The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Here's the Guardian Editorial

    By Flavius on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 11:44pm |

    Somehow it seems like cheating to use a blog just to provide a link. But in this case it seems justified.

     

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/editorial-libya-un-a...

     

    Comments

    DO SOMETHING ! ....DO SOMETHING ! 

    just not that? 


    by Resistance on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 1:55am

    I approve of the decision but .......The day before yesterday as  we're told-and I accept it as a fact, maybe- that Qaddafi's troops were about to enter Benghazi. There would have been a bloody battle. Instead they were attacked by French jets.The :"column" was destroyed. 

    Some video on TV of burning vehicles.

    That wasn't a "column" which was destroyed. It was people. Men who'd gotten up after a night's sleep,had breakfast, probably thought about their wives and children, maybe prayed got into various vehicles A few hours later they died , one way or another, some of them burned to death in those vehicles..Horrible!. 

    Since I approve of the "no fly zone"in a sense  I  "approve" of all  that.

     I hate it.


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 8:56am

    I don't see what the purpose is of your scarequotes around the word

    "approve"

    Do you think we should or should not have killed those people?

    I think the Arab League, the UNSC, and others got nicely played by the US, UK and France on this. Killing those people has nothing to do with enforcing a no-fly zone. It is aggressive warfare. I.e. One can 'approve' of the no-fly-zone mandate, narrowly conceived, and disapprove of bombing people on the ground that neither (i) fly nor (ii) prevent the enforcement of the no-fly-zone.

    The model here seems to be less Iraq 92-03, and more Kosovo/Afghanistan: providing air support for an insurgent army, where the ultimate goal is replacing thugs with other thugs-who-are-ostensibly-ours. And why opt for massive aerial bombardments, rather than, say, a credible promise of long-term sanctions on Gaddafi? Because the western powers have proven themselves too feckless in past dealings with Gaddafi so that no such promise is credible. Our governments hate Gaddafi only slightly more than they love his money and oil. Hardly sounds like a convincing moral motive to me - i.e. hardly the kind of story that will get you through the pearly gates on judgment day.

    That's not to say that this could miraculously turn out wonderfully, it is just that it's a hell of a gamble, and as with all gambles, the only certainty is that the house - i.e. the MIC - wins. The rest of us are just hoping it isn't us that gets taken to the cleaners.

    Anyhow, thanks for the link. Good article.


    by Obey on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 10:20am

    providing air support for an insurgent army, where the ultimate goal is replacing thugs with other thugs-who-are-ostensibly-ours

    Please understand that this question comes out of complete ignorance, but do you have reason to believe that the replacements will end up being thugs, or is it just general pessimism? (Not that I could blame you for such pessimism, but I just want to know how informed your pessimism is.)


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 10:40am

    LOL.

    Let's call it informed pessimism...?

    ;0)

    I was referring to the Kosovo/Afghanistan model where

    (i) the outcome has been 'thugs-who-are-ostensibly-ours', and

    (ii) that outcome is no unfortunate accident, and rather the natural outcome of externally imposed regime change policy.

    If you on the other hand are wondering whether I have any insight into the souls of the Libyan resistance movement, no I don't. But I also don't believe that matters, nor that it has any determinate answer.


    by Obey on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 10:50am

    Thanks. For now, I'll stick with my should-know-better optimism. :P


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 10:55am

    The Benghazi rebels appointed Mustafa Abdel-Jabril to lead their sort-of provisional government. He was justice minister under Gaddafi. A lot of their military leaders are former commanders under Gaddafi. A lot of the harshest critics internationally are diplomats who served Gaddafi loyally for decades. So Obey has reason to be skeptical. Maybe he should have written "ex-thugs who are ostensibly ours."


    by acanuck on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 3:28pm

    "approve" means that my intellectual position is that I think our military action will result in fewer deaths now and over the coming year than if we had not intervened. So I believe I ought to  approve of the success of the mission. But I can't bring myself  also  to approve of those deaths.

    .I desire the end but not the means..

    As for the rest of your comment , all perfectly reasonable assertions or questions. You may be right. Or not.

    For the most part.I have no basis for disputing you or agreeing.As an exception the correspondent  interviews with rebels  provides some basis for thinking they are less thuggish than Qaddafi's supporters. Even they, I expect are a mixture.  


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 5:09pm

    I am just getting so tired, so sick and tired of all of this American imperial priapism.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 11:02am

    David, you're going from sounding like Marvin the paranoid android to sounding like Ozzie

    I don't know if this is an improvement...

    ;0P


    by Obey on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 11:18am

    Given his priapism link, maybe this?


    by we are stardust on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 11:46am

    IT'S JEW FATIGUE REDUX!!!

    Who knew you could catch it twice? Or mebbe there's no cure?

    Oh those tricksy Jews.


    by quinn esq on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 12:00pm

    Oh Flavius, wherefore dost thou imagine such picturesque scenes of tranquility:

    That wasn't a "column" which was destroyed. It was people. Men who'd gotten up after a night's sleep,had breakfast, probably thought about their wives and children...

    Reality check: this was not a troop of Boy Scouts on a campout, or missionaries on a humanitarian mission to heal the sick or comfort the forlorn!

    These were highly paid mercenaries in a bloody conflict who, according to an American pilot who flew a surveillance mission on Saturday, and who was interviewed on NPR today, were indiscriminately firing artillery rockets into Benghazi, and whose compatriots are herding civilians to the front lines to use as human shields today.

    It is likely that the thoughts of these men were not of domestic bliss of children, wives and homes, but instead involved malevolent aspirations of rape, pillage and all the usual crimes and vices that accompany mercenaries paid to violently subdue largely unarmed civilian populations for unscrupulous dictators. They deserve no pity for their fate.


    by NCD on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 12:58pm

    If I could be sure that they were all really bad people it would affect how I feel. But I would still shudder to think of the pain they experienced. In fact my guess is that like most groups of human  being they were a mixture and that the worst of them were themselves mixtures sometimes evil, sometimes not. So I regret their deaths.


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/21/2011 - 4:49pm