BY JEFF MACKLER
For the Political Committee of Socialist
Action
This article appears in the
September 2011 edition of Socialist
Actionnewspaper.
Tragically, Libya’s
short-lived February 2011 Arab Spring was rapidly transformed into a six-month
imperialist-led onslaught that wrought death and destruction on the Libyan
people.
The “no fly zone” Resolution
1973, approved 10-0 by the UN Security Council on March 17, was immediately
followed by more than 20,000, and still ongoing, sorties by U.S./NATO warplanes
against the forces of the Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar Gadhafi. These were
complemented by drone strikes and artillery bombardments from NATO’s armada,
centered on a French aircraft carrier anchored off Libya’s
coast.
The UN “no-fly zone”
resolution, never more than a license for the wholesale destruction of Libya’s
military apparatus and much of Tripoli’s infrastructure—including its water and
fuel supplies, electricity, schools, hospitals, and residential
neighborhoods—was a Euro-American declaration of war. “Humanitarian wars”
conducted by the world's superpowers will never benefit the oppressed masses in
Libya or anywhere else.
In the assault on Tripoli in
the last days of the war, Gadhafi’s estimated 65,000 troops were pulverized by
an intensive air and sea bombing campaign that NATO commanders estimate to have
“degraded”—that is, killed, wounded, or scattered—some 50 percent of his
forces. The remainder is
thought to have retreated to Libyan cities and towns that continue to support
the Gadhafi regime. These are today being bombed with
impunity.
Estimates of the number of
Gadhafi soldiers killed outright on just one day by this late-August intensive
bombardment exceeded 1300. Well before the last week of August, when Gadhafi’s
forces were compelled to flee Tripoli, the defection of top commanders of the
Libyan army to the imperialist-backed TNC signaled at least the partial
disintegration of the army.
The TNC today "governs" most
of Libya, but it is definitely not to be excluded that yet another
long-lasting imperialist-abetted war and occupation is in the
making. The Tripoli
Brigade and associated TNC forces, aided by the ongoing and still massive NATO
bombing campaigns, are currently engaged in street-to-street mop-up battles in
Gadhafi strongholds in Tripoli as well as in regions of the country still loyal
to the deposed dictator.
Historians have documented
some 700-plus U.S. interventions and wars, covert and overt, over the past
century or so—all to advance the interests and power of the ruling elite, who
require the constant expansion of their “spheres of influence,” today in the
name of the “War on Terror,” to sustain their competitive advantage over their
rivals. The interests of the oppressed peoples of the world have never been a factor in imperialist
calculations.
Both the Bush and Obama
administrations were more than happy to deal with the Gadhafi dictatorship as
long as the formerly left-sounding populist dictator, more recently turned U.S.
ally, was willing to open the country’s economy to foreign capital. And Gadhafi
readily acceded to IMF-dictated austerity programs, to giving a lion’s share of
and reducing the costs of Libya’s oil to Western corporations, privatization of
key industries, border guard assistance in thwarting the immigration of Black
Africans into Italy and France, and joining in the “War on Terror” and the
associated rejection of the Palestine liberation struggle. Gaddafi’s harsh repression of
dissent was never of any consequence to the Western corporations and governments
who have now conquered the nation.
TNC officials have promised
that they will honor all contracts that the Gadhafi regime made with Western
capitalists. But the Libyan catastrophe will undoubtedly result in a new race by
European and North American corporate rivals to turn a larger profit out of the
nation’s oil wealth. The British Independent commented on Aug. 24, “After five
months of fighting in the world's 12th-largest oil producer, industry figures
are acutely aware that billions could be made in the coming years from
rebuilding Libya. Immediate focus will fall on the country's oil fields that are
currently producing a 10th of the 1.6 million barrels a day that were exported
pre-revolution.”
As with the devastation in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the conquerors can be expected to seek payment for their
services and rebuild what they have destroyed via the impounded hundreds of
billions of dollars of Libyan funds that have been frozen by imperialism’s
more-than-cooperative banking and financial institutions. As the Aug. 28 New York Times so delicately noted, “With so much
uncertainty over the governance of Libya, none of the money will be given to the
rebels, but instead will go directly to pay for services [provided by
imperialism] and fuel costs.”
