by Alexander Hagen, Libya
Syria, I have been waiting for the most interesting part of the Syria story to unfold. The shoe to drop on Iraq. Finally it is happening. The Shites in charge of Iraq are moving into the pro Assad Iranian camp. One reason is the over taking of the uprising by extremists.
US DIPLOMATS KILLED: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The statements I am about to make about actual historical events and statistics are not opinions they are double referenced indisputable facts.
Let us state at the outset that we do not know the level of support for the NATO intervention in Libya amongst Libyans. We know that the loyalists have been suppressed violently even in their speech, that reporters do not ask. And that the US government has not come up out and shown any facts. We do not know, we can guess. A third are sympathetic or support Gadaffi’s ghost, a third simply want to have a normal life, and a third wanted him gone and is happy to pay the high price of becoming a conflict riven country.
Clinton asserts. “Our mission is noble”. She weeps about their lack of gratitude in our ‘liberating’ of Libya. It exposes the cracks and flaws in yet another militarization of a problem that may have had and it can be largely concluded would have had – a diplomatic solution! Yes Libya could have transitioned to multi party democracy without the 28,000 sorties by every Western Country – and in fact that fact turned many Libyans against NATO and the West. Libya had lived through a savage colonization by Italy, and then a British installed king. Who would welcome this over their skies.
As one South African protestor against the NATO intervention said “The West is bloodthirsty. All they understand is violence. They do not understand diplomacy.
How ironic that no Western soldier – not a single one – was killed in a campaign that killed 30,000 Libyans, and tore their country apart. A military response to a diplomatic problem. Yet ultimately it was the diplomats who died. The State department under Clinton has adopted a very aggressive stance, eschewing diplomacy for violence in Pakistan Afghanistan Syria Palestine Yemen and Libya. Was it ignorance or arrogance.
And also ironic – is that Gadaffi himself came to power in a bloodless coup, when for us to achieve change nearly destroyed the country.
Will the West ever take responsibility for the consequences of its diplomacy-free violent humanitarian interventions. How is dropping bombs humanitarian? How is the “Big Lie of a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi, that might have taken place justification for the events that have transpired”
Much has been lost and more loss will come due to this tragic mixture of realpolitik and incompetence. We now see how much lies in the scales as costs of our decision to remove Gadaffi from power. How much more will it take for the Westerners to stop believing their polyanna version of events in Libya and remember that there were months of raging war which at any time could have had serious peace talks. I blame the deaths on our decision not to hold talks but instead simply bombing. Now each day more consequences occur, and the question that should be asked – is not “are the people better off without Gadaffi” to a question of “are the people better off because we chose bombing instead of peace talks”. Could elections occur peacefully. Since we will never know if that could have worked – we must allways assume that we in the West decided on the behalf of the Libyans who in our infinite wisdom we decided would benefit from full on war vs even a try at a chance for a peaceful resolution. For those who say Gadaffi was resistant – the only issue was not being ordered that he had to ‘go’ – was demanding gadaffi’s humiliation and the deaths of 10s or even hundreds of thousands a better decision than going into talks, with the UN 1973 as the stick?
The danger that the death of 4 american diplomats in Libya poses to Western Leaders is increased scrutiny. The whole basis of the narrative that Libyans are grateful to the West and are pro-western will be questioned. But the elephant in the room is the level of Loyalist support in Libya. Noone will try to measure it. It is taboo. Gallup did polls in 10 Arab countries about NATO intervention in Libya – but did not do it in Libya. Secondly – was the military mission legal, it was authorized by US drafted resolution 1973. Did we break the resolution and the law by arming the rebels and pushing for regime change.
Was it worth it to kill 30,000 suppress the loyalists ruthlessly and create a refugee and arms crisis in N Africa, as well as Syria being flooded with Extremits and weaponry from Syria. Was all this worth it, so we did not have to stoop to have talks because “That would give him more time to prepare” More time to prepare against an attack by a military force 500 times larger? What “preparations” could he have made that would make talks a worse idea than wholesale liquidation of the armed forces.
Was it worth it – to have these diplomats die – directly from the consequences of our intervention. (Gadaffi’s Libya would not have had the conditions where something like this could have occurred ironically.
What if it turns out the mission was never meant to be noble, by certain parties in the Pentagon and the Security Establishment, who knew that Libya was prosperous growing rapidly, with no debt, huge cash reserves, huge oil reserves, huge water reserves in the Sahara no loess, increasingly opening and had reformists at work inside it, our people in the who knew they did not need to attack militarily to get democratic reforms. Why were they so iron jawed mercilessly pounding away – as the senior leadership became increasingly desperate to make a deal – including elections – before Armageddon.
