Cole’s Case For Intervention In Libya
Juan Cole has another argument in favor of Allied intervention into Libya. As an open-to-persuasion skeptic, I would like to raise a couple points. First, I’m suspicious of this characterization of the opposing arguments:
1. Absolute pacifism (the use of force is always wrong)
2. Absolute anti-imperialism (all interventions in world affairs by outsiders are wrong).
3. Anti-military pragmatism: a belief that no social problems can ever usefully be resolved by use of military force.
We can quibble over whether this is a litany of strawmen — I suppose there are people who fall into these categories — but they certainly don’t represent counter-arguments in their strongest form. Let’s make clear up front that there are no absolutes, that there are cases in which military attacks by world powers can be justified on humanitarian grounds. It’s still neither here not there in terms of whether any particular intervention is justified. I agree that every potential intervention needs to be evaluated on its own merits. So how strong is the case here? Well, here’s the key point for me:
Assuming that NATO’s UN-authorized mission in Libya really is limited ( it is hoping for 90 days), and that a foreign military occupation is avoided, the intervention is probably a good thing on the whole, however distasteful it is to have Nicolas Sarkozy grandstanding.
This may well be right. But, er, that’s a hell of an assumption, isn’t it? What happens if 90 days of bombing doesn’t succeed in removing Qaddafi? What happens if a more successful revolution leads to anarchy or civil war or a regime that key officials in the United States government don’t like? Obviously, if you assume that the intervention will be short and effective it’s easy to make the case, but I don’t think that it’s prudent to make that assumption. I think we need to consider what happens in non-best-case scenarios, and certainly Cole doesn’t have good answers to these questions. So I hope that he’s right that the strikes on Libya will be short-term and efficacious, but I remain skeptical.
Can any the advocates for military action in Libya first explain why it isn’t true for the Ivory Coast?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-25/un-human-rights-council-to-send-commission-to-ivory-coast-1-.html
Or the DRC or Darfur or any of dozens of other places past and present.
The “don’t save anyone unless you save everyone” argument seems to impress some people; I’m not sure why.
Mix in a little “Cui bono?” analysis with that straw, and you might just bake up a nice brick.
As it turns out “accurately phrasing my argument in a manner I don’t consider sufficiently supportive” isn’t actually the definition of straw man.
If you don’t like to be called out for making the argument “The lack of action elsewhere discredits the case for action in Libya,” then don’t make it.
No, but accusing one’s suppoorters of making arguments that don’t remotely resemble the ones that they did make is the definitionof straw.
Y’know, once upon a time you were sorta rational.
Actual arguments made on this comment thread on this particular blog post:
Restatement of those arguments:
Whimpering about this and insulting me isn’t actually going to make your pretense any more convincing. There is no straw man here. We can all still read those comments, and I don’t see how your huffing and puffing is supposed to make people stop seeing that.
There is military action in the Ivory Coast. Didn’t you read your own link? There are blue helmets there right now.
Did you mean, why the use of a No Fly Zone and air strikes against armor and artillery in the field aren’t being used in Ivory Coast?
Did you familiarize yourself at all with the military situation there? If you did, the answer to that question becomes incredibly obvious.
Some have charged that the Libya action has a Neoconservative political odor. But the Neoconservatives hate the United Nations and wanted to destroy it.
I was not aware that “neocon” must mean destruction of the U.N. I find it insulting that he uses strawman “absolutes” in his discussion and this sounds like a version of it. It also is (again) the case that pacifism is shunted aside as some sort of weird cult not really worthy of comment. Pacifism is disdained as not worthy of much more than a note though the wrongs of war over history warrants if anything more disdain.
The fact it has an “odor” doesn’t mean it is the same in all respects. The ultimate results of this campaign is far from clear, as Scott notes, so I don’t know how the end result will come out. I only can cite repeated history with bad results. The onus is on the defenders, I think.
I repeat my comment from a past thread that Obama did not do enough to meet this onus. A speech to the nation was warranted. Yet again, the hard work is left to others. “The left” has a reason for concern.
You weren’t?
Really?
I guess you haven’t been paying attention. Have you ever heard of John Bolton?
The fact ONE neo-con says something doesn’t mean “neocon” by definition means that thing.
Why the general neo-con philosophy can’t be in place via the right use of UN power, especially given our special authority in said institution (including our veto), is unclear to me.
