And Of Course We Will No Doubt Be Greeted As Liberators

I've always made a point of avoiding that specific and odd type of historical amnesia, so often displayed in politics, that paints prior foes in a sepia tone of nostalgia once they have shuffled off the main stage and been replaced by acolytes or successors. Not so much forgiveness as forgetfulness, it's the type of softening that allows contemporaries to anoint Ronald Reagan as a staunch ally of unions, Richard Nixon as a steadfast environmentalist, Bill Clinton a model of principles and affability (I was recently astonished to hear my mother make some sort of claim that she'd always liked Clinton personally, which is certainly not the way I recall our dinner conversations during my high school years). "There was somebody you could reason with," begins many an apologia concerning some political figure once deemed the very picture of unhinged radicalism. Both old leftists and grizzled right-wingers eventually make some sort of peace with their prior enemies, and while a bit of ideological flexibility is always welcome, it will be a strange day indeed when a group of progressives in the near future sit opining about the current state of affairs, saying, "Now, say what you will about Sarah Palin, but at least she....."

But allow me to briefly indulge in a bit of this political sleight-of-hand, if only because my point will be deeply ironic. And my point is this: even George W. Bush held a vote before launching the Iraq War. A cynical and meaningless vote? Perhaps. But that was more than we received this past Thursday, as Congressional voices were bypassed and no debate offered as our current administration acted upon the rising calls to action in North Africa. And while much of the nation was no doubt busy honoring their Irish heritage by ordering up a second car bomb, yet another display of unilateral executive power was entering the official record.

I don't wish to make too strong of an argument against taking action against the brutal suppression of rebel forces, and I don't want to deny the largely humanitarian impulses behind such action. Word of an immediate cease fire agreement from the Libyan tyrants has already made the rounds of the international press, and despite the long sorry history of broken cease fires (often mere stalling tactics) and the cagey lies served up by Colonel Gaddafi for generations, the news is indeed welcome and hopeful (and also, um, rejected). But one needn't have any sympathy for the amoral whirlpool that is Muammar Gaddafi to harbor severe reservations about yet another military adventure in a Muslim land - even a humanitarian venture, even in a land that has requested outside help, and even a military adventure couched in the safe language of the No Fly Zone. As more and more armchair warriors demanded action, many seasoned military personnel have been quietly making the case over the past few weeks that no-fly zones are far more complicated beasts than insistent bloggers and columnists might have the public believe.

And make no mistake, UN Resolution 1973/2011, passed with China and Russian abstaining (although with the complicity and at the urging of the Arab League) goes far beyond even a basic no-fly zone. The resolution states that participating members must agree to employ "all necessary measures" to protect civilians and populated areas - language that some might classify as vague, but I prefer to describe as pretty explicit. "All necessary measures" encompasses more than keeping airways clear of unauthorized craft or wiping out several caches of weapons. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself remarked yesterday, the events in Libya required the "need for more aggressive airstrikes" and the implementation of a "no-drive zone". The United States might even send military personnel in country to advise and train rebel forces. Left out of her list of recommendations was any hint at an exit strategy or how the United States might manage to maneuver its way through a complex and emerging civil war.

The response at home was rather swift, following a classified briefing for all senators on Capitol Hill. South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, speaking to the press after the secret briefing, already seemed to have regained a bit of Yankee swagger as he described the upcoming attacks in plain language: "We ground his aircraft and some tanks start getting blown up that are headed toward the opposition forces". When pressed about earlier comments made concerning the vague promises made by the Obama administration, Graham brushed such ancient history aside to embrace the new reality. "I want to take back criticism I gave to them yesterday and say, ‘you are doing the right thing'. My money is on the American Air Force, the American Navy, and our allies to contain the Libyans, and anybody on our side that says we can't contain the Libyan air threat -- I want them fired."

Well, that didn't take long, now did it? From ground-to-a-standstill inertia to political bipartisanship after a single secret briefing, plus the threat of termination for any and all dissenters - all in all, a pretty impressive afternoon.

