Libya's Hell, Enabled by Canadian Humanitarians

[JohnyCanuck]

Why 'responsibility to protect' is proving irresponsible.

By Murray Dobbin, Today, TheTyee.ca

Who will protect Libyans now? One of the darkest and most shameful chapters in Western military intervention continues to play out in spades in Libya. The latest news comes from Benghazi where one of the (literally hundreds) of murderous militias opened fire on peaceful, white-flag-bearing protesters (protesting militias), killing at least 20 and wounding over 130. And they didn't use just small arms -- it was rocket propelled grenades, machine guns and even an anti-aircraft gun. It was, even for a horribly violent context, a disgusting slaughter of innocents.

But we hear nothing from the international choir, led here by Lloyd Axworthy, which sang the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) hymn at the top of their lungs two years ago. The R2P, established by the UN in 2005, has lofty principles but in practice has been used as an excuse for any brutal assault on sovereign nations that serves the capitalist interests of the first world. Responsibility to protect states that sovereignty is not a right, but rests on the responsibility of governments to protect their populations. It is triggered by evidence of any one of four "mass atrocity" crimes: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

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Instead of a new model democracy blathered on about by the warmongers after Gadhafi's murder, we are fast approaching the situation that has prevailed in Somalia for over a decade: a completely failed state. Once that situation is established it will take a generation or more to return to some kind of normalcy.

The big brains in America's multi-billion dollar intelligence conglomerate apparently didn't think of what would happen when dozens of militias, al-Qaida cells and criminal armed gangs raided the many arms depots across the country (in addition to getting hundreds of tonnes of arms from NATO). Libya is now described as the biggest open arms bazaar in the world, where the most sophisticated weapons can be purchased by anyone with enough cash. Setting aside the fact that many of these weapons are finding their way to other conflict areas, there is enough weaponry available to keep the conflict in Libya going for years.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/11/25/Libyan-Hell-After-Civil-War/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=251113

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO's War on Libya and Africa by Maximilian Forte

Reviewed by Dan Glazebrook

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But the most pernicious of the lies that facilitated the Libyan war was the myth of the "African mercenary". Racist pogroms were characteristic of the Libyan rebellion from its very inception, when 50 sub-Saharan African migrants were burnt alive in Al-Bayda on the second day of the insurgency.

An Amnesty International report from September 2011 made it clear that this was no isolated incident: "When al-Bayda, Benghazi, Derna, Misrata and other cities first fell under the control of the NTC in February, anti-Gaddafi forces carried out house raids, killing and other violent attacks" against sub-Saharan Africans and black Libyans, and "what we are seeing in western Libya is a very similar pattern to what we have seen in Benghazi and Misrata after those cities fell to the rebels" - arbitrary detention, torture and execution of black people.

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But such disqualification has been a systematic practice of liberalism from the days of John Locke, through the US war of independence and into the age of nineteenth century imperialism and beyond. Indeed, Forte argues that the barely-veiled "racial fear of mean African bogeymen swamping Libya like zombies" implicit in the "African mercenary" story, was uniquely and precisely formulated to tap into a rich historical vein of European fantasies about plagues of black mobs. That the myth gained so much traction despite zero evidence, says Forte, "tells us a great deal about the role of racial prejudice and propaganda in mobilizing public opinion in the West and organizing international relations".

Yet the racism of the rebel fighters was not only useful for mobilizing European public opinion - it also played a strategic function, as far as NATO planners were concerned. By bringing to power a virulently anti-black government, the West has ensured that Libya's trajectory as a pan-African state has been brought to a violent end, and that its oil wealth will no longer be used for African development.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-250413.html

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Libya Almost Imploding, Status Quo Unsustainable

By Nicola Nasser
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, November 18, 2013

On last Oct. 18, CNBC.com quoted Paolo Scaroni, the CEO of the Italian oil and gas firm ENI, which is Libya's largest foreign partner, as saying: “Everyone is going to be wealthy” in Libya, citing statistics of what could be: “Five million people and 2 million barrels of oil (per day), which means that this country can be a paradise, and I am doubtful that Libyans will not catch this opportunity of becoming the new Abu Dhabi, or the new Qatar or the new Kuwait.”

Libyan Copy of Iraq’s “Green Zone”

Yet Libyans seem determined to miss “this opportunity.” “Revolutionary” Libya, reminiscent of the U.S. - engineered “democratic” Iraq after some ten years of the U.S. invasion, is still unable to offer basic services to its citizens. Real unemployment is estimated at over 30%. Economy has stalled and frustration is growing. Gone are the welfare days of Gaddafi’s state when young families could get a house with benefits for free, people’s medication and treatment were paid by the state and free education made available to everyone. About one million supporters of the Gaddafi regime remain internally displaced; hundreds of thousands more fled for their lives abroad.

Remnants of the destroyed institutional infrastructure of law, order and security is hardly capable of protecting the symbolic central government in Tripoli, reminiscent of its Iraqi counterpart, which is still besieged in the so-called “Green Zone” in Baghdad. Late last October Libya’s central bank was robbed of $55m in a broad daylight robbery. More than one hundred senior military and police commanders were assassinated.

“Libya isn't just at a crossroads. We are at a roundabout. We keep driving round in circles without knowing where to get off,” Libya's Minister of Economy, Alikilani al-Jazi, said at a conference in London last September, quoted by The Australian on last Oct. 14.

On last Aug. 30, the Swiss-based group Petromatrix said: “We are currently witnessing the collapse of state in Libya, and the country is getting closer to local wars for oil revenues.” Four days later Patrick Cockburn reported in British The Independent that “Libyans are increasingly at the mercy of militias” and that the “Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country.”

http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2013/November/18%20o/Libya%20Almost%20Imploding,%20Status%20Quo%20Unsustainable%20By%20Nicola%20Nasser.htm

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Kick n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

4. So my question is.....

In light of the case with Gaddafi and Libya (as described in posts above), would it be out of line to ask how much of the great dollops of anti-Assad propaganda we are subjected to by the mainstream media and politicians will turn out afterwards to have been just more propaganda bullshit and lies to justify Western meddling in hopes of getting rid of another thorn in their side?