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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Just to Add to the Libya Files:

Just to Add to the Libya Files:

by Tom Levenson|  August 22, 20116:09 pm| 85 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, War

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Andrew Solomon has a brief piece up at The New Yorker  that captures some of the spectrum of uncertainty surrounding everything about what’s going on in Libya just now.

I’m not going to weigh in on the specifics of Solomon’s piece right now — both day job demands and my own ignorance make it advisable to shut up and learn.

But I want to offer one thought to the broader issue of when or whether to intervene militarily that’s exercised this crowd over the last couple of days.

We’ve seen a few alternatives in the discussion to date, I think:  intervene never — i.e., wait for the threat to become direct and imminent, and then fight.  (WW II, e.g., perhaps Afghanistan in 2002).  Intervene opportunistically as conflicts emerge that meet some set of criteria for US action (Kosovo, Libya, Iraq 1).  Intervene preemptively (Iraq 2).  (Please note — this isn’t exhaustive as a description of what people here or elsewhere have been talking about.  It’s just my quick attempt to capture something of the argument.)

I’ve mostly been an imminent or delivered threat kind of guy — that was my reaction to Iraq 2, certainly:  our national interests there were much narrower than anything that can be met by the actual case available to justify Iraq 2, or the Lebanon follies of St. Ronaldus and so on.

But at the same time I do think it is valid to say what seems to me to be obvious:  that the particulars of each proposed use of US military power matter.  IOW:  there are (to me) reasons to try and figure out whether or not to use US power in a specific situation that trump the general (and quite often valid) argument that the only thing worse than a failed intervention is a successful one that provides the precedent for more failures in the future.  We have a long experience of the consequences of great-power-client wars in the middle of the European continent; hence the Kosovo intervention seemed to me much more defensible than, say, Grenada.

In Libya this time, we were not engaged in the projection of US power to effect a regime change at our own direction and timing.  Rather, in the midst of a Middle East-wide political shift, we provided support, but not the sharp end of combat power (i.e. infantry) to one side in a home-grown conflict.  That carries its own dangers, of course.  But the distinction between that and an Ahmed Chalabi option is, I think obvious.

Still, the Solomon piece linked above, like John’s posts as indexed here highlight the uncertainties and absurdities of this particular attempt to affect the course of an internal civil uprising.

I agree with much of what John argued, btw, not all, but a lot of it.  One caveat, though not really a disagreement:  I perhaps cut Obama more slack than I should on the non-combat stuff, if only because the relentlessness of GOP opposition to anything this President does may finally have led the administration to conclude that they can’t trust the Republican caucus not to sabotage US interests if doing so would weaken Obama.  (See, e.g., this latest play by “patriots” like McCain and Graham.)

Perhaps that’s just weak sauce — and there is no doubt in my mind that Orwellian games on the definition of combat don’t serve us well in the long run.  But I do think that the GOP attempt to poison any attempt at governance shares with the Obama administration the blame for the long term damage we face.  Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est and all that.

But the larger point is that if there is ever a case for the use of deadly force other than in response to a direct attack on US soil and/or citizens, then the Obama administration has laid out a fairly clear template in Libya:  reactive rather than pre-emptive; little or no exposure of US lives in others’ conflicts;* within an international context; and hopefully, in the context of military and post-conflict planning that suggests a path to an outcome consonant with both human rights/values and actual, definable US interests.

You can still make bad choices using that template — and John and others are absolutely right in arguing that we don’t know yet, and won’t for a long time, whether we got this one right.  But as a starting point, I vastly prefer this reality based approach to that of the so-called Bush doctrine.

OK. That’s probably enough waffling for one post.  Over to y’all.

*In my last post on this subject several commenters noted that I did not reference Libyan deaths and other losses in the conflict.  That’s true.  That post was about domestic politics; this is on ways to think about the use of US power.  Clearly the Libyans have paid an enormous price for the end of the Qaddafi regime.  They are the ones to judge whether that price is acceptable — and family by family, it won’t be — at least not for some, perhaps many.  I recognize the losses, and regret them — sending sympathy to those touched directly by them.  But I’m not going to presume to tell any one there, and certainly not the sum of the Libyan people, whether their choices in this conflict were worthwhile.

Image:  Francisco de Goya, Los Desatres de la Guerra, Plate 21: Será lo mismo. (It will be the same.) c. 1810.

 

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85Comments

  1. 1.

    Zifnab

    August 22, 2011 at 6:17 pm

    Seriously. The one thing that makes the Libya question so damn difficult is the persistent for-it-yet-simultaneously-against-everything-Obama-does-about-it way the GOP has reacted.

