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When I first wrote about the Libyan uprising and the US’ role in helping the rebels, I wondered about the reasons that Britain and France might have for a) wanting to help the rebels militarily, and b) wanting the US to help with their efforts.
Turns out that I’d seriously underestimated the magnitude of the Libyan refugee crisis that Gaddafi’s crackdown created.
How bad of a crisis? This bad: 400,000 persons have fled the country as of today. That’s out of a population of 6.4 million, meaning that one out every sixteen persons living in Libya back in early February has left Libya, very likely forever. 180,000 of that number had left, half of them for Tunisia, in the eleven days stretching from February 20 — when Gaddafi unleashed his helicopter gunships on protesters — to March 3.
Now, many of the refugees are themselves immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, and are simply returning to their own homelands. But many, if not most of them, are stuck in Tunisia and Egypt for the foreseeable future, joining displaced persons from Tunisia itself. And a fair number of them, not wanting to go back to their homelands — as one Nigerian immigrant to Libya said, “If our country was a very nice place to be, we would not have gone to a place like Libya” — are looking towards Europe.
In fact, there are a number on European soil already. Five thousand have landed at the island of Lampedusa, which though it belongs to Italy is much closer geographically to Libya. Over eight hundred have made it as far as Malta, and more are on the way to both Malta and Lampedusa, as well as other places around the Mediterranean Sea.
This exodus, on top of the Tunisian exodus, is starting to unnerve a lot of people, particularly right-wing nutjob politicians such as Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen (and who like her father is dismayingly popular in France), and commentators in Italy and France who like to periodically raise the specter of hordes of dark-skinned Africans overrunning the white people of Europe. Ironically, Gaddafi has used these fears to justify his continued rule, stating in December that “Europe will become black” if he is overthrown. However, the number of persons who have already fled as a result of his crackdowns has apparently made various European governments decide that they might be better off if Gaddafi were removed from power as quickly as possible.
So there you have it. No oil, no kowtowing to Al-Qaeda or the CIA, no imperialism, no US leading the rest of the world around. At its heart, it’s pretty much a desire to stop Gaddafi from causing even more people to flee and overwhelm the already-taxed refugee camps in Tunisia, much less Lampedusa or Malta. Whatever one thinks of the US’ involvement in a European and African issue, it’s not based on the motives so many people like to ascribe to it.
UPDATE: A quick note:
The number of refugees who left Libya in the eighteen days before NATO’s no-fly zone: around 300,000, at a rate of 14,000 a day.
The number who have left in the eighteen days since the NFZ was established to yesterday: around 100,000, or around 6,000 a day.
As I touched on earlier, one of the things that until now had made the European nations that make up NATO be relatively friendly to Gaddafi was his self-appointed role as the gatekeeper between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Playing on European racist fears, he worked to all but end unsanctioned African migration through Libya to Europe, he also has warned that “Europe will become black” through a torrent of uncontrolled refugees if he’s allowed to fall. However, since three times as many persons have fled Libya in the eighteen days before the NFZ as have fled in the eighteen days since the NFZ was established, his gatekeeper argument doesn’t carry the weight it once did among European leaders.
So again no, it’s not about oil or imperialism or cuddling up to Al-Qaeda. It’s about racism in large part, but it’s also about legitimate fears of seeing UNHCR efforts to keep Tunisian refugee camps, already swamped with Tunisian and Libyan refugees who can’t go home just yet, collapse under a swarm of Libyans fleeing Gaddafi’s crackdown, should he have been allowed to continue it uninterrupted. (In fact, when the rebels do well, many Libyan refugees take it as a sign they can come home; on the other hand, when Gaddafi does well, it increases refugee flow.)
76 Comments
Your first link says it about those 400K; half in Tunisia, and most of the foreign workers repatriated.
The problem for Europe is what; humanitarian?
Somehow, bombs by NATO are better?
If you were made of “anti-matter” I could not disagree with what you have said more.
In real estate it’s Location, location, location.
Qatar as we speak is playing middle man and cutting oil deals for western companies with the Rebels.
This is about Oil, Oil, Oil. Libyan sulfur free Oil.
With Gaddafi gone that would only leaves Iran and Venezuelan to go.
You know Phoenix Woman, that 5 min audio about the 400K refugees talks about people fleeing coalition airstrikes. I’ll say that again, people are fleeing coalition airstrikes.
