

(At this point a no-fly zone would benefit the refugee stream heading for Egypt by assuring it would not be decimated by air attack.  That would be a humanitarian good deed, but is not a war winner.  It is not a way of achieving the goal of a Gaddafi free Earth.)

This leaves the second material question:  What happens after the no-fly zone proves nugatory?  Assuming that the leaders of Western governments, including the Clueless Guy in the Oval, concur that the ongoing presence of Gaddafi constitutes everybody's worst nightmare, there is only one option.  The last option standing is the introduction of ground combat units.

There is much fear over doing such.  Some anxiety is merited by factual, historical experience; some, even most, is not.  Drawing on the historical record it is safe to conclude that an operation limited to one discrete goal--the halting of the Gaddafi advance on a predetermined line, for example--markedly reduces the probability of "mission leap" along the lines of what happened in Afghanistan.

The difficulty in employing military intervention is not that of tactics.  Nor is it one at the operational level.  The only real problem is that which comes at the political level--defining in a properly limited way the goal to which the use of force is directed.  Provided that the goal consensually achieved by the major Western powers is that of enforcing a stop line, there is no requirement for "nation-building," no taking of overall responsibility for the future of Libya.

Admittedly, this limited a mission would leave the Gaddafi regime in charge of a truncated Libya.  On the upside, this truncated version of his previous domain coupled with the long term impact of sanctions would serve to erode Brother Leader's material capacity to continue in power.  It would also serve to curtail Gaddafi's potential for international mischief making most gratifyingly.

There is a very unfortunate but very real temptation for political leaders not to leave well enough alone.  They seem to be constitutionally disinclined to accept a half loaf when the full loaf seems to be so much more attractive.  Here the American experience in Afghanistan and Iraq are the most important object lessons.  Had the neocon ninnies of the Bush-Cheney years been at all able to restrain their unlimited ambitions, the effort in Afghanistan would have been restricted to a highly doable punitive expedition and the Great Adventure in Regime Change in Iraq would have been limited to the removal of Saddam Hussein.

The US should have rejected any responsibility for doing anything beyond removing two odious regimes, assuring that al-Qaeda was destroyed and eliminating any residual capability in Iraq for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.  All the rest, all the follow-ons of "nation-building" or the constitution of new governments would have been passed on to the indigenous populations with the assistance of those members of the "international community" which cared to offer such.

The goal of any ground intervention must be restricted to the establishment of a stop line beyond which the Gaddafi units would not be allowed.  Taken in conjunction with the existence of an alternative, legitimate government and the assorted international sanctions, the result would be the ejection of Gaddafi from power.  This would be facilitated if the threat of prosecution for crimes against humanity were to be lowered even if not removed totally.  It must be recalled that the Taylor prosecution served as the single greatest spine stiffener provided to Gaddafi and family.

At the moment both Cameron and Sarkozy have shown both greater insight and courage than has Mr Obama.  Having written that, the Geek is constrained to add that neither man has been honest--at least in public.  Their military advice must have emphasized the irrelevance of the no-fly zone.  Their political and diplomatic advisors must have pointed out the array of negative consequences which would attend a Gaddafi victory.  These factors imply that each man must be aware that when night falls, only a ground intervention would prevent the Colonel from emerging triumphant and emboldened.

Since the British and French leaders have led on the Libyan Question, it is now incumbent upon them to tell it like it is.  They must prepare themselves, their publics, and the rest of the world for the necessity of a ground intervention in the very near future.  This also means they and their military and diplomatic high command must design a properly limited mission definition.  And, they have to drag Obama kicking and screaming in their wake.

So, Dave and Sarko, sic 'em!

Cowardice And Appeasement Masquerade As Statesmanship

As expected when the Libyan insurgents failed to topple the Gaddafi regime by escalade, time has favored the Colonel's side.  His troops and militia are better equipped and trained than the rebels.  The latter are long on spirit but very short on capabilities.

The utter ineptitude of the amateurs which constitute the majority of the insurgent fighters is pathetically evident in pictures showing recoilless rifles mounted without any protection alongside the paved road which is the only sure line of communication east to west.  It is equally obvious in pictures showing fighters waving weapons but not digging individual fighting positions, shooting into the air while piles of ammunition spill out of boxes out in the open.  It is seen as well in the shooting of light antiaircraft cannon against aircraft hopelessly out of range.

