Libya as a Global Template for Endless Wars
The savage killing Thursday of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi served to underscore the criminal character of the war that has been prosecuted by the US and NATO over the past eight months. The assassination follows NATO’s more than month-long siege of Sirte, the Libyan coastal city that was Gaddafi’s hometown and a center of his support. The assault on this city of 100,000 left virtually every building smashed, with untold numbers of civilians dead, wounded and stricken by disease, as they were deprived of food, water, medical care and other basic necessities.
This grisly event, which President Barack Obama hailed in the White House Rose Garden Thursday as the advent of “a new and democratic Libya,” in reality only exposes the regional and tribal fault lines that are setting the stage for a protracted period of civil war.
Just two days before the murder of Gaddafi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton staged an unannounced visit to Tripoli on a heavily armed military aircraft. While there, she issued a demand that Gaddafi be brought in “dead or alive”. As the Associated Press reported, Clinton declared “in unusually blunt terms that the United States would like to see former dictator Muammar Gaddafi dead. “We hope he can be captured or killed soon so that you don’t have to fear him any longer’, Clinton told students and others at a town hall-style gathering in the capital city.” The AP went on to note: “Until now, the US has generally avoided saying that Gaddafi should be killed.” Yet in reality, Washington is pursuing an unconcealed policy of state murder. In this case, it has openly advocated and provided every resource to facilitate the killing of a head of state with whom the US government had established close political and commercial relations over the course of the last eight years.
The killing of Gaddafi is the culmination of a criminal war that killed untold numbers of Libyans and left most of the country in ruins. This operation was launched on the pretext of protecting civilian lives, based on the trumped up claim that Gaddafi was preparing to lay siege to the eastern city of Benghazi to massacre his opponents. It has ended with NATO orchestrating a siege of Sirte, where thousands have been killed and wounded in suppressing opposition to the “rebels”.From the beginning, the entire operation has been directed at the re-colonization of North Africa and pursued on behalf of US, British, French, Italian and Dutch oil interests. While over the past decade Gaddafi had curried favor with US, Britain, France and other Western powers, striking oil deals, arms agreements and other pacts, US imperialism and its counterparts in Europe continued to see his regime as an impediment to their aims in the region.
Among the principal concerns in Washington, London and Paris were the increasing Chinese and Russian economic interests in Libya and more generally Africa as a whole. China had developed $6.6 billion in bilateral trade, mainly in oil, while some 30,000 Chinese workers were employed in a wide range of infrastructure projects. Russia, meanwhile, had developed extensive oil deals, billions of dollars in arms sales and a $3 billion project to link Sirte and Benghazi by rail. There were also discussions on providing the Russian navy with a Mediterranean port near Benghazi. Combined with these economic and geo-strategic motives were political factors. The turn by Gaddafi toward closer relations to the West had allowed Washington and Paris to cultivate elements within his regime who were prepared to collaborate in an imperialist takeover of the country. This includes figures like Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Gaddafi’s former Justice Minister and now chairman of the NATO-backed NTC and Mahmoud Jibril, the former economics official who is chief of the NTC cabinet.
With the popular upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt—on Libya’s western and eastern borders—the US and its NATO allies saw an opportunity to put into operation a plan that had been developed over some time for regime change in Libya. With agents on the ground, they moved to exploit and hijack anti-Gaddafi demonstrations and foment an armed conflict. To prepare for a direct imperialist takeover, they followed a well-worn path, vilifying the country’s leader and promoting the idea that only outside intervention could save innocent civilians from a looming massacre. The supposed imminent destruction of Benghazi was utilized to win support for imperialist war from a whole range of ex-lefts, liberals, academics and human rights advocates, who lent their moral and intellectual weight to an exercise in imperialist aggression and murder.
Their attempt to portray the regime change in Libya as a popular revolution becomes more preposterous with each passing day. The unstable puppet regime that is taking shape in Benghazi and Tripoli has been installed through relentless and massive NATO bombing, murder and the wholesale violation of international law.
Libya stands as a warning to the world. Any regime that gets in the way of US interests, runs afoul of the major corporations or fails to do the bidding of the NATO powers can be overthrown by military force, with its leaders murdered. Already, the US media, which has staged a hideous celebration of the bloodbath outside Sirte, is braying for NATO to repeat its Libyan intervention in Syria. For her part, Clinton warned Pakistani leaders on Thursday that insufficient support for the US-war in Afghanistan would mean that they would pay “a very big price.”
