An humble and a contrite heart…

Cornelius Wilhelm Jäger.

Cornelius was born in 1850, in Hallgarten, a village in the Rheinland, the third of 11 children of Wilhelm Jäger & Anna Storzl.

I don’t know why my great-great grandparents swapped Germany for the fledgling vineyards of the Hunter Valley.  All I know is that my great-grandmother, Mary Jäger, was born in 1899, the 10th of Cornelius’ children.

‘Grandma Mary’ died when I was 19.  Her hands. gnarled with arthritis, were a constant of my childhood.  It’s only today that I wished I’d asked her, instead of my WWII-vintage grandmothers, to tell me about her ‘wartime experiences’ in those yearly school assignments.

Not only had she lived through all of Australia’s foreign wars; my great-grandmother was a ‘Hun’.

It’s not as if I was asked in a Fawlty-fashion to never mention the war.  Our ‘German-ness’ was erased long before my birth in 1971; so when people criticise ANZAC Day as the epitome of jingoism & warmongering, I think of that wizened old lady, and what life must have been like for a 15-year-old German girl in country NSW when war broke out.  What it was like to be part of an insular migrant community (all of her uncles and aunts married other German immigrants) reviled as Belgian baby killers.  What it was like to think of cousins fighting for the Fatherland.  What it was like to be the enemy.

What a strange pull of forces.

~~~~~

Stanley Richard Portus.

‘Uncle Mickey’ was born on May 4, 1925.  According to his sister – one of the grandmothers whose ‘wartime experiences’ I gathered – her lovely little brother was gobbled up by the air force as a teenager, trained to fly in a few weeks & sent off to fight the Japanese in the skies over the Pacific.

It is with no small shred of shame that I say I was terrified of the man who quivered and quavered when we visited the small house in Mayfield he shared my great-grandmother.  She would make tea on the wood-burning stove, and Mickey’s hands trembled as he held the cup in his hands.

Mickey was the saddest person I have ever known.  His eyes, watery, held no light.  He spoke, in the sense that he would answer when his mother, sister or niece talked directly to him.  Apart from that, Mickey sat at the kitchen table and stared at things that no one else could see.

‘God help anyone who knocks on that door after dark,’ my Mum would say.  ‘He’s got a rifle with a fixed bayonet in his bedroom, and he’d use it, too.  It’s not his fault he’s like that.  He’s got shell-shock.’

This was the 1980s. We still said shell-shock to describe post-traumatic stress disorder.  To the best of my knowledge, it was never treated.  Mickey’s life ended before he turned 20, but he heard the screams of Japanese soldiers burning alive at the end of his flamethrower for another 60 years.

It may be sweet & fitting to die for your country, but to bury your self, or your history in it… that’s hell.

Not on our watch

On Monday, as part of the Security Council, Australia was briefed by UN deputy secretary-general, Jan Eliasson on a complex emergency allowed to unfold on our watch in the Central African Republic (CAR). “Some call this a forgotten crisis,” Eliasson said. “The world is haunted by the horrors of crises spiralling into atrocities.” He presented the Security Council with five options, but made clear that there is only one choice: UN intervention.

Eliasson labeled the suffering as ‘beyond the imagination’, and referred to human rights violations including the escalating use of child soldiers (estimated by UNICEF to number 6,000), sexual violence and widespread reports of looting, illegal checkpoints, extortion, arbitrary arrests, torture and summary executions. Both the previous government of François Bozizé and the current regime of interim President Michel Djotodia (who overthrew Bozizé in a coup in March), are accused of serious human rights abuses by groups including Human Rights Watch.

France yesterday announced it would deploy further troops to the CAR, as well as circulating a draft Security Council resolution that would create a UN peacekeeping force to augment, and transform the 3,000-strong African Union-led International Support Mission to the CAR (MISCA). UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has put the peacekeeping force required at 6,000, together with 1,700 police personnel and a contingency plan for 3,000 extra troops ready to enter the country if the situation further deteriorates.