The fighters interviewed by Western mainstream media all cheerfully acknowledge their lack of military training of even the most rudimentary sort.  (The Geek's personal favorite is, "I'm not trained but I've seen a lot of action movies.")  They also profess a willingness to die, a sentiment which seems to be well neigh onto universal among Muslim men.

The problem comes in the whole idea of war as summarized by General George S. Patton, Jr., a man who both knew a thing or two about war and loved the thrill of combat.  "You don't win by dying for your country.  You win by making the other sonofabitch die for his."  The mere willingness to die for the "cause" has the utility of mammary glands on a bull.

The combination of aircraft, armor, better training and leadership and a total willingness to kill any and all who might be opponents of the regime conspires to assure the Colonel has gained the upper hand in the ongoing insurgency.  With every passing day his forces will grow stronger and the rebels weaker--at least in manpower and materiel.  It is different in the critical consideration of political will.

Gaddafi's political will was assured by the institution of International Criminal Court proceedings against him, his family, and closest associates.  Way back when the deposed dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor, was arrested in his exile refuge of Nigeria and sent to stand trial in the Netherlands, Gaddafi branded the action "unacceptable."  He saw the handwriting on the wall with the arrest and trial of his onetime surrogate.  He is not going to suffer the same fate.  Nor will he allow it to befall those closest to him.  The result is a high political will either to prevail or to die in Libya.

The political will of the insurgents is bound up with the certainty of brutal reprisals by Gaddafi should he win.  The rebels are not going to submit easily or meekly to forces which will kill them out of hand in the best of cases or deliver them to the mercies of Gaddafi's torture specialists in the most likely event.  The insurgents have very few choices: win, beat feet to the nearest border, or die miserably.

The correlation of forces is such that the war will continue and grow more bloody as the implacable Gaddafi pushes harder and deeper into the Land of the Insurgents.  If the West thinks it has seen a "humanitarian crisis," all that can be written in reply is, "You ain't seen nothing yet."

The insurgents are demanding a no-fly zone and would greatly prefer airstrikes against Gaddafis' bases of operation and field forces.  The opinion on the street in Benghazi is still opposed to the introduction of foreign ground forces, but that is subject to change as the government Masters of Massacre move closer.

The Arab League unanimously approved of a no-fly zone and called upon the UN Security Council to order the imposition of one.  Of course, asking the Security Council to do this is rather like masturbating with steel wool--both unproductive and unpleasant.  Russia and China have made it clear that each would exercise a veto over any such resolution in keeping with their view of the sanctity of internal affairs of a nation-state.

Any benefit from the Arab League move is most likely to be more indirect.  Both the European Union and NATO have specified that the Arab states must carry the substantial political burden of seeking a no-fly zone.  And, it must be noted that the EU with Germany at the lead has made it clear that it views any such action with great distaste.  The slapping down of the Cameron-Sarkozy endorsed no-fly zone plan was both quick and brutal.  NATO is not appreciably more excited about the prospect of executing any no-fly scheme.

Then there is the United States.  President Obama has denounced the Libyan regime in ringing tones but other than the exercise in fine sounding rhetoric has been tepid at best in supporting the insurgent movement.  He has deferred to the "international community" as part of his ongoing campaign to demonstrate that under his version of leadership the US is not going to be unilateral, particularly regarding Muslim majority states.  In this he is probably supported by most of We the People who have become sick, sore, and tired of long, expensive, bloody, and very unsatisfying wars in distant Muslim countries.  There are very few among us who want to see the Marines once more land on "the shores of Tripoli."

The big question is simply this: Will the views of We the People and our equivalents in Europe change as the Gaddifi forces butcher their way to and through Benghazi?  Will we remain indifferent and allow our governments to keep their detached attitude as the slaughter grows and the refugees crowd across the Egyptian border?

A slightly smaller question is will the Arab League keep their collective hands out of the Libyan cauldron if the body count escalates markedly?  At what point--if any--will their members say enough is enough and move to enforce the no-fly zone or provide ground forces in a peace imposition role?  It is difficult to see circumstances in which authoritarian regimes with large military forces at their disposal--think Syria or Saudi Arabia--send forces to protect rebels against a fellow authoritarian, even one as cordially despised as the Colonel.  It is equally hard to envision the Egyptian army moving into Libya given the politically unstable environment at home.