    Obama is both too aggressive and not aggressive enough. He’s spending too much money and yet short-changing the mission. He’s too soft on Qaddafi and yet so terribly reckless in his pursuit.

    The shit was getting piled on so incredibly thick that you couldn’t really voice a complaint without finding some conservative politician or pundit who “agreed” with you, and that just makes me feel dirty all over.

    If nothing else illustrates what a frustrating moral dilemma Libya has been, it’s the complete inability of the GOP to successfully line up on any one side of the issue. Every choice appears to have its own set of virtues and vices.

  2. 2.

    The Dangerman

    August 22, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    …they can’t trust the Republican caucus not to sabotage US interests if doing so would weaken Obama.

    Under no circumstances would this Congress have ever passed an approval per the WPA; true, this led to some parsing of the word “hostilities”, but the blame for that ultimately falls to Congress, not Obama.

  3. 3.

    Viva BrisVegas

    August 22, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    the broader issue of when or whether to intervene militarily

    In that discussion I see no mention of the UN and its role in the Libyan revolution, nor of the obligations and responsibilities of the US within the framework of UN Security Council decision making.

    The lesson to be drawn from Libya is that unilateral, or phony multilateral, action taken by the US in pursuit of its supposed self interest, as in Iraq, is counterproductive. However unfashionable it may be with conservatives, the UN is the forum in which international and infranational disputes can best be resolved.

    It doesn’t always work, ts easy to derail, but its the only game in town. Obama knew that and he deserves credit for it.

  4. 4.

    Jenny

    August 22, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    Posters of Obama are flying in Benghazi.

    http://obamadiary.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/libyasquare.jpg?w=530&h=737

  5. 5.

    Tom Levenson

    August 22, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Viva BrisVegas: See this clause in my compound sentence of criteria above:

    “within an international context”

    That’s a telegraphed way of saying that the role of the UN and other international groupings was a defining characteristic of this intervention. Not perhaps, the most elegant (or, apparently, clear) way of putting it, but still — we seem to be in vehement agreement.

  6. 6.

    The Dangerman

    August 22, 2011 at 6:31 pm

    @Zifnab:

    …it’s the complete inability of the GOP to successfully line up on any one side of the issue.

    Witness the Republicans “Oh, noes, Obama isn’t doing anything on jobs”; since any jobs program will almost certainly cost money, either in lost tax revenue or increased expenditures, the Republicans follow up with “Oh, noes, the Deficit!”. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s exhausting.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    Iraq 2’s justification was pretty much the same as Poland in 1939’s justification. They are an existential threat that cannot be allowed to actually do anything to us that might involve denting fenders or bending blades of grass.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 6:33 pm

    @Jenny:

    This is good news for John McCain!

  9. 9.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 22, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    Does Obama’s sympathy for the oppressed mean that the U.S. will support the Palestinians’ UN bid for statehood?

  10. 10.

    j low

    August 22, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    Meanwhile… Journalists gone wild are looting!!

    mchancecnn Matthew Chance
    Very dark, very quiet at the #Rixos some gunshots cracking outside. We raided the hotel larder and got tons of cheese! #CNN #Libya #Gadhafi
    2 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

  11. 11.

    GregB

    August 22, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    @Jenny:

    I notice that the poster with Obama is captioned:

    The Fantastic Four.

    I recognize President Obama, France’s Sarkozy and England’s Cameron.

    The fourth is a woman. Does anyone know who she is?

    Also, if they were to fly posters thanking McCain and Lyndsey Graham would they be called The Ambiguously Gay Duo?

  12. 12.

    chopper

    August 22, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    Clearly the Libyans have paid an enormous price for the end of the Qaddafi regime.

    clearly they would have paid an enormous price, likely higher, if nato did not intervene to aid the rebels. this is the problem inherent here; standing aside may have monetary and certain political advantages, but you still have to watch what happens.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    August 22, 2011 at 6:45 pm

    @GregB: Susan Rice. Our ambassador to the UN.

  14. 14.

    boss bitch

    August 22, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    @GregB:

    Susan Rice. Can you believe it?

  15. 15.

    slightly-peeved

    August 22, 2011 at 6:47 pm

    One other part of the international picture that got skated over a bit is the US obligation to its close allies. The UK lost many people in assisting in the war on Iraq. While two wrongs don’t make a right, Obama was presented with a much lower risk opportunity to help his ally than Blair was presented by Bush. People in the US don’t seem to think of their relationships with their allies when considering involvement in conflicts, but their smaller allies certainly consider their relationship with the US in making these decisions.

  16. 16.

    wilfred

    August 22, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    a path to an outcome consonant with both human rights/values and actual, definable US interests.