The nightmare scenario is spiralling inter-communal violence between Muslims in the north, and the majority Christian population. Djotodia relies on the Séléka, an alliance of guerrillas from the CAR and surrounding countries, as his de facto security force. The rule of the gun takes precedence over the rule of law, with Christian armed groups known as the ‘anti-balaka’ (anti-machetes), responding in kind. The number of internally displaced is estimated at 400,000, however information flows from within the country of 4.6 million people are scant, with few non-government organisations on the ground. Religious tolerance, previously a hallmark of the country, is foundering. Reports emerging of mosques and churches straining to provide safe havens for civilians are a chilling echo of the Rwandan genocide.

The CAR government is delinquent, the country increasingly the preserve of groups such as the Séléka and anti-balaka. This is hardly surprising when the Small Arms Survey puts the number of illicit arms in the hands of civilians and non-state actors at approximately 50,000 with just over 8,500 small arms and light weapons in the control of the military and law enforcement agencies. Some 7,000 government troops (the Forces armées centrafricaines) have retreated to the capital, Bangui, and are no longer operational, their place largely assumed by the Séléka. Armed gangs are free to act ruthlessly in an environment where small arms are a source of advantage and children are easily manipulated in what security scholar William Hartung describes as ‘the business of war’. Sanctions and support for the African Union are on the table (supported by the US), but if Eliasson is to taken at his word, and he should, it won’t work.

Under the principles of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the international community has a collective duty to step in to prevent mass atrocities when a state lacks the ability or will to protect its population from harm. While R2P has largely fallen out of favour, its emphasis on prevention and support, with the underlying promise that there are situations where the use of force is right and necessary and a long-term commitment to restoring a secure, well-governed and just society is appropriate to the escalating crisis in the CAR.

Australia could sit by, war-weary and let other nations bear the burden, or it could live up to the promise that genocide, and mass atrocity crimes require more of us than humanitarian aid. The spectre of Rwanda hangs over those who watched as 800,000 people were slaughtered. Australia has international peacekeeping and policing experience and the people of the CAR need our help. We should support the French resolution with more than the words ‘never again’.

Occupy This

To steal from Network, Americans are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

The #Occupy movement, which began as #OccupyWallStreet, a protest against bankers, bailouts and corporate greed.

In my tiny mind, Americans have every right to be angry. They might be angry enough to consign Barack Obama to a one-term presidency – unthinkable a few years ago. The left is angry, the right is angry and the Tea Party is the small government, small tax version of the pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Christian base for this decade

A few fast facts on why I think Americans are mad:

The economy: No wonder President Obama is playing golf with President Clinton. The baseline in American politics is the economy, stupid. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ latest release (7 October), seasonally adjusted unemployment in September 2011 was 9.1 per cent. That’s a 0.5 per cent improvement on September 2010. Breaking that down:

• 14 million Americans are registered unemployed
• Of that number, the long-term unemployed (people out of work for more than 27 weeks) make up more than 44 per cent, or 6.2 million)
• 24 per cent of teenagers (16-19 year olds) are unemployed
• 16 per cent of blacks are unemployed (c.f. with 8 per cent unemployment among whites; 11.3 per cent for Hispanics and 7.8 per cent for Asians)
• The annual 2010 unemployment rate of ‘Gulf War II’ veterans (i.e. military personnel who have served post September 2001) is 11.5 per cent

Delving slightly deeper, while the labor force and employment figures lifted, the civilian labor force participation rate (64.2 per cent) and employment:population ratio (58.3 per cent) remain fairly static. Disturbingly, 9.3 million Americans are classed as involuntary part-time workers (i.e. their hours have been cut or they’re unable to find full-time work). In August 2011, the number was 8.8 million – an additional 444,000 people in one month. Those ‘marginally attached to the workforce’ – some 2.5 million Americans who have sought work in the last year, but not in the last four weeks, are not counted as unemployed. There are 1 million ‘discouraged’ American workers. These are the defeated and demoralised. They believe they cannot get a job, so they’ve given up. Average hourly earnings? $23.12. Average weekly earnings? $793.02.

