On The “Humanitarian Intervention” In Libya
By Zahid Makhdoom
31 March, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Briefly stated, the French-British-American bombardment of Libya is utterly indefensible, morally reprehensible and at odds with all standards of ethical management of relations between the nation-states. A very dear friend, comrade and my teacher recently sent me a piece by the Lebanese-born thinker Gilbert Achcar ( http://www.zcommunications.org/libya-a-legitimate-and-necessary-debate-from-an-anti-imperialist-perspective-by-gilbert-achcar ). Previously I have often found my position on all fours with Professor Achcar's analysis on the Middle Eastern politics and issues in imperialism. However, I have many difficulties with his latest analysis of the situation in Libya. It is by way of critiquing his perspective that I shall set out my reasons for opposing this intervention.
While accepting the necessity of debate amongst those pursuing “anti-imperialist perspective”, Achcar seems to further a view that intervention in Libya is necessary in order to avert a disaster similar to the one in Hama 1982, where the late President Hafez ulAssad's regime in Syria allegedly massacred several thousands while avoiding all consequences. In his view, the Western intervention seems to be motivated by some sort of altruism. For during the recent years Kaddafi and the West had in effect kissed-and-made-up; Western oil companies are squarely in control of Libyan oil and the Colonel has been enjoying good friendship with a number of Western governments including that of Berlusconi, who helpfully assembled a rather receptive audience of ravishing beauties to witness the Colonel spread his magic and hear him spout his wisdom. Inaction in the face of atrocities that Kaddafi has hitherto inflicted and may continue inflicting would be akin to right-wing isolationism a'la Pat Buchanan of the United States. The left's acceptance of this intervention would somehow furnish it with necessary moral ammunition to hold the UN and the West's feet to fire when a state like Israel unleashes aerial terror on Gazans or Lebanese. Lamenting the West's inaction on Rwanda, Achcar is apparently endorsing the view generally held by the likes of Michael Ignatieff or a coterie of neo-liberal intellectuals that “humanitarian intervention” is necessary to ensure global justice and peace and for containing any real or perceived massacre by a state. Several questions arise from the foregoing perspective. The central question, however, is: What is the likelihood that a military intervention by the powerful is ethical or moral?
In other word, is there a likelihood of ethical or moral intervention? Yes, there may be a significant room for such intervention. Obviously it goes without saying that such intervention must be (1) in the clearest of all cases, (2) proportionate, and (3) although endorsed and effected through a global organization, where all states irrespective of their size, power or prestige should have equal say, the enforcement should be left to the relevant regional organisation, for example Organisation of African Unity (OAU for enforcing a UN resolution, or Bolivarian Group to enforce similar resolution concerning a conflict in South America and not an outside region entity such as the NATO.
(1) Clearest of all cases:
I shall include here actions of the States as well as those of the Global Corporations that have become de facto supra-states in world politics and have often greater say than the states within the hugely powerful entities like the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. The State actions that may warrant intervention are violent enforcement of apartheid policies or genocides, attempted genocide or ethnic cleansing where either the state has commissioned these crimes or when it has failed to protect. The previous missed interventions were indeed in the Western backed genocides in Suharto's Indonesia (East Timor), Khymer “killing fields” in Kampuchea, Pakistani attempt to reduce population of Bangla-speaking citizens in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Israeli induced slow extermination in Gaza, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Israel, South African apartheid, Rwanda.
Some examples of corporate excesses or crimes that warrant intervention could be: (a) low wages insufficient to support a worker's family as well as working conditions in the overseas sweatshops of international corporations whether headquartered in the Western countries or in places like India and China. One recent example in this regard is the fire in a garment factory in Bangladesh where 30+ women workers died and over a hundred were injured, an event that conjured up the tragic images of over 100 Jewish and Italian immigrant women workers burning or leaping to their death during the 1911 fire in the Triangle Garment Factory in New York. The Bangladeshi women workers were receiving 26 cents per hour of work in an extremely unsafe and unhealthy work environment. Another example is the modern day slavery to which migrant or foreign construction workers are subjected to in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain as well as Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican sugar plantations. Another example found in the near past is that of the wholesale massacre of workers and non-workers who happen to be living in the proximity of a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. To date the corporation that caused thousands of deaths has avoided any liability and consequences; (b) causing environmental degradation, for example Oil sands in Alberta, Canada; BP and Gulf Oil Spill, corporate onslaught on Amazonian forests in Brazil and Peru; and, (c) enforcement of the extremely oppressive patents regime in the guise of “intellectual property rights”, often these so-called “rights” have trumped the genuine concerns for human well-being and security. One good example would be the brutal enforcement of water monopoly in Bolivia prior to the election of President Evo Morales, seed and food patents held by the likes of Monsanto.
Outside of a clearly set out and universally accepted criteria; intervention becomes a mere instrument in the hands of the powerful to impose will upon the vulnerable others. The subjective manner in which instances requiring intervention are defined has hitherto paved the way for further entrenchment of the Western domination and imperialism. Take, for example, the Arab states who applied pressure to bomb Libya are the very same collection of rogue Gulf states and Saudi Arabia who are at the same time killing Bahrainis and Yemenis; Saudis have unfurled an iron curtain between themselves and the world. Why is it okay to bomb Libya and not intervene in other places? Why even until the last day during the Egyptian revolution did the West continue to advocate “restraint” while expressing confidence in the Mubarak regime? Why immediately after the Egyptian military took over did the British Prime Minister visit Cairo with a bunch of corporate thugs including the CEO of the largest armament manufacturer in the UK? Why didn't the West condemn murder and massacre of hundreds of Egyptians including over 350 who were killed in a single day? And mind you, Egyptian protesters were unarmed and non-violent.
