Of course, not all are elated. The director of the Russia-Libya business council laments: “We have lost Libya completely…our companies will lose everything there because NATO will prevent them from doing business.” So is to be the fate of German, Chinese and Brazilian companies also. “We don't have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil” declared the manager of a rebel-affiliated oil company. Poor dissident pariahs, if only they had the good sense to back the humanitarian-cum-barrage from the outset.
Bomb our country, massacre our people, and we repay you with contracts and access to resources…in the name of the people. It would seem the National Transitional Council had hired their own mercenaries; Euro-American armies paid to spill black blood in exchange for black gold.
A question for those seeking to remould the narrative into one of national liberation: what of Iraq? A tyrant’s alleged possession of weapons of yada-yada prompts an international body – not the UN – to launch an invasion, topple the despot, and install a band of collaborationist defectors as the new ‘representative’ government, which coincidentally extols foreign control over the country’s wealth. What of Afghanistan? One milita group – the Northern Alliance – was provided air support (and ground troops) in overthrowing the existing governmental authority and then reciprocated with reconstruction contracts for their saviours.
Are there other parallels? Both countries are now shattered and ailing from corruption, inequality, lack of security, and their continued subjugation to foreign militaries. Lucky for Libyans, ‘this time’ the Euro-American bombadiers got it right and only thousands (as opposed to hundreds of thousands) of civilians died. Lucky for Libyans, ‘this time’ the Euro-American powers are only concerned with liberating them.
To shift focus, as many do, on the desires of the Benghazi rebels is to miss the point. Certainly this group genuinely wishes to change their country. The question is what kind of change, and in whose interest. Will decisions be made by the NTC? If so, who are they and what mandate do they hold? By NATO? By the UN? Little air time was given to neutral Libyan citizens in the media, let alone anyone regarded as pro-Gaddafi (the African Union, for instance, which has refused to regonise the NTC). Instead, the world’s attention has been focused almost entirely on the NTC and their band of merry rebels.
Stirring and sensationalistic reports about their courage and integrity flowed like honey, except when they, um, assassinated their own commander. Oh, and when they carried out massacres against African migrants and Black Libyans (one third of the population) for being ‘mercenaries’, a term that means little more than being Black. As David Kirpatrick of The New York Times declared: “the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Gaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior”. Freedom fighters indeed.
Regardless, Gaddafi has been toppled and the bombing continues. So what next? The latest report is that the UN already has a plan set out detailing “[roles for] military observers, the UN, police, and NATO.” There is nothing surprising about this revelation; the UN and NATO have a penchant for extending missions in perpetuity; there is much loot to be had. What is surprising, however, is that the mantras of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ still have resonance and can be used to justify yet another military campaign by Euro-American saviours against non-European savages. How quickly we forget.
In Libya, the night of the sword and the bullet is far from over. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, there will be more bloodshed as resistance to foreign imperialism consolidates. Euro-Americans fail to understand that Third World peoples are no longer fodder for their imperial machinations. The morning of the chalk and the blackboard will eventually come. Today’s struggle is over who will be wielding it and whose history will be written
