The decision to intervene in Libya has been weighed down from the beginning by a heavy load of the euphemisms, ambiguities, and hypocrisies which so often accompany the resort to violence in international affairs. The keenest advocates of action, France and Britain, had to formulate their proposals to the United Nations in narrowly humanitarian terms in order to convince some doubtful nations that they would not pursue regime change directly...
That's the Guardian, editorializing yesterday. And one can only conclude that it's come down with a dose of the same troubles it's detecting in others. Euphemisms and hypocrisies? Egad, sir, if that's what formulating those proposals in narrowly humanitarian terms amounted to, then why doesn't the Groan say what it, for its part, really thinks: namely that this was a regime-change intervention from the off? And, saying that, then segue into the ditty about illegal war, the duplicity of those prosecuting it and the whole bang shoot (if you'll excuse the expression in this context)?
To see the naked logic of what is hidden in that editorial by its own euphemism and hypocrisy, you have only to read David Rieff at The New Republic:
[F]rom the beginning it has been clear that while this intervention has been couched in the language of humanitarianism and of the global good deed, invoking the so-called Responsibility to Protect (R2P)... the more important goal has been to support the insurgency, which is to say, to bring about regime change.
But what goes with this more straightforward approach, this telling it like it is, so to say, is a story that is uncomfortable for those practising anti-interventionist euphemism about Libya. It is this sort of thing:
[I]n reality, the infatuation of liberal elites in the West with humanitarian war was barely shaken by Iraq. Many of the same activists who either opposed the Iraq invasion from the beginning, or soon recanted their support for it, campaigned ardently for a military intervention in Darfur. The problem, it seemed, was not with the idea of regime change... but with regime change when practiced by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. And now, some of those liberal interventionists are in positions of power, whether formal or informal...
This war - let us call it by its right name, for once - will be remembered to a considerable extent as a war made by intellectuals, and cheered on by intellectuals. The main difference this time is that, particularly in the United States, these intellectuals largely come from the liberal rather than the conservative side.
There you have it. There's opposition to intervention in Libya and there's opposition that sees the clear thread between intervention in Libya and intervention in Iraq. The Guardian isn't ready to allege against Cameron and Obama the same misdemeanours it levelled against the hated Blair and Bush.
