http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030803149.html?wpisrc=nl_pmopinions
On Libya, too many questions
By George F. Will
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
In September 1941, Japan's leaders had a question for Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto:
Could he cripple the U.S. fleet in Hawaii? Yes, he said. Then he had a question
for the leaders: But then what?
Following an attack, he said, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six
months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence" after that. Yamamoto knew
America: He had attended Harvard and been naval attache in Japan's embassy in
Washington. He knew Japan would be at war with an enraged industrial giant. The
tide-turning defeat of Japan's navy at the Battle of Midway occurred June 7,
1942 - exactly six months after Pearl Harbor.
Today, some Washington voices are calling for U.S. force to be applied,
somehow, on behalf of the people trying to overthrow Moammar Gaddafi. Some
interventionists are Republicans, whose skepticism about government's abilities
to achieve intended effects ends at the water's edge. All interventionists
should answer some questions:
a.. The world would be better without Gaddafi. But is that a vital U.S.
national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought
it was.
b.. How much of Gaddafi's violence is coming from the air? Even if his
aircraft are swept from his skies, would that be decisive?
c.. What lesson should be learned from the fact that Europe's worst atrocity
since the Second World War - the massacre by Serbs of Bosnian Muslims at
Srebrenica - occurred beneath a no-fly zone?
d.. Sen. John Kerry says: "The last thing we want to think about is any kind
of military intervention. And I don't consider the fly zone stepping over that
line." But how is imposing a no-fly zone - the use of military force to further
military and political objectives - not military intervention?
e.. U.S. forces might ground Gaddafi's fixed-wing aircraft by destroying
runways at his 13 air bases, but to keep helicopter gunships grounded would
require continuing air patrols, which would require the destruction of Libya's
radar and anti-aircraft installations. If collateral damage from such
destruction included civilian deaths - remember those nine Afghan boys recently
killed by mistake when they were gathering firewood - are we prepared for the
televised pictures?
f.. The Economist reports Gaddafi has "a huge arsenal of Russian
surface-to-air missiles" and that some experts think Libya has SAMs that could
threaten U.S. or allies' aircraft. If a pilot is downed and captured, are we
ready for the hostage drama?
g.. If we decide to give war supplies to the anti-Gaddafi fighters, how do we
get them there?
h.. Presumably we would coordinate aid with the leaders of the anti-Gaddafi
forces. Who are they?
i.. Libya is a tribal society. What concerning our Iraq and Afghanistan
experiences justifies confidence that we understand Libyan dynamics?
j.. Because of what seems to have been the controlling goal of avoiding U.S.
and NATO casualties, the humanitarian intervention - 79 days of bombing -
against Serbia in Kosovo was conducted from 15,000 feet. This marked the
intervention as a project worth killing for but not worth dying for. Would
intervention in Libya be similar? Are such interventions morally dubious?
k.. Could intervention avoid "mission creep"? If grounding Gaddafi's aircraft
is a humanitarian imperative, why isn't protecting his enemies from ground
attacks?
l.. In Tunisia and then in Egypt, regimes were toppled by protests. Libya is
convulsed not by protests but by war. Not a war of aggression, not a war with
armies violating national borders and thereby implicating the basic tenets of
agreed-upon elements of international law, but a civil war. How often has
intervention by nation A in nation B's civil war enlarged the welfare of nation
A?
m.. Before we intervene in Libya, do we ask the United Nations for
permission? If it is refused, do we proceed anyway? If so, why ask? If we are
refused permission and recede from intervention, have we not made U.S. foreign
policy hostage to a hostile institution?
n.. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton fears Libya becoming a failed state -
"a giant Somalia." Speaking of which, have we not seen a cautionary movie -
"Black Hawk Down" - about how humanitarian military interventions can take
nasty turns?
o.. The Egyptian crowds watched and learned from the Tunisian crowds. But the
Libyan government watched and learned from the fate of the Tunisian and
Egyptian governments. It has decided to fight. Would not U.S. intervention in
Libya encourage other restive peoples to expect U.S. military assistance?
p.. Would it be wise for U.S. military force to be engaged simultaneously in
three Muslim nations?
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