... is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I've been reading a lot of diaries and comments about Libya and our involvement there. One common refrain from those who oppose our action looks like this:
"And what about Bahrain, or Yemen?" (or Ivory Coast, or Iran, or Sudan, or China, or .... the exact list varies). "Why should we fight in Libya, supposedly on humanitarian grounds, and not in those other places where peaceful democrats are being killed?"
I want to address, specifically, this objection here.
First, let me state my positions: I support US action to prevent the Libyan army from overrunning rebellious cities. I'm uneasy with broadening that objective to regime change. I'm glad that this is being done in an international context. I don't know how it's going to end; but sometimes you have to "just do the next right thing", and it's pretty clear to me that stopping a slaughter in Benghazi and Misurata is the right thing.
But to get to the point. The objection, "Why here and not elsewhere?" is used in a couple of ways, some of which I think are more legitimate than others. Sometimes it's to question US motives. "This inconsistency proves that our motives are not really humanitarian, they must really be ___." About oil, typically. US motives should be questioned. We have not always acted benevolently. This is the best-case use of the argument.
But "this inconsistency" doesn't prove anything about our motives in any particular case. No one claims that we make decisions based solely on humanitarian grounds, regardless of their costs, prospects to make things better vs. risks, etc. It's entirely reasonable to say, "The outcome in X, absent intervention, will be a humanitarian disaster; the outcome with intervention is uncertain, but likely not nearly as bad, and intervention will likely carry a moderate cost. The outcome in Y, absent intervention, will be a humanitarian disaster; however the outcome with intervention is likely to be as bad or worse, and/or intervention would carry a high cost. Therefore, we intervene in X but not Y."
More generally, the objection "Why here and not elsewhere?" is being used to try to discredit those who support intervention. "Your position is not consistent across situations, therefore your position in this particular situation must be flawed." And I keep thinking of another quote:
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
People who make this argument -- pro-intervention in Libya should imply pro-intervention in Bahrain, Yemen, etc. -- are essentially saying that everything
should look like a nail.
Our "hammer" in this case is air power and cruise missiles. No one (wisely, I think) is advocating for ground troops. Tanks and artillery sitting in the desert, shelling rebellious cities, make a pretty good "nail". The tool at hand is well-suited to stopping heavy military vehicles from operating in the open. In Bahrain, riot police have been using shotguns in an urban square. In Yemen, snipers were firing from residential buildings. Neither of these look like very good "nails" for the hammer of air strikes.
Fortunately, this hammer isn't the only tool in our toolbox. We have a lot more diplomatic leverage over Bahrain than we've ever had over Libya. And when the Bahrainis shot a bunch of protesters a few weeks ago, we leaned on them and it seemed to work (at least for a time). We should be pushing them to make accomodations, or we find somewhere else to base the Fifth Fleet. Or we publicly denounce them and call for UN censure. Or we impose economic sanctions. I hope more of this is going on behind the scenes than is visible to us peons. Maybe not; US policy is not always enlightened. The point is, whether we're actually using these tools or not, they are the appropriate tools for the situation, not the hammer of air strikes. In Libya, we've denounced and censured and sanctioned and frozen assets, and it's simply not the right tool. We don't have diplomatic leverage. But those tanks and artillery are sitting there, shelling cities.
The bottom line is we shouldn't expect identical responses to human rights abuses in differing circumstances. To the extent that objectors are challenging us to inspect US motives carefully, I agree. I think the action in Libya will withstand that inspection. To the extent that they're trying to de-legitimize support for action by creating a straw-man standard of universal response .... well, not everything is a nail. But some things are. A hammer doesn't have to always be the right tool, to sometimes be the right tool.
lilnev
p.s. I know passions are high on this topic. Please keep comments civil.