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The problem with attacking Libya
By Frank Kaufmann.New York- The attack on Libya by The United States, France, Britain, Italy,members of the Arab League, and others with UN approval is anachronistic andrepresents a global failure of imagination and anticipation.It is legitimate that Western and world powers were caught off guard by theTunisia uprising (sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on 17December, 2010) both the fact of it and its startling success. Likewise UN andworld powers can be forgiven a second time when Egyptian protests, starting just10 days after the 14 January 2011 ousting of Tunisian President Zine El AbidineBen Ali, likewise amazed and startled the world community. But the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should be the last time that world leaders maybe permitted to claim "surprise," and lack of preparation and anticipation forpopular uprisings in Arab countries led by tyrants and despots.That the clock has run out on Arab tyrannies, oligarchies, and otherwiserepressive, authoritarian, so-called governments is by now clear. The protest-driven resignation of 30-year despot Hosnei Mubarak makes this evident. Thespirit of protest, and the courage of protesters unbending in the face of injury,brutality, and death has been established to the extent that from this pointforward all despotic regimes will be challenged sooner or later. It should further beobvious at this point that only overwhelming, brutal force, including civilianmassacres will be able to hold such forces of rebellion temporarily at bay.What ungodly formula then has come to obtain when political analysis results inUN approved, US led, Europe supported, military strikes on a sovereign nation? Isthe best world governments have to offer in this remarkable period of civiliancourage, that they sit and await the crossing of some non-defined line of government self-protection as a tripwire, after which world powers bomb thenation in question and its leaders' residence?By this reckoning, exactly what should be the body count that signifies that it isnow time to bomb a country? Are roof snipers ok, but not airplanes? Exactly howmany roof snipers are permitted?Each and every leader who faces or will face uprisings and protests from theirpeople are long known to Western and world leaders, as are the decades-long,horrid, repressive conditions of their citizens.
 
 
The European Courier
Obama with QaddafiThese conditions continued under the noses of Western leaders who feted thesesame despots with all the finery Europe, the US, and other world powers had tooffer. It is alright to arrest and torture innocents citizens year after year? Butairplanes may not be used? Is this the rule?
Der Speigel
wrote of Mubarak in the article, "The West loses its favorite tyrant"saying:"[T]he West stood by the leader almost to the end, despite the fact thatthe despot had turned his country into a police state and plundered itseconomy," said Florian Gathmann, Ulrike Putz, and Severin Weiland. -- Inparticular, "The Mubaraks had a high opinion of Germany. In 2004, theUniversity of Stuttgart awarded "honorary citizenship" of the universityto the president's wife, Suzanne Mubarak, for her social commitmentand her dedication to the rights of children and women." -- He was fêtedin the West as a master statesman.SimilarlyThe Washington Postcarried the news that,"In July 2009 attended the G8 summit in his role as president of theAfrican Union, the latest step in a global reemergence of the NorthAfrican country after years of isolation for its links to terrorism, includingthe downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. But Libya settled outstandingclaims for billions of dollars and gave up its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Now it even has a seat on the U.N. SecurityCouncil.Last year, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the mostsenior U.S. official to visit Libya in more than half a century."
 
The news siteGathernotes thatBritain stands to lose "about £1.5bn of trade in total, of which the largestpart is imports of Libyan crude oil and gas into the United Kingdom" saidLord Trefgarne, chairman of the Libyan British Business Council and aminister in the Thatcher government.France relies heavily on Libyan crude as it imported 16 percent in 2010.In point of fact, although African country is about 2 percent of theworld's oil production, it supplies the European Union with 10 percent of its oil addiction. And since "the French company Total lost its bid forMajnoon [oil field in Iraq], which it helped develop," Qadaffi's oil isbecoming even more precious.The sudden and instantaneous military coalition and perfectly orchestrated airstrikes on Libya reek of the vilest, and most ugly realities of international politics.All the powers that now attack Libya have been aware for decades of thedepraved conditions of citizens there, and in these countries now facing uprisings,and have done nothing effective to alter these inhuman realities. Leaders of thevery powers that now instantly attack Libya have had deep and close ties not onlyto Qadaffi, but to the likes of Mubarak, Tunisia'sBen Aliwho earned degrees fromthe Special Inter-service School in Saint-Cyr, France, the Artillery School inChâlons-sur-Marne, France, the Senior Intelligence School (Maryland, USA) and theSchool for Anti-Aircraft Field Artillery (Texas, USA), and even deeper relations withSaudi, Jordanian and other leaders in the region.Every year these Arab nations spend millions of dollars to Washington lobbyists(former congressmen and women) who represent their causes and concerns to USlawmakers.See the nations, their DC lobbyists by name and firm, and the costs of these contracts, and what these Arab nations spend here.But the purpose of this article is not to lay bare the patent, and glaring hypocrisythat obtains in the highest annals of international relations, nor the vast extent of reckoning unrelated to humanitarian concerns that trigger the type of coordinatedmilitary activity we've seen in the past two days.The purpose of this article rather is to recommend a more genuine and authenticconcern for the heroes of these uprisings by preparing properly for theseincreasingly likely eventualities. It is the responsibility of the world community toanticipate and orchestrate, rather than air strikes on sovereign nations, conditionswhereby these tyrants (and their families if need be) can exit quickly, safely, andgracefully (whether these villains deserve it or not). The point is to save lives, tohasten the success of genuine uprisings seeking rights and freedoms, to supporttransitions to promising emerging regimes, and to do all this quickly andcreatively and in ways properly tailored to each distinct and unique nationalsituation. This is a time for practical, visionary, and genuinely humane forms of international cooperation. It is NOT a time for medieval militarism and cloak anddagger alliances.The problem protesters face is the persistence and recalcitrance of repressiveleaders. True and creative international leadership should design by whatever
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