Cruise Missile Liberalism -- Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs

[Octafish]

Details on an astonishingly good idea from Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis:

Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs

Cruise Missile Liberalism

By MEDEA BENJAMIN and CHARLES DAVIS
CounterPunch
March 23, 2011

When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so after years of providing Libya’s dictator with the weapons he's been using against the people, all the international community – France, Britain and the United States – has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Gaddafi's palace.

If the bitter lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan has taught us anything, though, it's that wars of liberation exact a deadly toll on those they purportedly liberate – and that democracy doesn't come on the back of a Tomahawk missile.

President Barack Obama announced his latest peace-through-bombs initiative last week -- joining ongoing U.S. conflicts and proxy wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia -- by declaring he could not “stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and ... where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.”

Within 24 hours of the announcement, more than 110 U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired into Libya, including the capital Tripoli, reportedly killing dozens of innocent civilians -- as missiles, even the “smart” kind, are wont to do. According to The New York Times, allied warplanes with “brutal efficiency” bombed “tanks, missile launches and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles.”

“(M)any of the tanks seemed to have been retreating,” the paper reported. That’s the reality of the no-fly zone and the mission creep that started the moment it was enacted: bombing civilians and massacring retreating troops. And like any other war, it's not pretty.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/benjamin03232011.html

The stuff one learns by reading.

[Lucinda]

1. TY. Bookmarking to read later.

:hi:

[Octafish]

3. YW. When you get a chance...

...an old post about what this is really about:

"Money Trumps Peace. Sometimes." -- George W. Bush

[Lucinda]

5. Thank you!

I'll add it to my list for later this afternoon! Much appreciated.

[Motown_Johnny]

2. a Fmr. Libyan Ambassador was on PBS last night claiming

that the air strikes turning back the tanks when it did saved 100,000 to 150,000 civilian lives.


I don't know what he based that statement on but it might be worth considering.

[Octafish]

4. Thanks. The former ambassador may be correct.

My point is that there are non-violent ways of achieving the same goals.

There is one group of people, though, who go for War First.

The reason, I believe, is they make money from war.

[thewiseguy]

7. Since we are talking about Libya. Have we sold them any weapons?

[PVnRT]

11. I would bet Bush II did after recognizing them diplomatically in 2006

[PVnRT]

10. What non-violent ways?

I've yet to hear anyone explain how things like sanctions do anything except let citizens starve while the thug-in-chief and his buddies continue to get rich.

If you are going to argue that the U.N. is a useful organization that helps keep the peace, it needs to be able to back that up with force, or they simply get ignored like the League of Nations did.

[Octafish]

13. Stop buying their oil. Stop paying for their oil.

Freeze Libya's assets. Seize Libya's assets.

For starters. Better yet:

Engage the people of Libya directly -- through the Peace Corps or similar programs that work to serve the people of Libya, not the transnational economic hit men bankster warmonger Mafia.

There are lots of ways we haven't even thought of yet that are better than war and more killing.

[PVnRT]

15. Qadaffi's assets abroad were frozen some time ago

China already buys oil from Burma and does not support this current action. Do you think they'll turn their nose up at Libya's? To say nothing of Italy, at least as long as Il Douche Berlusconi is in charge.

Engage them directly? OK - how about those Hungarian (Bulgarian?) health workers who were put on trial a couple of years ago for being accused of spreading AIDS? Qadaffi kicked out the Peace Corps upon seizing power in 1969, so I don't see how we even have a chance with that group; anyone working on behalf of the government of the U.S. like that would likely at least be deported, if not arrested now. Qadaffi, beyond that, is notoriously unstable - he could allow international aid groups in one day only to have them rounded up and deported a week later. Without prolonged contact, it's kind of hard to really engage anyone.

There's plenty of killing going on there right now, regardless of whether or not other countries are involved. If the rebellion is crushed, Qadaffi will happily murder anyone he even suspects might possible have been involved in some way, and you can kiss any further push for political freedoms in that part of the world goodbye for a good, long while.

[Octafish]

17. Thank you for your kind reminder and information. I'm just tired of the Edwin Wilson approach - OK?

You know, we'll do anything for anyone who's got enough petrodollars.

[kenny blankenship]

19. US Treasury HAS frozen Libyan assets. EU has frozen Libyan assets

Libya isn't shipping any oil right now. Gaddafy has been subject to UN sanctions on oil exports before, as a result of his sponsorship of terrorist attacks. But you can't keep sanctions on forever, and Gaddafy doesn't change because of the experience. I don't know about you but I supported lifting sanctions against Iraq in the late 1990s. Enough was enough I thought, and it only was hurting the Iraqi people. If sanctions were slapped on Gaddafy for slaughtering unarmed protesters, well-meaning liberals, the ones who always oppose the United States' use of military force, would soon be clamoring for them to be lifted.

