Libyan Civil War Megathread

[The Brain]

Doing the right thing is often a terrible idea.

[Sheilbh]

If we really wanted to help the Libyan rebels, then maybe we should have, as someone else here or on Paradox suggested, suddenly have found that they were able to buy stingers and anti-tank missiles on the market ...

It's interesting that ensuring this was highlighed by Malcolm Rifkind as a good policy for Libya and an absolute failure for Bosnia.

State sovereignty is not at issue in Libya because the institutions of the state have disintegrated with many key components either joining the rebels outright or retreating into ambiguity.  What is left is basically a extended Mafia-style family and their hired goons who are using force to systematically loot or destroy the remaining assets of the state on the ground.

Well to be fair a mafia style family using force to loot the assets of the state describe a whole number of Middle Eastern regimes not in a state of collapse and describe Libya prior to the current conflict.  That's not me making a 'why not Saudi Arabia' comment, I don't buy that argment. 

[Admiral Yi]

It wasn't ignored by the congressional authorization of force that Hansie keeps talking about.  That authorization was explicitly based on the alleged findings of WMD risk and a Presidential  declaration that Iraq was not complying with the UN enforcement mechanisms.

That's a very lawyerly turn of phrase.

[Neil]

I second Martinus' point here.  Several cabinet ministers and the UN delegation declared for the rebels.  The Central Bank governor went incognito for a while before resurfacing to say he was prepared to cooperate with the international sanctions regime.  Meanwhile, on the other side, Qadaffi himself has no official government position; nor IIRC does any member of his family.  There is no quasi stability here; there is an organized crime family using violence and intimidation to assert control over a state.

He's a colonel, which is a government position.  Doesn't he also hold some sort of title like 'Guide of the Revolution' or something?  I don't think it's appropriate to project your ideas on government structure on a country with no rule of law.

[derspiess]

There are plenty of significant differences between this and Iraq, but Obama's rhetoric on the issue has been so wishy-washy and aimless that it could be interpreted almost exactly like Bush's nearly-equally-ambivalent commentary on Saddam Hussein and the conditions in Iraq.

The vibe I've been getting from Big-O is less, "here's the problem, and here's what we're going to do about it," and more, "yeah, there's a problem, so I'm going to go with a cookie-cutter response because I don't know what else to do."

I'm still trying to get my head around what is going on.  I was dead wrong late last week when I said I thought the administration was spouting empty rhetoric & hoping nothing would come of it.  One thing that strikes me about the administration is how uncoordinated everyone seems to be.  You hear widely divergent statements coming from Dept. of State, Dept. of Defense, the press secretary, Obama himself, etc., etc.  I've never seen an administration so lacking in coordination when it comes to foreign policy.

[Grinning_Colossus]

I'm generally pro-Obama, but I agree with you. They don't have anything close to the media control that the last administration seemed to have (reports of Obama telling congressional leaders that there'd be no raids by U.S. aircraft on Libya -- followed by B-2 raids a day later), and that's a significant failure.

[Ed Anger]

OPSEC sucks with this operation. The Air Force needs to accidentally shoot a couple of reporters.

[Savonarola]

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'Allah for Libya, Freedom and Snickers Bars!'

Libya Dispatch: Rebel Twinkies fuel the struggle
By Abu Ray March 22, 2011 at 12:56 PM Share
An alternative use for ammo
Napoleon famously said an army marches on its stomach, and in the case of Libya's rebel forces, that would be tuna sandwiches, fava beans and a lot of junk food.

As Western air strikes are restarting once thoroughly defeated rebel advance, the once weirdly successful aspect of their rag tag forces should be gearing up again -- their food supply lines.

Like everything else about the uprising in eastern Libya seeking to challenge Moammar Gadhafi's four decade hammerlock on power, the fighters' food supply was an ad hoc affair of entreprising individuals and local charities with official sanction that somehow seemed to work -- even when nothing else really did.

Rebel checkpoints always featured cases of bottled water, juice, piles of bread and plenty of junk food such as biscuits and packaged cupcakes that fighters can grab and throw into their pick up truck before taking off for the front.