Petty potshots (yes, I have heard of Mr. Mustache), like some of Cole’s analysis, is not helpful.
You could try looking at the period of neocon dominance of American foreign policy – 2001-2008 – and pay attention to what they had to say about the UN.
Or, you could not that that “one neocon” was actually named UN ambassador.
Because, to neoconservatives, even the UNSC, with its heavy influence by the US, is still too constraining on our ability to act unilaterally. Neoconservative organs like the Weekly Standard and National Review make this point over and over and over.
I know it’s crazy. Neoconservatives are crazy. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe what they believe.
The fact he was made UN ambassador doesn’t really help your cause — deep down he might want to blow up ten floors of the UN, but realistically, that isn’t possible. So, they work with a necessary evil.
“Neocon” like other ideologies have various shades and dealing with the UN as a given for now and not always talking about demolishing it when addressing intervention is possible.
Cole was too heavy-handed. Putting a lipstick on the pig only makes her look so much cuter.
But we’re talking about what people want, what they believe. Sure, they trim their beliefs to reality, like everyone else.
I agree it’s possible, but look at the neoconservatives’ record.
Eh, maybe. If the use of the phrase “want to destroy” is leading to this much confusion, then he probably could have made his point better.
neocons on Obama’s side
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/obama-makes-bedfellows-with-neocon-boffins.php?ref=fpb
Eh. I think you are really stretching on this thread at times and looking a tad desperate. You know, maybe.
NATO’s UN-authorized mission in Libya
I know what he meant to write, but the UN-clear formulation definitely gets the mind to working.
Slamming pacifists. 2003 is in the air again.
I’m sorry, I forgot pacifism was, uniquely above all other philosophies, immune from criticism.
Agreed. Wrote something similar at Talk Left.
There are several dynamics at work, Bill Clinton, appeared to have navigated them best in the 1990′s, although not to maximum effect, see Rwanda, Srebrenica, Somalia, etc.
1. No, or minimal, US casualties keeping the intensity low and public opinion functionally apathetic, I.e non-exploitable by the Republicans.
2. Having co-equal partners, meaning the mission isn’t tied to required validation of US exceptionalism and doesn’t become a test of national will. See also losing wars through backstabbing.
3. The path forward for friendly autocratic allies can sometimes be unfriendly representative rule (see Iran, Hamas) which is considered regressive but for unfriendly autocratic regimes unfriendly representative rule can be part of an helpful evolution toward eventual maturity to a responsible democratic regime.
So, if the politics of #1 and #2 can be managed (we didn’t break it, we don’t own it) and #3 can be achieved in a reasonable timeframe, months not years, then it’s worth it.
Indeed, if Obama and crew are thinking low marginal cost for low marginal gain in a relatively short window then this works. Any other calculus would seem a fools errand.
This sort of thing continues to drive me batty. Proponents of a particular war seem to assume the best of their intentions will come true, and don’t acknowledge that there could be unforeseen, unpredictable, unexpected consequences, and that these consequences (almost always negative) can be deep, broad, and long-lasting. Despite recent history showing us that however a war starts, it starts to do things you don’t expect or want it to do, there are war advocates who continue to trump the positives while barely acknowledging or dismissing those who bring up the potential negative effects. And this is why in addition to replacing words “all” and “no” in #2 and #3 to “most” and “few,” Cole needs (at least) a fourth category:
4. Mission skepticism: a belief that a war will likely come with unexpected negative consequences.
The piece Cole wrote is called “An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.”
It is an argument about the ideological case against the intervention, not the practical one.
I assume, however, that most peoples’ ideological stances are tied directly to the practical effects of their stances or of the stances they oppose (why, after all, believe “the use of force is always wrong” if force did not cause negative effects?). And certainly #3 on Cole’s list (“a belief that no social problems can ever usefully be resolved by use of military force”) is about practical effects of war, not an independent ideology. The 4th category I add (better called “Consequence Skepticism”) is at least a parallel (or perhaps more specific version) of #3.
That would be a big mistake.
Most people’s ideological stances are tied to directly to what their ideologies tell them must be the effects of their stances, but ideologues are always able to explain away positive effects that contradict their ideological stance, or negative ones that accrue from it.
True point.
