Left debates Libya: `This is Washington's war' -- Richard Seymour, 'Angry Arab' & Vijay Prashad on the rebel leadership
French president Nicholas Sarkozy greets rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril. Leaked US cables describe Jibril as being keen on a close relationship with the US and eager “to create a strategic partnership between private companies and the government”.
[For more left views on Libya, click HERE.]
Springtime for NATO in Libya
By Richard Seymour
April 4, 2011 – Lenin's Tomb – We now know what Washington's model is for the Middle East, in its most attractive guise. In answer to Egypt's Tahrir Square uprising, they have smoking craters filled with the charred remains of rebels, and conscript soldiers, and civilians and other blameless people who must have seen the joy in Egypt and Tunisia and wished it for themselves.
In answer to the turbulent, democratic republic with a vibrant and assertive working class, with its tumult of leftist, Nasserist, Islamist and liberal currents, its "revolution from below", they offer a prolonged civil war at best culminating in a settlement with [Gaddafi's son] Saif and his sibling. In answer to the popular committees, they have private agreements with regime defectors – not forgetting that, in a sense, the NATO powers prosecuting the aerial war are themselves very recent regime defectors.
The Washington model has other variants, of course, which have been on display in Yemen and Bahrain. But the more glamorous liberal adaptation is present for all to see in Libya and it is notable for having more apologists than it has outright defenders.
Can I just risk a modest proposition? NATO, the CIA and the special forces belonging to the world's imperialist states are not forces of progress in this world. Does anyone disagree with that? If not, then it follows as surely as night follows day that the successful cooptation of the Libyan revolution by NATO, the CIA and special forces is a victory for reaction. It's no good hoping that the small, poorly armed, poorly trained militias of the east of Libya, who are now utterly dependent on external support, will somehow shake themselves free of such constraints once – if – they take power. Even if they eventually get some of the Libyan money that has been frozen by international banks, as UN Resolution 1973 promises, it will have come all too late to have been decisive.
I can well see how conservatives and liberals would see no loss at all in such a situation, nothing indeed but a net gain. It means after all that even if [Gaddafi] were to be overthrown at this point, it would not have been by a popular revolution. It would not have been because the revolution broadened its base and spread into Tripoli or Sirte. It would not have been under circumstances in which the panoply of social and political forces in Libya were fused into a victorious revolutionary bloc – e pluribus unum and all that. And it would not have seen [Gaddafi]'s regime replaced by a popular one serving popular needs.
Were [Gaddafi] to fall tomorrow, he would fall to a network of former regime elements and their external backers. The regime that replaced [Gaddafi] may well be more liberal, the sort that young Saif was to be entrusted to deliver at one point, but it would not be a popular or democratic one. The migration deals with the European Union, the oil deals with multinationals and the arms deals to ensure the suppression of more radical political forces (under the rubric of containing "al Qaeda", that ubiquitous, shapeshifting enemy of the free world) would all be central planks of a post-bellum regime.
The liberal argument, which is to the fore, is strikingly apolitical – and narcissistic. Only rarely do its advocates relate it to the shapeshifting revolutionary process currently underway in the Middle East. Rarer still is anything that could pass for analysis of Libya's internal dynamics. On the contrary, its preferred starting point is the solitary, decontextualised crisis point in which the "West" can redeem itself through military action.
There is in this the echo of colonial discourse: the missionaries, the deserving victims, the empire as protector of the meek and virtuous. It's very important for the defenders of "humanitarian intervention", "Responsibility 2 Protect" and so on (the clutter of inelegant jargon that accompanies such doctrines is a sure sign of their incoherence) that there should be an opportunity to use firepower, to moralise the means of violence. This is one reason, incidentally, why it never even occurred to them to wonder how it is that – unlike in Iraq, which war they castigate as irresponsible – there was never even the pretence of diplomacy. I am no pacifist, but I don't like to be told that there are no alternatives to airborne death when the alternatives haven't even been tried.
If the issue was the minimisation of bloodshed, then a logical solution would have been to allow Turkey and others to facilitate negotiations. Yes, I know. A negotiated settlement would be a step back from outright victory for the rebels. But that is an increasingly improbable outcome anyway, and I thought we were trying to save lives here?
And as it happens, a diplomatic solution seems to be exactly what is on the cards now. The transitional council leadership in Benghazi has acknowledged as much. [Gaddafi] is sending ambassadors to talk to interested parties about a ceasefire settlement. If this is how the situation is going to be resolved, then it would have been better that it had been resolved this way several weeks ago. If the aerial bombardment was supposed to stop massacres, it doesn't seem to have done so. From "Save Sarajevo" to "Save Benghazi", however, the liberal imperialists are in their glory when on the warpath, and as facile with rationalisations and false consolations as they are contemptuous of the same when deployed by the right.
So, as I say, it is natural that the usual assortment of cynics, security wonks and liberal hawks should be content with this annexing, even if their arguments in its favour make little sense. No one who supported the revolution, however, can be as content without also being a little naive or descending into bad faith arguments of the type: "we don't trust the bourgeois cops, but a rape victim should still call the police." Say what you like about the police, but one generally doesn't to find them blowing up neighbourhoods. Their role, in a word, is the suppression of conflict. The role of imperialist states in the world system is, to put it mildly, not that. And they are, I will not say "lawless", but not susceptible to any of the constraints that apply to even the most British of police officers. And I am not myself prepared to see the US, or any of its surrogates, as a global policeman just yet.
Worse still are the wised up comments to the effect that "the world is a murky place, blah blah, which should not be seen in black and white terms, yawn yawn, and we can't force people to die for the sake of some purist anti-imperialism, etc etc". No, indeed, but it's hardly better to expect people to die for the sake a woolly platitude. The war's handful of leftist apologists are living off the waning hope that out of this process will come a people's revolution. Why do they think this likely? No reason. Just 'cos. Press them particularly hard, and they'll revert to the parable of the good policeman, stretching the analogy beyond the point of satire in the process.