The U.S./NATO war began when
the Gadhafi dictatorship ordered its troops to open fire on a group of
protesting human rights activists. As with the anti-government mobilizations in
Tunisia and Egypt, this was followed by massive protests that were violently
repressed by Gadhafi’s police and military, which did not shrink from using its
still intact ground and air power to quell the deep resentment that permeated
Libyan society. Gadhafi’s decision to make amends with Sylvio Berlusconi’s Italy
and Nicolas Sarkozy’s France, in the context of world capitalism’s economic
crisis, could only be at the expense of the Libyan
masses.
In the early days of these
mass protests, there were
unmistakable but only modest indications of the independent character of at
least a portion of the anti-Gadhafi leadership, as when anti-government
protesters unfurled massive banners from rooftops, declaring, "No Foreign
Intervention: The Libyan People Can Manage It Alone." Even then, it was not
always clear whether opposition to foreign intervention referred to troops on
the ground only, since major elements of the opposition had announced early on,
and even demanded, support by U.S./NATO forces and a “no-fly
zone.”
When a team of British
secret operatives was captured by early anti-Gadhafi forces, they were summarily
deported, an indication that at least a portion of the early fighters rejected
any association with imperialist troops and other would-be
liberators.
The United National Antiwar
Coalition (UNAC) referred to the mass character of the early mobilizations
against Gadhafi when it issued its “Statement on U.S. Non-Intervention in Libya
and Other Countries,” declaring: “UNAC calls for an immediate halt to U.S.
intervention in regions and countries where mass mobilizations are challenging
oppressive regimes. “
The
statement continued, “We have seen the horrific consequences of
U.S./UN-imposed economic sanctions against Iraq, as well as the consequences of
U.S./UN operation of ‘no-fly zones’ over northern and southern Iraq, prior to
the U.S. Shock and Awe attacks and invasion.
“We therefore oppose any
form of U.S. military or economic intervention in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia
and other countries where movements are rising in opposition to dictatorships
and military rule.” UNAC continues to oppose all U.S. intervention in
Libya, North Africa, and the Middle East more
generally.
Unfortunately, the mass and
independent character of the anti-Gadhafi mobilizations proved to be ephemeral.
They had been politically limited and poorly organized, and therefore incapable
of overcoming what rapidly devolved into a self-appointed government-like
formation consisting of assorted factions from the Gadhafi regime, including
leading political figures and top military commanders. These were supplemented
by a swath of returning capitalists with connections to imperialist forces and
representatives of assorted anti-Gadhafi tribal and fundamentalist groups.
Virtually all these “leaders” demanded and expected U.S./NATO intervention to
remove Gadhafi.
The conquest of Libya and
the division of the spoils was moved to the top of the warmakers’ agenda. Libya,
with some 3-4 percent of the earth’s known high quality, “sweet crude” oil
reserves—and an important European supplier—was slated for permanent imperialist
oversight, if not occupation. The European and American interveners brooked no
voices to warn against or denounce the savage history of foreign intervention in
the Arab world. They much preferred and selected the present mix of
pro-capitalist Libyan oppositionists, who proudly sported and mass-produced the
flag of King Indris al-Senussi, deposed by Gadhafi in 1969, and whose reign
consisted in a permanent accommodation to world
imperialism.
As we write, plans are in
the works to establish an imperialist “stabilization” force to disarm the masses
of Libyans who still retain the automatic rifles and other weapons captured from
Gadhafi forces or liberally distributed by British, French, U.S., and other NATO
forces parked at Misrata and other coastal ports. But disarming the population
might prove more difficult than the imperialists originally thought. An Aug.
31 New York Timesarticle
entitled “Tripoli divided as rebels jockey over leadership” makes it clear that
plans to stabilize Tripoli, not to mention several other cities, are
uncertain.
The
Times article
states: “There are growing hints of rivalry among the various brigades over who
deserves credit for liberating the city and the influence it might bring. And
attempts to name a military leader to unify the bands of fighters have instead
exposed divisions within the rebel leadership, along regional lines but also
between secularists and Islamists.
