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in this bloody, chaotic CIVIL WAR. And the utter failure of other western leaders, including Obama, to even mention the word "peace" or to make even the slightest effort to START with peace as the proposed goal--to call for a ceasefire, to call all parties to a negotiating table--told me all I needed to know about U.S. and western intentions in this situation. Soon the U.S. and NATO were bombing civilians, rebels and Libya's loyal military alike, because...guess what? It's a bloody, chaotic CIVIL WAR!
This may have started as a democracy rebellion, and there may be elements of democratic belief on the rebel side, but the rebels almost immediately descended into chaos and tribal conflict with intense jostling among the rebel leaders aiming to be the "next Gaddaffi" (the West-installed Gaddaffi). And now the leaders have actually started murdering each other. That's why the son of the recently murdered rebel commander called for an end to the fighting, "a return to normalcy" and support for the Gaddiffi government.
His word "normalcy" is very telling. Until this rebellion, the Gaddaffi government was recognized worldwide as the legitimate government of Libya, and has for many years been peacefully trading with western countries. It was by no means an ideal government, but it was a stable government, of benefit to most people, no threat to its neighbors, with no great pogroms, expulsions or purges. It was also a unifying government (holding Libya's conflicted tribes together as one nation), with a commitment to African nationalism (which is why the African Union did not support legal sanctions against Gaddaffi). The other key to this situation is that much of the military has remained loyal to Gaddiffi. THEY believe that they are DEFENDING the LEGITIMATE government, recognized by everyone in the world a short time ago.
I suspect that western powers instigated this rebellion--that is, infiltrated what may have been a genuine democracy movement, and perhaps triggered what could have been a peaceful and effective movement for reform in Libya, prematurely, because the west wanted an armed conflict that it could influence and control. Predatory capitalists and war profiteers don't do so well in peaceful democratic rebellions--as Latin America's many peaceful democratic rebellions have recently shown: Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Nicaragua and others, all now with independence-minded, democratic, leftist governments, who are creating a "level playing field" economy in the region that rejects U.S. corporate/war profiteer domination. All done peacefully. And nothing that the U.S. has done, in the interest of its multinational corporations and war profiteers, has been able to stop it. The U.S. and its allies need war and conflict to succeed, and where there isn't any, they will try to create it artificially, as with the U.S. "war on drugs" in Latin America.
Because of the intense secrecy of our government, we won't likely know for decades what it was doing in Libya, but even without U.S./Western schemes, the reaction of the U.S. and other western countries was WRONG, in the first instance. They did NOT call for peace talks. They wanted, instead, to exploit the situation--and I can only think that Libya's oil is the reason. The Gaddaffi government had nationalized the oil--a not unusual circumstance in the world; many governments have done so--and this meant that a good portion of the profits stayed in Libya. The countries on the receiving end of this oil--those purchasing the oil--and their U.S. ally saw the opportunity (or created the opportunity) to gain control over the profits, by installing a western-oriented, bought and paid for dictator. (It's quite laughable to think that the U.S. would permit real elections in Libya--any more than they have permitted them in Honduras or Haiti (blatantly rigged "elections") or Colombia (which is so drenched in the blood of leftists that "democracy" is cruel, bloody joke--paid for by you and me, with $7 BILLION in military aid) or Iraq (armed fortress)). Where are the great democracies that the U.S. has created with its wars over the last half century? The U.S. doesn't conquer countries to free them. It conquers countries to CONTOL them.
And the majority of Libyans and the majority of Libya's military do not want to be controlled. They see Gaddaffi as preventing control by the U.S. and its allies. And the reason that there is so much confusion among the rebels is not lack of more U.S./NATO-inflicted carnage; it is a confusion that has been there from the beginning in the mixed motives of its leaders, some of whom did NOT see this as a democracy revolution but as an opportunity to gain power.
