dylans
overlord of all acorns
One of the most consistent, one could argue the most consistent, justification for the attack on Libya is the claimed concern for civilians, particularly in Benghazi. We watched as the rebel troops lost town after town until Gaddafi's forces were at the gates of benghazi, seemingly about to sieze the town and snuff out the last embers of the Libyan revolt. The cry, we must admit, not entirely cynical, "what about Benghazi" was raised. Yes by hypocritical self serving western politicians. Yes by Arab despots whose own record in crushing their own people was little better than Gaddafi but not only by them.
It seems to me that an awful lot of good people, people whose opinions I respect, have been swayed to supporting western intervention by the fate of Benghazi and a reasonable concern for the fate of its people.
It is to them, people whose support for Western action is by no means a knee jerk jingoism. People who in any other circumstance would be opposed to this war and people whose support for Western intervention sits uncomfortably in their gut but who can see no other answer to the question "what about Benghazi," that this thread is concerned.
It seems to me that those of us who are opposed to this war owe them an answer. Not least because these are the very people who opposed the Iraq war and who can be won to a position of opposition to this one and simply, as idiots like Ern do, simply dismissing them as "pro imperialist" or "war mongers" simply won't do. Not if those of us who are opposed to this war have any serious intention of convincing people that the war is wrong.
There are a number of replies to the question "what about Benghazi" and frankly they don't convince me, let alone go anyway to swaying those who we want to win to an anti war position.
The most obvious is those sad deluded fools who simply dismiss the entire rebellion as an "imperialist plot" and the rebels as a construction of the CIA etc. The companion to this of course is those who sing Gaddafi's praises and paint him as some kind of semi socialist anti imperialist etc. The line usually goes that Gaddafi supported various "anti imperialist causes etc. The life expectancy rate of Libya is often trotted out. The free universities, the health care etc.
To those who follow this line. Gaddafi is the revolution and the rebels the counter revolutionary. It follows therefore Benghazi should be crushed and the defeat of this rebellion should be celebrated. We don't need to spend much time on this contemptible argument except to point out a few things. Those who wish to condemn this rebellion in its entirety are the same people who celebrated the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali. As such they are as guilty of hypocricy as the Western governments they condemn for picking and choosing the "civilians" they wish to "save". The frankly vile and arrogant demand that Libyans should live under a vicious and brutal regime, a police state that we are fortunate not to live under, hardly needs elaborating on. The hypocricy too, of crying tears of anguish at the brutality of Mubaraks thugs and then excusing the brutality of Gaddafi's also should need no further elaboration.
But it begs the question. If, as i do, we support the revolution against Gaddafi "what about Benghazi? What is the alternative to Western intervention? Are we supposed to sit and watch while Benghazi falls? Opposing the intervention that could save it? I think this question deserves a serious reply and so far I don't think it has had one. This is the intention of this thread.
One argument that I have seen,(and if I am honest, one i have used myself) but frankly, not one that convinces., is to dismiss the claims of Benghazi’s immenent fall. To claim that Benghazi could hold off Gaddafi without Western intervention and therefore the call for intervention is hysterical panic mongering and hype. The problem with this argument is firstly that it is simply untrue. There is little doubt that left to a battle between Benghazi and Gaddafi then the rebellion was going to lose, and secondly it reduces what should be a political question to a mere strategic question and begs the question, if it could be demonstrated that without Western intervention Benghazi was doomed would we then support the intervention of the West. ? It seems to me that this line of argument is dishonest because the fact is I oppose Western intervention on political not strategic grounds. I am opposed to Western intervention under any conditions. I must then admit the unpleasant fact that I would oppose Western intervention even if it meant the fall of Benghazi. The ability or inability of Benghazi to defend itself then is irrelevant to my opposition to the war.
Then what is a principled answer to the question “what about Benghazi? I think an answer to this question is two fold. The first is a recognition that the rebellion didn’t fail at the gates of Benghazi but failed much earlier and that the very fact that Gaddafi’s troops reached the gates of Benghazi was an indication of the weaknesses and contradictions inherent in the rebellion itself. Weaknesses and contradictions that doomed it long before Gaddafi's troops reached the gates of Benghazi.
By this argument, the character of the revolt itself was such that it never transcended regionalism, tribalism and regime factionalism and never became a genuinely national democratic uprising. By this argument then, the only way that the rebellion was ever going to succeed was not by military means but by political means, by raising demands that appealed to the national democratic demands of ALL Libyans and as such transcended regional and tribal lines.
