Odyssey Dawn and the Need for Athena
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 4 Apr 2011
Paul D. Scott – TRANSCEND Media Service
How long did the hero Odysseus think it would take him to get home after the long Trojan War? After all, it was just a short sail back to Ithaca? Homer divided his epic into two parts, the first about the needless war against Troy and the second about the journey home. Odysseus is the central character in the story of return. In true Greek fashion, the gods, jealous and vain, interfere with the affairs of men rewarding and punishing them. Odysseus himself was cursed by Poseidon.
The UN sanctioned military operation has been named Odyssey Dawn. It is indeed an odd choice. This may indeed be the Dawn of the Age of Odysseus. The curse this time may not be by Poseidon but from the people of the Mediterranean basis who seek fairness and justice and not realpolitik manipulation. Odysseus, after all, was not loved by all.
Security Council Resolution 1973, passed on 17 March, called for a ceasefire and the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya. It also imposed a freeze of “all funds, other financial assets and economic resources” owned or controlled by the Libyan authorities.
The resolution authorized member states to “take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack.” At the same time it explicitly excluded “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory”. The resolution was the legal green light for counter-violence. Air strikes led by the United States, France and Britain, are being carried against the Libyan Air Force and air defenses. The control of the air has been easily won. What has not happened has been an advance of anti-Gaddafi forces. The rebels are disorganized, leaderless and without a plan. The situation is very fluid but two troubling developments are: 1) The Libyan Army as well as special units have not joined the rebellion although many units have shed their uniforms, and 2) General Abd-al-Fattah Yunis, who in February defected from the regime where he was Interior Minister and is now “chief of the General Staff of the Army of Free Libya”, has not been able to mobilize a coherent force. At this point in the time the rebels are failing. This failure has been matched by an inability of the rebels to communicate to the other Libyans as well as the international community as to what their goals are?
Operation Odyssey Dawn in thus left with outcomes that may well be a protracted stalemate and a East-West division of the nation. Although the Coalition has said it is not acting as the “Rebel’s Air Force” in fact the regime cannot move in the open against the rebels because their armor and ground forces would be destroyed and killed. Both sides have vowed that this is unacceptable but then again neither side has the power to push the other back and away. We must also remember that there was a ten year “No-Fly Zone” in Iraq. This did nothing to stop the killing of the Shia and marsh communities. Air power in Bosnia did nothing to stoop atrocities in basements.
There are many possible outcomes besides stalemate and it is not fruitless to discuss them here. One is the intervention of ground troops. The Security Council resolution explicitly excludes “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” “Foreign occupation” does not rule out targeted intervention by specially trained ground forces. These forces may already be on the ground. These acts would fall under the umbrella of the mandate that authorizes UN member states to “take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack.”
The second option to avoid stalemate would be to decapitate the regime. How and who would do this would have to be worked out but the logic of cutting off the head and the body falling may be overwhelming.
Ground forces and the targeted killing (assassination) of Gaddifi? Who owns Odyssey Dawn? If it is not the Libyan people then it is will be a disaster.
Here at the end of March 2011 with democratic revolutions rocking North Africa and the Middle East, Operation Odyssey Dawn raises a host of questions. The most troubling aspect is that African and Middle Eastern states are viewed by policymakers as objects rather than subjects of international law. Jeremy Levitt makes this same point in his article “The Law on Intervention: Africa’s Pathbreaking Model (http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=330). Levitt cogently states: “…topical discussions on, for example, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian intervention, and other peacemaking developments in Africa are either uninformed or inadequately analysed. More often than not, when analysts assess African security issues, they do so with a voice reminiscent of the British Colonial Office in the eighteenth century—paternalistic and unaware.“
This paternalism continues as conflicts in the region are poorly mapped and/or viewed through lenses that can only be turned one-way. Root-causes are ignored and conflict prevention inadequate. When intervention does take place, there is often inadequate or even non-existent effort on post-conflict peace building.
Humanitarian intervention not only ignores the prior complicity in acts of violence by the lead democratic states in the supporting and condoning the now pariah state but also makes post-conflict peace building an almost impossible task as humanitarian intervention can end up taking sides and installing new regimes. This is the familiar mission creep that seems unavoidable.
