The Quiet Man makes a similar point to the one I made a week or so ago regarding intervention in Libya.
My objection is and always will be; it’s not our place poking about in the internal affairs of other countries. I acknowledge the nastiness of the regime and I acknowledge the understandable desire to see that regime toppled by the rebels. But, no matter how bloody the conflict becomes, it is a matter for the people of Libya to deal with. Our intervention will win us no friends. Acting as the unofficial air force of the rebel army will merely make them appear as puppets of the Western Imperialists – or Crusaders if you like. Well Gaddafi seems to like it even though it is rank nonsense. That is assuming they win. And if they do win, the likely outcome is another despot in Tripoli.
Time after time, we hear politicians bleating about democracy as if this is somehow a good thing that everyone should employ. Democracy is merely a form of government that is less awful than all the others. It is nothing to be proud of – certainly when the outcome is diktat by an elite selected by a minority of those who could actually be arsed to vote. When it fails to deliver liberty, it is merely another form of oligarchy. That the oligarchs have been through the selection process of the ballot box makes no practical difference to those of us whose lives are blighted by the petty, spiteful binge legislating and see more and more of our hard-earned stolen in the punitive taxation that follows. Most don’t vote because they realise that it is a waste of time. The new despot is the same as the old despot. Voting merely encourages them. Nothing changes but the bums on the government benches. They still don’t listen to us, they still think they know best and they still pay far too much heed to unaccountable special interest lobby groups funded by us without our consent. Why would the Libyans want this? Why would any rational people want this? More likely, the Libyans will want the rule of Allah and doubtless there is an ayatollah just waiting in the wings for the dust to settle before stepping into the sunlight to offer the people of Libya more tyranny spiritual leadership.
As for us, well the QM makes the point – tired though it has become – that 1984 is being used once more as an instruction manual. We are at war – again. We have always been at war. Yesterday it was Eastasia, today it is Eurasia. It mattes not to the families of the fallen, where they fell or who killed them. What does matter is that again the lives of others are thrown into the ring to be lost on a game of pitch and toss, for the benefit of the politicians who never, ever, put their own worthless lives in the firing line.
So, here we go again, another war, another media onslaught and another round of dead soldiers courtesy of “Islam R us”
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERYIGNORANCE IS STRENGTHDon’t you just love Big Brother?
Quite so.
lf Cameron and such ilk want such wars, so be it … but only if they are prepared to be at the frontline with the troops.
Someone on another blog earlier today made the observation that if so many arab nations voted for the no-fly zone, why aren’t they the ones to enforce it? Especially considering the amount of weaponry that we have sold them and the fact that they will be making money hand over fist out of this by raising their oil prices.
A more cynical approach would suggest that the Arab League are getting what they want – the Libyan problem quelled – while managing to take neither blame nor responsibility themselves.
. . . and yet and yet
Mrs U visited Libya before and after King Idris was deposed: she taught English there for a year. She made friends in Benghazi who she still remains in intermittent contact with. They have lived lives of quiet desperation for the last 40 years while Gaddafi visited his lunacy on the country and its inhabitants. Hearing of them being bombed by Gaddafi’s air force or threatened with murder by his mercenaries does not cheer her (or me) up.
I agree that the first interest of our government is the welfare of this country and its inhabitants. The removal of an unstable and unpredictable criminal (who happens to control the nearest substantial source of “sweet” oil to Europe) might actually be in our interest. However, no-fly zones in Libya together with the apparent absence of an exit strategy don’t, I think, qualify. OTOH, we can still help those being harmed by Gaddafi: we could supply arms to the rebels incuding surface to air missiles and anti-tank materiel. We should bear in mind that, although such tactics were successful in defeating the Russians and their clients in Afghanistan, the ultimate victors in that war turned out to be the Taliban.
I’ve suggested elsewhere that the simple – realpolitik – solution is to bump off Gaddafi (and his immediate family). The risk of that would be the creation of a power vacuum and condemnation from, probably among others, Cuba and Venezuela (whose rulers might fee a mite vulnerable thereafter). I think we can take that condemnation on the chin. But, again, these are the decisions our elected leaders are there to take.
I agree with your scepticism about those leaders (and about “democracy” in general) and the reasons they feel they have the right to rule us. But we are where we are. Economically (whatever Osborne says or intends today) we’re f***ed and socially we’re also f***ed which are the results of our democracy not functioning properly. I have no obvious solution but I know crap when I see it or smell it. You only have to visit the House of Commons or the Council Chamber at the London Borough of Haringey to see it and smell it (or listen to the BBC to hear it).
Who is going to enforce the no fly zone here when enough wake up and tackle the British ‘monster within’?
Perhaps the Arab League will rise to the occasion. I certainly hope so.