Spare us the hypocrisy over Gaddafi

The brutal and sorry end of the Gaddafi era in Libya has brought the expected, sickening outpouring of faked concern in Washington, London and Paris for building democracy in that country and a rewriting of history to suit Nato. Spare us the hypocrisy.

Nato has now bombed the National Transitional Council (NTC) into power. Even yesterday, although Gaddafi was reduced to a handful of supporters in Sirte, French warplanes attacked isolated vehicles trying to flee the area, in clear breach of the UN resolution limited to “protecting civilians”.

The strategic aim was not just access to oil, which Western powers have always had, but to corral the uprising against Gaddafi’s dictatorship and to gain a new foothold in the region in the wake of the Egyptian revolution.

The lynch-mob manner of Gaddafi’s death after his capture, the plans for a secret burial, show that the NTC regime has a great deal to hide, that it scorns any rule of law and has no intentions of ruling in a democratic way.

Gaddafi’s attempt at holding on to power after the uprising began in Benghazi, and the undoubted corruption of his extended family, coupled with authoritarian rule in recent decades, led to his downfall.

But for the West to crow about the end of a dictatorship stretching back to when he came to power in 1969 is nonsense. In the early period, oil revenue was directed towards education, healthcare and housing. Per capita income rose seven fold to one of the highest in Africa.

His regime became a target for the West because of his support for liberation struggles by Palestinians, Irish republicans and Saharan Africans. Tripoli was bombed by the US in 1986, killing one of his children. Gaddafi fought hard to implement the ideals of Pan-Arabism championed by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt.

With his concept of Jamahiriya – “state of the masses” or “republic of the masses”, he sought to foster a direct democracy in which the people would rule through local councils and communes.

Political and economic pressure on Libya increased after the downing of the Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie in December 1988 for which Libya was framed. Libya’s political and economic isolation produced a reactionary political turn.

The 1990s saw increased inequalities and loss of political freedom for ordinary Libyans. A nepotistic dynastic elite grew up in which the rich enjoyed freedoms denied to ordinary Libyans. Rights for opponents became non-existent, with political prisoners being shot down at the Abu Salim jail in 1996.

The sight of Gaddafi making deals over oil and immigration with oil-hungry authoritarians like Blair and Italian leader Berlusconi was particularly shocking. Gaddafi almost certainly became clinically depressed at the failure of his political aims and fell into the arms of world leaders who endorsed him until the uprising earlier this year.

If Gaddafi deserved his summary execution, as some say, where does that leave war criminals like Blair and Bush, whose 2003 invasion of Iraq was unlawful and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and Obama, whose administration uses drones to kill people illegally in Pakistan, and other Nato leaders, including Cameron, who conduct a murderous war in Afghanistan?

TNC leaders are not exactly the rabid pro-Western alliance Nato dreamt would emerge, containing discredited regime defectors, monarchists, militant Islamists and not a few opportunists. That's the new government of Libya. The people are going to have to overthrow them if they are to achieve any benefit from their revolution.

Now the struggle for democratic and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa merges with a global crisis of capitalism. The new Arab revolution has only just started and it will have to go beyond fair and free elections to find solutions to the pressing problems of soaring food prices, mass unemployment, poverty and inequality.

A World to Win editors

Torture exposes West's hollow claims about democracy

The indictment gets longer. Still wanted over the illegal invasion of Iraq, former prime minister Blair could be open to prosecution over New Labour’s secret collaboration with the Gaddafi regime, leading international lawyer Philippe Sands has suggested.

Ironically, in the wake of the Nato-backed regime change in Libya, it has become crystal clear that British intelligence agency MI6 collaborated in the “rendering” of alleged terror suspects by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and were complicit in their torture.

Under New Labour, M16 tipped off the CIA to help ensnare and transport two leaders of the anti-Gaddafi opposition back to Tripoli where they were promptly imprisoned and tortured. MI6 also told Libyan intelligence about opposition figures who lived in Britain, supplying it with emails and telephone numbers.

As early as 2003 Mark Allen, head of counter-terrorism at MI6, wrote to former Libyan foreign intelligence and then foreign minister, Moussa Koussa on the friendliest of first-name terms.

US human rights campaigners found letters in Koussa’s home showing how pleased Allen was about the “delivery” of Abedelhakim Belhadj then known by his nom de guerre Abu Abdallah Sadiq. Belhadj says that British intelligence officers were among the first to interrogate him when he arrived in Libya and was promptly imprisoned and tortured.