I’ll revise/clarify that I assume most peoples’ ideologies are tied to what they think/believe will be the practical effects of their (and their opponents’) ideologies, but concede the ideologies lead people to think/believe in strange ways.
I think “tied to” can be misleading, in that doesn’t tell us what direction the causality takes.
I find that most people allow their ideologies to determine what they assume will be the consequences of a policy. Far fewer people allow the practical analysis of consequences to influence their ideology.
1. The use of force against Libya is wrong unless it leads to better outcomes for Libyans en masse.
2. Intervention in Libya by outsiders is wrong unless it leads to better outcomes for Libyans en masse.
3. … Okay, no need to particularize this one. No social problems can ever usefully be resolved by use of military force. Not in Little Rock, and not in Libya.
I mean, seriously. I expect better from Professor Cole. Perhaps some of us actually consider particular situations, rather than starting from sweeping a priori generalizations.
One again – why is this such a difficult point? – Cole’s piece is titled “An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.”
It is an answer to the ideological case against intervention, not the pragmatic case. Pointing out that he hasn’t made the pragmatic case, or answered the pragmatic objections, is irrelevant.
Good thing the points above are also ideological ones, then. “Will it help more people than it hurts?” actually can have an ideological basis, though I’m less than shocked that someone so utterly invested in Team Blue pom-pom shaking and hippie punching would be unable to recognize it.
And since I’m on the Left, I’ll respond to his rampant overgeneralizations as I see fit. Feel free to offer your own critiques when he writes “Open Letter to Amoral Triangulating Goalpost-shifting Centrists.”
No, they’re not. When you talk about the effects of the operations on the Libyans en masse – when you cite the effects themselves as the proper measure – then you are leaving the realm of ideology for the realm of pragmatism.
Sure, but when you talk about the consequences themselves as the measure, and not what some ideology would predict would be the consequences, then you’re still talking about pragmatism.
Yawn. It’s very telling how this sort of ad homenim bitching is so powerfully lopsided in this debate. It really makes clear which side is letting developments in the real world determine their position, and which side is out to settle old scores.
You do that, champ, and when you continue to wander off inter irrelevancies, I’ll keep pointing it out.
Yawn.
What an odd thing to write to someone who supported George Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan.
What an odd thing to write to someone who spent the entire Iraq War joining hands with the hippies.
You really need to find another line of thought beyond putting people into boxes.
I think Professor Cole needs to call up George Packer for a little tete-a-tete. I know that two such clever fellows just know that they’re smarter than all the peaceniks, but at least in Packer’s case a good solid bite on the ass improved him immeasurably.
Because every war is Iraq, of course.
I find such unidirectional “skepticism” shallow and unappealing. First of all, because enforcing norms are important, and however cynical and selective such enforcement might be, it’s still important for the long term global systems function. It just doesn’t help “skeptics” when the i’s are dotted, and the t’s are crossed legally–a more expansive critique of the UN’s ability to make active resolution should be presented.
Second, the original situation was malignant, and malignant in the sense that in the long run, force will be needed–by someone to resolve the situation. There would have been a refugee crisis, with political actors, like Italy, Tunisia, and Egypt, who are not especially capable of smoothly processing and incorporating those people. Gadaffi’s geopolitical situation in the aftermath of the repression would almost certainly present a need for him to instigate trouble outside his borders and make alliances with thoroughly unpleasant people to secure his regime. I cannot see how avoiding the fight now would allow a resolution that increases stability and reduces the need to fight later. Suspend Godwin in order to mention Munich, I guess…
Lastly, I think the standards for action/inaction presented are overly broad to the point of suspected fallaciousness. Was the Berlin Airlift a bad thing? How about using federal troops to enforce desegration orders? Vietnam’s deposing Pol Pot? Also, why don’t we forget Rwanda for a sec, was the lack of intervention in Algeria a good thing? How about those S American juntas dissapearing so many people? Do you really think it would have been impossible to efficiently stop those atrocities? Well, check out the UN intervention in Korea. After some setbacks, we did expel the North from S Korea without too much muss and fuss, for a war. Then we decided, the heck, let’s liberate ALL of Korea, and everything went pear. That sort of “mission creep” is kinda obvious, no?
