So expect little effective action from the international community or the Security Council regarding Libya. What we\u2019re likely to see is more diplomatic bluster and outrage, the favorite expedient of states when they want to create the illusion of doing something, at the same time they have no interest in actually doing anything. National self-interest will see to that. Don\u2019t forget, Libya may look like a \u201cfly,\u201d but it possesses the ninth largest oil reserves in the world, and 68% of it goes to EU\/NATO states. Oil-hungry China gets 11% of Libya\u2019s oil. As we see throughout the Middle East, dysfunctional states can act like hawks on the international stage because of oil. The only thing better for metamorphosing flies into hawks is nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
Even if the West should decide to act, however, the rank odor of hypocrisy will still hang over any response. The Colonel Gaddafi we welcomed back into our international good graces in 2003, when we removed him from the blacklist of terrorist states, is the same Colonel Gaddafi now bombing and strafing his own people. He hadn\u2019t improved then, and he hasn\u2019t gotten worse now. And why did it take the recent uprising for us to start talking about prosecuting him for the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing? Did it really take some Libyan defectors to enlighten us about Gaddafi\u2019s culpability? Where was all this tough talk about \u201cinternational justice\u201d six months ago?<\/p>\n
Or consider one of the biggest human-rights-violating hawks, China. Nineteen eighty-nine was a year like this one, when people\u2019s revolutions energized by the media-savvy young were dismantling the Soviet Union\u2019s stooge regimes in Eastern Europe. Young Chinese hoping to duplicate that feat, however, were massacred in Tiananmen Square, despite the riveting image of one young man facing down a line of tanks. The world blustered and condemned, but kept on doing business with China and awarded Beijing the 2008 Olympics. But that was just the most famous of post-seventies China\u2019s oppressions of its own people, from the Muslim Uighurs in China\u2019s west, to the Falun Gong religious group, whose members have been executed, imprisoned, and tortured over the years. And right now, Chinese dissidents attempting to imitate the protestors in the Middle East have been quickly rounded up. Censorship, controls over foreign journalists, and security patrols have all been increased. But the world meets this oppression with a shrug as the hawk once again flies through the cobwebs of internationalism.<\/p>\n
The demand that somebody (these days meaning the US) \u201cdo something\u201d about dictators who oppress, torture, and murder their own people arises from a moralizing internationalism that thinks states should behave toward one another on the basis of common ideals and principles such as democracy, freedom, and the rule of law. But such commonality is a chimera. Just because we in the West have developed over the centuries a political philosophy that delegitimizes violence and prizes human rights doesn\u2019t mean everybody else in the world has. And if we think such states are wrong, then we have to be willing to use force to stop or deter their violence, and ready to accept the unintended death and destruction that always follow military action.<\/p>\n
But since we can\u2019t intervene everywhere in the world, we have to calculate carefully the costs and benefits of intervening when we do intervene. This brings us to the final obvious point about interstate relations: in the end they necessarily are shaped not by utopian ideals, but by national interests, and these interests vary greatly across the globe, conflicting and colliding more often than not. If we can intervene to uphold our ideals without jeopardizing our national interests and security, so much the better. But given the risks and costs and unforeseen consequences of action, ultimately the long-term security and interests of America\u2019s citizens must be the primary consideration of our leaders, not utopian idealism, sentiment, or even less the hypocritical exhortations of other states that have no intention of running the risks or paying the costs themselves, and whose interests are not necessarily our own. This tragic truth means that at times, no matter how horrific the spectacle, if we\u2019re not willing to kill it, we will have to accept that the hawk goes free.<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a92011 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The international order \u2014 comprising the United Nations, interstate diplomacy, organizations like NATO, and all the other transnational institutions that are supposed to keep the global peace and deter aggression \u2014 reminds me of the Spanish proverb about laws: they catch flies and let the hawk go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,121,154],"tags":[1063,635,345,1048,1044,1047,749,1074,1037,363],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-TB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/foreign-policy-as-wishful-thinking\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":0},"title":"Foreign Policy as Wishful Thinking","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The current military intervention in Libya by the West has been marketed with the claim that its purpose, as French President Sarkozy put it, is \u201cto protect the civilian population from the murderous madness of a regime that has forfeited all claim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2416,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-lovely-little-nato-intervention\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":1},"title":"A Lovely Little NATO Intervention","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine World powers sometimes have to fight wars not for some material interest, but for bolstering a nation\u2019s prestige in order to deter more dangerous aggressors. As Margaret Thatcher said after England\u2019s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War, the conflict showed that \u201cnow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2406,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/liberating-libya-for-jihadists\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":2},"title":"Liberating Libya for Jihadists","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The fall of Muammar Gaddafi is making some in the West giddy with the usual \u201cArab Spring\u201d wishful visions of democracy and freedom flourishing throughout the Muslim Middle East, even as the last binge of democratic intoxication, the fall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3320,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/humanitarian-beheading\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":3},"title":"Humanitarian Beheading","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Ricochet There are a number of videos circulating about from \"free Libya\" showing grotesque head-loppings, executions, torture and desecration of bodies, of African mercenaries who apparently were captured or killed by the rebels in Libya. No doubt, the mercenaries were quite brutal thugs whom Qaddafi employed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3355,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/did-we-give-up-on-libya\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":4},"title":"Did We Give Up on Libya?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama has announced that America would stop attacking Col. Muammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya. He instead hopes that others can force out Gadhafi \u2014 or that the dictator will leave through economic and diplomatic pressure. It will apparently be up to NATO\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":963,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-libyan-non-model\/","url_meta":{"origin":3447,"position":5},"title":"The Libyan Non-Model","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It is a good thing that Moammar Qaddafi is gone, even if by barbaric means. So what did we learn from the 2011 misadventure, given that some are advocating much the same sort of action against Syria and Iran? Answer: Not much. 1.\u00a0Small\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5746,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions\/5746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}