The difference is that when it was government forces doing the same thing, the USG was shouting it from the mountain top and using it as a rationale for intervening. After all, the intervention was to "protect".

We can be relatively safe in assuming that terrible things happened under the previous government, and that it would have done terrible things to the protesters and revolutionaries. But i was under the impression that NATO intervened to make things better.

So to now say, "Well, yeah, but shit was pretty nasty prior to this so we should measure the behavior of the new power structure on a relative and sliding scale against the old power structure," is just disingenuous. Unless the same people are going to call for another intervention to protect people from the people we intervened to protect.

R2P advocates answered those who said that the Libyan situation didn't rise to the level of a clear humanitarian crisis compared to other, more pressing, human disasters like famine in the Horn by asking "how many people would be enough, how many would be too few?" I was asked this by Shadi Hamid of Brookings and Nick Kristoff of the NYT - two major R2P advocates on both Libya and now Syria - during a Twitter exchange. It would certainly seem disingenious for them to use JPD's line of argument now.

...other criteria at work with regards to R2P other than "minimize the ugliness".

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

on this subject today,

Dan Trombly: Pape's flawed model of intervention http://trunc.it/jygjj

James Joyner: Come on, America, Do Some of that Intervention Shit http://trunc.it/jy5tk

...(Libya and Syria) is that neither of them are actually "about" the two countries. They're primarily "about" America's relevance and role in the Middle East (and perceptions there of) - Libya and Syria are playing fields and little more.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

I might be misreading this statement(and my apologies in advance if I am), but your previous reply to me indicated that you considered the Libyan revolt to be a local phenomena, one not encouraged into existence by western powers. Now this statement seems the complete opposite, acknowledging the the importance of these revolutions to the US.
Could you clarify your thoughts on this for me? please?

As far as breaking eggs to make an omelet, I'm with you...but you hafta weigh the possible loss of the PR battle, (aka hearts and minds), when undertaking these endeavours. Our track record ain't so good in that respect.

One more question if I may. The R2P concept/thing is new to me (how, I don't know), but just how sincere of an effort is it? It would seem an easily manipulated target. As an American, I know we were fed a steady diet of "bringing freedom" to the Iraqis, but I doubt that a majority of Americans would believe it now. Has the Iraq war changed any prior R2P advocates minds about supposedly benevolent regime change?

The Libyan conflict had a Libyan genesis. The American decision to become involved - once battle had been joined - had relatively little to do with a "pure" R2P framework. It could be made compatible with R2P doctrine, it could be morally and legally defended on those grounds, and the framework could be used very effectively as a means of keeping a running tally on costs and benefits of involvement, but in my view the R2P case alone was not the driver. In my view, the extra kicker was the need for the US (and others) to manage the transition from backing entrenched sclerotic regimes that were resistant to overthrow, to a new environment where many of those regimes look a lot less secure.

I'm not terribly convinced that these present efforts are terribly sincere from an R2P perspective, at least in terms of R2P being the primary motivator. As conceptualized, R2P was promulgated with the background being a somewhat different set of higher intensity conditions - it's a set of rules around the idea of no more Rwandas. What we see here is quantitatively and qualitatively different. The framework can be used very effectively (and in my view should be), but just because someone mentions the magic phrase R2P one shouldn't assume that it's an idealistic exercise.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

for your thoughtful reply.

The neocons' seeming prescience about the "domino effect" on the Middle East from our adventure in Iraq, always made me somewhat suspicious. Perhaps they were just better able to read the writing on the wall in regards to 30 year old dictatorships and the success of the color revolutions elsewhere.

...R2P framework. If folks aren't actually grappling with that issue (among others) then it's not really a discussion about R2P.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

Well as you pointed out above, R2P was really just a convenient framework for selling the intervention. On that i agree completely, given how many other places a R2P intervention made/makes just as much sense as Libya.

However, we're either talking about Libya as a R2P mission or we're not. So above you said that it wasn't the driver, but you still want to assess the mission as R2P.

I'm willing to grapple with that issue. It's simple: if we got involved in Libya because of a responsibility to protect, then it seems that our mission is far from over. So i'd simply ask why we feel no responsibility to protect now?

And if we don't feel that responsibility to now, then we need to dispense with the R2P rationalization and discuss why we intervened and assess the intervention based on the actual goals of it.

...central tenets is that the application of military force is a final resort. It's far from clear that we're anywhere near that point in Libya at present (to the contrary, HRW and others are working on the ground there).

I would not counsel dispensing with the R2P framework. As I mentioned above, it's still quite useful in assessing costs and benefits. That, in turn, gives us insight into "extra" motivations that don't fit the framework. Remove the framework from the evaluation and it turns into yet another sterile he said / she said argument. If it was the central issue around the decision to intervene, it has to be addressed.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

and locally originated? I've kinda assumed the seeds of the "Arab Spring" were laid by us. Has there ever been a revolution that wasn't funded by a powerful competing interest? Strategy, arms, communications, etc, just don't spring up out of a disgruntled powerless group; they gotta have help from the start, no?

Maybe the majority population will be better off for a time in the future, but the immediate beneficiaries will be us. And it ain't our blood in the streets. (god bless the angry and gullible 18 year old boys of the world)

...genesis. There were lots of folks who piled on after things got rolling, but this image of western forces playing the predominant role is an artifact of where the westerners are sitting and what they know about.

"In combat one should be very suspicious of painless moral choices. When you are confronted with a seemingly painless moral choice, the odds are that you haven't looked deeply enough." ~ Karl Marlantes

Dear, dear. I would have thought that the relevant question would have had to have been, Was this country a threat to the United States?

And that, were the answer, No, then the assault by the warplanes of the United states would have to be considered an aggressive war.

One conducted in defiance of the War Powers Act, the law of the land.

No, instead we're supposed to count the number of bodies that have piled up and compare it to the supposed number of bodies that might have piled up, absent our engaging in aggressive war in defiance of international law, our own law, and plain morality.

It's hard to know where to start.