Because cruise missiles and drones did the dirty work, U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser Harold Koh told Congress that the war was neither a war nor even "hostilities" (the language in the War Powers Act). If no U.S. pilots or soldiers were at risk, then the bombs were not hostile. They were friendly explosions. Prashad compares this to the first aerial bombing in world history, the Italian bombing of Tajura and Ain Zara in 1911. The bombing, the air force said, had "a wonderful effect on the morale of the Arabs." The 2011 version had a less-than-wonderful effect on the U.S. Constitution, because of course Congress did not offer any resistance. Discussions of a possible war on Iran now leave both Congress and the United Nations to one side. Pentagon head Leon Panetta recently told the U.S. Senate that President Obama can go to war without Congress, without the United Nations, and with or without NATO.
The International Criminal Court disgraced itself as well. Lead investigator Luis Moreno-Ocampo made statements as if they were indisputable about alleged crimes by Gadaffi, including claims about mass-rape and the handing out of Viagra to troops, stories pushed at the same time by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Eventually Amnesty International investigated and found no grounds for the accusations. Moreno-Ocampo did not investigate NATO's crimes in Libya, any more than he has ever done so in Iraq or Afghanistan. On January 19, 2012, the Arab Organization for Human Rights, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and the International Legal Assistance Consortium reported that NATO had targeted civilian areas and committed war crimes (other than, of course, the fundamental crime of making war which no human rights group considers a crime).
Toward the end of the war, the rebels displaced the entire population of the town of Tawergha. All 30,000 people are now gone. The rebels had deemed the town's residents' skin too dark.
Libya is now smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. Tribes are at war in Southern Libya. The new transitional Libyan government is not representative, democratic, stable, protective of civil rights, or productive of economic rights. Libya is plagued by the resentment and instability that come with violent change. Gadaffi's death did nothing to prevent this inevitable outcome. And unlike the outcome of homegrown violence, which would have been bad enough, the current state of affairs in Libya is one in which the nation suffers from foreign control.
The West could have left Libya alone in 2011. Or it could have left Libya alone for decades. Or it could have done good by Libya, economically and politically rather than seeking to exploit Libya's oil. Come the crises of 2011, the United States could have aided the nonviolent protesters in Bahrain rather than sending over a U.S. cop to lead the cracking of their skulls. Instead, the people of the nations of Western Asia learned that the West will only aid violent campaigns, and then only if it too favors the overthrow of one of its former puppets. Oil now flows from Libya to the West for free, as repayment apparently for "regime change services."
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says, "NATO is needed and wanted more than ever, from Afghanistan to Kosovo, from the coast of Somalia to Libya. We are busier than before."
Busy-ness does not equate so easily with popularity. NATO comes to Chicago on May 20th, and believers in peace and the rule of law will be there by the thousands to protest nonviolently against global lawless violence.
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