We can live in hope, of course. The proletariat, introduced into these arguments as a deus ex machina that will guarantee against any sell-out, betrayal, shoddy deal or undemocratic imposition, is the repository of this hope. But the workers of the eastern coastal cities and towns, having shown considerable courage in fighting [Gaddafi]'s forces, were unable to defeat them. And they have not been able to prevent the former regime elements from asserting control of the revolt, or from cutting a deal with NATO.
The number of rebels who are actually armed and in control is numerically small. As of late March, there were only about 1000 trained fighters among the rebels. There are estimated to be about 17,000 volunteers, but they are untrained, poorly armed and themselves a minority of the populations in which they operate. The Libyan working class – set aside the fact that much of the actual working class resides in areas beyond rebel control – is not in control of this process. General Abdel Fatah Younis, the former interior minister, is not even in control of this process.
The opposition leaders are now adjuncts to a NATO strategy which may not even have been disclosed to them. Let's at least give credit where it's due. This is NATO's war. And that means, this is Washington's war.
[This article first appeared at Richard Seymour's Lenin's Tomb. Seymour is a member of the British Socialist Workers Party and author of the Liberal Defence of Murder.]
'Angry Arab': It is no more a Libyan uprising
By As'ad AbuKhalil
April 4, 2011 – I was as excited as anyone to see the Libyan people revolt against the lousy dictator, [Gaddafi]: a tyrant who one should hate with an extra measure of eccentricity because – like Saddam [Hussein] – he is particularly obnoxious and repugnant as far as tyrants are concerned. But I can't say now that I support the Libyan uprising: it is no more a Libyan uprising. The uprising has been hijacked by [Gaddafi] henchmen, Qatar foreign policy agenda and the agenda of Western governments. Count me out.
[As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab blog is an influential and essential source of information on struggles in the Middle East.]
Vijay Prashad: America's Libyans
By Vijay Prashad
March 31, 2011 – Counterpunch – Libya was not fated for an Arab Spring. As Aijaz Ahmad once put it, “every country gets the fascism it deserves”. In that spirit, every country gets the rebellion it deserves. Libya did not deliver the uplifting spactacles of Tunisia or Egypt. Its rebellion had a history that stretches back a hundred years, and one that was not so easy to shake off. That east-west divide smothered any attempt by the working class in the western cities to rise to their full potential. Zintan was lost to [Gaddafi] briefly, but he took it back easily and then crushed the rebellion.
The upsurge from below enthused the lower orders of [Gaddafi]’s army in the east. They defected to the Benghazi rebels. Popular councils emerged in the cities and towns of the east. The east had sent a disproportionate number of its young to fight in Iraq. They did not go solely for the purposes of jihad, or only because they had admiration for al Qaeda. A US embassy official reported in 2008 (thank you Wikileaks) that the young men who went to Iraq did so in part because they could not effectively protest against [Gaddafi]. The official went to Derna. Upon his return to Tripoli, he filed [a] memorandum for his superiors (08TRIPOLI120).
[It reported that] the Benghazi council chose as its leader the colourless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil. Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB). A US embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the US and eager “to create a strategic partnership between private companies and the government”. Jibril’s NEBD had collaborated with Ernst & Young and the Oxford Group to make the Libyan state more “efficient”. Jibril told the ambassador that “American companies and universities are welcome to join him” in the creation of new sectors outside hydrocarbons and that “we should take him up on his offer”. His PhD in strategic planning from the University of Pittsburg is useful in this context.
With Jalil and Jibril are the February 17 movement’s men. They take their name from an uprising in Benghazi on February 17, 2006, that was crushed by [Gaddafi]. These men (Fathi Boukhris, Farj Charrani, Mustafa Gheriani and All Ounes Mansouri) are all entrepreneurs. Gheriani told Jon Lee Anderson that they are “Western-educated intellectuals” who would lead the new state, not the “confused mobs or religious extremists”.
In December 23, 2010, before the Tunisian uprising, Boukhris, Charrani and Mansouri went to Paris to meet with [Gaddafi]’s old aide-de-camp, Nuri Mesmari, who had defected to the Concorde-Lafayette hotel. Mesmari was singing to the [French secret service] DGSE and Sarkozy about the weaknesses in the Libyan state. His man in Benghazi was Colonel Abdallah Gehani of the air defence corps. But Gehani would not be the chosen military leader. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) already had its man in mind. He would soon be in place.
By March 14, the military wing of the Benghazi rebellion had been turned over to an ex-colonel of the Libyan army, Khalifa Hifter and to the former interior minister, General Abdel Fateh Younis. Heftir made his name in [Gaddafi]’s war against Chad in the 1980s. At some point in that conflict, Hifter turned against [Gaddafi], joined the Libyan National Salvation Front, and operated his resistance out of Chad. When the US-supported government of Chad, led by Hisséne Habré fell in 1990, Heftir fled Chad for the United States. It is interesting that an ex-colonel of the Libyan army was able to so easily gain entry into the United States. Also of interest is the fact that Hifter took up residence in Vienna, Virginia, less than seven miles from Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the CIA.
In Virginia, Hifter formed the Libyan National Army. In 1996, Hifter’s army attempted an armed rebellion against [Gaddafi] in the eastern part of Libya. It failed. But that did not stop his plans. History called him back 15 years later. In March 2011, Hifter flew into Benghazi to take command of the defecting troops, joining Younis whose troops had been routed from Ras Lanouf on March 12. They faced the advance of [Gaddafi]’s forces toward Benghazi.
It was in this context, with the uprising now firmly usurped by a neoliberal political leadership and a CIA-backed military leadership, that talk of a no-fly zone emerged (Resolution 1973 went through the United Nationa Security Council on March 19, and the bombing began immediately). The US and France provided crucial air support for the rebels.
