"Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene"

[Karmadillo]

It's interesting to compare what we're told pre-intervention with what we're told, if we know where to look, post-intervention. Of course, on CNN today, we were told the intervention had been a great success and we should prepare to intervene again to bring an end to the chaos caused by warring factions of Libyans. It was as if our intervention had nothing to do with creating that chaos in the first place.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/23387/lessons_from_libya.html

"Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene"
Policy Brief, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
September 2013

BOTTOM LINES
• The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong. Libya's 2011 uprising was never peaceful, but instead was armed and violent from the start. Muammar al-Qaddafi did not target civilians or resort to indiscriminate force. Although inspired by humanitarian impulse, NATO's intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi's regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans.

• The Intervention Backfired. NATO's action magnified the conflict's duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If Libya was a "model intervention," then it was a model of failure.

• Three Lessons. First, beware rebel propaganda that seeks intervention by falsely crying genocide. Second, avoid intervening on humanitarian grounds in ways that reward rebels and thus endanger civilians, unless the state is already targeting noncombatants. Third, resist the tendency of humanitarian intervention to morph into regime change, which amplifies the risk to civilians.

A MODEL INTERVENTION?
Many commentators have praised NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya as a humanitarian success for averting a bloodbath in that country's second largest city, Benghazi, and helping eliminate the dictatorial regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi. These proponents accordingly claim that the intervention demonstrates how to successfully implement a humanitarian principle known as the responsibility to protect (R2P). Indeed, the top U.S. representatives to the transatlantic alliance declared that "NATO's operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention." A more rigorous assessment, however, reveals that NATO's intervention backfired: it increased the duration of Libya's civil war by about six times and its death toll by at least seven times, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If this is a "model intervention," then it is a model of failure.

FLAWED NARRATIVE
The conventional account of Libya's conflict and NATO's intervention is misleading in several key aspects. First, contrary to Western media reports, Qaddafi did not initiate Libya's violence by targeting peaceful protesters. The United Nations and Amnesty International have documented that in all four Libyan cities initially consumed by civil conflict in mid-February 2011—Benghazi, Al Bayda, Tripoli, and Misurata—violence was actually initiated by the protesters. The government responded to the rebels militarily but never intentionally targeted civilians or resorted to "indiscriminate" force, as Western media claimed. Early press accounts exaggerated the death toll by a factor of ten, citing "more than 2,000 deaths" in Benghazi during the initial days of the uprising, whereas Human Rights Watch (HRW) later documented only 233 deaths across all of Libya in that period.

more...

[4139]

1. No surprise.

[Karmadillo]

2. Kick for background when neocons start urging us back into Libya.

[riderinthestorm]

3. More than a few DUers were applauding our intervention Nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Or, to keep it simple, "Just say no."

After all our glorious victories in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, etc, etc, you'd think they'd have learned how to say "no" by now.

[Fumesucker]

7. But yes is so profitab... err.. I mean patriotic and strong...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Not to mention the clips of explosions and bombs and "heroes" sell a lot of beer and popcorn.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. Kick for posterity. n/t

[KoKo]

6. Let's hope this gets some "strong attention" from PTB in the MIC....

but, then how could they not have known from past experience? DUH?




Also...if this sinks..please post in "Good Reads" Forum. It will stick around longer and get more attention, hopefully.

[bvar22]

9. DURec!

” For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

[Karmadillo]

10. More before and after

Well, this snippet only addresses the before. The after, sadly, was all too predictable (but if we bomb Libya again, we'll get it right this time--honest).

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

Here are some things the Hellfire missiles will be up against in Libya. A gross domestic product per capita of US$14,192; unemployment benefits of around $730 a month; nurses being paid $1,000 a month; no major taxes; free education and medicine; interest-free loans for buying a car and an apartment. Quite a few unemployed Americans wouldn't mind a one-way ticket to Tripoli.

[KoKo]

15. That explains a lot...doesn't it.

[Throd]

11. What should the have been done about Ghadaffi?

I am asking an honest question.

[JonLP24]

13. You have to wonder why he was selectively targeted

Oh, I see it. Early on he nationalized their #1 export, that usually is followed by Western governments marketing as a brutal dictator but the US allies with corrupt governments & replaces uncooperative countries with a corrupt government.

Iraq & Afghanistan are in the top 5 in most corrupt governments. The last major NATO push involved Afghanistan & they were recently hit by a massive banking scandal. It was most likely an extension of the "Shock Doctrine". Libya also appears to be in the top 10 in corruption, will have to check out Libya post-Qaddafi.

[Karmadillo]

14. Leaving bad enough alone would have been preferable to

what we did. It's not like the nations in the west don't mind embracing dictators when it suits their purposes. If we had wanted to increase individual freedoms in Libya, there are probably better ways to do that than plunging it into chaos. Of course, the link provided above by bvar suggests ending a bad example to others was more important than improving the daily lives of Libyans.

[JonLP24]

12. Amazing

If you have a very long list to choose from when it comes to human rights violations regarding Assad but they


A week after the implementation of the no-fly zone, NATO announced that it would be enforced.[267] On 30 April a NATO airstrike killed Gaddafi's sixth son and three of his grandsons in Tripoli, though Gaddafi and his wife were unharmed. Western officials remained divided over whether Gaddafi was a legitimate military target under the U.N. Security Council resolution. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that NATO was "not targeting Gaddafi specifically" but that his command-and-control facilities were legitimate targets—including a facility inside his sprawling Tripoli compound that was hit with airstrikes on 25 April.[268]

On 27 June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, head of state security, for charges concerning crimes against humanity.[269] Libyan officials rejected the ICC, claiming that it had "no legitimacy whatsoever" and highlighting that "all of its activities are directed at African leaders".[270] That month, Amnesty International published their findings, in which they asserted that many of the accusations of mass human rights abuses made against Gaddafist forces lacked credible evidence, and were instead fabrications of the rebel forces which had been readily adopted by the western media. Amnesty International did however still accuse Gaddafi forces of numerous war crimes.[271] On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, over 30 governments recognised the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya. Gaddafi responded to the announcement with a speech on Libyan national television, in which he called on supporters to "Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet ... They are worthless".[1]

Now with NATO support in the form of air cover, the rebel militia pushed westward, defeating loyalist armies and securing control of the centre of the country.[272] Gaining the support of Amazigh (Berber) communities of the Nafusa Mountains, who had long been persecuted as non-Arabic speakers under Gaddafi, the NTC armies surrounded Gaddafi loyalists in several key areas of western Libya.[272] In August, the rebels seized Zlitan and Tripoli, ending the last vestiges of Gaddafist power.[273] On 25 August, the Arab League recognised the NTC to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state", on which basis Libya would resume its membership in the League.[3]

I really never knew much about it, I actually didn't realize he was still alive since I haven't heard his names since the 90's. I recently read he took the fall for that plan thing. Even before I read that he said it, it was obviously he took responsibility for money. Not sure why the US & the West is allied against him but not good for whoever is chosen as a target. NATO appears to have something brewing in Eastern Ukraine, not a fan of NATO post-cold war.