The Libyan Dilemma

The current situation in Libya raises the dilemma that some international critics raised about the US intervention in Iraq, and how it has damaged US credibility in foreign affairs. Bush claimed that the US was attacking to prosecute the "war on terror" and to defend against the campaign of Al Qaida. The US bombed and demolished towns, caused many civilian casualties, including women and children. We now know that Bush was lying [See Downing Street Memos] and that he knew that Bin Ladin had nothing to do with Iraq. That duplicitous action undercut any moral authority of the US regarding foreign interventions. The same holds true about any US complaints against the use of torture, now that it has become official US sanctioned policy. The US has no moral standing to accuse other countries of misconduct in the use of torture against prisoners, or even innocent civilians, since the US has done both with approval of its highest leaders.

Now, Ghadafi claims that his military is responding to the threat of Al Qaida against his cities and government, even though he knows [along with the rest of the world] that it is not true. Ghadafi is bombing cities and killing civilians. Yet his direct response to the US is that he is protecting against an Al Qaida invasion of Libya. He sent a message to President Obama stating that Al Qaida was attacking its cities with force of arms, "what would you do?"

There is a larger picture here. The US has lost moral authority in international affairs, and the US public is in disarray regarding what constitutes a legitimate exercise of force in the international arena to uphold standards of international law and human rights. Bush appealed to the baser instincts and the immorality of segments of the populace for support of his intervention in Iraq. In so doing, he depleted the US economic reserves and has stretched this the available military resources to respond in necessary situations. Now the US public questions whether it should be involved in the humanitarian mission on two grounds. First, there is a question whether the US should get involved in another foreign mission when the economy is weak and the moral obligation is unclear. Second, that baser segment of the population whose racist, religious and ethnic prejudice has been empowered by Bush argue that the brown and Muslim people of that area should simply be allowed, if not encouraged, to kill themselves without any foreign intervention. This is the level of ethical ambivalence and moral decay that has come to typify the US populace in the wake of policies and actions in the Iraq adventure.

By failing to hold Bush accountable and by continuing to prosecute the mistaken Iraq intervention, Obama has effectively ratified the actions of Bush and Cheney. Whether or not Obama would have taken the same action as Bush [which is doubtful] his protection of Bush after the fact claims the actions of Bush as the standing policy of the USA. The US will not begin to recapture its standing until a US leader steps up and says, "we are better, stronger and more ethically clear than the US behaved under the George W. Bush Administration. Mistakes were made and the US rejects those mistakes as misguided and morally unsound. In the future, the US will do better, BE better."

The "chickens have come home to roost." Ghadafi has cleverly turned the US strategy in Iraq, and the failure of the rest of the world to hold the US accountable for it, directly against the US regarding its participation in the UN Resolution. The current intervention in Libya is justified. the current action is "doing the right thing" despite the fact that we have no moral authority to take the action. The US still needs to own up to the fact that its international standing as a respected power will not be re-established until it deals honestly and directly with the actions of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld which were criminal by standards of international law and humanitarian decency. Only then will the US be able to walk into any international forum and advocate for action on the basis of international law and human rights with integrity and a sense of moral authority.

The US may never be mature enough to accept responsibility for those actions, but it will never deserve full respect until it does. We teach our children that a person of character admits his or her mistakes and accepts responsibility. Yet we do not hold our national leaders to the same ethical standards.