The Libyan Situation

Ruth Marshall:

". . . the first light of dawn fell on the staircase of a partially destroyed building (in Tripoli) where a young man stared at the dusty foot of a child poking out of the rubble. Rescuers dug her out and handed her to a young father, who wrapped the three-year-old body in a blanket, buried his face in it and wept.... At the hospital's small morgue, civilian bodies lay in a line. An old man's feet were almost severed at the ankles. A woman's face was bloated to almost twice its normal size. At the door lay the body of the little girl I'd seen dug out of rubble. Beside her was an infant in a pink playsuit. Between them lay two small hands, severed just below the wrist." (Newsweek, April 28, 1986)

Ellen Goodman:

"There is more to all this than rage at Muammar Kadafi, the terrorist it is safest to hate. There is also in our reaction a lust for action, for hitting back ... even if this punch kills another baby.... I am sure the president and his men see in this muscular policy the return of the mythical man, the American striding alone to High Noon in every trouble spot. But I keep seeing Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, gleefully riding the bomb to Doomsday." (The Baltimore Sun, April 22, 1986)

John Damies:

"The Reagan Administration hoped, among other things, that the bombing attacks would help to destabilize support for Kadafi within Libya. In the short term, at least, that hope is another example of wishful thinking. The most likely consequence of a U.S. military attack against Libya, especially one that inflicts casualties on civilians, is to rally support among large numbers of Libyans for the regime ... While awaiting a decisive move by the Libyan military, a more effective U.S. policy would be to talk less and work quietly with others who are equally eager to see a new regime take power in Tripoli." (The Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1986)

Alexander Cockburn:

". . . The cult of "terrorism" is the abdication of political thought.

Say the word "terrorism" and, in a familiar conditioning of reflex, people think "Palestinians." Where is the sense of proportion? Between 1967 and 1982, 282 Israelis were killed by Palestinian violence, vs. 20,000 Palestinians killed in Lebanon in the summer of 1982 alone, all in the name of "a strike against terrorism." (The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1986)

Flora Lewis:

"America has shown that there are limits to its patience. Now it must show it also means what it says about promoting civilized behavior, accepting international rules in concert with friends, eschewing force and prefering diplomacy even when it stings." (The New York Times, April 17, 1986)

Lisa Anderson:

"American policy appears to be bent on ousting Qaddafi come what may. Yet in the short run, this campaign of intimidation serves simply to strengthen Qaddafi and prolong his rule. In the long run, the Libyan-American confrontation may indeed promote a coupbut by a pro-Soviet, anti-"imperialist" successor. Whatever sort of coup topples Qaddafi, recent events guarantee that the new leaders will have to bend over backwards to prove they aren't American puppets." (The Washington Post, April 13, 1986)

William Pfaff:

"Anyone with a halfway serious acquaintance of the Middle East recognizes the terrorism problem as rooted in historical forces as remote as the collapse, in decadence, of the Ottoman Empire early in this century, and as recent as the Israeli-Arab conflict. Washington comfortably reduces this complexity to the question of taking out Moammar Kadafi—or, failing that, taking out its own allies because of their lack of enthusiasm for taking out Kadafi ... The trouble between Europe and Washington derives from the fact that the Europeans cannot bring themselves seriously to credit that Washington really believes the simplicities it proclaims." (The Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1986)

The Christian Science Monitor:

"President Reagan has affirmed that the US cannot permit its citizens to be wantonly murdered, and that it will respond with measured military action where it has reason to hold governments or individuals accountable... He should next go on national television to announce a resolve to seek a solution to the Middle East conflict, which must include satisfactory self-determination for the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The President has stood up against terrorism. Now he should stand up for peace." (April 16, 1986 Editorial)

Robert Healy:

". . . if the US goal from the beginning has been to bring the Khadafy government down, the attack has only strengthened his hand inside Libya and certainly will give pause to those moderate Arab countries which might have been effective in helping to bring about his overthrow. . . ." (The Boston Globe, April 16, 1986)

William V. Shannon:

"The air attack on Libya is another Reagan crowd-pleaser. It is popular, and it is also stupid. The politicians in both parties and most of the press are rushing to get on the President's side, the popular side, but their endorsements do not make a foolish decision wise or practical in the long run. . . . The attack is a failure in its own terms. It will not stop Libyan terrorism." (The Boston Globe, April 16, 1986)

Joseph C. Harsch:

". . . what can be said about the existing situation is that Western Europe has in fact broken from the US in two key areas on foreign policy .... The first is attitude toward the Soviet Union. Western Europe does not regard Moscow as the wellspring of all evil in the world. ... The second big difference is over the Middle East. In everything to do with the Middle East, Washington now puts the welfare of Israel first. The present campaign against Qaddafi of Libya is a form of support for Israel.... It is an oversimplification to say that Western Europe is moving toward a neutralist position between Washington and Moscow, but if the present trend is speeded by further American policies that Europe cannot accept, the time could come when Western Europe could hold a balance of power between Russia and America." (The Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 1986)

Rowland Evans and Robert Novak:

"Although danger signals from Ambassador Vernon Walters' talks with U.S. allies did not divert President Reagan from Air Force reprisals against Muammar Qaddafi, they carried a warning: the future cycle of antiterrorist retaliation could drive the United States out of the Islamic world.... (The Washington Post, April 15, 1986)

Judith Miller:

"Long before the Americans began their step-by-step escalation of force in retaliation for Libyan-sponsored terrorism in Europe, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was facing the worst internal problems he has confronted as the leader of Libya-the sharp drop in oil prices. ... Until recently, shortages of food and other basic commodities were endemic. Lines rivaled those of Eastern Europe, and critics joked about what they dubbed Qaddafi's ,'miracle," the transformation of an oil-rich Arab nation into an impoverished police state. ... Most diplomats in Tripoli believe the Colonel was in deep trouble. They criticized American economic sanctions against Libya in January and the attack on Libyan patrol boats in the Gulf of Sidra in March. Rather than weakening the Colonel, they argued, these attacks made him a hero to many Arabs, forced moderate Arab Governments that detest him to extend at least rhetorical support and rallied his disenchanted people to his defense.'' (The Jerusalem Post, April 21, 1986)

David Nyhan:

"The Reagan administration's decision to bomb Libya looks to be another example of the ruinous power of unintended consequences.. . . The Israelis applaud because Reagan's resort to force amounts to a retroactive endorsement of Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon. We are joining Israel in their own great mistake. The Lebanon invasion increased Israel's difficulties, it didn't lessen them. The Libyan raid is doing the same to us." (The Boston Globe, April, 27, 1986)

David Watt:

"The clear conclusion is that whatever the immediate fate of Colonel Gaddafi, the incident has widened the US-European gap within Nato.... But the affair shows up far deeper troubles than that. The truth is that European interests in the Middle East really do differ in important respects from America's, . . ." (The London Times, April 18, 1986)

Gary Sick:

". . . Of the 812 incidents of international terrorism in 1985—a very bad year—fewer than 20 involved Americans. A total of 23 Americans were killed in such incidents—about one-fourth the number who die each year as a result of being struck by lightning.... Most Americans exult at sending a "message" to Colonel Qaddafi. But ... the message we think we are sending to Colonel Qaddafi may not be the message that is being received by a new generation in the Middle East that is being conditioned to regard the United States as a distant, indifferent bully. . . ." (The New York Times, April 27, 1986)