“They were all signs, one
influential member of the council said, that point to a continuing ‘power
vacuum’ in the civilian leadership of the Libyan capital. But the jockeying for
power also illustrates the challenge a new provisional government will face in
trying to unify Libya’s fractious political landscape.” The imperialist
overlords are far from certain that their initial TNC choices are reliable in
this task. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya has long been divided along
fractious tribal and religious lines as well as warring bourgeois
factions.
A 70-page plan obtained and
published by the London
Times embarrassed the imperial
invaders when it described their preparations for the long-term pacification of
Libya. The Times wrote: “The plans are highly
reliant on the defection of parts of the Gaddafi security apparatus to the
rebels after his overthrow. This is likely to prove not only risky, but
controversial, with many rebel fighters determined to sweep away all vestiges of
the regime.
“The document includes
proposals for a 10,000-15,000 strong ‘Tripoli task force,’ resourced and
supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to take over the Libyan capital,
secure key sites and arrest high-level Gaddafi supporters….” (See the reference
below to the UAE’s Blackwater mercenary death squads.)
“The blueprint contains
plans for about 5000 police officers now serving in units not ideologically
committed to the Gaddafi regime to be transferred immediately to the interim
government's forces to prevent a security vacuum. The documents claim that the
rebel groups in Tripoli and surrounding areas have 8660 supporters, including
3255 in the Gaddafi army.”
As expected, the TNC and
imperialist spokespersons everywhere promise “democratic” elections within eight
months—the same kind of elections that brought to power the various corrupt
puppet regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Any notion of excluding Gadhafi
supporters entirely, as the Bush administration “mistakenly” did in its Iraq
“de-Baathification” program (removal of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party supporters
from all key posts in the government and army), is said to be absent in the
projected Libya scenario.
It is more than ironic that
today’s more “enlightened” occupiers seek to first physically destroy Gadhafi’s
resisting bureaucrats, generals, and soldiers and then reconstitute a new
government with at least a portion of the old. Compliant Gadhafi supporters are
expected to share power in a coalition government to supposedly avoid the kind
of schisms that continue to plague Iraq and Afghanistan. Undoubtedly, today’s
“nation builders” have no intention of including representatives of the mass of
Libya’s working class, other than as window dressing.
But imperialism’s
prevaricating diplomats nevertheless seek to paste a democratic facade on these
delicate matters. Said French foreign minister Alain Juppé, “It’s up to the
Libyans and the Libyans alone to build a new Libya, which will be a democratic
Libya.”(!) Mention of Libya four times in a single sentence certainly sends a
message. Had Juppé said instead, “It’s up to the imperialists and the
imperialists alone to build a neo-colonial Libya, which will be an autocratic
Libya.” he would have been closer to the truth.
What rapidly emerged six
months ago, in February 2011, was a patched together TNC, replete with a core of
defecting Gadhafi military and diplomatic officials and an array of Western
capitalist-connected, Libyan lawyers and “human rights” advocates largely
operating to advance the interests of the major NATO-affiliated invaders. From
the earliest announcement of this government-in-waiting, now recognized by some
57 nations and counting, not a single TNC voice has been heard to indicate
anything other than full support to and collaboration with the
imperialist-orchestrated invasion, not to mention pledged support for peaceful
negotiations between potentially competing forces as to who will get what in the
post-Gadhafi Libya.
Some of the TNC’s components
are already registering disagreements, as with the recent demonstration of
500 Misrata residents who mobilized and formally petitioned to protest the
inclusion of top Gadhafi officals in the new “government.” The TNC’s top
leaders, however, have been thoroughly briefed by imperialism’s presently silent
advisers to the effect that the new “government” must begin with the “inclusion”
of a broad range of forces to avoid future degeneration as was the case with
Iraq.
The TNC’s central leaders
include:
• Mahmoud Jibril,
present head of the new “government” and, until his early-on defection, head of
Libya’s National Economic Development Board. Jabril has spent most of his time
in Europe, rounding up support for his imperialist-created regime. He studied at
the University of Pittsburgh and served as an asset manager to the wife of the
Emir of Qatar.
• Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chair
of the TNC and Minister of Justice under Gadhafi until he resigned to protest
the attacks on students and other protesters.
• Gen. Abdul Fattah
Younis, the TNC’s top military commander, Libya’s interior minister, a French
intelligence asset and a personal friend of Gadhafi before defecting. Younis was
likely killed by the TNC’s Muslim Brotherhood faction, also included in the new
“government.”
• Ali-al-Essawi, former
Gadhafi cabinet official and ambassador, thought to be involved in Gen. Younis’
murder.
• Khalifa Hifter, senior
commander of TNC troops, who had been living in exile in the U.S. Hifter
appointed himself the TNC’s military commander, replacing his rival,
Younis.
• Abdel Hafidh Ghogi, a
Benghazi-based human rights attorney.
• Fathi Terbil, youth
representative on the TNC and a human rights attorney, whose arrest by Gadhafi
security forces is said to have sparked the rebellion.
Most of these “leaders” are
hardened Gadhafi bureaucrats, military strongmen who defected from the Gadhafi
government, or Libyans in exile who have collaborated with U.S. officials. A few
youthful “human rights” activists may have been added to the mix to lend it a
liberal cast.
Of the TNC’s 31 members only
13 were formally announced, supposedly due to security reasons. With the TNC’s
relocation to Tripoli in late August, the number has been expanded to 40 and is
expected to rise to 80. This self-appointed body of essentially Libya’s elite
has no connection with any mass political organization of Libya’s working
masses; to the extent that these groups exist at all, they are largely in
embryonic form.
Whatever self-organization
was evidenced in the earliest days of the mass protest was essentially
spontaneous and created to organize the distribution of food and the
coordination of vital services as Gadhafi’s forces bombarded Benghazi. We have
yet to see any indication that these organizational forms gave rise to or were
based on independent political forces aiming at developing a program to advance
the interests of the masses. Nor is there evidence that they took on the task of
consolidating an alternative to the leading bourgeois and pro-imperialist
forces, which fully understood the need to rush to the “leadership” of the mass
movement.
Given the political void
among the anti-Gadhafi forces, the TNC was quickly recognized as the nation’s
“legal” government by France and Italy—with the United States, briefly
considering the feasibility of a greater military and political
role, following suit soon afterwards. The Europeans’ and Americans’ public
pretensions of “protecting civilians” from Gadhafi’s forces rapidly gave
way to their real objectives—“regime change” pure and simple. The order of the
day was Gadhafi’s removal. Inter-imperialist negotiations as to the role and
weight of Libya’s future overseers were temporarily set
aside.
The U.S./NATO intervention
and massive bombing were qualitatively intensified while TNC forces were
prepared to take Tripoli. Some 30 percent of all sorties were scheduled for the
last five days. The “rebels” were further aided by massive supplies provided by
the imperialist-backed military governments in Egypt and Tunisia. The Qatari
government served as the overt organizer and trainer of the Tripoli Brigade,
which led the assault, undoubtedly with the assistance of the Qatar-based
Blackwater mercenary death-squad forces, financed by the U.S. and based in
Qatar.
The Aug. 19 Washington Post reported: “‘For months, we have been
gathering information in Tripoli and shipping weapons, money and men to the
capital,’ said Abu Oweis, the founder and deputy commander of the Qatari-trained
Tripoli brigade. ‘We are completely ready to take over,’ he added. ‘All people
there will be very happy.’”
“The brigade’s temporary
headquarters, a school building near the city of Zintan on the vast plateau of
the Nafusa Mountains, was stocked with ammunition during a visit on Thursday.
Commanders worked on laptops and used satellite phones as recruits assembled
their weapons.
“Oweis said his troops would
arrest ‘over a hundred’ high-profile Gaddafi loyalists designated as criminals
and potential troublemakers by the rebels’ Transitional National Council, which
for now is based in the city of Benghazi in eastern
Libya.
“The rebel leaders succeeded
in quickly gaining diplomatic recognition from countries around the world,
including the United States. International support, in which Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates play a key role, has given the rebels access to frozen
assets that once belonged to Gaddafi, as well as weapons deliveries from
abroad.