‘Failed’ stimulus: President Obama signed The Recovery Act on 7 February 2009. The total package of $787 billion was increased to $840 billion in 2011. I bracketed ‘failed’ because it’s open to interpretation. There is certainly a perception that while some of the leading indicators have resulted in an improvement in certain sectors of the economy and regions, in my view, this is counterbalanced by one of the saddest statistics I think I’ve ever come across: $8 billion additional spend on food stamps to feed 38 million hungry Americans. (Reuters)

Dysfunctional government: the White House is caught in a pincer movement. President Obama has come out swinging at Congress recently, most notably on his jobs bill. He’s moving to Candidate Obama, criss-crossing the country selling a Bill which has no chance of passing. These people who were willing to play brinkmanship with the country’s credit card. It is pathetic.

The cost of foreign policy: President Obama got Osama bin Laden. Terrific. It doesn’t change the economic and human costs of the country’s operations in Pakistan and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the key findings of a recent report from the Eisenhower Research Project based at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies:

• The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan will cost between $3.2 and $4 trillion, including medical care and disability for current and future war veterans. This figure does not include substantial probable future interest on war-related debt.
• More than 31,000 people in uniform and military contractors have died, including the Iraqi and Afghan security forces and other military forces allied with the United States.
• By a very conservative estimate, 137,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by all parties to these conflicts.
• The wars have created more than 7.8 million refugees among Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis.
• Pentagon bills account for half of the budgetary costs incurred and are a fraction of the full economic cost of the wars.
• Because the war has been financed almost entirely by borrowing, $185 billion in interest has already been paid on war spending, and another $1 trillion could accrue in interest alone through 2020.
• Federal obligations to care for past and future veterans of these wars will likely total between $600-$950 billion. This number is not included in most analyses of the costs of war and will not peak until mid-century.

That’s just war. Don’t start me on the President’s broken promise to close Guantánamo Bay; conduct of extra-judicial killings and the disconnect between endorsement of the Arab Spring where it’s easy (Libya, for example) and wilful disregard for others (such as the Shi`a of  Bahrain).

The 99 per cent: Campaign finance reform; the disparity between tax breaks for the super-wealthy and the middle-class; corporate bailouts; out-of-control student debt it’s the beginning of a national conversation Americans haven’t engaged in for a long time.

So … it was with a general sense of irritation that I heard about the #OccupyPickAnAustralianCity protests that took place yesterday, for one reason: the great Australian propensity for whingeing. If whingeing was an Olympic sport, it would be, ‘GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!’ for Australia. I whinge, I hear others whinge and I read about people whingeing on a daily basis. It’s healthy to vent, to verbalise frustrations, irritations and feelings that systems, services and other people are failing us; but when you conflate whingeing into the #Occupy movement, you cheapen it. Yes, I am fully aware that Australia was only one of 78 countries to hold protests yesterday. I would also contend that people in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece have legitimate fears and grievances against prevailing economic conditions and systemic corruption. Australia? Not so much. While many on the ‘left’ view Tony Abbott as the Nabob of No, the Occupiers of Australia are playing his game of fear and loathing:

The economy: 5.2 per cent unemployment in September 2011. As the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Measures of Australia’s Progress 2011 report shows, pretty much everything (barring productivity) has improved since 2000. Including unemployment. The bad news? That increase applies to threatened animal species due to climate change. The average weekly income per full-time employed adult is $1,305. The average hourly income is between $29.70 and$33.10 (the disparity? Female wages c.f. men) (Source: ABS)

‘Failed’ stimulus: I’m leaving this one to George Megalogenis

Dysfunctional government: I am not a cheerleader for the current Government, but I am thankful that there are some quality people in our Parliament. Not naming names, but as close to the bone it has come on major issues – especially in the last few weeks – it is functional. I may not like the politics, the policies, the poor communication and quality of political discourse, but it continues to roll on.

