Libya: Costs Outweigh Benefits | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Libya: Costs Outweigh Benefits | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'Libya gave the lie to the dubious doctrine of Responsibility to Protect. This was no humanitarian operation. Yes, the Qaddafi regime was brutal, but its forces had massacred no civilians before the campaign to "save" the Libyan people. Like other civil wars in Third World countries, this one generated most of its killing through the fighting itself.'

'Western governments thought a few days of bombing would topple Qaddafi. Last week, eight months after the uprising began, Lt. Gen. Ralph Jodice II, commander of NATO's air campaign, conceded that "We're all surprised by the tenacity of the pro-Qaddafi forces." Alliance spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie was even more befuddled: "It just does not make sense to see what these few remaining forces are doing."'

'The North Korean Foreign Ministry opined: "Libya's nuclear dismantlement, much touted by the U.S. in the past, turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the latter coaxed the former with such sweet words as 'guarantee of security' and 'improvement of relations' to disarm and then swallowed it up by force." The allied agreement was "an invasion tactic to disarm the country." What state, finding itself in Washington's gunsights, is likely to voluntarily disarm?'

'Amnesty International estimates that the NTC is holding more than 2,500 people without charges — detainees who, NTC officials admit, often are beaten in order to extract confessions. Black Africans have been arrested en masse on the assumption that they were Qaddafi supporters. Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin emerged from a briefing by the head of the UN Support Mission to Libya citing "violations of human rights and international humanitarian law." The NTC may eventually create a liberal democracy, but the outcomes in Kosovo and Iraq suggest otherwise. There are plenty of historical examples when good guys who helped oust dictators ultimately lost to bad guys with guns; Iran and Nicaragua come to mind.'