With the hands on the political and military tiller firmly in the US camp, it is no surprise that the armed response has escalated. UN Resolution 1973 created a no-fly zone to protect civilians. Within hours it was clear that the no-fly zone was used to provide air support for the rebel army. The US and France said that no ground forces would be used. Technology has rendered the idea of “ground forces” redundant. The US brought its AC130 gunships and A10s into operation over the skies of Libya. These are not designed to help patrol the sky, but are capable of hovering in the sky and firing at ground troops and at heavy machinery with its cannons (including a 40 mm Bofors cannon) and machine guns. The AC130 is essentially “boots in the air” and its presence shows that the US arsenal (even under NATO command) is no longer patrolling the skies, but is actively engaged against the [Gaddafi] forces on the ground. In addition, the US inserted a phrase in Resolution 1973 that opened the door to eventual arms provision to the rebels (the phrase is notwithstanding paragraph 9 of 1970, which essentially means that Resolution 1973 will allow member states to “take all necessary measures” including arms delivery, notwithstanding the arms embargo of Resolution 1970).
On March 26, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told the press that the resolution provided the US with “flexibility within that to take that action [supply military equipment] if we thought that were the right way to go”. In other words, the arms embargo is flexible. On March 27, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told NBC’s David Gregory that on the question of arms supply, “No decision has been made about that at this point”. Escalation is on the horizon.
The troops of [Gaddafi] and of the rebels swing back and forth between Ras Lanuf and Ajtabia like a pendulum. US and French air strikes have degraded the forces of the regime, but they have not yet destroyed them. The civil war continues. If the US and France start to supply the rebels, it is likely that in the long haul [Gaddafi]’s troops will dissolve into an insurgency. In which case, Libya is likely to enter a protracted period of deep instability.
The figures in place in Benghazi from the political and military side would hope to ride into Tripoli on their own tanks, but under NATO air cover. They have many to whom they owe much. People like Mahmoud Jibril and Khalifa Hifter will be more accountable to their patrons in Paris and Washington than to the people of Libya, whose blood is being spilled on both sides for an outcome that is unlikely to benefit them.
[This article first appeared at Counterpunch. Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner chair of South Asian History and director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out.]
WSJ: Libya's Rebels Embrace West
MIDDLE EAST NEWS
MARCH 21, 2011
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV And CHARLES LEVINSON
BENGHAZI, Libya -- The Libyan revolution that began as a spontaneous
uprising a month ago is posing crucial questions for the U.S. and
allies: Who, if anyone, is in charge, and what does the disparate
rebel coalition want to achieve beyond ousting Col. Moammar Gadhafi?
The nature of the Libyan revolution has become an especially critical
issue now that the U.S., European nations and Canada have unleashed a
wide-scale air and missile campaign against Col. Gadhafi's regime.
U.S. and Western officials disagree with Col. Gadhafi's portrayal of
the Libyan rebels as al Qaeda affiliates working at the behest of
Osama bin Laden.. But their support for the rebel cause is tempered
by concerns over what role the country's deep-rooted Islamist
militant networks will end up playing should Col. Gadhafi be ousted.
For now, the Libyan Islamists work shoulder to shoulder with
defectors from the regime, secular intellectuals, tribal chiefs and
youth campaigners, all of them united by hatred of Col. Gadhafiand
by fear of merciless reprisals should he succeed in reconquering
eastern Libya.
Prominent revolutionaries at the rebel headquarters in the Benghazi
courthouse include a veteran of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet
Union, an unveiled female professor who sports black leather jackets,
and a Libyan-American who likes to discuss French wines.
"Everything is still fresh. What we want is democracy, and once we
have parties, everyone could express themselves," says Salwa
Bugaigis, a lawyer and a rebel spokeswoman. As for the uprising's
Islamist component, she adds, "As you can see,...I'm unveiled, I'm
modern, and they respect me. If they were al Qaeda, they wouldn't
even look at me."
The Libyan revolution's slogan is "freedom," not an Islamic state,
and for its banner it adopted the red, black and green flag of the
pro-American Libyan kingdom that Col. Gadhafi overthrew in 1969. The
bearded face of Omar Mukhtar, the hero of Libya's 1930s struggle
against Italian colonialism, and his slogan, "We shall win or we
shall die," beams from thousands of Benghazi cars and storefronts.
Islamist and secular alike, Libyan rebels express their gratitude for
the Western airstrikes, drawing a sharp distinction between the
aircampaign against Col. Gadhafi and the American entanglements in
Iraq and Afghanistan. A handful of today's Libyan revolutionaries
fought American troops in those conflicts.
"When America occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, it spread corruption and
killed innocents," said Rafat Bakar, a thick-beardedrevolutionary
activist in the city of Baida. "A Western intervention in Libya would
help us get rid of the tyrant and of injustice."
The roots of the uprising lie in the 1996 massacre of some 1,200
mostly Islamist prisoners by Col. Gadhafi's regime in Benghazi: The
revolution began with the brief Feb. 15 detention of Fathi Terbil, a
young human-rights lawyer who represented the killed prisoners'
relatives.
"I want a civil government, separation for powers, a free media, and
a modern state of institutions," Mr. Terbil, a member of the rebels'
new provisional government, said recently.
The rebel government's head, Col. Gadhafi's former justice minister,
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, is rarely seen in public, in part because the
regime has placed a bounty on him. While the revolutionary cause as
such enjoys widespread across eastern Libya, it It isn't clear how
much authority the inexperienced rebel leadership
exercisesespecially since Col. Gadhafi cut off cellphone connections
in the rebel areas last week, making it almost impossible for rebel
officials and ordinary citizens to communicate.