There were indications that this was working early in the uprising. For example the slogan “There is one tribe, Libyan” was a truly national democratic slogan that all Libyans could rally around and a slogan that undercut the regimes claim that the rebellion was seperatist or a foreign plot.
However as the uprising increasingly became a military uprising, not merely for self defence but one that was explicity aimed at offensive action to take Tripoli not by insurrection by winning the residents of Tripoli to the revolution but by military force. in effect the conquest of the West by the East. As such the rebellion increasingly began to be perceived (by all sides) as a regional military assault by the East on the West in place of a national democratic revolutionary struggle. One thing reinforces the other of course. The failure to spark an uprising in Tripoli increased the tendencies of the rebellion to fall back on regionalism and tribalism and the increase of regionalism in turn further alienated Tripoli and other towns from the rebellion, round and round on and on in a self defeating spiral.
This dynamic was reinforced further by the rebels themselves. The use of divisive symbols increased the alienation of the West. For example the use of the pre Gaddafi flag of King Idris, is a tribal symbol. It is a symbol of Idris’ senoussi tribe, arch enemies of Gaddafi (and consisting of a third of Libyans) and a symbol guaranteed to further alienated other sectors of the Libyan population.
Earlier in another thread, I posted this (sorry for quoting myself but I think my earlier analysis has been proven overall correct.
The second argument is more compelling. One that asks the question what was the rebellion for? To remove Gaddafi for sure but what good is a rebellion if it merely replaces one despotic tribal regime with another? Wasn’t the rebellion a democratic struggle? One fighting to replace Gaddafi with a representative government, one that reflects the wishes of the Libyan population and one that rules with accountability and respect for human rights? If the rebellion had any point at all then surely it was as a fight for national self determination. And by that standard Western intervention has killed any hope of that.
A truly representative regime has to be one created by and embraced by all Libyans and that is diametrically opposed to what Western intervention will create. Western intervention will shepherd a regional rebellion, one embraced by only regional and tribal interests into power against the wishes of half the country. Earlier in another thread I posted this
So back to Benghazi. What about Benghazi? I think the final answer to this question is to turn it on its head. What happens when the rebels reach Tripoli, install another tribal dictatorship in Gaddafi's place and exact a revenge on its population. Instead of "what about benghazi. Will we be crying "What about Tripoli?"
It seems to me that an awful lot of good people, people whose opinions I respect, have been swayed to supporting western intervention by the fate of Benghazi and a reasonable concern for the fate of its people.
It is to them, people whose support for Western action is by no means a knee jerk jingoism. People who in any other circumstance would be opposed to this war and people whose support for Western intervention sits uncomfortably in their gut but who can see no other answer to the question "what about Benghazi," that this thread is concerned.
It seems to me that those of us who are opposed to this war owe them an answer. Not least because these are the very people who opposed the Iraq war and who can be won to a position of opposition to this one and simply, as idiots like Ern do, simply dismissing them as "pro imperialist" or "war mongers" simply won't do. Not if those of us who are opposed to this war have any serious intention of convincing people that the war is wrong.
There are a number of replies to the question "what about Benghazi" and frankly they don't convince me, let alone go anyway to swaying those who we want to win to an anti war position.
The most obvious is those sad deluded fools who simply dismiss the entire rebellion as an "imperialist plot" and the rebels as a construction of the CIA etc. The companion to this of course is those who sing Gaddafi's praises and paint him as some kind of semi socialist anti imperialist etc. The line usually goes that Gaddafi supported various "anti imperialist causes etc. The life expectancy rate of Libya is often trotted out. The free universities, the health care etc.
To those who follow this line. Gaddafi is the revolution and the rebels the counter revolutionary. It follows therefore Benghazi should be crushed and the defeat of this rebellion should be celebrated. We don't need to spend much time on this contemptible argument except to point out a few things. Those who wish to condemn this rebellion in its entirety are the same people who celebrated the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali. As such they are as guilty of hypocricy as the Western governments they condemn for picking and choosing the "civilians" they wish to "save". The frankly vile and arrogant demand that Libyans should live under a vicious and brutal regime, a police state that we are fortunate not to live under, hardly needs elaborating on. The hypocricy too, of crying tears of anguish at the brutality of Mubaraks thugs and then excusing the brutality of Gaddafi's also should need no further elaboration.