“Cargo planes from the
United Arab Emirates could be seen in Benghazi’s airport Monday, and rebels have
turned a slab of highway in the western mountains into a provisional airstrip
where they regularly receive cash and automatic weapons from representatives of
the Transitional National Council.”
The Washington Post report neglected to mention that Qatar
and the United Arab Emirates, with virtually no armies of their own, rely on
U.S.-financed Blackwater mercenary death-squad armies to defend their regimes
against “domestic unrest.” Mercenaries of the Blackwater type constitute nearly
half of the U.S. fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest U.S.
deployment of privatized military forces in history. Whatever pretensions the
Obama administration offers to indicate the withdrawal of some troops from Iraq
and Afghanistan are more than compensated for by the massive mercenary forces it
maintains in these countries.
The May 15 New York Times, in a front-page
article entitled “Secret Desert Force Set up By Blackwater Founder,” asserted,
“The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers
from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such
troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor
camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab
world this year” (emphasis added).
An Aug. 25 Washington Post article by Spencer Ackerman entitled
“Tiny Qatar Flexes Big Muscles in Libya” similarly noted: “If the Persian Gulf
nation has any defense profile at all, it’s mostly for hosting the giant al-Udeid air
base, a major transit point for U.S. troops and material heading to
Iraq and Afghanistan. But despite having very few men under arms, Qatar not only
helped keep Moammar Gadhafi’s planes grounded, it helped turn the ragtag Libyan
rebels into a real
fighting force—and even, according to one well-placed source, played a key role
in getting them into Tripoli.”
The Aug. 23 New York Times told the same story: The “rebels”
received “steady supplies of weapons, fuel, medicine and food from British,
French and Qatari troops” as well as “an escalated bombing campaign by American
jets and Predator drones.” The Times added, “Hundreds of rebels took part in
secret military training in Qatar.” None of these corporate media reports dared
to explicitly state that Blackwater forces—that is, U.S.-financed mercenary
death squads, as are routinely deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq—were engaged in
combat missions in Libya. A growing body of evidence reveals that they
were.
The imperialist-led conquest
of Libya was reported in the kept media in the tradition of all imperialist
wars. Gadhafi’s forces were demonized even though he was George Bush’s praised
leader little more than a year ago. But much of the media hyperbole aimed at
justifying the U.S. war proved to say more about the TNC than it did about
Gadhafi.
The Aug. 14 New York Times article entitled “Waves of
Disinformation and Confusion Swamp the Truth in Libya” is revealing not so much
in its ridiculing of Gadhafi’s statements—that he would fight to the last
soldier—but rather because a few skeptical reporters provided a rare
glimpse into TNC politics. “The rebels have offered their own far-fetched
claims, like mass rapes by loyalist troops issued tablets of Viagra. Although
the rebels have not offered credible proof, their claim is nonetheless the basis
of an investigation by the International Criminal
Court.”
Furthermore, says The Times: “And there is the
mantra, with racist overtones, that the Qadaffi government is using African
mercenaries, which rebels repeat as fact over and over. There have been no
confirmed cases of that; supposedly there are many African prisoners of war held
in Bengazi, but conveniently journalists are not allowed to see them. There are,
however, African guest workers, poorly paid migrant labor, many of whom,
unarmed, have been labeled mercenaries.” The Times has referred to this anti-Black African
racism promoted by TNC spokespersons on several occasions, as if to caution the
“rebel” leaders that it counters the democratic image they have been encouraged
to promote.
What lessons can be drawn
from the impending imperialist victory in Libya? First and foremost, as the mass
mobilizations in Egypt and Tunisia and now Libya have more than amply
demonstrated, there are no shortcuts—not to mention imperialist interventions—in
defeating dictators. The construction of mass revolutionary socialist parties,
deeply rooted in the organizations and struggles of the masses for equality and
freedom, is the first prerequisite to victory. There will be no sustained
victories against capitalist regimes, liberal or dictatorial, unless these are
complemented by coordinated struggles on a regional, if not international,
basis.
