Libya: Motives and the politics of pretexts

stinking Western executed brutality descending from the Libyan skies is being pushed down our throats as the salvation for Libyans – not the savage destruction of livelihoods the intervention is.
The ferocious NATO bombings descending on Tripoli today may be coming in the name of the doubtlessly discredited UN Resolution 1973, and as such may seem to be adequately camouflaged under the doctrine of the so-called “responsibility to protect”.
But, one cannot fail to see the racial composition of those attacking Libyan cities; one cannot fail to see their historical definition enshrined in slavery, conquest, global wars, colonialism and imperialism; one cannot miss their geographical origins; and, one cannot miss the notorious game of pretexts.
The propaganda model in the West has created a false debate over the motives of the West in Libya, as well as the general motive behind Western foreign policy in general and US foreign policy in particular. While the proximate aims of Western aggression in Libya are quite apparent, there is a tendency from the intellectual community to mystify reality and to create what would appear to be a complex situation requiring high level analysis falsely regarded as purely a preserve for the academic world.
It is important that we establish what Western motives are not in Libya. Professional literature relied upon by the intellectual community usually gives an account of policy, which basically is what policy is not about.
It may be policy on anti-terrorism, democracy, human rights, or any other truism that may be peddled at anytime – the underlying principle is that the policy in question is not about what it is announced to address.
So, we must never for once bother ourselves about thinking of believing the rhetoric that the NATO bombings in Libya are having something to do with protecting endangered lives of civilians. NATO was never designed to save civilian lives from its origins. It is a conquest coalition by design and definition, and its makers have no history of saving lives whatsoever, especially lives of lesser peoples.
The mission in Libya is to conquer Gaddafi and to take over Libya for the puppets from Benghazi.
One way of establishing the motives behind political statements is to listen to political leaders and commentators.
Often, it is claimed that the motive behind military action is humanitarian. Such a claim hardly informs us of anything. Every resort to force is always rested on similar pretexts, and the premising of military aggression on good intentions is the tool of every warmonger, every brute in history, and all known monsters in history have proclaimed such noble motives. Sometimes, politicians making such claims irrelevantly convince themselves of the truth of what they say.
Hitler may have genuinely believed that he was taking over parts of Czechoslovakia to end ethnic conflict and bring to its people the benefits of a superior civilisation.
He probably believed he was the saviour about to end “wild terror” when he invaded Poland.
Perhaps, some Western politicians genuinely believe that NATO war planes freely bombing Libyan cities to ashes today are “protecting innocent civilians” from the brutal claws of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The Japanese fascists that rampaged China were most likely in total belief that they were selflessly labouring to create an “earthly paradise” and to protect the suffering population from the bandits that led them.
No doubt some Western politicians may genuinely believe that the sanctions illegally imposed on Zimbabwe are there to liberate the suffering population – setting them free from their own leadership. This is despite the fact that much of the suffering of the same people was actually brought about by the introduction of the same economic sanctions meant to be the tool for their liberation.
Barack Obama probably believed what he said in his presidential address on March 28 about the humanitarian motives for the Libyan intervention – honestly believing that Gaddafi was about to carry out a blatant genocide in Benghazi.
Most intellectuals and commentators are in no doubt that what they say and write is the truth and correct position, confidently elevating their work to the level of pure logic.
This is why we have to quote intellectuals to support any of the arguments we may want to make.
What needs to be interrogated when authors call for humanitarian intervention and “responsibility to protect” is whether or not the authors are ready to defend the victims of their own crimes; or those of their allies and clients, and Israel is a glaring example.
Let us take Barack Obama as the author of the call for humanitarian intervention in Libya for example.
Did Obama call for a no-fly zone during the murderous earth-shuttering US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006?
The invasion was so blatant that it did not even come with any credible pretexts like others often do.
Rather, we had to endure Obama boasting proudly during his presidential campaign that he had co-sponsored a Senate resolution supporting the invasion and calling for punishment on Iran and Syria for daring to impede it. The simple test of establishing worthy and unworthy victims in the advancing of the humanitarian cause renders virtually the entire doctrine of humanitarian intervention absolutely illogical and faulty, at least in its Western sense today.
What is rarely ever discussed is what motives are in reality, and that is the case with almost any state, whether imperialistic, communist or anything else. As for the United States, the orations of Obama must be understood in the context of foundations laid during the World War II era.
Wartime planners took it for granted that the US would emerge from the war in a position of overwhelming dominance. They were planning for a future US with “unquestionable power” and “military and economic superiority,” limiting “any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with US global designs.
These are countries like post-Shah Iran trying to run its affairs without the direction and approval from Washington, Zimbabwe daring to redistribute its colonially stolen land without the approval of the British colonial masters and their world-leading cousins from America, or Cuba refusing to do the imperial bidding of the US right in the wings of the Empire itself.