At the 4:05 mark in the audio: ‘he fled on march 22nd after coalition airstrikes started hitting ‘
If Italy and France were worried about refugee’s then they wouldn’t be for bombing cities in Libya because it just makes the problem worse. It just makes it worse.
I asked her that very question already. During the “humanitarian” bombing of Kosovo, the real exodus of refugees began when NATO started bombing.
I await a realistic answer.
PW, Several notable articles to ponder…
Obama’s Libyan Rebels are Carrying Out Genocide of Black Africans
More Civilians, Including Children, Slain in NATO’s Libya Strikes
This ‘humantarian’ endeavor is not really humanitarian after all…! 8-(
I don’t really expect an answer, or even a reply w/regard to the coalition bombing creating even more refugees. But it would appear that your question/objection is not only logical but also a reported fact.
Of course. Pure genius. Bombing the hell out of people always convinces them to stay right where they are.
I’ll note in passing that one of the reasons why Qhadaffi was “rehabilitated” a few years ago was that he promised to do his utmost to stem the flow of illegal immigrants to EU from Central and North Africa using Libya as a jumping off point. A promise he kept.
markfromireland
The EU is complaining that too many brown people from Africa and the middle East are migrating north to live among them? Maybe if
the nations of Europe had not spent the last 200 years raping and
pillaging the Global South “these people”, would have a home where they were. Talk about Audacity,to suck all of the wealth (natural resources and human labor) out of these countries over the centuries, turn them into global waste lands and complain when refugees flee in your direction. You guys win the award for cosmic balls!
“So there you have it. No oil, no kowtowing to Al-Qaeda or the CIA, no imperialism, no US leading the rest of the world around. At its heart, it’s pretty much a desire to stop Gaddafi from causing even more people to flee and overwhelm the already-taxed refugee camps in Tunisia, much less Lampedusa or Malta. Whatever one thinks of the US’ involvement in a European and African issue, it’s not based on the motives so many people like to ascribe to it.”
Yeah, that’s it. Launching hundreds of cruise missiles and flying 1600 sorties is making people not to flee.
“Somehow, bombs by NATO are better?”
As opposed to bombs by Gaddafi? He was bombing his people well before the NFZ was declared; the first 180,000 refugees (actually, with 6,000 people a day leaving by by then, it was over 200,000 by the time the NFZ was declared) left before NATO’s planes showed up.
As for the 400,000: That’s 400,000 so far.
The problem for Europe (and the US) is that the refugee camps, which are sustained in large part by the United Nations (which Europe and the US do the lion’s share of funding), are already incredibly taxed as Tunisia is still unsettled and many of the Tunisians who fled their homes haven’t yet gone back to them. Tunisia is doing its best, but it simply doesn’t have the resources needed to keep the camps running — and it doesn’t want to have to be the permanent home for so many Libyan refugees, as would likely happen if there was a long, drawn-out rebellion.
So, even though Gaddafi has tried to make himself indispensable to Europe by both claiming to be anti-Al-Qaeda and the one thing standing between Europe and a flood of sub-Saharan and Libyan immigrants, the fact that so many left well before NATO showed up has weakened if not destroyed his “gatekeeper” argument.
I just gave one, up top.
There’s a reason I mentioned the fact that 180,000 refugees were gone by March 3. That’s because that’s nine full days before NATO got involved.
And with 14,000 refugees leaving each day at that time, that makes at least 300,000 refugees who left in the eighteen days from Gaddafi’s bombing and using helicopter gunships on protesters — protesters who soon became radicalized into rebel soldiers as a result — to when the NATO no-fly zone was put into place on March 12.
Meanwhile, in the eighteen days from March 12 to April 1, the refugee rate has slowed considerably, as far fewer (around 100,000 total) have left since the NFZ was created than in the eighteen days before. The refugee rate has dropped from 14,000 a day to 6,000 a day — still a tremendous amount, but far less than before the no-fly zone was implemented.
Gaddafi made and makes cynical use of both sub-Saharan Africans and the bigotries held against them, both in Libya and in Europe, where (as I’ve already mentioned in my post) he’s told Europeans that if he’s toppled, “Europe will become black”.
As even the author of your first (OpEd News) link admits, Gaddafi has indeed used sub-Saharan immigrants and mercenaries to do much of the scut work in attacking Libyans, as Libyans are less likely to fire on their own people (as the many defections from the armed forces show) and because he wants Libyans to hate the Chadians and Nigerians as much (if not more) than they hate him.