Whereas in Libya, within the first 72 hours of the protests, protesters were all of a sudden armed to teeth. Curiously, the only reports of Libya attacking civilians with airplanes are the Western ones. Please do not get me wrong, I consider Kaddafi as a brutal and violent demagogue and dictator, who amongst others has betrayed and hurt the helpless Palestinians. The truth, however, must be told. Why is it that after learning the incessant Western lies (WMDs in Iraq for example), we continue to accept the Western narrative and structure our analysis, even the critical one, upon such “information”? The UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is ostensibly aimed at establishing only a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians. Claims notwithstanding, the evidence points to the opposite. France, that led the charge at the UNSC, clearly wishes the regime change. How else may we explain why shortly after formation of a Libyan “Revolutionary Council”, French President Sarkozy recognised it as the “sole legitimate government of Libya”? Or why at a recent Paris meet-up of the war-mad leaders of the West, instead of a Libyan government delegation a group of well-dressed “protest leaders” were seated and feted? If Professor Achcar's analysis is accepted then we must endorse regime change as always a Western prerogative and not something that the people of the global South should engage in. The message to the people of the global South is that their histories, their institutions, their values, their aspirations, and desires, traditions and cultures do not matter and would never be allowed to become the loci of any revolutionary change but the change would be dropped from skies in their laps by the magnanimous West.
2. Proportionate Response:
This is a very simple idea that the harm sought to be avoided MUST be greater than the harm that would accrue as a consequence of the “humanitarian intervention”. It's a well-known fact that on the very day of bombing, the US alone fired 125 Tomahawk missiles into Libya to protect civilians. These missiles have killed many civilians and have caused an incredible damage to the Libya infrastructure. Who is going to pay for it? While one could rejoice over the fact that some of the European countries are still paying large sums of moneys as reparations to the European Jews for the Holocaust, dismay would be inevitable when one notes a stark reality that the carpet-bombing of Iraq or Afghanistan that destroyed almost the entire Iraqi and Afghani infrastructures would never be compensated and in fact Iraq has to retain services of the Western contractors, mainly US and British, to rebuild using its own resources. Since it missed out on the “golden opportunity” for growth of its own economy that the Western-inflicted disaster would have afforded the French corporations, is there any sinister motive behind the French impulse to intervene in Libya? Is France trying to make up the past losses and secure lucrative oil-laced contracts after destroying most of Libya and partaking in the post-intervention loot of Libyan resources? Take into consideration a simple fact that although the hapless Kaddafi had entered into generous oil contracts with the Western companies he was still somewhat reluctant to invest Libyan riches in the US and European stock and financial markets. He, instead, heavily invested in Sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Endorsement of Humanitarian Intervention by a global organisation but prosecution/enforcement through a regional organization:
Aptly and wisely characterised by Arundhati Roy as “jamadaarni” for the Western interests (“Jamadaarni” is a term used almost universally in India/Pakistan for the women who cleaned latrines and swept streets), the United Nations is no longer a globally representative body, it has ceased to retain its post-World War 2, position of a peace-maker or of a peace-keeper. It has time and again failed to protect any and all victims of the West but has in effect remained a policy tool in the hands of the powerful Western States led by the United States. Just take for example a recent session of the UNSC where 14 out of 15 member states voted for a resolution asking Israel to stop further settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, the United States, contrary to Obama's own stated policy, voted against the resolution thus killing it. Consider complete inaction by the UN on the killing of civilians in Bahrain and Yemen; on the American Drone attacks inside Pakistan, on continued occupation of Afghanistan, on the massacre of peasant and workers in Colombia, killings of Chechniyans, massacre of the farmers in the Indian districts of Chhattisgarh, India's continued intervention in the Nepalese affairs, massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka, the list goes on. The UN has despite many such representations failed to redress issues concerning the Aboriginal peoples of North America and Australia. It has miserably failed Palestinians, consider its total and complete impotence in the wake of the 2009 Israeli “turkey shoot” in Gaza, when it killed 1400 Palestinian civilians trapped inside this vast prison in one of the cruelest and bizarre show of muscle. Once again the list goes on. I doubt very much that any person possessing even an iota of concern for justice and fairness would assign any moral authority to the UN unless it goes through some drastic reforms including expansion of the Security Council and doing away with the Veto system. Even then its decisions should be enforced either by a duly constituted peacekeeping force or regional entities like OAU in Africa, Arab League in the Arabian Peninsula, and NATO in Europe etc.
An important corollary to the question of global organization concerns the current political divisions, organization and management. It was Europe that introduced the notion of Nation-States in the aftermath of the 100 Years Germanic Wars. The so-called “new states”, born after the Second World War, had this model of political organization and distribution inflicted and imposed by their erstwhile colonial masters. The United Nations recognizes the sovereignty of the nation-state. To this day, political distribution of power in our world subsumes the state as a fundamental representation of a nation-state. Marx did talk about the withering away of the state but only in the absence of class but we are not quite there. The widening of gap between the rich and the poor countries, mirroring the similar gap between the rich and the working classes in the powerful countries, should serve as secondary and sufficient reason for the state to once again occupy primary spot in the international political division. One would hope that an independent state, beholden only to its sovereign public and dependent only upon its own political and historical processes and realities would become relevant in the lives of its own people by producing necessary structural and institutional supports and guarantees for reducing gap between the have and the have not's, for ensuring fundamental rights of its people are entrenched, enshrined it the basic sources of its law and power such as constitution, and enforced. These rights include of course the rights to housing, medical treatment, education, jobs and right to never become a disenfranchised pauper.
(The author is a director of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy and one of the founding members of the Committee for Progressive Pakistani-Canadians. The views expressed are his personal. He can be reached at: [email protected] )
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