Meanwhile, In ‘Liberated’ Libya

Meanwhile, in “Liberated” Libya
Nebojsa Malic

As part of its great white-knighting enterprise to charm the jihadists of every color an hue, the Empire launched a “kinetic military action” last spring to “liberate” Libya from its own government. That evil little war is now being invoked to justify a similar endeavor in Syria.

But was Libya really liberated? Depends on your definition of liberty. If it involves keeping dark-skinned folk in cages and torturing them, then yes. Establishing Sharia law? Check. Desecrating Christian cemeteries, a la Kosovo (another one of Empire’s “liberation” projects)? Ditto.

Last week, the “free and democratic” Libyans vandalized a number of gravestones of both Allied and Axis troops who died during the North African campaign of WW2. The campaign, pitting Italian and German (Afrika Korps) troops against the British and Commonwealth forces, had swept back and forth across today’s Libya between 1940 and 1942, with some of the fiercest fighting around Tobruk and Benghazi. The cemeteries survived Libyan independence and Col. Gadhafi’s reign, but not the NATO-installed “transitional” government.

Now, it is entirely possible that the “government” in Tripoli has nothing to do with this, and that it was the handiwork of local, Benghazi jihadists, noted veterans of the Iraqi insurgency. But that is precisely the constituency – for lack of a better word – which the Empire sought to “protect” by intervening. And now there is word that Cyrenaica (the area in question) is seeking “autonomy” from Tripoli.

Back in March 2011, as the “kinetic military action” became imminent, Justin Raimondo noted that Libya was a construct – three disparate provinces with different tribal composition. First under Ottoman rule (1551-1911), then under Italy (1911-1941), the regions were put together into the independent Kingdom of Libya (1951-1969) by the British. Colonel Gadhafi overthrew the monarchy in 1969, and ruled Libya until last year. And now the country is – predictably – coming apart.

Kosovo offers some clues about what might happen next. It, too, was a “humanitarian” intervention on behalf of a terrorist “liberation army,” with the goal of “regime change” (replacing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic with someone more to Empire’s taste – i.e. the October 5 crowd and their current incarnation). The deliberate and systematic destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches and cemeteries began almost immediately, along with the murder and expulsion of ethnic Serbs, Roma, Turks and other “unwanted” communities. The UN and NATO occupation authorities did nothing to stop this persecution, which peaked in March 2004 with a 3-day pogrom. Not only was no one involved punished, the Albanians were rewarded in 2008 with US and EU recognition of their illegal declaration of independence (sure, the ICJ said it wasn’t illegal, but only after torturing the facts).

The Empire now insists on inviolability of “Kosovo” borders, seeking to suppress the remaining Serbs who refuse to accept “independence”. Yet carving out Kosovo clearly violated Serbia’s borders, which the Empire had no trouble with. Chances are it will seek to suppress the “autonomy” in Cyrenaica, then – unless the separatists there are the actual clients of Empire, in which case the “transitional council” might be thrown under the bus.

In other words, there really are no principles involved; just power. For all the media prattle about saving innocent civilians and helping democracy and freedom, “humanitarian” interventions – be they “kinetic military actions” involving bombers or ground troops or “regime change” operations involving astroturf revolutionaries – are never actually humanitarian. They do, however, involve murder, destruction, terrorism, organized crime, butchery, and plenty of lies. Such are the fruits by which we ought to know them.

My good friend Nebojsa Malic has been the Balkans columnist for Antiwar.com since 2000, and blogs at grayfalcon.blogspot.com. We are always thrilled when Nebojsa finds the time to pen an exclusive editorial for Barely A Blog. (Click on “BAB’s A List” for Nebojsa’s articles archive.)