My thoughts on the UN intervention in Libya

I've been thinking about the Libya situation in my head from several different angles and decided to write a blog post detailing my thought process. Those of you who are curious about how I think or want to know what yet another Polsci major thinks of the situation are welcome to read on!

I examine this from three perspectives - Theoretical, Practical, and Constitutional (American). There will be some overlap between the first two, but that is pretty much inevitable given that theory has at least some rooting in real practice, and vice versa.

(1) On Paper

First of all, I have to make clear that I don't believe the U.S. has a dog in this fight, i.e. there are no legitimate national interests whatsoever. By "national interest", I would say those exclusive to the United States, disregarding all else. So for example, I would not say "ignore genocide because it's not in our national interest", because in my head, genocide is in *human* interest, and that ought to go above national interest. Now that that's said - OK, I would agree that Gaddafi is a "bad guy". But that in of itself does not convince me that the U.S. must take military action against him. Marcos was a "bad guy", as was Pinochet, Chiang Kai-Shek, Saddam Hussein, Usama Bin Laden, and countless others, and we all used them when it was convenient to our own national interests. So what's the rationale for intervening in Libya specifically while not doing so in Bahrain, Yemen, or Cote' de Ivoire?

From a strategic perspective, Libya is not important to the U.S., regardless of whether or not it's Gaddafi controlling it, some other strongman, or perhaps even a true democracy some day. It controls no transportation choke point vitally needed for our trade and movement. Its limited oil is exported primarily to Europe, and does not present any military thread to the United States. Again, Gaddafi is a madmen, but that hasn't stopped us from using them in the past when convenient. I have seen no evidence thus far that the rebel cabal (of which there is a mixed bunch) are necessarily any long-term improvement on the current Libyan government. That brings me to my next point: true, there are harmless/innocent people at risk, and many have suffered under Gaddafi. I'm not trying to downplay that. But this kind of thing is happening all over Africa, and in the Gulf States, without anyone giving a shit.

That's from a more micro perspective. Backing out a bit, a large problem I see with sending the American military into Libya is one that we've seen in many of our 20th century military expeditions, as well as those in the early 21st. We can use our own Revolutionary War as an example to analyze it a bit more clearly.

George Washington was quite clear regarding the realities of power. He of all people would have known that without French assistance, the rebellion against the British would have gone quite poorly, without this massive external infusion of cash and power. But at the same time, he also knew that allowing France to take over field operations would potentially allow for too strong of an influence over Continental politics. He wasn't stupid enough to pretend that the fledgling United States had any seapower and so deferred in that realm, but insisted on equality in tactical operations between Continental and French ground forces.

I'm no expert on Libyan ground equipment, and what the rebels are using. They seem to have had limited success against the Gaddafi regime thus far, and are lacking central command and control. Air attacks are uncoordinated, focusing primarily on Gaddafi's troops and on suppressing air defenses. These observations, of course, are subject to change depending on the situation. Regardless, I think it's fair to say that I would never expect to see a Libyan commander directing U.S. and European warplanes. And there in lies a key problem in this whole mess. In my eyes, the Franco-American alliance of 1781 was successful for several reasons, one of which being that the U.S. had a fair amount of control over its allies' military actions. There is no way in hell the Libyan rebels will ever have that kind of control or even influence. In short, they are no longer the masters of their own house. Suppose you have enemies in your own house, and a stranger comes in and starts fighting them. That may be convenient and useful for certain purposes, but you are subject to his will. You are in absolutely no position to demand anything, and can be unseated anytime the stranger chooses.

Given our track record intervening in other countries, I think it's fair to say that most of the time, we are a pretty poor gauge on what the people of those countries want and need. But inherently, what with the way the UN has implemented the no-fly zone and has gotten foreign powers entangled, we're in charge, and the Libyans will have to follow our lead, and are likely to be worse off for it.