In short, it is difficult to see the Arab states dirtying their hands in Libya.  They have too much to fear at home to allow such a precipitant action.  There is too much danger of further unrest throughout the region for the local ground and air forces to engage in a bit of peace imposition.  The danger of inciting "radical extremists" within their Muslims looms too large in the minds of Arab leaders to take any risks.

Absent irresistible political pressure from the population it is equally unlikely that Western states will do other than provide humanitarian assistance regardless of tough talk from assorted capitals.  There is too much of the odor of appeasement present throughout the EU for that to happen.  Too much fear of upsetting the local "radical extremists" to allow the use of force.  To much fear of exciting the animosity of former colonial subjects to permit firm action.

This leaves the US.  As the broad guage negative reaction to the King subcommittee hearings on homegrown terrorism and Islamic radicalization have demonstrated, the stench of appeasement and fear can clog the nostrils of Americans as well.  At the same time the US has a president who exists by virtue of defining himself as being anti-George W. Bush.  He has already taken heavy hits from his own base for having extended Bush era policies after having promised to jettison them.  And, with a firm eye on next year's election, the last thing he is eager to do is commit the US to another war in a Muslim majority country.  It is no way for a Nobel Peace Prize winner to operate, is it?

There are good reasons that might be adduced in support of a decision to stay out of Libya.  The reasons taken in aggregate make the no-go choice appear to be an act of wise statesmanship.  Still, one has to wonder what will the decision of future historians be if and when the Colonel's killers prevail and stand triumphantly on mounds of corpses.  Will the estimate of these hypothetical historians of tomorrow be one of praise for wise statesmanship or condemnation for ethical failure of the highest sort?

The Geek has his conclusions.  Time will prove if he is correct.

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?

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.

Why Not Cut Off The UN?

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has thrown down the gauntlet.  Well, actually she has tossed several gloves down, but this particular challenge is aimed directly at the bete noir of conservatives, the United Nations.  The one time minister of foreign affairs in the Republic of Korea, Ban Ki-moon, has vowed to meet the challenge in person.  He will appear in the course of hearings scheduled to start later this month.

Ms Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American representing a district in South Florida, has made her distaste for the UN abundantly clear.  She considers the organization, particularly the Secretariat, to be corrupt, inefficient, lacking in transparency, deficient in honesty, and generally speaking unworthy of the lavish support it receives from the American taxpayer (and his Chinese lenders.)  She has recommended making contributions to the world body purely voluntary as a means of persuading the outfit to clean up its act.

Such a move would cut the UN off at the knees.  Currently the US provides 517 megabucks of the UN's 2.17 gigabuck operating budget.  In addition the US forks over 2.68 billion of the organization's 9.67 billion dollar peacekeeping costs.  That constitutes a whole lot of something for not too terribly much of a return.

Not surprisingly, Secretary General Ban is not in agreement.  While he is more or less willing to admit rather grudgingly that there may have been some problems in the UN during the past, he claims he has made great strides in assuring efficiency, transparency, and an absence of corruption during his tenure to date.  In any event, he seems to say, what alternative is there?

Beyond that cop out defense, Mr Ban appears to think that the only problem the UN has is one of image.  Not unlike the Democratic party following the midterm election, Mr Ban hints at the UN having failed to properly address its "messaging" difficulties.  If only the American public and its (Republican) representatives understood just how well the UN is handling its manifold tasks, there would be no argument over the notion that We the People were getting a very good return on our investment.

Unfortunately the problem is not as simple as Mr Ban believes.  Nor is it simply a matter of UN management. If that had been the case, the 1999 Helms-Biden United Nations Reform Act would have been sufficient to meet American objections and questions.  The problems of UN performance are far more extensive, totally systemic, and in largest measure are the consequence of the organization having been afflicted with a bad case of institutional overreach.

The UN has long strayed from its basic mission, the foundational reason for its creation.  That initial mission was simple to state but very difficult to put into practice.  The purpose of the UN was to preserve international peace by assuring that those countries which broke the peace would suffer severe and immediate punishment by the "international community."  In principle, a state which broke the international peace by unprovoked aggression would face the united effort of member states to restore the status quo ante bellum.