The cost of foreign policy: Defence estimates an approximate $6 billion spend in Afghanistan to 2014. Iraq Mk II, approximately $2.3 billion. To me, the irreparable damage is in civilian deaths, leaving Australian citizens in Gitmo, irregular migration flows (UN-speak for refugees), international reputation and pathetic policy reactions to the problems we helped cause. That said, I don’t think we’ve been breaking arms embargoes, killing people willy-nilly or uneven in our condemnation for despots the world over.

The 99 per cent: according to a new release into household wealth from the ABS, the top 20 per cent of Australian households have seen their average net wealth increase by 15 per cent to $2.2 million since 2005/06, accounting for approximately 60 per cent of total household wealth. The bottom 20 per cent’s average net wealth grew by only 4 per cent. They account for approximately 1 per cent of total household wealth. That leaves almost 30 per cent of Australian households with an average net wealth of $720,000, up 14 per cent since 2005/06 – almost on par with the richest in the land and 10 per cent ahead of the poor. I contend that there is no ’99 per cent’ in Australia. Of course there is disparity in wealth; but the two major assets of Australian households (property – $520-540,000; superannuation – $60-154,000) put ‘average’ Australia within striking distance of the top 20 per cent. This is not the case in the US. It never has been and never will be.

I hope this stirs some pots & kettles. It stirred mine.

The Jihadist Pimpernel

‘Osama bin-Laden and his protégés are the children of desperation: they come from countries where political struggle through peaceful means is futile.”

Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia

International Herald Tribune, 11 October 2001

As a self-confessed international relations & human security nerd (note nerd does not equal expert in ANY way), news of the extra-judicial killing of Osama bin-Laden is like a really good one night stand. It’s great, sexy, an intense bout of oxygen for my passions, listening to smart people talking about my world view. Like a great one-nighter, it won’t last, despite the smart people; we’ll go back to opinion polls and leadership challenges soon enough. So here are a few thoughts, probably incoherent and a cautionary tale for Fairfax as to why sub-editors are required – without them, newspapers will become foolish blogs like mine.

1/. Osama bin-Laden: ir/relevant?

Many of the counter-terrorism and Middle East experts I greatly respect have already put it out there: bin-Laden is irrelevant; his legacy is not outstanding. Despite its grim successes – embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the strike against the USS Cole and 9/11 – al-Qaeda has failed to achieve its stated aim, to inspire an Islamic caliphate, ridding the oppressed of dictators and false kings propped up by infidels. It is ordinary people demanding democracy who are achieving results, not those carrying bombs in their underpants. Alternately, bin-Laden undoubtedly kept al-Qaeda in the money, not only through his own wealth, but through his extensive contacts. He wasn’t entirely passed his use-by date to the organisation he founded; perhaps the organisation itself is struggling for relevance as Arabs rise up and demand 21st century freedoms, not a 7th century ideology.

2/. Kill bin?

As a Twitter friend of mine, @SenamBeheton wrote tonight:

Are people celebrating #OBL’s death or the end of his possibilities? Reaction if he was arrested not killed? Would have been the same.

It’s a worthy, skilfully put statement. Why kill bin-Laden?