    The phrase ‘national interest’ is what needs to be defined. Incurring the enmity of millions of people for what often are the needs of big business is rarely if ever consonant with humans rights/values. See Smedley Butler.

    Better, what about Bahrain?

  17. 17.

    GregB

    August 22, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Very good.

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    @slightly-peeved: Further, this was a NATO action with UN sanction. The US is a member of both organizations. If we aren’t going to take part in NATO’s activities, then, perhaps, we should withdraw from the alliance.

  19. 19.

    Warren Terra

    August 22, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @GregB:

    The fourth is a woman. Does anyone know who she is?

    US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice (per Think Progress).

  20. 20.

    General Stuck

    August 22, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    @Jenny:

    I know it’s only one event, but the possibility, or dreaming of the possibility, that maybe just a little, the Arab street has a better feeling about the US, would be a very good thing to take hold

    Looks like that in Libya right now, with the all important element, that there are no American tanks parked nearby.

  21. 21.

    General Stuck

    August 22, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    The fourth is a woman. Does anyone know who she is?

    Looks like Susan Rice, but could be Marylin Monroe with the light just right.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    August 22, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @wilfred:

    Maybe it’s just me, but the Libyan people don’t look very pissed off at us. Quite the contrary, in fact.

    Perhaps this is because we let them take the lead and do the majority of the fighting rather than deciding what’s best for them and charging in without consultation.

  23. 23.

    Jared

    August 22, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Well at least we got rule one of the Cole Doctrine.

    1. Of course I believe in Democracy. In my democracy, I think we should act in OUR national interest, and one of the things that is in our national interest is not ushering in a regime that is just as bad or worse than the old one.

    – John Cole

  24. 24.

    wilfred

    August 22, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m not talking about Libyans. Besides, I doubt they are under any illusions that we, or the French, or the English, did anything for altrusitic reasons. The Iraqis were immensely grateful for getting rid of Saddam, but they wanted us out the next day.

    For ordinary Arabs, the unifying issue is Palestine, not the replacement of one dictator with another. If we can realy NOT meddle in post-Khaddafi Libya, that will go a long way in increasing good will. However, the word is all about the new oil contracts. The good news today, and I’m all for it, is overshadowing the emegerence of popular voices in Egypt, for example.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Here’s a cheery article to give all you celebrants some pause:

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/21/us-libya-rebels-personalities-idUSTRE77K2AR20110821

  26. 26.

    aisce

    August 22, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    @ jenny

    i know, right? that’s so weird. why would somebody put four identical pictures of obama on a poster like that…oh.

  27. 27.

    JWL

    August 22, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    If as person feels strongly enough to risk their life in a foreign cause, that person should go.

    But that’s not how it goes. We all throw down together, every one of us. CIA, NSA, FBI, and an and on and fuck ’em all.

    You and I blew the arms off that little Iraqi boy whose family was killed by the same shell, as surely as the gunner who squeezed the trigger.

    The armed forces of the United States are comprised of volunteers– mercenaries, as it were– and commanded by desk jockeys. Desk jockey’s in the back pocket of a truly vicious corporate America (et.al.).

    It’s a shameful state of affairs, and we are only now beginning to reap the whirlwind.

  28. 28.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    August 22, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @wilfred:

    For anti-Zionist leftists who wouldn’t know the Arab street if they faceplanted in downtown Cairo, the unifying issue is Palestine, not the replacement of one dictator with another.

    FTFY

  29. 29.

    Medicine Man

    August 22, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Funny thing is I remember a good portion of those media figures crapping their drawers with uncertainty over the wisdom of interfering in Libya’s civil war. Victory has a thousand authors indeed.

    Anyhow… one thing that is mostly missing from main-stream analysis (*) of the US and its wars is a recognition that not all wars are identical — there is not equal justification for intervening, or starting, every war, not every war is equally winnable, and not every war even has objectives that are as well defined as their fellows.

    This is a simple distinction that I saw lost by many otherwise intelligent commentators. While it is possible to maintain, even now, that getting involved in Libya was unnecessary, it should be recognized up front that any involvement in Libya was far more likely to be over with inside a few Friedman units than GW Bush’s Iraq.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @JWL:

    The armed forces of the United States are comprised of volunteers—mercenaries, as it were—and commanded by desk jockeys.

    Just a quick note to say fuck you.

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @j low:

    “Raiders of the locked larder”.

    Actually, the correct term is “scavengers”. We learned this during Katrina. White people are “scavengers.” Black people are “looters.”

  32. 32.