Just because things have to be done well, doesn’t excuse silly isolationism, which is what I think I’m reading, when I read so many of these tracts. I am ambivalent about the use of force, but I’m sold on being aggressively engaged, for both moral and geopolitical well-being. Mission creep is bad, and violence is bad, and I can accept that, but I damn well expect alternatives. The situation was bad and policy is actively needed to prevent it from getting worse, and we should be probing for optimums, not sitting around bitching about 2003!
There would have been a refugee crisis, with political actors, like Italy, Tunisia, and Egypt, who are not especially capable of smoothly processing and incorporating those people.
Don’t fool yourself. There’s going to be a refugee crisis regardless. The anti-Qaddaffi forces have scores aplenty to settle. This will turn out badly regardless who wins.
How about those S American juntas dissapearing so many people?
Yeah, that happened in the absence of intervention, if you don’t count the intervention of US intelligence and corporate elements. If you really think that a US-headed international effort is going to stop death squad activity, rather than perpetuate it, I’ve got some Honduran ballots to sell you.
“Aggressively engaged” would be a good idea if we weren’t talking about a nation and a military that gave us Arbenz, Pahlavi, D’Aubisson, Pinochet…do I really need to go on? If we’re talking about the UN being the driving force, let’s bring in the Organization of African States and let them patrol their own continent, with our help certainly–but not with our direction or our command.
I’m very much in favor of helping. I think that we’ve forfeited the right to leadership.
1) You mean castillo, not arbenz
2) Saying that “We’ve forfeited the right to leadership” is an utterly useless thing to say. It is, in extremis, also an especially narcissic and malign thing to believe.
!) I stand corrected.
2) Perhaps you could demonstrate how, after half a century of foreign policy/military screwups and piracy, we’re competent or trustworthy in a leadership position. Extra points for cute phrases like “It is, in extremis, also an especially narcissic and malign thing to believe”.
Sure:
Might makes right, and the Melian Dialogue is in effect, and has always been so. Demanding that the powerful not act if they do not meet some arbitrary standard of righteousness is ludicrous, no power has ever risen without deep unrighteousness. It’s the height of uncompassion to not urge the use of unrighteous power for at least *some* good uses. I’m quite open to non-military means, you know. Moreover, the US has some friendships that are built around being there for countries when they were in danger or down. Marshall Plan, or stopping the Anglo-French-Israeli intervention into Egypt, things of that nature.
To the quiet katrastrophe, if we were so shamed to act, then the shameless are quite free to do so…
What you’re missing is that we are the shameless; our record makes that clear. Moreover, we’re going broke being the shameless, and so we have no obligation to step up and do what others are perfectly capable of doing. We have a history of bad outcomes following our interventions (for example, death squads targeting labor organizers), so arguing that withholding our military might is “uncompassion” strikes me as confused at best.
Again, there is not reason that the US should be in a leadership role in any action against Libya–that would be the role of its neighbors, and possibly the UN, if the UN weren’t being buffaloed by ELF and Total and others of similarly questionable motive.
I fail to see what is narcissistic about the recognition that US power abroad has a bad history therefore a predictably bad future.
And the UN resolution, support of the Arab League – support that predated our own – for this action, mean nothing to the question of whether this intervention is just more of the “pirate’ USA doing it’s thing?
Oh, does our record helping to depose strong US allies in Egypt, Tunisia, and now maybe Yemen make that clear? I have some news for you: Ronald Reagan is not President, John Foster Dulles is not Secretary of State, and Henry Kissinger is not National Security Advisor.
,
This is every bit as disingenuous as Republicans pretending that cutting off Planned Parenthood’s funding is about the deficit. The cost here is too miniscule – literally, 1/700th of the Iraq War, 1/720th of the military budget – for any cost-based argument to be anything but a pretext for an ideological case.
“Confused at best” is a good description for an argument that treats “intervention” as some kind of undifferentiated blob, alike across time and space in every root and branch, such that the events of a half-century ago can be treated as more important than the events in Libya yesterday in analyzing the case for the LIbya intervention.
I think shah8 makes an important point here. The legitimacy of the fact of power is not dispositive of what the moral use of that power is. Assuming hereditary monarchy is always illegitimate, it is still right for the king to prevent some local baron from massacring a village.
US imperial power is not legitimate in its origins. No one here claimed that it is. But that doesn’t resolve the question of how it should be used.