The CIA paid for Belhadj and his deputy, Abu Munthir and their families’

air trips from Malayasia and Hong Kong. But Allen played a double-game, telling Koussa that he would not share information obtained by torture with the CIA – and how he found this “amusing”.

“I have no intention of doing any such thing [sharing information]. The intelligence about Abu Abdallah was British. I know I did not pay for the air cargo. But I feel I have the right to deal with you direct on this and am very grateful to you for the help you are giving us,” he wrote.

Mark Allen has since been knighted and is an advisor to BP.

UK Special Forces helped to train the Khamis Brigade run by one of Gaddafi’s sons. The elite SAS forces assisted Libyans in counter-terrorism techniques and surveillance between 2004 and 2009.

M16 also held counter-terrorism courses for them in 2006 to help them fight the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, then headed by Belhadj. The US had added this group to its list of banned terror groups in 2003. Ironically, Belhadj was one of the chief leaders in the overthrow of Gaddafi and is now head of the Tripoli Military Council which currently heads 8,000 troops. He has called for a full apology from Britain.

Although British diplomats tried to shred compromising documents before they fled Libya, they have been discovered in the residence of the British ambassador. They show how Labour PMs Blair and Brown wooed the Gaddafi family in terms of sycophantic flattery.

Using craven religious phraseology, Blair wrote in December 2006: “At this sacred time of harmony and reconciliation, recalling how our passionate God has mercy on mankind, I would like to express my personal wishes to you, to your family and to the Libyan people.”

But working with torturers in Libya was not enough for M16. While the British government made hypocritical noises about human rights in China, MI6 was cooperating with the notorious Chinese State Security Bureau: “We agreed that we would look at how we might engage the Chinese Services on the Islamic extremist target in China”, one letter says chillingly. It is well-known that the Chinese authorities have long been brutally repressing anyone campaigning for Uighur ethnic rights, denouncing them as Islamic terrorists.

Of course, when anti-Gaddafi forces in Libya were inspired by the Arab Spring to revolt, the Cameron-Clegg coalition changed the tune sung by Britain. But the same thinking lies behind this government: flatter the leaders, repress the opposition and above all - get the oil.

But as the evidence found in the ashes of the old regime prove, no amount of flattery or the torture of opponents can possibly guarantee this. Finally, what the revelations show is what we have always known – that fine words about “democracy” from the mouths of British governments are the height of hypocrisy – both at home and abroad.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Nato-sponsored regime change

The jubilation of the anti-Gaddafi dictatorship fighters who have entered Tripoli is tempered by the fact that what is taking place is effectively a Nato-facilitated regime change in Libya.

In Tunisia and then Egypt, the mass of the people rose up and accomplished their own revolution (which is now confronted by unfinished business in relation to the economy and the old state machine).

These revolutions inspired some sections of Libya’s population, notably in the east of the country, to take to the streets in a bid to overthrow a Gaddafi regime that degenerated into brutal rule from the 1990s onwards.

Nato, which we should never forget is the military arm of the major capitalist states, was summonsed into action by Britain and France when the uprising quickly reached a stalemate.

Behind the fig-leaf of a United Nations security council resolution – how many wars has this discredited organisation now facilitated? – military power was used to advance the cause of the Benghazi-based forces in clear breach of the terms of the UN mandate.

As rebel fighter Hisham, speaking to the BBC's World Service, said today: "Nato is the master - it is something we admit. If Nato had not been bombing and shooting them, they would have killed us, this is a fact."

Nato never acts for “humanitarian reasons”, however its leaders dress up bombing and missile attacks with honeyed words about “democracy” etc. Other interests – political and economic – lay behind the intervention.

The Arab Spring caught out the political elites in Washington, London and Paris who had spent decades courting and propping up dictatorships from Cairo to Tunis, from Riyadh to Damascus.

As Egypt’s attitude towards Israel began to turn away from joint policing of the Palestinians in Gaza, it was clear that the West needed a new foothold in the region. And Libya appeared to give them that opportunity.

Nato’s intervention had the effect of corralling the Libya uprising and preventing its potential evolution into a truly revolutionary movement. Instead, the Transitional National Council (TNC) was given total support. The TNC is a self-appointed mixed bag of former opportunists who switched sides, careerists, Washington stooges and Islamists who are divided amongst themselves.

Attempts by the Arab Union and others to broker a ceasefire and a compromise settlement were scuttled by the US State Department on the orders of the White House, which had bypassed Congress to take part in attacks on Libya.

As in Iraq, the military intervention in Libya is designed to create a regime that is favourable to the West and one will open up its oil resources to capitalist corporations without hindrance and that will introduce “market reforms” in place of state subsidies.