There can be no doubt that future operations are on the way, with bigger wars coming into focus, posing catastrophic consequences. Gaddafi had provoked the ire of the government of Nicolas Sarkozy in France with his hostility to its scheme for creating a Mediterranean Union, aimed at refurbishing French influence in the country’s former colonies and beyond.
- Although No Suture! does not favor socialism at all, the article's snippets above are here displayed because, contrary to mainstream media, it tells us like it is!
You can find Bill Van Auken full article at the World Socialist Web Site
Not only Gaddafi has been killed, but 60,000 men women and children - nearly all in NATO bombings. And the lizard bitch is laughing and making jokes, comparing herself to Caesar! Check the video here ...
What exactly did she saw? Lybia under Gaddafi?
* Loans to Libyan citizens are given with NO interest.
* Students would get paid the average salary for the profession they are studying for.
* If you are unable to get employment the state would pay the full salary as if you were employed until you find employment.
* When you get married the couple gets an apartment or house for free from the government.
* You could go to college anywhere in the world. The state pays 2, 500 euros plus accommodation and car allowance.
* The cars are sold at factory cost.
* Libya does not owe money, (not a cent) to anyone . No creditors.
* Free education and health care for all citizens.
* 25% of the population with a university degree.
* No beggars on the streets and nobody is homeless (until recent bombing).
* Bread cost only $0.15 per loaf.
Or was she too busy having dinner with the 'rebels'? Let's see ...
But a video proves us that Gaddafi was a hated tyrant. Check it out!
And what does Putin think about all that? See for yourself ...
The thing to remember is that there was no outcry for this assault on Libya (as there was no outcry for war on Iraq and Afghanistan), the overwhelming majority of people are against them.
But this seems to make no even the slightest bit of difference, there is literally no opposition voiced to these western wars in parliament, hardly even an acknowledgment that no one outside of liberal imperialists and media commentators wants them.
Let us examine, what has happened in Libya:
* Destruction of infrastructure; utilities, electricity, roads, bridges, etc.
* Destruction of political constructs.
* Destruction of Libyan forces; army, air force, navy, police.
* Destruction of civil society, and scattering of the processionals to four corners of the globe, much needed for reconstruction.
* Reallocation of topography of tyranny into ownership of new sock puppets. The tasks as yet not completed.
* Revision of the Libyan constitution, and incorporation of Iraq Constitution redux; ala Monsanto seeds only, and here we go whole sale privatisation of Libya included the alphabet that spells it.
* Provisions for a new American Base, all paid for by the Libyan funds.
* Payment for all the help offered to Libya by the concerned belligerents engaged in the humanitarian slaughter of Libyans; ie the $150 billion frozen in the NATO countries banks and US banks. Thanx for the funds Libyan Dudes.
* Setting loose the dogs of profit, and subcontract of Libyan reconstruction to NATO, and US countries at thrice the going market prices, at least.
.
Well that concludes this mission of mercy and liberation of funds, and lands, and resources.
Meanwhile all over the western world millions and millions of peoples living standards are attacked, Britain and USAmerica are bankrupt nations being run for a tiny, tiny majority of people.
In England they have 3 parties with exactly the same policies, one party that lost an election (Nu Labour), one that couldn't win an election (Tories) and one that no everyone regards with total contempt (Lib Dems). A tiny elite rule and the media and liberal commentators are all delighted.
Indeed! Read this final paragraph from the Guardian's Middle East editor:
"With Gaddafi finally out of the picture, the National Transitional Council faces a mammoth task in overseeing the change and forging a better future, with western and wider international support likely to be crucial to long-term success. For Libyans, Arabs and Africans the post-Gaddafi world may be less colorful, and, for a while, far less stable. But it is a case of good riddance: everyone should be better off without him. - Quoted from Ian Black in the Guardian
This is what passes for independent, liberal analysis nowadays!
Someone may remember that the ICC's prosecutor wanted to trial Gaddafi.
That the US/NATO have now allowed his killing just prove that the ICC has yet again been used as a political instrument in the hands of 'the masters' to add to the propaganda needed to wage the war; there has never been any serious intention to trial Gaddafi obviously:
1) he could have revealed uncomfortable truths for the noble liberators
2) the ICC prosecutor should have demonstrated that Gaddafi was actually responsible for those war crimes (mass rapes for example) AI and HRW have themselves admitted never happened
and
3) with Gaddafi alive people could still talk about international law and its implications.
Now the bogeyman has gone and the Libya war is over, we are told.
Journos and commentators should just look back at Iraq and Afghanistan to find the courage for some skepticism.