Libya

With the help of airstrikes, the rebels have RECAPTURED AJDABIYA.

I read now that the West is “considering” arming the rebels.

I’m not sure what the point is of pretending that NATO is merely there to stop attacks on civilians. There is no way that civilians will be safe as long as Qaddafi remains in power. In short, the West has chosen sides (pretty clearly the right side), and once you choose sides you might as well go all the way.

The rebels should have been armed a long time ago. Both because of Iraq and because of generally valid imperialism concerns, Western ground troops should be out of the question, and they seem to be so. That means the rebels are going to need better weapons.

There’s an obvious risk to this. The rebels won’t end up being saints either, and any weapons given to them may end up being used in ways one wishes they hadn’t been used.

But as I see it, there was a pretty simple choice here. (1) Sit by and watch Qaddafi massacre Benghazi, and feel like crap about that for the next 20 years. Or (2) intervene with everything short of ground troops, and stick to it until Qaddafi is out of power.

To stop now would be the worst of both worlds, so it now has to pushed until the rebels take over.

My only regret is that we sold out Bahrain in order to make this possible, though Bahrain was probably going to be sold out anyway, sadly enough. The Bahrainis are the big losers of the uprisings so far.