Second, imperialist
interventions in all of their manifestations must be vehemently opposed. The
right of self-determination of all oppressed nations, even those led by heinous
dictators, must be supported as against imperialist interventions. Imperialism’s
defeat in any confrontation with oppressed nations weakens its capacity for
future interventions and opens the door wider for others to follow suit. While
revolutionary socialists have every right and obligation to criticize and oppose
dictatorships everywhere, these criticisms are subordinate to the defeat of
imperialist intervention and war. Revolutionaries are not neutral in such
confrontations. We are always for the defeat of the imperialist intervener and
would-be colonizer.
A critical element in the
program of the United National Antiwar Coalition is opposition to any and all
U.S. intervention. UNAC is united in organizing massive mobilizations to demand
“Bring All U.S./NATO Troops, Mercenaries and War Contractors Home Now!” Its
constituent organizations have a variety of views , which are sometimes
conflicting, on the regimes of many countries, from Iran to Libya, as well as
Iraq and Afghanistan. These differences are properly addressed by the various
constituent organizations’ publications and activities. But the basis of unity in action, of the
united-front-type formations that are critical to the organization of the masses
to stay the hand of the imperialist warmakers, is defense of the right of
self-determination of all oppressed nations—even those headed
by hated dictators.
We live in deeply troubled
and contradictory times—in which the worldwide capitalist offensive remains
largely unchallenged on a scale necessary to change the present relationship of
forces. But history repeatedly demonstrates that the working-class majority will
once again rise to challenge its oppressors and once again boldly pose the
question of which power shall rule—theirs, in the interest of the tiny
parasitic few or ours, in
the interest of all humanity.
Today, the imperialist-led
war in Libya continues, with massive NATO bombing supporting the TNC troops’
efforts to conquer pro-Gadhafi cities. But we are compelled to recognize the
tragic truth that a severe defeat has been inflicted on the Libyan
people. To our sisters and
brothers in Libya, we can merely assert that the crisis-ridden imperialist beast
can only provide new opportunities to build fighting mass movements and the
essential mass revolutionary socialist parties capable of uniting all the
oppressed in a common struggle against imperialism and all its agents. The
Libyan masses will rise again!
In contrast to the massive
mobilizations during the Arab Spring in North Africa that forced the ouster of
hated dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, the Libyan people are saddled with an even
greater evil—direct neo-colonial intervention into their country’s
affairs.
This is not to say that the
victories won by the Egyptian and Tunisian masses are secure. Imperialism’s
satraps continue to rule in these nations in the form of the still-powerful
military regimes. The work of revolutionaries in Egypt and Tunisia is far from
completed. Indeed, it has just begun. Whatever space has been opened by the
massive mobilizations can and will be quickly closed if the still-existing
capitalist state power remains in place. The coming revolutions in Egypt and
Tunisia, and in all other nations, can only be secured with the abolition of the
capitalist system, whose inherent logic is oppression, war, and
destruction.
Today the imperialist boot
is on the ground in Libya and deeply implanted. The Libyan masses have not been
liberated. Thousands have been killed. Imperialism’s sights are now focused
on doing the same in Syria and eventually in Iran. The liberation struggle in
these countries also rests in the development of mass revolutionary socialist
parties there, not with imperialism’s “humanitarian” interventions and not with
any reliance on the present entrenched and brutal local capitalist
exploiters.
Here in the United States,
we must restate our revolutionary obligation to the world’s people to oppose our
own imperialist government and all its wars, and to warn once again that
American imperialism is incapable of serving anyone’s interests other than the
elite ruling-class few. The Obama administration is a glaring example of this
fundamental truth. It has exceeded the Bush administration in virtually every
measure with regard to the attacks on workers at home and abroad. Any illusion
that it is capable of doing otherwise will prove fatal to the coming mass
struggles that will challenge the capitalist system as never
before.
• Bring the Troops Home Now:
Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan!
• Stop the U.S./NATO War on
Libya! Imperialist Troops, Warships, Aircraft, Mercenaries Out
Now!
• Self-determination for All
Oppressed Peoples!
• Build the Revolutionary
Socialist Party of the Working Class in Libya and Everywhere
Else!
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