How Do You Escape a Color Revolution? Replace Emotional Reaction With Intellectual Sobriety

Understanding the 21st Century Global Information War: Protect Your Zeitgeist

By Eric Pottenger and Jeff Friesen

Special Report for Color Revolutions and Geopolitics

January 24, 2012

Authors' Introductory Note: the following essay was prepared in the style of an "open letter" intended to be read by leaders and policy-makers of nation-states targeted for "regime change" by the West.

Try to imagine a world where cultural guidance and future prospects are created largely from within rather than from without. Try to imagine youth in your country—symbolized by genuine energy and enthusiasm and political awareness—pointing the way toward a new national understanding based upon instincts offered from within instead of from without.

Of course each of us knows that Western governments hope to subvert the ambitious political plans of competitor countries and blocs so as to maintain global hegemony and forestall a more equitable distribution of power.

And although there are multiple levels to explore, understand, and different ways to combat this threat, brevity demands that the following analysis offer only a brief solution in the most simplistic terms: namely, the prospect of a world where fear of young people and new ideas are replaced by embracing possibilities; the kind of possibilities that these young people should rightfully embody.

The premise here is that it's absolutely incorrect (and potentially catastrophic) to conclude that 'oppositionists' in each of your countries—and here we mean young local 'foot soldiers' of Western-backed political agendas—are conscious 'agents' of Western governments; or that they're largely “corrupt” or even “unpatriotic.”

The defining characteristics of typical foreign-funded opposition protesters are their youth, their inexperience, their lack of discernment, their relatively high level of education, their personal ambition, their access to media and technology, and their strong inclinations to rebel against the status quo (what they deem to be an unrewarding social and political culture).

In other words, if strategically-placed foreign money, tactical training, and a self-interested geopolitical purpose were absent, these young “protesters” and their rebellion could stably be addressed by (and absorbed within) the local social and political culture, even help infuse this culture with characteristics that every great culture needs: self-reflection; derision; laughter; art; indifference; transcendence; something greater than mere self-preservation.

Unfortunately these movements aren't isolated concerns of an individual nation—they are international security threats. The West now uses both “humanitarian” crises and fake social “revolutions” as a part of its strategic package. This makes national political movements potential arms of foreign powers. To quote Allen Weinstein, the first President of the United States' National Endowment for Democracy (NED), “A lot of what [the NED does] today was done covertly twenty-five years ago by the CIA.”

This presents the principle challenge: how to develop an effective self-defense strategy. The trick is to provide a remedy that doesn't fuel more discord. Coercion sows discord. The movement tacticians anticipate and use ham-handed, unsophisticated, strictly coercive local responses as part of their operational templates. They derive strength from these responses, not weakness. Ultimately the coercive response is a recipe for defeat. If the coercive response appears to be necessary or inevitable, at least it should be provided with some balance.

When the "pro-democracy protester" faces the "government crackdown," whose side are you gonna be on?

Better instead to learn how the imperialist game is now played. The new battlefield of warfare is in the informational realm, the psychological realm. More than at any point in history, war is primarily a media war. The reason the United States, in particular, has been so effective in this style of warfare is because the whole structure of U.S. society has been built around promotion and consumption as a pathway to wealth and power. In the United States, the corporate marketing and advertisement industry has merged seamlessly into the operational templates of foreign policy. There is little difference between selling Coca Cola and selling a particular foreign policy initiative. Corporations sell commodities through marketing campaigns and advertisements; governments sell policies through a myriad of techniques of information control and propaganda.

only the emotional imprint...

Like corporate advertising, propaganda is primarily effective as a form of emotional communication, not one of critical analysis. The purpose is to promote a prescribed behavior, whether that behavior result in the purchasing of a new pair of blue jeans, the supporting of a social initiative, or advocating one's inclusion amongst a battalion of protesters, each of them dragged willingly into the streets to weaken the stature of a particular government.

One identifiable technique the propaganda specialist employs to overthrow unwanted leaders is the exact same one used in the corporate realm: “branding.” In essence, the propagandist attempts to strengthen the “brand” of the opposition movement while weakening the “brand” of the targeted leader or system.

...of the brand remains.

All critical details are removed from the propaganda message; only the emotional imprint of the “brand” remains. The propagandist will rarely explain in substantive terms either the problems of society or the concrete solutions. Instead he will brand the issues in broad emotional terms. The opposition movement will likely be branded as “fun,” “rebellious,” or “revolutionary,” etc., whereas the problems of the entire society are made unspecific, reduced to the actions of a “corrupt,” “greedy,” “power-hungry” “dictator.” The goal is to broadcast this message simply and incessantly; and especially to make people believe that it's true.

Oh, you pretty things!  In the words of OTPOR (Serbian) youth group co-founder and international regime change tactician, Ivan Marovic, "I hate politics.  It sucks.  It's boring.  It's not cool.  Normal people hate politics...but...you need normal people if you're gonna make change.  To do that, you need to make politics sexy.  Make it cool.  Make it hip.  REVOLUTION as a FASHION LINE." 

This branding logic works the same for Western governments to achieve domestic public consent for aggressive foreign policy initiatives. For example, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is known throughout the West as “Europe's Last Dictator.” That is Lukashenko's brand in the West. This brand has been created to prepare Western audiences for his abrupt removal from power. Like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi: allegations of corruption and sponsorship of terrorism had for years been attached to the image of Gaddafi, a fact which later made it permissible for NATO to not only remove him from power illegally, but to even kill him. This should be seen as no surprise. Gaddafi had been branded beforehand for such a fate. The Western public had already been prepared to react uncritically to this violation international justice. For many Westerns, the killing of Gaddafi was even seen as a victory for “the people.”

If I don't live in these countries; and if I know next to nothing about them; WHAT are these ubiquitous images sure to convince me into THINKING?  The answers are obvious, but here's the rub: since I don't live there, how can I know for certain whether the impressions they are promoting are actually true?

The only defense against the strength of these branding techniques is to challenge the brand.

Opposition media should never be restricted or prohibited. Instead, governments should provide the domestic media with tools for an effective counter-attack. Governments should sponsor new and better media. They should throw money at it; promote it culturally; expand educational initiatives that develop it. They should make it more entertaining; make it more interesting; infuse it with substance and criticism.

Media should be used to deconstruct the brand the West is selling; it should successfully offer an alternative brand.

The idea here is to hire young people instead of arresting them. Put people to work in the government that have credibility and can project youth and vigor. Demanding love for the country will never be effective if it's about prostrating oneself before the government. The most important and effective way for young people to invest in the destiny of the country is to be embraced as part of the internal power structure. Otherwise these same people are left to wander, highly vulnerable to the venus flytrap of Western propaganda.

Independent media voices in the West can help, both at home and abroad.

Through the critical lens of independent Western media, the highly-romantic impression of “life in the West” (that which is deceptively sold by the propagandist) can be legitimately challenged. Credibility in this case is essential. If these romantic impressions are countered by the local government, the criticism could easily be perceived as propaganda; whereas if an independent Westerner said the same thing, the impressions would probably be considered both interesting and informative. These voices are plentiful in the West. The challenge is to find them and put them to use.

So far as how your countries are perceived in the West, what's important to know is that Western audiences (and especially those in the United States) usually become aware of the existence of a country (and all its internal “problems”) only after that country has been publicly targeted for attack. Although a sizable portion of Western audiences could one day be made to see the injustice of such an attack, by that time it's already too late.

These policies and the motives behind them can be anticipated and even preempted in the dialogue of Western media.