"Wherever you go, it's just volunteers, and there is no
managementall the managers were with Gadhafi and have now fled,"
said Khalifa Hassan, a fourth-year medical student who stepped in to
treat the victims of Col. Gadhafi's assault in the city of Ajdabiya.
"There is no coordination."
The grass-roots nature of the uprising was evident this weekend, as
residents clogged the roads leading out of Benghazi, offering shelter
and food to refugees fleeing Saturday's shelling and tank assault on
the rebel capital.
Men at intersections thrust bottles of water and juice into passing
cars; one even handed out wads of cash to every Benghazi family
passing by.
Yet it is this kind of spontaneous activism that prompted the ragtag
revolutionary fighters to overextend their lines with an unprepared
push into the oil town of Ras Lanuf two weeks ago, prompting Col.
Gadhafi's devastating counteroffensive that ended up bringing regime
troops back into Benghazi this weekend.
"The youths are enthusiastic and they do not accept any fixed
military plans," complained the rebels' military chief of staff, Gen.
Abdel Fattah Younis, until recently Col. Gadhafi's minister of
interior. "They rushed ahead, and there are consequences for that."
The cross-section of young fighters who answered that call to battle
could be seen at the front lines.
Mohammed al-Duraif, a self-proclaimed follower of the fundamentalist
Salafi brand of Islam, unloaded boxes of ammunition from a pickup
truck. "Allahu Akbar", "God is great", he proclaimed with each new box.
He handed them off to Ali Yussuf, who sported Ray-Ban aviator
sunglasses and slim-fit Levis. Mr. Yussuf's inspirations in life, he
said: reggae legend Bob Marley and the professional wrestler Randy
Orton.
Who Are the Rebels? by Jon Lee Anderson
Who Are the Rebels?
by Jon Lee Anderson April 4, 2011
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson?printable=true
BENGHAZI, LIBYA
Three of the world’s great armies have suddenly conspired to support a group of people in the coastal cities and towns of Libya, known, vaguely, as “the rebels.” Last month, Muammar Qaddafi, who combines a phantasmagorical sense of reality with an unbounded capacity for terror, appeared on television to say that the rebels were nothing more than Al Qaeda extremists, addled by hallucinogens slipped into their milk and Nescafé. President Obama, who is torn between the imperatives of rescuing Libyan innocents from slaughter and not falling into yet another prolonged war, described the same rebels rather differently: “people who are seeking a better way of life.”
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.
And there are a few bearded religious men, more disciplined than the others, who appear intent on fighting at the dangerous tip of the advancing lines. It seems unlikely, however, that they represent Al Qaeda. I saw prayers being held on the front line at Ras Lanuf, but most of the fighters did not attend. One zealous-looking fighter at Brega acknowledged that he was a jihadi—a veteran of the Iraq war—but said that he welcomed U.S. involvement in Libya, because Qaddafi was a kafir, an unbeliever.
Outside Ajdabiya, a man named Ibrahim, one of many émigrés who have returned, said, “Libyans have always been Muslims—good Muslims.” People here regard themselves as decent and observant; a bit old-fashioned and parochial, but not Islamist radicals. Ibrahim is fifty-seven. He lives in Chicago, and turned over his auto-body shop and car wash to a friend so that he could come and fight. He had made his life in the United States, he said, but it was his duty as a Libyan to help get rid of Qaddafi––“the monster.”
In the past month, men like Ibrahim have rushed into combat as if it were an extension of the street protests, spurred by bravado and defiance but barely able to handle weapons. For many of them, the fighting consists largely of a performance—dancing and singing and firing into the air—and of racing around in improvised gunwagons. The ritual goes on until they are sent scurrying by Qaddafi’s shells. In the early days of Qaddafi’s counterattack, youthful fighters were outraged that the enemy was firing real artillery at them. Many hundreds have died.
The reality of combat has frightened the rebels, but it has also strengthened the resolve of those who have lost friends or brothers. Outside Ajdabiya, I met Muhammad Saleh, a young mechanic armed with only a bayonet. Just an hour or two earlier, he had seen his younger brother die. A few days later, he told me that he was planning to buy black-market weapons and, with a group of ten friends, return to the battlefield. With professional training and leadership (presumably from abroad), the rebels may eventually turn into something like a proper army. But, for now, they have perhaps only a thousand trained fighters, and are woefully outgunned. Last week, a former Army officer told me, “There is no army. It’s just us—a few volunteers like me and the shabab.”
Significant questions remain about the leaders of the rebellion: who they are, what their political ideas are, and what they would do if Qaddafi fell. At the courthouse on Benghazi’s battered seafront promenade, the de-facto seat of the Libyan revolution, a group of lawyers, doctors, and other professionals have appointed one another to a hodgepodge of “leadership councils.” There is a Benghazi city council, and a Provisional National Council, headed by a bland but apparently honest former justice minister, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who spends his time in Bayda, a hundred and twenty-five miles away. Other cities have councils of their own. The members are intellectuals, former dissidents, and businesspeople, many of them from old families that were prominent before Qaddafi came to power. What they are not is organized. No one can explain how the Benghazi council works with the National Council. Last week, another shadow government, the Crisis Management Council, was announced in Benghazi; it was unclear how its leader, a former government planning expert named Mahmoud Jibril, would coördinate with Jalil, or whether he had supplanted him.
It gets more confusing: there are two competing military chiefs. One is General Abdel Fateh Younis, who was Qaddafi’s interior minister and the commander of the Libyan special forces until he “defected” to the rebel side. Younis has been publicly absent, and he is distrusted by the shabab and by many council members. The other chief, Colonel Khalifa Heftir, is a hero of Libya’s war with Chad, in the nineteen-eighties; he later turned against Qaddafi and, until recently, was in exile in the U.S. Unlike Younis, he elicits widespread admiration in Benghazi, but he, too, has kept out of sight, evidently at a secret Army camp where he is preparing élite troops for battle.
