Libya - No more headlines

Muhammar Qaddafi is encircled and under siege in Sirte and is now calling for one of the always possible scenarios to be implemented – guerilla war.    Effecting this scenario may well be problematic as it is unlikely he will escape the coming assault on Sirte.  The regime is dead – an internal revolution succeeded but only with the help of foreign intervention.  That’s important to remember, because otherwise this would have been a long and likely losing struggle.  Qadaffi has been in control for over 40 years and didn’t keep his power by being stupid or reluctance to do whatever was necessary to retain power.

Now that the fighting has narrowed to small pockets of resistance by Qaddafi loyalists, questions can be raised that have previously been dismissed.

Consider this.

Libya has nearly 45 billion barrels of oil reserves, 3.4 percent of the world’s known supply. Natural gas reserves are estimated at near 55 trillion cubic feet.

Most of Libya’s oil exports went to Italy – 32 percent of foreign sales as of 2009. The majority of the rest went to Germany, France, Spain and China (no veto of the no-fly zone imposition).

All existing contract will remain active, begging the question of the extent of modifications.  Who will get the new exploration and extraction licenses? ENI (Italy) or Total (France).

Will the existing contracts be modified from their current 90/10 revenue split between Libya and the companies? Tipping the balance is expensive.

How is it that a listed terrorist organization gets to be a freedom fighter group and whose head commands the Tripoli Military Council?  Change of name – change of status.

The Arab Spring, of which Libya was made a part, has been astonishingly lucrative. For weapons sales.

In the five months ending in June, the UK sold arms to Arab governments amounting to 30.5 million sterling, according the The Times – a 30% increase.  Germany, that bastion of peace which refused to take part in the naval blockade of Libya, nevertheless inked a contract with the Saudi’s (whose military crushed the Bahrain demonstrations by Shiites) for a division’s worth of high end tanks tagged at 1.5 billion euro only to be heavily trumped by the US - $60 billion of aircraft to Saudi Arabia over a 20 year period. This is only in the Arab Spring period – care to guess about the past ten years?

There is nothing wrong with disposing of people like Qadaffi and I support it.  But the media, as usual, has played the useful idiot and parrots the talking points of the protagonists while studiously avoiding the hypocrisy.  This is not a judgment.  It is important to make sure that events are not seen in isolation from other, important factors nor should decisions to act or not be viewed in black and white even if the short attention span or relative ignorance of populations demand simplistic analysis.

Academics and Practical Foreign Policy

When I was in law school about a century ago, litigation tactics were a required area of study. Although I never liked litigation, I thought some of the anecdotes on opening and closing statements to a jury were instructive for daily use in almost any setting. One such story involved a pair of joint defendants accused of theft, each with his own counsel. One goal for the attorney representing one defendant is to create a reasonable doubt that his client had nothing to do with the actions of the other. To shorten, considerably, the story, it turns out that the co-defendant who committed the theft had lied while testifying about once stealing his father’s wallet (the details of which I’ve left out - sorry). In the closing statement the other attorney addressed the jury and told a story which, again shortened, goes like this. He and his entire family always went to the same restaurant on Sunday with his grandfather who always, without exception, ordered beef stew. This time he hesitated, but ended up ordering it again. He took a piece and immediately made a face as a piece of meat seemed to be off. Now, asked the attorney to the jury, what should he have done? Should he have rummaged through the stew, eating only the good parts or should he send the whole plate back? The answer was obvious. His client was acquitted.


So, what to about this. Paul Herrichs has his facts wrong, and I suspect deliberately. Washington, was not the driver behind the intervention in Libya. It was Europe or more precisely the French government. Washington was dragged into this “mess”. Furthermore, and again likely due to his particular academic shading, Germany was not smart in its position against intervention. It was stupid as it clearly shows its inability to work with other European members, not to mention NATO; this is the same sort of German cowardice/arrogance exhibited during the monetary crises in Europe. Germany is no longer a reliable ally to anyone – except to Russia.

His assertion that no one has a vital interest in Libya except its immediate neighbors is simply stupid. The Arab uprisings have an immediate impact on European security, economy and immigration policy. Libya is a European problem and is, indeed, of vital interest.

He dismisses the R2D issue by drawing a false comparison between Libya and Sudan. Libya and Rwanda. Libya and….Wake up or grow up Paul and come out of your academic shelter. This operation – started by France and the UK – was always about regime change once the chance was given through the entirely credible threats against the civilians of Benghazi and has been true in Misrata and other rebel held cities.

You don’t like Western intervention without a threat of a vital interest being threatened? Your definition of vital for France and Italy is obviously not theirs. And while we are at it – what about Australian intervention in East Timor?

He finally claims that the Libyan intervention fails on all counts. Really? When the author sets up the criteria, does the term “straw man” come to mind? The fact is, like the closing argument to the jury, when one piece of the puzzle is tainted, why should we accept the conclusion?

Paul should stay in his ivory tower and read a little history of the region and get his facts straight. If anyone is the rookie, it is he.

African Union Damaging Interference

As mentioned in the sidebar, we normally don't take sides unless provoked.  Consider me provoked.

I have little time to spare from my day job, but watching al Jazeera here in Kampala, where there is a Qaddafi Mosque and the president has said he would accept him in exile, I can’t help but be appalled, again, by the antics of the vaunted African Union in its attempt to promote negotiations between Qaddafi and the rebel movements.