The logic here is that policy-makers and local leaders around the world should come to recognize the value in strengthening the reach of independent voices in the Western media, and expand contacts with them. In other words, help Western journalists more effectively use their own platforms toward the creation of a more balanced view of your countries. Ensure that local officials and scholars are made available to foreign journalists as informational resources. Promote critical conferences and cultural exchanges.

Help assist independent foreign voices to “re-brand” your countries in the West.

Russia has provided a solid example to follow with the launching of the English language media network, Russia Today. By offering Western analysts with a high-profile media platform, Russia Today has provided serious critics of Western policy with the ability to challenge and subvert NED/CIA propaganda campaigns.

Through this contribution, in many circles Russia has come to be seen as “progressive” and even “hip” in the West. And furthermore it is now Western governments--not the usual political targets--that must combat a damaging informational narrative, even on territory the Western propagandist once monopolized.

We conclude here by pointing out that, in a world where the information war reigns supreme, the essence of protecting national sovereignty is change: not change of values, necessarily, but change of attitudes and perspectives. A smart policy would be to embrace this change.

Why not lead the struggle off the traditional battlefield and into the media realm: to television and radio broadcasts; to books and blogs and publications?

Why not take the fight to the battlefield that actually matters?

The Truth About Libya and NATO's "Humanitarian" Military Road Map

Lectures from the TORONTO CONFERENCE

Sponsored by the Social Justice Committee (in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Globalization)

September 9, 2011

Guest speakers include:

• Cynthia McKinney, former United States Congresswoman from Georgia

• Michel Chossudovsky, professor (retired) at the University of Ottawa and founder of the Centre for Research on Globalization

• Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Canadian-based independent journalist (recently spent two months in Tripoli during the NATO siege of Libya)

The Devil Writes a Handbook: "The Responsibility to Protect" (2002)

Editors' introduction: The "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine is a diabolical bit of psychological wizardry; a conceptual Trojan Horse designed to advance the cause of global governance on a moral platform.  The purpose of the doctrine is to internationally legitimize and make legal wars of aggression against non-threatening nation-states.  Strumming on emotional chords, a new music has been composed, helping power-hungry aggressors to gain entry into territories of otherwise reluctant sovereign states.  Although every war in history has been accompanied by a multifaceted sales pitch--utilizing either fear, greed, ideology or religion; even lofty appeals for a better world--the R2P war is now waged with the exclusive appeal to "help" the helpless; to "save" people's lives.  It is a media war; a war for the hearts and minds.  

If only these altruistic appeals could be considered trustworthy; if only the one-sided claims of 'genocide' could be verified.  They are not.  That the establishment media maintains for the public a near-total blackout pertaining to matters of substance, a platform is being laid for these wars to continue.  New legal norms are now being established without adequate knowledge, public participation or debate.  The situation is so bizarre, in fact, that those opposing the current Libyan aggression have frequently and irresponsibly been painted as advocates of dictators or tyrants.  This is modern democracy at its finest.  Orwell himself wasn't so bold a visionary.

One notable aspect of the following article (transcribed from a 2002 issue of the Council on Foreign Relations' bi-monthy magazine, Foreign Affairs) is that it draws immediate attention to the amount of time that has been spent--largely in darkness--bringing this obscure globalist concept to fruition.  Only this year, in 2011, did the world witness its first UN-sponsored R2P war (and many have yet to notice it still).  In the article below, however, we see outlines of a 'Libyan operation' years in advance.  In the article below we read of a blueprint that conveniently allows for a rush to judgment; one that's loaded with feigned compassion; that's full of gaping legal loopholes; and that prefers exclusivity of those empowered to decide and enforce its dictates. Especially we feel the outright hypocrisy of those individuals and governments that claim to advance freedom and democracy while bombing cities and murdering innocent men, women, and children.  

This was written nine years ago, and the R2P trail goes back even further still.  Who among us was aware?  Who among us was asked what we thought?  Whatever the case--regardless of our ignorance yesterday or today--regardless of our feelings of powerlessness or apathy--we are here, this is our lot, and we must make an effort to deal with it.  The Libyan operation is the first R2P operation sponsored by the United Nations, but unless we take action, unless we educate ourselves and others, it won't be the last.  Already Syria is on the horizon; already Sudan looms largely; already Belarus beckons.  We see the signs.  We discern the true intent.  And soon it will be our own sovereignty that sits in the cross hairs.  We here write from the United States.  We ask rhetorically, has not our Constitution already been stretched to the breaking point by these same people?  Indeed it has but we are not alone.  For these are not "mere words on paper"--there are real consequences, real harm to real people.  

And although we may not understand the problem completely, we already know the remedy.  The battle is waged first in the mind.  These things can only come about when there is a psychological smokescreen to blind the world.

     

The Responsibility to Protect
By Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun
Originally published in Foreign Affairs
November/December 2002, Volume 81, Number 6
Images and captions added by Color Revolutions and Geopolitics


Revisiting Humanitarian Intervention

The international community in the last decade repeatedly made a mess of handling the many demands that were made for "humanitarian intervention": coercive action against a state to protect people within its borders from suffering grave harm.  There were no agreed rules for handling cases such as Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo at the start of the 1990s, and there remain none today.  Disagreement continues about whether there is a right of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.

Gareth Evans

Since September 11, 2001, policy attention has been captured by a different set of problems: the response to global terrorism and the case for "hot preemption" against countries believed to be irresponsibly acquiring weapons of mass destruction.  These issues, however, are conceptually and practically distinct.  There are indeed common questions, especially concerning the precautionary principles that should apply to any military action anywhere.  But what is involved in the debates about intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere is the scope and the limits of countries' rights to act in self-defense --not their right, or obligation, to intervene elsewhere to protect peoples other than their own.

Mohamed Sahnoun

Meanwhile, the debate about intervention for human protection purposes has not gone away.  And it will not go away so long as human nature remains as fallible as it is and internal conflict and state failures stay as prevalent as they are.  The debate was certainly a lively one throughout the 1990s.  Controversy may have been muted in the case of the interventions, by varying casts of actors, in Liberia in 1990, northern Iraq in 1991, Haiti in 1994, Sierra Leone in 1997, and (not strictly coercively) East Timor in 1999.  But in Somalia in 1993, Rwanda in 1994, and Bosnia in 1995, the UN action taken (if taken at all) was widely perceived as too little too late, misconceived, poorly resourced, poorly executed, or all of the above.  During NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo, Security Council members were sharply divided; the legal justification for action without UN authority was asserted but largely unargued; and great misgivings surrounded the means by which the allies waged war.

It is only a matter of time before reports emerge again from somewhere of massacres, mass starvation, rape, and ethnic cleansing.  And then the question will arise again in the Security Council,  in political capitals, and in the media: What do we do?  This time around the international community must have the answers.1  Few things have done more harm to its shared ideal that people are all equal in worth and dignity than the inability of the community of states to prevent these horrors.  In this new century, there must be no more Rwandas.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, deeply troubled by the inconsistency of the international response, has repeatedly challenged the General Assembly to find a way through these dilemmas.  But in the debates that followed his calls, he was rewarded for the most part by cantankerous exchanges in which fervent supporters of intervention on human rights grounds, opposed by anxious defenders of state sovereignty, dug themselves deeper and deeper into opposing trenches.

If the international community is to respond to this challenge, the whole debate must be turned on its head.  The issue must be reframed not as an argument about the "right to intervene" but about the "responsibility to protect."  And it has to be accepted that although this responsibility is owed by all sovereign states to their own citizens in the first instance, it must be picked up by the international community if that first-tier responsibility is abdicated, or if it cannot be exercised.

