postscript to notes on libya

Postscript to the child's homework. The child decided that our motives in going in to Libya were not as we had stated, but that it had been worth going in anyway - and the intervention was justified.

Further questions to the child:

1. Is it important whether the new govt is likely to be better than the old, given what we know about them. Mustafa Abdul Jalil who now heads the Libyan interim government [National Transition Council] recently said in a public gathering, "We will not accept any extremist ideology, on the right or the left. We are Muslim people, for a moderate Islam, and will stay on this road. We strive for a state of the law, for a state of prosperity, for a state that will have Islamic Sharia law the basis of legislation."

2. The 'rebels' (now the govt) have engaged in large scale looting of weapons. Since many of those who supported the rebel movement were islamic radicals, it's likely these will be used against 'the west' in other wars. This is exactly what happened in Afghanistan: we armed and trained Bin Laden's men to get the Russians out (in the 80s) and this is now being used against us.

3.The 'coalition' (UK, US, France etc) have broken international law in supporting the rebels and in pursuing regime change. What message does it send to the world if some people are allowed to remove leaders they don't like (but not those they do), and others aren't. Imagine Iran or China or Russia sending in the bombs to support a movement to depose a leader and how we would react to that. The law only works if everyone - including those at the top - respect it, and are brought to justice when they fail to do so.

4. Almost certainly, Libya will be brought into the western fold as a result of Ghadafi going. The main reason they disliked him was because he was a maverick, a 'rebel' in not wanting western companies to profit from Libya's oil (and other resources) but instead wanting to use them internally (and to fill his own bank account). The experience of all other countries where this has happened is that Western companies pull the profits out of the country - and the people suffer.

5. What level of civilian suffering and death by the bombs used by the west would be acceptable to bring about a better regime. 3 deaths might be; would 3,000? 30,000? We're not aware yet of the damage that's been done by the bombing - and the war is still not over. If there is low scale combat over many years, the deaths will mount (and so will feeling against the west).

6. We always imagine that the only way to bring about regime change is to use force. In other words, we weigh up what Ghadafi was doing / might continue to do if he had stayed in power against the final result of getting rid of him. But negotiation, sanctions, withdrawing support and other means have worked in other places either to weaken support for a vile leader or to introduce changes into the way he leads. We used force against the IRA for many years to no effect. When we sat down with the terrorists, they were brought into the fold and (mostly) laid down their weapons. The South African apartheid regime collapsed partly as a result of sanctions; the Soviet Union collapsed partly as a result of different strategies (non military) by the west.

7. Even if it was worthwhile, justifiable, in terms of the result achieved - we could have done many other things with the money to save more lives, depose more brutal dictators (while at the same time applying pressure on Ghadafi's regime). We have chosen to spend a billion (? more?) on this cause, while allowing far more serious abuse to continue in other places. Would the Uzbeks think this a justifiable use of 'international aid'? (Perhaps that doesn't matter, if you think it's our money, ours to save the people we want to save but ignore the others)