I have been reading and thinking about Libya again and again, balancing whether or not the intervention was a good thing. This commentary in the Globe and Mail states that as it is a civil war and we don’t know who are the rebels, Canada and the western coalition should not have intervened.
The author of the comment makes a good point by stating that Libya “is a tribal society fraught with arcane rivalries”. In fact, as I learned recently in my History course about the Middle East, Libya is a stateless country.
“Without bureaucracies, ministries, and simply an effec- tive governmental apparatus, Libya is an anomaly of being a stateless coun- try with three distinct regions: Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan.” (Philip C. Naylor, Historian)
Therefore, it is true that answer of who “we” are supporting is rather ambiguous. We might be helping the “bad” ones by intervening in what is actually a civil war and not a popular uprise for democracy. We don’t know who represents the people and who is legitimate to represent them.
However, I think that her arguments are weak. First, it seems very incongruous to compare Libya with Iraq in 2003. The latter was a “preemptive” attack, which had not credible justification. Libya, is a humanitarian situation first of all. The intervention is lead by a broad coalition supported by the Security Council and used as a last resort.
Secondly, I don’t think that saying that there hasn’t been interventions elsewhere is a reason not to intervene there either. It is impossible to intervene everywhere and if it’s true that the reason why they intervened there should be made more clear the problem lies somewhere else.
Then, she writes : “What’s certain is that, as despotic as he is, Moammar Gadhafi wouldn’t have stayed in power for more than 40 years if he hadn’t been able to forge strong alliances with at least a good part of the country.” Does she mean that even if he kills his own population is entitled to do so because “a good part of the country” is behind it? First, we don’t know it, and unless a democracy is installed we will not know if Kaddafi would be elected. Secondly, she mixes the majority with the ruling elites. If Kaddafi is still in power it is certainly because is supported by the powerful and not by the many. Finally, there are rules that are superior to the rule of majority, at least I think so, like fundamental freedoms. It is not because the majority say the minority can be killed that it should be so.
Finally, I am always very surprised by the high level of expectations people seem to have when it comes to the international scene (me included). Most of us now expect that the UN and its members will be able to solve problems that are eternal moral dilemmas. Yes, it is true, the coalition does not seem to agree on what should be done. However, they still took a decision in two weeks, which is very long time for the victims, but very short in comparison to previous experiences at the international level!
Furthermore, if they don’t know if Kaddafi is a target or not, it’s because they don’t know if they are pushing for a change of regime or if they are just preventing people from being killed, both of which are sometimes very linked to one another. And how can we expect them to agree on that when it is taking years to agree on what the “responsibility to protect” norm should be? It is not an easy question and the situation clearly illustrates the complexity of this tension between human intervention and imperialism. However, while academics and politicians discuss about those dilemmas people are dying and it is not morally acceptable to let them die because nobody agrees on something that is so complicated!
Therefore, I do recognize all the potential dangers of this intervention, but I don’t think that anything is more important than stopping innocent people from being killed, whoever these people are, even if they have political opinions that we do not share. They have the right to express their ideas, and only democracy can reveal who they want to see in power.
“With no formal mechanism in place to ensure a smooth transition of power, the post-[Qadhafl] era can be expected to be a time of tension and uncertainty, with numerous socioeconomic and political groups vying for power” (St. John 2008, 67).
It is certainly going to be complicated but it does not mean it should not be done!