But by making such glib comments, I run the risk of downplaying the murderous horror currently being deployed against the rebel forces in Libya by Gaddafi. This is not my intention. Anybody with a finely-tuned historical ear will no doubt hear in Secretary Clinton's description of Colonel Gaddafi as a monster who would do "terrible things" because "it's just in his nature....there are some creatures that are like that" an echo of President Reagan's labeling Gaddafi "the mad dog of the Middle East" some thirty years ago - but that doesn't mean the name-calling isn't justified. Nobody suggesting that this resolution is worrisome means to gloss over the atrocities being committed on the ground, or suggest the Libyan rebels do not need and even deserve international help (although comments have been few regarding American complicity in the daily slaughter of unarmed civilians in the streets of Bahrain, our close compatriot and host of the mighty 5th Fleet). Rather, my concern in this matter rests on the simplistic methods used to describe the complexity of establishing and maintaining no-fly zones - both theoretical and historical. The facts are sobering. After reading more than one facile pronouncement that American forces would knock out Libyan capabilities within hours and return home by the weekend, more sober types felt the need to remind the greater public that the Iraq no-fly zone, established in 1991, was only discontinued in 2003, at the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

But even beyond the unknown time commitment, what worries many about this decision is the inarguable fact that no-fly zones rarely remain no-fly zones, but mutate into something larger, usually encompassing ground troops. Although the events of the Bosnian War have suffered the cruel fate of taking place nearly twenty years ago and in a land largely unknown to most Americans (and thus largely forgotten by the general public), a quick review of the NATO enforcement of the no-fly zone in that arena goes some way towards explaining how no-fly zones actually work (or do not work). My comparisons are not meant to suggest what will or will not happen in Libya, but merely to offer a little historical perspective.

Operation Deny Flight was the name given to the two year long effort deployed during the Bosnian War of the mid-1990s, an enforcement of the no-fly zone that was eventually expanded to provide close air support for UN troops and to launch air strikes against Bosnia, thus becoming the first combat engagement in NATO history. Like many details in the Bosnian War, the evolution of NATO involvement is tied up in a potentially dizzying tapestry of names and events. Yet the major actions can actually be summarized fairly easily. The Bosnian War no-fly zone was established after the passing of United Nations Resolution 816. This resolution was itself an update to the earlier Resolution 781, which had prohibited unauthorized military flights inside Bosnian airspace. Perhaps not surprisingly, this prohibition suffered untold violations, leading to the passage of 816 and the total prohibition of all flights inside Bosnia, excepting those specifically authorized by the United Nations. The resolution stated that "all necessary measures" were to be allowed to enforce compliance - a statement exactly echoed in yesterday's decision.

This broader measure was named Operation Deny Flight, and the project was initially launched to only enforce this no-fly zone. The first serious violation of the no-fly zone didn't occur until February of 1994, when Serbian jets bombed a Bosnian factory in what was dubbed the Banja Luka Incident. In response, American F-16s shot six Serbian jets down, and soon afterwards, a larger role for NATO forces was pushed by stateside commentators. President Clinton in his State of the Union address requested a new "lift and strike" policy, while the United States put pressure on the United Nations to pass Resolution 836, a measure that would authorize NATO to provide close air support for the United Nations Protection Force.

It was the Serb attack on the UN safe zone of Gorazde that eventually led UN forces to request NATO strikes, citing Resolution 836. On April 10, 1994, US Air Force jets dropped bombs for the first time upon Serbian targets. In response, the Serbian army threatened to shoot down NATO aircraft, a threat they eventually followed through with, although damage was light and NATO casualties were none, eventually leading the Serbs to call off their attacks. The next major NATO response came in the fall of 1994 during the Bihac Offensive, in which Serb aircraft utilized the proximity of Bihac to the Croatian border to repel counteroffensive measures - with NATO forces not authorized to enter Croatian airspace, the Serbs simply flew along the border, dropping back into Croatia after striking and leaving hapless NATO forces unable to act. Once again, the UN Security Council intervened, this time by passing Resolution 958, which allowed NATO forces to enter Croatia. It was following this ratcheting up of tensions that UN forces were first seized by Serbs, held as hostages and eventually to used as human shields - a method that soon became the Serbian army's calling card.

