Global Research

Since last week, Western leaders, NATO — and their friends in the puppet propaganda press, sometimes referred to as “mainstream” media—have been celebrating the usurpation of Libya into the hands of the armed insurrectionist “rebels.”

But how will history judge the West’s imperial interference, in Libya, and what does this awful episode portend for other African countries? Last week, the Benghazi “rebels” advanced into Tripoli, their path paved by NATO’s bombardment of Libya’s military installations and even civilian facilities.

With much of the Libyan political infrastructure now in the hands of the “rebels,” Western leaders have been gloating about their imperial intervention in toppling Colonel Muammar Quathafi’s government. Mr. Quathafi remains at large; with a million-dollar bounty on his head.

Several members of the Quathafi family are now said to be in Algeria, including his wife, Safiya, daughter Aisha, and two of his sons, Mohammed and Hannibal. Many have interpreted this development as proof of Quathafi’s capitulation.

Yet, Quathafi spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim has warned “We will turn Libya into a volcano of lava and fire under the feet of the invaders and their treacherous agents.” His son Seif al-Islam has also broadcast a message saying loyalists will continue to fight.

Rumors are swirling around the whereabouts of the colonel. Some say he’s in eastern Libyan region, possibly his hometown of Sirte, or, in southern Libya along the border. The so-called “Transitional National Council” has issued a warning to the people of Sirte to surrender by Saturday, or, face military action. NATO — which, purportedly, interfered into this conflict to “save civilians” — is, reportedly, already bombing and shelling Sirte, which is 500 miles from Tripoli. Moussa Ibrahim claims 1,000 civilians were killed, says an article in The New York Times.

There have been speculation whether Quatahfi is preparing to flee, or, has already fled. An official in the Nicaraguan government says President Daniel Ortega would consider giving Quathafi asylum, if he requested it. There was even rumor that Quathafi is in Zimbabwe.

No doubt several African leaders—given Quathafi’s largess in supporting Africa’s political progress—are willing to help him obtain safe passage. Quathafi has supported liberation struggles throughout Africa including in: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

It has been said that South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma would help the Libyan leader escape but wouldn’t offer him exile.

Recall that when Western governments, including the United States under President Ronald Reagan’s “constructive engagement” policy were doing business with South Africa’s apartheid government, Quathafi supported the African National Congress and then-imprisoned leaders like Nelson Mandela.

Indeed, Mandela violated a U.N. flight embargo on Libya, traveling there after his release from 27 years in prison. President Bill Clinton criticized Mandela’s Libyan visit as “unwelcome.” Mandela retorted “No country can claim to be the policeman of the world and no state can dictate to another what it should do–Those that yesterday were friends of our enemies have the gall today to tell me not to visit my brother Gaddafi, they are advising us to be ungrateful and forget our friends of the past.”

Indeed, Quathafi, for all his faults, has been a faithful friend of Africa. Can we say the same for Arab leaders, especially those in Africa, who exhibit racist tendencies like their Western masters? Consider the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Black people in the “new” Libya, ignored by the corporate media, until The Guardian mentioned it again this week; two months after The Wall Street Journal first reported it on June 21, 2011.

Moreover, has any Western country done more for Africa than Libya under Quathafi? Think of it; what has the West done for Africa besides raping and pillaging the continent and its people to this very day?

From the very beginning, Western leaders used deception to frame and distort the image of Quathafi as a maniacal madman who was about to slaughter — en masse — Libyan civilians. This was a lie calculated to gain approval, from Western citizens, for waging war of aggression against the Libyan Government. When have Western capitalists ever cared about the slaughter of non-white civilians? Where was NATO during the genocides in the Congo and Rwanda?

We read that the “international community” is united against Quathafi. True: if the “international community” comprises only the world’s White ruling elite and nations under their umbrella of domination.

Question: how can the United Nations deem itself a “democratic” institution when only five countries have veto power? Why was the opposition to NATO’s war, by many U.N. member states, including those in the African Union, treated as inconsequential if they really care about “international” consensus? Instead, the Troika – the U.S., U.K., and France – play up what their Arab political lackeys, in the Arab League, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, say.

What about the fact that Libya is an African country?

It is laughable mendacity for these avaricious Western phonies to tell the world they’re dropping bombs on Libya to “protect civilians.” To start with, the notion that an air war can protect civilians from wholesale massacres, on the ground, defies logic.

Yet, this dastardly deception has been repeatedly disseminated by those press parrots in corporate media, who fail to properly investigate and inform the people. There are lessons Africans, and others in the “developing” world can learn from the imperial intervention in Libya. First and foremost, this episode illustrates that Africans cannot trust Western governments. Duplicity to further their greedy, geo-political “interests,” is the foundation of their foreign policy.

Ever since the armed insurrection that Washington, London and Paris claimed was a populist protest started in Libya, it was argued that Quathafi was an undemocratic despot who had ruled for too long. So what about the pro-West vicious despots in Yemen or Bahrain? This deceitful double-standard speaks loudly in the different approaches the West took in regards to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

During the authentic Egyptian mass protests against this tyrant who stole a reported up to $70 billion, the West warned protesters to be non-violent; even when Mubarak unleashed his assorted mercenary thugs. However, the West endorsed armed insurrection by the terrorist Benghazi “rebels” from the beginning of their “protest.” Why didn’t they admonish these “rebels” to be non-violent, as they insisted from the Egyptian masses?

The truth is Mubarak is an example of the type of obsequious lackeys Western officials always support. Mubarak helped in aiding the oppression of the Palestinians, especially, with his assistance in cutting-off passage into the Gaza Strip. America furnished Mubarak with massive aid, in part, for doing this. It should be noted Quathafi supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization in its struggle for an independent state.

The truth is: the West doesn’t like non-conformist leaders they can’t control. Caught flat-footed by the “Arab Spring” protests, the West jumped at the chance to help the Al-Qaida-connected Benghazi “rebels.” Read the Sinjar Records Report, done at West Point Military Academy’s Joint Terrorism Unit on this connection The support escalated even after The Wall Street Journal reported on April 2 that one of the “rebel” leaders was a former Mujahedeen, Abdel Hakim al-Hasady, who had fought against the U.S. in Afghanistan.

In the interview, Hasady, told The Wall Street Journal: “Our view is starting to change of the U.S. – If we hated the Americans 100%, today it is less than 50%…” Today, The New York Times reported that this same man has been installed as military commander in Tripoli. Thanks to NATO.

The African Union, and all Africans, must stand up and object to the West’s diplomatic duplicity. A blueprint for the attack on African states was created in the Libyan War. What’s to stop them from repeating this meddlesome agenda elsewhere and everywhere in Africa?

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