If one honestly cares about justice and the humanitarian situation in Libya

[howard112211]

then, based on the same premises, one must also believe that it would have been in, at least in principle, morally right for China, Russia and Pakistan to cooperatively use force to stop the USA from invading Iraq, despite the obvious practical difficulties.

If one cannot, in all honesty, state that this would have been a just act as well, then it leaves little substance to the concern about the people of Libya.

[ZombieHorde]

1. My first reaction was to argue against your claim, but when I started to create my argument,

I realized you have a pretty good point. I going to think about this some more. Recommended for making me pause and think.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Live by collective security, die by it....

...trade sanctions would have been really hard for China to impose, though.

Everybody's got their own version of the national interest.

[MedleyMisty]

3. While I would have been okay with someone trying to stop Bush

from invading Iraq, I would point out that Gaddafi did not invade another country and the two situations are not comparable.

A better argument would be about the UN imposing a no-fly zone over the US if Bush had ordered our military plus mercenaries like Blackwater to kill everyone who did not support him and besieged cities. Bonus points if he called Americans "rats" and talked about going house to house, closet to closet, to kill us.

Personally I think all that is needed to honestly care is to, well - honestly care. I've been sending tweets of comfort and solidarity to Libyans on Twitter when they report that a family member has died, and I bought a shirt from a group of Libyan Americans who set up a website with Libya merchandise - they send all the proceeds to a humanitarian relief organization who is trying to help in Libya.

http://www.libyagear.com

I also like to think retweeting their tweets and linking to articles and sites and videos on my blog is helping a tiny bit - that's how the internet works. You link and retweet and blog and other people pick up on it and retweet and link and blog and if enough people do it, the information goes out to a large number of people and helps to win a lot of hearts and minds.

I don't know - maybe it's because I am insanely F on the Myers-Briggs personality type system, but I don't need to rationalize caring about other humans. I just do it.

[howard112211]

4. I use Iraq as comparison since it is the one event in recent US history

where action by the UN was clearly required but didn't occur. But thanks, if you agree that Bush had to be stopped, then you are being consistent.

You raise an interesting point about the Myers-Briggs types. I have done such tests before and they have come out ENTJ or ENTP. That places me somewhere in the lawyer/scientist/executive profile.

Justice and honesty are things I care deeply about, and I personally think that inconsistency in applying justice is one of the greatest sources of, well, injustice, and thus a thing that potentially enrages me. I usually take a rationalizing, and looking at the big picture rather than individual collections of facts, approach to matters. And that leads me to conclude that, as much as emotional responses to the struggle of Libyans on an individual level is warranted, the big picture of the intervention and its contrast to other, similar events in recent and not so recent history, has something insanely fishy and injust to it. Moreover, it seems the whole project has not been very well thought through.

[joshcryer]

6. They lost a half dozen cities which we now see Gaddafi has abandoned.

Gaddafi had no intention of "saving his country from rebels" he had every intention to raze Benghazi, if you still can't see that I don't know what to tell you.

Should a tyrant have full impunity to raze their own cities?

How about all of the calls of atrocities for American-backed dictators?

Why is Yemen, an American backed state so quickly called out for its atrocities, yet I see nothing about Syria's atrocities?

It's anti-Americanism first and foremost, imo, the rest is irrelevant.

[howard112211]

9. Calling out atrocities of American-backed dictators is anti-Americanism?

But to answer your question: It is about balance. If the US government in media called out all atrocities equally, there would be no need to add anything. Since, however, the powers that be call out one type of atrocity, that of its enemies, and neglect the other, some people see the need to fill the holes by calling out the "other side".

[joshcryer]

11. Nah, calling out American-backed dictators while ignoring other dictators is.

It shows that peoples interests aren't freedom for people, but rather finding a way to bash America. Over 100 people were shot dead in Syria this past weekend. That's 5 times Bahrain, 2 times Yemen. Yet no threads. I wonder why?

You'll note that the United States has condemned violence in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, but that's also ignored. People build these straw men "where's the UN!" and such. Again, it really is about anti-Americanism rather than a just view of things. You argue about the policies of the United States, it prevents you from having to take a stand. I stand with all people within the Arab Spring, and I support all of them to oust tyrants, US backed tyrants or not.

And if any of those people were unfortunate enough to have to experience what the Libyans have, I support them and any intervention the international community deems necessary.

I also demand that we leave Afghanistan and Iraq, and I never believed we should have invaded either (though in Iraq I believed that Bush I was evil in fomenting sectarian violence and an uprising then letting that uprising fall to despotism).

[malaise]

19. WTF???

Nah, calling out American-backed dictators while ignoring other dictators is.

It shows that peoples interests aren't freedom for people, but rather finding a way to bash America.
---------------
Please think about what you wrote above? It is the hypocrisy of Western governments that people are calling out and bashing.

By the way, over 100 people are missing in Bahrain

[joshcryer]

23. Thanks for agreeing with me.

[howard112211]

39. It is not "anti-Americanism" to spread counterweights to the "official bias".

There is no need to "call out" dictators who are enemies of the US, because the US government is doing plenty of that already. Efforts are better spent filling in the gaps.

[joshcryer]

5. Bush should face the International Criminal Court for what he did.

And it would be morally right for anyone to stop sectarian violence.

[Hannah Bell]

7. i think china should have bombed the us in retaliation, myself.

[joshcryer]

8. Really?

:rofl:

I personally don't think WWIII would be very pleasent.

[Hannah Bell]

10. neither is the current action in libya, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, africa.

i guess that's funny too.

[joshcryer]

12. Yes, the desire to have WIII is very funny.

And Libya isn't comparable to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Hannah Bell]

13. this *is* ww3, dude. you just don't get it yet.

