In These New Times

I was right then a couple of weeks ago to predict the NATO “victory” in Libya but failed to predict the “death” of Gaddafi. That distinction falls to Allain Jules.

Cailean Bochanan

4th October, 2011

It is difficult to see what outcome awaits us in the Libyan situation. NATO have dug themselves into a very deep hole but so far managed to conceal that fact from almost everyone. Yet the truth will out we are told. Not if NATO have anything to do with it! Their virtual victory in this war is guaranteed but winning the peace in which a resurgent Libyan people under the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi retake control of their own country will be another matter. If only they had been able to eliminate Gaddafi then perhaps any outcome could be presented as a “democratic” revolution facilitated by themselves but all the indications are that the Guide is safe and sound, at home amongst his own people and that seems unlikely to change.

Still for the moment NATO are concentrating on the”victory” which has required at liitle redefinition. Rasmussen insists that NATO’s operation is almost complete, echoing General Carter Ham’s leak to AP. He didn’t go as far as Ham and claim that the end of NATO’s operation is imminent but his statement coincides with one from the diehard Jibril/Jalil duo who  claim “freedom” is near and requires only the capture of Sirte. NATO had already taken the precaution of presenting Sirte as the “last holdout of Gaddafi” in anticipation of the mess they are now in. So if only they can capture Sirte the rest of Libya, overwhelmingly green, according to my information, doesn’t matter. Hence, yet another “final offensive” as the NATO proxies on the ground once again have the city “completely surrounded” and all resistance is futile.

The fall of Sirte seems unlikely given the pattern of this war over what is now nearly eight months and it’s not clear that endless terror bombing can change that. Collectively, meaning humanity as a whole, we have turned a blind eye to the the horror being visited on the people of that town and left them to fight alone. But they stand steadfast  against the terrible scourge that is the atlanticist terror grouping and it’s supra-nazi methods. Whatever happens on the ground the fall of Sirte will be announced just as the fall of Tripoli was announced and victory will finally be virtually NATO’s.

This is the best NATO can hope for short of full-scale invasion. Either way the day is reckoning is only deferred. So it remains to discuss the “post-victory “scenario. Gaddafi could choose to play out a dialogue with the rebels, as he offered from the start subject to a cease-fire. He could move into the background and elections could take place. The outcome would be overwhelmingly green; it’s difficult to see the TNC as anything but outcasts in Libya now, given what they have done or a strong showing by Al Qaeda’s Abdul Hakim Belhaj. The West could spin as required but it’s hard to see the Libyan people simply forgiving and forgetting what has happened to them. On the other hand, without NATO support for the rebels, Gaddafi could simple overwhelm them and then call elections which he would win.

Spin or perception management has its limits. The deeper principle is that crime must be covered with crime, that the debacle in Libya must be buried under an even greater Libyan debacle or another debacle elsewhere. This is the terrible logic of end of empire ,the fuite en avant. At some point a conscious effort must be made to break this downward cycle. The crisis of humanity remains the crisis of political leadership.