> Dennis Redmond wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry, but the UN operation is necessary, legal (the Security Council
>> signed off on it, the pro-democracy movement comprises the vast majority
>> of
>> Libyans), and the right thing to do.
>
> This is a joke about the 'Libya action is necessary, legal and right'
> David Cameron quote that's been scrolling at the bottom of every news show
> screen on the planet for the last 36 hours, right?
If everybody's done pissing on each other's legs, I think Gilbert Achcar offers a characteristically informed and sober perspective:
"We all know about the Western powers' pretexts and double standards. For example, their alleged concern about harm to civilians bombarded from the air did not seem to apply in Gaza in 2008-09, when hundreds of noncombatants were being killed by Israeli warplanes in furtherance of an illegal occupation. Or the fact that the US allows its client regime in Bahrain, where it has a major naval base, to violently repress the local uprising, with the help of other regional vassals of Washington.
"The fact remains, nevertheless, that if Gaddafi were permitted to continue his military offensive and take Benghazi, there would be a major massacre. Here is a case where a population is truly in danger, and where there is no plausible alternative that could protect it. The attack by Gaddafi's forces was hours or at most days away. You can't in the name of anti-imperialist principles oppose an action that will prevent the massacre of civilians. In the same way, even though we know well the nature and double standards of cops in the bourgeois state, you can't in the name of anti-capitalist principles blame anybody for calling them when someone is on the point of being raped and there is no alternative way of stopping the rapists."
Full text at http://www.zcommunications.org/libyan-developments-by-gilbert-achcar