(By the way, much of what the OpEd News writer, Andrew Steele, states concerning genocide is likely somewhat suspect, being promoted by Gaddafi’s allies among sub-Saharan African leaders (especially Chad’s ruler, Idriss Déby, who owes his power to Gaddafi) who are happy to see him helping them deal with their burgeoning populations — and their own refugee and displaced-persons problems — by encouraging immigration to Libya; the writer himself admits that “No concrete number of total victims has been reported in the news”.)
One of the saddest things: While many of the Chadians in Gaddafi’s forces are trained and experienced fighters, some are horribly unlucky civilians with little or no training, and who have been essentially forced to fight for Gaddafi. This of course serves to blur the lines between actual mercenaries and Praetorian-Guard types and poor souls who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
None of this is, unfortunately, brand-new news, though people who object to the no-fly zone are now emphasizing this information in a way that they weren’t before it was declared.
(Side note: Gaddafi is known for his heavy involvement in sub-Saharan politics, and has tried to overthrow the government of Chad at least once. This has given him friendly relations with various Chadian groups, relations he uses to draw Chadians to Libya so they can be exploited as mercenaries, regular Army troops, and laborers.)
(Another side note: Israel (or at least the Netanyahu-Lieberman faction) apparently doesn’t want Gaddafi to fall, as at least one Israel company is being allowed to send him Israeli mercs to be part of his 50,000-strong mercenary force. Make of that what you will.)
Lost in all the tumult is this simple fact: the rate of refugees has slackened by nearly two-thirds, from 14,000 a day to 6,000 a day, since the no-fly zone was put into effect.
If Gaddafi can be at least made to stop his crackdown — and his sons have apparently taken the initiative to hold talks with NATO and rebel leaders in London, talks that pointedly exclude Gaddafi himself — then the prospect of the long, drawn-out, refugee-spurring pogroms (or a long, drawn-out, refugee-spurring civil war) may well have been averted.
It’s making 8,000 fewer a day flee, as I’ve just noted above.
The number of refugees who left Libya in the eighteen days before NATO’s no-fly zone: around 300,000.
The number who have left in the eighteen days since the NFZ was established to yesterday: around 100,000.
http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/2011/04/01/why-did-france-and-the-uk-want-us-to-help-them-help-the-libyans-400000-refugees/#comment-267143
Exactly. That’s part of his appeal to keep power — his threat that his removal would mean that “Europe will become black” due to an uncontrolled flood of immigrants. (There’s also a suspicion that he’s dumping a few hardened prisoners into the refugee mix, much as Castro used the Mariel boatlift to empty his jails and to blacken the good name of the other refugees in the boatlift.)
However, the fact that over 300,000 persons fled into Tunisia and elsewhere, taxing the resources of camps already dealing with displaced Tunsians and Egyptians who can’t go home as yet, in the eighteen days from the time Gaddafi started bombing protesters to the time the NFZ was declared (and only one-third that amount have fled in the eighteen days since then), has probably convinced people like Sarkozy that the best way to avoid a refugee flood (a flood that would possibly if not probably guarantee his far-right rival Marine Le Pen’s victory without the need for a runoff) is to get Gaddafi out as quickly as possible and hope that the Benghazi-based provisional government is capable of taking the reins over all of Libya. (Which is by no means a sure thing, but Sarko probably thinks there’s better odds for that than for what would happen should Gaddafi be left in place.)
Africa is being pillaged to this day, by various entities. China’s now moving in and working on turning large portions of sub-Saharan Africa into plantations, as the devastation wrought upon China by its “economic miracle” has not only made their air, land and water unhealthy, it’s caused most of the Himalayan glaciers that feed its major rivers — and drain a large portion of China’s arable land — to shrink dramatically. (The climate-change deniers have been chortling that the initial IPCC report, which was that all the glaciers were shrinking, has been “debunked”; somehow I find it hard to think that “most glaciers are shrinking” is much of an improvement over “all glaciers are shrinking”; it just delays the death sentence for the watersheds they feed, it doesn’t repeal it.)
And here it is: http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/2011/04/01/why-did-france-and-the-uk-want-us-to-help-them-help-the-libyans-400000-refugees/#comment-267142
As for “reported fact”: What is a reported fact in the comment of Kelly’s to which you responded, Captain?