Mustafa Gheriani, a businessman and rebel spokesman, acknowledged the ragtag inefficiencies of the revolutionary councils but urged me not to believe Qaddafi’s charges of extremism. “The people here are looking to the West, not to some kind of socialist or other extreme system—that’s what we had here before,” he said. “But, if they become disappointed with the West, they may become easy prey for extremists.”
Before Qaddafi’s troops arrived in Benghazi, there was a great deal of revolutionary bluster; Libyans were united in their hatred of Qaddafi, rebels said, and if his forces tried to take the city they would stand and fight. But, when the first columns of soldiers reached the city’s edge, many thousands of Benghazians—including some city-council members—fled eastward. Of those who stayed to fight, more than thirty died, and the effort was saved only by the arrival of French warplanes. Since then, the rhetoric about unity has changed to include suspicious asides about Qaddafi loyalists, scores of whom have been rounded up and detained, in some cases violently.
Gheriani tried to assure me that the new state the rebels envision would be led not by confused mobs or religious extremists but by “Western-educated intellectuals,” like him. Whether this was wishful thinking, of which there has been a great deal here in recent weeks, was uncertain. After forty-two years of Muammar Qaddafi—his cruelty, his megalomaniacal presumptions of leadership in Africa and the Arab world, his oracular ramblings—Libyans don’t know what their country is, much less what it will be.
Some things are clear, though. In Benghazi, an influential businessman named Sami Bubtaina expressed a common sentiment: “We want democracy. We want good schools, we want a free media, an end to corruption, a private sector that can help build this nation, and a parliament to get rid of whoever, whenever, we want.” These are honorable aims. But to expect that they will be achieved easily is to deny the cost of decades of insanity, terror, and the deliberate eradication of civil society.
Realism
It seems like every leftist out there is condemning the Western military intervention because of its bad intentions, when this is a transparent and moralistic distraction from the real issue. Does anyone on the left actually believe the United States is in Libya for altruistic reasons? Does anyone on the left actually think the United States is in the business of moving carriers around the world and dropping bombs simply in order to support democracy? Or that the CIA is acts on behalf of humanitarian motives? Or that the Saudi royal family acts in the best interests of its Arab brothers and sisters? Does anyone actually believe this? Yes, some people on the bourgeois “left” -- e.g., those writing for the New York Times, or those who still support Barack Obama -- may believe this. But apart from getting to see Asad Abu’Khalil “debating” in the Economist, why do we care? Why would anyone care what they believe? Why must every argument about the intervention be about these academic, irrelevant positions about the moral authority of states? And why does no argument about the intervention actually take into consideration the people of Libya and their future?
Let’s take a brief pause in the wrenching of garments and the spectacle of moral tragedy and look at reality -- just for one moment, for it seems that no one can ask for much more. At the time of the US airstrikes, the Libyan rebellion was 24 to 48 hours away from having its de facto capital taken. Within a week there would likely have been Qaddafi tanks in Albayda and Tobruk. The actions the Qaddafi regime would have taken to achieve vengeance and reconsolidate its power would have been considerable, to say the least; certainly it would mean the liquidation of anyone suspected of participating, and likely harsh, indiscriminate reprisals against civilians in the rebel cities. That is reality, however much Qaddafi’s now-closeted (Hugo Chavez notwithstanding) supporters on the left would like it to be tempered by fond memories and socialist rhetoric.
That was one option. Apparently it is the option most leftists would prefer -- on behalf of the Libyan people, of course. The second option involves allied involvement, which like it or not was the only chance at neutralizing some of Qaddafi’s heavy firepower, and, therefore -- militarily if not politically -- the only scenario where the revolution takes power (I do not say “suceed”). The bad news is the price tag: civilian deaths at the hands of yet more U.S. weapons, CIA operatives, Western-backed exiles, an army of consultants, colonies of foreign NGOs, and enough Saudi oil money to drown a horse. Like the Japanese cleaning up after their reactors, Western intervention is a gauranteed blight which will take years of pressure to excise.
It’s a bleak picture, but allow me to describe why the second option is always going to be preferable. And it’s not because the CIA is the “good guy”, or because the US is in the business of spreading democracy across the globe, or any of the other ridiculous red-herrings being put out there by otherwise intelligent leftists.
In the first scenario, the revolutionaries are dead. In the second case, they are not.
That is what this comes down to.
Of course, at this point, some are so strongly against NATO intervention that they are willing to arbitrarily paint the Libyan rebellion as jihadist; men like Abu’Khalil are essentially mirroring Qaddafi’s rhetoric about the rebels, all without a shred of evidence.
If the rebels take power, co-opted as they may be, they are at least still alive. Many of those who fought wishing for something greater will not only live, but will likely be integrated into the new regime. They and their supporters will live to fight another day. When the day comes to oppose Libya's version of a Hamid Karzai, they will be there. This is why I don't say "success" -- success in any meaningful democratic sense is likely not to be had here. But that does not give us license to leave our senses.
The Qaddafi regime, if it survives, will be reconsolidated purely by those who were personally loyal to Qaddafi himself and his inner circle. What is desirable about that? Is there a kind of moral purity there, simply because it is an outcome that does not involve US warplanes? If so, what do the people of Libya care about the moral purity of leftist intellectuals?
Let’s be realistic. It doesn’t matter if NATO is dropping the bombs. It doesn’t matter if the Devil himself is flying the bombers. A Qaddafi victory helps no one, and apart from defeat, this already-compromised rebellion has no other choice.
Realism and lies
"When the day comes to oppose Libya's version of a Hamid Karzai, they will be there. "
The day to oppose Aghanistan's version of Hamid Karzai was September 12, 2001, when the imperialists made clear their intention to invade and install someone of his ilk. At that time there were plenty of stooges berating the anti-war left for not supporting the overthrow of the Taliban.