The realities of international politics as expressed in the Security Council made certain that the UN could not address its major mission more than a couple of times--the Korean War and the repulse of Iraq from Kuwait forty years later.  Between the influence of the Cold War on Security Council votes and the many ways in which a state could plausibly present aggressive war as one of a legally defensive nature, the UN failed the hopes of its creators.

In part because of its manifest failure as an instrument of collective security but also as a consequence of the great expansion of its membership during the post-colonial decades, the UN cast about for additional missions.  By feats of (mis)definition, the body concluded that it possessed the authority to intervene in the internal affairs of a member state if that state undertook measures which stimulated a flux of refugees to neighboring countries which threatened instability in those states.  Similarly, the UN determined that it could intervene to address or prevent humanitarian crises contingent upon the collapse of a state or actions by a government which put lives at undue risk.

While the General Assembly, Security Council, and Secretariat were engaged in mission leap, so also were the assorted subsidiary entities operating under the collective UN mantle.  This gave rise to such abominations as the International Panel on Climate Change as well as the aggressive outreach by such bodies as the World Health Organization and the supreme abomination of the Human Rights Council.  Each of these bodies has attempted with more or less success to intrude on affairs formerly seen as the sole bailiwick of sovereign states.

The proliferation of "peacekeeping" missions along with "humanitarian" operations further emphasized the intrusive and expansionist nature of the UN--to say nothing of its increased demands for money.  The result, a consequence not likely to have been intended, was to make the UN appear to have delusions of becoming the very thing denizens of the far, far Right warned against a half century ago--a pretender to world government status.

Leaving aside the philosophical merits of a One World Government, the brute fact remains that the UN is not equipped in any respect to fill that function.  The nature of the Security Council with its Conference of the Victors veto holders as well as the General Assembly with its every country has one vote assure that the UN lacks both the capacity and the perceived legitimacy to operate as even the vaguest sort of super-national government.

What Mr Ban must address--and what Ms Ros-Lehtinen objects to--is the pretense by the UN that it is by right a form of super-national governing body even if not a super-national government per se.  The task for Mr Ban is simply impossible.  There is too wide a perception that the UN has delusions of governmental aspirations for him to counter in a single appearance or even several.

A close reading of the UN record in peacekeeping shows a record which comes far closer to failure than to success.  In the Congo as elsewhere the UN blue helmets have demonstrated a lack of capacity and will to impose or keep the peace which serves to erode the credibility of peacekeeping fatally.  Many of the national contingents assigned to UN duty are poorly trained, poorly equipped, lacking in basic discipline, bereft of effective officers, and overly given to gangster as opposed to military virtues.  That the US should be paying for this is insupportable.

The record in humanitarian operations is not much better.  Haiti is a fine example of how poorly the UN is equipped for major rescue and rehabilitation efforts.  The response to the cyclone in Burma may have been impaired by the local government's intransigence but was still marked by ineptitude at best and flat out blundering at worst.

Mr Ban may be proud of the UN's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan but there is precious little objective support for this pride.  Domestic political pressures may have forced George W. Bush to relent on his anti-UN stance following the Iraq invasion, but this should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement that the UN was well equipped to do anything meaningful either in Iraq or Afghanistan.  The same applies to Sudan.  American and European diplomacy rather than UN efforts brought about the secession vote in Southern Sudan and have at least limited the Khartoum government's brutal actions in Darfur.

The UN has done nothing to enhance its perceived legitimacy with the ever greater profusion of special tribunals charged with investigation and prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  So far, the tribunals seems to have specialized in prosecuting former African dictators and the war lords of former Yugoslavia.  It is not surprising that a belief has grown in Africa to the effect that the tribunals are simply one more neo-colonial apparatus intended to keep Africans in their collective place. The indictment of the current Sudanese president has forced the notion to spread from Africa to portions of the Muslim world.  And, this aspect of UN overreach is bound to get worse no matter which course of action the pre-trial judge in the Lebanese matter goes.

With the exception of those Americans who have an agenda such as the environmental activists and their global warming fellow travelers, or those of the hard Left belonging to the "blame America first" school of thought, there is not much support within We the People for the UN.  This translates into a lack of support for feeding the UN's expensive habits.