Why do I, a believer in the imperfect, largely unwritten world of international law, not have a problem with his assassination. Is this why I fear NATO is overstepping the mark in bombing Muammar Qaddafi’s compound; yet have few – almost no – qualms about bin-Laden’s assassination? Both are violations of my interpretation of international law – UN resolution 1973 does not entail the extra-judicial killing of a man who, like it or not, remains a head of state. bin-Laden’s death surely violates Pakistan’s sovereignty – I cannot be convinced that anyone in Islamabad had prior knowledge of the kill squad – and is the unilateral action of the hegemonic power. So why am I uneasy about one, and not the other? I have thought about it since I saw President Obama’s carefully worded statement. Killing bin-Laden shuffles the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ leaderboard, but his strategic input to al-Qaeda’s activities after the Battle of Tora Bora is questionable – so was the kill team necessary? His value to the organisation on 30 April 2011 was as a figurehead for al-Qaeda franchises and bogeyman for the West, in particular Americans. This is why I understand President Obama giving the go ahead for his assassination. This is not an episode of “The West Wing’. Given he was first briefed on the potential operation last August, President Obama has had time to consider his options. I applaud him for using his intelligence agencies and military in an ‘old skool’ manner; after 9/11, the reputation and morale of the American intelligence community reached a nadir. The security apparatus of the US could not prevent such an attack. Despite the Revolution in Military Affairs, and his own use of drone aircraft to bomb suspected Taliban-held areas of Pakistan, the POTUS made sure it was he, as Commander-in-Chief watched as Navy SEALS, not an unmanned plane, killed bin-Laden. The photographs from the White House Situation Room do not reveal any sense of jubilation, but white-knuckles; fear for the safety of their own troops, especially after one of the helicopters stalled, and, I dare say, some horror at what those assembled were witnessing. Then, having ordered the kill and witnessed it, Obama wrote a speech, alerted the press corps and gave a compelling, sombre statement and delivered it down the barrel of a camera late on Sunday night. There was little hyperbole, no ‘Mission Accomplished’; yet I cannot condemn the crowds who gathered at Ground Zero and the White House. Sure, “USA, USA” is not the most intelligent chant, but I truly believe it was a cathartic expression, not a celebration. We experience security subjectively. Americans felt violated by 9/11, and they had a long-bearded Saudi jihadist to blame. I don’t remember Americans spontaneously greeting the capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the tactical magician behind the attacks. Americans subjectively experienced terror at the hands of bin-Laden, & people are happy he is dead. Is it necessary for the US administration to release pictures of its dead prey? Difficult call. I was repulsed by the scratchy vision of Saddam Hussein’s execution, taken by a guard on a mobile phone, and yet I circulated a photograph allegedly showing the dead bin Laden on Twitter as soon as I saw it. The photograph was confirmed as a pitiful photoshop job. Embarrassing for me, more embarrassing for the three journalists whose hands it passed through before reaching me. Releasing the photos? Ghoulish? Will it put to rest the ‘deathers’ who don’t believe the President of the United States, or those who insist that he died years ago? I doubt it. There is no putting brains into statues. Release the photos? Will it spark anger, cause reprisal attacks? Probably. Yet the sight of the bloodied body of Ché Guevara, laid out for the world to see in Bolivia is not the Ché first year arts students venerate on their $2 t-shirts – the handsome young Ché of the Cuban revolution. bin Laden’s whippet features already appear on $2 t-shirts; I doubt they’ll be updated to feature his death mask. Is this a neat end to a shadow-caster? Definitely. I am not going to engage in what bin-Laden could have dumped on the US in a trial at The Hague. Buckets of shit that would make Julian Assange look like a flea in the ear of a dog; but Saddam Hussein’s trial didn’t afford the world a real look into the business he had done with the West. Would bin Laden’s have been any different? Does it help Obama politically? Absolutely. The carnival barkers, Palin, Bachmann and Trump look positively idiotic. Does it secure his re-election? Put it this way – his job approval ratings will go up for a month or so. Then, like us, Americans will go back to their real insecurities: unemployment and unending wars. Which brings me to … 

3/. The realpolitik: what now for the Middle East and Pakistan?