As Geoffrey Warne asserted once, Roosevelt was “aiming at United States hegemony in the post-war world”.
It was this vision that guided wartime planners and the same doctrine today forms the basis of US foreign policy, of course adopting changing tactics, as time and circumstances change. However, the principle itself never changes.
The generally accepted position is that the West’s major interest in the Middle East is oil.
The pretexts are always many and some of them are quite ill thought and absolutely laughable. The world fell into raucous laughter after Tony Blair declared that Saddam Hussein was within 45 minutes of destroying this planet before the heroic Western coalition invaded him and failed to disarm him because he was in fact not armed at all.
When the dimensions of US post-invasion defeat in Iraq could no longer be concealed, the glorious rhetoric about “democratising Iraq” was displaced by honest announcements of policy goals – the real motives behind the occupation. In December 2007 the White House issued a Declaration of Principles insisting that Iraq was to grant US military forces indefinite access to its territory and that it also had to privilege American investors.
A couple of months later President George W Bush informed Congress that he would overrule legislation that could limit the permanent stationing of US armed forces in Iraq, or in his own words, “United States control of oil resources of Iraq”.
The demands could not be carried out because Iraq insurgents put an emphatic resistance to the machinations.
It is not entirely correct to assert that oil is the sole factor behind Western Middle East policy, although it surely provides a significant guideline. It is the same Middle East that illustrates to us that in an oil-rich country, a reliable dictator is granted virtual free reign by the West.
This is why the US and its Western allies had absolutely no reaction when the Saudi dictatorship used massive force to prevent any sign of protest in the Kingdom.
When small demonstrations started in Kuwait, they were instantly crushed in a very ruthless manner and the West remained deafeningly silent.
Saudi-led forces brutalised Bahraini people in order to protect the minority Sunni monarch from calls for reforms by the oppressed Shiite population.
The government’s reaction was a swift smashing of the tent city in Pearl Square, Bahrain’s Tahrir Square – demolishing the Pearl statue that was Bahrain’s symbol.
Obama did not make a presidential address calling for military intervention to “protect the people” of Bahrain from “tyrants who declare no mercy on their own people”.
He could not do that because Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet, by far the most powerful military force in the Gulf region. If one adds to this the fact that neighbouring Eastern Saudi Arabia is also Shiite, and that it has most of the Kingdom’s oil reserves, then it becomes easy to understand Obama’s reticence. If there is anything Western planners do not want to encounter, it is the prospect of a Shiite alliance in the Middle East.
The standard game plan in the West never changes.
It is only slight variations in tactics that sometimes occur.
Noam Chomsky gave a tacit description of how the Western game plan with pliant dictators runs.
He said, “When a favoured dictator is in trouble; support him as long as possible, and when that cannot be done, issue ringing declarations of love of democracy and human rights, and then try to salvage as much of the regime as possible.”
The examples of favoured dictators are boringly too familiar: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea, Francois Duvalier of Haiti, Nicolai Ceausescu of Romania, Joseph Mobutu of Zaire (DRC), General Suharto of Indonesia and others far too many to mention. Tunisia and Egypt are fresh examples of course, and Egypt was particularly spectacular as Mubarak’s army was allowed to rest their leader and then masquerade as a new leadership.
The US cannot do much in Syria because there is no known ready puppet to replace the otherwise unwanted regime. Yemen and Iran are a morass and the United States simply cannot predict the outcome should they rush into any form of military intervention.
What we have seen with Syria and Yemen is a US opining pious declaration but avoiding taking any action.
Libya is totally different.
It is common knowledge that in the recent past the US and its Western allies have given remarkable support to Gaddafi.
The only problem with Gaddafi is that he is not reliable.
The West now clearly prefers a more obedient client in Libya, and that is why Benghazi is the most frequented African City by Western leaders at the moment.
It hosts a puppet regime in the making.
There is the prospect of undiscovered oil resources in Libya, and this has necessitated the need for a dependable government for Westerners. Libya must produce a leader who would accept Africom and who would allow Western hegemony over the country’s resources.
We first saw what seemed like unthreatening non-violent protests in Libya, mainly by Egyptians playing solidarity with protesters at home. Before long the Gaddafi government was facing a rebellion from the East of Libya.
Benghazi was declared liberated and the rebellion seemed about to move to Gaddafi’s stronghold in the West.
But government forces reversed the course of the conflict and were soon at the gates of Benghazi.
This is when Gaddafi promised “no mercy” on the rebels, unless they surrendered.
The West shook in panic at the site of threatened puppets, and Obama’s Middle East advisor Dennis Ross pointed out that “everyone would blame us for it”. The West was not going to watch a Gaddafi triumph over his enemies – a victory that would enhance his power and independence.