At a time when budgetary realities are dismal at best, at a time when the US must cut its defense expenditures regardless of the war in progress, the ongoing threat of violent political Islam, the growth of Chinese ambitions and the military means to support those ambitions, there is very little stomach in the US for largess directed to the lame, anti-American bunch which constitutes the ambition heavy, accomplishment light group called the United Nations.  The correlation of forces runs against Mr Ban and runs for those like Ms Ros-Lehtinen who desire an end to American underwriting of the UN.

Tinkering on the margins of the UN will not solve the problem.  The UN as currently constituted is the problem.  The world may benefit from a credible instrument of collective security, but the UN as it exists today is not that instrument.

Pace President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and others of their ilk, get a grip on reality.  The UN as it exists now is not useful.  It is not useful as a means of preventing or punishing international aggression.  It is not useful as a means of protecting human rights.  It is not competent in the protection of the environment.  It is not even a worthy mechanism of American foreign policy.

At best the UN is a charade.  At worst it is a fraud perpetrated upon people eager for a genuine means of keeping the international peace or addressing the very real problems of the global commons.  Today, in large measure because of its nature and character, the UN is as toothless and worthless as was the League of Nations in 1939.  Like the League it has outlived its usefulness.  It has become an institution not unlike a fly in amber, a fossil of a long dead time, entombed.

As the US took the point in developing the concept of the UN during the dark days of a war which seemed without end at the time, we must now take the lead in developing a credible replacement for the UN.  This is a far more demanding process than simply seeking to force changes on the margins by playing games with our financial contribution to the discredited Circus by the Hudson.  It will demand deep and realistic thinking, prolonged and perhaps bitter debate, but the results can be worth the effort.

In any event we cannot simply stand by as the great golem of the UN shambles and lurches along on its course to self-inflicted destruction.  Our future and that of the world in which we live demands more and better of us.

As Robert Kennedy was fond of asking, "If not us, who?  If not now, when?"

Happy Birthday, UN--Now It's Time To Retire You

The United Nations was "born" sixty-five years ago in an impressive ceremony held in San Francisco.  Like other things created in San Francisco, the Vigilantes, Beat poetry, Hippie, the UN seemed like a good idea at the time but far outlived its usefulness--or humor potential.

Sixty-five is a good age for retirement--outside of France, Greece, and other contemporary enclaves of workers who do not like to work.  It is certainly a good age for the UN to shuffle off, collect its FICA, put on lime green pants and a clashing shirt so better to develop proficiency at golf.  Maybe do a little bit of travelling before finally settling down in Del Webb's Sun City to watch the sunset on the "golden years."

When the UN was born, it was, as is the case with all babies, small.  Its small size helped to assure that the majority of the nations proclaiming their united nature shared a wide variety of political, social, and economic norms and values.  With the exception of the Soviet Union, the Arab states, and some Latin American countries, the membership of the UN was democratic in its politics, liberal in social values, and essentially free enterprise in economic theory.  With the same exceptions, the UN members shared a commitment to the freedom and dignity of the individual, tolerated a wide spectrum of dissent in speech and press, and loathed force as an instrument of internal or international politics.

The UN was created with a view to precluding the sort of stasis which had rendered the overly idealistic League of Nations from either protecting international peace or punishing those states which broke the peace. But, the UN was afflicted by its own idealism.  This time around, the idealism was predicated upon a total misreading of the "alliance" which had defeated the Germany of Hitler and the imperialists of Japan.

To the misfortune of generations yet unborn, the celebrants in San Francisco deluded themselves into believing that the wartime "partners" of the US--the UK, China, the Soviet Union, and France--would continue forward in amity and cooperation for the common good.  This exercise in willful self-delusion should have been impossible even in 1945, even before the ink was dry on the surrender instruments ending the greatest conflict in human history.

The USSR had already demonstrated an unlimited appetite for land in eastern Europe, the result of having been invaded and the concomitant desire to have a protective glacis when the next invasion came.  The paranoia of Stalin had been evident on numerous occasions during the war--and showed no signs of abating.

China was in the midst of an offensive insurgency in which the Communists were exhibiting will and ability far greater than that of the central government.  The probability of China staying under the same Nationalist regime was slim to none.  Beyond that, the Chinese had played no useful role in defeating the Japanese regardless of what President Roosevelt or the later "China Lobby" might have wished.  It was not a Great Power and did not deserve membership in the Security Council, the body created in order to preclude the stasis which had marked the League of Nations.

