In the weeks leading up to allied intervention in the Libyan conflict, I felt a growing anxiety for the people in Benghazi, Tripoli, and points between. It was frustrating to watch the UN and Western diplomats bat around details of military encroachment onto foreign soil while a burgeoning resistance movement was getting pounded into dust by Qadaffi’s complement of Soviet-era jets and paid mercenaries. We all felt that. And now that we’re in the middle of this conflict, we're all feeling some serious buyer’s remorse.
Why so much doubt? Money and ongoing military obligations are worth mentioning. Lack of moral consistency is a good reason to doubt the West’s intent. The idea of an innocent nation being crushed under the boot of some deluded madman is reprehensible. Some critics point to situations in Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, and several other locations, noting how they can be accurately described in those same terms. There is a fairly clear moral equivalence in these scenarios, but the impetus for the West to respond could not be more different. The endless factional horrors of Sub-Saharan Africa are as bad or worse as the situation in Libya, but lacking in several factors that lead to foreign military intervention. Oil is certainly important, but it’s not the only factor in play here. How important was oil to Southeast European intervention in the 90s? Freedom is something we all like. But how can we countenance friendly relations with thugs elsewhere? Trade relations rationalize all sorts of moral inconsistency, the world over.
An overlooked difference between our indifference to Sub-Saharan Africa is public consciousness. US and other Western powers decision to become embroiled in a given conflict has as much to do with the zeitgeist as it does to the acquisition of resources, ideology, or morality. US intervention in Latin America in the 70s and 80s, however cruel, moral, or justified, was driven in large part by its proximity to our shores. But proximity is only one factor that plays into public consciousness. US involvement in the Balkan conflicts, while far from home, were at the gates of Europe, in the same land that touched off the First World War. We choose our conflicts in large part by how strongly they are perceived by the global public. In many ways, it feels like we were bound to get involved in Libya, for better or worse. Why?
First, in case it you missed it, the past decade has been a running narrative of conflicts in the Mid-East. News out of that region has flowed in a ticker at the bottom of the TV screen ever since September 11, 2001. We have hundreds of thousands of Western troops scattered across the region, trillions of dollars in sunk costs from that military intervention, and trillions more tied up in our energy supply. Trade matters. Not to mention the ongoing low-grade menace of terrorism. With some small exceptions, none of this can be said of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Second, there’s Al Jazeera, Twitter, and Facebook. For whatever reason, these media are ubiquitous across the Arab world. No dictator can repress a story there. No citizen can be without contact with the outside world indefinitely. No story of victory or defeat can go untold in the West. All of the suffering and triumph is ours to witness, ours to ignore, ours to get bogged down in. People drown all the time, but few would ignore a drowning person if they were shouting for your help right in front of you. Oil and morality aside, these conflicts have an in-your-face quality that's impossible to ignore.
Third, something big is happening to this region. Really big. An elemental shift is taking place in nations whose political, social, and economic institutions have been stagnant for decades, if not centuries. Each nation’s story is different from the next, but an outcry is heard across them all. If we end up on the wrong side of this change, supporting callous and calcified rulers over the youth who will one day inherit their power, we will be in big trouble. Would sanctions and UN resolutions convince these people of our commitment? Would Qadaffi respond rationally to diplomatic approaches?
I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but I have trouble imagining a positive outcome emerging out of the West doing nothing. Regardless, even if Libya decays into a drawn-out civil war, endless tribal conflicts, or Somali-style anarchy, there was some inevitability to our involvement. We don’t have much of a vision for where things were headed, but who does? We don’t have control over the situation, but we have considerable influence, and in such a fluid situation, how smart is a solid plan? Is public distaste for another drawn-out foreign conflict enough of a counterweight to the prospect endless involvement in Libya? Maybe, maybe not. Will the French and the British take things over? I hope so. I have a lot of doubt about where this is going, but what were the alternatives to the path we took?
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