10 April 2011 By Reason Wafawarova The intemperance of Operation Osama Delight, sorry,
Odyssey Dawn, has seemingly been put on hold as Nato's
Operation Unified Protector has officially taken over
from the "coalition of the willing", as the US-led
Western alliance often styles itself. The bombing of Libya in the name of protecting
Libyans from themselves carries with it insupportable
imperialistic insinuations that so many writers and
scholars have been scrambling to expose since the
March 19 France-led aerial onslaught on the people of
Libya, be they the pro-Gaddafi government security
personnel, civilians or the rebels from the East. In reality no one has been spared the Western
murderous attacks. Children, civilians, pro-government soldiers and
rebels have all been indiscriminately massacred by the
marauding aerial Western forces. At least, 13 rebels were reported killed by Nato
air strikes on Saturday March 2; and the BBC explained
how the Western forces fired on the rebels, who had a
convoy driving between the towns of Brega and Ajdabiya. The mollification for all atrocities committed by
the West so far is quite rich, especially when one
reads it from the West's mainstream media. The Western media have adopted the phrase "this
could not be independently verified", as a
covering-line for every atrocity attributed to their
forces "on overseas duties", as Western military
adventurism is affectionately called by the media. So, the BBC witnesses the bombing of a rebel convoy
by Nato aircraft and goes on to see "at least 13" dead
bodies, including the graves of those that had been
hurriedly buried - and the same BBC has the temerity
to say the "claim" that Nato killed these people
"could not be independently verified". Nato spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu surprisingly, or
not so surprisingly, said Nato regretted "the deaths
of civilians", as the Libyan armed rebels are called
in the Western media. She however, typically refused to accept full
responsibility. "The exact details are hard to verify
because we have no reliable source on the ground,"
Lungescu said. "Clearly, if someone fires at one of
our aircraft they have the right to defend
themselves." Hopefully, the children and women who have been
killed by shrapnel from attacking war planes are not
part of the people firing at Nato aircraft. According to Pepe Escobar, author of the book
Globalisation, two diplomatic sources at the United
Nations have independently confirmed that Washington
has through Hillary Clinton, given the go ahead for
Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the
pro-democracy movement in the tiny kingdom. The move was an exchange deal where the House of
Saud got allowed to protect the al-Khalifa dynasty in
Bahrain in return for an Arab League "YES" vote for
Resolution 1973 - the UN Security Council enabling
document for the bombardment of Libya. The revelation reportedly came from two different
diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC
(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) group. One report
was made to a US scholar while the other was made to
Asia Times Online. A quote attributed to one of the diplomats says,
"This is the reason why we could not support
Resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain
and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a
fact-finding mission. We maintain our official
position that the resolution is not clear, and may be
interpreted in a belligerent manner." It is a vainglorious myth that a full Arab League
endorsed a no fly zone over Libya, just like it is
another remarkably dishonest myth that the African
Union endorsed Resolution 1973. Saudi Arabia did its private deal with Washington
and then seduced, inter alia coerced three of the
non-Gulf Cooperation Council Arab countries to get the
vote at a sitting only attended by six members of the
GCC and five other Arab nations that included Syria
and Algeria, the only two countries that voted against
a no fly zone on Libya. In realistic terms, there were only eleven of the
twenty two member states of the Arab League in
attendance, and only nine out of the twenty two voted
for a no fly zone. For the African Union, South Africa, Nigeria and
Gabon simply conspired to usurp the official position
of the AU. Presidents Paul Kagame, Robert Mugabe and Yoweri
Museveni of Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Uganda, respectively,
did openly condemn the behaviour of the three African
representatives at the UN Security Council, but
nothing much could be changed after the vote. South Africa even usurped the power of the ruling
ANC party, which has expressed serious reservations
over the decision taken by its members seconded to
government. Particularly displeased is the ANC Youth League
whose president was quoted by a South African
newspaper as saying: "The ANC of (former president)
Nelson Mandela would never have voted for the killing
