Why Libya?

Why Libya?

An old associate of mine recently posed this question. Why was it ok to invade Libya but not Iraq? This presents, to me, several interesting points.

First, we can all agree that Saddam and Moammar both represent humanity at its worst. Then again, there are horrible dictatorships all over the world, from Sudan in Africa to Myanmar in Asia. Some have even, historically been our allies. (Like Saddam in Iraq, and Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but there's no need to rehash cold war alliances. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend, as it turns out.) By that line of reasoning, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy holds little water as an argument for the invasion of Iraq, and Qaddafi is a bad guy holds similarly little influence on my thinking. So let's look at the threat that each poses to America and her allies and interests.

Saddam Hussein was boxed in by a NATO enforced no fly zone. It was pretty effective, when combined with UN embargoes, at keeping him from rebuilding his military might or committing genocide again. And yes, we all know he gassed the Kurds prior to our implementation of the no fly zone. But we hadn't given him and chemical weapons since the Reagan administration and there remains no proof that he had the ability to make his own. They do have a shelf life. The argument that he was just waiting for the right time to use them washes out the moment our guys rolled into Baghdad. When would the right moment have been if not then? Presumably before we caught and executed him, right?

Saddam, despite rumors to the contrary, did not sponsor terrorism. He was a greedy selfish despot, but not a very good Muslim. Not even by the warped standards Al Qaeda and similar groups adhere to. He was pretty westernized, wore suits, and demonstrated his religion only enough to prove to his country that he was Muslim. That's why terrorist groups, especially Al Qaeda, shunned him.

Iraq presented no threat to our economic interests, nor those of our allies. They have no industry other than oil, and they had to leave the spigot on if they wanted food. It was true then and it's true now. Any threat they could have made was imagined.

Qaddafi is a horse of an altogether more dangerous color. He has been a state sponsor of terrorism for decades now, to the point that under the Reagan administration we bombed him. There seems to be a lack of intelligence on what his real military capabilities are, but at one time he had spent billions on building a massive army. Whether that was maintained during the embargo years is a question of speculation but it remains prudent to assume he still has some capability, or did until NATO started bombing the heck out of his defenses. And no, he's no military threat to the US directly. But he could supply arms to Somali pirates or use his influence through northern Africa to destabilize the region in ways that could affect us and our allies.

Which brings me to economic destabilization. Qaddafi could, single handedly, raise the price of our oil. Now hear me out, I'm not going where you think I am. We have all seen what inflated oil prices do to us as individuals at the pump. And how they affect shipping costs. And eventually the price of things like food, paper, diapers which have to be shipped to the store. It puts pressure on everybody's wallet, making us buy less. Which does what to our finally beginning to recover economy? Yup, guarantees the double dip recession that we all fear. (At least I hope we all do. I think the Republicans are going to cause it but that's another day.)

So those are all the reasons we stop the genocidal monster in Libya, but not the ones in Sudan. Or Myanmar. Or...

Thanks for reading.