This is an odd post from Atrios:
Remember Libya?
A funny forgotten war in which we destroyed a country most likely (whether we knew it or not) to cover up Sarkozy's crimes. No one can offer up a better explanation, anyway, other than the usual liberal humanitarian intervention nonsense which explodes as ridiculous as soon as you look at what actually happened.
There's no question that postwar planning following the 2011 NATO campaign against Libya was a failure. But aside from that it's an odd military intervention to condemn. NATO didn't destroy Libya. It was already engulfed in a brutal civil war at the time. The no-fly zone and naval blockade against Muammar Ghaddafi was approved unanimously by the UN—and by the US Senate. The military campaign was joined by more than a dozen countries and was supported by the Arab League as well as several individual Arab states. Civilian casualties remain a point of contention but were probably only a few hundred. Ghaddafi was killed after seven months and the NATO mission ended.
A couple of years later another civil war erupted, but it's hard to pin the blame for that on NATO. Libya was a volatile place with a lot of ethnic tensions, and by then both Al-Qaeda and ISIS were involved. This war lasted a long time and devastated the country before a ceasefire was finally agreed to in 2020.
Bottom line: War is destructive and cruel. But the NATO strikes of 2011 were, by all odds, the most widely supported and justified military intervention in recent history. Its objective was clear and its scope was limited. Almost literally no one wanted to see Ghaddafi remain in power, which would have surely ended in far more death and destruction than the air strikes caused. And when he was gone, NATO left. War is never perfect, but in the end there's little to criticize about this one.
But Bitching About Everything is Brand!
What a load of crap. Ghaddafi was on the verge of slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians in the rebel-held city of Benghazi! Remember that name? Ghaddafi was a monster. It was crystal-clear that he would do anything to remain in power. The Arab League urged NATO members to intervene.
Also, remember how the Obama administration (with Hillary Clinton as Sec of State) agreed to participate -- in a support role only (no warplanes, but with AWACs and such) with France and Italy taking the lead? Remember how Obama was mocked by Republicans for "leading from behind"? How they painted him as weak because we didn't go in the front of the line, Rambo-style?
So Ghaddafi was overthrown and brutally murdered. We left the cleanup to the Europeans. It was a a brutal mess, but we were NOT IN CHARGE, and it probably prevented a massacre of some 20,000 civilians in Benghazi. The aftermath was predictably horrible, but typical for a country with no history of independent liberal governance and centuries-long tribal hatreds.
Obama had to make the awful decision of whether to stay out of it and watch while tens of thousands were slaughtered (remembering how Bill Clinton was endlessly criticized for not intervening in Rwanda) or to support a European-Arab joint intervention and risk getting mixed up in yet another Arab conflict.
The other element is that Obama was actually pretty reluctant to get involved. It was the Europeans who pushed this, and we went along in order to avoid a split in NATO.
Notably France, Sarkozy, in part as a balancing reaction as the French were in a political pickle from their own PoV having stuck with Ben Ali and the regime to the last minute, and were in awkward position with their implication in the regime leaking out.
Really the US is not the origin....
Given the tens of thousands killed in the ensuing Libyan civil war, claiming civlians were "saved" in Benghazi as justification of the bombing just rings hollow. Even more hollow now as we can clearly see whether Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, no one particularly cares about Arab civilians.
Instead of being a success, Libya is a cautionary tale on the use of military force - even "justified" on humanitarian grounds and with legal and international support, without having a plan and strategy for the day after. It's easy enough to bomb, but if the plan is just to bomb and and then not bring stability, all your bombing has done is enrich the MIC and consultant class while the affected coutnry suffers anyway. Better to stay away, far away.
Blaming NATO for the civil war deaths later seems rather petty.
What, Ghaddafi was going the cede power peacefully when?
"Blaming NATO for the civil war deaths later seems rather petty."
I don't see why, the disorder was a foreseeable consequence.
"What, Ghaddafi was going the cede power peacefully when?"
When he died like Franco. Forceably removing him from power left Libya worse off.
Quite some certainty as a statement given the liquidations Qaddafi was engaging in behind the lines, and the fact that besides Benghazi the non-Arab south (Berber etc) was not in his hands.
Non intervention very well likely would look rather like Syria - where non-intervention meant decades long and still unresolved civil war and endless death.
