Attacking Libya is not "colonialism".

[Donald Ian Rankin]

There are many good reasons to oppose the West attacking Libya. Or rather, there's only one good reason to oppose the West attacking Libya - "it will do more harm than good" - but there are lots of reasons that might be the case.

But describing it as "colonialism" or "imperialism" is not sane.

The very last thing the Western nations want is to rule Libya. The reason their attacking it is because a brutal dictator (not necessarily more brutal than many the West isn't attacking, but that's an argument that cuts in two directions) is massacring his own people, and those people have asked for help overthrowing him or at least protecting them from him.

By all means argue that providing that help will do more harm than good.

But, if you want to be taken seriously, steer clear of cheap attacks on the motivation of people who disagree with you, and stick to making the case that they are misguided in their attempt to do good.




(Incidentally, for anyone who's wondering, my answer to "is attacking Libya a good idea" is "I really don't know; I lean towards the position that air attacks (which worked in Kosovo) may be but that ground troops (which didn't work in Iraq or Afghanistan) probably aren't"; I am not at all confident of the first half of that and not very confident of the second)

[WatsonT]

1. Attacking Libya is not "colonialism". . . .because we'll call it something different

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. You are not a hedgehog, because we call you something different.

What you say is technically true, but daft.

[WatsonT]

3. True, true, never in history

has any imperialist power gone in merely (as stated) for humanitarian reasons to aid the rebels against the standing authority and then maybe stayed a little longer than expected.

That has literally never happened before.

Literally.

[JackintheGreen]

4. Then, following from #3

It is not colonialism until it is. I am perfectly willing to call a duck a duck. But this isn't a duck. Yet. It may still hatch. That much I'll grant you.

[WatsonT]

5. But if we wait until that point to start discussing it

then it will be pointless, we'll be entrenched and nothing will change.

[JackintheGreen]

6. I'm not saying let's not discuss it

but we can discuss imperialistic processes without misusing the terms. We can raise the specter of colonialism, but willful mislabeling too often leads folks on one side to get defensive ("Whadya MEAN, we're being imperialistic?!?") and meaningful discussion stops while the side feeling attacked digs in their heels.

I'll call it an egg and scream from the hilltops that we shouldn't let it incubate. Can we meet there?

[WatsonT]

7. Fair enough, I agree

it is premature to label this anything at the moment.