France was not a Great Power either except in the minds of Frenchmen.  It was a defeated colonial power which hoped to restore its lost grandeur by repossessing its old colonies in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.  Beyond that, France had played only a marginal role in ending the Nazis, regardless of myths to the contrary.

The UK was a Great Power.  However, it is was a fatally exhausted one.  Its days of Empire and glory were as gone as those of the French.  Still, the UK had carried great freight in the early days of despair and defeat so as to lay the way for eventual victory.

The US was indisputably the Great Power of the day.  Unlike the Soviet Union which had been bled white by the war, the US was intact in all respects.  And, the US had the Bomb.  While few in the know expected the comfortable monopoly would last long, at the moment, sixty-five years ago, it was an overwhelming reality.

The US, however, had a fatal weakness.  Ironically the weakness also reflected a great strength of the country as well.  We were a nation of idealists at the time of the sign-and-grin ceremony in San Francisco's opera house.  We did believe in the goodness of humankind.  We did believe that the combination of our Bomb and the new UN would assure a golden age of peace.

Besides, we wanted to get back to "normalcy."  The Great Depression and the war had combined to rob Americans of fifteen years of our great dream of prosperity and the goodies which come with that desired state.  Idealistic materialists, we were happy to demobilize and give peace a chance under the baby blue flag of the near fiction called the United Nations.

Those were halcyon days, sixty-five years ago.  Unfortunately, the grim, grey, and barren wastes of reality quickly intruded.  The UN almost failed its first major test of its self-defined main mission--preserving the international peace and punishing those who broke it by aggression.  Had it not been for the absence of the Soviet Union which was boycotting the Security Council over that body's refusal to seat the new Chinese Communists in lieu of the Nationalists who by 1950 ruled only the island of Taiwan, there would have been no UN call to end the North Korean invasion of the South.  The US would have been denied the international support so necessary to fight an unpopular war in a very distant land.

Moscow never made the same mistake again.  As a result, the Soviet delegate was always in his chair eager to veto any attempt to involve the UN in punishing international aggressors.  The UN was conspicuous by its absence in the many, many wars which merrily went on during the long decades of the Cold War.

The only other time the Security Council actually tried to execute its major mission--preservation of international peace and punishing international aggressor--was in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.  The Chinese abstained.  Their reason for not vetoing the resolution was simple, crass self-interest.  The Trolls of Beijing calculated that future prosperity under their program of "market reforms" depended upon penetrating the American market.  A veto would make sure such would be impossible.

The success of the Chinese economically now assures that they will not make the same calculation again.  They now feel secure to veto any Security Council measure which might impinge on their economic and diplomatic interests anywhere in the world.

In short, the UN Security Council will revert to the same stasis which marked it during the Cold War albeit as the consequences of a different dynamic.  Potential aggressors--provided they are useful to the Trolls or, in other cases, the Kremlin--can be sure the UN Security Council will be the most toothless of tigers.

As if to make up for the failure in the area of preserving the international peace, the UN has engaged in an orgy of mission creep.  The UN has come to the more than simply dubious conclusion that it can involve itself in the internal affairs of a state if those affairs serve to threaten the international peace by way of, for example, generating refugees or, another example, tromping on the "human rights" of its citizens.  Of course both of these are highly subjective and thus suitable to manipulation according to the diplomatic considerations of one or more of the Big Five on the Security Council.

Much of the UN mission creep has been powered by the General Assembly.  In the "one country, one vote" milieu of the General Assembly, the potency of regional interest groups--or, religious interest groups as is the case with the Arab League dominated Organization of the Islamic Council--can and have controlled the direction and actions of the huge, unwieldy body.

At this point, it is necessary to stop and reflect on a foundation truth regarding the General Assembly.  The majority of the members are small, often artificial states, with a dubious economic base and only the most vague of commitments to either democracy or the notion of a rule of law.  In this, the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly as well as the subsidiary organizations of the UN, such as the Human Rights Council, do not share the norms, values, or goals of the countries present in San Francisco sixty-five years ago.

It also means the majority of the UN membership does not share the norms, values, or ideals of the vast majority of We the People.  Even though We the People pony up twenty-five percent of the UN's annual budget and more than that when the notoriously unsuccessful "peacekeeping" missions or subsidiary organizations are considered, the truth remains--we are subsiding a profoundly un-American bunch.