I also want to say that, if this armed rebellion had occurred in a western country, would that country's government not be justified in defending itself, even to the polnt of killing its own armed and rebellious citizens? You might say that only a democracy is justified in defending itself. But how legitimate are western democracies? Are they not oligarchies run by the rich for the rich? The U.S.? The U.K.? France? Italy? And if armed citizens and rebel sectors of the military attacked those governments, would it be a legitimate revolution or not? The most likely factions to do so are rightwing--so is that the criteria for legitimacy, where the armed rebels stand on the political spectrum?
The legitimacy of governments is a difficult and precarious matter. The Libyan government had not aggressed against any other country. It was a legitimate, recognized member of the world consensus of legitimate, recognized governments. It was faced with an armed rebellion including rebel factions of the military. What should it have done? Yielded to violence and force of arms? Would the U.S. do so? Would Italy, France, England, Spain?
Let me put it this way: Did the Gaddaffi government--recognized worldwide as legitimate--LOSE its legitimacy because it fired on unarmed civilians in the opening days of this rebellion, and maybe even thereby turned it into an armed rebellion? If so--if a government that has not aggressed against another country, but is suffering an internal conflict, overreacts and kills unarmed civilians, who then arm themselves and fight back--if that government then LOSES its legitimacy (its right to defend itself), we would have to say that Colombia deserved to be bombed and its government removed by force.
Thousands of unarmed civilians have been murdered in Colombia, about half of them by the military itself (the other half by its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads), with government collusion, over the last decade, and with the excuse of fighting the armed leftist rebels (the FARC), in Colombia's 70 year civil war (yup, it's been going on that long). But the Colombian government has not just slain its armed rebel citizens. It has systematically targeted and murdered trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, peasant farmers, Indigenous leaders, journalists and others. They have also been murdering completely non-political youngsters, and dressing up their bodies like FARC guerrillas, to up their 'body counts"--to earn bonuses and promotions. Why didn't the U.S. condemn Colombia in the UN and call for sanctions and invasion?
Well, these slaughters were okay with the U.S. In fact, they were quite helpful in ridding the country of people who might oppose a U.S. "free trade for the rich" agreement, or the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. 'war on drugs', or the Pentagon's boots in their country, or multinational corporate sweatshops and resource ravaging. These murders of unarmed civilians serve U.S. goals, and Gaddaffi's crimes do not. That is the only difference. And Gaddaffi's government was under much more immediate threat than Colombia's U.S.-backed government was at the height of the murders of civilians. Who deserves to be not just condemned but bombed by western powers and removed? Internal conflict. Civilians being harmed. What is legitimate defense of legitimate, recognized government, and what isn't?
You might say that the U.S. did intervene in way, in Colombia, by yanking the extremely corrupt Bushwhack choice for president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, and supporting his defense minister for president (cleaner hands, apparently), which Panetta accomplished on behalf of the Obama administration. The killings, however, continue--several more labor leaders murdered this week--with almost total impunity. Uribe, of course, gets U.S. protection and coddling (active U.S. protection from prosecution; academic and legal honors), because, really, he was doing the preliminary work for 'free trade for the rich" and other purposes. He earned his Bush Cartel 'made man' status (immunity from prosecution).
Is this any different from what would happen in Libya, at U.S./NATO hands? A fake democracy at the service of foreign multinational corporations and war profiteers, wherein, if one U.S./NATO-installed enforcer gets too embarrassing, he gets the ol' stage hook and another is chosen to capitalize on the former's crimes, all with the same goals--more riches to the West's super-rich?
This is why the U.S. and its allies did NOT call for peace negotiations--and Chavez did. Chavez and Venezuela have NOTHING TO GAIN in Libya. Nothing! In fact, they risk rightwing/war profiteer ridicule (such as we see here in this thread) and tons of demonizing propaganda, merely for speaking up for peace as a first option and for supporting a besieged government that was, a short time ago, considered legitimate by all. Venezuela is, indeed, a potential rival of Libya, as to their oil economies. But the Chavez government doesn't see it that way. His view is based on the foreign policy that Chavez developed with Lula da Silva and others, that stresses cooperation in the "Global South"--cooperation and having each other's backs in situations like this, with the "Global North" attacking. This is why BOTH Chavez and da Silva befriended iran and invited its president to their countries. Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, a da Silva protege, hasn't said anything about Libya, that I know of, but she is known to be furious that Obama used his visit to Brazil to announce U.S. bombing of Libya--a phenomenal diplomatic insult, that the U.S. will be paying for, diplomatically, for some time to come.
