The most half-assed military intervention of all time?

The most half-assed military intervention of all time?

Posted on March 24th, 2011 by Daniel Kalder

Let’s retrace our steps a little. First the US wasn’t going to do anything in Libya because according to President Obama ‘organic’ revolutions are the most successful revolutions.

Of course that’s utter bollocks, and I’m assuming Mr. Obama skipped his elementary American history lessons. Because as everybody knows- the American Revolution, that is to say the most successful revolution of all time – well George Washington and his buddies kinda got some help from the French. Y’know. Like, a lot. And the Russian Revolution- well, it wouldn’t have got very far if the Germans hadn’t granted Lenin safe passage across military lines. And the Iranian Revolution? It sure helped Khomeini that Saddam Hussein was willing to let him broadcast his toxic blather from a safe position in Najaf. And so on.

But I digress: whether you’re on the left, right, center or are a full-throated Satanist, it’s now clear that Obama is so far out of his depth on so many issues that it’s not even funny any more. Nor is it all that surprising to find out he’s ignorant of elementary history. But back to Libya: first intervention was uncool because it was against the completely imaginary law of organic revolutions and now all of a sudden it’s totally awesome. Who knows, maybe he read about 1775 on Wikipedia or something. Because all of a sudden we’re bombing the shit out of Libya, and the USA is performing the role of Lafayette for the Libyan rebels.

Except… well, there’s a big difference. I know why the French intervened in the American Revolution. It wasn’t because Louis XVI loved liberty and the works of Tom Paine. No, it was because he wanted to f*ck up the English real good, because it was in French interests to f*ck up the English real good. Now actually it wasn’t because within a few years all these French intellectuals caught revolution fever and cut his head off, but it’s hard for mere mortals to see that far down the road. And at the time, divesting the British of their prime colony no doubt seemed like a Really Good Idea.

Which brings us back to Libya once more — what exactly is the Really Good Idea we are pursuing there?

Surely it’s not installing a democratic regime, because as we all learned during the Iraq War that rarely goes as planned. And Obama was against that war from the start. I mean what was all that hysterical Bush- Hitler stuff for if we’re going to have to go through it all over again so soon?

And surely it’s not just because Gaddafi is a bad guy. Because bad as Gaddafi is, and he’s certainly bad, he’s probably not actually as bad as the Saudis, who are our best friends. As far as I’m aware he doesn’t fund extremist mosques around the world, or subject women to the most extreme oppression on the face of the earth, or treat migrant workers like slaves. He does kill people, he used to sponsor a lot of terror, he’s a grade A scumbag and he writes terrible prose. But then, so do most of his neighbor-tyrants.

But maybe he’s weak and so now is the time to strike. Well, OK, but is Obama now endorsing 1950s-1960s CIA practices? And if so, do we know who is going to replace him? Do we know who the rebels are that are fighting against him? It doesn’t take a terribly long historical memory to realize that revolutionary movements are almost always worse than the regimes they replace. Take the Bolsheviks for instance — worse than the Tsar? Well, the Tsar never intentionally starved millions of his subjects to death, so I’d say that’s a yes. Or the Ayatollah Khomeini — worse than the Shah? In two years or so he killed as many people as Reza King-of-Kings Pahlavi did during his entire reign, I believe. That’s pretty bad.

Now I’m no Libya expert, but I haven’t seen any signs that the folk fighting Gaddafi are Pelosi Democrats, or even Sarah Palin Republicans. I have however read that a good number of them love a bit of the old jihad. I’ve also read that Libya is one of the most tribal societies in the Arab world. And the thing about tribes, you see, is that their primary loyalty is to each other and not the nation state, which in that part of the world was usually patched together as a colonial administrative unit by European civil servants. Take Somalia for instance. One of the reasons that country is a disaster is because the tribes are fighting each other for primacy. ‘Somalia’ is a theoretical construct much less real than blood ties between kin running down the generations. And so bearing in mind the jihad + tribal society combination in play here, I think it’s reasonable to expect a reasonable degree of apres moi, la deluge if Gaddafi goes.

And aside from that, you really should know who you’re supporting before you join a war. I’m sure that’s in the War Handbook somewhere… ON PAGE NUMBER ONE.

But then, it’s not about war and sides is it, it’s to do with some UN resolution protecting civilians from Gaddafi’s attacks. So what’s that then- are we taking orders from the UN now? You know, the body with China and Russia on the security council, and where until about three weeks ago Libya sat on the human rights council? Why don’t we just ring up a despot and ask him what he wants us to do? Hey, Kim Jong Il- got any foreign countries you’d like us to bomb? What’s that- Mauretania? You’ve heard they still practice actual bona-fide slavery? Sounds like a human rights violation to us. Bombs a-w-a-a-a-y!

Besides, let’s say Gaddafi stops attacking civilians. And then waits a week. And then starts again. Do we bomb him again? Well, that might be hard because nobody seems to know who’s in charge of this operation. Is it the British? The French? It’s certainly not the US because Obama doesn’t seem to know what he wants out of this.

In short, this must be one of the most half-assed military interventions of all time. Has there ever been one that was more confused and poorly led? At least when Clinton bombed a country you knew he was having problems at home. At least in Iraq Bush and his advisers had a totally unrealistic Utopian fantasy to inspire them. But this? I mean, what is it? No, really?

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Daniel Kalder

Daniel Kalder is an author and journalist originally from Scotland, who currently resides in Texas after a ten year stint in the former USSR. Visit him online at www.danielkalder.com