Libya: I Smell A Rat
By William Bowles
03 March, 2011
williambowles.info
"[T]o be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal." --
Henry Kissinger
From the very beginning of the Libyan uprising/coup, call it what you will, something didn't strike me as 'right', events unfolded in a vacuum as if overnight, chaos took over. As I reported in an earlier piece, all the videos coming out of Libya, were grainy unattributed snatches of events, it was impossible to tell what was really going on, and accompanied by all manner of rumours about what it was alleged Ghadifi's regime was doing.
Fertile ground for turning fiction into 'fact' and, as it has transpired, much of the current hysteria in the Western media rests on two, key rumours that surfaced almost concurrently with the uprising itself:
1. The 'African mercenaries'
2. Libyan Airforce bombing civilians
The revelation that Russian military satellites reported no Libyan airstrikes[1] as well as the now all but vanished 'African mercenaries'[2] rumour all leads me to suspect that the USUK meddling in the internal affairs of Libya is at the root of the uprising. If not directly implicated then at the least 'assisting' via its various fronts, especially the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, a CIA-NED front organization based in Washington DC created during the Cold War period, and itself the source of rumours concerning what was actually going on during those crucial first few days of the uprising. It's the Empire up to its usual old dirty tricks.
The Israeli intelligence website Debka states (25 Feb) that:
"Hundreds of US, British and French military advisers have arrived in Cyrenaica, Libya's eastern breakaway province, debkafile's military sources report exclusively. This is the first time America and Europe have intervened militarily in any of the popular upheavals rolling through the Middle East since Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution in early January. The advisers, including intelligence officers, were dropped from warships and missile boats at the coastal towns of Benghazi and Tobruk Thursday Feb. 24, for a threefold mission:
1. To help the revolutionary committees controlling eastern Libyan establish government frameworks for supplying two million inhabitants with basic services and commodities;
2. To organize them into paramilitary units, teach them how to use the weapons they captured from Libyan army facilities, help them restore law and order on the streets and train them to fight Muammar Qaddafi's combat units coming to retake Cyrenaica.
3. The prepare infrastructure for the intake of additional foreign troops. Egyptian units are among those under consideration." Debka.com[3]
Not surprisingly, most of the so-called Left in the West has fallen for it all over again, just as they did over the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. This is not about Ghadafi per se, he is just the latest patsy in the 'Great Game', another convenient dictator to ditch, to be replaced by a more compliant servant of US capital.
Opposing Western intervention is not about defending Ghadafi's regime, it's about defending the national integrity of Libya from a Western takeover.
It's all about timing
With popular insurrections springing up all over the place, more than any of us can keep up with, it was clearly time for a diversion. Enter Libya. Ghadifi's autocracy has plenty of enemies within and without and I suspect that he got fat and lazy about how he ran his satrapy and ripe for the taking. Do you really think the Empire cares who is running the show as long as they do as they are told?
The objective for the Empire is firstly to create a diversion from the events unfolding elsewhere in the Middle East / North Africa, which given the scale of the uprisings are impossible to control. What was needed was a pretext to intervene directly and it was handed to them on a plate by Ghadafi. When have Kissinger's words rung more true than with Ghadafi?
Second, direct intervention in the Gulf states and elsewhere in North Africa by the Empire is obviously not possible, there's just too many of them, it is after all a regional phenomenon and by its very nature unpredictable, even Iraq has caught the fever. But Libya was ripe for regime change, all it took was some kind of catalyst.
And as the situation on the ground evolves, it's likely that the Balkanization of Libya is the immediate objective, with the Western half (where all the oil is) split off from the rest of the country (there are already intimations of this being reported in the Western media).
And now the opposition is calling for airstrikes, though not invasion, this would be a step too far at this stage (and it's not clear who the opposition is that the New York Times is talking to, see below).
"The council is considering strikes against only the compound and assets like radar stations, according to the people briefed on the discussions, who requested anonymity because no formal decision had been made./../
"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the Obama administration knew that the Libyan opposition was eager to be seen “as doing this by themselves on behalf of the Libyan people — that there not be outside intervention by any external force.” -- 'Libyan Rebels Said to Debate Seeking U.N. Airstrikes', New York Times, 2 March, 2011 [my emph. WB]
Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, it was a few weeks back when Egypt blew up in the Empire's face.
