Three Little Words

Three short words, “No Fly Zone” sums up the current moral quandary for the world on where and when our responsibility to save lives should be more important that the supposed sanctity of national borders.

Not that long ago, when the global community agonized over the horrors taking place in Rwanda and Bosnia, observing as some kind of disinterested bystander while mass slaughter took place unchallenged by anyone, there was real support for the idea in the late 1990s that the international community did after all have a collective “responsibility to protect” people if their respective national governments failed to do so.

Then there was the long, bloody catastrophe that began with the US invasion of Iraq and the idea of a “kind and just war” became passé. The 2003 Iraqi invasion was justified by the George W Bush administration by claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but when the WMD failed to materialize, both the United States and the United Kingdom attempted to play the humanitarian card by claiming they were in fact “liberating the Iraqi people.”

With the outbreak of the Libyan conflict, the pendulum has swung back towards action, but only part of the way. Britain’s conservative prime-minister, David Cameron, who until recently spoke out vehemently against any kind of meddling in Libya, is now maintaining that military intervention in the form of a no fly zone is necessary and is its most passionate supporter. He is joined, ironically enough, by the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy whose government is deftly trying to shed its image in the Middle East as Gadaffi’s best friend.

In between all this, is an agonized Washington, D.C., which would of course ultimately finance, manage and carry most of the political and emotional baggage for a no fly zone. As always, Washington is divided between humanitarian idealists, hard-headed realists and the ever popular undecided contingent.

President Obama’s dilemma was further exacerbated by the muddiness of the whole thing. Gadaffi’s air force had not yet caused huge numbers of civilian casualties. The threat of that is ever present however and what his planes had managed to do, at least up until March 19th, was to keep the rag tag rebels under cover—unable to come out and fight. And, despite the Arab League’s endorsement of a no fly zone on March 12th, their views are still mixed and seem to go back and forth with the time of day.

Now however, all bets are off and the no fly zone is in effect. Driven by the March 12th endorsement of the Arab League, lukewarm as it was, President Obama has instituted the Libyan no fly zone—a huge gamble that if nothing else, places American pilots at grave risk.

There is now however, a veneer of legality for the action, given the UN approval, the position taken by the Arab League and the participation of some Arab states in the coalition formed to patrol and enforce the no fly zone. But the consequences of this action remain difficult to predict.

Not everyone however is in favor of a no fly zone in Libya. Even as coalition pilots enforce the no fly zone, China and Russia lead the case for the opposing viewpoint. Neither of them has ever embraced the concept of a planet earth police force but instead has continuously insisted on the inviolability of national borders. Also, several of the so called “non-aligned” countries like Brazil and South Africa are skeptical, to say the least.

There is however one thing that is relatively easy to predict—at least one presumptive Republican candidate for President in 2012 has absolutely no answers. Earlier this month, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was hammering President Obama for not intervening in Libya. Asked then what he would do about Libya Gingrich responded “Exercise a no-fly zone this evening…We do not need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.”

During appearances that same day, Gingrich also said that he would provide help to the Libyan rebels on top of the no-fly zone, “This is a moment to get rid of him. Do it. Get it over with.” He later mocked President Obama for filling out an NCAA bracket while France took the lead on intervention.

Now that Obama has initiated a no-fly zone over Libya, Gingrich has completely reversed his position with no apparent explanation. He told the web-based news service Politico over this past weekend—less than 24 hours after President Obama took action that “it is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except for opportunism and news media publicity.” This morning (March 23rd) on the Today Show, he said plainly, “I would not have intervened.”

It is nice to know that there are still some things we can all depend on.