Bad News For Humanitarian Interventionists
by lizard
For those who supported the “humanitarian intervention” imposed on Libya by NATO, it must be asked what responsibilities should the nations that provided the planes and bombs have post-intervention? Is there any sense of obligation from those who advocate the toppling of repressive regimes to ensure the power vacuum doesn’t get filled with equally oppressive violators of human rights? Otherwise, what the hell is the point of intervening?
On Friday the U.N. released a report, and it’s not good news for those who rallied for intervention (and obviously bad news for Libyans as well, who, we should remember, have no choice but to suffer the consequences).
While the report indicates Gaddafi’s regime perpetrated war crimes, it also points the finger at NATO and paints a bleak picture of post-Gaddafi abuses by those celebrated rebels:
The report concluded that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces had perpetuated war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and attacks on civilians using excessive force and rape.
But the armed anti-Qaddafi militia forces in Libya also “committed serious violations,” including war crimes and breaches of international rights law that continue today, the 220-page report said.
Through this past January, militia members continued with the mass arrests of former soldiers, police officers, suspected mercenaries and others perceived to be Qaddafi loyalists, the report said. Certain revenge attacks have continued unabated, particularly the campaign by the militiamen of Misurata to wipe a neighboring town, Tawergha, off the map; the fighters accuse its residents of collaborating with a government siege.
Such attacks have been documented before, but the report stressed that despite previous criticism, the militiamen were continuing to hunt down the residents of the neighboring town no matter where they had fled across Libya. As recently as Feb. 6, militiamen from Misurata attacked a camp in Tripoli where residents of Tawergha had fled, killing an elderly man, a woman and three children, the report said.
The commission remains “deeply concerned” that no independent investigations or prosecutions appear to have been instigated into killings by such militias, the report said.
Will Obama, or Susan Rice, condemn humans rights abuses by the people that are filling the vacuum his administration helped create? No, because it’s already on to other targets for the humanitarian treatment: Syria.
Once again, I need to give credit to the Moon of Alabama for posts like this one. The propaganda campaign for intervention is collapsing, and it seems like momentum for intervention is quickly abating.
Below the fold are two videos that allegedly show how two reports from Syria were staged. I don’t claim this as definitive proof that the whole opposition to Assad’s regime is manufactured, but it certainly raises a lot of questions, especially about the role of Al Jazeera’s reporting in the region.
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Hey, I think I’ve seen this movie before.
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March 3, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Victiims of atrocities, given a chance, often commit atrocities against those who victimized them.
Knowing this, I suppose our country could refuse to intervene in genocides. That way, we wouldn’t have to hear ugly stories about retribution.
March 3, 2012 at 5:24 pm
OR you could wake up and realize that the term “humanitarian intervention” is just frosting on an imperial cake fed to folks like you who have good intentions, but through clever marketing your support gets exploited by imperialists.
March 3, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Gosh, you’ve got me figured out. I’m just a sucker of clever marketing by the imperialists.
Damn those guys!
March 3, 2012 at 8:09 pm
I think you just have a higher tolerance for being lied to than I do.
March 3, 2012 at 8:20 pm
I am still trying to figure out what is a “humanitarian crises,” and now I am hit with “humanitarian intervention.”
So I will move on to something I can comment on: “[W]hat the hell is the point of intervening?”
The main point is to find live-fire exercises to train new generations of soldiers. In Libya, most of that training went to British Royal Air Force pilots and a little refresher training for NATO command and control wonks operating in the Mediterranean theater.
A secondary point is to dispose of ordinance that is either obsolete or that exceeds permissible inventory levels. [Cf. Vietnam War, where we succeeded in disposing of our entire leftover stock of WW II ordinance and most of our Korean War ordinance.]
Anyway, we have not had any serious bang-bang in nearly 40 years. So we have to go where there is at least a chance to get some practice: Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, (Iran?), etc., etc.
– Max Bucks
March 3, 2012 at 8:32 pm
You mean war is a racket?
I always thought so.