And as for the idea, pushed heavily by various groups opposed to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, that Milosevic would have killed less people if NATO hadn’t attacked him: Um, no. The hardcore pushing by Milosevic of the Kosovo Myth among Serbians — a myth he pushed to raise his own political popularity, which was down in the low 20s at one point — was feared by observers to be setting the stage for the next Rwanda, especially since Milosevic’s generals had in 1995 massacred over 8,000 persons in Srebrenica in Bosnia.
Well, PW, I’ve noted my reservations about this fiasco, once or twice before…! *g*
How very humanitarian. Guess NATO incinerating these people was kinder and gentler than if Gaddafi had done it.
13 less rebels that Libyan loyalists can abuse. Mission accomplished!
Ah yes . . . the paranoid search for rationales for western assistance to the Libya’s rebels other than for humanitarian reasons. Must be tough to walk through life always thinking that the country you live in (and whose freedoms you enjoy) is the evil empire.
Lester Brown and Matt Damon had given an awesome report on PBS, that truly shatters our status quo ways, in that we need to act now in reducing our Carbon emissions by 80% by 2020 to save the Himalayas, and, what the socio-political ramifications will be if don’t collectively pull our heads outta our arses, most rickety-tick…! 8-(
I served my country for those freedoms. Can you say the same thing?
Have you heard what is happening in the Ivory Coast? My guess is you haven’t and you don’t care.
Is there a way for me to put certain myFDL authors on ignore? I have to read enough propaganda a day, that I don’t really wan’t to come to FDL and see it on the front page.
~~~Make no mistake: attempts to disrupt conversations will not be tolerated.~~~
Where do you live so I can call the police and report somebody holding you at gunpoint?
Umm . . . Margaret, sorry but you can’t pull the shallow”I served my country” argument with me, looks like we both wore a uniform. I wore mine with pride and honor, I truly hope you can say the same.
It’s even tougher to walk through life when the country you live in ACTUALLY IS an evil empire.
Although to be fair, I suppose it must be even tougher still to live in such a country with your head buried so far in the sand your asshole doesn’t even get sunlight in order to avoid facing that reality.
My sympathies.
Oh snap…! Have you ever carried a weapon for Uncle Sam…?
Yes, we are the ‘Evil Empire’ abroad…! We have too many ‘lilypads’ in our global pond, to the point that it is choking off life in that very pond…! 8-(
Of course I can. But you know the what the difference is between you and I? I don’t troll blogs making blanket assumptions about everybody and trying to disrupt conversations by attracting attention to myself while clearly you do. Your entire history here consists of nothing but doing just that.
Why do people dying in Libya merit aid from the gracious US but not elsewhere? You claimed that there were only humanitarian reasons.
This was supposed to be a response to let there be light.
Humanitarian?!! Somehow that’s not the alternative proposal to explain this flea-scratchfest that I was hearing.
This will be the first time that we are may be trying to stop this problem since Amerika has done this for all of its history. Think Reservation.
Just wondering PW what your view is about the MANNER in which we’re doing this.
Because I’m not a member of the means justify the ends folks and IMO no matter how laudible the ends are if the process you use to get there is wrong, then the act is wrong.
While I don’t oppose this mission, IMO it’s now wrong because of the fact that IMO we’ve done it in an unconstitutional manner. I know the War Powers Act was met, it’s just IMO that act itself is unconstitutional.
Was just wondering where PW stood on that issue.
Your right, I guess I should just stop reading FDL, goodbye
Here ya go.
Much of what I have read suggests an ongoing criticism of the Pres. for ignoring the Constitutional call/requirement for Congressional action….In other words, he abused his office is what I have seen in much commentary.
If, for essentially racists reasons the EU doesn’t want to be humanitarian and accept some refugees, fine. The British and the French and the Italians could do this so-called ‘no fly zone’ on their own.
You know how much respect I have for you PW. But I just can’t get behind slaughter, even in the name of preventing slaughter. Battelfields always have one thing in common: They are chaotic. Nothing is ever neat, nothing ever well defined. Apart from the hypocrisy and inconsistency, (which are valid points in and of themselves), I don;t think more killing is ever an answer to killing. Thanks for sharing your point of view though.
Good job hanging in there to defend your point, PW. FDL has evolved of late to a curious state, with so many commenters of the anal fundamentalist variety, as ignorant of context and current events as Obama himself, but as manichean as GWBush.
A-yep, and in many different ways.
