WORLD MARCH 5, 2011
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When Casablanca’s corrupt police captain Louis Renault closes down Rick’s Bar Américain to please Major Strasser, he huffs: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” A second later, the croupier hands him a pile of money: “Your winnings, sir.” It took the West and the Rest 42 years to be shocked by what has been happening in Muammar’s Café Libyien. And it wasn’t gambling.
Now, it’s no more U.N. Human Rights Council for Qaddafi. Now, the International Criminal Court is investigating. Now, the E.U. is cutting off arms supplies and freezing bank accounts. Even the supple Swiss are getting religion, sequestering funds thought to belong Gaddafi and relatives. The U.N. Security Council, no assembly of choirboys, suddenly performs as the world’s conscience. It has imposed an asset freeze and a travel ban on the Qaddafi clan. Foreign ministers vie with one another in the shrillness of their indictment of a tyrant variously called “mass murderer,” “state terrorist,” or “psychopath.” “Outraged,” President Obama demands, “He must leave.” The U.S. and Britain are mulling “no-fly zones” to pin Qaddafi’s air force to the ground.
There is no reason to be “shocked, shocked.” Everybody—and that goes for the West as well as for Arabs, African, and Asians—has been able to see all along what’s been happening in Libya. But the Human Rights Council did not seem notice—perhaps because it was too busy passing 32 resolutions against Israel since its creation in 2006, almost half of the total it’s issued. The Council must have acted in a fit of dizziness when it elected Libya as a member.
The African Union—with around 50 members, depending on who is suspended when—anointed Qaddafi as chairman in 2009. This was the same Qaddafi who attacked Egypt in 1977 to demonstrate his displeasure with Cairo’s shift toward peace with Israel, and who invaded Chad in 1978 for a bit of territorial enlargement. In the 1980s, Qaddafi never met a terror outfit he didn’t like, supporting each and all with cash and arms—all the way to Ireland and the Philippines. He graduated from paymaster to puppet master with the PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie. Though he never assumed responsibility, Libya did offer to pay $2.7 billion in 2002 as compensation to the families of the 270 victims. Compared to this blood orgy, you might call the three American soldiers killed in a terror attack on West Berlin’s La Belle disco in 1986 an act of restraint.
And yet. The only time shock led to counter-shock was when Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli in 1986. The attack unleashed an uproar in Europe; this was worse than the slaughter of Libyan civilians, it was neo-imperialism! Four years earlier, a delegation of German Greens—idealists and pacifists all—had come to Tripoli to pay their respects to “Brother Leader.”
Yes, there were also economic sanctions, such as America’s Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. But it didn’t keep American, let alone French and Italian, oil companies from doing business with Libya. There was simply too much cash in the country, such as a sovereign wealth fund worth $ 70 billion. Formalized in 2007, the fund, reports The New York Times,drew into its “orbit” the Great and the Good, “including the Rothschild family, Prince Andrew, the former European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, the cream of corporate society in Italy” as well as a couple of big-time U.S. investors.
In 2009, while Qaddafi was in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi praised him as “man of deep wisdom.” In 2007, French President Sarkozy’s “good friend” got to pitch his tent in the middle of Paris, presumably rent-free. But never mind. The visit brought in a deal worth 10 billion euros for a little nuclear reactor here, 14 Rafale combat planes there.
And now, he is our friend no more. “Treason,” the cynic Talleyrand pontificated, “is a matter of date.” “Unfriending,” too, we might add. Apropos of date: Britain and the U.S. came down really hard on Qaddafi in 2003, right after spectacular victory in Iraq. A few weeks later, Qaddafi came clean on his nukes, promising to scrap whatever he had and opening his country to inspections. The moral of this tale is that power talks. When there is the demonstrated will to use it, even the worst tyrants start purring.
Yet nobody told Qaddafi to stop being Qaddafi: an oppressor of his own people who would have made NKVD/KGB and the Gestapo proud. How is 2011 different from the 41 years before? The current mayhem does not bespeak a new quality; it is just more visible. So why the new outrage? Talleyrand might have mused: “Never go after tyrants before they falter, but hit them hard when they can’t hit back.” In German: Realpolitik beats idealpolitik; power and interest matter more than decency.
As we can see now, however, an excess of self-interest always begets an excess of self-righteousness. Unfortunately, to indulge in piety afterward is always easier than to walk that fine line between justice and expediency beforehand—in human affairs as well as in the life of nations. Nor will this ever end. Only in the movies do flawed heroes like Rick and Louis dispatch Major Strasser and go on to join the Free French Forces in Brazzaville.
Josef Joffe is the editor of Die Zeit, a senior fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, and an Abramowitz Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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13 comments
Perhaps the shrillness in pronouncements from Western capitals is in direct proportion to their embarrassment at being exposed for having yet again coddled an autocrat. It's a ritual: the citizenry pays lip-service to universal values while its leaders ensure that the pursuit of those values doesn't come at the expense of convenience and financial interest. When the clash between policy and values comes, as it invariably does, the play calls for hollow expressions of outrage, which the audience cheers as evidence of its goodness, and for which the people in benighted places are mere stage props.
