The Other Side Of The Coin
A little earlier this week I posted on the death of Bin Laden. Sadly, it was not a very exciting post full of conspiracy theories (he has signed a secret pact with Obama to fake his death in return for silence, he never existed in the first place, Prince William was flying one of the helicopters et cetera).
Instead, I simply tried to make the moral case for what essentially was a state sponsored assassination. I still think that case is right and the act just, but on reflection there was something ironic about this. Because just before that event I had been composing a short piece on why I was most unhappy with what appeared to be the deliberate targeting of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.
A few weeks ago I posted on David Cameron’s powerful speech supporting direct military action, and mentioned how, with a heavy and reluctant heart, I was persuaded by what he had to say. But then I made clear that I had real reservations about yet another military adventure.
The position in Libya now seems to be something of a stalemate at best, and in any case volatile and unpredictable in the extreme. Support is ebbing away in the Arab world (if it was ever there) at amongst other matter the perceived hypocrisy of robust intervention in Libya, but inaction over the brutal repression of protest in Syria
Last week it seems possible that a NATO airstrike has killed members of Gaddafi’s family. To be precise his youngest son and also three of his grandchildren. Whilst it if fair to say that one cannot put complete reliance on reports from the Libyan regime, it is clear that a large amount of lethal ordinance was lobbed into somebody’s bungalow, with predictably devastating effect.
The initial response has been the destruction of the British Embassy, but I have to say that I found it quite surprising the Embassy hadn’t been trashed weeks ago. We are, after all, busily bombing the country as and when we deem it to be necessary.
Whatever NATO may say, there is no doubt in my mind that there have been attempts to kill Gaddafi, and that the recent incident is an illustration of that. Please don’t get me wrong, I would lose no sleep if Mr Gaddafi were to accidentally choke on his falafel sandwich and shuffle off this moral coil. The man is a nasty, murdering, psychopath. But I find it very hard to see anything in UN Resolution 1973 which permits the targeting of Gaddafi, wide though it may be.
At very best an attempt to kill Gaddafi this strains international law to breaking point. International law is a strange beast; it is a very different concept and demands very different considerations from what is ordinarily understood as law, but that need not detain us now. But on the whole the specific targeting of Heads of State is traditionally is a “no-no”. One might speculate that this is and selfish reasons, because those in power who are often so cavalier when it comes to issuing orders which mean that others kill and be killed don’t like the idea that they may themselves have a few ounces of lethal lead or shrapnel heading their way, but perhaps I am being cynical.
The argument that Gaddafi is legitimately in the firing line because he is directly involved in operations strikes me as a bogus one, unless he takes to the battle field armed with a machine gun. He issues orders, just as Dave from Oxford does when he authorises and directs British military actions. And the President of the United States in the Commander in Chief, for goodness sake. How much more “directly involved” can you get than that?
However, my point, and my rhetorical question is this: given that I have adopted a fairly robust line in the case of Bin Laden, why do I find myself so uncomfortable with what appear to be deliberate attempts to “take out” (don’t people just love saying that instead of “kill”) Gaddafi? Is it because Gaddafi had not mounted a direct attack on what I will loosely call “us”? Or am I merely intellectually sloppy and a hypocrite? If someone could explain I would be grateful and take the correction of my moral compass in good part.
Whatever the answer, we do seem to be spending an awful lot of time careering around other people’s countries killing people.
And consider this. Gaddafi is a man with a proven track record of terrorist action or support for terrorism. Indeed according to one British Court his regime was the prime cause of the biggest act of mass murder in these Isles when blowing up the airliner over Lockerbie. Leaving aside controversy over that issue, it is clear that he actively supported the IRA and perhaps others.
Now, assuming that Gaddafi is a vile ruthless murdering nutcase who is willing to use terrorism as a means of action, what, I wonder, might he be expected to do if cornered, attacked and he has his family killed in the process? Is it beyond the wit of man to imagine that he might perhaps use means which we might regard as a tad nasty and underhand to strike back, perhaps by some terrorist outrage?
The funny thing is that if Gaddafi did do something like that I could, whilst being appalled, almost see his point. I mean, he can say he’s got NATO planes buzzing round Libyan skies, he’s had members of his family blown to pieces: is he expected to just sit back and take it without fighting back with whatever under hand means he can use? So if Gaddafi remains in some form of power, can we be sure that some form of reprisal will not be in hand, perhaps, God forbid, on a grand Lockerbie style scale? The answer is: no.
