Lawrence F. Kaplan: Obama, Libya, and the Dubious Ethics of Modern Air Wars
[Lawrence F. Kaplan is a contributing editor for The New Republic.]
Fittingly enough, the world’s first airstrike came exactly a century ago, on an autumn day in 1911. Eerily enough, it came in Libya, where, one day during the Italian-Turkish war of 1911-1912, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti flew his paper-thin Taube monoplane over a camp of Turks and Arabs, dropped four hand grenades (having pulled the pins out with his teeth), and generated headlines such as this: “AVIATOR LT. GAVOTTI THROWS BOMB ON ENEMY CAMP. TERRORIZED TURKS SCATTER UPON UNEXPECTED CELESTIAL ASSAULT.” (The bombs, an inquiry later found, fell dependably on Libyan sand, but the message got through: The men below scattered in terror.)
The episode jibes neatly with photos from the intervention in Libya, depicting a shabbily outfitted African mercenary lying dead by the side of road, presumably felled by a fusillade of American military technology—cruise missiles that all but stop and take left-turns—whose prowess lay beyond his imagination. Given this latest display, how many times must the Battle of Omdurman be replayed before we begin to argue about the lopsidedness of America’s wars, the asymmetry that permits and even encourages these wars, and the truth that, absent such capabilities, we would enjoy far less room to maneuver on the international scene?
The assault on Libya, after all, provides the clearest illustration of the role that the United States currently assigns its military strength and, more than that, the ease with which it does so. Given that weapons launched from a distant remove—and, therefore, with minimal risk (to our side, at least)—may increase the propensity of political leaders to resort to violent means casually and without due reflection, does their use not count as an act of war? Does it not impose certain ethical obligations on the American politicians who, over the past two decades alone, have launched aerial strikes against targets in Sudan, Yemen, Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Libya? If the point of the exercise is to send a “message,” as indeed the Obama team claims to be the point in Libya, how many people may one justly kill in the process? To judge by the substance and tenor of deliberation that preceded this week’s attacks, the answer to these urgent questions would seem to be: whatever....
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Fittingly enough, the world’s first airstrike came exactly a century ago, on an autumn day in 1911. Eerily enough, it came in Libya, where, one day during the Italian-Turkish war of 1911-1912, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti flew his paper-thin Taube monoplane over a camp of Turks and Arabs, dropped four hand grenades (having pulled the pins out with his teeth), and generated headlines such as this: “AVIATOR LT. GAVOTTI THROWS BOMB ON ENEMY CAMP. TERRORIZED TURKS SCATTER UPON UNEXPECTED CELESTIAL ASSAULT.” (The bombs, an inquiry later found, fell dependably on Libyan sand, but the message got through: The men below scattered in terror.)
The episode jibes neatly with photos from the intervention in Libya, depicting a shabbily outfitted African mercenary lying dead by the side of road, presumably felled by a fusillade of American military technology—cruise missiles that all but stop and take left-turns—whose prowess lay beyond his imagination. Given this latest display, how many times must the Battle of Omdurman be replayed before we begin to argue about the lopsidedness of America’s wars, the asymmetry that permits and even encourages these wars, and the truth that, absent such capabilities, we would enjoy far less room to maneuver on the international scene?
The assault on Libya, after all, provides the clearest illustration of the role that the United States currently assigns its military strength and, more than that, the ease with which it does so. Given that weapons launched from a distant remove—and, therefore, with minimal risk (to our side, at least)—may increase the propensity of political leaders to resort to violent means casually and without due reflection, does their use not count as an act of war? Does it not impose certain ethical obligations on the American politicians who, over the past two decades alone, have launched aerial strikes against targets in Sudan, Yemen, Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Libya? If the point of the exercise is to send a “message,” as indeed the Obama team claims to be the point in Libya, how many people may one justly kill in the process? To judge by the substance and tenor of deliberation that preceded this week’s attacks, the answer to these urgent questions would seem to be: whatever....