LIBYA 2011 IS NOT IRAQ 2003

LIBYA 2011 IS NOT IRAQ 2003

March 22, 2011

PROFESSOR JUAN COLE

Here are the differences between George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the current United Nations action in Libya:

1. The action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. That in Iraq was not. By the UN Charter, military action after 1945 should either come as self-defense or with UNSC authorization. Most countries in the world are signatories to the charter and bound by its provisions.

2. The Libyan people had risen up and thrown off the Qaddafi regime, with some 80-90 percent of the country having gone out of his hands before he started having tank commanders fire shells into peaceful crowds. It was this vast majority of the Libyan people that demanded the UN no-fly zone. In 2002-3 there was no similar popular movement against Saddam Hussein.

3. There was an ongoing massacre of civilians, and the threat of more such massacres in Benghazi, by the Qaddafi regime, which precipitated the UNSC resolution. Although the Saddam Hussein regime had massacred people in the 1980s and early 1990s, nothing was going on in 2002-2003 that would have required international intervention.

4. The Arab League urged the UNSC to take action against the Qaddafi regime, and in many ways precipitated Resolution 1973. The Arab League met in 2002 and expressed opposition to a war on Iraq. (Reports of Arab League backtracking on Sunday were incorrect, based on a remark of outgoing Secretary-General Amr Moussa that criticized the taking out of anti-aircraft batteries. The Arab League reaffirmed Sunday and Moussa agreed Monday that the No-Fly Zone is what it wants).

5. None of the United Nations allies envisages landing troops on the ground, nor does the UNSC authorize it. Iraq was invaded by land forces.

6. No false allegations were made against the Qaddafi regime, of being in league with al-Qaeda or of having a nuclear weapons program. The charge is massacre of peaceful civilian demonstrators and an actual promise to commit more such massacres.

7. The United States did not take the lead role in urging a no-fly zone, and was dragged into this action by its Arab and European allies. President Obama pledges that the US role, mainly disabling anti-aircraft batteries and bombing runways, will last “days, not months” before being turned over to other United Nations allies.

8. There is no sectarian or ethnic dimension to the Libyan conflict, whereas the US Pentagon conspired with Shiite and Kurdish parties to overthrow the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime in Iraq, setting the stage for a prolonged and bitter civil war.

9. The US has not rewarded countries such as Norway for entering the conflict as UN allies, but rather a genuine sense of outrage at the brutal crimes against humanity being committed by Qaddafi and his forces impelled the formation of this coalition. The Bush administration’s ‘coalition of the willing’ in contrast was often brought on board by what were essentially bribes.

10. Iraq in 2002-3 no longer posed a credible threat to its neighbors. A resurgent Qaddafi in Libya with petroleum billions at his disposal would likely attempt to undermine the democratic experiments in Tunisia and Egypt, blighting the lives of millions.

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EVERY SQUARE IS A TAHIR SQUARE

EVERY SQUARE IS A TAHIR SQUARE

BREAKING THE CRUST OF SILENCE

EVERY SQUARE IS A TAHIR SQUARE

By AHMAD BARQAWI

Amman, Jordan.

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN BY Mr. FISH



DICTATORS DOMINOES BY MIKE LUCHOVICH




For thirty years; generations of Arab people were deliberately spoon-fed a fallacious reality about themselves; a reality of passiveness, instinctive capitulation and quiet submission; a reality that seemed to contradict –and indeed often wrestled with- their true identity, their heritage and honorable history of rising against social injustices, rule of force and corruption; from the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman rule to the 1936 Palestinian Revolution against the British, from the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 to the two blessed Intifadas in Palestine in 1987 and 2000, still oddly enough; for thirty years we've found ourselves admiring the history of the French revolution instead, romanticizing the American War of Independence and cheering –from afar- for the fall of the Berlin wall.


For thirty years, Arab youngsters were raised on the unshakable conviction that waking up in the morning and feeling a bitter contentment with what little is remaining of their diminishing social rights and freedoms is actually an unquestionable "winning formula" for safety and happiness, that "people's power" means absolutely nothing in the midst of their daily and backbreaking task of securing the scarce necessities of life, that even if a "change" is due; it'll be in the form of a destructive foreign military occupation –such was the case in Iraq-; and even then, we'd roll along and adopt some kind of a darwinian approach in dealing with and adapting to it; and just like that; we were programmed to settle for this brand of democracy at the point of a gun and its twisted sense of "nobility".


For thirty years, silence has become compelling with governments' inexcusable laxity towards pressing social matters; and a collective sense of powerlessness was carefully nurtured as inglorious exploits of Arab nations' resources ran amok and a ludicrous gap between the very thin layer of the rich class and the rest of society grew glaringly wider, for thirty years; successive Arab generations surrendered each day to this somber "reality"; that every struggle for dignity they might get into is a foregone conclusion, and that the collective Arab nation is nothing but a sad ghost of glories past; buried in the grave and wretched morass of rising unemployment rates, sinister poverty lines and gag orders.


Now, in what seemed like a fleeting moment, Arab youngsters in Tunisia and Egypt have broken this decades-old thick crust of silence; and managed to weather the storm of fear and mass intimidation and clung onto their god given right of free speech and peaceful expression of popular will, they're setting a fine example for even the most civilized nations in the world; Arab nations no longer bear the moral stigma of self-defeat and stagnation, they no longer want to hide their light under a bushel; they too have a voice and they are making sure it is being heard loud and clear the world over.


We no longer survive on nostalgia for an ancient storied history of pride and free will; these days; a new history is being written for future generations, in our hearts; every square is a freedom square.


Ahmad Barqawi, a Jordanian freelance columnist & writer based in Amman, he has done several studies, statistical analysis and researches on economic and social development in Jordan.

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