Libyan rebel military turn on Nato allies
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/divided-and-disorganised-libyan-rebel-military-turn-on-nato-allies-2264334.html>
Divided and disorganised, Libyan rebel military turn on Nato allies
Feuding leadership of revolutionary forces fails to capitalise on
coalition air strikes
By Kim Sengupta in Ajdabiya
Thursday, 7 April 2011
his condemnation of Nato. "They have disappointed us. Nato has become
our problem. Either Nato does its work properly or we will ask the
Security Council to suspend its work."
That was on Tuesday night at a packed press conference in Benghazi.
Yesterday General Younes was on one of his rare visits to the
frontline, with an escort of Western security guards as the row over
his remarks rumbled on. The head of the rebel forces apparently does
not like travelling through risky areas without his recently acquired
foreign protection team. . . .
General Younes has been involved in a power struggle, which he
appeared at one stage to have won, against Khalifa Heftar, who had cut
his links with the regime earlier and recently returned from exile in
America. The former general became the head of the rebel military, by,
he claimed, popular acclaim, while his critics maintained it was
actually self-appointment.
Following the disastrous performance of the rebel fighters, who had
continued to lose ground despite Western air strikes destroying much
of the regime's armour and artillery on the eastern front, a crisis
meeting held in the rebel capital, Benghazi, descended into
accusations and insults.
At the end of the heated session General Heftar was supposedly removed
from his post. But he has apparently refused to leave and continues,
he says, to be in charge, carrying out his own very occasional visits
to the shifting battlefront.
National Front for the Liberation of Libya & the CIA
The following comes from the webpage of former CIA operative Ralph McGhee (author of "Deadly Deceits",an expose' of the CIA) and reveals that the main anti-Gaddafi umbrella group,the National Front for the Liberation of Libya, has had long standing ties with the CIA!
Mar 26, 1996 by rmcgehee
A New Successful Covert Operation
Reuters news reports yesterday state that unrest in the Jabal Akhdar
mountains of Eastern Libya is caused by armed rebels who may have
joined escaped prisoners in an uprising against the government.
This is an operation to overthrow Gaddafi led by Col. Khalifa Haftar,
of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan
National Army. The army is the military wing of the Salvation Front for
the Liberation of Libya.
It is obvious that the CIA is behind this group and indicates
a new "awakening" for the CIA now that it has been cleared
and re-energized by all the various official exonerations; and
led by the new Director Deutch who pushes for more covert operations.
With "Mr. Intervention," Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign
Relations advising the government on intervening via mililtary and
covert operations toward China and probably also Libya and the rest
of the world, we can expect a number of additional "successful"
CIA covert operations similar to that of Vietnam, Central America and
Afghanistan.
Ralph McGehee
CIABASE
Information from CIABASE files reveals:
Academia
Libya, 92 Most guerrillas of cia-backed national salvation front from
Libyan students living in u.s. And europe. Washington post 4/18/92 a15
Assassinations
Libya, 84 In may 84 15 gunmen attacked the residence of col. Qadhafi. A
Sudan-based group called the national libya salvation front claimed
Responsibility for the attack. Nair, k. (1986). Devil and his dart 98
Libya, 84 The cia backed, trained and continues to support the exile
Group that tried to assassinate qaddafi in 84. The plot failed and qaddafi
Executed a number of the group. The cia-backed group is called the national
Front for the salvation of libya (nfsl) and is led by gen youssef
Magarieff. The saudis have provided $7 million to the nfsl. Cia agents
Advised nfsl leaders and trained their recruits in western europe, sudan
And morocco. Jack anderson washington post 6/12/85
Libya, saudi arabia, 84 Despite an executive order forbidding
Assassinations, the cia trained and supported the national front for the
Salvation of libya before, during and after its attempt to assassinate
Qaddafi on 5/8/84. The anti-qaddafi group was slaughtered in a day-long
Battle less than a mile from the barracks where qaddafi was. Group's
Leader, youssef magarieff, went ahead with op to show his cia and saudi
Arabian backers what they got for support. Jack anderson washington post
11/8/85
Covert a
China, 96. The Washington Post reported 3/24/96 that the Secretary of Defense
William J. Perry and other top Pentagon officials discussed policy
toward China with independent expert Richard Haass. (The author of the
book, Intervention). Page 31.
Chad, 91 Former chad chief of staff, and his patriotic salvation movement
(Mps) preferred by france and libya. And u.s. Forced to remove its 700-man
Libyan national liberation army (nla). Saudi arabia had set up bank account
In libreville, gabon under control of dr. Yusuf al-margariaf. Since 81
Had been secretary-general of national front for salvation of libya (nfsl).
In 81 a nie said funding for qaddafi's opponents came from saudi arabia,
Egypt, morocco and iraq. Some believe nfsl created by cia in early 80s.