Sovereignty As Responsibility

Let us pause while our learned authors get ready for the costume ball.  The idea here is to parade around highly-dubious acts of imperial aggression in "humanitarian" disguises.  Below is proof of these authors' manipulative intent--a rare case, indeed, of the logic of a psychological operation having intentionally been made public.     

Using this alternative language will help shake up the policy debate, getting governments in particular to think afresh about what the real issues are.  Changing the terminology from "intervention" to "protection" gets away from the language of "humanitarian intervention."  The latter term has always deeply concerned humanitarian relief organizations, which have hated the association of "humanitarian" with military activity.  Beyond that, talking about the "responsibility to protect" rather than the "right to intervene" has three other big advantages.  First, it implies evaluating the issues from the point of view of those needing support, rather than those who may be considering intervention.  The searchlight is back where it should always be: on the duty to protect communities from mass killing, women from systematic rape, and children from starvation.  Second, this formulation implies that the primary responsibility rests with the state concerned.  Only if that state is unable or unwilling to fulfill  its responsibility to protect, or is itself the perpetrator, should the international community take the responsibility to act in its place.  Third, the "responsibility to protect" is an umbrella concept, embracing not just the "responsibility to react" but the "responsibility to prevent" and the "responsibility to rebuild" as well.  Both of these dimensions have been much neglected in the traditional humanitarian-intervention debate.  Bringing them back to center stage should help make the concept of reaction itself more palatable.

At the heart of this conceptual approach is a shift in thinking about the essence of sovereignty, from control to responsibility.  In the classic Westphalian system of international relations, the defining characteristic of sovereignty has always been the state's capacity to make authoritative decisions regarding the people and resources within its territory.  The principal of sovereign equality of states is enshrined in Article 2, Section 1, of the UN Charter, and the corresponding norm of nonintervention is enshrined in Article 2, Section 7: a sovereign state is empowered by international law to exercise exclusive and total jurisdiction within its territorial borders, and other states have the corresponding duty not to intervene in its internal affairs.  But working against this standard has been the increasing impact in recent decades of human rights norms, bringing a shift from a culture of sovereign impunity to one of national and international accountability.  The increasing influence of the concept of human security has also played a role: what matters is not just state security but the protection of individuals against threats to life, livelihood, or dignity that can come from from within or without.  In short, a large and growing gap has been developing between international behavior as articulated in the state-centered UN Charter, which was signed in 1946, and evolving state practice since then, which now emphasizes the limits of sovereignty.

June 26, 1945: Edward Reilly Stettinius, Jr., Secretary of State, Chairman of the delegation from the United States, signing the UN Charter at a ceremony held at the Veterans' War Memorial Building in San Francisco.

Crest of the Fabian Society

Indeed, even the strongest supporters of state sovereignty will admit today that no state holds unlimited power to do what it wants to its own people.  It is now commonly acknowledged that sovereignty implies a duel responsibility: externally, to respect the sovereignty of other states, and internally, to respect the dignity and basic rights of all the people within the state.  In international human rights covenants, in UN practice, and in state practice itself, sovereignty is now understood as embracing this duel responsibility.  Sovereignty as responsibility has become the minimum content of good international citizenship.  Although this new principal cannot be said to be customary international law yet, it is sufficiently accepted in practice to be regarded as a de facto emerging norm: the responsibility to protect.

Above is the stained glass window from the Beatrice Webb House, Surrey, England, former headquarters of the Fabian Society.  This organization was at the ideological center of the early moves toward economic and political globalization, providing 'humanitarian' cover to assist in the creation of international governing bodies, like the League of Nations and its more expansive successor, the United Nations.  At center right in the image, George Bernard Shaw and Sydney Webb smash at the world with hammers.  Just above the world is the same crest shown separately above: a wolf in sheep's clothing.  And across the top we read an excerpt from a poem.  The verse is from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and reads: "Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire/ To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,/ Would not we shatter it to bits--and then/ Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"  

Military Intervention: Setting the Bar

Gaddafi waits to see if he qualifies for R2P intervention.

The responsibility to protect implies a duty to react to situations in which there is compelling need for human protection.  If preventative measures fail to resolve or contain such a situation, and when the state in question is unable or unwilling to step in, then intervention by other states may be required.  Coercive measures then may include political, economic, or judicial steps.  In extreme cases--but only extreme cases--they may also include military action.  But what is an extreme case?  Where should we draw the line in determining when military intervention is defensible?  What other conditions or restraints, if any, should apply in determining whether and how that intervention should proceed?  And, most difficult of all, who should have the ultimate authority to determine whether an intrusion into a sovereign state, involving the use of deadly force on a potentially massive scale, should actually go ahead?  These questions have generated an enormous literature and much competing terminology, but on the core issues there is great deal of common ground, most of it derived from "just war" theory.  To justify military intervention, six principles have to be satisfied: the "just cause" threshold, four precautionary principles, and the requirement of "right authority."

Operation Just Cause

Q: What do you see?  A: All I see is R2P.

As for the "just cause" threshold, our starting point is that military intervention for human protection purposes is an extraordinary measure.  For it to be warranted, civilians must be faced with the threat of serious and irreparable harm in one of just two exceptional ways.  The first is large-scale loss of life, actual or anticipated, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product of deliberate state of action, state neglect, inability to act, or state failure.  The second is large-scale "ethnic cleansing," actual or anticipated, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror, or rape.   

Why does the bar for just cause need to be set so high?  There is the conceptual reason that military intervention must be very exceptional.  There is also a practical political rationale: if intervention is to happen when it is most necessary, it cannot be called on too often.  In the two situations identified as legitimate triggers, we do not quantify what is "large scale" but make clear our belief that military action can be legitimate as an anticipatory measure in response to clear evidence of likely large-scale killing or ethnic cleansing.  Without this possibility, the international community would be placed in the morally untenable position of being required to wait until genocide begins before being able to take action to stop it.  The threshold criteria articulated here not only cover the deliberate preparation of horrors such as in the cases of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo.  They can also apply to situations of state collapse and the resultant exposure of the population to mass starvation or civil war, as in Somalia.  Also potentially covered would be overwhelming natural or environmental catastrophes, in which the state concerned is either unwilling or unable to help and significant loss of life is occurring or threatened.  What are not covered by our "just cause" threshold criteria are human rights violations falling short of outright killing or ethnic cleansing (such as systematic racial discrimination or political oppression), the overthrow of democratically elected governments, and the rescue by a state of its own nationals or foreign territory.  Although deserving of external action--including in appropriate cases political, economic, or military sanctions--these are not instances that would seem to justify military action for human protection purposes.

Precautionary Principles

Of the precautionary principles needed to justify intervention, the first is "right intention."  The primary purpose of the intervention, whatever other motives intervening states may have, must be to halt or avert human suffering.  There are a number of ways of helping ensure that the criterion is satisfied.  One is to have military intervention always take place on a collective or multilateral basis.  Another is to look at the extant to which the intervention is actually supported by the people for whose benefit the intervention is intended.  Yet another is to look to what extant the opinion of other countries in the region has been taken into account and is supportive.  Complete disinterestedness may be an ideal, but it is not likely always to be a reality: mixed motives, in international relations as everywhere else, are a fact of life.  Moreover, the budgetary cost and risk to personnel involved in any military action may make it imperative for the intervening state to be able to claim some degree of self-interest in the intervention, however altruistic its primary motive.