I suspect that this thought has now crossed the minds of the great and the good, and had not been considered before. The tiger has been well and truly caught by the tail. And this illustrates the problem of the persuasive, principled stance that so many of our politicians have adopted over the past decade. Politicians who, I note, have been very eager to commit to wars without ever personally having tasted its horrid consequences up close and personal. The problem is that it is a nasty business, and always has horrible, dangerous and unpredictable consequences. Truly as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Here we are unable to commit to openly commit to regime change, but in all but name that is now the objective. Are we continuing to slide down a slippery slope, legally, morally and militarily once again? Perhaps it is time to recognise that we cannot always intervene, however persuasively the case is put?
Gildas the Monk
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:06 -
Who would have thought that a Bin would ever be “taken out” on a Bank Holiday Monday…
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:16 -
And was it laden…?
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:59
-
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:09 -
boom boom!
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:17 -
Clausewitz (or was it Machiavelli?) said, but not perhaps in exactly these words, that once embarked upon, war should be conducted with complete and utter ruthlessness with no effort to mitigate its horrors. It must be thus, because then every effort will have been made to win the war as fast as possible and bring the horrors to an end. In addition, the horrors might then give statesmen pause before they embark on another war.
David Cameron (and that Hungarian dwarf) is an almost total pillock with absolutely no understanding of strategic ends and means. And once again our almost totally useless Chiefs of Staff lack the guts to forego their seats in the Lords by resigning. Indeed, I suspect the Air Marshals (historically a particularly dim collection of muppets) were only too happy for a chance to play with their toys even if they know, deep down, that very little is achieved by airpower alone, as ‘Dave the Strategist-not’ is finding out the hard way, and the Libyan people even harder!
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:28 -
That is a point which I thought about, and is rightly made. It seems we get stuck in a sort of half way house; war, but a nice war. That is inherently unsatisfactory and prone to disaster
-
May 4, 2011 at 16:37 -
Very disapointed that we rushed to get involved in this. You would think that there should be enough collective wisdom left within Tory ranks, to point out that , even in the days when it was possible to send a gunboat , getting involved in a ‘domestic’, unless it was imperative to defend British interests, usually ended in tears.
-
-
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:35 -
I was quite shocked to see the destruction of the Ambassadors Residence.
I have been there 8 or 9 times to quaff tax-payer funded Gin & Tonic. I was also surprised that they did not arsonate* the building weeks ago.
*made up word. I like it.
On a personal note, my good friends and colleagues have managed to get away. My closest buddy, Walid, along with his wife and lovely two year old daughter escaped to Alexandria in Egypt. They will wait there until they deem it safe enough to go home. Which, at the rate things are unfolding, may not be for a long time.
Is the answer to take out Unkie Moummar and his six remaining sons and the delightful Aisha? If so, what are they going to do about his extended family in his home town of Sirte? These people, by association, have enjoyed a fantastic life for over 40 years. They will not let go of that too easily.
It is, in short, a clusterfuck.
CR.
-
May 4, 2011 at 12:48 -
The difference, in my view, comes down to the timing of the attacks.
With Bin Laden the actual attack was some years after his terrorist activity, but it has been going on since the start. With Gadaffi the attack started years after his alledged terrorist activity. Therefore there is a connection between the terrorist activity and the reprisal with Bin Laden, but not with Gadaffi.
The other difference is that Gaddafi is the head of a country. It doesn’t matter how he got there, he is recognised as the leader by many other countries. Bin Laden is just the leader of an organisation. Taking out a leader of a country by the leader of another country (or countries) is either war or assassination.
Now ideally in a perfect world Bin Laden should be captured, tried, and sentenced. But we don’t live in an ideal world. So the decision is is it better for the safety of society to kill him or capture him and which is easier to perform because in the real world you can’t wait for the perfect opportunity.
-
May 4, 2011 at 14:27 -
Perhaps another reason for the perceived difference is that in the case of OBL the deed was effectively face to face whereas the Gadaffi “attempt” was from afar so to speak.
-
May 4, 2011 at 14:43 -
Who Wrote this article?
Again I see Anna’s name at the top and Gildas at the bottom. Its very jarring when you think your are reading something from one person who’s arguments you have followed closely and you are thinking about what they are saying in the context of their previous arguments and discover it was possibly someone else when you reach the bottom. Sorry to kick up a fuss about a minor point, but this does seem to crop up more often.