While al-Qaeda has publicly declared its support for protestors in Tunisia & Libya, the only rebel or revolutionary force where there are ‘flickers’ of al-Qaeda is Libya, as acknowledged by Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander and Commander of EUCOMM in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in March (Reuters, The Telegraph, BBC). The President of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, claims al-Qaeda has snatched SAMS (surface-to-air missiles) from the rebel zone. Of potentially greater import is the future role of Atiyyah Allah al-Libi, one of the few Libyans in al-Qaeda’s central leadership group. Could he drive a greater jihadist influence through the rebel hierarchy? Is that why Libya’s protestors were able to unsheath weapons and fight Qaddafi? I worry because of my perception of security. I fear that NATO has pursued an illogical strategy in Libya, and its only easy ‘out’ is to kill Qaddafi. Air strikes are not preventing the humanitarian outrages in Misurata and other towns. With every dragging day I am more convinced that the unspoken civil war which is being fought in the Maghreb will split and spread and Libya, torn in two, will not draw parallels with Vietnam, but Lebanon. There have already been incursions by Qaddafi forces into Tunisia. The President of Chad is right to fear weapons seeping from rebels and loyalists – his country has been involved in one of those ugly, unknown wars with Libya for decades. And Qaddafi – Qaddafi has been armed to the hilt since the arms embargo was lifted & he was rehabilitated by the Europeans. Arms in the hands of al-Qaeda and its pretenders in Libya means arms in Somalia, Yemen. Arms mean one thing: arma-fucking-geddon. And on that cheery note, we shift east, to Pakistan.

Many, and smarter minds than I have put the US / Pakistan problem down on paper with great eloquence. I will concentrate on what I see as the drivers of insecurity. In short, the gin joint is teetering on the edge of the clichéd ‘failed state’; unlike Somalia, no one can walk away. Unlike Afghanistan, we cannot pull the pin and hope for the best. Pakistan cannot topple over the edge. It dances around handbags with its nuclear-armed neighbour, India. It is terrorist central. It is fairly broken with corruption and human insecurity. It is not a failed state, but it is one ruled by networks of influence which have freed political actors from formal constraints of governance – the rules of representation, accountability and transparency. At the domestic level, informal networks coalesce around influential individuals, and may infiltrate every element of the political process, helping those in power to keep it by manipulating the national polity and cultivating a culture of cronyism, where network allies network receive government positions for personal reward. This solidifies a power base and may make the machinery of government inefficient and susceptible to corruption. Such networks flourish in states where power is not diffused, particularly if the judiciary is not independent and the rule of law breaks down. Influence can extend through families, clans or villages and across these boundaries, reaching out to other key ‘influencers’ and offering mutual benefit. This makes it difficult for opposition voices to be heard legitimately and competitors hungry for authority, particularly if it is accompanied by prestige and access to public wealth. Groups which may once have been confined to local rivalries will seize on a mood of disaffection and extend their networks in states struggling under the weight of government by favour. Hardened opposition networks of influence are less susceptible to dysfunction of that nature; it may prove more difficult to build connections on little more than promises, but success demands loyalty and discipline, norms which are diminished when a culture of entitlement becomes deeply entrenched. The delegitimization of social, political and military structures is a root cause of conflict. Conflict and fear. A University of Maryland report, Pakistani Public Opinion on the Swat Conflict, Afghanistan, and the US (1 July 2009) found the Pakistani public’s views of militant groups operating in Pakistan have become sharply more negative over the last year and a half; very large majorities now see them as a serious threat to the country’s future. A major shift has taken place in Pakistanis’ perceptions of religious militant groups in their country. In September 2007, only 34 percent thought the “activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban in FATA and settled areas” were a critical threat. In the current study this increased dramatically to 81 percent. In 2007, only 38 percent thought “the activities of religious militant groups in Pakistan” were a critical threat; in this study, 67 percent did. There has been a major shift in Pakistani opinion toward al-Qaeda – so far as it regards Pakistan itself. In late 2007, 41 per cent saw al-Qaeda’s activities as a critical threat to the vital interests of Pakistan in the next ten years; 21 percent called these activities an important, but not critical threat; and 14 percent said they were not a threat. In the current study, 82 percent called al-Qaeda’s activities a critical threat to Pakistan—a 41 percent increase. Twelve percent said al-Qaeda was an important, but not critical threat; only 2 percent said it was not a threat. If security is experienced subjectively, the Pakistani people are frayed and frightened. The US has little or no option but to keep the faith (at least in public) and perform a seismic shift against the multiple threats Pakistan faces from the extreme negligence of its government, its intelligence service and military. This is the great challenge facing this cool-headed President. Killing bin-Laden exposes the sores, and will prove to be pivotal in helping Pakistanis claw back their democracy; restore the apparatus of state. Maybe, bin-Laden’s death will bring an ‘Arab Spring’ to Islamabad and prevent non-state actors from pouncing on a state which is simply too big to fail.