Undoubtedly, the “planning” for a post-Gaddafi Libya includes an air base and possible ground forces. Richard Haass, president of the US council on foreign relations, has told the Financial Times that an international force is "likely to be needed to restore and maintain order".

The scenario planners at Nato HQ and the Pentagon don’t exactly have a great track record, however. In Iraq, China and not the US secured the first major oil deal after the fall of Saddam Hussein and has just started crude production in the Al Ahdab field in the centre of the country. Ten years of occupation of Afghanistan have only served to inspire an ongoing insurgency.

With their own economies falling apart as a new financial meltdown takes hold, Washington, London and Paris are in no position to give advice about “nation-building”. Destruction of resources and a resort to force characterises the period we are living in. That’s the real story about Nato’s intervention in Libya.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Liberal imperialism rears its ugly head over Libya

Scratch a liberal and you’ll find just about any political disease you care to name. Just look at the Lib Dems’ contribution to the reactionary coalition. Or just read The Observer’s call for Nato to “up its game and finish what it started in Libya”.

In the true spirit of the 19th century “liberal” Lord Palmerston, notorious for his “gun-boat diplomacy” used to advance Britain’s imperial interests, The Observer is concerned at the slow progress after 100 days of bombing Libya under the guise of enforcing a no-fly zone.

So the answer, as far as The Observer is concerned, is not peace talks and a negotiated settlement between the two sides of an apparent civil war but for Nato to “abandon its limited, cautious, low-risk approach and flex far more of its muscle”. You can’t get more bellicose than that.

Apart from the appalling use of the word “game” to describe attacks that have cost many lives, the appeal to intensify the bombing only confirms that all is not well in the war camp.

The US Congress has voted to block President Obama from going any further in Libya as he never sought their approval in the first place as required under the US constitution. The Arab League is split following civilian casualties and even Italy has called for a cessation of bombing to allow humanitarian aide to get through.

On the ground, the so-called rebels are making little military progress and the self-appointed Interim Transitional National Council based in Benghazi is divided about what to do next. Some have suggested that Colonel Gaddafi could remain in the country but not in power, for example.

David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, the prime movers in the bombing campaign, have discovered that the TNC is not exactly the rabid pro-Western alliance they dreamt would emerge. It contains discredited defectors from Tripoli, monarchists, militant Islamists and not a few opportunists.

To maintain a semblance of public support for the attacks, which have cost the British taxpayer about £260 million so far, Nato has, as usual, invented a series of mass rapes, genocide and assorted other atrocities to lay at the door of the Gaddafi regime. Amnesty International and others have discredited these lies.

The intervention in Libya has nothing to do with protecting civilians from the Gaddafi regime. He’s been persecuting them long enough with the tacit support of the US, Britain and France. Nor is it about delivering some abstract “democracy” to a Libyan or Arab people suffering under dictatorships because the Syrian, Saudi and Bahrain regimes have carte blanche to carry on killing. It’s not even particularly about access to Libya’s oil, which Western companies enjoy in any case.

What spurred Cameron (with Labour's backing) into action was a deep concern that the Arab Spring that swept away the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes was running out of control. Libya, with its brutal repression of its own uprising, seemed a good place to get a grip on the process.

The military intervention in Libya is aimed at delimiting the revolution’s direction and usurping the way it unfolds. It is a denial of Libya’s self-determination and, however cruel the Gaddafi regime has become, this is a good enough reason to oppose the bombing.

With Western influence diminishing as Egyptians renew their self-determination, Libya must have seemed a relatively easy way to establish a presence in the region. But, as the invasion and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, it is easier to make such plans than carry them out.

Even the killing of Gaddafi might only add to their problems. A report in the Daily Record suggests that British troops will be deployed if Gaddafi is ousted or killed. A Whitehall source told the paper: "I always find myself getting to my knees and praying to God that we don't bomb Gaddafi that night because what the f*** would we do next?" Cameron’s war could turn out to be his own political graveyard.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Eat or heat - the choice facing millions

As energy and food prices soar, jobs and services disappear and incomes are cut it amounts to the worst assault on living standards in living memory.

For the 2.4 million households affected, the price of gas supplied by Scottish Power will increase by 19% - almost one-fifth – on August 1, and electricity will go up by 10%. Other energy supply companies are expected to follow Scottish Power with similar increases in the wake of a 30% increase in wholesale prices since November 2010,

Annual household energy bills are expected to rise by up to £200 to £1400 this year, hitting those on low incomes hard, and British Gas is warning that wholesale prices are expected to rise a further 25% this coming winter. With food prices rises also accelerating – a typical basket has risen close to 5% in the last year - many pensioners already have to choose between eating and staying warm, and some will have to forgo both this winter.