None of that non-violence stuff works on a guy like Gaddafy. He doesn't give a damn. If he doesn't learn what you want him to learn through sanctions, etc. then you can't force him to change except through force.

And in any case, no means that you listed could have stopped Gaddafy's tank and infantry column from unleashing the Gaddafys' promised slaughter on Benghazi. It was at the gates. Mass slaughter was imminent. Also, I wonder HOW these non violent "ways you haven't even thought of yet" could do anything to prevent this slaughter? After all, you haven't even imagined what they could be yet. And I have to admit that I can't imagine what they could be, either. French air strikes under US direction did stop it, though. The burned out hulls and blasted turrets of Gaddafy's armor now lie off the road on the outskirts of Benghazi. Rebels kept the tank column outside the city by their hit and run violence (oh noes!), and the French pilots bombed it (horrors!) before it could run amok where people lived.

It's terrible, so terrible that men sent to kill civilians for Gaddafy died in their tanks and troop transports, it's terrible, so terrible that there aren't tens of thousands of dead and dying, maimed and raped civilians right now in Benghazi. I am certain Gaddafy weeps bitter tears over it, and I'm beginning to wonder how many at DU share in his anguish?

[Romulox]

20. What did he have to say about baby incubators, or flowers in the street?

:shrug:

[Catherina]

6. K&R n/t

[xchrom]

8. Recommend

[leftstreet]

9. K&R

Thanks for posting

[mod mom]

12. "War is a Racket"-decorated war hero General Smedley Butler

[chill_wind]

14. "Cruise missile liberalism", indeed. K & R.

Thank you Octafish.

[G_j]

16. a must read... K&R!

[bobthedrummer]

18. Full spectrum dominance, I read about that quite some time ago and shared it with friends. K&R n/t

[Ignis]

21. K&R. Good stuff, thanks for the link.

It's a shame that Ms. Benjamin commands so little respect and attention 'round DU now that we've switched from fighting The Bad Wars to fighting The Good Wars.

[malaise]

22. But how would you test the weapons against the old ones

War is profitable Octafish!

[NuclearDem]

23. I'm sorry, I'm calling BS on the supplying Gaddafi bit

Libya's armed forces are made up of old Soviet technology, with the exception of an assault rifle from Belgium, a pistol from Italy, and a type of armored vehicle from Brazil.

I'm sorry, but the US, France, Italy, Britain, and Canada haven't been supplying Libya, and they're the ones bombing. Russia supplied Libya, and they're refusing to bomb.

[Waiting For Everyman]

24. I agree prevention is better, but the writers lost me with "massacring retreating troops".

Come on, now. Isn't that just a teensy bit ludicrous? The tanks are shelling a city (as they were yesterday, several of them) and the instant they turn around, they're suddenly supposed to be encased in a protective bubble, as if they haven't been murdering non-involved civilians for WEEKS.

Cry me a river. If the Gaddafi troops wanted so much protection, they could've bailed on fighting BEFORE they got in the tanks and shelled the cities. Using them to try to make a point or elicit sympathy is a putrid argument. It fails with me, bigtime.

Having said that, I'd like to see the armaments industry dry up and disappear. But in my view, taking out Gadaffi's supply is some small progress toward that end. At least that will be one less dictator armed. And hopefully it stays that way.

[Romulox]

26. They make *FLYING* tanks now?

"As a part of this effort, the United States will contribute our unique capabilities at the front end of the mission to protect Libyan civilians, and enable the enforcement of a no-fly zone that will be led by our international partners. "

-President Obama, March 20, 2011

[Waiting For Everyman]

27. Nope, and they don't make non-military tanks either.

:crazy:

[Taitertots]

29. The vast majority of targets had nothing to do with upholding a no fly zone

They were ground targets selected to weaken the Libyan government so forces that favor western resource domination can win this civil war.

[NuclearDem]

31. The NFZ isn't just about Libyan airspace

"Adopting resolution 1973 (2011) by a vote of 10 in favour to none against, with 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation), the Council authorized Member States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory — requesting them to immediately inform the Secretary-General of such measures."

UN Resolution 1973

All necessary measures, meaning attacking ground targets if they have to.

[Hannah Bell]

33. Speaking of dictators, how do you feel about boiling of dissidents?

[Kaleva]

25. Much of the Libyan military equipment is Russian.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Not to worry, the MIC will be happy to sell the new regime new ones.

They'll have first hand knowledge of their killing power locally.

[hulka38]

30. K&R

[CJvR]

32. So these guys solution to war is...

...war?

Sure going up against the weaponry you sold to Mad Dog might be annoying, but it is hardly as if the west is the only option available for getting guns. So unless you are willing to impose a blockade (an act of war) there are plenty others willing to sell to anyone who can pay. Heh! One reason the Russians are so pissed is because Mad Dog was about to buy 4 billion $$$ worth of weaponry when the balloon went up.