A 'no-fly zone'?
The BBC put it this way:
"In what circumstances would a coalition warplane shoot down a Libyan one?
"Would the ban apply to all aircraft or just military, fixed-wing or helicopters? What about civilian airliners suspected of bringing in mercenaries from Libya's African neighbours?" -- 'Libya protests: No-fly zone - bluff or reality?', BBC Website, 1 March ,2011
"UK PM David Cameron on Tuesday insisted it was right to be looking at plans for a no-fly zone, adding: "We do not in any way rule out the use of military assets."" -- 'Libyans in battle over oil town', BBC Website 2 March, 2011
The issue of establishing a so-called no-fly zone which if enacted is a de facto an invasion though of course calling it an invasion is studiously avoided in the Western media. The established law that the airspace above a country is also sovereign territory seemingly escapes the notice of the BBC.
"There is a banner doing the rounds in Libya that reads: "No foreign intervention. Libyan people can manage alone". Undoubtedly Col Gaddafi would make maximum capital out of this "imperialist intervention", portraying it to his population as all part of a "US-Zionist plot" to subjugate his country.
Note how the BBC answers for us, pre-empting anyone who objects to an invasion as being a dupe of Ghadafi.
"Then what about Libya's air defences? Would they have to be destroyed first? Probably yes, in which case Libyans would almost certainly die from Western military action."(ibid)
"Probably yes"? This is newsspeak carried to new heights. After all, the entire point of a 'no-fly zone' is to stop Libyan military aircraft from flying and it would inevitably involve military action before even one Libyan jet or helicopter took to the air. We need only look at the Iraq 'no-fly zone' for proof that it is a belligerent act that in the case of Iraq involved thousands of missions and missiles that pretty much deindustrialized the country as well as killing uncounted thousands.
The article ends thus:
"My interpretation? [Frank Gardner's] There isn't really a lot of appetite for this no-fly zone but the possible alternative - sitting on our hands while Col Gaddafi sends MiGs and helicopter gunships to kill his own people - would be worse."Hence the plan being readied to be put into the prime minister's drawer in case it is needed, even if they hope it doesn't come to that."
Note Gardner's sly reference to the possibility that Gaddafi will use his Migs and helicopters, whilst we, the West, stand by? Governments everywhere are killing their own citizens, is the BBC advocating a military response? How quickly the idea of violence becomes the dominant voice in the MSM even as it calls for restraint and 'humanity'.
How can it be that here we have a regime supported and armed by the West led by a man who hobnobbed with scum like Blair and Berlusconi, overnight turned into Satan incarnate by an overwhelming media blitz that now wraps the planet in its deadly embrace? It's Mubarak all over again! It's Saddam Hussein all over again! It's Milosovic all over again! It's Noriega all over again... It's Diem all over again...
Hopefully those struggling on the ground in Libya will reject any kind of Western intervention but the situation is in flux, state power as they say, is contested terrain in Libya. It's anybody's guess as to who will come out on top. But obviously any kind of intervention from the outside can only complicate matters.
"Rebels in Benghazi are also rejecting calls from US senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman to send the liberated territory weapons to fight Gaddafi's forces. They insist they defeated the security forces of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Benghazi without the use of weapons and without the support of a foreign government." -- Jihan Hafiz in Benghazi
Clearly Ghadafi has to go, there is no way the Empire will allow him to survive, it's much too late for that. One can only hope that the sentiment uttered by the rebel in Benghazi will bear fruit and a united, anti-imperialist government emerge from the chaos caused in the first place by the Empire itself.
Notes
1. See “Airstrikes in Libya did not take place” – Russian military — RT
2. See for example, 'Experts Disagree on African Mercenaries in Libya'
3. (This Israeli report is unverified) See 'The Tide of Media Disinformation: Who is Behind the Military Insurrection in Libya?' By Marjaleena Repo, 2 March 2011, Global Research
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