"Why Libya? Why Qaddafi?

By Husayn Al-Kurdi

What are the reasons why the US government and its current President Barack Obama and his cabinet, are so vehement in their insistence that Libyan leader Mu’ammar el-Qaddafi "must go"? Why does the American regime insist on Qaddafi’s removal, to the extent of overseeing repeated bombings of his residences and other places where he may be staying or visiting, following a long series of assassination and coup attempts? Why do they continually reject overtures at mediation, even vetoing proposed UN-supervised free and fair elections so that the Libyans can cast their ballots to determine their choice of leaders? Why are the NATO war forces unleashed and all manner of military and logistical assistance being proffered to the anti-Qaddafi forces, styled as "rebels" and "freedom fighters" by their sponsors in America and Europe?

The answers to these questions lie embedded in the US drive for its "Second Century" of imperialist world domination, involving plans for the complete conquest of the Arabs and Africa. Other countries where extensive violence, human rights violations of longstanding and conquest and occupation by outside forces has been the rule are ignored or plunged into deeper misery by the designs and actions of the US and its partners. Palestine, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Turkey immediately come to mind as areas which have found native inhabitants decimated and in which people have been butchered for decades in their own homelands. Many other repressive regimes throughout the world are doing very bad things to their "own" people. Why the furious furor over the Qaddafi leadership and its alleged repression of some "rebellious" elements among the Libyan population?

What has brought out the panoply of lies, exaggerations, misinformation and dirty tricks, many of the same as delineated in the CIA’s celebrated "Subversion" manual, used as a handbook by the CIA-financed, trained and supplied "Contras" who destabilized the popular Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in the 1980s during the regime of Libya’s original tormentor, the Ronald Reagan administration?

The "rebels" are composed of three basic political forces: Libyan emigres who have been trained and supported by the CIA in the environs of Virginia and the neighborhood of Washington, D.C. have joined with al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood Islamist reactionaries, some reportedly released from the U.S. prison base at Guantanamo to serve the "cause", and certain individuals who backed the decadent old monarchy of Idris al-Senussi in Libya to form the substance of the front which is bringing pain and turmoil to Libya. They are operating under the flag of the old monarchy, who saw fit to let the Libyan masses go hungry, live in filth and without homes, uneducated and deprived of any semblance of medical care.

The actual "crime" of which Qaddafi and the Libyan leadership has been most guilty of is providing for the health, welfare and education of the Libyan people. The reactionary clerics are boiling mad because their ill-gotten wealth in land and riches, sequestered and hoarded by them in the name of "Islam", was taken from them and used to serve people’s needs instead of their insatiable corruption. They claim that Qaddafi is "not a Muslim" because of this seizure of their ill-gotten gains, while he maintains a notion of Islam which insists on sharing out the assets of the country and attending to the welfare of its people, denying the "rights" of some self-styled "holy men" to grab the wealth for themselves. The ensuing hue and cry against Qaddafi is raised by those who are against women’s rights to be anything more than virtual slaves and who would be most happy if the Libyan people wallowed in ignorance and poverty, subject to their backward notions. They are friendly to the CIA exiles who facilitate the backing of Western countries who seek to "open" Libya up to their exploitative ways.

Some of the surviving riff-raff from the old King’s court and the old political elites who vied for the spoils of a terminally corrupt pre- Qaddafi "kingdom" are quick to clamber onto the Libyan "Contra" wagon. The Qatari, Saudi and UAE kingdoms and principalities are still mad over the ouster of their fellow "King" in 1969 and would love to see a "King" or some equivalent restored in Libya. Even an "Al-Qaeda"-type "Emir" in the style of Bin Laden, perhaps one of the prisoners released from the American concentration camp at Guantanamo, could serve as a welcome option in their eyes. One of them allegedly claimed control over an important Libyan town and blustered that he was proceeding forthwith to institute "Shari’a Law" in that locality. A variety of useful fools can serve the purposes of restoration in Libya.The moribund Muslim Brotherhood, which has brought so much ignorance and grief to Egypt over the decades, may also have found an opening in attaining a leading role in Libya if and when the restoration takes place.

Finally, it seems that some wayward youth are hypnotized here and elsewhere into thinking that America "knows best", is invincible and would bring some exciting Hollywood-based culture into Libya. Some people who have directly benefited from the Libyan revolution are thereby turned against it by the phony allure of American consumerist capitalism. All of this forms the witches’ brew which has been used to settle the score with Qaddafi for deviating in so many ways from the American Plan for Libya, for the Arabs, for Africa and the rest of the world.

These rebels have been killing Black Libyans and other Black people in the streets of various Libyan towns and villages, while the Western Media decries the presence of "African mercenaries" in the ranks of the troops loyal to Qaddafi. Wild stories are made up of mass rapes committed by Qaddafi supporters, while the actual facts reveal that rapes have accompanied the slaughter of Blacks and other citizens deemed to oppose the "rebels", who are themselves led and instigated by a bunch of certified hired mercenaries employed by the US-led alliance for the purpose of disrupting and subverting the Libyan socialist system in order to reverse the impressive gains and benefits which that system has brought to the people of Libya.

A key factor in the drive to destroy Libya in order to "rebuild" it is that Qaddafi and his colleagues appear to be the only nation state in the continent of Africa to have not signed on to America’s "Africom" plan for military conquest and domination. The Libyan military is not led at the top by those who seek to please American overseers, and therefore must be
eliminated and replaced by a more compliant outfit.

Another major reason why the Libyans are being subverted, bombed and strafed by NATO is that Qaddafi has launched numerous initiatives to set up alternative banking and development institutions throughout the continent, a stumbling-block to IMF/World Bank "stabilization" programs which typically impoverish the natives while lining the pockets of global financiers and their corrupt minions.

Qaddafi has launched drives to rid the Mediterranean basin of all foreign bases and weapons of mass destruction while the US/NATO/Israel axis has systematically pursued policies of militarization and aggression in that Sea.

A unique Libyan project, the "Great Man Made River" has brought water from under the Sahara Desert and made it available to various historically parched areas which can now be cultivated and developed into a breadbasket for the region. The US-led international banking consortium is of course poised to seize this most valuable asset now that it is coming to fruition. Wars will be fought over access to water throughout the Arab land in coming years. Control of water could become even more decisive than petroleum reserves in decades to come.

Qaddafi and his comrades have long sought to unify Arabs and Africans to serve the needs and interests of their people. They have sought to resolve differences, implement projects and propound solutions to free Arabs and Africans from Western bondage and the nefarious globalization plans of the World Bankers and their associates. "Globalization" is coterminous with imperialism. Qaddafi is an anti-imperialist. This has earned the Libyans the implacable enmity of those who are increasingly owning and operating the world in their own profit-driven interests.

These are some of the principal reasons why the US and NATO are on the war-path. They managed to tear apart a major resistant Arab country in Iraq and they have "taken" virtually the entire resource-rich but tragically impoverished African continent. Libya and Qaddafi stand resolute and defiant as an obstacle to their schemes of conquest and exploitation.

(c) 2011 Husayn Al-Kurdi
All Rights Reserved.