Sporadic efforts to "reform" the corrupt and inefficient UN bureaucracy have failed miserably.  They will continue to fail as the culture has become both too deeply embedded and wide spread to admit of any meaningful reform.  Even the (temporary) withholding of American dues proved ineffective in countering even the worse and most evident of UN financial abuses.  Of course, it didn't help when a change in administrations brought with it a change in policy.

The same dynamic can be seen in microcosmic form with the US rejoining the Human Rights Council.  This well-intended to "bore from within" has failed.  The HRC is just as biased, just as anti-Israel, just as anti-US now as it was when we were on the outside.

The time has come to do a reappraisal of our relation with the UN.  It is a hopeless captive of states which do not share the ideals, the norms, the values, the goals of sixty-five years ago.  The bureaucracy of the Secretariat as well as most (but not all) of the subsidiaries have failed in its obligation to keep the international peace or punish international aggressors while creating ever more expansive missions and seeking ever greater power over the economic, political, and social spheres of member states.

It is hard to admit failure.  It is hardest to admit that institutions created by the best of values, the most noble of motives, and highest of ideals have failed--failed continuously and totally.  It is particularly hard to admit that an institution that has existed longer than most Americans have lived is a miserable failure.

But, our interests as well as the interests of people living in all the civilized and many not-so-civilized states demand we acknowledge the failure of the UN.  So also do the interests of our descendants.  The lives of children not yet born will be affected by our failure to deal with the failure of the UN.

Now is the time to take a long look at what is necessary for an effective international institution.  History shows that the most important single factor is the sharing of norms, values, and imperatives.  At the least, any international institution worthy of support is one where the members are truly democratic, truly committed to the freedom, dignity, and rights of the individual, truly subscribers to free enterprise in one of its many variants.  An institution deserving of the support of We the People is one committed to freedom of expression, freedom of religious practice, and separation between the state and the communities of faith.

States which are suitable for such an international body exist all around the world.  They do not include Muslim majority states with very few exceptions.  Nor do they include authoritarian states with a thin veneer of democratic processes.  Nor do they include states where the rule of law consists of the current desires or political/economic needs of the elite.

Sure this means any new "League of the Decent" will be small, perhaps no larger than the hopeful group assembled in San Francisco sixty-five years ago.  That is no bar.  Sometimes the hackneyed line. "smaller is better" is the greatest of truths.

Going It Alone

Israel is in the most uncomfortable position it has inhabited since the get-go. No country, certainly not Iran, is nearly as isolated today as the Jewish state.

Even during the Fifties when Eisenhower followed a policy of "even handedness," there was a strong American guarantee that Israel would not be overrun by its perpetually hostile neighbors. The Eisenhower Archives are filled with memos and telexes to this effect--even during the days of the Great Presidential Temper Tantrum also known as the Suez War of 1956.

Thanks to the policies of President Obama (who bodes well to take permanent possession of the Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" trophy) it is Israel and not Iran which now stands alone, surrounded by hostiles and facing existential threat. The cringing approach of appeasement has brought, as any realpolitiker would have projected, failure as its reward.

The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions will not convert the mullahs of Tehran to peace, love, and flower power. The sanctions, once promised by SecState Clinton to be "crippling" are hardly an annoyance to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps given that entity's vast experience and skill in avoiding previous sanctions.

As everyone who is oriented in time and place would have known months ago, Iran's protectors, Russia and China, would place their interests ahead of any sort of international consensus. One can be thankful that Iranian Orator-in-Chief, Ahmedinejad, so insulted Moscow that Putin, Medvedev, and company actually put the sale of S-300 air defense missiles on hold. Had it not been for Ahmedinejad's capacious mouth, the sanction regime imposed by the latest Security Council vote would have permitted the sale and delivery to go through.

Iran has allies. This reality was shown in harsh relief as Iran, Turkey, and Russia sat down for a confab regarding regional security just this week.

Such a meeting does little to support President Obama's insistence that Iran is more "isolated" following the sanction vote. Nor does the White House's opposition to efforts in Congress to impose unilateral American sanctions on companies trading in refined petroleum products to Iran support the oft repeated administration notion that the UN sanctions would provide a basis for stronger measures by the US and EU countries.

