What We Should Do in Libya Now

The most embarrassing part of being a liberal, I’d imagine, is watching your fellow idealogues call the nonsense in Wisconsin a “freedom fight” while allowing the liberal-in-chief President of the United States to pussyfoot around the Libyan situation – an actual life-or-death freedom fight in which the stakes are higher than “I don’t want to pay even 5% of my health care”.

The clinically insane dictator has directed troops to spray crowds of civilians with anti-aircraft guns – they are not merely putting holes in people, they are blowing their heads off.  And the US declares sanctions.  Our response so far has been an absolute disgrace.

Amir Taheri has an important op-ed in today’s New York Post in which he lays out exactly what the US (and by extension, the UN) should be doing already, today, now.  His plan includes declaring a no-fly zone so that whatever is left of Qaddafi’s military can’t commit massacres as well as making a non-ambiguous declaration of support for the rebellion.

Here are two more of Taheri’s ideas for immediate action:

* The United Nations should immediately open an inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by Khadafy and his cohorts, and make it clear that regime grandees will be held personally responsible.

* The US and the European Union should establish contact with the National Salvation Committee in Libya’s second biggest city, Benghazi, and acknowledge it as a de facto interim government.  At this stage, there is no need for formal recognition. Contact at a respectable level would be enough.

It’s not that Libya won’t fall on it’s own – I think that’s a fait accompli at this point.  The question is whether or not there needs to be more bloodshed.

When you consider how obvious these moves are, the administration’s cowardice becomes even more glaring.  Change and hope, frozen, as if in a block of ice.  More of the same.

Source:

Act now, or we’ll have a repeat of the Butcher of Baghdad (NYP)