I’ll note that absolutely nobody, outside of Pat Buchanan, was complaining when the United States used its “imperial power” to influence the Egyptian Army to refuse Mubarak’s orders to fire upon the protesters, and to usher Mubarak himself out of power.
Oddly enough, the people of Benghazi don’t seem to think we’ve forfeited our right to lead an action to save them.
“Help help, I’m drowning!”
“Sorry, kid. I have a rather long criminal record, so I’ve forfeited my moral standing. But I wish you well.”
“Blub blub blub.”
That is just about the dumbest thing I’ve read in a week, and I look at Teabagger sites.
Oh, look, you insulted me instead of being able to come up with a rebuttal.
Again.
It’s really getting to be a pattern with you.
You can get away with that sort of thing once in a while, but when it’s all you do, and you do it over and over, people are going to start to catch on.
I think your next move should be to whine about a “straw man,” and storm off in a huff.
It’s a legitimate argument. There are moral issues in how an illegitimately obtained power should be used.
“short and effective” military intervention is the exception, not the rule. it is the neocon wet dream of post-wwII america, and it’s only ever happened once or twice (panama, grenada). realistically, you assume you’re in for the long haul, and must decide if the cost is worth the presumed benefits.
they may well be, i have no idea. it sure would have been nice if pres. obama had made the case, before lobbing tomahawk missiles into libya.
Obama does but Reagan doesn’t?
If you’re setting the norm for legitimacy of international interventions at Ronald Reagan, we’re done here.
cpinva did, by implication…and that odd norm of legitimacy was what I wanted to point out.
Panama was Bush the First’s baby, and it was as naked a power play as any ever seen; the case for invasion was weak to the point of nonexistence (see The Case Against the General by Steve Albert). The invasion of Grenada was and remains a historic joke: the Most Powerful Nation In The World invaded an island with no military because a few of that island’s neighbors invited us to do so.
Not much “legitimacy” there. Just a big country with a big military getting away with shit, como siempre.
not at all, i merely noted the only two exceptions i could think of, of our post-wwII military interventions, that met the “short and effective” criteria. i posit no opinion whatever on their legitimacy.
You know, anything worth doing is simply isn’t going to be as easy as Michael Ledeen style country slamming, like Bermuda.
They look like the UN involvement in E Timor, which was/is a mess.
That mess got started when the Indonesian military invaded Timor-Leste in 1975–one day after Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger left a summit in Djakarta. Yeah, we had nothing to do with all that, and our reputation shouldn’t be affected by it…
I’ve been finding your responses simply incoherent. Why shouldn’t we attempt to clean up our messes? Who else would do it out of the goodness of their hearts? And we still did it under UN aegis, with multi-national support. In any event, we’ve been diffidently patching up many of the countries wrecked by proxy wars during the Cold War era, like Angola/SA. We do it because of enlightened self interest. As such, the fact that Obama is not as belligerently stupid as Bush or as calculating evil as Kissinger should count for something, and the evidence of Obama’s methods leads to some presumption of competence and mostly good will.
Why would anybody assume that we are going into other countries to clean up our messes? We have very little history of doing so in the past. Our history of military and intelligence action abroad post-WWII is largely that of propping up or installing violent or corrupt regimes, facilitating rape-and-run policies by extractive industries, and building bases so that we can repeat the pattern a little further down the road.
We are not now nor were we in the past cleaning up Angola, but we did help to finance its civil war–we threw a lot of money at Jonas Savimbe. In any case, Angola’s at least on the right continent; under Bush we decided Qaddaffi was a good guy, in much the same way we embraced Saddam when he was facing off against Iran. “We” aren’t involved in any good deeds with or without the UN–or perhaps you could give me an example of our enlightened self-interest and point out a country that the US is busy helping to rebuild, apart from the odd disaster run to Haiti or Japan.
I’m not sure what part of that you find incoherent. We have an appalling history, and to expect the same sorts of activities to have shiny new outcomes is not rational. There is no basis for assuming good will, and no basis for predicting good outcomes.
I guess you know what the people of Benghazi should think better than they do.
Anyway, your argument might be worth considering if the United States hadn’t just turned it back on that bad business and quite clearly chosen another path by helping to push out longtime American allies in Egypt, Tunisia, and now maybe Yemen, in response to the same people-power movements as the one in Libya.
