What can outsiders do to hasten the inevitable, avoid further bloodshed, and let Libyans start remaking their country?
Editorial:
The Guardian, Thursday 24 February 2011
"........Nobody wants any more Libyans to die. Yet it has to be said that there are at this stage arguments against all these measures. The softer ones are largely irrelevant. Libya's economy is in deep disarray. Most of the major foreign oil companies, for example, have stopped working and are concentrating on getting their workers out. Shops are running out of stock. Construction projects all over the country have been abandoned. No goods are leaving Libya's ports or airports and none are coming in.....
It is hard to escape the conclusion that European leaders are advocating these moves in part because they want to be seen by their electorates at home to be doing something, and in part because they want to be seen by people in the Middle East as being on the right side in the Arab democratic revolution. They may hope that a dramatic line on Libya will go some way toward effacing the memory of the dithering and equivocation with which they greeted its earlier manifestations in Tunisia and Egypt, France being particularly guilty in this regard. What can be said in favour of such measures is that they would be symbolic. As news of them reaches Libyans, which it will, since the media blackout there is far from complete, it will reinforce their sense that the world is with them and thus add to the momentum which is a revolution's most important characteristic.
Military measures fall into a more serious and more difficult category. There is evidence that the regime is crumbling rapidly, principally because of military and political defections. There are also indications that air attacks on civilians are being aborted by pilots who refuse to carry out orders. If this continues, there will be no need to attempt to control Libyan air space........
....But if it should prove otherwise, intervention on the ground would have to be considered. The Egyptian army has the means, other Arab countries could contribute, and western forces could help. But these are bridges to cross only when, and if, we come to them."
Editorial:
The Guardian, Thursday 24 February 2011
"........Nobody wants any more Libyans to die. Yet it has to be said that there are at this stage arguments against all these measures. The softer ones are largely irrelevant. Libya's economy is in deep disarray. Most of the major foreign oil companies, for example, have stopped working and are concentrating on getting their workers out. Shops are running out of stock. Construction projects all over the country have been abandoned. No goods are leaving Libya's ports or airports and none are coming in.....
It is hard to escape the conclusion that European leaders are advocating these moves in part because they want to be seen by their electorates at home to be doing something, and in part because they want to be seen by people in the Middle East as being on the right side in the Arab democratic revolution. They may hope that a dramatic line on Libya will go some way toward effacing the memory of the dithering and equivocation with which they greeted its earlier manifestations in Tunisia and Egypt, France being particularly guilty in this regard. What can be said in favour of such measures is that they would be symbolic. As news of them reaches Libyans, which it will, since the media blackout there is far from complete, it will reinforce their sense that the world is with them and thus add to the momentum which is a revolution's most important characteristic.
Military measures fall into a more serious and more difficult category. There is evidence that the regime is crumbling rapidly, principally because of military and political defections. There are also indications that air attacks on civilians are being aborted by pilots who refuse to carry out orders. If this continues, there will be no need to attempt to control Libyan air space........
....But if it should prove otherwise, intervention on the ground would have to be considered. The Egyptian army has the means, other Arab countries could contribute, and western forces could help. But these are bridges to cross only when, and if, we come to them."
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