Firstly I want to make a disclaimer, that I by no means want to defend colonel Gaddafi, he is a lefty and one with loads of personal problems (just look at his unit of virgin bodyguards). All that I want to do is to rise questions about the ‘Wests’ intervention in Libya.
For the last couple of weeks there is loads of noise in the media about Libya. There was loads of mess in Northern Africa and even beyond, but the Chinese government seemed efficient at handling it (whether that is good, that is a separate issue). Now we are dealing with a intranational conflict with a lot of international attention. People (i.e. mainly the media) are shouting all sorts of abuse on Gaddafi being a dictator, at the West for either not intervening or for doing the wrong thing. People seem to trow all sorts of arguments for who is the good guys and who is the bad guys, including some bizarre arguments about bringing democracy to the Libyan people which I do not get as in general countries seem to have greater problems than their voting systems. As most conflicts of this scale, they are quite complex and I think that the comparison with a domestic (husband - wife) conflict is quite appropriate.
Colonel Gaddafi, who officially does not possess a title of a ruler, gained power over the country 42 years ago, by overthrowing the monarchy established after the end of the Italian occupation. He conveyed his rule as a dictator with leftish tendencies, included th usual murder and persecutions. Recently he started to put some reforms, that hinted on a will of change, on a longer range possibly in a Chinese style, but we will probably never get to know that, as if he wins, he will likely be not to co-operative with the West (possibly not even with the Arab states as there is some support from them towards the Rebels). His regime, like most, was/is full of murder and rape.
The Rebels are not very quantifiable, though there exists some sort of opposition/alternative government, it seems like a significant proportion of those people do not have a clue about who their leaders are. They seem to be also performing some vigilante stunts in the towns that are in their possession by performing some brutal searches, interrogations and killings of people who they suspect on being on the colonels site (not really surprising in such a stressful environment). As much as Gaddafi is fighting to stay in control of the country, except some notions of freedom I have no clue what the Rebels are fighting for, but freedom does the job for me for the moment.
Now the UN for some reason seems to be the ubergovernment of the world and whether for the better or worse it decides to interfere in the works of sovereign governments (though if they signed up to it in the first place, its kind-of their fault). We might agree with the Rebels or Gaddafi or with non of them, but what is the authority by which other countries intervene into sovereign states? Governments are paid by taxpayers money to deal with their problems, not with those of other states, and most of governments have enough problems doing that and understanding the inner workings of their countries, not to mention their knowledge of those in other regions of the world. Thats the business of the people of the country and it seems that in this case some of them took it seriously. And who decided that the Rebels are right? I am personally not supporting Gaddafi, but those are important questions to be asked. Are Rebels the majority and is the majority always right? What are their arguments? On what basis did the UN decide on this type of intervention? And what are the plans for the Libyan oil? I do not know the answers to those specific questions, but they had to be asked at some point by someone and as I wrote on the issue of truth, it would have been helpful to know them.
You can look at the conflict from the eyes of Gaddafi, the rebels or the other countries (which we could further divide). In judging what is the best solution we should be looking at what solution seems to be just/fair, I do not think we should be judging it e.g. by what is best for the West e.g. which solution is best in reducing the influence of fundamentalistic Muslims on Europe. I think that personal freedom is very important. That is my main problem with most political regimes, they take away this fundamental element from human lives, though I might be a little bit sentimental as half of Polish history seems to be a struggle for freedom. As much as stoping bloodshed is a nice romantic idea, current interventions do not seem to be stoping that from happening, but I guess people tend to care less about soldiers dying than about civilians, probably since the first group is payed to live with that risk. Supporting negotiations is definitively a good thing, that is for sure, the problem is whether the provisional Libyan government is a true representation of the Rebel leaders. Efforts of getting humanitarian aid back to Libya are also definitively good, there will be tons of people requiring medical aid or shelter and a substantial amount of that aid will be delivered in a neutral way, due to the way how organisations like the Red Cross function. As I mentioned above, I do not thing foreign states have a moral obligation to aid those people in the boundaries of Libya, what happens with them outside its borders, that is a separate issue. There is sadly no way that Gaddafi will suddenly decide to put through libertarian reforms and neither do I believe that people should be forced to seek freedom outside their home land, since it is their land. The whole thing would be much easier to judge if it was a private military organisation that was asked by the Rebels to intervene, but since this is not the case and most likely will not be, we may discard the idea (so far the only mercenaries involved, of which I am aware, are on the side of Gaddafi and it is due to them that part of the Libyan army decided to join the Rebels). Supporting the rebels with weapons is once more taking sites and rises the question of who and on what grounds should be doing it (and who would be paying for it)? So far it seems like the only solution that does not seem to breach any rights of any of the sites is to allow the Rebel side to disperse into neighbouring countries and allow to organise some underground opposition (but on who's expense). To be honest I do not know what the best and fairest solution is, but I hope that this posts will help you, dear reader ask yourself some important questions about this and other international issues. (For the interested, you can read a short stance of the Catholic Church on war in points 483-486 of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church)
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