Though Cowards Flinch

Naadir Jeewa has written another blog post opposing a No-Fly Zone in Libya, this time partly in reply to my comment yesterday. I want to take up another three points from his argument:

1) The financial implications of an NFZ matter because it’s not the only option available to Western forces

This is true, though obviously support for a NFZ does not limit ones interest in other ideas. I was very interested in reading about how the US handled themselves with regards to Chad. But training up rebels was still an issue for the author. The US/UK/EU or whoever do not have a great deal of time to be limiting their input on training alone. One thing they obviously can do is source soviet weaponary (I read that the US could source it from Ukraine with corruption, from Poland without) and that will bypass a lot of the time training up rebels with arms the US have, but this doesn’t solve the problem of air attacks.

Even the author of the piece expressed concern that the rebellion cannot be compared to the Chad army, and they had only one pilot; how many does the rebellion have if, say, the US gave them a helicopter?

2) Do those who propose a NFZ have an endgame?

As I said regarding your point on the tribes, the onus is upon the rebellion to gather as many supporters as possible, from across the tribal landscape. Additionally, of course, it should be making some statements as to what kind of government it wants in lieu of Gaddafi’s. One reason why Sarkozy has received criticism for pledging support for the National Transition Council is because there has been no diplomatic input, and at the moment the rebels’ demands are uncertain, other than to get rid of the Colonel and promote support for a NFZ (mirrored today by leaders of the Arab League, opposed by Syria who are providing air support for Gaddafi, safe in the knowledge that their country will not rebel).

I’m not sure whether you are calling for intervening nations to have ideas, other than being against humanitarian tragedy, but it seems that much of the criticism levelled at the West intervening is predicated on the fact that in previous wars they’ve had too much of a vested interest. At this stage, the term humanitarian intervention becomes perverted, since if, say, mitigating against oil prices is the real name of the game, then the term is used as smoke and mirrors (see for example Tony Blair and Iraq).

The more the Transition Council demand, and expect intervening nations to do, the less opportunity the US will have in setting up their interests in Libya, which so far is mere conjecture (see for example Richard Seymour).

3) Surely, the NFZ is a declaration of war*

This may be a pedantic point, but if entering a country in any way equates to a declaration of war, then so be it. But since there are conditions under which a NFZ could passify Gaddafi without the aid of an all out war effort, then I’m convinced that the only grounds for war would be on the head of the Libyan leader, therefore in itself I don’t think a NFZ is a declaration of war. And certainly no more than Gaddafi’s successful efforts to engage his people in a civil war.

*Correction: The question put to me inside Naadir’s piece was: “if I make an NFZ sound too much like a war, that’s because it is an explicit declaration of war.” A NFZ is an act of war, this is accepted. But my other points stand, that the NFZ is a warning, or a gearing up militarily, to counter Gaddafi’s moves towards humanitarian crisis. Therefore I still believe that the grounds for action to be taken against Gaddafi’s air presence will be on his head. Disproportionality is unjust and this is his capital over the rebels, intervention should seek only to ratify this problem.