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Reformed interventionist David Rieff, who wrote the book “At the Point of a Gun,” which criticizes “the messianic dream of remaking the world in either the image of American democracy or of the legal utopias of international human rights law,” told me that after Iraq: “America doesn’t have the credibility to make war in the Arab world. Our touch in this is actually counterproductive.”
He continued: “Qaddafi is a terrible man, but I don’t think it’s the business of the United States to overthrow him. Those who want America to support democratic movements and insurrections by force if necessary wherever there’s a chance of them succeeding are committing the United States to endless wars of altruism. And that’s folly.”
He quotes John Quincy Adams about America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy ... she is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times
But the temptation is that it would cost so little to impose a no-fly zone while scoring a solid moral victory over a Lybian government that is using its military to crush its people. As mentioned in the column, though, it seems easy to get bogged down once drawn in and, moreover, you don't really know who you are helping, whether any winner would be any better than Qaddafi, which is also the concern about the Egyptian revolution, and with the region in general, that region of ceaseless sorrow. When struck, such as by a 9/11, we may feel compelled to hit back somehow someway, but short of that, a little humility may be the better part of wisdom. It's ugly any way you cut it without any clearly good answers.
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How perfect! In case one had any doubts about how easy it is to get bogged down in one of these little regional wars, Sully gives us this quote from one of the Neoconservatives' premier hawks, William Kristol:
He continued: “Qaddafi is a terrible man, but I don’t think it’s the business of the United States to overthrow him. Those who want America to support democratic movements and insurrections by force if necessary wherever there’s a chance of them succeeding are committing the United States to endless wars of altruism. And that’s folly.”
He quotes John Quincy Adams about America: “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy ... she is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times
But the temptation is that it would cost so little to impose a no-fly zone while scoring a solid moral victory over a Lybian government that is using its military to crush its people. As mentioned in the column, though, it seems easy to get bogged down once drawn in and, moreover, you don't really know who you are helping, whether any winner would be any better than Qaddafi, which is also the concern about the Egyptian revolution, and with the region in general, that region of ceaseless sorrow. When struck, such as by a 9/11, we may feel compelled to hit back somehow someway, but short of that, a little humility may be the better part of wisdom. It's ugly any way you cut it without any clearly good answers.
_ _ _
How perfect! In case one had any doubts about how easy it is to get bogged down in one of these little regional wars, Sully gives us this quote from one of the Neoconservatives' premier hawks, William Kristol:
I think at this point you probably have to do more than a no fly zone. You probably have to tell Qaddafi he has to stop his movement east and that we are going to use assets to stop him from slaughtering people as he moves east across the country. We might take out his ships in the Mediterranean. We might take out tanks and artillery."Two quagmires at a time should be plenty. Besides, considering how the whole region is going, it might be best to keep our powder dry, until we have a clearer idea of what is going on. Israel could be involved in a major war soon, or there could be another major terrorist attack that demands immediate retaliation.