China, for instance, is counting on Three Gorges Dam to supply power to various cities such as Shanghai. That’s going to be difficult if there’s no water to spin the turbines.
fairleft and I had posted two diaries that are great counterpoints, pataphysician…! ;-)
I’d like to express the very same notion too, to PW, Peg…! *g*
Here’s what the rebels themselves had to say about it:
There has been lots of muttering that the CIA is directing this from afar, or via Khalifa Hafter, who various folks (including 9/11 conspiracy site authors, who habitually call Al Qaeda “Al-CIA-Duh”) claim is a key CIA operative. One would think that the CIA would be doing a better job of coordinating efforts between NATO pilots and the rebels on the ground, if this were the case, so tragic accidents like this one wouldn’t happen.
Before you write anything on Africa you need to read some the History. The colonial rulers were better than the local rules they disposed, and better than the local leader after “independence.”
Try “Ladder of Bones”. That’s a good start.
Show me the daily counts. You are taking an average from one period of time and comparing it to an average of another period of time without seeing if there’s any relationship between the dates as a whole…like an initial rush to the exits once it is clear that an armed conflict is about to happen and then having things slow down once the initial rush is over. Also if for instance there’s a steady drop in X% of the population per day that would mean the rates would increase even though the daily response is the same. You have to prove causality that people in Libya heard about the no-fly zone and directly because of that, it stopped them in their tracks to wanting to stay in Libya instead.
You know FDL is having and affect when it become laden with trolls.
Bit like fleas on a dog, Irritating and need to be swatted.
“One would think that the CIA would be doing a better job of coordinating efforts between NATO pilots and the rebels on the ground, if this were the case, so tragic accidents like this one wouldn’t happen.”
No one wouldn’t. There’s been so many CIA screw-ups in various foreign countries over the years, that this would be yet another in a long line of screw-ups.
John Walker has a new post up top. http://elections.firedoglake.com/2011/04/01/can-labor-translate-youth-support-into-increased-off-year-turnout-find-out-tuesday/
I hate to say it, but there is the faint odor of blownback Gaddafi propaganda wending its way through the progressive community. My suspicion that sources close to the revolutionary movements in Venezuela and Nicaragua are uncritically passing on information flowing through those channels.
What Gaddafi has done is hidden the the cloak of secrecy surrounding his clampdown in western Libya and what the rebels have done good and bad, no matter how minor, is freely available to the international media. The massacre of Zuwarah and the seige of Misurata, both covered through breaks in the curtain of secrecy when international media were allowed access to file independently are ignored, the use of African technicals is ignored. But the few incidents of Libyans mistaking expat African workers for merceneraries is blown into stories of massive abuses.
American imperialism is real and there are imperial motives in America’s policy in the Middle East, including Libya. Reading this story as a line-by-line repeat of Iraq is a huge mistake.
You want some mistakes in what the US has done. Here are some: (1) the US assumed the lead role on the Saturday after the UN Resolution 1973 with Gaddafi’s troops being repulsed from the suburbs of Benghazi; the US then bigfooted the press coverage by providing briefing from the Pentagon of what was going on and in that coverage did the old here is the target, here it is gone routine that we have seen since Colin Powell briefed the First Gulf War—immediately frames the narrative as same-old, same-old regardless of what is happening on the ground. (2) The US continued these absurd briefings until NATO took over; why is it that the Canadians are not bigfooting the press coverage? (3) US diplomats were front and center in the press even when they weren’t the prime actors and David Cameron, Nicholas Sarkozy, William Hague, and Alain Juppe were the prime movers; (4) Obama continued his Latin America trip but did not say that he could do that because the UK and France were driving decisions of the coalition (looks like the US “sacrificing sovereignty” and all that). If the US indeed has Special Forces along with Egyptian Special Forces in eastern Libya training the rebels (the report is from one source interviewed on background by AJE), that is a big mistake. There are other nations that can train Libyans how to use Russian weaponry, the make of the captured weapons. (The report of this sole source said that new Katyusha rockets had been delivered to the rebels; if true this would make sense for how to arm the rebels but does not indicate any particular source except an arms dealer in Russian weapons.)
There is an intense propaganda war being waged both by the Gaddafi regime (what’s left of it) and the Interim National Council (the rebels). And the US, UK, France, and NATO are scrambling to keep up with both events and the effects of that propaganda in the independent media. For its part the independent media has been scrambling to find out what the truth really is (how refreshing). Add to that the fact that since the air strikes, neither the rebels nor the Gaddafi government know exactly what is happening outside of parts of Tripoli and the area around Benghazi. And no one, absolutely no one knows what the real wishes of the Libyan people are as to their future government.
The Cote d’Ivoire? There is already a UN mission there and the French are patrolling the streets of Abidjan. Liberia, which is just over its civil war, has a flood of refugees coming from Cote d’Ivoire. But the media knows very well what is going on there. The ICRC has access to all of the country. Caritas is providing humanitarian relief.
In Libya, the Gaddafi government will not allow aid organizations, including the UNHCR to provide aid to the areas inside Libya across from the Tunisian border. And has restricted the flow of refugees to the border. This according to the testimony of refugees who have made it to Tunisia anyway (it’s a long border).
As for Yemen and Bahrain, publicly cutting or threatening to cut US aid is not as effective leverage as threatening to cut US aid. And Saudi Arabia has imposed its own preventative for a refugee crisis by sending its military to Bahrain. And in Yemen, large peaceful protests continue and breakaway members of the Yemeni military have taken the responsibility for protecting protesters. A political stalemate but not yet a military one or a civil war. If the Yemeni politicians can’t hold it together, Yemen could turn into a mess.
Syria? Protests have just started. Assad for now maintains his legitimacy. Iraq? Holding snap provincial and district elections.
Each place is different. And in no place does the US control events for good, for ill, or for its perverted national corporate interests.
Ensuring that Europe does not get flooded with hundred of thousands of refugees from Northern Africa is humanitarian but it is also critical to the domestic political stability of European nations with growing anti-immigrant movements. And Nicholas Sarkozy is looking over his shoulder at the possibility of a National Front win in the next election. And David Cameron is interested in a foreign policy success to offset the coming failure of his austerity budget. Humanitarian, but not goody-goody humanitarian.
It’s wrong to infer that all these refugees were caused by Gaddafi acting in “Gaddafi’s crackdown.” The rebels have jumped on sub-Saharan people as being pro-Gaddafi subjects, causing them to emigrate. Call it one of war’s unknown-unknowns.
That’s deserving of a diary in itsself, Tarheel…! ;-)
He probably won’t answer, but I will:
The UN has had peacekeepers in Ivory Coast since 2006. Gbagbo tried to order them out in December, and when they wouldn’t obey him he declared them to be on the side of the rebels, though they have maintained their neutrality throughout their time in the country.
As for “Well, why can’t we do a no-fly zone just like with Libya?”
Ivory Coast is a few thousand miles away from the nearest NATO air base. Any NATO jets would need to be based on aircraft carriers, which when going full speed at 35 knots an hour would take at least a week to get close enough to allow for a no-fly zone to be set up. Furthermore, the NATO member nation most likely to wind up doing all of this would be the US, which is already stretched thin (another reason why we handed off the Libya mission to NATO last week, much to the disgust of Lindsey Graham and John McCain)
By contrast, the Mediterranean is ringed with NATO air bases and ports where aircraft carriers are stationed; Libya is only a half-hour flight from the NATO air base in Sigonella, Sicily, and French and British fighter jets would be doing the lion’s share of the NFZ patrol (with help from nations like Qatar).
It should come as no surprise, but here’s the backroom deal Obama made on Libya:
~~~link shortened to preserve margins~~~
Heh! I wasn’t expecting to see this MyFDL diary on FDL’s front page either.
I can answer just fine though apparently this site has a tendency to not post dissenting positions and my response was squashed. So much for the free exchange of ideas. As for Ivory Coast – though totally irrelevant to the conversation – but yes, yes I have heard of the ivory coast.
The manner? I think that Obama should have realized that the Saudis were never going to ship arms to the rebels, not when the Saudis are busy trying to prop up the Khalifas in Bahrain; that would have saved a great deal of time, and he could have gone to Congressional Democrats to try and make his case for intervention.
And while I can understand the Democrats’ anger and frustration — and agree with Conyers’ legislation designed to keep US ground troops out of Libya — I also think it disingenuous for the Republicans in Congress to say that they didn’t know what was going on when what he wound up doing was what they’d been after him to do for the entire month of February; their main beef seems to be his refusal to put boots on the ground and to let NATO take control of the NFZ mission after a week.
As for the constitutionality, IANAL, but it would seem that it all hinges on how one reads the War Powers Act (or War Powers Resolution) — which, surprise, surprise, every US president since the time it was passed over Nixon’s veto in 1973 has treated as unconstitutional:
Tarheeldem has contibuted a lot thoughtful comments concering our involvement in Libya. Too bad this one was EPU’d.
With oldgold and CTuttle – this is great diary material.
I’ve discovered that a diary is a good way to consign one’s thoughts to obscurity.
Great comment – indeed the “Arab awakening” is a bit confusing with some folks that were heroes of the left now on the wrong side – as in HAMAS – Hamas released a statement today expressing support for Syria’s ruling hierarchy in the group’s first public reaction to the anti-government protests in Syria. I would have thought they were for more freedom.
Hard to track tribal, sectarian, or whatever reasons for somethings. I love the energy and the bravery of the rebels in Libya – but have no clue how it will end – and if, when ended, if there will be more or less freedom. I do not see Osama’s folks being correct that they (or a “surrogate” like the Muslim brotherhood – which I do not even see as pushing the Osama view) will be getting more power from these activities – but I can easily be wrong.
I therefore really appreciate FDL’s shedding light on this stuff.
The majority of the people who have left so far are guest workers, not protestors. So your linkage of Gaddafi’s acts against protestors to the exodus from Libya seems rather warped.
Careful with the term ‘refugee’. As you already pointed out, a lot of these folks are just guest workers trying to return to their country of origin. Such people just need some transport help from the UN, they are not refugees. If NATO nations actually cared about the humanitarian aspect of the situation then they could kick the fat Europeans off the med cruise ships and start ferrying Egyptians stuck in Tunisia back to Egypt. They could also donate a lot of airlift capacity toward this end but that would be too much to ask.
For example, the UNHCR estimates as of April 1 that “160,000 people have crossed into Egypt from Libya, including some 83,000 Egyptians and 32,000 Libyans”. And High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres says that of the people headed into Tunisia, only maybe 4,000 have been Libyan. So this conflict has created what? 36,000 refugees to date?
http://www.unhcr.org/4d95c3239.html
Of that 36,000, do we really have strong data as to when and why they’ve left? I suppose some are on the outs with Gaddafi, others may fear CIA funded death squads or live in a likely battlezone. And others may fear the coalition raining hot death and depleted uranium down on their heads. Funny how we can get extremely nervous about a leak of toxins at a nuclear plant but if our military spreads the stuff around like manure then that’s humanitarian work in some peoples book.
If there’s been a fall off in people leaving Libya, that probably means that the guest workers have already left. And they’d be nuts not to leave a nation in the middle of a civil war.
But I suppose the coalition could bomb the transport infrastructure in Libya. That might indeed slow the flow of people out of the country.
Thank you, Margaret. Coming from you, this means a lot to me.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to see this front-paged, myself — I wrote it as a MyFDL diary figuring that it would get a few comments and then slowly slide off into oblivion. But I felt I had to write it, even if few would see it, if for no other reason than to correct a few myths as to why Obama joined France and the UK on this action: He did it for oil, he did it to show the world who’s boss, we’re helping Al-Qaeda, the CIA’s running everything, etc.
Speaking of which:
– the “it’s all about the oil” myth (then why doesn’t the US move into Ivory Coast, which has gobs of oil that’s been developed and is now arguing with Ghana over whose territorial waters hold a rather rich oil deposit? Or the Sudan and Darfur, where the Chinese have spent billions on extracting its oil?)
– the “they’re all Al-Qaeda” myth (the one Gaddafi himself loves to spread, but which is just not so)
– the “they’re all CIA” myth (again, it’s just not so).
– the “Imperialist Obama’s bullying the world again” myth (some bully — he largely was dragged into this by France and the UK).
As for the chaos of warfare: This one is indeed more chaotic than most, in part because most of the rebels were simply civilians not all that long ago, but who got radicalized when they lost loved ones to the crackdown. The lines between actual troops and kids who think jumping up and down and firing weapons into the air is “fighting” are still blurred, mainly because a lot of these people probably still are protesters at heart more than they are fighters:
The fact from the very first link which you provided in this diary:
http://fsrn.org/audio/thousands-migrants-stranded-transit-camps-libya%E2%80%99s-border/8295
At the 4:05 mark in the audio: ‘he fled on march 22nd after coalition airstrikes started hitting ‘
It would appear that airstrikes do cause people to flee the area.
If they’re guest workers on their way home, then they aren’t refugees. They are just folks in need of some sea/air transport home.