Whilst across the world inflation is cutting into incomes and enraging millions, opinion leaders for rich investors are building the case for much worse to avoid the catastrophic consequences of having to admit bankruptcy by Greece or allowing debt default by the USA which is threatened for August 2nd.

As the inflationary US money-creation quantitative easing programme runs into the sand, having failed to bring about a recovery, Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of investment company Silver Lake, and vice-chairman of the Brookings Institution says ‘The time is long past for “rosy scenarios” which the markets won’t believe. Hard choices will have to be made.’ And these include dramatic cuts in government spending programs combined with savage tax increases.

Meanwhile, the oil-producing countries that belong to OPEC and control 40% of world supplies are meeting to consider increasing production or maintaining high prices whilst every NATO bomb that hits Tripoli keeps high-grade Libyan oil under the ground and drives world oil prices higher.

The Arab Spring uprisings has terrified autocrats in oil-producing countries – Saudi Arabia in particular. The Saudi monarchy, for example, hope they can cling remain in power by appeasing their populations with public spending programmes – and claw back the money by raising the price of their oil. Forecasters say that oil prices will not drop below $80-$100 a barrel for years to come. They could even rise to $130-$140 – with huge effects on the world economy which relies on oil for 30% of its energy needs.

And with oil the most critical commodity for capitalism after labour, the higher the price of oil goes, the lower wages and benefits - the price of labour - must fall, if profits are to be maintained.

Some are calling for energy companies to open their books to explain the need for price increases when Scottish Power, owned by Spanish company Iberdrola, made £1.3bn profit in 2009/10. Southern Energy made £2.1bn.

Norman Kerr, of the Fuel poverty charity Energy Action Scotland, says rightly that "It is time to recognise that being able to heat and power the home to an adequate level at a price that is affordable is an essential part of everyday living and we cannot continue to pile more on to fuel bills and push more people into fuel poverty."

For the majority of the world’s population there’s only one choice: to take the energy companies into social ownership and end the for-profit system once and for all.

The rising price of basic necessities – fuel in particular - is a common factor that can potentially unite ordinary people’s struggles around the world. Protecting the vast oil and oil resources in countries from the corporate raptors and their war-mongering representatives in government is vital. Bringing energy sources under the control of popular assemblies to be used in a not-for-profit way offers a way forward. Then, collectively, people’s assemblies can begin to plan safe use of oil and natural resources to meet needs and restore the planet’s ecosystem.

Gerry Gold
Economics editor

Petraeus deepens Obama's problems

Only a month after taking charge of US troops in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, commander of US and NATO forces, has openly challenged President Obama. Coming amidst increasing political turmoil, it is a dangerous moment for his presidency.

In an NBC television interview, Petraeus said that Obama’s 2011 target date for withdrawal was dependent on conditions permitting. The general’s open defiance comes as the US occupation is suffering its the highest level of casualties since it invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

But it is not only the Afghan people and the US troops killed on the battlefield or on the roads of Afghanistan who are bearing the brunt of the war. When combat troops return home, increasing numbers cannot cope with the psychological after-effects of seeing the carnage inflicted not only by the Taliban but by their own side.

In descriptions of mental trauma reminiscent of the long-term effects on US veterans from the Vietnam war, Time reporter Mark Thompson says that the US army faces a “third front” – trying to rescue its own soldiers from insanity. Soldiers are seeking mental health support more than 100,000 times a month.

One in every 10 soldiers who has completed a single combat deployment has a mental ailment, Thompson has found. The rate rises each time a soldier is redeployed. “More than 500,000 troops have returned home to the US in the last decade with a mental illness,” Thompson estimates.

The result is that suicide rates in the army have been rising. Despite a $7 million expenditure on hi-tech facilities like Fort Campbell, near Nashville, Kentucky, home to the 101st Airborne Division, suicides there have continued to rise.

Not only do they suffer mental breakdowns, but soldiers - and even more significantly – their carers, have turned their weapons on themselves and their superiors. Last November, after a killing spree at the Fort Hood military facility in Texas, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan was accused of killing 13 people. Hasan, who received medals for service in the Gulf war, had specialist training in the treating traumatic stress at the US armed forces University of the Health Sciences.