These independent views from South American leaders are not going to go away. They cannot be "insulted" away. They are solid, based, as they are, on a REAL democracy revolution--the one that has swept South America and parts of Central America--and its consequent alliances among leftist leaders. Why should they shut up? Why should they not call for peace as a first option? (That used to be U.S. policy, long ago.) Why should they not befriend and trade with countries that have aggressed against no one, but whom the U.S. has demonized and targeted for their oil?
The typical RW responses on this thread are aimed at keeping people stupid about what is really happening in the world--here, in Libya, in Venezuela, in Latin America, everywhere. I may not be entirely right in my analysis but I don't think I'm far wrong, or I wouldn't be posting this reply. in any case, it is an effort to be THOUGHTFUL--to understand where various leaders and peoples are coming from. What is inspiring the loyal Libyan military? Why was the rebel commander shot by other rebels? What to make of his son's cry for "normalcy" and support for the Gaddaffi government? Why does Chavez persist in supporting Gaddaffi at the risk of being "a voice in the wilderness"? Indeed, why does Chavez--as solid a democrat with a small d, as I have ever seen (and, believe me, I've looked into it*)--support a leader who really is a dictator (although not an especially heinous one)? (He's more like a consensus dictator--that is, agreed upon by most tribes and factions, in a rather factional tribal country.)
These are the kind of questions we need to ask and try to answer, to understand our own country's foreign policy and developments in the rest of the world. One-liner stupidities about Chavez's support for Gaddaffi are worse than useless. They foster contempt for facts, context and analysis and real civic involvement in our country's policies.
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*(I don't just take Lula da Silva's word for it. I've looked into it thoroughly. But what he said about Chavez is illuminating. He said, "They can invent all kinds of things about Chavev but not on democracy!. This goes some way to explain the strong Brazil-Venezuela alliance. It is also an interesting perspective on Chavez from a more objective viewpoint than that of the U.S. government--with its heavy oil and war profiteer interests--or than the corpo-fascist press, which just apes the U.S. viewpoint--or than the rightwing opposition in Venezuela, who have always been hysterics and exaggerators, who supported a coup d'etat and who think they are "born to rule." How to get an objective view of Chavez, amidst all this crapola--aside from the obvious view of Venezuelans themselves, who have voted for Chavez, time and again, in free and transparent elections? Brazil doesn't NEED Venezuela. In fact--as with Venezuela and Libya--Brazil and Venezuela could be seen as economic rivals. But that is not how their leaders have proceeded. They have chosen cooperation and unity instead, and a "raise all boats" philosophy. This is very smart strategically--strength in numbers. It is also in accord with these leftist leaders' commitment to social justice. Predatory capitalism and "dog eat dog" competition leaves many people out. Cooperation, mutual benefit, "raising all boats," business tempered with social responsibility and regulation, seeks prosperity for all. Latin American countries have now formalized CELAC to further these goals of strength in numbers, unity, cooperation and prosperity for all, and they, by their own choice, headquartered CELAC in Caracas, Venezuela, and very pointedly did not ask the U.S. or Canada to join. Seen in this more objective context--the regard for Chavez and his government among the other leaders of Latin America--this bogeyman "dictator"--created by the U.S., the corpo-fascist press and the rightwing here and there, is ridiculous. Chavez is no more a "dictator" than FDR was. And his resemblance to FDR is why is our corporate rulers and war profiteers hate him so much--as they proceed to dismantle the last of FDR's social justice programs.)
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