Libya

I haven’t written about Libya in a long time because I’m increasingly dismayed by how it’s shaped up.

Back when Benghazi was about to get massacred, I was totally in favor of doing something. (And I thought the “we couldn’t know for sure that there would have been a massacre” reservations from some quarters were mostly bad-faith lazy rationalizations by those who think that reactively opposing the West on every issue is enough to constitute a political philosophy.) Then for awhile after that, I thought there was room for a little bit of hardball intervention to give Qaddafi one last push if the rebels were really in a position to take over, as long as the rebels were the main impetus and it wasn’t primarily a NATO attack.

But now, the way things are going seems both incompetent and sickening. Repeatedly bombing Qaddafi’s compound seems like nothing but glorified attempted murder. [ADDENDUM: I think it’s very different from bin Laden, who was leading a non-state criminal organization, essentially an upscale and much more dangerous mafia family; Qaddafi is a head of state, however bad, and I don’t see the justification for repeated attacks on his living quarters over many months in an undeclared war. “Success” in such an effort would be pretty revolting, wouldn’t it?]

I must admit that I scoffed after first reading Badiou’s “this is a Western intelligence plot” interpretation of the situation, but judging from the way things have gone, he may have a point. My friend from Benghazi also thinks so, even though she loathes Qaddafi as much as anyone I know.

In any case, it’s now a pretty disgusting conflict.