The ugly truth of the Libyan war

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague came in front of the worlds' press last week to call Colonel Gaddafi "delusional" for wanting to be involved in talks about Libya's future. Hague was particularly dismissive of the regime and said that "we are way past that point" and that Gadaffi should insist that all his supporters give up possession of all weapons and turn their leader in to face justice. Hague was hopeful that the National Transitional Council would include members of the old regime and thus try to be as "inclusive" as possible. He stated that the recent events have "strongly vindicated Britain's policy of promoting intervention in the North African country". Hague's words essentially represent a carefully packaged representation of the true reality and context of the Libyan intervention. There is  no convincing evidence that the motive for the intervention was humanitarian, and there are serious questions that should be addressed to Hague and his colleagues concerning the legality of the intervention.

Some political commentators have been particularly sharp in their observation of NATO's questionnable actions in Libya since March of this year. Craig Murray is the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and a human rights activist who has come to understand the murky world of political deception and crimes. His public exposure of British complicity in aiding Uzbek leader Islam Karimov's horrific torture of innocent Muslims - deserves far more mention in the mainstream press. In recent articles on his website, Craig has harshly criticised NATO for violating UNSCR 1973 - the UN resolution which was drawn to enable NATO countries to intervene to protect civilians. The resolution established a no-fly zone and had "the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution". However, Craig has pointed out that the citizens of a Libyan town called Sirte are genuine Gadaffi supporters and that the NATO-supported rebels have bombarded the towns' citizens for simply holding a different view as to who should run the country. Craig stated that "NATO have in effect declared being in Gadaffi's political camp a political offence". Craig observes that NATO is violating UNSCR 1973 which explicitly aims in "facilitating dialogue". How is killing people who don't hold the same opinion as the rebels - "facilitating dialogue"? Craig Murray also rightly points out that NATO has chosen not to intervene in places such as Dubai, Bahrain, Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan - all places which suffer from oppressive governance.

Who are the rebels that Western nations are supporting to overthrow Colonel Gaddaffi? There are disturbing signs that a large proportion of them are hardline Islamists with an intention to implement oppressive interpretations of Sharia law in a future Libyan government. Whether these hardliners actually manage to have such an influence on the future government, remains to be seen. It does seem that the rebel movement is actually a mixture of influences - including moderate Libyan civilians, former Gadaffi supporters, affluent Libyan exiles living in the West, and the hardline Islamists of the eastern portion of the country. However, there are considerable concerns now as to who is really in control of the rebel power-base. Asia Times journalist Pepe Escobar recently reported that a man called Abdelhakim Belhadj has become the de facto commander of the Tripoli armed forces. Escobar describes how Belahdj was trained and mentored in Afghanistan by a "very hardcore Islamist Libyan group". After 9/11, Belhadj was tortured in Bangkok by the CIA and then later returned to Libya and became imprisoned by the Gadaffi regime. However, he and some other Islamists made a deal with Gadaffi to moderate their ideology and were released in 2009. Belhadj was a member of a group known as the LIFG (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) which was founded in 1995 as part of the Mujahideen campaigns against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The aim of the LIFG was to establish an Islamic state in Libya and to work in overthrowing the regime of Colonel Gaddafi; which was regarded as deviant, oppressive and overly secular. The United Kingdom Home Office banned LIFG in October 2005 under the Terrorism Act and thus made it clear that the country regarded such a group as nothing more than violent terrorists. Earlier this March, The Telegraph newspaper reported that while the LIFG has never officially regarded itself as part of Al Qaeda - the two groups have still shared very similar philosophies and methods. A US military academy called West Point did a study on global Islamist activities and found that the LIFG and Al Qaeda share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". Libya was also the second largest contributor of foreign fighters in post-Saddam Iraq (after Saudi Arabia) who were determined to kill American soldiers and influence internal politics. The Telegraph newspaper also reported that Al Qaeda called on all its supporters to support the Libyan rebels for the purpose of establishing "the stage of Islam" in the country. It is thus rather concerning that NATO has allied itself with terrorists. This policy of course, is nothing new. In 1996, British intelligence paid a man called Anas Al-Liby to assassinate Colonel Ghadaffi. Al-Liby was in an Al Qaeda affiliated group called Al-Muqatila and he was also linked to the US embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. Strangely, Anas Al-Liby was allowed to live in the UK up until the year 2000. Have his handlers ever been held accountable? What seems even worse is the story of the murdered British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. There was a documentary several years on mainstream television titled Murder In St. James's. The website WikiSpooks lays out the summary of the documentary:-

"The film went on to allege that the anti-Gaddafi organisation Al Burkan, which was allegedly funded by the Reagan White House, had obtained a gun from the Hein terrorist group in West Berlin, and used it to kill Fletcher with a single shot from the sixth floor penthouse at 3 St James's Square - the building adjacent to the embassy. According to the film, the head of Al Burkan, Ragab Zatout, planned to overthrow Gaddafi and seize control of Libya's oil wealth after the severing of diplomatic relations, but his coup attempt on 8 May 1984 was thwarted by the Libyan army. ^{[9] [10]}

Her murder would later become a major factor in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow U.S. President Ronald Reagan to launch the USAF bombing raid on Libya in 1986 from American bases in Britain."^[11]

The question remains, why does the West now insist on overthrowing his regime and how long has this intention prevailed? Is this a final implementation of a previous failed attempt of his removal?