    Martin

    August 22, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    @Zifnab:

    Seriously. The one thing that makes the Libya question so damn difficult is the persistent for-it-yet-simultaneously-against-everything-Obama-does-about-it way the GOP has reacted.
    __
    Obama is both too aggressive and not aggressive enough. He’s spending too much money and yet short-changing the mission. He’s too soft on Qaddafi and yet so terribly reckless in his pursuit.

    That conflict of messages is usually a pretty good indicator that the person got it right. My GP says something similar of remedies: there’s 100 different things to treat this condition, which tells me none of them actually work.

    If Obama got it wrong, there’d be a obvious message to fall into. There isn’t. They grasp high, low, left, right, searching for something and not finding much. If there’s 100 different criticisms, none of them are actually valid.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    @JWL:

    If as person feels strongly enough to risk their life in a foreign cause, that person should go.

    Please note the enthusiastic participation of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in their generation’s war in a foreign country.

    Oh, wait…

  34. 34.

    Jenny

    August 22, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    This whole action reminds me of Kennedy’s view on intervention in Vietnam:

    In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it—the people of Viet-Nam—against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don’t think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort, and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months the Government has gotten out of touch with the people.

    We can help – but it’s their war.

    I once saw Kennedy speech writer Mort Sahl on PBS say the left hated Kennedy when he was alive because they didn’t think he was liberal enough.

    More things change, the more they stay the same.

  35. 35.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 22, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    @The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
    For pro-Zionists the issue is that the Israelis look a lot more like us than do the Palestinians. Why, with our help Israel should be able to easily subdue every last one of those nations that objects to their heavy handedness. Greater Israel; it’s gonna be a paradise!

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    August 22, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    intervene never—i.e., wait for the threat to become direct and imminent, and then fight. (WW II, e.g., perhaps Afghanistan in 2002). Intervene opportunistically as conflicts emerge that meet some set of criteria for US action (Kosovo, Libya, Iraq 1). Intervene preemptively (Iraq 2).

    You forget 3) to intervene when its the bad ass thing to do because we have some country full of little brown people at our mercy and slaughtering them would be cool to watch on the TV.

    We live in a society full of instant emotional gratification from movies, TV and video games. This whole Libya thing is just tl:dr. As far as the consequences go, people are conditioned to kill the same people over and over again from video games. It’s called grind.

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    As far as the consequences go, people are conditioned to kill the same people over and over again from video games. It’s called grind.

    “If I kill 25 more orcs, I’ll get that new set of Nessingwary Steak Knives!”

  38. 38.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    August 22, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn nailed it in The Gulag Archipelago:

    There is a simple truth which one can learn only through suffering: in war not victories are blessed but defeats. Governments need victories and the people need defeats. Victory gives rise to the desire for more victories. But after a defeat it is freedom that men desire – and usually attain. A people needs defeat just as an individual needs suffering and misfortune: they compel the deepening of the inner life and generate a spiritual upsurge.
    __
    The Poltava victory was a great misfortune for Russia: it resulted in two centuries of great strain and stress, ruin, the absence of freedom – and war and war again. The Poltava victory spelled salvation for the Swedes. Having lost the appetite for war, the Swedes became the most prosperous and the freest people in Europe.

    I quoted that to a guy on another blog in the context of Iraq 2, and he never spoke to me again. But fuck that guy. Never liked his ass anyway. The truth’s the truth, it doesn’t make a damn what country you’re from. I never could make him understand that.

  39. 39.

    Martin

    August 22, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    @Medicine Man:

    Anyhow… one thing that is mostly missing from main-stream analysis (*) of the US and its wars is a recognition that not all wars are identical

    Actually no wars are even close to identical, and no two efforts by a population to set their own fate are identical either.

    What bothers me most about those worrying about post-game Libya (or Iraq or wherever) is the suggestion that the people of Libya either are incapable or undeserving of figuring out their own outcome. Libya had no self-governance at all. There were no elections, no possibility of reform, no debate. They now get to choose whether to do these things and how to do these things. Sure, they may fall back into the dictator trap, but that’s mostly for them to try and sort out now.

    Most of the failing interventionism of the US in the past was related to installing US-friendly dictators in 3rd world nations to stave off influence from the USSR. That was hardly a policy worth defending, but the circumstances today are radically different and nobody should be going back to 1960s historical contexts to extrapolate 2011 outcomes. Yeah, there’s a group that take the kneejerk (and lazy) ‘it’s the oil stupid’ arguments, but there’s really no evidence that we’ve done that since the same old Cold War days when we were worried that the USSR would tie up all of the oil reserves. The most democratic countries are regularly the ones most open with their resources, so why would we not want to support the most democratic outcomes if oil was our goal?