Agree; Libya seems to have as many or more internal conflicts among its regions and ethnicities as Syria. That it has managed to avoid resuming a full-scale civil war for four years is an accomplishment.
Not as many as Syria, not by a long-shot, as Syria has rather more sub-ethnicities including religious fractures (Druze, Xian, Shia, Alawi, Sunni [in flavours]) than Libya, but Libya has quite enough to make things bad.
"Forcibly removing him from power left Libya worse off." Not 1 iota of truth to that statement. Completely ignores that by the time NATO got involved 2/3rds of Libyan territory was in rebel hands and only 10% in Gadhafi's hands. There was going to be civil war one way or another when NATO got involved, It just would have been a lot worse without NATO.
Afghans are not Arabs.
Of course post-facto pious hand-wringing and arm-chair coaching is inevitable.
There were never tens of thousands killed in Libya. You're just bald face lying.
What crimes by Sarkozy is he talking about?
Sarkozy took money from Gaddafi
Since about Oct 7, the writings of Atrios seem to have taken a turn. Everything sucks, and it's Joe Biden's fault. I get that the war on Hamas is an epic tragedy. But given the state of affairs on Oct 6, I'm not sure that a different US president (or even a different Israeli PM) would have made a big difference in the response to the Hamas attacks. Though go ahead and blame the guy in charge, if you want.
The war is having some unforeseen twists. (See what's happening to Bill Ackman's marriage, for one thing.) There seems to an emerging leftist consensus that the (evil and white) US empire is behind all the trouble in the world. It's as if the left's view of history is to take right-wing triumphalist b.s. and say, 'You see, that's what's been going on all along. It's time we put it to an end.' We're witnessing a lot of derangement everywhere you look, but I'll just say good luck to any movement that looks at our country's history and can't find anyone but bad guys.
I've been consistently antiwar since I grew up during Vietnam. The 'legit military adventures' exceptions are very few. But still I recognize our country (and Nato) has a role to play, and that occasionally means resorting to violent action. I could easily name a dozen objectionable excursions before I'd ever get around to thinking about Libya.
Agree, with a quibble that the ‘evil white imperialist US’ as the world’s only bad actor is a fringe-left creed.
Where does it say the US is the only bad actor? US imperialism is as bad as Russian, it's not a competition.
Yeah, but the strain of leftism that finds 'us bad always every time' does exist. It's the kind that split over Ukraine.
US imperialism is hardly just as bad as Russian, whether the Soviet era Russian imperialism or post-Soviet
Rational comparison between what the Sovs and then the Russians have done in the Caucuses, Central Asia, even Afghanistan (and of course one can look at the Ukrainian experience) rather shows Russia is far, far worse as an actor. The East Europeans certainly know better than O Evil America American-Left fraction.
Does not mean USA is the saint and angel in the play, but Russian behaviour is orders more bloody and crushing than the worst American bloody mindedness.
100%!!
KDrum is my first read in the morning, but Atrios is my second. Since the post Oct. 7 anti-Israel/pro-Palestine ignorant-young-"progressive"-protests have erupted, it's been remarkable to watch Atrios quickly swallow their views hook, line, and sinker and spit them back out. I chalk it up to an Atrios mid-life crisis. Many posts have suggested he's grappling with getting older and having less in common with the "youngs," and I see his shift on this topic as a way to show them he's actually a "cool" old guy.
Atrios is doing whatever the opposite of 20/20 hindsight is.
It's about reinforcing the impression of international Deep State conspiracies because, you know, Benghazi. No one went to jail for that.
As far as I've been able to tell, for Atrios every reporter is Judith Miller unless proven otherwise, every foreign policy advisor is Henry Kissinger unless proven otherwise if that's even possible, every official spokesentity is Ari Fleischer, every use of US-wielded explosives is Gulf War II and can't be proven otherwise, and every Democratic president has the powers of the Green Lantern over both domestic and foreign matters but refuses to use them.
That's about all I can figure out for now, but then I've only been reading him longer than I can remember. And I'm finding him harder to figure out as time goes on and as his personal shorthand references have gotten more cryptic. But I'm still reading the blog, partly from habit and partly because there's still something worth seeing there.
He occasionally can light on important issues that need more attention, but overall his approach has become more and more lazy.
Wow, I could have written that exactly. Been reading him for 20 years.
Worse on Twitter/Bsky where he'll RT any random crank who attacks someone on his hit list. And for a while that was Will Stancil but not lately! But that's a different odd online happening.