- gkjames
March 5, 2011 at 6:48am
Thank you! Only yesterday Hilary was happy to make friend with very civilized Seif Kadafi, don't forget. Before that she was hugging Suha Arafat. Tomorrow? Your guess is as good as mine. As for Obama there is no Islamic tyrant he doesn't want to have a friendly discussion with. Don't forget that the US was until a few days ago a member of UNHCR with Libya's Kadafi. So sickening!
- Poupic
March 5, 2011 at 9:31am
Did not Qadhafi also mentor/finance genocidal Charles Taylor's adventures in Sierra Leone and Liberia? All this is showing the impotence of multi-lateralism, with more people dying than in Cote D'Ivoire, the truly blatant example of the failure of the United Nations to even insure the peaceful transfer of power after valid elections. One million foreign migrant workers are still trapped inside Libya, and those from Sub-Saharan Africa may be the first genocide. Ironic that, this time, it is Lebanon's Hezbollah that is on the right side of history in that they never forgave Qadhafi since 1978: "...Gadhafi’s trial in the [Iranian-born Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr] Sadr case comes as the Libyan leader continues to fight bloody battles against his people in order to hold on to power. In 2009, the Judicial Council indicted Gadhafi and 16 of his aides in the case and accused them of provoking civil war and inciting sectarian fighting in Lebanon. Ties between Libya and Lebanon have been cold ever since Sadr’s disappearance in 1978. State Prosecutor Said Mirza said “the state prosecution reserves the right for the judicial summons to take legal effect when the Judicial Council’s committee quorum is complete.” The session was attended by over 200 lawyers, lawmakers and politicians representing Hezbollah and its ally, Amal Movement, which Sadr founded. ..." http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=125640#axzz1Fjeed2bK
- K2K
March 5, 2011 at 12:39pm
One more academic who sucked up to Qaddafi: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/04/lse-libya-anthony-giddens-gaddafi/print Anthony Giddens was a well respected sociologist. Another academic whose reputation will suffer is Richard Sennett.
- arnon
March 5, 2011 at 4:35pm
I doubt anyone would be surprised by Soros' actions. "As part of the fall-out, billionaire US financier George Soros last night apologised for having advised the LSE to take Libyan money." As the song "If I were a rich man" has it "WHEN YOU`RE RICH, THEY THINK YOU REALLY KNOW"
- arnon
March 5, 2011 at 4:39pm
This is a beautifully written piece; however, some of the above comments seem to suggest that only leftists and intellectuals empower dictators. This is simply untrue. This isn't a left/right issue. It is an issue of power and realpolitik though - and economics - nevertheless it is both shameful and revealing to have learned the extent of the world's enthusiastic acceptance of Qaddafi with no real evidence that there had been any progress made within Libya. Hopefully, we're all learning from this. Perhaps the world will find a better way? We'd better.
- Sophia
March 5, 2011 at 7:20pm
"This is a beautifully written piece; however, some of the above comments seem to suggest that only leftists and intellectuals empower dictators." I didn't read it that way, Sophia. Still, a left liberal, I must say that the support of Kaddafi on the part of the left isn’t just venal, it’s also hypocritical. The left has traditionally criticized capitalists for caring more about profit than about other values. This is partly true of some capitalists but the left was supposed to care about values of equality and justice and as this article made clear they like any capitalist cared more about getting money from a particularly brutal dictator than about his lethal behavior. What is more galling is the number of well-respected educators who were ready to excuse a murderer for money. (Not to mention the hypocritical attacks on Israel by these same people. Richard Sennet, for example, singled out Jews as racists in his book “The Fall of Public Man.”) Whatever else are the consequences of the rebellion against Kaddafi’s rule will be, the exposure of many top leftist’s support for his regime in exchange for money, is going to have a profound effect on the left.
- arnon
March 5, 2011 at 7:49pm
one tangential point. I did some quick research on the 2011 wheat supply, and it seems the U.S., this year, will be the Saudi Arabia of wheat exports, with Ukraine also having a bumper crop. Good for Egypt, and the rest of the ME, which import so much of their basic foodstuffs. IMO, nothing seems to embarrass the far left. no, I do not have a linear measure of when it gets to be 'far', but certainly includes those who are hardwired to see everything, evry thing, through the lens of transnational anti-colonialist multi-culturalists. From Libya, Jon Lee Anderson's vivid post from the rebellion, plus a possible reason why the opposition council in Benghazi just announced they do NOT want a no-fly zone: "...In Ajdabia, meanwhile, Peter Bouckaert, a Human Rights Watch representative, said that he came across a stockpile of Russian SA-7 portable heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, as well as a vast quantity of other weapons and munitions, stored in a number of ill-guarded warehouses now in rebel hands ..." http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/03/libya-armies-of-the-east.html
- K2K
March 5, 2011 at 9:26pm
We didn't "coddle" Qaddafi, we barely tolerated him. Is there anyone here who thinks we should have invaded Libya like we did Iraq? Should we have imposed crippling sanctions and created a humanitarian crisis? Yes some diplomats said nice things about him, and yes the UN has genuinely behaved lousily, but I'm not sure what the US at least should have done differently.
