IMMIGRATION thread

[Viking]

Nobody should have taken it upon themselves to "secure the defeat of the dictatorship." Regional actors did not unanimously support this intervention nor were the costs worth it.

First of all, where did the 'Arab spring' start? It was Tunisia, a friend of the West. Then Egypt followed, another friend of the West. Evidently, even if the West had loved Gaddafi, this war could still have happened.

What does this tell us? Gaddafi-style dictatorships can not be assumed to be stable. If Libya gets a Gaddafi 2.0 in a few years, we could have another uprising in Libya in 60 years time. If Gaddafi had won, similar considerations hold: there is a riske of a new violent uprising x years down the line. In addition to this, thanks to plundered arms depots, extremists could compromise Libya's internal security for decades; regardless of outcome.

By making sure that the dictatorship lost, we did in effect try to break this potential cycle by pushing the result towards something democratic. One might say the push was too gentle and that the democratic instutions in Libya should have been given help; like peace-enforcing troops after the war to initially provide the government forceful help if needed, but this comes with its own risks of failure.

Planting their feet in the Arabian Maghreb. Say what you will about Ghaddafi but he was a good security guard of the maghreb and his defeat enabled the network of islamism we see in Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya (along with other African states) today. They were single nastiest opposition to maghreb regimes yet the west risked arming them, intentionally or not.

And how does this relate to statements like this:

All the weapons are in Islamist hands since NATO got involved.

?

Does it intend to say that the islamists got weapons out of this at all? That wouldn't be a very shocking realisation.

There is no doubt that islamist extremists have gotten better conditions after the war in Libya - but even if Libya had completed a transformation to a peaceful democracy, that would likely still have been the case. Just look to the West and the problem of violent islamism there; yet there is resistance towards things like increasing surveillance (potentially: increasing authoritarianism) that could have protected people against such violence. There is a willingness to trade some security for some liberty.