    So, let the Libyans decide where Libya should go. If it goes badly, then it was likely always destined to go badly but instead held together badly and temporarily by a dictator who was uninterested in transitioning to a positive outcome. That’s not a better outcome – it merely delays the inevitable. Plus, they’ve got some promising looking outcomes to either side of them.

  40. 40.

    Jared

    August 22, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    I’m very disappointed that nobody wants to talk about Cole’s axiom which neatly explains why he was for Iraq THEN but against Libya NOW.

    Nah, more concerned than disappointed.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    @Martin:

    The most democratic countries are regularly the ones most open with their resources, so why would we not want to support the most democratic outcomes if oil was our goal?

    Because the most democratic outcomes would cut into the profits of Texas oil tycoons. The problem with Saddam is that he was going to switch to the Euro from the Dollar. Can’t have that. Also, he was putting his perception of his country’s needs ahead of the profit needs of multinational oil companies. Also can’t have that.

    These are manifestations of the MBA/short term profit mentality that ignores that in the long term, we need to ween ourselves from petroleum as a principle energy source, because there is a finite supply of it. Reagan sabotaged Carter’s energy initiatives precisely because it was about long term solutions, not short term profit.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Dude, there were Daddy issues involved as well.

  43. 43.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    August 22, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @Jared: Concern/disappointment troll is concerned/disappointed.

  44. 44.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 22, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    What was it someone said about the two differences between Democrats and Republicans: 1) Democrats believe government can work, and Republicans do not. 2) When Democrats are elected, they sometimes fail.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    You can certainly make that case, I’ll grant you that.

  46. 46.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 22, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Zifnab:

    If nothing else illustrates what a frustrating moral dilemma Libya has been, it’s the complete inability of the GOP to successfully line up on any one side of the issue. Every choice appears to have its own set of virtues and vices.

    That would be the definition of a moral dilemma no matter what the GOP does. When things have an obvious choice, we don’t need to make exceptions. The problem with the GOP is that they have decided they can act like petulant children, and a large part of the population awards them for it.

  47. 47.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    @Tom Levenson

    Well, kudos to you Tom, for transparently declaring your general position, e.g.:

    I’ve mostly been an imminent or delivered threat kind of guy—that was my reaction to Iraq 2, certainly: our national interests there were much narrower than anything that can be met by the actual case available to justify Iraq 2, or the Lebanon follies of St. Ronaldus and so on.

    It would be nice to see you flesh out what you mean by “national interests”. E.g. are you in favor of using force in support of US economic interests? I assume that’s not what you’re getting at, but that’s not perfectly clear.

    So your position then is pretty close to non-interventionism, but you tentatively support Obama somewhat in his policy of humanitarian interventionism on account of it being modest and subject to checks and balances.

    Trivially, if one is a strict non-interventionist then one doesn’t support mainstream democratic foreign policy of the last 50 years or so. And one doesn’t support Obama’s 2008 platform, since it explicitly didn’t promote non-interventionism.

    If more critics and skeptics of Libya had transparently accounted for their positions on foreign interventions then we would have avoided a lot of pointless sophistry about there being anything particularly objectionable about opting to intervene in Libya on a UNSC mandate to prevent Gaddafi from beating down the opposition that had anything to do with the circumstances at hand.

    If someone subscribes to non-interventionism then of course that person wont support Libya, or any other intervention on humanitarian grounds for that matter.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cheney and the rest of the PNAC crew were motivated by oil profits and global strategery, while W wanted to show his dad how much he wasn’t really a screw-up like HW used to call him over cognac during X-mas vacations from Andover and Yale.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m sure the issue of “one-termer” vs. “two-termer” has come up as well. More than once.

  50. 50.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 22, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    @Danny:

    Trivially, if one is a strict non-interventionist then one doesn’t support mainstream democratic foreign policy of the last 50 years or so. And one doesn’t support Obama’s 2008 platform, since it explicitly didn’t promote non-interventionism.

    One doesn’t support skull fucking kittens but, since Obama didn’t mention it in his 2008 platform I guess that the kittens better watch out.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I am also sure that HW has pointed out that W only go in the first time because of people Daddy appointed to the Court. These conversations could get quite tense.

  52. 52.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    August 22, 2011 at 8:24 pm

    I just finished reading the msnbc anti-Iraq page, and the last quote had something funny:

    KUWAITI MP WALEED AL-TABTABAIE:
    “Mubarak’s departure is a victory for the youth and a loss for Israel, Gadhafi’s departure is a victory for the people and a loss for comedy and Bashar (Assad)’s departure will be a victory for Syria and a loss for Iran.”

