the New Era of Wars

Today is a typical Monday.

It’s quiet in the office. Not because people stayed out of the office to enjoy the first sunny days of the years. They’re all here. They’re all silently typing and clicking away on keyboards and mice (does this plural also go for the technical devices we click away many an hours with?). Even though the first spring sun is happily out and about, the faces in here are characteristically down with concentration and the typical Monday blues. It’s good in a way; I tend to get things done on a Monday.

Last weekend I filled most of my days with lazing, cleaning and revising. I’ve been catching up on “10 O’Clock Live”; I’ve got a handwritten piece waiting. I’ve resumed reading the book I bought during my last visit to England; ‘In Europe’ that handles about 20th century Europe. I’ve been taking in a lot of politics; Second World War and the whole mess in Libya and other Arabian countries. I’ve been thinking about the new era in which wars are fought from a new angle. Europe is still almost constantly at war, just not on their own grounds. I can see how people see that as ‘meddling’.

I think we are learning be it quite slow. What do you expect? Human kind is not known for their rapid understanding and planning in new situations. We learn through faults, mistakes and personal dramas. We learn through genocide, fuck ups and economical collapses. We only move our arses when we think we have something to lose or something to gain. We usually don’t see the bigger picture.

I am all for the UN intervention in Libya. Maybe not in the form it worked out, but I can see some progress. I remember, vaguely Kosovo. I definitely remember Afghanistan and in a less involved way Iraque. I remember Sarkozy’s tactic for the Libya situation. You can say a lot about this mission, but he had the latest interventions lodged in his head when he called on the various partners to intervent in Libya. He said: “We’re not going in by forcing our way in shooting. We’re not going in to overthrow Gadaffi; we’re going in to protect the Libyan people, but we will not intervene further in the Libyan politics.” That sounds sensible enough.

The question is where to draw the line. If you see a fight in the street, are you going in with your fists clenched and ready to hit, or are those fists only to protect the attacked? When does hitting someone become supporting one party or self defence? Or are we going to stand aside, maybe call the police, but do nothing further?

In my mind only watching what was happening in Libya was never an option. You can’t stand aside watching, shrugging and moving on with your life while someone else, innocent, is being beaten senseless. How do you protect someone? By taking away the stick they were hitting with and then watch how it becomes a fist fight? Can you step in just standing there merely only being an obstacle? When is it all right to step in?

I lost sight a bit of what is happening in Libya. I think the UN is only shooting and bombing artillery of Gadaffi. The actual fighting between Gadaffi’s troops and the rebels is left to these two parties. The only thing I read about it in a paper is that some people think UN soldiers have given weapons to the rebels. This was denied by an UN spokes person.

I’m still all for the intervention, but I am also dubious about it, like so many people, because at some point it does become ‘meddling’ if we do too much. When is it too much? You don’t want something like Srebrenica happening again. Dutchbat, the Dutch troops, witness thousands of people being captured and killed under the term ‘ethnic cleansings’. So they should have stepped in? But what if they did and shot a few people? Then that would have been called ‘meddling’?

It’s a fine line to tread. It’s the new era of wars. As soon we get the hang of it, we’ll be entering a new era again. Maybe at this rate we might achieve world peace in 3384, if the world still exists, that is.