The United States was clearly not a
hero in this article, having again made the offense of overreaching in
intervention into foreign affairs. In this occasion, the Arab League, wanted to
protect Libyan civilians, by requesting NATO for a “no-fly” zone over Libya,
but instead “NATO starting its bombing of Qadhafi forces”, which they did not
ask for. The nations comprising the Arab League had to agree in order to seek
this assistance, and their agreement was unprecedented. However, the United
States used this request to “justify a policy of regime change” through
military action, under the guise of having approval from the U.N Security
Council and not Congress. According to the author, Bannerman, not only did the
United States provide assistance that was undesired, but also damaged future
cooperation amongst the Arab League in the future and undermined U.S. democracy,
by setting an regrettable precedent.
Although the author, makes a great
reiteration for why the United States should not overstate itself in foreign
affairs, which I wholeheartedly agree with especially after reading about the
damage done by that course of action, I don’t agree with the idea that “victory” could even be in the title. I
believe that Libya, the country whom should be the principal decision maker in
this problem, should have had the first say in deciding course of action taken. The damage the U.S. has created will take some time to fix. This just
makes me think of Orientalism and how civilized West wants to fix the
uncivilized East. In my opinion, this article points out again that we should
just let the host country try to handle their own internal issues before we try to control and dictate solutions (that
make things worse). As the title of Jay’s article stated (in relation to this
example)- Libya: It’s not our Fight.
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