(2) On the ground

There are other nations militarily capable of launching an air war, and have better reasons than the U.S. to do so. If the Europeans can't get this tiny (relatively speaking) air campaign to work, then there are benefits to do that too - perhaps they'll realize that the U.S. has been carrying a disproportionate military load in joint campaigns. Honestly, this is a trivial point and I just mentioned it because I have a morbid interest in seeing how proficient other countries are at destroying stuff. America certainly is, no more proof of that is required. We've also shown that in general, (Marshall Plan being a good exception) we're terrible at putting things back together.

Here's a major beef of mine: if we had been officially asked in by the closest thing resembling a "government" on the Rebel side, that would be one thing. Great powers have always found regional proxies to work with, and work through. But as far as I can tell, that hasn't been the case. Yes, the Arab League requested the no-fly zone (and as of this writing, has apparently regretted the action to a certain extent, citing excessive civilian casualties), but they are still "outsiders" to Libya. It's as if Rochambeau just showed up one day and started backing the British without giving a fuck about what the Continental Congress thought of it. The Rebels (Libyans in this case, Continental Americans in our own case) would merely be puppets of imperial warfare, expending resources in a way where the French would have little say over how it was to be done. Intervening like that wouldn't have been particularly useful for the French, and I don't think it's useful for the U.S. now. (it doesn't really do anything that bad, except spend money that we don't really have, but that's a rant for another day)

True, it will "save" the Rebels in the short run, but in the long run, I'm not entirely clear on how this is helpful. What happens once Gaddafi has been overthrown? Will America simply get up and walk away once this is over? I don't see a basis to believe that we will simply do so once he is gone. Perhaps that's because I'm rather cynical, but here's why I have this kind of interpretation: it's not about defending the defenseless here. That's a euphemism in this case for regime change, and many liberals are being used as tools here. Sure, many of us want a piece of the action because we feel that stopping Gaddafi from killing Rebels seems like the right thing to do, but really, the UN wouldn't get involved simply because of that. The goal is to remove him from power.

Now if that's the case, then in short, we're supporting one group (the nebulous Rebels) against another. Suppose the Rebels win, and retributions and purges begin against those that were of the regime (I can almost guarantee that this will happen), will we defend the purged at this point? After all, if we draw a parallel to de-Baathification in Iraq and how poorly that went, given that many in the Party joined merely because of lack of better options... there would be many wiped out unfairly along with Gaddafi's footsoldiers. My guess is that we would simply drop the hot potato.

And as mentioned above, even if all my aforementioned reasons are illegitimate, France should be powerful enough to do this on her own, if it really is worth doing. They were smarter than us in 2003, allowing us t make our own colossal fuckup in Iraq - why should we follow them unnecesarily?

(3) Constitutional

And now for some more abstract stuff. Beyond poor geopolitical analysis, I really don't like the way this was done, and it reflects *extremely* poorly on the Obama administration, given that I hoped of him.

Look, we're supposed to be a country governed by "law", not "man". Well, we've created a number of theoretically wonderful institutions defining how and when we should do things. Contrary to public opinion, the U.S. government does have laws about how we get ourselves involved in the wars of other people, as well as our own. These laws are based on formal agreements; treaties detailing what you will and will not do. These are agreed upon by two sides, and then ratified by the Senate.

It's been how many days now, and as far as I know, there has been no Treaty of Alliance produced between the "Rebel Alliance" and the U.S. State Department, requiring our debate and ratification. And in all likelihood, there never WILL be a treaty. As such, there are absolutely no restrictions on what this particular adventure will contain. In short, it's yet another (*sigh*) cabinet war, outside of the "government of law" that we keep espousing and talking about.

The administration should have called a special Congressional session to lay out the case for war (given that they approved it, I assume that's what side they would back). Those who thought this whole thing was a load of bull would make arguments against it such as those I made above and others, and then we would VOTE on it. Why not? It's not like a day would have made a difference - the French and British were perfectly fine without our immediate help, and the exercise of democracy means much more than cruise missiles 24 hours later, in my book.

But instead, we must go to war yet again ignoring any pretense of the law, conveniently "forgetting" small government and fiscal responsibility, while taking a huge shit on Article II, Section 2 and Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.