But the physical and psychological fall-out amongst his troops, will not deter Petraeus who shows typical disdain for the poor bloody infantry who do the dirty work, and pay the price, while the generals screw up on a consistent basis. Speaking in his Kabul headquarters, he said that he would resist any large-scale or rapid withdrawal of American forces.

Petraeus let the cat out of the bag about the real reason for the continuing US-UK occupation of Afghanistan. He said the country had the potential to become a "new Silk Road", a crossroads for trade, especially in minerals: "Afghanistan is blessed with the presence of what are... trillions of dollars' worth of minerals”.

Behind Petraeus stands the military-industrial complex – the US and global corporations anxious to exploit the lithium and oil resources. The oil corporations’ appetites will have been whetted by an announcement by the Karzai regime that a survey has found a rich new oil field in the north of the country.

The military top brass are deepening the crisis for Obama, whose approval ratings continue to slide. In advance of the November mid-term elections, around half the country disapproves strongly of the government.

Obama appointed Petraeus after sacking Commander General Stanley McChrystal in June. This was after McChrystal had openly attacked the administration in an interview published by Rolling Stone magazine. To have one general defy your government may be regarded as a misfortune; but to have two in quick succession ready to counter the commander-in-chief in public looks like carelessness.

To have all this happen while the US economy continues to tank and a series of rabid right-wingers in and around the notorious Tea Party challenge the authority of the state itself, might be considered to be a dangerous cocktail.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi axis

From the moment Georgia launched a surprise attack on the tiny breakaway region of South Ossetia last week, prompting a fierce Russian counterattack, Israel has been trying to distance itself from the conflict. This is understandable: with Georgian forces on the retreat, large numbers of civilians killed and injured, and Russia's fury unabated, Israel's deep involvement is severely embarrassing.

Since 2000, Israel has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in arms and combat training to Georgia. Weapons included guns, ammunition, shells, tactical missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, automatic turrets for armoured vehicles, electronic equipment and remotely piloted aircraft. These sales were authorised by the Israeli defence ministry. Training also involved officers from Israel's Shin Bet secret service – which has for decades carried out extrajudicial executions and torture of Palestinians in the occupied territories – the Israeli police, and the country's major arms companies Elbit and Rafael.

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to have been cemented at the highest levels, and according to YNet, "The fact that Georgia's defence minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation." Others involved in the brisk arms trade included former Israeli minister and Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo as well as several senior Israeli military officers.

The key liaison was Reserve Brigadier General Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon during the July 2006 Second Lebanon War. He resigned from the army after the Winograd commission severely criticized Israel's conduct of its war against Lebanon and an internal Israeli army investigation blamed Hirsch for the seizure of two soldiers by Hizballah.

The question remains as to why Israel was involved in the first place. There are several reasons. The first is simply economic opportunism: for years, especially since the 11 September 2001 attacks, arms exports and "security expertise" have been one of Israel's growth industries. But the close Israeli involvement in a region Russia considers to be of vital interest suggests that Israel might have been acting as part of the broader US scheme to encircle Russia and contain its re-emerging power.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been steadily encroaching on Russia's borders and expanding NATO in a manner the Kremlin considers highly provocative. Shortly after coming into office, the Bush Administration tore up the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and, like the Clinton administration, adopted former Soviet satellite states as its own, using them to base an anti-missile system Russia views as a threat. In addition to their "global war on terror," hawks in Washington have recently been talking up a new Cold War with Russia.

Georgia was an eager volunteer in this effort and has learned quickly the correct rhetoric: one Georgian minister claimed that "every bomb that falls on our heads is an attack on democracy, on the European Union and on America." Georgia has been trying to join NATO, and sent 2,000 soldiers to help the US occupy Iraq.

Israel must constantly reinvent itself as an "asset" to American power if it is to maintain the US support that ensures its survival as a settler-colonial enclave in the Middle East. It is a familiar role; in the 1970s and 1980s, at the behest of Washington, Israel helped South Africa's apartheid regime fight Soviet-supported insurgencies in South African-occupied Namibia and Angola, and it trained right-wing US-allied death squads fighting left-wing governments and movements in Central America. After 2001, Israel marketed itself as an expert on combating "Islamic terrorism."

As for Israel itself, with the Bush Doctrine having failed to give birth to the "new Middle East" that the US needs to maintain its power in the region against growing resistance, an ever more desperate and rogue Israel must look for opportunities to prove its worth elsewhere. That is a dangerous and scary thing.

This is an edited extract of an article by Ali Abunimah, published on The Electronic Intifada, 12 August 2008. Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli- Palestinian Impasse