The International Response to the Libyan Crisis (May 2011)

Background to the current crisis

As with Egypt and Tunisia the uprising was driven mostly by young people demanding reform in a country that is one of the most heavily policed States in the world.The political system is based on Gaddafi’s Green Book, which combines socialist, some say Maoist theories (little Red Book) and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. A cocktail of ideas none particularly original, but a philosophy that puts Col. Gaddafi firmly at the centre of all major government decisions.

Libya like so many oil rich nations (and frankly many others) has its fair share of extreme wealth, poverty and corruption. However, these demonstrations were not about jobs or better working conditions or higher wages, they were about reform of the political system, something that the authorities could not comprehend after 40 years of one party rule. Political protests began on February 14, 2011 in Tripoli and soon spread across the Country. The Libyan government’s response was predictable. Ill-equipped to respond in any other way it dispatched the national army to crush the resistance. Gaddafi, in his own words said he would rather die a martyr than to step down, and called on his supporters to attack and “cleanse Libya house by house” until protestors surrendered. A forty year dictatorship spawns many enemies from within and this was the golden opportunity some in high office had been waiting for. Members of the government, military, tribal leaders, and army units defected and joined the opposition. On February 26 an interim government was established under the leadership of Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the first government official to break ties with Col. Gaddafi and one of the few high ranking politicians in the last few years to speak out about the harsh treatment of detainees. The government, which was renamed the National Transitional Council (NTC) was quickly recognized by the European Union, and from March 12 the Arab League entered into dialogue with the interim government, (a hugely significant event). The stage was set for a furtherance of internal strife.

The West always viewed Gaddafi as a “Bastard”, but for the last 5 years he had been  “our Bastard” So why is the West so determined to get rid of Gaddafi?

Our leading politicians will tell you that the reason we are attacking Gaddafi’s forces is because he is a serious threat to his own people, capable of mass slaughter and even genocide and the actions taken are to defend the human rights of the Libyan people. If oil is mentioned the politicians will point out that it is only 2 per cent of the world’s usage. However, let’s put this 2 per cent into context. Libya is an OPEC member, with the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and the ninth-largest in the world. It produced 1.7 million barrels of high quality crude every day. International oil companies and countries have billions invested in the country. These oil reserves also happen to be on Europe’s doorstep.

Meanwhile the anti-west brigade and many left wing commentators will tell you that we are there simply because Libya is an oil rich nation and the West is protecting its interest not the welfare of the people. They argue it is cynical and hypocritical for the West to be taking the action it has when it is doing nothing to aid the uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain or Syria. They will bang on about oil until they are blue in the face, while the politicians will bang on about people’s liberties as if they are all paid up members of Amnesty International!

The trouble with both these simplistic views is that they are…simplistic, but easily digested by the public while giving mainstream tabloid press and TV simple but effective headlines to adopt and feel comfortable with. In reality of course they are both right, it is about oil and it is about defending unarmed civilians, but there are other important factors which make Libya a prime candidate for regime change.

It was seen as doable. Geographically Libya can be hit from European bases; the logistics of warfare are relatively simple, compared with Iraq due to distance or Serbia due to its mountainous terrain. The country is flat, targets are easy to identify. The politicians therefore believed they could have a quick win.

Politically it was doable. Libya is an African State rather than Middle Eastern with all the connotations an attack on a Middle Eastern country would have after Iraq.

It is an opportunity to democratise another country in Africa/Middle East.

We do have oil interests in Libya. 

The sooner we secure peace by ousting Gaddafi, the sooner the oil runs freely again and maybe at a concessionary rate as we helped the opposition win the war.

Benghazi could have been a humanitarian catastrophe if NATO had not acted when it had. (Although comparisons the media and politicians have made with what went on in Rwanda and Bosnia are frankly deplorable).  Where are the mass graves of Gaddafi’s massacre’s? However, the West still had the ghosts of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda haunting them. It was a useful tool for them, but to be fair there were many who believed a massacre would occur and others that simply feared a huge public outcry if a slaughter had taken place and the West had done nothing.

At the back of their minds......

According to Shashank Joshi, Associate fellow, Royal United Services Institute:
“Assassination of a head of state is illegal under international law, and forbidden by various US presidential orders. He goes on: “On the other hand, the targeted killing of those woven into the enemy chain of command is shrouded in legal ambiguity.”

As of 14th May 2011 NATO has launched well over 2,000 attack sorties (This figure is unconfirmed, based on news articles. I have asked NATO for the figure and I’m still waiting for an answer. Attack sorties are missions flown to identified targets with the sole purpose of destroying them. Legitimate targets include, military hardware (tanks, air bases etc)  communications, and command infrastructures, (known in military parlance as C3I ref: Shashank Joshi), troop convoys, and as we have seen Gaddafi himself, his family and anyone else that happens to be near him.  Assuming most of the attack missions have been successful, we can roughly estimate that at least 5,000 of Gaddafi’s troops and personnel have been killed or wounded by NATO bombing. No figures are available on numbers killed, but it stands to reason that military personnel must have been on or near the targets hit. It is also worth noting that half of Gaddafi’s forces are young conscripts with little choice but to fight.

A boost to Al Qaeda?

The attack on Arab soldiers will not be missed by Al Qaeda and will be used to help recruit desperate young men, many with nothing to lose. They will milk this for all its worth, particularly now Bin Laden is dead. They will tell easily manipulated  young men that the West is hegemonic and must be stopped and that NATO’s attacks on Libya is an attack on the Muslim world.  This is not to argue that we should develop our foreign policy based on the possible reaction of extremist groups, it is only to point out that we should choose our wars wisely and in the true interests of long terms peace and security and rights of ordinary (unarmed) people that are directly affected by conflict.


Civilian Casualties

Bombing from 10,000 feet as we saw in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo is not always as precise as we are led to believe. During the attacks on Serb forces in Bosnia, convoys of refugees were killed, the same was true in Kosovo with a convoy of refugees mistaken for a column of troops. Unsurprisingly from that height the pilot couldn’t quite work out whether the slow moving line of human beings were Serb soldiers or refugees. He fired his missiles anyway. We do not know the full extent of fatalities and injuries from NATO bombing but as the weeks roll on they will increase.

The Arab people are nothing if not proud Even if the rebels were to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime it will leave a bitter sweet taste in their mouth, knowing that the only reason they won was due to significant Western support. Something they will not want to tell their children, but something the West will continually remind them of when we are negotiating oil and Arms contracts. Our interference is likely to cause long lasting resentment with many Arabs in Libya and in the wider region.  Protecting civilians and ensuring humanitarian aid gets through is one thing; protecting rebel troops is quite another.