of fellow Africans imposed by our former masters." For the Arab League, it was all a House of
Saudi-led initiative, with Egyptian Arab League
Secretary General Amr Moussa trying hard to outshine
all others in his keenness to impress Washington as he
eyes to be Hosni Mubarak's successor back home. In reality, the Great Arab Revolution of 2011 that
saw the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt has
been inexorably hijacked by the US-Saudi-Al-Qaeda
counter revolution. Of course humanitarian imperialism dismisses
interpretations like ones made by this writer in this
essay as "conspiracy theories" - the catch-phrase
designed to discredit any exposure of the dirty
underhand dealings of the imperial authority. Intellectuals from the community of humanitarian
imperialism and their media side-kicks are the ones
pushing the rhapsodic spin that says the bombing of
Libya by Western forces prevented a hypothetical
genocide in Benghazi. These same humanitarian imperialists can easily
explain away the Saudi invasion of Bahrain by simply
telling the world that Saudi Arabia is acting to
squash a hypothetical Iranian subversion in the Gulf. They explain away the murderous illegal economic
sanctions on Zimbabwe as a legitimate tool to "restore
property rights" in Zimbabwe - of course, they want to
restore colonial property rights that saw 4 000 white
commercial farmers enjoying the right to own 75
percent of Zimbabwe's arable land for over 70 years. When it comes to the people of Bahrain, we are
meant to forget about the much-lauded "Responsibility
to Protect" (R2P). The people of Bahrain are far too different from
the West's Al-Qaeda bedfellows masquerading as
pro-democracy fighters in eastern Libya today - the
heavily armed Benghazi rebels often described by
Western media as "civilian protesters". The hope is that the rag-tag rebels can topple Col
Gaddafi, or at the very least grab the Eastern part of
Libya from him, of course with massive handholding
from the imperial West. In the sad event of a bomb-created post-Gaddafi
Libya, no doubt the emerging country will be
extensively promoted as a new democracy - quite
complete with US intelligence assets, Special Forces,
military bases and all manner of lucrative but shady
deals involving Western business people. However the spin from humanitarian imperialists
will not change facts on the ground, regardless of the
might of Western media and the West's high-tech
propaganda model. The fact remains that Operation Odyssey Dawn and
its successor Operation Unified Protector will benefit
a few players, among whom are the Pentagon through its
ambitious Africom project, Nato, Saudi Arabia, Amr
Moussa in his personal political pursuits, and little
greedy Qatar. The Western hysterical expression about saving
civilians in Libya must be dismissed with the contempt
it deserves. The civilians of Libya do not matter as
their oil does. If they did not have that oil, they
could be allowed to do whatever they felt like doing
among themselves, from oppressing each other to
protesting against each other until the cows come
home. The West would not care an inch. The political views of the people of Libya also do
not really matter for the West in the current scheme
of things and, this is why Al-Qaeda fighting groups
have been dressed up in pro-democracy apparel by the
Western media. There are other secondary beneficiaries waiting in
the wings for the fall of Gaddafi. These include the
al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain; weapons contractors;
and, the generality of neo-liberals that often
vulturously pick the pieces in every imperialistic
aftermath. One has to look at the Obama hypocrisy when he
signed an order to covertly arm the Al-Qaeda rebels
from Benghazi. This writer last week spent acres of
space proving the Al-Qaeda links involving the
Benghazi rebels. Those in doubt can revisit the piece
"Osama, Obama in Operation Odyssey". What Barak Obama has done in fact is to sign an
assassination order for Muammar Gaddafi, and his
desire may as well come to materialise as did that of
his predecessor, George W Bush who pursued Saddam
Hussein to the gallows. But Obama only sings humanitarian songs for
civilians belonging to countries ruled by leaders that
prevent the US from imperially dominating their
natural resources, such as the civilians of Libya,
Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. Obama sings no humanitarian songs for the civilians
of Saudi Arabia, or those of Palestine or Bahrain. In
fact, the system that employs Barak Obama will not
allow him to sing humanitarian songs for such people. Obama is a sorry excuse for a President. He is an entrapped poor soul now fully being pushed
to operate the imperial machine full throttle. The
skinny fellow just woke up declaring a war without
planning for it, even without congressional approval. But Obama might go down in history as having
created country number 54 for his father's continent.
