The Weaklings’ War

Prime Minister David Cameron and Presidents Sarkozy and Obama have published a letter declaring that they will keep pressure on Colonel Gaddafi until he is gone. Despite UN Resolution 1973 existing to ‘protect civilians’, the letter from the three leaders claims, ‘But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power...so long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations.’ It is clear that these men wish to exceed the resolution and enforce regime change in Libya. Cameron and Sarkozy particularly want to escalate the military conflict and bring more hardware into the operation – a desire not shared by the other UN member nations. Some nations already believe that the resolution has been exceeded. Why would these three leaders so desperately want to exceed the resolution and commit greater military resources to the conflict? What are their motives?

In Britain we were told by Prime Minister Cameron to expect Libyan government defections: these have not materialised. We were warned of massacres that have not happened and were encouraged by promises of Libyan uprisings as the rebels made progress supported by the military might of the UN. There are no reports of country-wide uprisings. It seems that they will never happen. With little of the promised evidence materialising, Britain shouldering a much greater burden of operational responsibility than first envisaged and Cameron’s desperation growing, his own Conservative Party MPs are beginning to call for a parliamentary recall to re-examine Britain’s involvement in Libya.

David Cameron did not win over the British public in the UK election. He did not win enough seats to form a government and was forced to negotiate a coalition. The Conservative Party’s poll ratings have slumped further since then, Conservative Party membership is down and both Cameron and some of his key players – the Foreign Secretary William Hague, the Education Secretary Michael Gove and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley have made embarrassing public mistakes. The Prime Minister is not in a strong political position. Perhaps he believes he can recreate Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands War victory and following success in the opinion polls?

President Nicholas Sarkozy is bombing in the French polls and is regarded as an unpopular leader. He is despised by the Left and even criticised by some on the political Right. He routinely re-shuffles his own cabinet in response to public criticism and has been personally involved in numerous embarrassing incidents. He is quoted as calling French youth “racaille” or ‘scum’, he believes that paedophilia, depression and suicidal tendencies are “genetic” and, during a speech in Senegal, Sarkozy referred to “African peasants”, angering many Africans who regarded the comment as racist. He was also filmed telling a voter to “get lost” after the man refused to shake hands with him : he then called him a “dumb-ass”. Sarkozy has been accused of receiving illegal campaign donations by French newspapers. He has also distributed photographs of himself that were subsequently proved to be forged. With elections looming, this is a president badly in need of a foreign war to distract his people.

What of President Barack Obama? Obama was always onto a loser. He could never live up to the colossal expectations of his voters. He could never live up to the world’s expectations of the first black president of the United States. Unfortunately, he is a politician and so he indulged those unrealistic expectations. Like Cameron and Sarkozy, his job approval ratings are down. Oil prices are rising and no American president likes to see that. With the Democrats losing the House of Representatives, it is increasingly difficult for Obama to get through the reforms he promised his voters. The Mexican Gulf oil spill was very damaging to his presidency. This demonstrted Obama to have little power to effect change in the face of environmental and economic disaster.

These men are ‘weak’ in a political sense - whether we agree with them or not. Regardless of other very significant problems in their own countries, all three are facing the economic consequences of a global financial meltdown and have little in the way of a solid solution. They are trying to hide their weakness behind a largely unnecessary war: a show of ‘strength’ to disguise their desperation and political vulnerability. They should not be leading the charge in Libya. This is war for all the wrong reasons. A war of political weaklings. At present, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that Colonel Gaddafi is still more popular amongst the Libyan people than Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama are with their own.

Blood On ‘Our’ Hands...

The most recent polls suggest that support for Great Britain’s military intervention in Libya is waning. The British Parliament voted 557 to 13 in favour of military intervention: a no fly zone over Libya. Members of Parliament should be representing their constituents’ opinions: this would suggest overwhelming support for the action in Libya. A poll conducted by ICM for the BBC has revealed that 38% of people support such military intervention, whereas 35% said that it was the wrong decision. This is a fairly even split and says worrying things about the way politicians represent their constituents. How can 557 politicians vote for military action if 35% of the country opposes it? Political representation is complex. If our present voting system can create such an extreme skew then it definitely needs overhauling.

The present figures suggest that politicians are prioritising their personal opinions over the views held by thousands of their constituents. Those politicians who are voting because of party allegiance are certainly not taking into account opposing voices: voices that are as strong as those calling for military action. The fact that this has support across many countries in the UN has given these politicians the confidence to push the agenda for military action. If the politicians in these other nations have voted similarly and under comparable circumstances, then this would result in strong support across the UN member states. If the eventual acquirement of continued and cheaper oil reserves is the ultimate goal in Libya for these nations, then it is no surprise that the political votes in these countries are going to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Which of the UN member states is uninterested in securing the future of its energy sources?

Perhaps this has something to do with ‘mission creep’. The majority of people are probably behind the idea of a no-fly zone – as it was first described. NATO jets would keep the Libyan skies free of Gaddafi’s jets: an air force that ultimately would destroy any chance the rebels have to take the country. Almost immediately NATO, amongst a great deal of controversy, started airstrikes across Libya and in the capital city of Tripoli, at great risk to innocent Libyan civilians. Attacks committed by NATO jets - that are supposed to be keeping the skies safe for the rebels - have resulted in friendly-fire incidents and rebel deaths. How long will it be before a UN, frustrated with the lack of progress made by a disorganised rebel force and confronted with public disillusion in the face of a drawn-out engagement in Libya, resort to putting ground forces into action? Undoubtedly a way will be found to achieve this without ‘strictly’ breaking the UN resolution.

The situation in Libya is troubling for a whole host of reasons beyond the collateral consequence of military intervention. After Libya, agreement across the UN will no longer carry the legitimacy it has (for example, in relation to the invasion of Iraq). It will have been tarnished by oil-driven motivations, the blood of innocent Libyan people and its seeming refusal to assist rebel elements in other countries throw off their dictators, simply because those countries have less to offer in the energy-equivalents of victory spoils. Countries cannot be invaded – even with UN agreement – on the basis of what their leaders ‘might’ do. Colonel Gaddafi is undoubtedly a very shady figure. When Libya is over, however, and no mass graves are found as evidence of his ‘actual’ dictatorial brutality (on scale that would necessitate an invasion by the United Nations), then we are all going to look very foolish and greedy. It is going to be ‘weapons of mass destruction’ all over again, except this time it will be the evident reality of the Gaddafi threat under scrutiny, and David Cameron in the dock rather than Tony Blair.