[joshcryer]

16. Are you OK?

Your responses are lacking more substance than usual.

[Hannah Bell]

17. nope, i'm very serious. this is world war 3; you just don't know it yet.

[howard112211]

14. So your argument is basically "might makes right" ?

[joshcryer]

15. No, I think that's the response from those who are against the revolutionaries getting support.

[Hannah Bell]

24. "revolutionaries"...under the leadership of a 30-year US resident academic

(working at my alma mater, btw) with oil resources to be managed by another US-trained academic who favors privatization & marketization.

wow, revolutionary.

[joshcryer]

26. Eh, the revolutionaries don't care who they're fighting for, it's who they're fighting *against*.

But it's clear to me that you don't really consider Gaddafi all that bad of a guy. Al Jazeera is just a puppet for the west.

[Hannah Bell]

29. one thing that amazes me about DU is people's presumptions and assumptions.

i would not be surprised if aljazeera was in fact some kind of tool, however, as it was started by ex-bbc people, + the billionaire sheikh, & is a voice for modernization, westernization & marketization. yes indeedy.

[ReggieVeggie]

18. Tell Obama that!

[Selatius]

21. He cannot be tried even by the ICC. The United States never formally ratified the Rome Treaty.

Ratification of that treaty would have given ICC the force of law on American soil. Conveniently enough, the US never ratified it.

[joshcryer]

22. Correct, however, the United States, under Obama, is looking to.

I'd like to see Bush, 80-90 years old, be tried for war crimes.

[howard112211]

38. What should happen to Bush was not my question. Whether use of military to stop the US invasion

would have been justified was.

Apparently I need to phrase it more clearly: When Falludja was under siege by the invaders, would you have considered a bombing campaign against the US military, with the goal to kill as many US soldiers that it takes to stop the attack on Falludja, an inherently just act?

If you cannot answer that question with a clear and definite "yes", then your support of the actions in Libya is inconsistent.

[pampango]

20. It certainly would have been right for them to use the UN to stop or repel Bush's invasion of Iraq.

There would be a moral equivalency to China or, more likely, Russia having intervened in Iraq to prevent or counter a US invasion. (The practical consequences would be scary but that's a different discussion.) Even better would have been for them to get the UN to prevent or counter our military force as it has done in Libya with respect to Gaddafi's use of his military force.

The UN has authorized few military interventions over the last 65 years and didn't do so in 2003. The Korean War in 1950 and Gulf I in 1990 are the two that come to mind. They both were in response to invasions, though the "invaders" would probably have argued that they were "civil wars". North Korea wanted to reunite Korea (Koreans fighting Koreans) and Saddam considered Kuwait to be Iraq's 19th province historically.

It would be nice if the authority (moral and practical) of the UN grew to the point that the US invasion of Iraq, Vietnam and many others, China into Tibet and Vietnam, Russia into Hungary and Czechoslovakia (and other countries deciding on their own whom to invade) could be prevented by a vote of the international body.

I know that many repubs are afraid of the UN and the potential for a "one world government" which would limit what national governments can do (like invading other countries). The Birchers and many others on the right (Rand and Ron Paul come to mind) want the US to defund or withdraw from the UN so that there is no constraint on the US pursuing its "national interests". That is not likely to happen (unless things go very, very badly in 2012), but neither is my desire for a stronger UN that can more effectively control (prevent and authorize) military interventions.

[Hannah Bell]

25. few? take a look at 1990-present.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_Nations_peacekeeping_missions

[joshcryer]

27. Look at 2000-present.

:shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

28. i count 11, plus this one, with 3 from the 90s still going on. what do you see?

i think more than one a year = "bigger than 'few'"

[joshcryer]

31. I see a lack of intervention in Burma...

...among other places.

As far as military is concerned. Peacekeeping missions would not have done squat for the Libyans.

[Hannah Bell]

32. burma is irrelevant. the point of contention is whether the UN has done "few"

interventions.

in the 50s, yes. two is "few".

since the 90s, not so much. appears to be an average of more than two a year, and some from the 90s are still going on, though we don't hear about them anymore.

it's almost like -- diffusion of responsibility, kind of like when governments appoint special committees or businesses hire "consultants".

[joshcryer]

33. You failed to understand what the person meant by "interventions."

Burma was the only case in recent times that would have qualified: http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/crises/128-the-crisis-in-burma/793-burma-resolution-in-security-council-vetoed-by-russia-and-china-implications-for-r2p

[Hannah Bell]

35. "The UN has authorized few military interventions"

Military intervention is soldiers & guns, regardless of what the poster "meant".

An occupation is a military intervention.

[pampango]

30. Your link: "Timeline of United Nations peacekeeping missions"

All these peacekeeping missions are described at the link you provided as "monitoring cease fire", "supervising withdrawal of forces", and the like. I don't have a problem with the international nature of these peacekeeping missions. In fact I think that is commendable. Better for the UN to conduct these than for individual countries to do so.

I do find these peacekeeping missions to be of a different nature than the authorization of military force in Korea, Gulf I and Libya.

[Hannah Bell]

34. whether you have a problem is also irrelevant. a UN "peacekeeping"

mission is a UN military intervention.

They're done with soldiers & guns.

They're military occupations, no different from if the US went into another country and occupied it for whatever reason.

For example, the UN has been enforcing the peace in the Ivory Coast, Haiti, Timor, Sudan and more for 6-7 years.

One has to ask why the need for such a long stabilization. Do you never have questions about such things?

[joshcryer]

36. Going real fucking well for the UN in those places isn't it?

I'm sure you're completely satisfied with how the UN is keeping the peace in those places.

[Hannah Bell]

37. josh, i have no idea what the un is doing in those places, & neither do you.

realistically.