Who knew that we were arming the rebels and training them through religious extremists. By aligning with Saudi Arabia and Qatar – and their repressive Wahabi-ism – we are guaranteeing that these will be highly dangerous states. Perhaps this too is part of a secret 1 – 2 punch – perhaps this embassy massacre will be used as a pretext to further re-arrange Libya’s internal organs.
Who knew in short that we risked turning Libya and North and Saharan Africa into a hell, and could likely avoid it through talks, and continued anyway.
So you see these people, Obama Clinton Sarkozy Cameron Anders Vogh Rasmussen do not want this discussed, because they and their administrations could be held culpable,
The Ambassador to Libya is dead. 3 other diplomats are dead. The worlds pauses and listens – what is this? A vulgar deliberate provocation launched by a group of anti Islamic bigoted Jews, with much more severe consequences than shouting fire in a crowded theater.
How did this happen? Well, considering there have been bomb attacks against Western Missions of all kind. It could have been anticipated.
Our cause is noble. Hillary Clinton states.
We helped overthrow the monster Gadaffi, who would have killed millions on a bloody rampage we are told.
Yet the actual facts are what they are, a year after Gadaffi was killed in the most brutal manner conceivable, sodomized with a bayonet, 30,000 are dead, and 10,000 are in indefinite detention being tortured. Citizens are being bullied and terrorized by armed gangs – with a complex web of hostilities and loyalties.
Can the West simply push a new group of people into power in an Oil State. A convenient thing, when a trillion dollars worth of margins for oil companies are available from Libya, that the people we now negotiate with are people we armed to take over the country.
Do we have any responsibility to ask whether what we did was competently thought out, when 10’s of thousands are dead and an entire continent buckles under the weight of chaos unleashed throughout the whole of the Northern Sahara, an area the size of the United States?
* * *
Yet when we hear that the Ambassador and 3 of his diplomats was killed by Libyans , our media and leaders ask how could they do this when they must be so “ grateful ” for NATO intervention.
It tells us that things don’t add up based on what the authorities, the media, the intellectuals such as they are and the leaders.
This is a story of 2 fabricated realities, The film sponsored by by 300 Jewish contributors, was so extreme, that it could be easily predicted – that when milder actions led to riots and 100’s of deaths world wide, it can only be assumed – that the hoped for response would lead to hundreds of immediate deaths. What sort of people would do that?
This collides against the fabricated reality constructed around militarily intervening in Libya.
The West made several decisions in the course of removing Gadaffi that are very controversial decisions that involve trillions of dollars, potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths as the arms and chaos flow out of Libya into the rest of Africa
After a lot of thought and about 1,500 hours of research on the US NATO INTERVENTION, I see two types of culpable actors:
1) All of us started this scenario ignorant about the real Libya. We applauded the protestors and assumed the country would want to overthrow the monster Gadaffi. When he sent his security forces to put down the armed uprising, many people around the world wanted the rebels to be protected.
A. The UN resolution 1973 is passed.
STOP: This is where things start to go wrong. In my view the days leading up to and after the drafting of this revolution, contain a number of frauds, and therefor capital crimes within them.
The abuse of UN 1973.
1. No arms to either side
2. No Fly Zone (either side)
3. Peace to be negotiated by African Union “Gadaffi must go” catch-22 negotiation
Violation of 1973:
1. Qatar boasts of its aid “hundreds of troops” on the ground. 28,000 sorties of which 10,000 resulted in attacks, on an army of 30 to 40 000 men – or 1 attack per 4 men.
2. By requiring that Gadaffi has to go – any chance of peace talks by AU is scuttled (how can you have talks with someone who is gone? The UN resolution says nothing about regime change.
The Big Benghazi Lie: How many would have died if Gadaffi had entered Benghazi? Between 100 and 1,000 it would seem. How many died as a result of arming the rebels – who would certainly not been able to overthrow gadaffi, and in fact they did not succeed. It was far and away NATO air power combined with Special Forces and Commandos from Qatar and NATO – even on the ground – the rebels were force magnified. A commander opened Tripoli to assault by betraying the Loyalists. He would likely never have defected without the intervention. Benghazi and UN 1973 had proportionality to halt hostilities.
Instead once NATO had the job, it was changed to the eradication of the Libyan Armed Forces and violent extermination of the entire Gadaffi family. Did the people want this ? No. They wanted peaceful reform. Not violent Western bombardment and death destruction and chaos. Did our State Department and CIA know this? If they did not – they were severely incompetent. If they did know it – they commited a major fraud.