- WillPastor
March 6, 2011 at 2:27pm
"Cambridge firm, Harvard profs put cash before conscience" March 6, 2011 "Porter is right that many others, including the Bush administration, rewarded Libya for taking positive steps. Such progress can and should be acknowledged by diplomats. But it shouldn’t be too much to hope that professors would follow a higher standard. The Monitor Group, in some respects, was trying to help Khadafy and his son enact government reforms. But there were other projects, such as a gauzy book proposal extolling Khadafy’s belief in “individual freedom,’’ that are provoking embarrassment in Cambridge now that the dictator is on the ropes — as well they should." http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/03/06/cambridge_firm_harvard_profs_put_cash_before_conscience/
- arnon
March 6, 2011 at 5:13pm
"Why the Mideast revolts will help al-Qaeda" By Michael Scheuer http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030402322_pf.html "How tragic that in the war being waged against the United States by al-Qaeda and its allies precisely because of Washington's relentless intervention in the Islamic world, the U.S. government will now be forced to intervene even more - or sit on the sidelines and watch al-Qaeda build or expand bases from which to threaten U.S. security. Of course, open and vociferous participation by Islamists in the demonstrations in Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli and elsewhere would have earned a lethal and Western-supported response from Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi. So al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups simply used a talent that long ago atrophied in the West - the ability to keep their mouths shut. As usual, the West wrongly concluded that silence connotes not strategy, but impotence and irrelevance. Bin Laden and his peers are counting on the fact that the uprisings' secular, pro-democracy Facebookers and tweeters - so beloved of reality-averse Western journalists and politicians - are a thin veneer across a deeply pious Arab world. They are confident that these revolts are not about democratic change but about who, in societies where peaceful transfers of power are rare, will fill the vacuum left by the dictators and consolidate power. These men also know that the answer to that question will ultimately come out of the barrel of a Kalashnikov, of which they have many, along with the old tyrants' weapons stockpiles, on which they are now feasting. Michael Scheuer, chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, is an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University. He is the author of the new biography "Osama bin Laden" and will be online on Monday, March 7 at 11 a.m. EST to chat. Submit your questions and comments."
- arnon
March 6, 2011 at 5:24pm
@WillPastor - I don't think we should have invaded Iraq let alone Libya. But - Qaddafi was embraced - he became stylish - not just in the UN. Now, people have having to backtrack, people who should have known better in the first place, nu? This is more so in Europe than in the US I think. Check this out: http://hurryupharry.org/2011/03/03/sir-howard-davies-resigns/ Also of interest: http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/libya-washington-london-dilemma?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=201210&utm_campaign=Nightly_2011-03-06%2005%3a30
- Sophia
March 6, 2011 at 6:52pm
I just learned that my link above wasn't working. Here is another link. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/03/06/cambridge_firm_harvard_profs_put_cash_before_conscience/ In case it doesn't work here is most of the article: "Cambridge firm, Harvard profs put cash before conscience" "WHILE DOZENS of New England families were remembering lost sons and daughters in the three years leading up to 20th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the Cambridge-based Monitor Group, founded by Harvard professors, was pocketing millions of dollars in consulting contracts from those responsible for the bombing: the Libyan government of Moammar Khadafy. The firm also helped arrange for big-name academics from Harvard and other universities to advise Khadafy in exchange for consulting fees. There are no established ethical guidelines for business or academic consultants — except for the consciences of those involved, which should have been registering a code-red warning. (Put aside that some in the group were helping the dictator’s son Saif complete a doctoral dissertation at the London School of Economics, thereby tarnishing another higher-ed institution.) The firm and the Harvard academics were hardly alone in hiring themselves out to Libya’s brutal ruler, who maintained a roster of paid enablers that included major oil companies and former members of Congress. Laden with a $70 billion sovereign wealth fund and another $110 billion in its central bank, the oil-rich Khadafys drew all sorts of investors, partners, and consultants. And Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor who is a Monitor Group co-founder, said he refused to work with the Libyans until they accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and gave up the country’s nuclear weapons program. But while those gestures were understandably welcome, they didn’t erase Libya’s moral culpability for decades of terrorism and human-rights violations. Porter is right that many others, including the Bush administration, rewarded Libya for taking positive steps. Such progress can and should be acknowledged by diplomats. But it shouldn’t be too much to hope that professors would follow a higher standard. The Monitor Group, in some respects, was trying to help Khadafy and his son enact government reforms. But there were other projects, such as a gauzy book proposal extolling Khadafy’s belief in “individual freedom,’’ that are provoking embarrassment in Cambridge now that the dictator is on the ropes — as well they should."
- arnon
March 6, 2011 at 7:51pm