"We never run short of food, we have good kids from Benghazi who come and bring it down to us," said Mohammed Selim, 23, as he cleaned up the empty boxes of Twinkies, cookies and sugary juice drinks piled outside a rebel checkpoint in the oil refinery town of Ras Lanouf, two weeks ago before they were driven out.

As the furthest point of their advance, the rebel forces clustered around Ras Lanouf for almost week, giving birth to the most advanced food distribution point along the front.

According to the rebels, the food comes to the checkpoints in regular deliveries, partly organized by the provisional council running the eastern cities, but also in a large part due to efforts by individuals.

Many people who don't want to actually pick up a gun and join the fighting, instead go to nearby towns, stock up on staples like bread and tuna -- as well as plenty of junk food -- and deliver them to checkpoints.

"Now we are eating Snickers bars, before we could only just look at them in the store," said Ayman Ahmed, a 23-year-old volunteer for the rebel forces who together with a group of friends took over the abandoned house of a oil refinery worker in the Ras Lanouf residential area.

"We are really experiencing freedom now," he said, in a living room filled with discarded juice boxes and wrappers from packaged sweet cakes.

Before the rebels were driven out, the center of their food network in Ras Lanouf town was the aluminum and glass guard house at the entrance to the neat houses and villas of the oil complex.

No one ever found the key, so to get in and out, those passing out the food had to climb through the windows they had forced open.

Inside the kiosk was filled with stacks of biscuits, boxes of juice and milk and two enormous stainless steel dispensers brewing tea for the troops.

"We are volunteers who came here and took on the responsibility of handing out the food while others pick up weapons and stand guard outside," said Walid Abu Hajara, a cheerful 27-year-old from Benghazi, who has been managing the makeshift kitchen for the last three days.

Together with Selim and other volunteers they made fava bean sandwiches for the fighters' breakfast and in the afternoon stuffed tuna into the loaves for lunch.

"We have a problem with the supply of bread," admitted Abu Hajara, referring to the crunchy short-baguette style Libyan bread that is the staple of any meal. "We have people that we call when we run low -- we even call members of the council."

One of his fellow workers shushed him, told him not to admit to the journalist about any shortcomings and only say that everything was fine.

Less than half an hour later, though, the bread appears and fighters can be seen pocketing several loaves each, along with wedges of processed cheese.

With the lack of logistical organization of the rebels' regular armed forces and the flood of volunteers to the front, this largely charitable food drive is vital to keeping rebel fighters functioning.

There are also little in the way of grocery stores in the remote towns strung along the desert coastal road of Libya's barren center.

To a large extent, the informal food network grew out of the flood of charitable endeavors that sprang out of the euphoria of the Feb. 17 uprising against Qadhafi.

Longstanding eastern Libyan traditions of hospitality and generosity have blossomed with the successful throwing off of central government control and everywhere people are handing out food.

Outside Benghazi's courthouse, where day and night there is some sort of gathering commemorating the demonstrations that faced down the police more than a month ago, food is regularly provided.

Elsewhere in the city, kitchens prepare a steady supply of meals for the poor and needy.

At a gas station on the road to the front, a man handed out packets of dates stamped "a gift from Jalo for the Feb. 17 revolution," referring to desert town far to the south.

At another stop, a local patiently gives out prepared sacks of food to passing motorists, even journalists, containing tuna sandwiches, an apple and banana and a twinkie.

"We eat whenever people bring us food or we go to the checkpoints," said Ali Youssef, a tall thin 22-year-old fighter who's been living on the front for weeks. "The food is, well, war food, but it's okay," he said with tentative smile. 

His favorite dish is a Libyan pasta and tomato sauce specialty, and surprisingly hot cooked meals are not a rarity for most soldiers. Many say they eat chicken or lamb at least once day, once again thanks to local efforts.

At the Brega Hospital, where doctors wait for the latest dead and wounded from the fighting at Ras Lanouf, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west on the coastal road, a young man in a scout uniform hands out meals.

The foil boxes contain rice and a fairly substantial piece of beef supplemented with more Libyan loaves.

"My mother and my aunts, all of us worked on it together and we distribute it to the hospital, to the revolutionaries and others," said Essam al-Hamali, as he handed out the meals to waiting doctors in blue scrubs.

He said today he and his family and fellow scouts put together about 700 meals.

Other days, fighters say people just show up with aluminum pots filled with rice or pasta topped with meat or chicken.