The delegation led by President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is a joke. They have presented a clearly absurd plan, benefiting only Qaddafi (naturally immediately accepted by him) and are now bouncing along the road to Benghazi with Qadhafi’s approval to tell the rebel leadership that the murderer and dictator should be reasoned with. How convenient. Qaddafi funds about 15% of the AU’s budget and their hands are in his pockets so they don't care that his soldiers are firing deliberately at civilians and into their neighborhood.  They don't care the UN voted to protect rebelious civilians and that neither Russia nor China chose to oppose the resolution.  They know what's best for Africa. How's that working out?

They did nothing when he invaded Chad, brutally occupying the north and initiating the beginning of the Darfur crises back in the late 1980s following up with full support to Khartoum – Muslims against black Christians and animists. They said nothing when he indulged in the vilification of black Africans in Libya, making them targets of his followers. They said nothing as he supported Charles Taylor, among others of similar ilk. Both the South African government and the African Union are, quite simply, a useless bunch of prevaricators intent on preserving the status quo. They have done so with a dictator and murderer in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, simply because prior to his slippage into senility, depravity, racism and lust for power, he was a heroic front liner. They have done damn little in Somalia, nothing in Mozambique and taken little action in the DRC. Now sub-Sahara Africa wants to end a revolution in Muslim, Arab North Africa which could care less about below-the-equator states except as a market. What buffoons.

The rebels in Benghazi should treat Zuma and his camp followers as the ludicrous coterie of paid-for sycophants they are and send them packing. Zuma can deal with the pressing issues of South Africa in Pretoria.

Germany - Stupidity has Consequences

Just how useless and irrelevant to NATO and the European idea can Germany become?  Apparently quite useless.

Deutsche-Presse reported last week that because NATO is taking over the UN mandated no-fly zone over Libya, and that NATO naval forces will patrol the coast as part of the arms embargo, Germany has withdrawn its ships from NATO command because it may be forced to fire a gun. If they are not going to use their military when requested, why don’t they just get rid of it? That would be the logical conclusion and would certainly save the German public significantly in the budget.


I know that Merkel is facing some tough elections – but this is just profoundly stupid on the part of Germany and reveals how rapidly useless they are to NATO or to their place in the West. Even the Green Party has criticized the move. What is more astounding is that Foreign Minister Westerwelle had wanted to vote against UN Security Council Resolution 1973 before Chancellor Merkel managed to convince him that an abstention was a better idea.
German politicians have been remarkably arrogant and not a little obtuse during the past year or two – from their muscle flexing over Greece to the extent suggesting that some Greek islands could be sold to pay for the economic mess and being as unhelpful as conceivably possible regarding the financial crises in the EU to slobbering over Russia and simultaneously irritating Poland and the Baltics. They want to run the EU in their (or Merkel's) image.  This latest bit of arrogance should remind Poland, France, Spain and Italy just how contemptuous their neighbor can be of anything proposed by someone else.

To the extent that Sarkozy needs an election lift, comparing French initiatives in foreign affairs to those of the eternally cringing Germans can’t hurt his chances. It also indicates that perhaps other EU members take a hard look at German export centric policy and its foreign policy to the extent it affects its neighbors.

European Coalition Cracking?

Europe is showing the cracks over the UNSC no-fly zone implementation as the US withdraws from its “leadership” position. Despite the hysterical, and in the case of Dennis Kucinich in the US, downright stupid, comments from US critics of the UNSC mission, the US has performed its stated policy perfectly and will vanish from the news as it has fired its last cruise missile. Now comes the interesting part in Europe.

France wants to continue to lead the charge in Libya and really is aiming to remove Qaddafi, one way or another. It does not want NATO involved as the operational structure of NATO would restrict French military activities – which are bent on regime change. Although a NATO lead would provide significant organizational assets, it would be a political mistake as that would make this purely a Western intervention despite the Security Council resolution. Italy wants NATO because it knows this will slow the regime change meme and result in a stalemate so it could continue to deal with Qaddafi. No one has asked how Qatari or other Arab forces would operate under NATO, whether wise or not, or if they would even agree to that arrangement.

So the maneuvering begins. Germany, as ever, is showing its inability to take part in anything with a combat role – making it more useless to NATO than ever except for base facilities. The German government will be suitably shocked at Qaddafi’s staged atrocities (something al Jazeera has already revealed as fake but credulity - deliberate or not - in some quarters rules). Like Italy, but for different reasons, it would support the lead role for NATO - if for nothing else than putting the brakes on France. As yet, it is unclear what positions Norway, Canada and the Arab League have on who should control the campaign, although in the case of the latter, getting rid of Qaddafi is high on the “to do” list.

Although I think that delivering the command and control to NATO is a bad idea on any number of levels, the decision of who will run the continuing campaign will be decided in a week or so – hopefully giving the French additional time to complete their agenda. If they are unable to take out the regime, and with the Libyan armor and artillery pretty much decimated, the regime will likely revert to an insurgency campaign involving urban terror campaigns and exhibits, when possible, of Western atrocities suitably staged with moveable military bodies dressed as civilians. This would mean a long haul campaign for which many (but not all) Europeans have never had any stomach and which will require a different approach.

Fortunately, very, very soon, the US will be out of the picture. Then little, if anything will be covered in the US because limited activities of logistical support to its allies is not exciting or controversial – unless critics on the left and right feel that support to US allies is not in its foreign policy interests. President Obama’s policy will have worked and other events will receive more play. Faux News can then go back to covering those nasty union people and any other pet anti-democratic project Murdoch and the Koch brothers have on their minds while CNN (in the US, not Europe or Asia) will simply get bored and go back to its normal useless news coverage of the latest flower shows. I suggest that people start viewing al Jazeera for continuing coverage if they so desire.