It is the height of recklessness, a kind of blasé barbarism, to start a war without knowing what the war is for. We are witnessing the transformation of Libya into a giant laboratory for a zany, unpredictable experiment to see what happens when you mix Tomahawk missiles with a volatile Arab uprising. It makes even the ill-considered debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan look like the height of rationality in comparison.
The made-up nature of the war, its speedy and brainless cobbling together by Western leaders keen to make a quick point by firing a few hundred missiles at Gaddafi, explains why the so-called Western alliance is so spectacularly flimsy. This must be the most shortlived alliance in human history. It lasted about 24 hours — at a push 36 hours — before Washington announced that it would ‘tone down’ its involvement and agitate for NATO to take over. Perhaps keen to satisfy the needs of the 24-hour rolling news agenda, America has just overseen the world’s first-ever outburst of 24-hour imperialism.
Brendan O’Neill, “The most shortlived alliance in human history”, Spiked!, 2011-03-22
March 27, 2011
QotD: One-minute Imperialism
Filed under: Africa, Military, Quotations — Tags: AirForce, BarackObama, Libya, NATO, Navy — Nicholas @ 10:17
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