DocAmazing,
You should detach the issue of what Agent X should do in situation Y from is Agent X a force for good in general.
No state in the worldd starts with a clean moral slate. That’s just not an option. America, France, UK — they are all imperial powers and they didn’t get that way by being really polite.
Similarly, the LAPD isn’t known for its excessively professional and moral behavior. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t stop a rape in progress.
Hi, Scott. Lounsbury at Aqoul makes the best case for intervention: http://www.aqoul.com/archives/2011/03/libya_american.php
http://www.aqoul.com/archives/2011/03/sullivan_bis_de.php
to me, it sounded like cole had picked his side, samantha power’s, and figured it was time to hop on board before he got left behind. it’s his calculation that this world view will drive our foreign policy for a long, long time, and he wants to cash in.
I’m pretty sure that Professor Cole does not, in fact, think that humanitarian interventionism divorced from realpolitik national-interest calculation will be driving our foreign policy for a long time.
Assuming that wishes are horses, beggars will ride.
The title of Cole’s piece is “An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.”
It is an answer to the ideological case against the intervention.
Your pragmatic argument isn’t really relevant to this post.
Well, as long as it’s only half a Friedman unit, I suppose it will be okay.
Fighting the last war, I see.
We can quibble over whether this is a litany of strawmen
Given that he saw fit to throw in a pointless jab at those fringe lefties who worship Ahmedinijad (whoever the fuck they are…I certainly haven’t encountered any) I concluded that the demolition of strawmen was pretty much the point of the piece. Very disappointing.
Phew! What a relief!
You almost had to consider the arguments Cole made on their merits!
Close one. Good thing you haven’t read anyone who was supportive of Ahmedinejad.
You almost had to consider the arguments Cole made on their merits!
Actually, I did that, joe, and I remain unconvinced by them on the merits. The gratuitous hippie-punching just made them that much less compelling.
Do you realize that you’re starting to come across as a bona fide hysteric on this issue?
Sure you did. That’s why you singled out a minor point that had nothing to do with his argument, and used it to conclude “that the demolition of strawmen was pretty much the point of the piece.”
Your own words, sir, betray you. We can all still read your comment, including the part where you told us quite clearly what led you to dismiss it.
Come across to whom? To somebody who decides he can dismiss the entirety of Professor Juan Cole’s argument because you, personally, never wrote anything nice about Ahmedinejad?
I’ll do my best not to miss any sleep over that.
I suspect that in the circles Cole is familiar with, there are Ahmedinijad supporters. They are about as marginal as Pol Pot supporters in the United States, but the United States is not the whole world.
They are probably thick on the ground in Iran, for example.
I think the problem with most of these arguments is that we don’t trust Obama or the executive decision making process, any statements by our government or by the media. Absent trust it is difficult to understand this.
So if Cole (and Nato) says short, we say yeah, just like Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this case, I think we might be right to hope.
The lack of trust is well earned. Anyway, it isn’t just “Obama.” Whatever happens requires more than “Obama.” The closing of Gitmo, e.g., is not just about “Obama.” At issue here is all parties. I’m all for some positives here but the distrust is well earned and Cole does himself no favors with some if his more dubious reasoning.
The gay reference below doesn’t quite do it for me. There is a general support now for gay rights. The wherewithal for serious and hard work necessary for international involvement is of a different caliber. Again, doing something like that right is something I support. Wanting it to be isn’t the same as it being though.
Since it is in place, I guess, hoping is appropriate.
Then don’t trust Obama.
Look hard at the facts and arguments.
Let me give an example that wasn’t short: the no-fly zone that protected Kurdistan between 1992 and 2003. That was over a decade, and it would be going on its second decade if the US/UK had stuck with it instead of launching a crazy ground war (and assuming SH remained in power, etc.) But I’d argue it was worth it and would remain worth it.
I think it is reasonable to expect that Libya will be much shorter, but that isn’t the principal issue. The principal issue is whether the benefits, including humanitarian benefits, exceed the costs.
If the US had stuck with it, how big do you think the crowds of protesters demanding Saddam’s resignation would be in Baghdad right now?
marc sobel, that whole issue of trust seems to be key. One factor in me challenging folks here is because I remember how the “I Don’t Trust Obama To Do It” narrative took hold in the gays in the military process–and I think I’m seeing the same bullshit going on again wrt Libya.