Blowback

As the conflict in Libya drags on, it is becoming increasingly clear that as with most armed conflicts of the last 100 years, a bombing campaign will not ‘succeed’ (success in this case being the removal from power of Muammar Qaddafi). Having secured a United Nations resolution for ‘all necessary measures’ to protect Libyan civilians from their government, NATO began air strikes which had an immediate effect on Qaddafi’s forces. Then again, they were easy pickings in Libya’s vast deserts, chasing the ‘rebel’ forces aligned with the National Transitional Council east towards the putative capital of Benghazi. It doesn’t take a military genius to work out that once Qaddafi’s forces & arms reached population centres such as Tobruk and Misurata, bombing, no matter how surgical, is going to endanger the civilians the planes were sent to protect.

Resolution 1973 is the clearest indication yet that the international community is willing to implement the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect”. Military intervention is not the beginning of “R2P”; it is the last resort. The responsibility to prevent is crucial. It was clear for weeks before the conflict escalated that Qaddafi would not go willingly. Any hope of negotiating with Qaddafi, or his son, Saif, was doomed by pushing them into a corner. I am not saying that it was feasible or even wise; but Qaddafi rules because he is rat cunning and controls tribes. He is no Mubarak, a ‘strongman’ whose power was based on more readily understood (to the Western observer) military structures. Libyan society, like much of the region, is based firstly on tribe, family, and blood. The TNC is a collective of Western Libyan tribes. Qaddafi’s power is drawn from Sirte, his tribal home, yes; but also from Tripoli. With a population of 2 million in a country of 6 million, with Tripoli goes Libya. At the height of its surge west, the TNC reportedly came close to taking Tripoli (many Western media outlets breathlessly and prematurely reporting Qaddafi’s end was nigh). And this is where it all went pear-shaped. While there may have been broad support for getting rid of Qaddafi, he stared them down, fairly frothing at the mouth from a balcony, doing what he does best. Cornered, he blamed everyone from al-Qaeda spiking the Kool-Aid to his old enemies in the West for the uprising. I’m sad to say I called his strategy. Libyans, particularly Tripoli residents, remember the American raids of 1986 after the Berlin nightclub bombing and other outrages. The targeting of his compound killed an infant girl, who Qaddafi claimed was his adopted child. Qaddafi reverted from the prodigal son role he had played to win redemption with the European powers & United States in the wake of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. He galvanised his army, the tribes still paying fealty to their lord and did as he has done for 40 years: fight. As the rebels withdrew, the international community prevaricated. By the time the first planes were in the air, it was all but too late.

The National Transition Council is recognised as the legitimate government of Libya by three Member States of the United Nations – France, Italy & Qatar. For the other 189, it is the opposition, including Britain, Australia and the United States – for all of our huffing and puffing. The Arab League, at first supportive of the no-fly zone, withdrew it almost immediately. The ‘Mad Colonel’ happily posed for photos with an African Union delegation dispatched to mediate between the warring sides. They were then treated with contempt by the TNC (given the AU’s rapprochement with the self-proclaimed ‘Lion of Africa’, who could blame them?). In the early days of the insurrection, there was the farcical discovery of what appeared to be British Special Forces on the ground. They were rejected, and ejected by the TNC. NATO has not been able to dislodge Qaddafi, and unless there is a change of tactics, they won’t be able to. What now? An ignominious choice: to prevent the wholesale slaughter of residents of Eastern Libya – the real and present danger put to the UN under Resolution 1973 – they must do one of two things – negotiate a ceasefire and enter the country with peacekeeping forces, as the UN and French have done most recently in Côte d’Ivoire; or arm the rebels to ‘level the playing field’.

