Empire’s Overtly Covert Action In Libya
By Farooque Chowdhury
01 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Now, Empire is going to take overtly covert action in Libya. It is not new. Covert action was there for long, but not formally. It was through friends. This is for the Empire’s Libyan “democracy” enterprise.
But, dust of war on the Libyan desert is sending smokes over the Washington sky. Politics and public opinion in the US is being influenced by the Libyan involvement.
Obama has signed a secret order, known as presidential “finding”, authorizing covert US support for anti-Gadhafi forces. An exclusive Reuters report informed this development on the Libya front.
Such “findings”, the report said, are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the CIA. White House spokesman refrained from comment on the issue. The CIA declined to comment. So, the general public will have no clear idea about the step. A “transparent and accountable” style, indeed!
The ground reality is: neither Gadhafi’s forces nor his opponents, the “pick-up basketball team”, as Obama’s director of national intelligence compared them, appear able to make decisive gains.
The “pick-up basketball team” will now formally get cash or arms or both from the Empire. Sending arms would arguably violate the UN arms embargo on Libya although the mighty – the US, UK and France –will find out loophole in the resolution.
Covert action, “any US government effort to change the economic, military, or political situation overseas in a hidden way”, encompasses propaganda, funding, electoral manipulation, arming, training, and even encouraging a coup. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to press reports referring US officials, have indicated their willingness to supply the Libyan “democracy” visionaries with arms. The New York Times already reported that the CIA had sent its operatives and that British operatives were directing air strikes.
The Libyan friends are now being armed covertly, although the world media know it. The Egyptian friends are providing training. But, Egypt with a “revolutionary” fervor prefers to keep it secret, although the world media also know it. Future “covert” actions will also take the friendly Egyptian help. It, in the name of “technical assistance”, will help bypassing the NATO-consensus-driven command structure, and help change the military stalemate in the Libyan theater despite a dozen days of air strikes by the coalition of competitors.
On the other hand, a number of US lawmakers are uneasy with walking into Libyan desert. A number of them are asking questions about the cost of the Libya operation and expressed concern about the makeup of the “pick-up basketball team”. They expressed frustration because the US officials couldn’t say the time period for concluding the US involvement. Some of them are anxious about their government’s activities in Libya, and some of them have recalled the end use of the US arms to the proxy fighters fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. There are apprehensions for similar experience in Libya. Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, opposed supplying arms to the Libyan rebels “at this time.”
There is the question of cost of the enterprise. The Pentagon puts it at so far $550 million. It could be, according an estimate, $40 million a month depending on the length of the operation for the US. Even, “It could be higher,” an official said.
This carries possibility of serious question among the general public at a time of overpowering budget deficit. People can question the logic behind spending millions for Libya strife while teachers, cops and firemen find them laid off because of shortage of money.
An Associated Press-GfK poll found the US split on the US involvement in Libya, with 48% approving and 50% disapproving. Only 13% favored US ground troops there.
Referring to the poll, Liz Sidoti, AP’s National Political Writer, wrote: “Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about the economy as soaring gas costs strain already-tight budgets.”
Prices on everything, many feel, are going up, and that’s hurting. “Americans are”, the AP report said, “acutely focused on their financial well-being, even as turmoil in the Middle East commands international attention. And the foreign unrest is directly affecting them by boosting oil prices. More Americans — 77 percent, up from 54 percent last fall — now say gas prices are highly important to them.”
The survey, conducted in March 24-28, Liz opines, “highlights a central challenge Obama will face in his campaign for re-election. The president will have to convince a lot of voters who are still feeling financial hardship that things are getting better.” “But the disconnect between negative perceptions of the economy and signs that a rebound are under way could provide an opening for Republicans at the outset of the 2012 campaign.”
Only a third of the respondents in the survey are optimistic of better times ahead for the US, down from about half earlier this year while 28% thought that the economy would get worse, “the largest slice of people who have expressed that sentiment since the question was first asked in December 2009.” Half of Americans still approve Obama’s performance.
The poll finding comes as there could be a partial government shutdown without further action by Congress. Without agreement, some Republicans say they won’t approve funding to keep the government operating. About half in the survey expressed that enormous federal budget deficit to cause a major economic crisis for the US for the next decade, and most were worried with the mounting federal debt that will hamper the financial future of the posterity. Participants in the poll view everyone negatively when it comes to handling the deficit.
Does the economic reality, and the perception of economic situation by the people are influencing the Libya involvement? And, shall not these – economic reality, the perception and the involvement – influence politics in Washington DC? And, shall it be wrong if it is sarcastically told that Gadhafi is also playing with politics at the center of the center of the world system?
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