I really want to see some kind of positive policy thinking. Again, doesn’t have to be military. Doesn’t even have to be anything but anticipating problems in nonactions and accounting ways to mitigate them. Anything but this cowardly isolationism (cowardly in the sense of Letters from a Birmingham Jail sense, not swinging a club sense).
Cole: “If the Left opposed intervention, it de facto acquiesced in Qaddafi’s destruction of a movement embodying the aspirations of most of Libya’s workers and poor, along with large numbers of white collar middle class people.”
The left is objectively pro-
terroristSaddamQadaffi!You know, I used to have respect for Mr. Cole, but this is just bullshit. Let’s just call it what it is. Maybe there’s a compelling argument hidden in there somewhere, but if you’re trying to convince us that you aren’t selling the same product as Iraq, maybe you shouldn’t use the same ad campaign.
Yeah, you gotta love it. On the one hand, he waves away the question of why Libya and not any one of a number of other countries, because “military intervention is always selective.” On the other hand, questioning the “selection” of Libya makes you an accomplice to Qadaffi.
“Incoherent” doesn’t begin to do it justice.
I trust you make this same outraged argument when people accuse Republicans of wanting the people they would throw off of public benefits to die.
I trust you you property expressed your outrage to Alan Grayson when he said that the Republican health care plan was “Die Faster.”
Yup. Sure I do.
BTW, “acquiesce” does not mean “support.”
I’m well aware of that, joe. But it’s still a bullshit argument. By Cole’s standards, we are “acquiescing” in various horrors all over the world over at this very moment, from North Korea to Darfur, by virtue of not calling for war. By advocating war against Libya but not Yemen, Cole is “acquiescing” to Saleh’s suppression of the reform movement there.
It’s a stupid rhetorical cheap-shot that, as Christopher correctly notes, was trotted out time and again against the antiwar movement in 2003 (“objectively pro-Saddam”), and seeing Cole stoop to it is depressing.
I trust you make this same outraged argument when people accuse Republicans of wanting the people they would throw off of public benefits to die.
I know this is supposed to be a gotcha, but for the life of me I can’t make sense of it.
Only if you assume that preventing the suppression in those other places through military means would be as practicable as it is in Libya.
Saleh isn’t sending columns of tanks against an opposition force. The military option simply isn’t there, or if it is, it would mean either a vastly disproportionate response (air strikes to keep security forces from going after crowds of protesters) or means like boots on the ground.
There are no other situations in which strikes like these, by military forces against military forces, would be an effective way to advance humanitarian goals.
For your argument to be valid, the decision not to use air and cruise missile strikes in every country would have to have the same effects as that decision would have in Libya, and the specific circumstances of those very different situations demonstrate that that isn’t the case.
Cole didn’t trot it out. The cheap shot in “objectively-pro Saddam” wasn’t “Your policy of inaction has negative consequences.” That’s a perfectly legitimate argument, just as much so as “Your policy of action has negative consequences.” The cheap shot was to go a step beyond that, and assert “Your on the same side as the dictator,” just as it is a cheap shot to accuse those who support action to be actual supporters of, say, civilian casualties that may happen.
Nobody’s accusing you of being pro-Gadaffi, so get down off the cross.
When those you disagree with are accused of actively wanting the negative effects of their policy of inaction – such as when Alan Grayson accuses Republicans of wanting sick people to die faster – you are silent. When those you agree with are accused of the same thing, you howl. Capice?
I should say, In none of the other situations you mention would air strikes like these…
Scott, the entry is called “An Open Letter to the Left on Libya.” It’s not mean to answer the pragmatic case against the intervention, which you make, but to answer the ideological case.
And you “suppose” there are “a few” people who believe those things? You need to read your, and Juan’s and John Cole’s, and Daily Kos’ comment threads more. Those arguments are being put out there, loudly, every single day by a significant part of the left.
Care to drop us a link, or post a little taste, just to show us?
Why bother, when we’ve got your comments throughout this thread, that serve so well?
Yup, thorough reading of John Cole’s comment threads can be edifying, especially comments like this.
Ooooh! Can I be compared to David Horowitz too? C’mon joe, be a buddy!
Yawn.
Reduced to boring, ad homenim bullshit already?
