[J Oswald]

EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.

But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. “If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’’ Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.

But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya’s civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.

The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.

Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.

But Khadafy’s acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide.

Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’

If bloodbath was unlikely, how did this notion propel US intervention? The actual prospect in Benghazi was the final defeat of the rebels. To avoid this fate, they desperately concocted an impending genocide to rally international support for “humanitarian’’ intervention that would save their rebellion.

On March 15, Reuters quoted a Libyan opposition leader in Geneva claiming that if Khadafy attacked Benghazi, there would be “a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda.’’ Four days later, US military aircraft started bombing. By the time Obama claimed that intervention had prevented a bloodbath, The New York Times already had reported that “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda’’ against Khadafy and were “making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.’’

It is hard to know whether the White House was duped by the rebels or conspired with them to pursue regime-change on bogus humanitarian grounds. In either case, intervention quickly exceeded the UN mandate of civilian protection by bombing Libyan forces in retreat or based in bastions of Khadafy support, such as Sirte, where they threatened no civilians.

The net result is uncertain. Intervention stopped Khadafy’s forces from capturing Benghazi, saving some lives. But it intensified his crackdown in western Libya to consolidate territory quickly. It also emboldened the rebels to resume their attacks, briefly recapturing cities along the eastern and central coast, such as Ajdabiya, Brega, and Ras Lanuf, until they outran supply lines and retreated.

Each time those cities change hands, they are shelled by both sides — killing, wounding, and displacing innocents. On March 31, NATO formally warned the rebels to stop attacking civilians. It is poignant to recall that if not for intervention, the war almost surely would have ended last month.

In his speech explaining the military action in Libya, Obama embraced the noble principle of the responsibility to protect — which some quickly dubbed the Obama Doctrine — calling for intervention when possible to prevent genocide. Libya reveals how this approach, implemented reflexively, may backfire by encouraging rebels to provoke and exaggerate atrocities, to entice intervention that ultimately perpetuates civil war and humanitarian suffering.

Alan J. Kuperman, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, is author of “The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention’’ and co-editor of “Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention.’’

Source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edito ... _in_libya/

Thoughts on this?

[Lokakyy]

The situation is confused. I've read reports of Gaddafi loyalists conducting sniper attacks against everything that moves in contested cities. Of course, that information is from rebel sources and not trustworthy as such.

Anyway, there are certain argumentative mistakes in the article:

Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

257 dead is a tally that is from the hospital sources. Not all dead reach hospitals, and they cannot be counted in city that is in the middle of fighting.

But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing.

Misrata haven't been taken by Gaddafi troops. The supposed bloodbath in Benghazi was estimated to happen after the city had been taken by Gaddafi troops - with proven or suspected rebels and their sympathisers disappearing from their homes or hospitals. I agree with the writer that it is unlikely that Gaddafi would have turned Benghazi into smoking ruin as an act of vengeance, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that hundreds if not thousands of people would have disappeared without a trace as a political retribution for rebellion.

[Social_Critic]

These interventions tend to be based on false claims. Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if the threat was overblown. I'm familiar with the Kosovo incident in 1999, when a Democrat, Clinton, also blew up a threat into a supposed genocide, to help the KLA take over - these are the same guys who have been revealed to be organ leggers, selling the organs of Christians they captured and cut up. And of course there's the Iraq mess, which put in power a regime well known for its torture camps, which include drillling holes with electric drills in their victims' forearms.

However, since Kaddafi is such a horrible dictator, I think if we got to lie to go bomb somebody, he is as good a candidate as any.

[kingbee]

"However, since Kaddafi/Saddam/Milosevic/Chavez/Hu Jintao etc is such a horrible dictator, I think if we got to lie to go bomb somebody, he is as good a candidate as any."

Although I see your point, the same thing has been said for pretty much everyone.

[Igor Antunov]

No shit, welcome to reality. The biggest threat to libyan civilians are the nato planes flying overhead and some of the armed militant groups in the east.

[pikachu]

Thus, the president concluded, “preventing genocide’’ justified US military action.

Yeah I guess it's time to rewrite the dictionaries on the definition of genocide, and in accordance with that the UN laws and everything. I've no idea what the new definition would be though, the usage appears completely arbitrary.

The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only

What about the "those who don't love me don't deserve to live"? Or "I'll cleanse Libya house by house" until the insurrection is crushed? These proclamations can be interpreted a great number of gruesome ways. You've got to give it to the man, Gaddafi really made some undiplomatic statements there, unless he was misquoted of course or mistranslated or something.

Nonetheless I do agree that a massacre of Benghazi was... probably unlikely, for reasons I've mentioned some time back in the civil war thread. My reasoning was that:
-The former rebel cities now under loyalist control are not reporting any massacres or anything, and in fact the western journalists are encouraged to visit them AFAIK.
-The past insurrections in the 1990s centered in Benghazi against Gaddafi were crushed without any subsequent massacres.

Given this, it seems like a huge stretch to assume that a massacre was in the making. And even if it was, what the fuck is this, yet another preemptive strike?

[Gletkin]

Well there was the deliberate killings of unarmed civilians to begin with.
Plus, there was an balance of ideology and practicality: popular uprising against a dictator calling for democracy, but unlike Iraq or Lebanon no major fault lines based on religion, ethnicity or race that would threaten to permanently Balkanize the country. Yes, there have been accusations of "tribalism" but I think "tribalism" would exist under any form of govt. for the time being. "Regionalism" wasn't that much of an convincing argument either because there were plenty of uprisings in the west as well as the east. Not to mention that Benghazi itself was a major...if not THE major scene...of Gaddafi's own coup.
So there was this powerful sense that, for once, we could actually practice what we preach about "freedom fighting" and not constantly behave like vulgar carciatures of "realpolitik" willing to deal with any dictator who'd spare us a cup of oil or two.

Then again, foreign intervention carries its own complications as well. Historically pro-western Arab dictatorships could derail the "pan-Arab" character of the "2011 Arab Revolution" by joining the anti-Qaddafi bandwagon and distracting world attention from their own oppression.
Not to mention should Qaddafi be overthrown, the Libyans will have to listen to westerners emotionally blackmail them for eternity: "If it wasn't for us, you'd still be living under the Qaddafi Dynasty! You owe us for your freedom forever and ever!"