"Another [criterion for military intervention] is to look at the extent to which the intervention is actually supported by the people for whose benefit the intervention is intended."  What are these writers telling us?  Isn't the object of R2P to save "the people" from a 'massacre'?  Who wouldn't want to be saved from a massacre?  Odd behavior indeed.  It makes one wonder who "the people for whose benefit the intervention is intended" really are.  Take a look at the image above: a massive pro-Gaddafi rally in the capital of Tripoli, July, 2011.  Not only are these people "not supportive" of being saved...these are "the people" being killed by NATO bombs.  Take a look at the video below and think about the gap between truth and fiction concerning R2P.  How are we to interpret this: tough love??  Perhaps "the people" of Libya are not those that the R2P intervention will benefit.  

How Western media reports the Libyan bombing

The second precautionary principle is "last resort": military intervention can be justified only when every nonmilitary option for the prevention or peaceful resolution of the crisis has been explored, with reasonable grounds for believing lesser measures would not have succeeded.  The responsibility to react with military coercion can be justified only when the responsibility to prevent has been fully discharged.  This guideline does not necessarily mean that every such option must literally have been tried and failed; often there is simply not enough time for that process to work itself out. But it does mean that there must be reasonable grounds for believing that, given the circumstances, other measures would not have succeeded.    

The video above captures just one brief moment in the entire NATO-led Libyan campaign, one the mainstream media just won't share.  This is Tripoli, the capital of Libya, a modern coastal city of over two million people.  In the language of R2P, the men with guns must necessarily be the "humanitarian" protectors of the Libyan population, seeing as how their cause has been taken up and sponsored by the United Nations on humanitarian grounds.  Underneath the salesmanship, however, a different picture emerges...  

The third principle is "proportional means": the scale, duration, and intensity of the planned military intervention should be the minimum necessary to secure the defined objective of protecting people.  The scale of action taken must be commensurate with its stated purpose and with the magnitude of the original provocation.  The effect on the political system of the country targeted should be limited to what is strictly necessary to accomplish the intervention's purpose.  Although the precise practical implications of these strictures are always open to argument, the principles involved are clear enough.

Abdel Hakim al-Hasadi, the NATO operation's new military governor in Tripoli, Libya, is certainly no R2P angel, regardless of what the Western media now wants you to believe.  In a recent interview, Dr. Webster Tarpley said this about al-Hasadi "He is a person who was a close friend of Bin Laden, trained with Bin Laden in Afghanistan at those camps. He organized Jihadists to go into Iraq and Afghanistan to kill US soldiers. He presumably has killed US soldiers himself...He is now directing a reign of terror [in Tripoli]...His signature is mass murder. He has left a trail of bodies across the globe. Right now you can even see on Aljazeera that they are singling out Black Libyans or indeed anybody Black. You can be from Fazan in Libya or you can be a guest worker from Mali or Chad or some other African countries and you are going to be prosecuted and hounded and maybe lynched and executed by these NATO puppet rebel forces...the current military governor needs to be arrested and put on trial for genocide" 

Finally, there is the principle of "reasonable prospects": there must be a reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering that has justified the intervention; the consequences of action should not be worse than the consequences of inaction.  Military action must not risk triggering a greater conflagration.  Applying this precautionary principle would, on purely utilitarian grounds, likely preclude military action against any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, even with all other conditions for intervention having been met.  Otherwise, it is difficult to imagine a major conflict being avoided or success in the original objective being achieved.  The same is true for other major powers that are not permanent members of the Security Council.  This raises the familiar question of double standards, to which there is only one answer: The reality that interventions may not be plausibly mounted in every justifiable case is no reason for them not be mounted in any case.

Whose Authority?

R2P implies global governance: thus spoke the editors of this website.

The most difficult and controversial principle to apply is that of "right authority."  When it comes to authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes, the argument is compelling that the United Nations, and in particular its Security Council, should be the first port of call.  The difficult question--starkly raised by the Kosovo war--is whether it should be the last.

UN headquarters, New York City

The issue of principle here is unarguable.  The UN is unquestionably the principle institution for building, consolidating, and using the authority of the international community.  It was set up to be the linchpin of order and stability, the framework within which members of the international system negotiate agreements on the rules of behavior and the legal norms of proper conduct to preserve the society of states.  The authority of the UN is underpinned not by coercive power but by its role as the applicator of legitimacy.  The concept of legitimacy acts as the connecting link between the exercise of authority and the recourse to power.  Attempts to enforce authority can be made only by the legitimate agents of that authority.  Nations regard collective intervention blessed by the UN as legitimate because a representative international body duly authorized it, whereas unilateral intervention is seen as illegitimate because it is self-interested.  Those who challenge or evade the authority of the UN run the risk of eroding its authority in general and undermining the principle of a world order based on international law and universal norms.

UN Security Council: this small room is the place where the fate of whole nations is now decided.  It is here as well that the authors of this article advocate granting primary authority towards the violation of national sovereignty.  Ironically, this unelected, authoritarian body claims to work in the service of 'democracy'.  Actually this is no irony at all--it is deception--reality in this case being shielded by a clever use of language.  So it is, as well, with R2P.  The responsibility to "protect" is, in reality, only the responsibility to "power."  Power is the essence of R2P. 

The task is not to find alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority, but to make the council work better than it has.  Security Council authorization should, in all cases, be sought prior to any military intervention being carried out.  Those advocates calling for an intervention should formally request such authorization, ask the council to raise the matter on its own initiative, or demand that the secretary-general raise it under Article 99 of the UN Charter.  The Security Council should deal promptly with any request for authority to intervene where there are allegations of large-scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing.  It should, in this context, also seek adequate verification of facts or conditions on the ground that might support a military intervention.  And the council's five permanent members should agree to not exercise their veto power (in matters where their vital state interests are not involved) to block resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes for which there is otherwise majority support.  We know of at least one that will so agree.

UN General Assembly: fig leaf of legitimacy for R2P

If the Security Council is unable or unwilling to act in a case crying out for intervention, two institutional solutions are available.  One is for the General Assembly to consider the matter in an emergency special session under the "Uniting for Peace" procedure, used in the cases of Korea in 1950, Egypt in 1956, and Congo in 1960.  Had it been used, that approach could well have delivered a speedy majority recommendation for action in the Rwanda and Kosovo cases.  The other is action within an area of jurisdiction by regional or subregional organizations under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Security Council; that is what happened with the West African interventions in Liberia in the early 1990s and in Sierra Leone in 1997.  But interventions by ad hoc coalitions (or individual states ) acting without the approval of the Security Council, the General Assembly, or a regional or subregional grouping do not find wide international favor.  As a matter of political reality, then, it would simply be impossible to build consensus around any set of proposals for military intervention that acknowledged the validity of any intervention not authorized by the Security Council or General Assembly.

There are many reasons to be dissatisfied with the role that the Security Council usually plays: its generally uneven performance, its unrepresentative membership, and its inherent institutional double standards with the permanent-five veto power.  But there is no better or more appropriate body than the Security Council to deal with military intervention issues for human protection purposes.  The political reality--quite apart from the force of the argument in principle--is that if international consensus is ever to be reached about how military intervention should happen, the Security Council will clearly have to be at the heart of that consensus.

Raw power has a way of sorting out the legal nuance.

