Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Spartan Daily

Spartan Daily Home Wednesday, April 6, 2011 News Opinion Letters Questioning U.S intervention in Libya On The Contrary By Salman Haqqi Published: Sunday, April 3, 2011 Updated: Tuesday, April 5, 2011 14:04 Salman Haqqi These days it's hard not to think the world has gone nuts. The U.S. is "saving civilians" in Libya via Tomahawk missiles. President Obama is still touting nuclear energy even in the face of the Fukushima disaster and Donald Trump wants to run for president. The absurdities of the world today remind me of the "theater of the absurd," which I learned about in a literature class and where I got to study the work of great writers such as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Albert Camus. Their writing was their way of reacting to a world that seemed out of control and out of its mind. Significantly, the word "theater" is used for places where plays are produced and the lands upon which we conduct our wars. The battlefield is considered as much a "theater" as a venue on Broadway. Without waxing philosophically and commenting on the many unknowns that so obsessed Donald Rumsfeld, our modern day philosopher-king of the Pentagonian school, you almost have to abandon logic and rationality to try to make sense of what is happening in front of our eyes. The man who led the disastrous invasion of Iraq, and who expected that war to be a "cakewalk," now calls the latest U.S. attack in Libya "worrisome." Rummy may have a point this time............. Not only does war unleash all manner of latent enmity and violence, but decades of abusive treatment by ruthless dictators fuels pathologies that only fully manifest themselves when the lid of control pops off. Pro- and anti-Gadhafi tribes could square off against one another, and Gadhafi could unleash the jihadists he once trained to wreak violence both at home and abroad. So you wouldn't want to bet on a happy outcome in Libya, you'd want to do whatever you could to help deliver one. It behooves those of us who have argued for the intervention now under way to give serious thought to what form that help should take. As Cornel West of Princeton University said in a recent interview, if Libya had artichokes instead of oil, our attitude toward Libya would probably be different. As a result, any honest debate on Libya should not be based simply upon the question as to whether foreign military intervention is necessary to stop widespread repression. It should be as to whether the best way to overthrow dictators is through a foreign-backed armed uprising or — as demonstrated in Egypt, Tunisia, Serbia, Chile, and dozens of other countries — whether the people of the affected countries themselves be allowed to do so through the power of mass strategic nonviolent action. This is a special appearance of "On The Contrary." Salman Haqqi is the Spartan Daily Executive Editor.1 comments Wed Apr 6 2011 The reality is there's a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options. And lets just call a spade a spade. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses. It is not merely Libya's sweet crude oil the globalists are itching to get their hands on. In fact, physically capturing Libya's oil plays a minor role. They are interested in not only destabilizing the entire Middle East, including the crown jewel Saudi Arabia, but also sending the world economy into a death spiral. A $200-a-barrel oil price will surely do more damage to the world economy than any other single event Ted Rudow III, MAClass of 1996

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