Featured image: Haftar last Thursday early evening at Benghazi’s Benina Airport (Source: LNA website & social media)
Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar returned from a Paris hospital, via Cairo, to Libya on a proverbial ‘white horse’.
Recovered after two weeks of alleged illness, much exaggerated by the media and by those interested, like the UN, to see the back of him.
The last thing the awful regimes we have in both the UK & USA presently, want is to have a man like Haftar to fight their surrogates extremist terrorists.
Haftar ‘ain’t perfect’, in particular, his sons. But if we, and I mean ‘the West’, want to eradicate terrorists, in for a start, Libya, Haftar, as imperfect and old school that he maybe, is the man to do it.
In part, many believe it was a ruse by Haftar to ‘disappear’ these past 14 days or so to ‘flush’ out the traitors and double crossers, something peoples of this region are regrettably particularly culturally prone to be.
If he was on death’s door, he would not have smiled for the bevy of photographers and TV cameras, even laughing and joking as he was met by dignitaries at the airport in Benghazi following his flight arrival from Cairo.
Haftar gave a brief televised statement at Benina Airport, starting with:
“I want to reassure you that I am in good health,” further stating “I should be addressing you standing up but I am obliged to do so sitting down,” Haftar jokingly added.
Haftar continued
“I won’t respond to those promoting rumors about my health, and you are not responsible for them. But there are those who will answer for them in the appropriate way,” Haftar almost menacingly concluded.
Libya for the first time in 7 years, given Haftar’s enhanced popularity evident to all who watched TV, on his return, or who spoke to Libyans who watched it, that his return has a consequence of increasing his popularity that could tip the balance of power in his favour given the motley crew that are his opposition.
The next week or two will be telling. It’s believed there is a chance for an eventual end of this civil war through Haftar’s consolidation of power in Libya coupled with a potential offensive on one of the last bastions of power in the hands of extremist jihadists, Derna.
An important indirect factor, which does have an effect on the public, will be the approach of the month long ‘Ramadan’ starting around mid May.
A further interesting development on Monday, in the light of Haftar’s return to Libya, was the announcement from Aguila Saleh, the Speaker of Libya’s Tobruk based parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR), who has called for presidential elections to be held between September – December. This was publicly supported internationally by both France and Egypt. Others are expected to follow.
Such an election would use the former constitution as a basis, not repeat not the UN-backed Libyan Political Agreement (LPA).
The US and UK want regime change in Syria, all over the Middle East in fact, because of a perceived Zionist agenda. How about the US and UK have a regime change, many Arabs jokingly cry!
A final thought is a statement the other day by long time neocon John Bolton who said publicly he sees Libya as a ‘disarmament model’ – was Bolton’s intention to encourage and inspire the North Korean leader Kim somehow?
You couldn’t make this stuff up!
American and Western Foreign Policy is descending into a farce.
