It is interesting, including the notation of the fact I mentioned once or twice that we took the UNSC resolution authorizing us to protect Libyan civilians and twisted it into regime change. Mind you, as a card-carrying knuckle-dragger I found some amusement in that. But why the defenders of the sainted-international community aren't outraged by President Obama's ploy remains beyond my limited capacity to understand nuance.
But this is really fascinating:
Regardless of the military successes of the campaign – helping depose Qadhafi at little civilian cost – Libya provides little in the way of a widely applicable model. It is important to bear this in mind as the unfolding crisis in Syria rumbles on, or new ones develop. [emphasis added]
In what Euro-fantasy world do you have to live in to believe Khaddafi was deposed at little civilian cost? Estimates are that perhaps 30,000 civilians at the top estimate died in the civil war.
It is fascinating that the authors really believe that if the coalition didn't kill many, then effectively nobody died.
I will admit that this point is right:
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of military diplomacy was the evident need to avoid civilian casualties at all costs. The operation was in pursuit of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 that was designed wholly to protect Libyan civilians. Nothing could have derailed the operation so quickly in the minds of a non-committal public at home, and of Libyans themselves, than civilian casualties among those the operation was explicitly mandated to help. Not least, with NATO unity in such a shaky state, one or two nasty mistakes, of the sort that occurred in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, could have split the Alliance wide apart.
Indeed, I kept expecting such a nasty mistake to occur and split apart the alliance. I at least expected Khaddafi to be better at manufacturing a good fake atrocity if he couldn't actually trick NATO into hitting a civilian target. A better class of dictator could have pulled either off.
Have no doubt, that civilians who died after the first month because NATO wouldn't land a division in Tripoli to chase Khaddafi out of office, thus ensuring a longer war, died just as much as if NATO collateral damage had killed them in a shorter intervention. If this is "responsibility to protect," God help us all when the sainted international community arrives and says they are here to help.
But in Euro-world, the only thing that counts is that nothing can be pinned on them. Fascinating.