-
May 4, 2011 at 14:58 -
I wrote it Kingbingo. If I can help, I do know that our learned editor has been working very hard lately on a number of problems and has other matters which have distracted her, so please forgive what is a very minor slip
-
May 4, 2011 at 15:04
-
-
May 4, 2011 at 15:02
-
-
May 4, 2011 at 14:49 -
In Bin Laden’s case the justificatory argument of pre-emptive self [group] defence is available. I can’t see that the same potential justification is available in targeting Gaddafi.
-
May 4, 2011 at 14:53 -
i think the problem is that lockerbie happened a long time ago and media didn’t saturate our lives back then. the fact that it happened in one incident and there was not the drip-drip of casualties also made it an instant shock. the media very rarely lingered on his involvement with the supply of arms to the IRA either so that the resulting deaths did not seem to have a clear link with him and us in Britain. his association with terrorism, fear and death is at a distance of time and impact and so we do not think of him in the same way as we think of Bin Laden who is a proper “bogey-man” of our time.
with Bin Laden his big atrocity, his “lockerbie” was in a time and situation where mass media was obsessed with it 24hrs and still is. he also had a very obvious hand in other large-scale atrocities and led immediately after 11-9 to a ridiculous series of costly wars in lives and money.
we still blame almost directly the seemingly daily announcement of deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan with his works – something that never came to mind with Qaddafi.
he also appeared in videos and speeches praising his struggle and works, something Qaddafi never owned up to in public.
it is easy therefore to me to understand why, for you and me and others, the thought of Bin Laden being targeted personally and executed is easier to swallow as he is so clearly and publicly linked with terrorism in our minds and recent memory when Qaddafi to the vast majority is generally just a nutcase who has done nasty things like most of the leaders in the region have done too….
-
May 4, 2011 at 15:16 -
“the perceived hypocrisy of robust intervention in Libya, but inaction over the brutal repression of protest in Syria”
Libyan Oil Reserves: 41 billion barrels
Syrian Oil Reserves: 2.5 billion barrels
[source: CIA factbook]cf. Iraq / Zimbabwe
-
May 4, 2011 at 15:35 -
Everyone here seems to be comparing the recent “taking out” of Ben Laden because of the Twin Towers attack with “prospective taking out” of Gadaffi because of the Lockerbie bombing.
We seem to have forgotten that today’s issue with Gadaffi is not supposed to be connected with Lockerbie, but his recent and current violent treatment of his own countrymen.
Discussing the “legality” of the taking out of Gadaffi has to be set against the current UN position, not Lockerbie.
Discussing the “morality” of the taking out of Gadaffi should be set against Lockerbie, in which case then morally speaking we should get on with it and to hell with the UN.
However I would advocate doing it with loads of stealth and strong deniability. -
May 4, 2011 at 19:08 -
To me there’s a moral difference between dropping a bomb on a house from 2000 feet, and sending a small team of soldiers room to room.
-
May 4, 2011 at 20:56 -
“Local children living near the compound said they often used to knock on the front door to ask for their football back when they had kicked it over.
One child said they never got their ball back – the security men always denied it was there – ”
I wish when I was 10, I could have called upon a team of Navy Seals to get my ball back. They would have knocked that sneering grin off Mr Walton’s face!
-
May 4, 2011 at 21:21 -
If our landlady’s suggestion in the previous thread comes to pass, you’ll get your balls back on your 40th birthday and not before!
-
-
May 5, 2011 at 00:09 -
Does it not all rotate on:-
1 death answers all things.
2. war is good for business. -
May 5, 2011 at 04:21 -
Oh death where is thy sting. Well just about everywhere really.
Those in power through out the world to a greater ot lesser extent use that power to kill others. Because they want to. Or because they perceive a threat to themselves or to their beliefs. Some we accuse: the mafia whether Russian or otherwise, extremist governments in the Middle East, Africa and South America, terrorists. Others we don’t accuse: Israel, the US, and the UK.
A couple of weeks ago in my blog I mentioned that the only way the UN could achieve its resolution was to kill Gadaffi. Couple of days ago my comment was that the only thing worse than assassination was a failed assassination. The former is probably so, the latter passes for Australian satire.
Is an eye for an eye justice even if it was two for around 6,400?
And what about drone attacks? They are illegal. They kill both the target and the innocent. After all a smart bomb is pretty dumb really and just kills anyone in range. Is the murder of those people, either bad guys or the good guys, any less or more objectionable or worrying to my conscience than the killing of Osama bin Laden?
You raise important discussion. For justice will only prevail while there are those who seek it.
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }