Another Grand Accomplishment
While an official ceremony of thanks and congratulations was conducted in Ottawa in appreciation of those of the Canadian Armed Forces who took part in the NATO-led Libyan campaign which the United Nations identified as needful of an no-fly zone to protect Libyan citizens from the rage of the country's tyrannical regime, there is much evidence that there was no 'right horse' or 'wrong horse' to back in this conflict.
Tribal wars are like that. Incendiary aggression from one or the other, each attempting mightily to vanquish the other, to achieve conquest and ascend to tyranny. Of course the West sees things differently, never having had very much experience with primitive tribal, clan-based societies. And themselves living in entirely other social circumstances where the rule of law applies indiscriminately and civil behaviour expected from everyone toward everyone else.
While it is undeniably true that Moammar Ghadafi was a dictatorial megalomaniac who encouraged and supported international terrorism, he was simply a more 'pure' manifestation in a more lethal form, than what is common enough in the Middle East and Africa, where tribal affairs inform everything. The Gadhafi regime is now past, although there does remain Gadhafi loyalists and because these are tribal affairs, restiveness will occupy the country indefinitely.
The National Transitional Council which is now tasked with the job of getting on with things and placing the country on an even keel, restoring 'normalcy' and building up a state apparatus and government that will at least lay claim to representing the wishes and interests of all the people of Libya, it is better said and less easy done. The outgoing regime, reacting to the threat against its longevity, committed atrocities against its people.
The incoming regime, represented by the sum of its many parts, was not in complete control of those parts which largely represents the interests of clans and the aggressive entitlements of tribes. Prison guards representing the incoming government were as brutal as those of the regime, in their treatment of those whom they suspected of being sympathetic to the regime. Torture, abuse, murder, all took place under the aegis of the NTC.
It is difficult to take the primitive impulse to destroy, to loot, to abuse and to kill away from people who are accustomed to expressing themselves in such fundamentally reactive ways. The extrajudicial dispatch of Moammar Gadhafi and his son and their retinue was a normal expression of tribal antipathy and revenge. This is what the humane intercession of Western powers through NATO intervention accomplished.
What was conducted in the interests of good global citizenship was, in effect, the ushering in of a mirror image of what had already existed. On a lesser scale, until eventually it grows into itself. There are other, earlier examples: Iraq, Afghanistan. Syria next?
Tribal wars are like that. Incendiary aggression from one or the other, each attempting mightily to vanquish the other, to achieve conquest and ascend to tyranny. Of course the West sees things differently, never having had very much experience with primitive tribal, clan-based societies. And themselves living in entirely other social circumstances where the rule of law applies indiscriminately and civil behaviour expected from everyone toward everyone else.
While it is undeniably true that Moammar Ghadafi was a dictatorial megalomaniac who encouraged and supported international terrorism, he was simply a more 'pure' manifestation in a more lethal form, than what is common enough in the Middle East and Africa, where tribal affairs inform everything. The Gadhafi regime is now past, although there does remain Gadhafi loyalists and because these are tribal affairs, restiveness will occupy the country indefinitely.
The National Transitional Council which is now tasked with the job of getting on with things and placing the country on an even keel, restoring 'normalcy' and building up a state apparatus and government that will at least lay claim to representing the wishes and interests of all the people of Libya, it is better said and less easy done. The outgoing regime, reacting to the threat against its longevity, committed atrocities against its people.
The incoming regime, represented by the sum of its many parts, was not in complete control of those parts which largely represents the interests of clans and the aggressive entitlements of tribes. Prison guards representing the incoming government were as brutal as those of the regime, in their treatment of those whom they suspected of being sympathetic to the regime. Torture, abuse, murder, all took place under the aegis of the NTC.
It is difficult to take the primitive impulse to destroy, to loot, to abuse and to kill away from people who are accustomed to expressing themselves in such fundamentally reactive ways. The extrajudicial dispatch of Moammar Gadhafi and his son and their retinue was a normal expression of tribal antipathy and revenge. This is what the humane intercession of Western powers through NATO intervention accomplished.
What was conducted in the interests of good global citizenship was, in effect, the ushering in of a mirror image of what had already existed. On a lesser scale, until eventually it grows into itself. There are other, earlier examples: Iraq, Afghanistan. Syria next?
Labels: Crisis Politics, Libya, Middle East, NATO, United Nations
posted by Pieface | 7:17 PM
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