Libya

There are many questions raised by the American attack on Libya. What is the necessary endpoint? How will the decision to attack be made? Is Congressional approval required? But these questions are far beneath the real question. The essential question of the Libyan Attack Mystery is this: What circumstances justify an attack by the United States on another sovereign state?

The classical answer is, of course, war. But we have not declared war. Nor will we. War is always the result of some national need, some unarmed conflict that one or both sides decide cannot be solved peacefully and is threatening enough to kill and die for. But the Americans have said that Libya poses no threat to the United States and they have no national interest at stake. What then? What makes us blow them up?

Nor are we alone. Many European states are in on the kill. Indeed, the esteemed United Nations had a vote to attack Libya and that vote passed--with a few notable abstentions. It may seem that we are a part of a movement; in unity there is justification. The more collaborators, the more the justification. But the question remains: Who can we simply attack? And, while we are at it, what does the U.N. have to do with it?

The Americans historically have been the guardians of the West, the first line against those messianic political beliefs that feel compelled by historical inevitability to roll over us. Islam is different; it has some militant messiahs but those aims are not held unanimously among its believers; it may be a problem for the West but it has not declared itself yet. But our motives in Libya are not self defense and they have--or at least had--the imprimatur of the Arab League. In short, the attack on Libya does not seem to be political or military; our blowing up of Libya seems to be humanitarian.

Set aside for a moment the irony inherent in blowing up people for humanitarian reasons. What humanitarian reasons qualify as a good motive for blowing people up and are there mitigating circumstances? There were terrible things done in Rwanda, done in Bosnia, done by the Heroes of Beslan, but none of these terrible things moved the U.S. to action. Where does a nation--any nation--get the right to impose its conscience on any other established group?

Libya has opened a nasty can of worms. It seems to be a bizarre act linked vaguely to the fact that one side in a conflict was getting clobbered. If the U.S. is going to try to even out the conflicts of the world they will be busy. But it hovers there, watched by the Americans with bewilderment, turned away from by its chief executive in apparent embarrassment, unexplained and undiscussed. But what it really is is precedent. It really is a foot in the intellectual door so that aggressive leaders can do it again if it pleases them.

Strange that an act, likely precipitated by embarrassment over failure to perform an act of mercy in Rwanda, will no doubt be used to justify countless future acts the Americans should not do.