But what if the Security Council fails to discharge its own responsibility to protect in a conscience-shocking situation crying out for action, as was the case with Kosovo?  A real question arises as to which of two evils is the worse: the damage to international order if the Security Council is bypassed, or the damage to that order if human beings are slaughtered while the Security Council stands by.  The answer to this dilemma is twofold, and these messages have to be delivered loud and clear.  First, if the Security Council does fail to discharge its responsibility in such a case, then concerned individual states simply may not rule out other means to address the gravity and urgency of the situation.  It follows that there will be a risk that such interventions, without the discipline and constraints of UN authorization,will not be conducted for the right reasons or with the right commitment to the necessary precautionary principles.  Second, if the council does fail to act and a military intervention by an ad hoc coalition or individual state follows and respects all the necessary threshold and precautionary criteria--and if that intervention succeeds and is seen by the world to have succeeded--this outcome may have enduringly serious consequences for the stature of the UN itself.  This is essentially what happened with the NATO intervention in Kosovo.  The UN cannot afford to drop the ball too many times on that scale.

The Problem of Political Will

Welcome to today's R2P propaganda...

As important as it is to reach consensus on the principles that should govern intervention for human protection purposes, unless the political will is mustered to act when necessary, the debate will be largely academic.  As events during the 1990s too often demonstrated, even a decision by the Security Council to authorize international action in humanitarian cases has been no guarantee that any action would be taken, or taken effectively.  The most compelling task now is to work to ensure that when the call for action goes out to the community of states, it will be answered.

Part of the problem is that there are few countries in the global community who have the assets most in demand in implementing intervention mandates.  There are real constraints on how much spare capacity exists to take on additional burdens.  United Nations peacekeeping peaked in 1993 at 78,000 personnel; today, if NATO and other multinational force operations (e.g., in Afghanistan) are included along with UN missions, the number of soldiers in international peace operations has grown by about 45 percent, to 113,000.  Even states willing in principle to look at new foreign military commitments need to make choices about how to use limited and strained military capabilities.

...one-sided stories, tugging on our emotions...

If the right choices are to be made in the right situations, there is no alternative but to generate the necessary political will in the relevant constituencies.  Too often more time is spent lamenting the absence of political will than on analyzing its ingredients and how to mobilize them.  The key to mobilizing international support for intervention is to mobilize domestic support, or at least to neutralize domestic opposition.  It is usually helpful to press three buttons in particular.

Moral appeals inspire and legitimize in almost any political environment: political leaders often underestimate the sheer sense of decency and compassion that prevails among their electorates.  Financial arguments also have their place: preventive strategies are likely to be far cheaper than responding after the event through military action, humanitarian relief assistance, postconflict reconstruction, or all three.

...exploiting our guilt; our ignorance...

If coercive action is required, however, earlier is always cheaper than later.  National interest appeals are the most comfortable and effective of all and can be made at many different levels.  Avoiding the disintegration of a neighbor, given the refugee outflows and effective of all and can be made at many different levels.  Avoiding the disintegration of a neighbor, given the refugee outflows and general regional security destabilization associated with it, can be a compelling motive in many contexts.  National economic interests often can be equally well served by keeping resource supply lines, trade routes, in the past, nowadays peace is generally regarded as much better for business than is war.

For those domestic constituencies who may actually demand that their governments not be moved by altruistic "right intention," the best short answer may be that these days good international citizenship is a matter of national self-interest.  With the world as interdependent as it now is, and with crises as capable as they now are of generating major problems elsewhere (such as terrorism, refugee outflows, health pandemics, narcotics trafficking, and organized crime), it is in every country's interest to help resolve such problems, quite apart from the humanitarian imperative.

...always telling us that we didn't do enough.

It is the responsibility of the whole international community to ensure that when the next case of threatened mass killing or ethnic cleansing invariably comes along, the mistakes of the 1990s will not be repeated.  A good place to start would be agreement by the Security Council, at least informally, to systematically apply the principles set out here to any such case.  So too would be a declaratory UN General Assembly resolution giving weight to those principles and to the whole idea of the "responsibility to protect" as an emerging international norm.  There is a developing consensus around the idea that sovereignty must be qualified by the responsibility to protect.  But until there is general acceptance of the practical commitments this involves, more tragedies such as Rwanda will be all too likely.

Editors' Postscript (added September 15, 2011)

Canadian journalist Mahdi Nazemroaya spent two months in 2011 (primarily in Tripoli) covering the NATO-led and UN-sponsored assault on Libya.  In the video below, he chats with James Corbett about his experience in the country, as well as offering his criticisms about how the Western media has been handling the reporting of this war.


Readers of this article that haven't familiarized themselves with non-mainstream first-hand accounts of this conflict, Mahdi Nazemroaya is one of a handful of English-speaking journalists that has a story to tell.

Authors' Footnote

1.  In September 2000, the government of Canada established the ICISS.  Our colleagues were Gisele Cote-Harper, Lee Hamilton, Michael Ignatieff, Vladimir Lukin, Klaus Naumann, Cyril Ramaphosa, Fidel Ramos, Cornelio Sommaruga, Eduardo Stein, and Ramesh Thakur.  We met as a commission in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America and consulted comprehensively in Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, and China.  This article is a distillation of the report.