Morocco provided nfsl trg in 81-82. In 84 front based in sudan. Later in
Egypt. In 89 when egypt and libya became friends nfsl moved to ndjamena,
Where it spliced with nla. Israel lent trainers. Nls's 700 contras
Recruited from among 2,000 libyan prisoners taken by chad in border
Skirmishes between 83-87. Col abdoulgassim khalifa hafter made nla
Commander. Group turned over to 30 u.s. Military advisers for training in
Commando and terrorist ops. Nla also intended for use against sudan and
Other countries. Sudanese people's liberation army (spla) shut down. Office
Described as u.s. Chadian op. In 89 op centered in villa of head of chad's
Secret service, the dds, and staffed by u.s. Personnel. U.s. Finally
Admitted nla a u.s. Op in 3/91. Israel used cameroons intel orgs and sent
Instructors run nla trg centers. U.s. Apparently had major supply base at
Yoko in central cameroon. Further details treverton, g. (1987). Covert
Action summer 91 47-51
Chad, libya, israel, 90-91 Fall of pres habre in chad in dec 90 ended a
Major u.s.-israeli covert war against libya. Cia-created libyan national
Liberation army (lnla) assembled from prisoners taken by chad between
83-87. Group had just laid mines in s. Libya. "Africa confidential" 1/6/89
Reported u.s. And israel est series of bases in chad, cameroon, gabon and
Central african republic where group aka contras trained. Originally group
Called national front for salvation of libya (nfsl). Op funded in part by
Saudi arabia. After change gvt in chad cia reportedly flew out 1st group of
100 libyan contras. Iric reported on 12/7/90 2 burly u.s. Diplomats kept
Them from interviewing 200 pows being loaded onto u.s. Plane. Icrc tried
Gain access to libyan pows for years. U.s. Air force flew contras to
Nigeria where possibly at libya's request for repatriation. Israeli foreign
Affairs 1/91 1-5
Egypt, libya, 81-87 Before sadat's assassination, secretary state haig
Referred to qaddafi as a cancer that has to be cut out. On 6/18/81
President had signed secret intel finding directing cia to provide
Non-lethal support and training to anti-qaddafi exiles. In october, former
Libyan diplomat mohammed mugharief founded national front for salvation of
Libya, underwritten largely by cia with help of saudi arabia. Based in
Sudan, front established a propaganda radio station. Martin, d. & walcott,
J. (1988). Best laid plans 79
Libya. A reporter from arab newspaper al-hayat allowed to visit national
Front for salvation of libya - an arab opposition group in u.s. Territory.
Leader of national liberation army is col. Khalifa hafter who said front
Has 400 fighters in u.s. Located in (virginia?) 4 hours from d.c. Libyan
Group said they waiting right moment to return to libya. The 400 men are in
25 states and are given regular military training. From al-hayat newspaper
12/18/91. Top secret autumn-winter 92 28-9
Libya, 73-88 U.s./cia waging a secret war against qaddafi for 15 years.
Through surrogates, agents, national proxies, armies developed from
Crumbling remnants of libyan opposition movements, and in 86, actual
Military intervention. In early 80s cia established links with national
Front for the salvation of libya. Cia strengthened nfsl, headed by aly
Abuzaakouk. In 81 cia and pentagon plan code-named op early call, designed
To provoke qaddafi into attacking sudan by faking a pro-libyan takeover of
Sudan gvt. Plan discovered by qaddafi. In may 84 cia supported a coup that
Crushed bloodily with more than 75 plotters killed. Libyan task force group
Chief, vince cannistraro, and nsc officer donald fortier, made plan that
Included arming libyan dissident groups in egypt and algeria. Ddi, r.
Gates, suggested u.s. Support an egyptian invasion of libya - op called
Flower/rose stopped by sos shultz. Perry, m. (1992). Eclipse: the last days
Of the cia 165
Libya, 81-83 On june 18, 81 president signed intel finding directing cia
To provide non-lethal support to anti-quaddfi exiles. In oct a former
Libyan diplomat, mohammed mugharief, founded national front for salvation
Of libya - underwritten by cia with help from saudi arabia. Based in sudan
It established a radio station and began looking for prominent exiles. Blp
79. On 12/10/91 president signed national security decision directive 16 -
That established task force to implement new libya policy. Martin, d. &
Walcott, j. (1988). Best laid plans 81
Libya, 81-92 The national salvation front has no fixed hqs. Its leader,
Ibrahim sahad, operates out of his home in virginia. Front forced to move
From morocco to sudan and then out of arab world altogether and close down
Its radio station in sudan and then egypt. Front once had hundreds of
Troops recruited from libyan soldiers captured in chad. About 350 brought
To us by cia after chad gvt expelled them. Now they scattered in 25 states.
In 84 front launched an unsuccessful rocket and machine-gun attack against
Military barracks of bab aziziyya - usually used as a residence by gadhafi.
Most guerrillas libyan students living in u.s. And europe. In dec 91 "al
Hayat" from front sources wrote "libyan contra camp in america," and said
400 rebels are preparing to fight - they training in the u.s. Washington
Post 4/18/92 a15
Document
Iran, france, 85 The front for the salvation of iran (fsi), backed by the
Cia, printed and distributed a million copies of a fake iranian postal
Stamp showing the faces of amini and the young shah. Taheri, a. (1988).
Nest of spies 150
Domestic op
Libya. A reporter from arab newspaper al-hayat allowed to visit national
Front for salvation of libya - an arab opposition group in u.s. Territory.
Leader of the national liberation army is col. Khalifa hafter who said
Front has 400 fighters in u.s. Located in (virginia?) 4 hours from d.c.
Libyan group said they waiting right moment to return to libya. The 400 men
Are in 25 states and are given regular military training. From al-hayat
Newspaper 12/18/91. Top secret autumn-winter 92 28-9
Front org
Libya. National front for the salvation of libya. An anti-qadaffi exile
Group supported by cia. Carl, l. (1990). The international dictionary of
Intelligence 252
Libya, 84 In may 84 15 gunmen attacked the residence of col. Qadhafi. A
Sudan-based group called the national libya salvation front claimed
Responsibility for the attack. Nair, k. (1986). Devil and his dart 98
Liaison
Chad, 91 Former chad chief of staff, and his patriotic salvation movement
(Mps) preferred by france and libya. And u.s. Forced to remove its 700-man
Libyan national liberation army (nla). Saudi arabia had set up bank account
In libreville, gabon under control of dr. Yusuf al-margariaf. Since 81
Had been secretary-general of national front for salvation of libya (nfsl).
In 81 a nie said funding for qaddafi's opponents came from saudi arabia,
Egypt, morocco and iraq. Some believe nfsl created by cia in early 80s.