In 2003, the US lifted sanctions on Libya in order to allow several large oil companies into the country. Major investments were made by companies such as ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Amerada Hess and Royal Dutch Shell. The oil reserves of the country stood at over 40 billion barrels according to a 2007 estimate by the Oil and Gas Journal. In 2009, Gaddafi addressed students from Georgetown University via a satellite link and lamented that oil prices were "unbearable" and that Libya's oil "maybe should be owned by national companies or the public sector at this point, in order to control the oil prices, the oil production or maybe to stop it". He said the same thing to King Juan Carlos of Spain and a Spanish business delegation; telling them that Libya could improve its production and improve prices by nationalizing its energy assets. In the same year, a state-owned oil company in Libya threatened to nationalize the operations of the Canadian company Petro-Canada if the Canadians did not apologize for their criticisms of Gadaffi giving a heroes welcome to the convicted Lockerbie bomber (Abdelbaset al-Megrahi). Gadaffi's regime actually threatened the UK if the Lockerbie bomber was left to die in a Scottish prison, according to confidential Wikileaks cables. Britain and the US warned Gadaffi that "it is not good for Libya to threaten existing and potential investors and violate the sanctity of contracts with such abandon". This motive for securing oil deals and energy infrastructure needs to be taken seriously as a possible motive for the NATO intervention.

Another reason for the NATO intervention could've been precipitated by the fact Gadaffi met with Venezeulan President Hugo Chavez in 2009 and signed a document which was strongly critical of Western foreign policy and its "war on terror". Gadaffi visited Latin America for the first time in 2009 and said that the two regions should form a defense alliance, a "NATO for the South" - or what Gadaffi liked to refer as "SATO". Gadaffi said, "Those who were betting on NATO, we now say to them that we're going to bet on SATO. We're going to have our treaty, too". Clearly this would not have been met with approval by Western interests who have always been opposed to Hugo Chavez's regime and thus found a new concern in the behaviour of a North African dictator trying to cement alliances with an increasingly powerful bloc of non-Western interests. An interesting Wikileaks cable from 2008 describes Gadaffi's meetings with Russian officials and their mutual agenda of strengthening economic and military ties. The cables also mention Gadaffi's interest in purchasing Russian military equipment as well as his support of Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

It seems that the West has pursued the policy of "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" with regard to Ghadaffi. He was courted by Tony Blair as well as various American and Canadian corporate interests when he announced the discontinuation of his WMD program. It appears that the CIA and MI5 were trying to rehabilitate Ghadaffi to keep him under their thumb, and make last minute offers to get him to change his position. However, Ghadaffi was not exactly being co-operative and thus the old Reagan-era plans for his removal may well have been started up again.

It is deeply unfortunate that the West has pursued another military intervention in the Arab world that almost echoes the highly questionnable policy of the Iraqi intervention. The Western media is rather one-sided in its representation of the intervention, and there appears to be a deliberate obfuscation of the truth. An article in The Boston Globe earlier this April was a refreshingly honest analysis of the actual context of the Libyan intervention by a Western media outlet. The article effectively dismissed claims that Gadaffi was committing genocide against his own people or deliberately targeting them. Gadaffi offered an amnesty for rebels “who throw their weapons away”, and the group Human Rights Watch found that Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya – was not the scene of a civilian massacre by the Gadaffi regime. Instead, Gadaffi was narrowly targeting the armed rebels who were fighting against his government. While Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of certain cities, and while innocents have died – this was a far-cry from the claims that the regime was pursuing a policy of deliberately targeting civilians. The Boston Globe reported that  “Libya’s air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide”. It seems clear that both NATO and Gadaffi have killed hundreds of civilians as a result of their decisions to choose a particular side in the civil war that rages across the country. It is also clear that Gadaffi is a deeply corrupt and tyrannical ruler who deserves to be replaced. Regardless, the West has engaged in a very unpalatable policy of regime change and Gadaffi's replacement could potentially be even worse.

Special thanks goes to Jonathon Reynolds for providing some of the sourcing for this piece. His summary of the Libyan invasion motivations can be found here:-
http://screechingkettle.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/six-reasons-west-wants-gaddafi-to-gtfo.html