There are several problems with both strategies. Firstly, Qaddafi has said he will negotiate along the lines of the plan put to both sides by the AU. The sticking point: the TNC will not entertain any plan which does not remove Qaddafi from power. The risk is the rebels are over-run; already fighting street-by-street in Misurata, Ajdabiya shelled and without effective air support from NATO, this is a real possibility. The pay-off is a true balls-to-the-wall gamble: that the international community will respond by putting boots on the ground. Perhaps that is why, as I write, the US is spinning into overdrive, trying to find an African country to provide an African solution – play host to Qaddafi in exile. God knows where, and at what price? Every effort must be made to strike a compromise. The TNC must understand that the West has no stomach for another war. President Obama would kiss a second term goodbye, and with wars in Iraq & Afghanistan still very much open sores, it is not going to happen, as UK PM David Cameron has today made perfectly clear.

While there are rumblings from the US and Britain about responding to the cries of the TNC and breaking the blanket arms embargo enforced by the UN to arm the rebels, it is, in my opinion, stupid in the extreme. Firstly, NATO Commander Admiral James Stavridis has stated that the Mad Colonel may not be entirely wide of the mark. As veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson reported on 29 March 2011 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12901820), intelligence has shown ‘flickers’ of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah activity. Secondly, the rebel army is far from one. The fighters are undoubtedly committed, but untrained civilians used to shooting semi-automatics at best. NATO (or whichever body broke the embargo) would be arming groups of young men who may in turn seek to inflict terror on those loyal to Qaddafi, whether they are true believers, paid protestors or foreign workers, lured by the promise of the oilfields, and marked as mercenaries. The rebels are already rigging up ‘Mad Max’-style adapted light weapons. Thirdly, Libya is subject to an arms embargo. Breaching it is illegal and sets such a reckless precedent that attempts to control the trade in small arms and light weapons (SALW) or respect other embargoes will be laughed at. Finally, Libya’s borders are porous. Here is where we really gear up for the frightening prospect of a steady supply of arms flowing through Libya to Tunisia and Algeria on the east; south to its former foe, Chad; or west, to Egypt and Sudan. Do we really want more weapons in these post-conflict zones?

Already, the rebels are claiming to have seized weapons from pro-Qaddafi forces made in Israel, while Qatar is suspected of shipping anti-aircraft guns to the rebels. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the embargo has only been reinforced this year, being lifted in 2004 after pressure from the Italians in particular. According to www.defencetalk.com, Russia had an order book from Libya worth 1.5b euros; official EU data for exports in 2009 show Italy exported weapons worth 205m Euros, followed by France (€143m); Malta (€80m); Germany (€57m); Britain (€53m) and Portugal (€21m). The US was not to be left behind: according to Reuters, representatives of Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon Co. visited Libya as members of trade delegations. South Africa also saw a piece of the Libyan action: its National Conventional Arms Committee annual report for 2010 showed the country sold R70m in arms last year. Manufacturer Denel has denied sales, but a leaked memo outlined a visit to Libya in April involving the planned sale of artillery systems, missiles, grenade launchers and anti-materiel rifles (www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/SA-sold-R70m-weapons-to-Libya-20110410)

Now, the West is bombing an army it armed, much as it did in Iraq. Reading over the articles of Qaddafi’s ‘rehabilitation’, it seems so long ago; now, those guns are involved in bloody civil conflict. They fall into the hands of the rebels, who shoot back with the same small arms & fire the same light weapons. Mistakes in the name of greed and guns have already been made. Tilting the balance in the conflict by arming the rebels presents moral hazards the world cannot afford to entertain.