The above events suggest something of the gradual manner in which an initial no-fly zone was expanded to include incursions into neighboring countries and NATO air support. This expansion continued into 1995. Following NATO bombing of the Pale ammunition dump, the Serbs seized 337 UN forces as hostages, which they utilized in increasingly dire human shield capacities. So effective was the Serbian deployment of human hostage shields that NATO ceased bombing the general Pale area, with air strikes shifting immediately to mere air patrols. It was during one of these patrols that US Air Force pilot Scott O'Grady was targeted and shot down, an event which received much media attention (and would later be dramatized as Behind Enemy Lines).

An even more notable failure by NATO was the attempted launch to protect the UN safe zone of Srebrenica, in which 60 aircraft were utilized to repel the advancing Serb forces. Dutch peacekeepers were seized and once again used as shields, and once again the raid was called off. Srebrenica fell soon after to Serb forces, and the resulting atrocity has entered the history books as one of the more brutal incidents of widescale ethnic cleansing in the latter half of the twentieth century. 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were murdered in the following week - the largest mass murder to occur in Europe since World War Two. This act of genocide led to the London Conference decision, in which UN military commanders were first given authority to request NATO airstrikes without consulting civilian UN officials, while a further agreement in principle was made for future large-scale NATO strikes.

The no fly zone was effectively superseded following the Second Markale Massacre, in which civilians were targeted in the old marketplace section of Sarajevo. In response, Operation Deliberate Force was launched, a one month operation utilizing 5,000 personnel and 3500 flown sorties. Several soldiers and 150 civilians were killed. It was this concerted effort which eventually helped lead to the Dayton Accords, and the eventual suspension of the no fly zone.

The above litany of events are hardly a laundry list of botched missions and grave historical mistakes, although I'm not sure what else one might call the fumbling that led to the Srebrenica atrocity. And this long and involved story of the Bosnian no fly zone does not necessarily suggest any awaiting disaster in the sands of Libya. However, even such a brief history does help suggest the complex nature of what military experts mean when they discuss the possibilities of a "no fly zone" - the impact such actions have, their evolving nature, the demands they place on participating countries, and the limits of their effectiveness. In the final analysis, the two years of Operation Deny Flight had much less of a positive impact on the Bosnian War than the one month of Operation Deliberate Force. Perhaps the ultimate legacy of the Bosnian no fly zone was its overall ineffectiveness - the way in which its failures or limitations helped build a growing consensus for an increased aircraft role which eventually culminated in Operation Deliberate Force.

Make no mistake, instituting a no fly zone is entering into a state of war. Right, a state of war already exists in Libya. Right, one could hardly ask for a more cartoonish emblem of evil than Colonel Gaddafi. And right, the United States has often been on the wrong side of history when it comes to halting the spread of atrocities. This is and will be a humanitarian venture. Yet we gloss over the details at our peril. Libya is a country America has long misunderstood and failed to comprehend, one with a complicated colonial past, a Muslim nation, and one with plenty of wavering inhabitants who may have little compunction heeding Gaddafi's calls to once again take up arms to fight the invading colonial powers (if Italy takes part in these efforts, the historical ironies will be headache-inducing). America is bogged down in two concurrent wars with two other Muslim nations while struggling against a devastated economy and political upheaval back home. Libyan intervention may be a more justified military excursion than our long bloody excursion into Iraq, it may help stop Gaddafi's cruelty against his own people, and it may well prove our mettle and daring-do. But pay close attention to those three words embedded in the recent resolution. "All necessary measures" encompasses both a world and time. The possibilities are yet unexamined. I'll stand with anybody who wants to see the Libyan rebels succeed in this ever-expanding Jasmine Revolution. But don't oversimplify the job ahead of us in both the near and distant future.