Kick the fat Europeans off the med cruise ships and start a UN ferry service between Egypt and Tunisia. That alone would cut the problem in half.
Add in some airlift and over 80 to 90% of the problem goes away.
To date, this crisis has produced roughly 36,000 Libyan refugees according to the UN. That’s 36,000 so far.
It includes people who left both before and after the bombing started. Everyone else who’s left either has a place to go home to or was already a refugee before this crisis even erupted (for example, there are some Somali’s who cannot go home).
The fact that guest workers leave a nation which is in a civil war should not be surprising.
Thanks, GG.
I don’t mind discussing the Libyan intervention with people who are making logical and reality-informed points that have involved experience, knowledge and actual cogitation; Margaret, for example, points out that war is by its nature chaotic and not “clean” in any way. I also accept as valid those arguments about the cost of the action, and whether it’s going to be used to further starve other parts of the budget (because of course while the Republicans were the biggest American cheerleaders for it, they sure as hell don’t want to raise taxes to pay for it, especially on the rich). Discussions on these points are useful, truly thought-provoking, and potentially fruitful.
What does bother me is when people automatically assume that any military action in which the US might engage is automatically wrong and then blithely state that it was done for oil, or for the US to throw its weight around just because it can. Or when people, in order to justify opposing intervention, state things that aren’t true, such as the idea that the rebels are all Al-Qaeda or led by Al-Qaeda, or that the rebels are all CIA or led by the CIA — as opposed to being mostly civilian protesters who were radicalized when Gaddafi killed their friends and family in his brutal crackdowns. (What’s really off-the-wall is when one finds people arguing that the rebels are both CIA and Al-Qaeda! That’s extra special.)
But then again, I’m one of the folks who still thinks America was right to enter World War II.
That’s what I thought, Tarheel. I really wasn’t expecting this diary to do anything more than get about a dozen comments, then slide slowly down the MyFDL sidebar.
Then I log onto the ‘puter after having supper and find out it’s been front-paged. Wow!
Agreed!
It is not always true that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Especially when that “friend” is an autocrat.
Somewhere you make a logic jump that Quadaffi is creating the conflict and the refugees and then sprinkled in that the total getting near Europe is 4,800. All this justifies for you the US participation in a war of aggression.
Wow, how are you justifying the use of depleted uranium and the US caused casualties. Your post reads killing is good. Is that really what you want to say.
I can never get over these motives put forward for “humanitarianism” by the U.S. because meanwhile back at the ranch we have almost complete disregard for innocent civilian lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. I didn’t mention Iraq because the apologists would pile on me and declare this was Shrub’s screw up.
I would add the fact that no one(in the Ivory C.) has asked for a NFZ.And I’m not aware of any aircraft or tanks shelling cities that a NFZ could stop anyway. That’s not to say what’s happening is not deplorable.
It is actually expected that the EU Council of Ministers will evoke directive 2001/55 for refugees from Libya at their meeting in April, 11. This would give refugees from Libya one year visas.
The interesting part of the April, 11 meeting will be the question of quotas. That has less to do with outright racism, but with the fact that housing thousands of refugees for a year tends to be expensive.
If the fear of refugees is the driving force for the no-fly zone, why is Germany (which will be destination of a lot of refugees) against the NFZ, and the UK (an island with almost no illegal immigration) so emphatically for a NFZ?
Eni CEO contacted Libya rebels-Italy minister
ROME, April 4 (Reuters) – The head of Italian oil group Eni Paolo Scaroni has discussed energy cooperation with the Libyan rebel movement in Benghazi in recent days, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Monday.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/libya-italy-eni-idUKLDE73318K20110404
Followed by:
Italy recognizes rebels as Libya’s government
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-diplomacy-20110405,0,2635367.story
What this all tells us, of course, is that this was all done for pragmatic humanitarian reasons.
Since Cole is censoring my replies, this is what I was replying to above:
Phoenix Woman says:
04/03/2011 at 4:02 pm
By the way, let’s debunk a few myths that are popular among the “Libya = Iraq” crowd:
– the “it’s all about the oil” myth (then why doesn’t the US move into Ivory Coast, which has gobs of oil that’s been developed and is now arguing with Ghana over whose territorial waters hold a rather rich oil deposit? Or the Sudan and Darfur, where the Chinese have spent billions on extracting its oil?)
http://www.juancole.com/2011/04/questions-for-glenn-greenwald.html#comments