Libya: Britain’s shame
Posted by seumasach on September 1, 2011
September issue
AS WORKERS went to press, there was fighting inside Tripoli, which looks likely to fall to rebel forces. Should that happen, it will not be a “liberation”, but an occupation by a ragtag army sustained by NATO.
Cameron rushed back from holiday (quicker than he did when parts of Britain’s cities were being ransacked) to prepare a “victory” speech. If so, it is a victory for imperialism and illegal war, funded lavishly by the government even as it cut billions from spending in Britain.
Remember what Libya was: a small country which did not threaten its neighbours, and posed no threat to Britain. A basically secular state, it kept religious fundamentalism under control.
Its crime was to produce 1.5 million barrels of very high quality oil a day – light, sweet oil that needs a minimum amount of processing – and not be under the thumb of an imperialist power.
While Cameron seeks (let us hope futilely) for his “Falklands moment”, the Libyan people face a future of chaos. The National Transitional Council is largely an unknown quantity, but what is known is deeply unpleasant. Its brief existence has been marked by political assassinations, and the dismissal of an entire cabinet. It is deeply split, and utterly dependent on NATO. Religious fundamentalists based in Benghazi and associated with Al-Qaeda (some have been captured in Afghanistan) will want to have their say.
“We’ve won because we believe in god – and NATO,” said one rebel spokesperson. Well, god help any country that believes in NATO. It is a force for evil in the world, a bearer of war.
Certainly, though, NTC advances were only enabled by NATO/British bombing and the involvement of “special advisers”. The shameful bombing could perhaps be a model for future imperialist interventions, bolstered by the development, reported in August, of a US military plane being tested that can reach anywhere in the world in an hour – and bomb it. So far that plane has yet to make a decent flight, but expect billions to go into its development.
Meanwhile it is said one of Gaddafi’s sons is to be handed over to the global kangaroo court, the International Criminal Court at The Hague, an institution that only indicts people who have offended the imperialist powers in some way. What next? A public execution for Gaddafi in the manner of that inflicted on Saddam Hussain?
Once they think Libya is under their control, Obama and Cameron will move their attention to Syria, another country that won’t do as it’s told by imperialism. Like Libya, Syria is no threat to Britain, nor to the US. The forces of war are on the march.
It’s easy for Cameron to say that Britain is helping to fight a dictator – the region is full of them, as is Africa generally. But there are dictators and dictators, it seems. The rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are deemed friends of imperialism, such that there was no outcry from NATO or the UN Security Council when Saudi troops moved into Bahrain to help the unelected king there repress his own people.
Our money is not being spent to take down dictators but to change them. Cameron is no more fond of democracy abroad than he is of it here, home to the most oppressive anti-union laws in the developed industrial world. Britain’s actions in Libya have been shameful and cowardly. Expect more of the same, in Britain and abroad, unless we stop it
In These New Times 
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