  53. 53.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    It’s news to you that the democratic establishment at no point (with the possible exception of the mid 70s) has embraced non-interventionism and rejected humanitarian interventions?

    If you want strict non-interventionism your options are Ron Paul and maybe Dennis Kuchinic and that’s been pretty much the case since post WWII – non interventionism isnt and has rarely been an option when choosing a candidate for president to support.

  54. 54.

    Ian

    August 22, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    @Martin:

    Careful, there were thousands of criticisms of Shrub. It’s because he deserved it

  55. 55.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 22, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    It isn’t news to me. I was in High School during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis. I’d just hope that we, as a party, would outgrow our need to top the Republicans in the latest penis-measuring contest. I’d also hope that at least one Democrat would recognize that we’re breaking our backs in paying for the World’s Most Expensive Military in order to give ourselves an imperative to justify that military by throwing our weight around.

  56. 56.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 22, 2011 at 8:46 pm

    WTF? I’m in moderation despite having omitted any of the dreaded words.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 22, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    @Dennis SGMM: Yeah, but did you use any of the magic words, the ones that ensure your comment gets through?

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Isolationism was put down on 7 Dec, 1941. The oceans were no longer a barrier.

    That doesn’t necessarily mean interventionism is the way to go…it just means it’s now global, not just hemispheric, as it was before that date.

    One could also say that the rush to Empire in 1898 was the foot in the door to killing isolationism, but then again, the Brits had a full fledged global empire and practiced “splendid isolationism” from the Continent for a long time in the 19th Century.

  59. 59.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    August 22, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    i have a question i need an answer to, before i consider any sort of doctrine, or outline, or policy towards intervention in future conflicts.

    i need to know if the libyan example is a clean ideological test. i can’t help thinking the gop bought the k’daphe turnaround on state sponsored terrorism. i can’t help thinking he was the paid for example, of how the bush iraq2 doctrine scared rogue nations straight.

    i think the bush admin promised k’daphe he would stay in power, if he cooperated. they sold him the permanent republican majority. i don’t know it,can’t prove it, but i believe it.

  60. 60.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Well, Tom just described himself as mostly “an imminent or delivered threat kind of guy”. And that translates to being mostly in favor of stuff like Iraq II (if the Bush admin had been truthful and credible about the claimed imminent nuclear threat posed by SH) and mostly not in favor of stuff like Libya – were no-one’s ever claimed there was an imminent threat to the US.

    But Tom’s position has rarely been the position of leading democrats, and they are usually quite transparent about it. They usually support humanitarian intervention – if some set of necessary preconditions is satisfied.

  61. 61.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 22, 2011 at 9:17 pm

    @Danny:

    (if the Bush admin had been truthful and credible about the claimed imminent nuclear threat posed by SH)

    That’s precisely why they made that utterly bogus argument. They harped on the lie repeatedly, for months, prior to the invasion. They had to give their fucking illegal war of aggression the veneer of respectability. Hitler actually did this, too, with his invasion of Poland in 1939. The pretext for it, after months of build up that Poland was “oppressing” ethnic Germans in Polish territory that was previously German, was a totally staged attack on the town of Gleiwitz, featuring SS commandos in Polish uniforms.

  62. 62.

    Tom Levenson

    August 22, 2011 at 9:28 pm

    @Danny: Just curous. Did you actually read the post? Because I’m not altogether clear how my stated opposition to Iraq 2 became support for it.

    Not to mention the transition that I thought — clearly erroneously — was pretty damn clear, from “mostly” a direct threat kind of guy to the argument that we have to examine each proposed use of military power within it’s specific context.

    It really does help to slow down and read what’s actually there sometimes. Just sayin.

  63. 63.

    El Cid

    August 22, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    I think we should all personally resolve that whatever our actual opinions regarding US intervention into Libya, whenever we are dealing with Republicans and conservatives in general we should madden them with blunt statements about how brilliant Obama was in finally ridding us of Qaddafi when Reagan and two Bushes couldn’t and how Obama actually liberated a nation.

    It doesn’t matter whether you agree with it all — just agree to help the conservatives you are close to have head explosions.

    I know I will, just like I did with the bin Laden killing.

  64. 64.

    Tom Levenson

    August 22, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    @El Cid: Amen and amen.

  65. 65.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    And that’s exactly why non-interventionism or isolationism is the wrong response to the utter clusterf-ck of Iraq II. It wont protect us from making that same mistake in the future because all it takes is a new phony Gulf of Tonkin or WMD pitch. What protects us is requiring our leaders to transparently account for why we chose to intervene abroad – which incidentally Obama did re: Libya – and having a framework of checks and balances in place, e.g. requiring UNSC sponsorship.