The reason pumped by the Oval crowd is that Doing Something Real on the part of Congress would carry with it the probability of annoying "allies." Well, fer sure, dude, that is to be expected, France and Germany as well as Russia and China are feathering their own businesses with beaucoup trade with Iran. Both Sarkozy and Merkel are quite willing to talk the talk but refrain from making companies walk the walk. And, golly, these fine folk shouldn't be put in a bind simply because Congress is more worried about an Iranian nuclear capability than is either France or Germany--or Mr Obama.

It is hard to decide whether Mr Obama knows he is lying or is so filled with the miasma of ideology that he really, really believes what he has been saying regarding either Iran or Israel. Suffice it to write that not even the previous Monument to Naivete, peanut farmer turned governor of a small state morphed to the presidency, Jimmy Carter, was as out-to-lunch in Mideast policy than the Nice Young Man From Chicago.

The focus on the artifact of the Great Humanitarian Aid Flotilla To The Starving Millions Of Gaza has become a very dangerous preoccupation not only for the US and other seemingly civilized states but, most of all, for Israel. Thanks to the melding of the utter brainlessness of so many of the "elites" of Europe and the US with the administration's policies of "outreach" to the Muslims of the world, the government of Israel has been forced to divert its efforts from dealing with the existential threat represented by emergent Iran to the sideshow of why IDF commandos were so bold as to kill people who were trying to kill them.

While the government of Israel made a blunder in the precise tactics of interdicting the Great Humanitarian Aid Flotilla, the ground truths remain unchanged. The flotilla was a deliberate provocation orchestrated and conducted with the assistance of the Erdogan regime; the Miza Marmara had on board a number of martyrdom seeking jihadists who offered cold arm resistance to the fast roping commandos. End of story.

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu and his inner cabinet, the Septet (also either the Seven Samurai or the Seven Dwarfs depending on your point of view and the choices they make) are wrestling with damage control and new means of placating Obama over the Gaza Strip blockade rather than the very important subject of how to deal with Iran before it is an hour too late. Iran along with its allies, Syria and Turkey, and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, seeks the total obliteration of Israel as currently constituted. That is a ground truth impossible to ignore or rebut.

While Mr Obama is apparently quite comfortable with the idea of a Mahdi Bomb, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary, the state and government of Israel cannot afford such a detached, laid back attitude. While it will be quite some time before Iranian technicians can miniaturize a nuclear charge so as to make it deliverable by one of its medium or intermediate range ballistic missiles, it will take very little time to build a bomb which would fit comfortably in a truck.

(Feeling depressed, Ahmad, anxious, tired of this life? Think martyrdom. Particularly if you can drive a truck.)

Think of it this way, Ahmad, you don't even have to cross the Israeli border. Just get to a checkpoint on the Lebanese border--or the Gaza border after our Western tools have opened the Strip to our ships--and let the sucker go. A twenty kiloton ground pounder will kill a whole bunch of Jews--particularly if Allah wills the winds to blow in the correct direction. Come on, Ahmad, that little push of the clicker will make you a hero orders of magnitude greater than the guys who flew into the Twin Towers. Way to go, fellihin!

By the most conservative estimate the Iranians are only a pair of years from having a workable truck transportable nuclear weapon or two. Letting one or both rip on Israel would be a mighty blow against the "Zionist entity" particularly if followed by ground attacks from all those nice neighbors known as "frontline states." The ground attacks won't even have to be conducted by heavy and well coordinated forces if the government and people of Israel are not prepared for the initial shock.

In a world filled with "get-or-get-got" situations, the one faced by Israel is the most compelling. To "get" implies the willingness to be held responsible for starting the equivalent of a full scale war at a time when the global economy would be an inevitable collateral casualty. To wait until being "get-got" and then retaliate means the political will to absorb a large number of Israeli casualties must exist.

The time to make decisions between "getting" and surviving "getting got" is short. The time to make the necessary preparations in both political will and material capacities for either option is not much longer. Every minute wasted on damage control over the flotilla mess is time wasted.

For this the Obama administration must and will take great responsibility when historians of the future consider this period. Cringing, hand-wringing, bowing to Muslims has been bootless. Turning Uncle Sam's back to Israel is much, much worse.