That was remarkably easy.
Let me when you have something to say about Libya.
For a comparison to David Horowitz to make sense, you’d have to at some point state that you were wrong about a political position you’d taken.
Don’t worry, though: it looks like you’ll have a wonderful opportunity to do that with this Libyan campaign.
Where have I taken a position that’s provable or disprovable, Joe?
Good point: I’ve over-estimated your intellectual honesty and courage quite a bit.
I haven’t the foggiest idea what you imagine your point to be.
Yup, I disagreed with John Cole, and compared his ideological journey to someone else who made an ideological journey.
Therefore….what?
Oh, I know: there I’m a bad person, and therefore, can’t actually be meticulously ripping your arguments apart piece by piece.
Hey, look over there, everyone! Joe from Lowell wrote something mean about John Cole! Never mind that I can’t formulate any sort of a rebuttal to anything he’s writing.
So, joe from Lowell quoted a comment by Uloborus telling John Cole that the no-fly zone was going to be set up by the Arab League, and used Cole’s skepticism to compare him to David Horowitz. Ordinarily, this comparison would have been refuted by the subsequently-demonstrated falsehood of Uloborus’ statement, but joe from Lowell preferred another round of “We have always been at war with Eastasia” shtick, and simply ignored being called on it. And now the linked comment is apparently all about the mere fact that he called John Cole a bad name, rather than that it’s a rebuttal to the ostensible reason for tarring him with it. Just so we’re clear on the similar sophistry at work in summarizing it as “Joe from Lowell wrote something mean about John Cole!”
You mean Cole’s comment about the inevitability of an expanding American mission leading to boots on the ground, and my disagreement with it?
Uh, yeah, I sure am embarrassed by that. Why, “subsequent events” sure have shown how wrong I was. Please, keep “calling me on” the fact that I disputed Cole.
Events sure have proven me wrong, haven’t they? When do you think we’ll start setting up the checkpoints?
LOL.
Great news!
For those keeping score at home, we are at roughly 0.1 Friedman Units.
Good point: I’ve over-estimated your intellectual honesty and courage quite a bit.
“Intellectual honesty.” Dude, I’ve got the intellectual honesty to admit that I don’t know what the fuck is going to happen in Libya. You’re already doing a victory jig, because 3 minutes into the game you already know the final score.
Yup, I disagreed with John Cole, and compared his ideological journey to someone else who made an ideological journey.
OK, that’s just fucking hilarious. Thanks for the larfs.
I have the intellectual honesty to admit that you don’t know what the fuck is going to happen in Libya, too.
OK. You’re welcome.
Scott,
Suppose Khadaffi isn’t overthrown in six months. Instead, there is a de facto separate republic in the East. (That scenario now looks a lot less likely than Khadaffi’s ouster, but I would have taken even odds on it at the time of the UNSC resolution.)
It will still be the case that the intervention prevented the annihlation of Benghazi. It will still have dealt a blow to a long-time American enemy and all round destabilizing influence. It will still have helped establish a precedent that the UNSC might intervene when you are about to kill large parts of your civilian population — a precedent that will likley factor into other dictators’ calculus in the future. It still allows for continuing momentum in the Arab Revolution — which would have been dealt a major blow by a massacre of Benghazi with the rest of the world looking on and maybe freezing a Swiss bank account or two.
As for whether Cole is dealing with straw, those really are the arguments he is getting from the people who (a) he thinks of as general co-thinkers and (b) are engaging with him. Those views may be marginal in Beltway discourse, but they are significant in the larger global opinion sphere. The US is not the whole world.
Excellent comment.
One need only look a little upthread to see those argument being actually made.
Careful now. I’d say that history demonstrates pretty clearly that quick territorial gains by an army moving across the Libyan coast isn’t exactly the gold standard of indicators of ultimate military success.
Granted. Let me just say I have revised my prior belief in the probability of Khadaffi being removed within six months upwards since a couple days ago. I don’t claim to be any kind of expert, and I accept that the experts don’t know what’s going to happen.
But EVEN IF Scott’s pessimistic scenario turns out to be right, I’d say it is still a win compared to the alternative. I imagine you agree.
Yes, agreed. As someone wrote back in 2002, to explain the reasoning of the Iraq War opponents: “It’s the massacre, stupid!”