    (In that context, criticism of Obama’s interpretation of the War Powers act has some merit, but it should be noted that it could not be used as precedent for either Iraq II or Vietnam, unless we had pulled out and limited ourselves to surveillance and coordination after the first 30 days of hostilities.)

  66. 66.

    General Stuck

    August 22, 2011 at 9:57 pm

    @El Cid:

    What? you mean liberal/dem teamwork against the repubs. Pearish the thought. Seriously, excellent comment.

    @Tom Levenson:

    OK. That’s probably enough waffling for one post. Over to y’all.

    FWIW. I think this was an excellent post. That I mostly agree with, but always fully appreciate the fullest spread of nuance, wherever it falls. For me, there are different rules when considering individual viewpoints on matters of war and peace, that should be the most personal and devoid of ideology, as much as possible.

    With any decisions rendered, coming with a higher degree of time and effort and angst that is normal with most issues.

    Waffling with this weighty subject, is a good thing here, and only means the requisite soul searching is in progress.

  67. 67.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    Just curous. Did you actually read the post? Because I’m not altogether clear how my stated opposition to Iraq 2 became support for it.

    I never said you supported Iraq II. I said I’d expect you to have supported Iraq II, if you had bought what Dubya et al claimed was true, that is: if you had bought that Iraqi nukes were a credible and imminent threat to the US. Am I wrong?

    Not to mention the transition that I thought—clearly erroneously—was pretty damn clear, from “mostly” a direct threat kind of guy to the argument that we have to examine each proposed use of military power within it’s specific context.

    Read my posts again. I described your position as being mostly in favor of intervention in retaliation or when there are credible threats and mostly not in favor in other cases (e.g. humanitarian interventions). That’s the implication of “mostly [having] been an imminent or delivered threat kind of guy”, isn’t it? Then i wrote:

    So your position then is pretty close to non-interventionism, but you tentatively support Obama somewhat in his policy of humanitarian interventionism on account of it being modest and subject to checks and balances.

    That’s also a pretty fair description of what you wrote, isn’t it? After all, you never actually come out in favor of humanitarian intervention, the closest you get is this: “if there is ever a case for the use of deadly force other than in response to a direct attack on US soil and/or citizens, then the Obama administration has laid out a fairly clear template in Libya”. I think I described your position accurately.

  68. 68.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 10:14 pm

    @El Cid, @Tom Levenson:

    …but I’ll gladly co-sign this.

  69. 69.

    soonergrunt

    August 22, 2011 at 10:20 pm

    @JWL: Then you should kill yourself right now, so as to end your participation in that evil system.

  70. 70.

    Danny

    August 22, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    Not to mention the transition that I thought—clearly erroneously—was pretty damn clear, from “mostly” a direct threat kind of guy to the argument that we have to examine each proposed use of military power within it’s specific context.

    Just to clarify: a transition from mostly-non-interventionism to every-case-by-it’s-merits is not meaningful in the absence of guiding principles on how to judge each case by it’s merits. That was the original complaint. You never define any guiding principles but put your tentative case for Libya as “if there is ever a case for the use of deadly force other than in response to a direct attack on US soil and/or citizens…”. That’s once again the non-interventionist position with the caveat that if there is ever a reason to abandon it, it might look like Libya.

  71. 71.

    JWL

    August 22, 2011 at 10:32 pm

    “Then you should kill yourself right now, so as to end your participation in that evil system”.

    Soonergrunt: Your remark has made it impossible for me to answer you in civil fashion. As draft-bait during the Vietnam War, I heard the same garbage.

    So here it is: “Kiss my ass, you stupid motherfucker”.

  72. 72.

    El Cid

    August 22, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Pearish the thought.

    Grape response, especially when one must plum the depths of conservative discourse for any appleknowledgment of Obama succeeding in the goals they themselves set — orange you surprised at this?

  73. 73.

    Nied

    August 22, 2011 at 10:50 pm

    @Martin:

    So, let the Libyans decide where Libya should go. If it goes badly, then it was likely always destined to go badly but instead held together badly and temporarily by a dictator who was uninterested in transitioning to a positive outcome. That’s not a better outcome – it merely delays the inevitable. Plus, they’ve got some promising looking outcomes to either side of them.

    What’s more is we spent so little on the whole operation, that I’d argue it’s actually worth it to take a bit of a flyer on this. As I pointed out in one of the other threads we’re spending 20 times more every year for air conditioning in Iraq than we did in the entire Libya operation so far. Is the possibility of a free Libya worth it if the costs to us a rounding error in our defence budget?