But it begs the question. If, as i do, we support the revolution against Gaddafi "what about Benghazi? What is the alternative to Western intervention? Are we supposed to sit and watch while Benghazi falls? Opposing the intervention that could save it? I think this question deserves a serious reply and so far I don't think it has had one. This is the intention of this thread.
One argument that I have seen,(and if I am honest, one i have used myself) but frankly, not one that convinces., is to dismiss the claims of Benghazi’s immenent fall. To claim that Benghazi could hold off Gaddafi without Western intervention and therefore the call for intervention is hysterical panic mongering and hype. The problem with this argument is firstly that it is simply untrue. There is little doubt that left to a battle between Benghazi and Gaddafi then the rebellion was going to lose, and secondly it reduces what should be a political question to a mere strategic question and begs the question, if it could be demonstrated that without Western intervention Benghazi was doomed would we then support the intervention of the West. ? It seems to me that this line of argument is dishonest because the fact is I oppose Western intervention on political not strategic grounds. I am opposed to Western intervention under any conditions. I must then admit the unpleasant fact that I would oppose Western intervention even if it meant the fall of Benghazi. The ability or inability of Benghazi to defend itself then is irrelevant to my opposition to the war.
Then what is a principled answer to the question “what about Benghazi? I think an answer to this question is two fold. The first is a recognition that the rebellion didn’t fail at the gates of Benghazi but failed much earlier and that the very fact that Gaddafi’s troops reached the gates of Benghazi was an indication of the weaknesses and contradictions inherent in the rebellion itself. Weaknesses and contradictions that doomed it long before Gaddafi's troops reached the gates of Benghazi.
By this argument, the character of the revolt itself was such that it never transcended regionalism, tribalism and regime factionalism and never became a genuinely national democratic uprising. By this argument then, the only way that the rebellion was ever going to succeed was not by military means but by political means, by raising demands that appealed to the national democratic demands of ALL Libyans and as such transcended regional and tribal lines.
There were indications that this was working early in the uprising. For example the slogan “There is one tribe, Libyan” was a truly national democratic slogan that all Libyans could rally around and a slogan that undercut the regimes claim that the rebellion was seperatist or a foreign plot.
However as the uprising increasingly became a military uprising, not merely for self defence but one that was explicity aimed at offensive action to take Tripoli not by insurrection by winning the residents of Tripoli to the revolution but by military force. in effect the conquest of the West by the East. As such the rebellion increasingly began to be perceived (by all sides) as a regional military assault by the East on the West in place of a national democratic revolutionary struggle. One thing reinforces the other of course. The failure to spark an uprising in Tripoli increased the tendencies of the rebellion to fall back on regionalism and tribalism and the increase of regionalism in turn further alienated Tripoli and other towns from the rebellion, round and round on and on in a self defeating spiral.
This dynamic was reinforced further by the rebels themselves. The use of divisive symbols increased the alienation of the West. For example the use of the pre Gaddafi flag of King Idris, is a tribal symbol. It is a symbol of Idris’ senoussi tribe, arch enemies of Gaddafi (and consisting of a third of Libyans) and a symbol guaranteed to further alienated other sectors of the Libyan population.
Earlier in another thread, I posted this (sorry for quoting myself but I think my earlier analysis has been proven overall correct.
The second argument is more compelling. One that asks the question what was the rebellion for? To remove Gaddafi for sure but what good is a rebellion if it merely replaces one despotic tribal regime with another? Wasn’t the rebellion a democratic struggle? One fighting to replace Gaddafi with a representative government, one that reflects the wishes of the Libyan population and one that rules with accountability and respect for human rights? If the rebellion had any point at all then surely it was as a fight for national self determination. And by that standard Western intervention has killed any hope of that.
A truly representative regime has to be one created by and embraced by all Libyans and that is diametrically opposed to what Western intervention will create. Western intervention will shepherd a regional rebellion, one embraced by only regional and tribal interests into power against the wishes of half the country. Earlier in another thread I posted this
So back to Benghazi. What about Benghazi? I think the final answer to this question is to turn it on its head. What happens when the rebels reach Tripoli, install another tribal dictatorship in Gaddafi's place and exact a revenge on its population. Instead of "what about benghazi. Will we be crying "What about Tripoli?"