In the event that Col Gaddafi does not fall, or that
Obama's assassination instructions are not
successfully carried out, the West's plan B is to
settle for a separate state in the East of Libya. For
Col Gaddafi, that would create a North Korea like
state in the West of Libya, perhaps called
Tripolitania. Then, east Libya would be armed like Israel so it
can persecute Tripolitania into submission. The world
may as well brace for a Tripoli-Benghazi long term
standoff. Benghazi may soon be our next Seoul and
Tripoli the new Pyongyang. It is however hard to predict the survival of Col
Gaddafi in the wake of reported fissures and
defections within the ranks of his inner circle. The US and its Western allies are not focusing on
Plan B at the moment. They want all of Libya minus Col
Gaddafi and his entire family. This is not veiled at
all. They see a pliant strategic state almost coming and
they are not looking back. A Libya with US military
bases, spy bases, intelligence assets, Nato and
Africom will mean that Africa will fully be under the
military radar of the United States. This is why the so-called Libyan protests are so
much hailed in the Western media. There is next to
nothing in mainstream Western media when it comes to
the Bahrain revolution. The West cannot support a
revolution by the Shiites, especially those
geographically close to Iran. We have heard the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa al Thani saying the bombing of Libya was
necessary because the Libyan people were being
attacked by Col Gaddafi. It is quite curious that the emir has never
expressed the same humanitarian feelings for the
perpetually tormented people of Palestine. Neither has he ever suggested sending his Mirages
to protect Palestinians from the ruthless Israeli
leadership, or his neighbors in Bahrain from the
backward thinking Saudi Arabian leadership. Well, the
emir is backward thinking too! Like the Saudi Kingdom was created and propped by
the British Empire, the al-Khalifa dynasty is no more
than a bunch of minority Sunni settlers that first
came to Bahrain 230 years ago. The dynasty was heavily strengthened by the British
Empire in the 20th century, when they were virtually
obliging slaves to the Queen of England. So, British and indeed Western humanitarianism is
today owed more to the al-Khalifa dynasty than to the
generality of Bahrainis. It is very important for the West to protect the
Bahrain dynasty from its pro-democracy people. The people of Bahrain will not be allowed to get
the democracy they want, itself admired from
Westerners, whose leadership happens to endorse the
brutal suppression of Bahrainis with arrogant
imperialist pride. Clearly, Nato is the newly anointed global cop -
imposed by mighty fire power where civilian coercive
measures fail to get the imperialist targeted goals. Through Nato, Obama is sending a message that
pliant dictatorships will be allowed to flourish
unabated, but those that are not in subordination to
imperial supremacy will have to watch out. Nato will descend upon such threats to Western
interests and when Nato strikes, there is hardly any
regard for the Charter of the UN or for international
law. Even the US Congress can be side-stepped as Obama
just did with the Libyan war, and the signing of an
assassination order for Gaddafi, well as Obama put it
himself, an order to "covertly arm" the Benghazi
rebels. Africa has Nato on its soil right now and this is
no feat to celebrate, unless one was like the Al-Qaeda
rebels from Benghazi. These are the thugs who ululate
at the bombing of their own cities. If Gaddafi falls and Libya is fully or partially
taken over by the West, there is no chance under the
sun that Nato will leave Africa and retreat to
wherever they came from, if there is in fact such a
thing as Nato; from a geographical point of view. Thanks to South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon, the
beloved continent might permanently have the Nato
global cops establishing their police camp in
Benghazi. After the civilians of Libya purportedly get the
democracy preached by their self-invited saviours from
the West, the messianic West will not leave Libya, the
same way they will not leave Afghanistan and Iraq. Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It
is homeland or death! Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can
be contacted on
wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or
reason@rwafawarova.com or visit
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