Atrios is mad because the world is full of imperfect people who compromise their ideals. (Not him!)
I think Atrios is involved in a form of high minded trolling and he tends to overdo it. His green lantern on Gaza is ridiculous but at least he keeps it in the news. Let’s not forget Israel continues to pulverize the territory and this gets a lot of play in the Arab world- see Dawn.com for example. However, apart from Eschaton and maybe LGM, most political bloggers have moved on (including KD?). IOW Duncan is attempting to move the needle in the only way he can. It may not be effective but today at least I learned that Sarkozy took millions in suitcases from Qaddafi. It looks as of Sarkozy was as corrupt as Trump. So there is that.
Dawn.com is Pakistani not Arab.
The Gaza conflict has brought on another tedious round of hyperbolic criticism of America's role in world affairs. It must be a relief for the critics to return to their default posture after two years having to agree reluctantly that supporting Ukraine against Russia was actually a righteous cause.
The US invasion of Iraq was a crime against humanity. The occupation of Afghanistan was a mistake. But from 2009 on, America has been doing a defensible job in a region where there are really no options that lead to virtuous outcomes. Almost every development involves choosing the least bad option.
It's just astonishing, for example, to read a few Democrats complaining that the US Navy should have sought Congressional approval before striking back at hostile forces trying to sink its ships. They do the Palestinian cause no good, nor do they burnish their own reputations for possessing common sense.
>It must be a relief for the critics to return to their default posture after two years having to agree reluctantly that supporting Ukraine against Russia was actually a righteous cause.
Not sure why it would be. It's easy enough to oppose both US imperialism and Russian. Indeed the only people who find it difficult would be those who support when the US invades and bombs but then condemns Russias for doing the same thing.
Easy for anyone who will take up arms against aggressors, but not all lefties are such, and acting like they don't exist is not being honest.
They don't represent much of the left, but they are loud.
What were the salient differences between Qaddafi and Hussein?
Qaddafi was genuinely quite mad, Sadaam was merely an ordinary dictator with ordinary bloody minded military dictator.
"...but in the end there's little to criticize about this one."
Except that Libya ended up worse off than they were under Ghaddafi.
That is impossible to know. Civil war began under Gaddafi. There appeared to be an imminent threat of an attack on a rebel-held major city filled with civilians. Western powers acted to prevent the expected attack, in an operation that was limited in duration. The West cannot be held responsible for every subsequent development.
"That is impossible to know. ..."
It isn't impossible to compare current conditions to conditions under Ghaddafi.
The operation was a success but the patient died. You can argue the patient would have died anyway but that is not entirely convincing.
OK, ‘compare current conditions to conditions under Ghaddafi.’ Currently, there is a cease-fire which has been in place since late 2020. At the time the West intervened, Gaddafi was engaged in a civil war.
Objectively Libya is a failed state today. That wasn't the case under Gaddafi.
A nation at war with itself is not a ‘failed state’?
Literally it was in an open civil war where Gaddafi ordered shelling of unarmed civilians to punish the rebels (who were dug in elsewhere).
The Libyan state failed under Qadhdhafi, it is quite the queer and bizarre goal post dragging to adopt the pretence that "Libya under Qadhdhafi = pre conflict 2010 Libya" when the descent into civil war.
Like absolving the Syrian regime ...
How is a situation where Gadhafi controlled 10% of the territory, the rebels 2/3rds and the rest no mans land not failed or failing state?
Which conditions under Qadhdhafi, the civil war ones he presided over or one magically erases that and pretends Qadhdhafi rule ceased in 2010? (of course the stagnation and economic decay of the Libyan economy in the preceding decade needs to be taken on board)
It's not impossible to know. We can clearly see Libya today.
> The West cannot be held responsible for every subsequent development.
Oh yes they can. Pottery barn rules. If the west didn't have a plan to stablize a post-Gaddafi Libya then they shouldn't have gotten involved in getting rid of him.
You’re denying Libyans any agency, then? White man’s burden?
Except you keep lying that it wasn't broken before NTO got involved.
Said by a non-Libyan who never lived under the Qaddafi regime.
Yes, but remember, when NATO got involved Ghaddafi was down to holding 10% of Libyan territory. The "better off under Ghaddafi" you mention was no longer an option.
Democratic liberals have poor memories.
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