Malcolm Blair Robinson

Libya: No! No! No!

May 15, 2011 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

There has been a call by the head of the UK Armed Forces for NATO to widen its targets to include civilian infrastructure otherwise ‘Col Gaddafi may hang on to power’. There are several points of contention.

First, under the conventions of the UK Constitution, military officers carry out policy, they do not make it. It is wholly improper for a serving officer to give newspaper interviews openly questioning national policy or to express views on how such policy ought to proceed. This is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Defence, together with other ministers of defence, all of whom are part of the structure of democratic government. Generals, however senior, are not.

Second, nobody in the world has the legal authority to ‘get rid of Gaddafi’ other than the Libyan people. UNSCR 1973 forbids it. It may have been daft to embark on a half cock war where the only target that mattered was off the list, but that is what has happened. It is also clear that whilst Col. Gaddafi and his family have lost all credibility and control in the east of Libya, in the west, especially among their own tribes, they enjoy, still, significant support. It is absolutely not clear that if he were somehow booted out by NATO, the Libyan Rebels would be able to govern the whole country, organise free elections and prevent the outbreak of another civil war.

Third, as we learned in Iraq, smashing up bridges, power supplies, water and other utilities brings huge suffering to innocent civilians, which is the opposite of the purpose of UNSCR 1973.

Fourth, it is indeed unfortunate that the campaign is in stalemate, without end in sight, no clear goal and no exit strategy. Loud mouthed politicians have, through the demand that Gaddafi has to go as a precondition for anything, made a political solution of two Libyas, power sharing or whatever, impossible. The situation will be made no easier by loud mouthed generals.

In the end, we hope this will be soon, NATO and its political masters will have to get real, enforce a truce and get peace talks started. That is the only thing that will protect civilians, which in turn is the only thing, in this sorry adventure, worth doing.

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