The "Arab Spring" was a short one; what follows, another NATO Summer, will last much longer.
If you do not think about it, there is a lot to cheer about the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, against what this time has been a mountain of advice, questions, and critiques from all imaginable political quarters, and not as the warmongering extremists would have it, from "Gaddafi lovers" (George Will? Pat Buchanan? Richard Haas? Gaddafi lovers?). In previous articles, I have criticized the flip-side enough, meaning the positions taken by Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega, without sparing Gaddafi in the least--I do not need to repeat any of it here, because it is entirely irrelevant to the discussion now. Instead, this is an autopsy, identifying the weapons used, and the criminals responsible for killing the Libyan revolution. This is no longer a Libyan story--that chapter is now closed. My autopsy is divided into several broad categories of actors: the humanitarians, the rebels, the international organizations, the mass media, and the Americans. Finally, what we should be watching in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.
In this report ZA continues from the last one, by presenting a media roundup that focuses on arguments for and against foreign military intervention in Libya. (As usual, the reports are listed in chronological order, starting with the most recent.) Many of the arguments have centered around the imposition of a no flight zone, although frequently the argument for intervention includes proposed air strikes on Libyan government targets. First to be presented are those articles that criticize humanitarian imperialist premises and the (re)turn to validating military humanism, as they tend to be the most cogent and continue to be largely unanswered. Second, a listing of key rebel statements calling for Western intervention, and some articles about the Libyan opposition. Third, articles and essays that promote and justify foreign military intervention. Also, ZA’s top recommendations.
Exodus: Movement of the People Thinking still of Gastón Cordillo’s essays on resonance—“Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution” and “The Speed of Revolutionary Resonance,” and others writing about “The Phenomenology of the Resonance-Reverberation Doublet”—I remember writing to Gastón that the concept of resonance reminded me of “agitation,” which raised other associations of political terms that are… [Read more…]
Whose Responsibility? One would expect that the citizens of the nations that exported arms to those regimes that they now find offensive, need to take personal responsibility to make sure that their weapons manufacturers are blocked from ever again selling weaponry to states with a record of human rights violations–there is little point in first… [Read more…]
March 18, 2011
by Maximilian Forte
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