Once again the United States is bombing a Muslim country toliberate its people from their own sanguinary rulers. Once again weare told that innocent civilians are being massacred and that theUnited States must intervene as a matter of moral duty, in itscapacity as a great and good nation. But in this case -- even aspart of a broader, U.N.-sanctioned coalition to enforce a no-flyzone -- the U.S. should not have intervened at all.
No humanitarian appeal should ever be lightly dismissed, andindeed many Americans justifiably recall with deep regret thefailure of the Clinton administration to intervene against the 1994Rwandan genocide, when a few thousand lightly armed soldiers on theground could have saved hundreds of thousands.
So why is Libya different? Why shouldn't the United Statesintervene there?
First, because it has oil and gas, and any U.S. military actionwill be seen by many people around the world as motivatedexclusively by the urge to steal the country's resources. Absurd, ofcourse, but the enemies of the United States will repeat thataccusation, all too plausible for most people around the world, whocannot imagine that any government would be benevolent enough toexpend blood and treasure to disinterestedly help foreigners, andforeigners of another religion to boot.
It is no use arguing that the military control of a territory andthe ownership of its natural resources are very different things forany law-abiding occupier. That U.S. military forces made no attemptto seize, or even dutifully secure, Iraq's oil installations duringor after the 2003 invasion is a fact known to few, and even whenknown it is dismissed as irrelevant, or as so much calculateddeception. It is because the accusation is so widely believed thatIraqi political leaders have gone out of their way to negotiate oilcontracts with non-U.S. companies, to demonstrate that they are notAmerican puppets. (Shenhua Group, Sinochem, Unipec and ChinaNational Offshore Oil are all no doubt grateful to the United Statesfor having given them access to Iraq's oil, even if they have notoffered to contribute to the trillion-dollar cost of thatintervention so far.) Whatever the United States does in Libya, itwill only add to its undeserved but by now entrenched reputation asthe predatory aggressor of our times.
The second reason Libya is different from Rwanda is its religion.Look to our experience in Afghanistan, for example. Imams all overAfghanistan routinely denounce the U.S. intervention as a disguisedattack on Islam, as a means to opening the way to Christianity. Thatincludes imams salaried by the U.S. taxpayer by way of the Afghangovernment, which actually disburses the funds.
In an added twist, Afghan religious leaders often explain thatthe Americans promote the rights of women in order to encouragetheir rebellion against fathers and husbands, to thus dishonorAfghan families and weaken their resistance to conversion. Again,because no ordinary Afghan would dream of traveling halfway aroundthe world to help Americans, or indeed anyone not of his ownreligion, such accusations are almost universally believed. Theyexplain the otherwise inexplicable. True, some Afghans still saythat it was because of the so-far unfound oil, gas or gold that theAmericans came, but nobody believes the benevolent explanation.
Perhaps a recent terrorist attack against U.S. servicemen bestillustrates the phenomenon. Arid Uka, who killed two U.S. airmen andwounded two more at Frankfurt airport on March 2, was heard shouting"Allahu akbar" ("God is great") as he fired his 9-millimeter gun. Heis from Kosovo, now emerging as Europe's first Muslim state as aresult of the 1999 NATO air war against the territory's formerSerbian overlords.
Many of Kosovo's inhabitants are duly grateful to the U.S. fortheir liberation. But there are imams preaching against thepernicious influence of the United States and the West in Kosovo --more loudly of late because of a headscarf ban in its schools.Although local Muslim leaders imposed the ban, with no U.S.involvement, the imams say otherwise, while also condemning U.S.-led invasions of Muslim lands.
Indeed, Uka's stated motivation for the shooting was a purportedInternet video that showed U.S. troops raping Muslim women inAfghanistan. He was unable to retrieve any such video for the Germanpolice. None seemingly exists, but he no doubt heard about it in hislocal mosque.
It is unforgivable to repeat the same mistakes in Libya.Regardless of its good intentions, the United States will bedepicted once again as predatory and anti-Muslim, generating moreterrorism in due course. Even the much-praised resolution of theArab League that calls for a no-flight zone warned against any"invasion" and ruled out any attack on Libyan air defenses -- thesignatories obviously did not mind if the (presumably American)patrolling pilots were thereby exposed to antiaircraft missiles.
The U.S. military ignored this, but cruise missiles and aerialbombs do not just destroy missiles, they also kill people, and therewill soon be Hezbollah-style displays of dead children for al-Jazeera. Let the Arab League or the far larger Organization of theIslamic Conference with its 57 members, which possess first-line jetfighters and troops, mount a humanitarian intervention at their owncost in money and blood.
At least the United States would not be accused of attackingIslam once again.
Edward N. Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center forStrategic and International Studies. He wrote this for the LosAngeles Times.
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