That was simply not going to be acceptable, surely not because Gaddafi’s civilians were endangered. The endangered were the Western-backed armed rebels.
Speedily UN 1973 was crafted and passed for a resolution, with 10 out of the 15 UN Security Council members voting for it – including South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon; the three representatives for the African continent.
So, there was hardly any effort to institute the Libyan no-fly zone at the Security Council, especially with the three countries from Africa conspiring to vote with the Westerners. Within less than an hour after the resolution was passed, France was already flying its warplanes ferociously towards Benghazi. Alongside France was Britain, and the US weighed in with high tech military artillery.
The triumvirate exclusively interpreted resolution 1973 as authority to directly participate in the Libyan conflict on the side of the rebels.
They declared with straight faces that there was to be immediate ceasefire on Gaddafi’s forces, but not on the rebels’ side. Rather the rebels were to be given massive military support so they could keep attacking Gaddafi’s forces in their ceasefire status. So, the Western-backed rebels started to advance to the west, soon taking over major sources of Libya’s oil production. The disregard for UN 1973 made everyone really uncomfortable.
Even the West-aligning Jacob Zuma of South Africa began to publicly protest against the interpretation of the resolution. Only Paul Kagame of Rwanda seemed to think the West was doing a fabulous job in Libya. Quite understandable from a man who boastfully gunned down his own country’s sitting president.
The blatant abuse of UN 1973 elicited criticism even from the mainstream Western media, with the New York Times publishing Karim Fahim and David Kirkpatrick wondering “how the allies could justify airstrikes on Col Gaddafi’s forces around Sirte if, as seems to be the case, they enjoy widespread support in the city and pose no threat to civilians”.
The paper also raised concerns that UN Resolution 1973 called “for an arms embargo that applies to the entire territory of Libya, which means that any outside supply of arms to the opposition would have to be covert”.
Obama thought this technicality was not a problem at all, and he simply publicly declared that he was going to sign a declaration for the CIA to “covertly arm” the rebels.
When one considers that Gaddafi already gave the oil prize to Westerners, one wonders what this war is all about.
US interests are more than just oil.
Otherwise Iraq under Saddam Hussein would have never been invaded.
The US is more concerned with control and not merely access.
This is why it is important that they establish dependable clients.
Gaddafi’s major undoing is his “virus of nationalism”. Nationalist regimes are dangerous in that they might conduct illegitimate exercises of sovereignty, violating the US’ global designs, and they might seek to direct resources to popular needs, as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe did with the farmlands, or as he seeks to do with the control of industries and businesses where he intends to shift ownership to indigenous hands. The triumvirate is uniquely isolated in its military campaign in Libya, exposing an undesirable racial reality of the war itself.
Only Qatar is offering lap dog support to provide a semblance of internationalism in the attacks.
Turkey and Egypt are out of it altogether, and so are the ruthless Gulf dictatorships, who are offering no more than token verbal support, knowing well that they are no holier than Gaddafi himself.
Africa is calling for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement towards reforms.
NATO and the Libyan rebels will not hear of it.
India, China, Brazil, Russia and even Germany all abstained from the resolution, with Russia continually complaining that the aggression in Libya is actually illegal and way out of the mandate provided by resolution 1973.
At the start of the war, Italy was so reluctant to join; suffering heavily from historical guilty – given Italy’s genocidal sins in Eastern Libya after World War II.
Much as intervention in international affairs is acceptable at law, each resolution has its own merits.
The US is the least qualified to implement UN 1973. This is because the US exempts itself from all intervention treaties, be it UN, Organisation of American States or ICJ.
There are interventions that could easily attract support.
One can talk of the isolation of apartheid South Africa, India’s invasion of Pakistan in 1971, Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 where both interventions ended massive atrocities.
Arguably the intervention by Sadc member states Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia in the DRC in 1998 can also be supported similarly, given that the rebels were about toppling a popular government. Of course, all these examples do not qualify into the Western cannon of “humanitarian intervention” because they suffer from “the fallacy of wrong agency,” as Chomsky describes it.
The interventions were not carried out by the West so they are just irrelevant. More importantly, it must never be forgotten that the US bitterly opposed these interventions, severely punishing the miscreants who ended the slaughters of today’s Bangladesh, and who drove Pol Pot out of Cambodia just at the time he was getting worse.
Zimbabwe is paying quite heavily for leading the DRC war campaign that thwarted a rebel onslaught on Kinshasa.
It was a terrible sin for Zimbabwe to stop US-sponsored rebels from “marching into Kinshasa”.
Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on [email protected] or wafawarova@ yahoo.co.uk or visit www.rwafawarova.com

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