The Labyrinthian International Geopolitics of the Libyan Conflict

The Labyrinthian International Geopolitics of the Libyan Conflict  by Peter Lee The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 31 No 2,  August 1, 2011 Images and captions added by Color Revolutions and Geopolitics   Western self-regard was on full display in a United States headline describing the Libya Contact Group (LCG) meeting in Istanbul over the weekend of July 15. It read: World leaders open Libya talks in Turkey.1 Well, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was there. Much-diminished leaders of 19th-century world powers Britain and France - and Italy - were there, too. But attendance from the BRIC countries was patchy: Russia, boycotted the talks. China declined to send a representative. Brazil and India only sent observers, which meant they had no vote in the proceedings. South Africa didn't attend, and blasted the outcome of the meeting.2 U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in Istanbul, Turkey for the fourth Libyan Contact Group (LCG) meeting, July 15, 2011 It is indicative of the desultory reporting on Libya that there has been little effort to determine the Libya Contact Group's constituting authority, its decision-making processes, or even its membership, let alone the legitimacy of its pretensions to set international policy on Libya at a time when the US may be moving toward involvement in yet other wars in Libya and beyond. London, March 29, 2011: select international leaders gather to create the illegitimate, mafia-style ad-hoc political body, the Libyan Contact Group, self-appointed to decide the fate of the Libyan "people" The LCG was formed in London on March 29 under the auspices of the United Kingdom, at a conference attended by 40 foreign ministers and a smattering of international organizations. Its declared mission was to "support and be a focal point of contact with the Libyan people, coordinate international policy and be a forum for discussion of humanitarian and post-conflict support".3 Since then, the group has met three times and its attendance seems to have stabilized around a core of 20 or 30 countries, mostly drawn from members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), conservative oil-rich states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and GCC cadets Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco. Dutiful ally Japan has also tagged along.   The unambiguous American template for Libya - and the LCG - is Kosovo, another humanitarian bombing campaign cum secession exercise led by NATO while sidelining the United Nations to a subordinate role.   US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg invoked the Kosovo precedent - and a prolonged diplomatic and sanctions campaign that grew out of a "humanitarian military action" - in testimony before the US Congress on Libya: Our approach is one that has succeeded before. In Kosovo, we built an international coalition around a narrow civilian protection mission. Even after Milosevic withdrew his forces and the bombing stopped, the political and economic pressure continued. Within two years, Milosevic was thrown out of office and turned over to The Hague.4 As a matter of fact, the Libya adventure mimics the Kosovo action in general legal flimsiness and its inflammatory deployment of exaggerated claims of massacre and atrocity, but differs in some revealing specifics.   The justification for diplomatic and political intervention on the issue of Kosovo was relatively robust, growing out of the EU’s understandable desire to put a lid on the chaos and instability in its Balkan backyard, and a lengthy history of bilateral and multilateral negotiations between Serbia and its local and European interlocutors.   The NATO air war versus Serbia, on the other hand, although understandable as an expression of the international community’s exhausted patience with Milosevic’s serial mendacity and skullduggery in the use of military and militia assets against his victims, is not easy to defend either under the NATO doctrine of joint defense or the temporary waiver the UN gives for states or regional groupings to engage in immediate military action to defend themselves against an imminent threat when getting prior UNSC approval is impractical.   The NATO air attack on Serbian targets was triggered by Serbia’s refusal to sign the Rambouillet Agreement—which would have given Serbia’s explicit endorsement of the injection of NATO ground forces in Kosovo—a rather dubious casus belli.   The demands appear to have been deliberately pitched so high as to be assure their rejection, thereby highlighting Serbian intransigence (which only slightly exceeded Kosovar intransigence) so that NATO would finally do what perhaps it should have done earlier in the much more clear-cut case of Serbian aggression against Bosnia: vigorously bomb Serbian military positions. In the matter of Libya, the situation is reversed.   Military action (leaving aside the question of what particular kind of military action) is clearly permitted by the remarkably accommodating UN Security Council Resolution 1973. In calling for protection of civilians, UNSCR 1973: Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory, and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the Security Council. The wording for the no-fly zone is equivalent. In other words, any interested power can attack Libya as long as it writes a prompt letter to Ban Ki-moon and keeps boots off the ground. Of course, the resolution specifically excludes only foreign “occupation” forces, giving the UK and France ample room to send in special forces as advisors/auxiliaries to the overmatched Benghazi rebels.   The passivity of the UN has been complemented by considerable overreach in the military effort against Libya.  With the destruction of Libya’s air assets, the no fly zone issue is moot.  At the same time the “civilian protection” mandate has been stretched to cover offensive air operations assisting the rebel drive to conquer western Libya.   As to the diplomatic element, the resolution [s]tresses the need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people and notes the decisions of the Secretary-General to send his Special Envoy to Libya and of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union to send its ad hoc High Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution. There is no mention, let alone endorsement, of a Libya Contact Group.  However, by endorsing parallel efforts by the UN Special Envoy and the African Union (AU), the resolution implies that there is to be no coordinated negotiation effort and the UN has effectively abdicated any central role in negotiating an end to the crisis.The attacking powers have exploited the UN’s latitude on the negotiation front to assemble their own political initiative, the Libya Contact Group.   The situation in Libya appears to be the reverse of Kosovo: instead of a military effort supplementing a negotiation strategy, a negotiating strategy is being cobbled together as an adjunct to military operations. On the one hand, this rescues the Libya operation from the prolonged and deadly dithering that characterized the West’s efforts to sort out the Yugoslavian mess.  On the other hand, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has little to show for its multi-year attempt to handle the political brief in Afghanistan.   As a look at NATO decision-making indicates, militarized policy-making through the Libya Contact Group is likely to provide no more than the illusion of international consensus and accountability. NATO's political policy on Libya is in the hands of the "North Atlantic Council" or NAC; for obvious reasons this crusaderish piece of nomenclature is not often invoked in the Libyan situation.   North Atlantic Council meeting A 2003 paper by the Congressional Research Service described the decision-making process in the Kosovo air war in ways that are suggestive of the Barack Obama administration's template for the Libyan operation: The NAC achieves consensus through a process in which no government states its objection. A formal vote in which governments state their position is not taken. During the Kosovo conflict, for example, it was clear to all governments that Greece was immensely uncomfortable with a decision to go to war. NATO does not require a government to vote in favor of a conflict, but rather to object explicitly if it opposes such a decision. Athens chose not to object, knowing its allies wished to take military action against Serbia. In contrast to NATO, the EU seeks unanimity on key issues.5 Inside NATO, it appears that most countries choose to opt out in order to adhere to their diplomatic, doctrinal or political concerns, but not raise a formal, explicit objection. For instance, when NATO took over the Libya mission, a US State Department official noted that the . . . Germans have made from the very beginning a very clear - a clear statement that they would not participate militarily with their own troops in any operation. But they've also made clear that they would not block any activity by NATO to move forward.6 In short, it appears that NATO countries vote as a bloc when it comes to LCG matters despite continuing differences among members.   GCC decision-making is even more opaque, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the smaller states are voting in a bloc with lead member Saudi Arabia on the Libya issue.   Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Sunni Monarchies: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain. NATO and the GCC hammer out their position before the LCG meetings, which then provide political window-dressing to convince Western opinion that a legitimate international process is going on.   China and Russia recognize the LCG as an effort by the proponents of military intervention in Libya to advance their agenda and keep further Libya discussions out of the UN Security Council where China and Russia - which were spectacularly burned by Resolution 1973 – would have the opportunity to sidetrack the NATO/GCC-led campaign. 