Libya's famed ancient Roman sites, including the sprawling seaside ruins of Leptis Magna, were spared damage by NATO during the recent airstrikes, says a London-based Libyan archaeologist .
Hafed Walda, a research fellow at Kings College, said Friday that he wants to "say thank you to NATO for achieving precision strikes" during its campaign to protect civilians from late dictator Moammar Gadhafi's regime[.]
The looting of Baghdad's museums is brought up. Although it doesn't mention that in the end very little was actually looted. Much was hidden, some was stolen, most was returned. And if American troops had shot a couple score looters in those first post-Saddam days, I doubt many people would have thanked us for sparing the pottery shards.
But I'm not here to continue the endless debate over whether to invade Iraq and overthrow the Saddam regime.
The point is, the "thank you" has a price that NATO did not pay, as I mentioned back in August:
Yes, our tepid aerial intervention killed few Libyans from the air (and no American or NATO personnel losses at all--which is great, I might add), but when fighting drags on because we didn't go for the kill, casualties naturally go up. Estimates from April count 10,000 to 30,000 Libyans dead for just a few months of civil war and intervention.
I think the latest claim from the new Libyan government is 25,000 dead. That may yet go down (or even up), since I have no idea how well they could track deaths in the chaos.
We can all be happy that the ancient Roman sites survived the revolution. Well, except the dead and their friends and families. The war could have been won sooner. That probably would have saved a lot of lives, even if we traded some NATO lives for the many more civilians who would have been saved. Perhaps that isn't a trade we should have made, I'll admit. But if you are a fan of responsibility to protect, you have to ask why we didn't protect more vigorously--and accept the responsibility for that trade.
And maybe, just maybe, have a kind thought for the American commander who orders an air strike that results in accidental civilian casualties when he is trying to reduce the risk to his soldiers in battle. The responsibility to protect extends to our troops, too.