March 4, 2012 at 1:17 pm
grinding and grinding and not a single loaf of bread: c’mon, liz. how is what you’re doing any different from the hinkle dudes?
Statehood for Mexico.
March 4, 2012 at 2:24 pm
left in missoula:
resolutions send signals
montana can hear.
March 5, 2012 at 8:32 am
is that a serious question, or are you just trying to be obnoxious?
March 5, 2012 at 9:24 am
this interested party has a president, a senator, a secretary of state, and a superintendent of public instruction to reelect; a governor, a house member, an attorney general, and an entire legislature needs to be made blue: anyone who is in my way is an enemy.
you want to change shit, lizard? Help me make Montana safe instead of cheap.
March 5, 2012 at 9:32 am
so immediately after implying I am your enemy if I get in your way, you ask for my help. that’s fantastic.
this post is about foreign policy and the scamming Democrat leadership using the concept of humanitarian interventions to continue imposing the imperial will of western elites.
this post is not about local or state politics. if you have something substantive to add to the topic of this post, great.
March 5, 2012 at 9:39 am
Mexico is erupting and a young blogger in Montana is blowing off steam about the world’s policeman trying to negotiate gang violence in some Middle Eastern area in a future United States of Earth.
Join us.
March 5, 2012 at 9:35 am
Judge Cebull has given us the opportunity we need to convince voters that the earth haters are corrupt. We have the power to break the GOP in Montana and after the election we can sit down to build a coalition of progressives, labor, and tribes.
Join us.
March 4, 2012 at 2:58 pm
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1
March 4, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Doh!
March 4, 2012 at 3:15 pm
the feds believe they’re under attack tango down, liz; more in the last few hours. #AntiSec
March 5, 2012 at 10:33 am
Here: embrace diversity and support our President.
March 5, 2012 at 10:39 am
@Larry
I appreciate your attempt to enlist me, but no thanks.
Larry, since you seem mostly earnest and well-meaning, I’ll give you a little insight into why I choose to write about stuff like “gang violence” (is that a little racist? I wouldn’t be the one to judge that) in the middle east.
one reason I choose to blow off steam, as you say, is for selfish reasons. my primary concern is for the safety of my immediate family and close friends. that sense of responsibility to their well-being makes me want to be as aware as possible about what kind of threats the big scary world out there presents to them.
for example, I honestly believe how the US uses its vast military resources around the world makes everyone in it less safe, so I write about that.
and I think the un-indicted financial titans running a rigged economy makes all of us less safe, less secure, which leads to the extremist politics we see, so I write about that.
what I don’t think is that everyone who identifies as conservative or Republican are “earth haters”. and I’m not too interested to wade too deeply into Montana state politics.
so again, thanks but no thanks Larry. and good luck with Mexico. I’m sure sending in special ops and keeping pot illegal will make Mexico a much better place.
March 5, 2012 at 11:15 am
dyin’ ain’t much of a livin,’ boy: keep grinding.
March 5, 2012 at 11:28 am
here’s a song for ya, larry.
March 5, 2012 at 12:00 pm
It’s not impossible, liz, that Nick Cave will run for a seat in Parliament.
this interested party just saw Bill Maher live in Albuquerque. He called President Obama’s first, “The White Term” and called his pending second, “The African-American Term.
fame is a drug like any other no more, no less.
March 5, 2012 at 12:36 pm
“The African-American Term.”
How’s that saying go? Oh yeah: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me…”
Actually, I think GWB had it right: “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.”
Good luck with the russian roulette. I prefer to work for rolling back the military industrial complex, and it’s corporate/fascist underpinnings
March 5, 2012 at 12:26 pm
March 5, 2012 at 1:29 pm
this from the Angry Arab
March 5, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Mr. President: tear down this wall!
howzat, liz?
March 5, 2012 at 3:57 pm
FOIA requests don’t have much to do w/ humanitarian intervention.
March 5, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Sounds like your post got to John McCain: good that the Senate Armed Services Committee reads your stuff.
Meanwhile.