1999 NATO bombing of Chinese Embassy In its attitude toward the Libyan air war, China is probably also guided by bitter memories of the destruction of its embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999 during the Kosovo air campaign, an incident virtually ignored by NATO as nothing more than an unfortunate accident, but widely regarded in China as intentional. The result was to trigger a 9/11-style shock in elite and popular Chinese attitudes toward the United States (link).   China does not have large economic interests at stake in the Libya fight.  It had a significant exposure to Libyan infrastructure projects, particularly a multi-billion dollar contract to build 28,000 apartment units, but only minor involvement in the Libyan oil industry.   In the original vote on UNSCR 1973, China abstained.  This apparently had much to do with concern about antagonizing the United States, Saudi Arabia and others.  Saudi Arabia, China’s main oil supplier and implacable foe of Gaddafi, was aggressively pushing a hard line against Gaddafi at the Gulf Co-operation Council, the Arab League and the United Nations (link).   China has been relatively circumspect in its criticisms of the LCG, in part out of deference to Turkey, which has been doggedly promoting an Islamic and non-aligned style of Libyan engagement inside the councils of NATO and the LCG. Nevertheless, Beijing politely declined Turkey's invitation to join the Istanbul meeting - thereby refusing to add a further veneer of political legitimacy to the exercise - "because the function and method of operation of this contact group need further study".7   Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov The Russians have been much more blunt. In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that it was the LCG, and not Muammar Gaddafi, that had a legitimacy problem: "The contact group is a self-appointed organizational structure that somehow made itself responsible for how the (UN) resolution is carried out," Lavrov continued, "From the point of view of international law this group has no legitimacy."8   In rejecting the Turkish invitation to join the meeting in Istanbul, the Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated its objections stating that, “the Russian approach to this issue has not changed. We are not a member of the Group and do not participate in its work. This applies to the upcoming meeting in Istanbul as well.”9   In sum, the LCG is not a united effort by "the leaders of the world"; it is an effort to circumvent the UN Security Council, largely coordinated by Atlantic ex-colonial powers and anxious Arab autocrats who are most deeply committed to the bombing campaign to eliminate Gaddafi.   That effort is not going particularly well. NATO has strayed well beyond its "protect civilians" UN mandate to conduct air operations against Gaddafi's forces and targets of dubious military legitimacy for the past four months.   For all their LCG support, the Libyan rebels have been unable to drive Gaddafi from power and thereby demonstrate the potency of Western arms, sanctions, embargoes, and self-righteous bluster, even against an isolated Third World potentate.   Alexander Cockburn has punctured the rebels, the media and European delusions that this would be a quick and politically advantageous war: In a hilarious inside account of the NATO debacle, Vincent Jauvert of Le Nouvel Observateur has recently disclosed that French intelligence services assured [President Nicolas] Sarkozy and foreign minister [Alain] Juppe "from the first [air] strike, thousands of soldiers would defect from Gaddafi". They also predicted that the rebels would move quickly to Sirte, the hometown of the Qaddafi and force him to flee the country. This was triumphantly and erroneously trumpeted by the NATO powers, which even proclaimed that he had flown to Venezuela. By all means opt for the Big Lie as a propaganda ploy, but not if it is inevitably going to be discredited 24 hours later. "We underestimated al-Gaddafi," one French officer told Jauvert. "He was preparing for forty-one years for an invasion. We did not imagine he would adapt as quickly. No one expects, for example, to transport its troops and missile batteries, Gaddafi will go out and buy hundreds of Toyota pick-ups in Niger and Mali. It is a stroke of genius: the trucks are identical to those used by the rebels. NATO is paralyzed. It delays its strikes. Before bombing the vehicles, drivers need to be sure whose forces are Gaddafi's. ‘We asked the rebels to [provide] a particular signal on the roof of their pickup truck, said a soldier, but we were never sure. They are so disorganized ...' "10 In fact, it appears that an important purpose of the Istanbul meeting was to jump start the ineffectual efforts by the Libyan rebels and, in particular, deal with calls by Turkey and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (approximately August 1 to August 29 this year).   Ramadan is traditionally a time of fasting and peaceful reflection. In Libya, it would also undoubtedly be an opportunity for Gaddafi to regroup his forces and engage with the myriad interlocutors and negotiators - in addition to the African Union, France and Italy were also reportedly meeting with Gaddafi's representatives – in an effort to end the embarrassing mess.   Both Turkey and the OIC - as well as otherwise disengaged Islamic power Indonesia - have warned NATO that continuing the bombing campaign during Ramadan would be a dangerous political miscue. Therefore, to guard against the dread prospect of peace breaking out in unwelcome ways post Ramadan – that is, with Gaddafi remaining in Tripoli without having received the necessary chastisement by the powers - the LCG recognized the Transitional National Council (TNC) headquartered in Benghazi as the legitimate government of Libya and declared that Gaddafi's regime had lost its legitimacy. This was despite the fact that the TNC probably controls less than half of Libya's sparse population and vast territory while Gaddafi is still apparently in firm control of the western half of the country with most of the population and the capital.   Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating noted that, before Libya, only twice has the United States declined to acknowledge the legitimacy of a nation's ruling power.  The first came in 1913, when president Woodrow Wilson, who objected to the unsavory (and suspected anti-US business) tendencies of Mexico's strongman Victoriano Huerta, refused to recognize his government until it collapsed, courtesy of Pancho Villa and the US occupation of Veracruz. The second is China. The US not only refused to recognize the communist conquest of the mainland for 50 years; it also countenanced Chiang Kai-shek's pretensions to rule all of China, even as he exercised sway over Taiwan alone.11   Recognition of the TNC supposedly served the purpose of unlocking the frozen assets for the Benghazi forces, which were officially blessed as freedom-loving, not riddled with al-Qaeda sympathizers, and committed to honoring previous foreign contracts in Libya, thereby reducing the cash-strapped Western forces' financial exposure to the Libyan imbroglio in general and the TNC in particular. This is not unrelated to the fact that the Western powers, notably the US and Britain but also the EU generally, while laboring through recessions, cutbacks in government services, and political gridlock, have taken steps to minimize the stated cost of the Libya intervention.   Brad Sherman, a US Congressman from California - and an accountant - pointed out that the US has decided to count only marginal expenditures as costs of the Libyan conflict: that means direct costs such as munitions and fuel consumed and combat pay disbursed, leaving a misleading impression of how much it costs to pound even a third-rate power into submission.   United Nations ambassador Susan Rice, one of the architects of the Libyan ‘humanitarian intervention’, countered with the assertion that all those US seamen and airmen would be getting paid anyway even if they weren't bombing Libya: "The Libya mission is not one that falls under UN accounting or US budgeting. It is something we are undertaking in a national capacity."12   The Holy Trinity of the U.S. "humanitarian" bombing campaign: UN Ambassador Susan Rice (L), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (center), and self-proclaimed "genocide chick" Samantha Power (R).  If only there were trading cards for the heavy hitters of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, we'd be on our way to owning the whole set. Even by Rice's limited yardstick, however, the Western alliance has already disbursed a hefty US$1 billion on the war. By September 30, when the second NATO authorization for the war expires, the U.S. projects its own total Department of Defense (DoD) expenditures will have reached $1.1 billion (link).   [Since this is not officially a war, the Obama administration has insisted that it is under no obligation to report its costs to Congress.  The US wrote a letter to Congress describing its DoD accounting, and France and the UK have estimated the costs of their contributions at irregular intervals.  UK: EP 260 million as of June 24 (link); France Euros 160 million by July 13 (link).]   In any event, there is no obvious political constituency in Europe or the US for pouring foreign dollars into Benghazi. Sherman, for instance, proposed that the operation be funded by confiscating Gaddafi's frozen assets in the US[ms6] , reminiscent of US efforts to pay for the Iraq War with Iraqi oil revenues. The desire to make Gaddafi pay for the war against him by seizing his frozen assets is widespread. Nevertheless, a hitch remains: countries such as Canada have laws on their books that prevent them from unfreezing Libyan assets until the UN Security Council gives its OK - a virtual impossibility given Russian and Chinese opposition to the West's adventurism.13   In an uncanny reprise of the enthusiasm for financial derivatives that plunged the world into the Great Recession, the LCG is encouraging interested states such as Canada to evade the UN process by lending cash to the TNC, with the loans collateralized by frozen assets.   In a further sign that the US is not confident that the TNC can run its finances any better than it runs its war (and perhaps has achieved a belated awareness of the risks involve in lending ready cash against illiquid assets) it declared that most of the $30 billion in Gaddafi assets in the US were illiquid, i.e. real estate, hence a mere $3.5 billion could potentially be funneled to the TNC.14   Nevertheless, Western financial creativity, once again deployed in the absence of Western hard cash, will undoubtedly succeed in forestalling the collapse of the Benghazi authority for the foreseeable future.   