Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Haass won't type NATO properly

I've been reading Richard Haass' thoughts since 1991 in Trinity College.

I noticed that in advocating for an invasion of Libya by the West to "prevent" it from turning into Somalia (that they created), that he used the seemingly submissive "Nato" and not NATO.

All of this poses serious challenges to the outside world. Nato's airplanes helped bring about the rebel victory. The “humanitarian” intervention introduced to save lives believed to be threatened was in fact a political intervention introduced to bring about regime change.

Now Nato has to deal with its own success. Some sort of international assistance, and most likely an international force, is likely to be needed for some time to restore and maintain order. Looting must be prevented. Die-hard regime supporters will have to be defeated. Tribal war must be averted. Justice and not revenge need to be the order of the day if Libya is not to come to resemble the civil war of post-Saddam Iraq in the first instance, or the chaos (and terrorism) of Somalia and Yemen down the road.

That's to make the reader think that NATO is a uniform organization, a noun like "shoe," and not an acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Why ? It exists. Forever, to them. Organizations come and go.

It is up to Nato, the European Union and the UN, working with the Libyan opposition, the African Union, and the Arab League, to put together a response to the new Libyan reality – a reality that includes 1m refugees, several hundred thousand internally displaced civilians, and a country capable of producing some 2bn barrels of oil a day.

All that proposed good work to do (like Somalia, the other failed state) and yet he managed to work in that darn ol' oil. What a coincidence.

Additionally, using "Nato" doesn't shout out to you angrily in an era where capitals mean you are "yelling," to those who have no life beyond the internet.

SPQR





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