CNN/Time pundit Fareed Zakaria is considered one of the smartest guys in elite policy/media circles.Speaking with CNN host Anderson Cooper on Friday(3/4/11), he advocated CIA intervention in Libya. Deriding a no-fly zone as something less than a “magic solution,” he explained:
ZAKARIA: There’s a lot of covert stuff we can do. We can effectively fund the Contra war against Gadhafi the way we did in Afghanistan.
COOPER: So you think the opposition should be armed?
ZAKARIA: I think the opposition–I think that the CIA should start looking into covert actions that can fund the rebels, that can provide food, logistics, weaponry. And if Khadafy Gadhafi realizes this– and believe me, we don’t need to advertise it — he would realize, he will see, the people around him will see he can’t win.
Zakaria’s historical references are a little bizarre. The U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaraguawerea disaster–a murderous group trained and armed in an attempt to overthrow a left-wing government that had overthrown a U.S.-backed dictatorship. The Contras directed much of their violence against Nicaraguan civilians. When direct funding of the group was blocked by Congress, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to sell arms to Iran and funnel the profits to the Contras–what became known as the Iran/Contra scandal. In other words, not exactly the kind of plan one would cite as a model.
Zakaria refers to Afghanistan as well–presumably meaning U.S. support for mujaheddin fighters battling the Soviet Union. Some of those fighters would eventually regroup under the banner ofAl-Qaeda. Again, not really the kind of project you’d want to replicate.
It’s always just plain creepy, besides being morally vomitous, to have imperial-minded bastards like these mulling over how best to hijack a revolution in the name of “freedom”, isn’t it?
Especially when these same imperial-minded bastards were just ducky about the blood flow, along with the oil flow, in Libya just a few short weeks ago.
As for the Contras and the Afghan warlords, I don’t believe Zakaria sees their body counts as a drawback. He’d be perfectly happy for deja vu all over again, as long as it culminated in the desired results for the US this time.
And if it doesn’t, well, there’ll likely be other opportunities to get it right, won’t there?
Hart raises fair point.
Regardless of Zakaria’s motives, advocating for CIA backed intervention does seem like a contradiction. Would Zakaria have taken a similar position in regards to Chile in 1973 or Iran in 1953?
Honestly, I think he would say no, but I’d sure like to know more about how he would argue the distinction, or at least try to explain what, if any, is a qualified arbiter of a justified & sanctioned CIA backed intervention that can stand the test of time?
Why oh why- did Ronnie Reagen – avoid justice and now he is Sainted – and his illegal actions are acceptable?
It should be noted that Obama has explicitly cited Reagan as an influence, so it isn`t “a little bizarre” for anyone falling in line behind him to draw the conclusions Zakaria has, considering especially the whitewashing of history in our press.
The poster above (jerry s) seems to be on the right track, though perhaps just as incidentally as Mr.
Zakaria. From my sampling, everyone has been on the Cold War language for a while now (the liberal George Lakoff is encouraging it to line up against Republicans, but he is purposefully bizarre ). Starting from the citing of a “containment” strategy of the Egyptian police, and moving towards a Libya, which pretends to be socialist. Newsweek has taken the cue, and printed an editorial cautioning those who “love a revolution” against Maoism and Bolshevism, and continuing their encouragement of privatization and corporatism since their recent eulogy of the company town.
I can think of numerous of rationales for this neurosis, including tax cuts for the wealthy, the support of CIA activity (what neoliberals euphemize as “soft power”), busting unions, and even (likely subconscious) racist contrast to Obama, as some on the right even have reinterpreted Clinton as an American hero. But I didn`t live through Reagan, so I`ll have to keep guessing for now unless I or someone in the press does the research.
My local newspaper editor, though quite Republican, accurately observed that rising food prices are a substantial cause of these Sunni uprisings. Food prices are high because they are tied to gas. He could have mentioned that Bangladesh and Haiti, probably two of the poorest places in the world, faced riots months beforehand, and after Tunisia, even Israel saw protests on the issue. But he drew no historical analogy. Such stories are down the memory hole, as they conflict with our present demonizing.
Getting back to a precedent, the comparisons that come to my mind are not Latin America and Iran (our present Cold War boogeymen) but Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. They all parallel our current arms dealing to Libya, though, excepting Iraq, they are on the side of governments (something the rebels might soon be as well).
Morocco was a brutal experiment of modernizing, under King Hassan II (a good friend of Reagan). He lined up tanks against his own people, slashed pensions, privatized state assets, and oversaw many disappearances of his political adversaries (the NYT eulogy seemed to go to great lengths to rationalize our support of him). Along with Egypt, modern day Morocco is a site of the no-longer-secret gulags of the CIA. Iraq has a similar prison for dissidents, radicals, and the occasional criminal, a result of “birthing pains” as a state becomes a “real democracy.”
Hassan also helped torpedo the Fez conference by calling it quits when Libya and Israel could not agree on first principles. Presently, Israel faces gas disputes with Lebanon, which is another boogeyman of the press, and even warranted a warning of what “Arab reform” could bring about when we don`t pragmatically support a dictator (Newsweek).
The two L`s are the only Arab countries on the UN Security Council as well, or they were, until Libya was dethroned.
That`s all I got for now.
Let the Libyans solve their own problems. Haven’t we stuck our noses in enough times to get over the “white man’s burden” syndrome?
Right you are, HReading.
We don’t want to get mired down in another war – or an expansion of the war in which we already find ourselves. Still, can’t we find a way to help those who are suffering under a dictatorship? Why not secure the terrritory around Tripoli for the oppressed and give Khadafi (or however you spell it) a Gaza-strip and then just build into his territory? Did I just make a joke. Dunno. // Jean Clelland-Morin
HREading, the intervention, at its arguable “best” (among the cruise-missile liberals), is a symptom of the Doctrine of the Inherent Goodness of the US. Nothing can ever make them get over the White Man’s Burden.
More here, from John Caruso…
Really this is all pissing in the wind.We have no money for any foreign “adventures”at this time.This will be in the future much more of a guide on our foreign policy than you will ever know.