What is striking about Operation Odyssey Dawn is that “regime change” is not the goal. It cannot be under the guidelines of a humanitarian mission.
The doctrine for human protection operations is clear. It states:
“The doctrine should clearly be based on the following principles:
• the operation must be based on a precisely defined political objective expressed in a clear and unambiguous mandate, with matching resources and rules of engagement;
• the intervention must be politically controlled, but be conducted by a military commander with authority to command to the fullest extent possible, who disposes of adequate resources to execute his mission and with a single chain of command which reflects unity of command and purpose;
• the aim of the human protection operation is to enforce compliance with human rights and the rule of law as quickly and as comprehensively as possible, but it is not the defeat of a state; this must properly be reflected in the application of force, with limitations on the application of force having to be accepted, together with some incrementalism and gradualism tailored to the objective to protect;
• the conduct of the operation must guarantee maximum protection of all elements of the civilian population;
• strict adherence to international humanitarian law must be ensured;
• force protection for the intervening force must never have priority over the resolve to accomplish the mission; and
• there must be maximum coordination between military and civilian authorities and organizations.” (http://www.iciss.ca/report2-en.asp#dilemma)
This being said, who has ownership over the air power used over Libya? Has it become a de facto “Rebel Air Force?” Amr Moussa, the departing Secretary General of the Arab League” declared on 21 March that “The goal is a no-fly zone. We are not talking about anything else.” (For a full transcript of a remarkable interview see http://www.digitalnpq.org/articles/global/518/03-22-2011/amr_moussa)
The 1973 Resolution on Libya is troubling because the major actors involved seem to have confused the “R” in R2P. As we all know it is “responsibility” not “right.” With the greatest respect to Gareth Evans I would add a plus and make it responsibilities to protect. The R2P report is brilliant and a must read. It anticipated events like Libya and it carried (among many) the following caveats:
“The traditional language of the sovereignty-intervention debate – in terms of “the right of humanitarian intervention” or the “right to intervene” – is unhelpful in at least three key respects. First, it necessarily focuses attention on the claims, rights and prerogatives of the potentially intervening states much more so than on the urgent needs of the potential beneficiaries of the action. Secondly, by focusing narrowly on the act of intervention, the traditional language does not adequately take into account the need for either prior preventive effort or subsequent follow-up assistance, both of which have been too often neglected in practice. And thirdly, although this point should not be overstated, the familiar language does effectively operate to trump sovereignty with intervention at the outset of the debate: it loads the dice in favour of intervention before the argument has even begun, by tending to label and delegitimize dissent as anti-humanitarian. (http://www.iciss.ca/report2-en.asp#meaning)
Who, when, how, where, why are the fundamental questions for any peace-keeping mission. One must also have an exit strategy as well. Once intervention takes place a host of responsibilities also take place. Post-intervention fatigue (like donor fatigue) is a real possibility as the cost and complexity of state-building will tax even the most committed.
The use of wrong analogies in conflict assessment needs to be avoided. Lumping Somalia. Rwanda, Bosnia, and Libya in the same boat obscures more than it clears. In Rwanda, the issue was whether the UN would reinforce General Dallaire’s inadequate and overwhelmed peacekeeping mission. The UN, with the active support of the U.S. decided, not to prevent a genocide. (See Samantha Power, “Bystanders to Genocide” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/4571/). In Bosnia, air power was an important ingredient but not decisive. (see “War in Bosnia: The Evolution of the United Nations and Air Power in Peace Operations http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1997/Snider.htm).
Somalia is case-study lf “mission creep. More importantly it painted Africa as “tribal” and not worth the effort. The U.S. has stayed away from peace-keeping operations ever since.
How Libya will end is anyone’s guess. What is disturbing, among other things, is how humanitarianism has been misused as a justification not for intervention but interference. This linkage is anathema for all engaged in humanitarian assistance.
Odysseus and his men committed other acts of outrage on their voyage back to Ithaca. These acts prolonged the journey. When he returns home, Odysseus and son kill the suitors of Penelope. No one was spared. This in itself may have ended the Odyssey with a last spasm of revenge violence but instead Homer ended the epic not with more avenging death but with Athena, the God of Wisdom, intervening and persuading all sides to make peace. Who will act as Athena today?
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 4 Apr 2011.
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