The Western Media have not been able to tell us what is really going on in Libya. That is because any second thoughts about the intervention must be quashed, are unthinkable, such thoughts seem not to even be permitted. Loyalists are terrorized, tortured intimidated ostracized killed and sexually abused.
So this collision occurred between those who new Gadaffi was more popular and Libya in better shape than the stereotype charicature. Who long before when they sold Qatar and Saudi Arabia more weapons in 2 years than all other US Sales of arms combined in 5 years must have had some idea, that when these conflicts in Syria, Egypt and Libya erupted that Qatar and Saudi Arabia would themselves seek to install client states that would be hard line Wahabi Salafist regimes – pressuring the Libyan Islamists to destroy their national shrines – for being idolatrous
Who knew that the LIFG and extremists would flock to Libya, that it could become the main base of Al Qaeda. That in fact much of the armed uprising were religious fundamentalists and fanatics from the beginning. Our intelligence officials who specialized on this are must have known we were risking creating a wave of militancy over a very desperately poor area of the world and that by pushing it out of balance, the lives of millions could be put at risk and ultimately lost.
The seizure of the Tripoli airport recently by the Tarhouna militia – was never identified as by Pro Gadaffi forces. The Libya Herald, when the loyalists penetrated the intelligence agencies, for the first time publicly made the connection. The press describes inter tribal conflicts allways ignoring the nagging question – do the majority of Libyans support the Western Intervention – the escalation of arms by outsiders rather than talks or even status quo or gradual reforms. There are 2 elements in Libya at each others throats that both are anti Western. The Islamic fundamentalists who were the main local groups that actually fought Gadaffi and the Gadaffi supporters. We know that it is extremely dangerous to show support for Gadaffi, so we can never ask and never find out what the loyalist support level is.
We have a clue though, the elections repudiated the religious hardliners, and the hardliners and the loyalists hate each other. Therefore the elections went in the direction of the loyalists. But there is zero accessible well researched data on this subject.
Suppressing these questions, even this thinking eliminates any questions of the vast amount of death and destruction in Libya as being a crime that our Governments either in collusion with media empires, or given a blank check of zero fact checking by these media empires, commited.
Who benefits: Arm them – install them – and then have them sign trillions of contracts giving your companies preferential treatment (and militaries, etc) Afghan and Iraq are now MADE IN USA Weapons markets.
Military Geo Political Value:
1. US AFRICOM: Potential US Base,
2. Western Powers Stronger in negotiating in Africa (eliminate Gadaffi supporting African Nationalism)
3. Competition with China, other economies over these raw materials and markets.
4. Continues trend of US controlling Mid East, removing old soviet satellites and installing more western aligned governments
Economic Value
OIL (Companies): These invasions result in the people in the new governments of Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya being connected to the invaders – they were put in power thanks to the Western Powers. From being nobodies they now control an Oil Rich Nation. Quid Pro Quo would suggest these people might cut the West who installed them effectively some pretty good deals. The standard percent by the Western Companies to operate in these countries is 10% of the total sale price. But in unstable countries that premium is increased.
CONSTRUCTION & Consulting
BANKING
Western Business Interests
***
That is why supposedly the US is reluctant to intervene. However the same factors were at work in Libya, extremists were the majority of the effective fighters in the rebels ranks, along with the Berber, a small though important minority. Why do we worry about arming the extremists in Syria – when we did it so freely in Libya.
Wrong Assumptions:
Who should have known – who did know
Blowback:
US image suffers in Africa, China, Russia, the Islamic World and much of South America, as a violent lying country that is full of itself, does not question its own rightness, does not seek to understand. There are too many powerful interests that benefit from Invasion Capitalism with a humanitarian pretext. Which of the countries we have overthrown did not have a humanitarian pretext – though the cure was often if not invariably worse than the illness. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Vietnam (self defense from a faked attack in Tonkin), Iraq (lies) Afghanistan (arming religious zealots we abandoned who were bitter and alienated from our high handed abandonement of Pakistand and Afghanistan once the Russians were bloodied.
A failed state potentially
Destruction of historic sites
Potential mass starvation in the Sahel
Torture Camps
Islamic Extremism replacing a prosperous socialist police state that tolerated the practice of all faiths, and womens equal rights in the eyes of the law.
Creating a new imperialism by the petro monarchies
Driving Iraq into an alliance with Syria and Iran, due to their shared Shiite leaderships under Sunni Wahabi Salafist attack.
Gadaffi’s death also means the loss of a great deal of historical information he could have supplied, much of it embarrassing to western leaders, as he contributed to Sarkozy’s campaign.
I have to leave – this list could continue.