Morocco provided nfsl trg in 81-82. In 84 front based in sudan. Later in
Egypt. In 89 when egypt and libya became friends nfsl moved to ndjamena,
Where it spliced with nla. Israel lent trainers. Nls's 700 contras
Recruited from among 2,000 libyan prisoners taken by chad in border
Skirmishes between 83-87. Colo abdoulgassim khalifa hafter made nla
Commander. Group turned over to 30 u.s. Military advisers for training in
Commando and terrorist ops. Nla also intended for use against sudan and
Other countries. Sudanese people's liberation army (spla) shut down. Office
Described as u.s. Chadian op. In 89 op centered in villa of head of chad's
Secret service, the dds, and staffed by u.s. Personnel. U.s. Finally
Admitted nla a u.s. Op in 3/91. Israel used cameroons intel orgs and sent
Instructors run nla trg centers. U.s. Apparently had major supply base at
Yoko in central cameroon. Further details covert action information
Bulletin (now covert action quarterly) summer 91 47-51
Overthrow
Libya, israel, 87-89 Israel and u.s. Training "contra force of libyans"
In number of west and central african countries. They called "national
Front for salvation of libya," and located in chad. Contras from about 2000
Libyan prisoners war, leader khalifa haftar. Cia controls weapons. Saudi
Arabia contributed to libyan contras. Israeli foreign affairs 2/89 1,6
Propaganda
Egypt, libya, 81-87 Before sadat's assassination, secretary state haig
Referred to qaddafi as a cancer that has to be cut out. On 6/18/81
President had signed secret intel finding directing cia to provide
Non-lethal support and training to anti-qaddafi exiles. In october, former
Libyan diplomat mohammed mugharief founded national front for salvation of
Libya, underwritten largely by cia with help of saudi arabia. Based in
Sudan, front established a propaganda radio station. Martin, d. & walcott,
J. (1988). Best laid plans 79
Publication
Libya, 81-83 On june 18, 81 president signed intel finding directing cia
To provide non-lethal support to anti-quaddfi exiles. In oct a former
Libyan diplomat, mohammed mugharief, founded national front for salvation
Of libya - underwritten by cia with help from saudi arabia. Based in sudan
It established a radio station and began looking for prominent exiles.
Martin, d. & walcott, j. (1988). Best laid plans 79
Libya: Rebel leader accuses Nato of failing civilians
5 April 2011 Last updated at 21:53 GMT
Libya: Rebel leader accuses Nato of failing civilians
Two boys wounded in Misrata rest aboard a Turkish hospital ship in
Benghazi, 3 April Hundreds of people have been wounded in the fighting
in Misrata
The Libyan rebel commander, Gen Abdul Fattah Younis, has accused Nato of
standing idly by while pro-Gaddafi forces kill people in Misrata.
If Nato waited another week to intervene, the besieged city's people
faced extermination, he told reporters in the de facto rebel capital
Benghazi.
A Nato-led coalition mandated by the UN to protect civilians is
enforcing a no-fly zone and attacking ground targets.
It accuses Gaddafi forces of sheltering weapons in civilian areas.
A tanker reportedly arrived at the eastern port of Tobruk on Tuesday to
pick up the first consignment of oil to be exported from the rebel-held
region.
The Greek-owned ship is capable of carrying more than $100m worth of oil.
Since the revolt against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's rule began nearly two
months ago, exports of Libya's main commodity have collapsed, driving up
the price of oil to a two-and-a-half year high.
In another development, the Gaddafi government made senior diplomat
Abdelati Obeidi its new foreign minister, replacing Moussa Koussa, who
sought refuge on the UK last week.
'Human shields'
Gen Younis accused Nato of "not doing anything" despite its UN mandate
and complained of what he called an overly bureaucratic process that
resulted in Nato taking hours to respond to events on the ground.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Libyan rebel commander Gen Abdul Fattah Younis
If Nato should wait another week, there will be no more Misrata”
End Quote Gen Abdul Fattah Younis Libyan rebel commander
The general, who was Col Gaddafi's interior minister before he defected
to the rebels in February, said Nato could have already lifted the siege
of Misrata, the only sizeable town in western Libya still under rebel
control.
Nato was concerned about killing civilians, he said, but there were "no
civilians in the area where Gaddafi forces are".
"If Nato should wait another week, there will be no more Misrata," he
added. "You will not find anyone."
Nato says international air strikes have reduced Col Gaddafi's military
capabilities by nearly a third but his forces have deliberately moved
weaponry into civilian areas to hamper air strikes.
"When human beings are used as shields we don't engage," Brig Gen Mark
van Uhm, a senior Nato staff officer, said in Brussels.
Pro-Gaddafi forces, he added, were resorting more and more to using
trucks and light vehicles, "keeping more heavy equipment like armoured
vehicles [hidden]".
"So, without even targeting them, we already have an effect in that he
can't use them," he said.
The Pentagon has confirmed it has ended its strike mission after flying
a total of 1,600 sorties, 600 of them strike sorties, but it continues
to provide support to Nato such as air-to-air refuelling and
intelligence-gathering.
Nato says the fighting in and around Misrata is its number one focus. It
is increasing its reconnaissance missions to track what is going on on
the ground.
Oil movement
The arrival of the oil tanker was announced by the shipping paper Lloyds
List but not immediately confirmed by the opposition leadership.
Its arrival enables the Libyan opposition to begin earning revenue for
the first time from the oil fields under its control, the BBC's Jon
Leyne reports from Benghazi.
Qatar is acting as a middleman, effectively shielding whoever buys the
oil from any legal arguments.
Eventually the shipment is likely to end up in one of European
refineries best suited to handle Libyan crude.
It will also free up storage capacity in Tobruk, important because oil
needs to continue moving through the Libyan pipeline network to stop it
becoming clogged up with wax.
However, it may not all be plain sailing, our correspondent adds.
There are reports of a Libyan government military attack on one of the
oil fields that supplies Tobruk. One or more of the storage tanks was
set on fire at the field, in the far south-east of the country.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12981237