U.S & Allies Invade Libya

Published in The Catalyst 

As CC students return from Spring Break, all political conversations seem to be focused on same topic: The United States is leading yet another military operation in the Arab World. The brand new war in Libya, complex as it is controversial, has dominated the political and humanitarian discourse across the globe, and although you will find a handful of students either passionately for or against the war, the majority of students appear deeply unsure as to where they stand.

The war was sparked by Libya’s government’s tremendously violent response to pro-democracy protests. As it reaches its two-week mark, governments and militaries everywhere have already begun to look back and look forward. The kidnappings of French journalists the release of several New York Times reporters has brought the war alarmingly close to home, spouting fears in the western world about Libyan-grown terrorism and its potential to wreak havoc in European and North American cities (the way Al Queda has wreaked havoc in the last decade).

Meanwhile, both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Libya’s dictator Muhammad al-Gaddafi have vowed the war will not be a quick one by any means. Gates, claiming that the main objective in Libya is to prevent a “large-scale slaughter” of civilians, does not believe the mission will be over by the end of 2011. Gaddafi has promised the war will be “very, very long”.

The debate raging across all political spectrums over the western world’s invasion into Libya has been complicated by the still fresh feeling that the U.S and its allies failed in Iraq, not to mention the controversy still alive and well as NATO tries to counter Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

The Invasion in Libya represents the largest international war since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but it cannot be easily compared to previous counter-terrorism missions, as it is in response to a far different crisis than weapons of mass destruction or a hunt for Osama. What separates the motives in Iraq and Afghanistan to the effort in Libya, many are arguing, is that there is a humanitarian cause far greater in Libya than elsewhere. The so-called “femme fatale” of the humanitarian-assistance world, Samantha Powers practically begged Obama to intervene in Libya, as she made the case that if he did not, we would have “another Rwanda on our hands”.

Another factor differentiating the military motives of George Bush to those of Barack Obama, is that the Bush administration wished to fight a war on behalf of the Iraqi people, where as the Obama administration wishes to enable the Libyan people to fight the war themselves. George Bush wished to overthrow Saddam with U.S military force. Barack Obama wishes to overthrow Gadaffi by enabling Libyan rebels on the ground to do so. “One could also argue, or at least hope, that there an absence of an oil-hungry, ultra-corrupt web of lies operating, within the Obama administrations it deals with the situation in Libya”, argues sophomore Nikki Kauffman. “This is something we now know was operating under Bush.”

And while fear accompanies any U.S invasion, it is important that Americans, Obama is arguing, do not worry about American military casualties. The president is not committing any ground troops, and while the NAVY and Air Force are tremendously active in the region, no American soldiers are known to be dead at the moment. As for Libyans, it appears the U.S is targeting only forces backing Gaddafi.

U.S allies include Canada, France, Spain, Qatar, Norway, Denmark, Greece and the United Kingdom. The positioning of these nations allow them to target Gaddafi’s forces from many angles, as submarines, command ships and air forces have all fired rockets and missiles into seven Libyan cities, targeting Gaddafi head-on.

While it is difficult, among all the complexities of the war to define where you stand, it is important to thoroughly examine the facts and come up with a non-bias perspective of the invasion. This, however, is easier said than done. “It seems that the war, no matter what understanding you have of it, is not going to be something we simply talk about once and move on from,” argues sophomore Noah Gallo-Brown. “This will begin to define not only Obama’s presidency, but also the discourse of the American public over the next year or two.”

For now, CC students will continue to go on with life as usual. We can only hope that war does not come to America’s shores and that as we take for granted everything we have, we take the time not only to reflect upon the scarifies journalists across the planet are making to bring this story to us, but we reflect upon the military forces throughout the western world that are attempting to achieve whatever their government’s believe is best for the future of Libya and the safety of the world. Safety from dictatorships, violence, injustice and above all, human rights abuses.