For Muftah Momin, a young fighter sharing the abandoned oil workers house with his friend Ahmed, it's not the hot meals, however, that really stand out.

"You get the best honey here," he said, offering of spoonful of it. "This is the fuel of the revolution, provided by the council."

[Ed Anger]

Is it a candy or a sweet?

[DGuller]

So looting Snickers bars is now the definition of freedom?

[garbon]

I'm generally pro-Obama, but I agree with you. They don't have anything close to the media control that the last administration seemed to have (reports of Obama telling congressional leaders that there'd be no raids by U.S. aircraft on Libya -- followed by B-2 raids a day later), and that's a significant failure.

Yes and look at what happened to that "control" as the years of the Bush Administration went by...

[The Minsky Moment]

It wasn't ignored by the congressional authorization of force that Hansie keeps talking about.  That authorization was explicitly based on the alleged findings of WMD risk and a Presidential  declaration that Iraq was not complying with the UN enforcement mechanisms.

That's a very lawyerly turn of phrase.

I was referring to the action of lawmakers with respect to a legal document, so that is to be expected, no?

It is true that the resolution does not say force can only be used if the WMD are found to exist.  That would not make sense.  However, the whereas clauses in the resolution are directed principally at the Iraqi WMD program.  Indeed the only thing the resolution specifically identifies as a threat to US national security is "continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations"; all assumptions that later turned out to be either untrue or exaggerated.  The operative clause of the resolution - the one actually authorizing force on Iraq - is specifically conditioned on a Presidential finding that additional diplomatic measures would be insufficient to protect the national security of the US (previously identified as stemming primarily from the alleged WMD capability) and to enforce the UN resolutions (also directed to the WMD program).

To say that the WMD claims did not play a significant role in Congress' decision to authorize force is just as much revisionist nonsense as "Bush lied, people died"

[The Minsky Moment]

He's a colonel, which is a government position.  Doesn't he also hold some sort of title like 'Guide of the Revolution' or something?  I don't think it's appropriate to project your ideas on government structure on a country with no rule of law.

I think he is a retired colonel, it's just an honorary title.  He is "Guide to the Revolution" but that is not a governmental position.  There is a whole governmental structure based on councils which then nominate higher councils and eventually government ministers and he has no position in that structure. 

Your latter point is well taken; however, it just reinforces the lack of some claim of legitimacy based on state sovereignty.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well to be fair a mafia style family using force to loot the assets of the state describe a whole number of Middle Eastern regimes not in a state of collapse and describe Libya prior to the current conflict.  That's not me making a 'why not Saudi Arabia' comment, I don't buy that argment.

There are degrees of kleptocracy.  Many of the princely or monarchical middle eastern states make some attempt to create a civilian sphere with some semblance of the rule of law.   That never really existed in Libya and now that whatever passed for civil society in that country has rejected the Qadaffi dons, the fiction is laid bare.  The Gulf regimes, whatever their many faults, are not at that level of extreme.  If you were to ask "why not Syria" I would tend agree - other than for practical reasons of expediency, I can't see any need to respect the "state sovereignty" of the Assad criminal organization.

[KRonn]

Well to be fair a mafia style family using force to loot the assets of the state describe a whole number of Middle Eastern regimes not in a state of collapse and describe Libya prior to the current conflict.  That's not me making a 'why not Saudi Arabia' comment, I don't buy that argment.

There are degrees of kleptocracy.  Many of the princely or monarchical middle eastern states make some attempt to create a civilian sphere with some semblance of the rule of law.   That never really existed in Libya and now that whatever passed for civil society in that country has rejected the Qadaffi dons, the fiction is laid bare.  The Gulf regimes, whatever their many faults, are not at that level of extreme.  If you were to ask "why not Syria" I would tend agree - other than for practical reasons of expediency, I can't see any need to respect the "state sovereignty" of the Assad criminal organization.

Apparently the populations of many Mid East countries are coming to similar conclusions, that their problems are created by their bogus governments. We don't see anti-West slogans and movements in these nations, at least not in their initial calls for reform or in protests in the streets. Even Syria is having some small protests. Years ago the previous ruler massacred thousands of protesters; that may not be so doable now with so much changing and so many in the world watching.