The second purpose of the Istanbul meeting was to cut the legs out from under other negotiators - such as the Gaddafi-friendly African Union, which was holding talks with regime representatives in Ethiopia and, for that matter, the French, who were sowing epic confusion through equivocal secret contacts with Gaddafi's representatives - by setting up a single, publicly-endorsed channel.   Apparently, despite its new-found ascendancy as Libya's legitimate ruling authority, the Transitional National Council does not, in the opinion of the LCG, have the wherewithal to engage in direct negotiations with Gaddafi's rebel bastion in Tripoli.   But the TNC was not the only organization to receive the back of the hand treatment from the Libya Contact Group. The UN also got a slap.   Abdul Elah al-Khatib: the LCG's UN errand boy? Initial reports indicated that the UN's special envoy for Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, would be the sole designated interlocutor for the LCG. Franco Frattini, Italy's loquacious foreign minister, told reporters in Istanbul: “Mr Khatib is entitled to present a political package. This political package is a political offer including a ceasefire.”15 His remarks on Khatib’s "authorized" status were echoed by Frattini's British counterpart, William Hague. This raises the interesting question of how the LCG, an ad hoc organization with no legal standing, can order around the UN's Khatib as its errand boy.   The problem has apparently been rectified.  It seems that Ban Ki-moon, the ever-pliant UN secretary general, has agreed to put the LCG program into effect without the inconvenience and embarrassment of a UN Security Council discussion or vote, as Bloomberg reports: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be the only person authorized by the contact group to negotiate with both sides in Libya. Ban will set up a board of two to three interlocutors from Tripoli and the rebel-held town of Benghazi, Frattini said.16 United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (C) stands between  Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (L) and Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jissim Bin Jabr Al Thani, before the start of the first international contact group meeting on Libya in Doha April 13, 2011. The Financial Times suggests that the passion to claim Gaddafi's scalp has evaporated in France and Italy and the Western powers will accept anything short of Gaddafi taunting them from his presidential throne in order to end the embarrassing conflict: On Thursday it emerged that the western-led coalition confronting Colonel Muammer Gaddafi was beginning to examine the possibility of offering him a face-saving deal that removes him from power in Tripoli but allows him to stay inside Libya as a means of bringing a swift end to the conflict. As some 40 nations prepare to meet in Istanbul on Friday to discuss progress in the NATO-led operation against the Libyan leader, Britain, France and the US continue to state publicly that the war can only end with Col Gaddafi's physical departure from Libya. But behind the scenes in Paris and London, senior officials are discussing whether the international community and the Libyan opposition could offer a deal that sees Col Gaddafi surrendering all power while going into internal exile in Libya. For several days, French officials have made clear that Col Gaddafi could stay in Libya if he makes a clear statement that he will abdicate all military and political power.17 In the best tradition of Western peacemaking, it appears that a Ramadan ceasefire will be preceded by a two-week barrage of bombs and missiles that will demonstrate both to the Gaddafi regime and world opinion that, despite its abject and obvious desperation to disengage, the NATO/GCC coalition is still a force to be reckoned with, even as it hastens to fulfill its publicly-stated ambition to be "out  of there" by September.   The most plausible roadmap for Libya's post-conflict (or perhaps more accurately, mid-conflict) future is Turkey's roadmap, which foresees a Ramadan ceasefire, Gaddafi leaving power but not the country, and a constitutional commission.   As floated in the Turkish media, "the core of the commission would consist of five people: Two from Tripoli who would be accepted to Benghazi, two from Benghazi who would be acceptable to Tripoli and a fifth who would be named by those four who would set up the basis for a new constitution in Libya."18   A prompt ceasefire and a negotiated settlement do not leave the TNC with a very attractive hand. It controls less than half the country (albeit the predominantly oily half). Furthermore, it is unlikely to perform outstandingly in any nationwide democratic contest that would involve canvassing for votes among the inhabitants of western Libya, a certain number of whom are likely to regard the TNC as venal and incompetent eastern adventurers who conspired with foreign powers to bomb and sanction the residents of Tripoli into misery and poverty.   Map of Gaddafi and rebel-held positions (July 7th)  No wonder the TNC spokesperson, Mahmoud Shamam, harrumphed to journalists in Istanbul that the TNC would ignore a ceasefire saying, "Even the Prophet Mohammed fought during Ramadan. We will continue to fight for our lives."19   However, if the West's Libya fatigue holds and the war doesn't re-ignite, the TNC may find itself lording itself over Benghazi in a de facto partitioned Libya, using its advantageous location vis-a-vis Libya's oil reserves to sustain its economy and its diplomatic standing.   In an indication of world resignation to a divided Libya, even China and Russia, who regard the TNC as a travesty and calamity, have pledged money for "humanitarian assistance" to "the Libyan people".   TNC Executive Board Chairman Mahmoud Jibril visited Beijing in late June for a meeting that Beijing used to announce that it had decided to engage with the TNC as “a powerful opposition force” and highlight the PRC’s hopes for a mediated political solution to the Libyan conflict through the African Union mechanism (link).   Transitional National Council chair Mahmoud Jibril The LCG’s decision to withdraw Gaddafi and anoint the TNC as Libya’s sovereign, even as momentum seemed to build for a negotiated settlement, was reflected in an unenthusiastic show of Chinese support for the TNC.   On the heels of a Russian announcement that it was sending 36 tons of aid to Benghazi, a terse announcement from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on July 11: Q: The prolonged war in Libya deteriorates the humanitarian situation there. Will China consider providing humanitarian assistance to Libya? A: In a bid to alleviate the humanitarian disaster faced by the Libyan people, China has decided to provide 50 million RMB [US$8 million] worth of humanitarian assistance to them.20 This may be symbolically important, but - considering that the TNC has consistently declared it needs $3 billion in cash to keep the doors open in Benghazi – the offer amounts to little.   On the other hand, China made its feelings about the LCG clear as it publicized a phone call by Hu Jintao to South African president Joseph Zuma endorsing the AU peace process.  The AU initiative appears to differ from the LCG/Turkish initiative in one crucial aspect: it recognizes the continued legitimacy and sovereignty of the regime in Tripoli.   As for the West, it can content itself with the observation that, if it wasn't able to save Libya, at least it was able to cripple it. It is a pattern that the West has repeated in its engineered partition instead of national reconciliation in Kosovo and Sudan, and in midwifing the fragmentation of the Soviet Union into a suspicious Russia and a host of new NATO members.   It is another lesson in US "nation-building" - born of a characteristic disregard for sovereignty, circumvention of the United Nations, a cavalier attitude toward international law and a reckless deployment of military power – to which China, one of the last remaining multinational empires, is likely to pay close attention. Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy. This is a revised and expanded version of an article that appeared at Asia Times.   Recommended citation: Peter Lee, "The Labyrinthian International Geopolitics of the Libyan Conflict," The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 31 No 2, August 1, 2011.     Notes 1 World leaders open Libya talks in Turkey, The Raw Story, Jul 15, 2011. 2 Zuma, Cameron Set to Clash, IOL News, Jul 16, 2011. 3 Libya Contact Group: Chair's statement, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Apr 13, 2011. 4 Assessing the Situation in Libya, US Department of State, May 12, 2011. 5 NATO's Decision-Making Procedure, CRS Report for Congress, May 5, 2003. 6 Teleconference Background Briefing on North Atlantic Council (NAC) Discussions on Libya, US Department of State, Mar 24, 2011. 7 Russia not to attend Libya Contact Group meeting July 15, ITAR-TASS News Agency, Jul 13, 2011. 8 Russia denounces Libya contact group as 'illegitimate' , Telegraph, May 13, 2011. 9 Russia not to attend Libya Contact Group meeting July 15, ITAR-TASS News Agency, Jul 13, 2011. 10 NATO's Debacle in Libya, Counter Punch, Jul 15, 2011. 11 A Wilsonian move by the White House in Libya, Foreign Policy, Jul 15, 2011. 12 Democrat says Libya costs run much higher, Washington Times, Apr 7, 2011. 13 Canada mulls ways to fund Libyan rebels with frozen Gadhafi assets, Jul 16, 2011. 14 Summary of the American and International Press on the Libyan Revolution - Morgan Strong, Tripoli Post, Jul 17, 2011. 15 UN Envoy to Lead Libya Talks, Al Arabiya News, Jul 16, 2011. 16 Libyan Rebels Get U.S. Recognition Without Keys to Qaddafi's Frozen Cash, Bloomberg, Jul 15, 2011. 17 Click here for text. 18 Turkey seeks Libyan truce before Ramadan, Hurriyet Daily News, Jul 14, 2011. 19 Libyan TNC vows to continue military action in Ramadan, People's Daily, Jul 16, 2011. 20 Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei's Remarks on China Providing Humanitarian Assistance to Libya, Chinese Foreign Ministry, Jul 11, 2011.