God, I hope that the combined efforts of the United States, France, Britain, and a host of other Western countries are able to do some good in Libya—and thank God I'm not the one who had to make the decision either to allow a brutal, insane megalomaniac to massacre his own people while we sit on our hands or to get the US involved in yet another war in the Middle East. It's an incredibly tough decision, with fair and good arguments for both sides, and if I were in the Oval Office today, I have no idea what I would do.
But there is this, from Et tu, Mr. Destructo?'s article "Slouching from Benghazi" by General Rehavam Ze'evi (note: not actually the assasinated Israeli general who described Palestinians as a "cancer" whom Israelis should deal with "the same way you get rid of lice." Also, please note, Mr. Destructo is not actually run by Mobutu Sese Seko...):
Gaddafi has spent the past fifteen years ingratiating himself with the "good guys," flipping over small-fry terrorist schemers, churning the oil, scrapping his two-bit nuke program. This is a pretty impressive feat for a guy who made his name sponsoring full-throated bloody murder against American and British civilians. Those governments might not give a shit about anyone else in the world, but killing their people is sure as fuck off-limits. Gaddafi nearly killed Margaret Thatcher herself through his IRA support, hit U.S. servicemen several times in Europe, and downed Pan Am Flight 103, at a cost of two hundred and seventy Brits and Yanks. We live in a world where Obama's kaffeeklatch with toothless ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers was a major campaign issue, yet Gaddafi — a man so radically unhinged and pathologically vainglorious that he makes Saddam look like Thomas Pynchon — was embraced by a startling coalition of Western elites. The difference was that he could buy them. These supplicants pocketed blood money ripped from the heart of Libya. The darkest stain, the damn spot that won't come out for decades, came from Gaddafi's billfold, crumpled and stuffed into the pockets of owl-eyed trans-Atlantic mediocrities dispatched to Tripoli with all the dignity of a bachelor party stripper van. Gaddafi has spent the last two decades buying respectability, and my, what a bargain it is when you know the right people. They deserve to be hounded into suicides for this, to never live this down. So let's name names.
Ze'evi then proceeds to detail the reprehensible Western involvement in Gaddafi's kiss-and-make-up tour—or, as Ke'evi puts it, "The Magical Monied Muammar's Comeback Tour, or: 'The Most Disgusting Story Ever Told.'"
And then there's the ever-delightful Republican inability to decide if Obama's a war-monger or a pussy. All the while, their favorite, bloated, fat-assed nephew—and America's very own merchant of death—is about to get another handout from good ol' Uncle Sam. As Andrew Exum notes (via Ezra Klein, in a would-be-funny-because-of-the-understatement titled post, "Bombing people costs money."):
A Tomahawk Missile cost $569,000 in FY99, so if my calculations are correct, they cost a little over $736,000 today assuming they are the same make and model. The United States fired 110 missiles yesterday, which adds up to a cost of around $81 million. That's twice the size of the annual budget of USIP, which the House of Representatives wants to de-fund, and is about 33 times the amount of money National Public Radio receives in grants each year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the House of Representatives also wants to de-fund in the name of austerity measures.
Thank god for military contractors! I assume that eighty-one million dollars will be put to good use, like more making more canisters of tear gas that the repressive governments can use on their own citizens or something. Also, this: as Jon Stewart said last night, "You can't simultaneously fire teacher and Tomahawk missiles."
Stewart is wrong, though: a government can, and ours does, which is to say nothing of the hundreds of millions of dollars that we've spent on the great American misadventures in the Middle East (and Africa. and Latin America. etc.) simultaneously in the name of propping up brutal strong-men and for America's watchword, freedom (which is to say, freedom elect governments that will support America's further experimentation Over There).
Make no mistake, the upshot of the Military-Industrial complex using the Middle East as a playground is that our government gives them a giant wad of blood-drenched money for their even-increasing allowance. And then they call for austerity measures at home. It's regressive redistribution of wealth, and the beneficiaries of it now get to spend their hard-earned government bling on electing ever-more redistributionist elected officials.
As Rachel Maddow might say, it's not about the budget. These calls for austerity? They lead to cuts for teachers and new Tomahawk missiles.
I seem to have lost sight of the point of all of this, which is Libya. Libya, where rebels are fighting and dying. Libya, which has just become the West's next war in the Middle East. Libya, that great exemplar of the ambiguities of a region so long dealt with in absolute terms.
I suppose it will be worth it—the missiles, the money, and most importantly, the bloodshed—if this lets the Libyan people evict the Mad Dog. If we can help stop the inevitable atrocities that would follow if Gaddafi gets his hands on Bengahzi. That would be worth it.
But given our track record in the Middle East, can anyone blame us if we have our doubts?
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