  74. 74.

    gocart mozart

    August 22, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    Here is the transitional constitution. Its only a few pages long. I could only find a pdf sorry, no copy/pasta.

    http://www.peacefare.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Libya-Draft-Constitutional-Charter-for-the-Transitional-Stage.pdf

    While Googling for it, I notice that wingnutopia is currently at full Def-Con4 freakout because Article I states “Islam is the Religion of the State and the principle source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia). DA!DA!DUM!

    If any of these jack-offs bothered to read further, they might notice that it also protects minority religions, calls for representative democracy, guarantees equal rights for women, equality for everyone under the law, including Due Process, people are innocent until proven guilty.

    Some areas are better than our Constitution even. Phones and “other means of communication shall have their sanctity” and can’t be monitored without a judicial warrant. The right to medical care, social security and “a fair distribution of national wealth” (Freakin’ re-distributors!) Not just freedom of religion, speech and press but also “freedom of demonstration and peaceful strike shall be guaranteed by the State.”

    However, sadly, even though it claims to be based on the “Holy Book” (darn wrong “Holy Book”) and despite it even stating in Art(5) that “the state shall also protect and encourage marriage”, (no mention of gay marriage or gay rights even) . . . Bitches gotta bitch. Yes I’m looking at you Malkin!

  75. 75.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 22, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    Too soon to tell with Libya. I was against U.S. intervention in Libya and still am.

    We’ll see if the obots still love Libyan intervention in another 2 or 3 years if a radical fundamentalist Islamic government comes to power and starts fomenting trouble in the region. Not that Khaddafi doesn’t deserve to get slammed up against a wall and shot, by the way. Just saying.

  76. 76.

    gocart mozart

    August 22, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    @El Cid:
    I give you a round of applesauce for that comment.

  77. 77.

    Martin

    August 22, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    @Ian: Yes, but they criticisms weren’t contradictory. Nobody accused him of both being too stupid and too academic elitist, too partisan and too centrist, etc. The lines of attack were pretty consistent.

  78. 78.

    Tom Levenson

    August 22, 2011 at 11:31 pm

    @Danny: OK. Now I get what you were saying — emphasizing the conditionals in my conditionals.

    I take back my grump, w. apologies. I’ll save for another post a very interesting conversation I once had with a Senior (Clinton) Administration Official about Rwanda. Should provoke an interesting exchange in the thread.

  79. 79.

    gocart mozart

    August 22, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    Cole the other day, asked for a pipeline to the crazy. Here are some wingnut views on Libya filtered (I don’t hate you people) through the great and funny Roy Edroso. Enjoy.

    http://alicublog.blogspot.com/

  80. 80.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    August 22, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Well, one of Gaddafi’s sons who was supposedly already under the jail – his assumed “heir apparent” – just appeared and spoke with foreign journalists, cocky as shit, saying that his dad was alive and well and etc.

    What the fuck is this about?

  81. 81.

    Danny

    August 23, 2011 at 12:02 am

    @Tom Levenson:

    Well, you went for mediating between two camps and got shot by both sides :) I’m not at all unsympathetic to what you’re doing so I hope it didn’t come across that way. Good mediators is what keeps this screwy world from going nuclear.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    August 23, 2011 at 12:03 am

    @Evolved Deep Southerner:

    The article says that al-Jazeera reported that one of the other sons had escaped from custody — maybe they reported the wrong one and this guy is the one who managed to escape?

  83. 83.

    El Cid

    August 23, 2011 at 12:26 am

    @gocart mozart: I try to at least stay currant so as not to date myself, but sometimes it takes a really fig effort so as not to be so sloppy as to post a really ugli comment — it’s not like I’m a really strong avocado of timeliness.

  84. 84.

    Batocchio

    August 23, 2011 at 1:08 am

    Thoughtful. I’ll have to come back to this.

  85. 85.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    August 23, 2011 at 1:26 am

    You can still make bad choices using that template—and John and others are absolutely right in arguing that we don’t know yet, and won’t for a long time, whether we got this one right. But as a starting point, I vastly prefer this reality based approach to that of the so-called Bush doctrine.

    But any revolution/civil war can go wrong, no matter how noble the ideals behind it. The Roundheads were absolutely in the right to revolt against Charles I, no two ways about it. The French were in the right throwing their revolution, even if it did lead to the Terror.

    Hell, Gaddafi may have well been in the right when he led his revolution in ’69 against King Idris, but he became a dictator who probably falls somewhere between Cromwell and Robespierre. He has to go. And if we lent a hand so that fewer of the fine citizens of Libya would have to shed their blood in trying to topple their dictator, so be it.

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