UN silent despite no grounds for NATO war on Libya
By Frances Thomas
October 9, 2011
The situation in Sirte is dire. Six weeks under siege after months of aerial attacks. Children and old people dead of
hunger and thirst. Water supply hit. Hospitals without medical supplies to treat the ill and injured, and then bombed by
NATO. The dead lying in the streets.
Constant ‘targeted’ nightly aerial bombardment by NATO air forces. Constant ‘fire at will’ daytime attacks from
ill-disciplined NTC rebels using tanks, rockets, mortars and howitzers.
In their missile-launcher-laden graffiti-decorated pick-up trucks, the rebels drive into the city edges in the morn and
back out by dark, hailed as ‘freedom-fighters’ by their embedded foreign press, they more resemble armed gangs. Some are
Libyan, dissatisfied with policies of their current government. A few have returned after a generation abroad with
historical tribal differences to settle. Others are LIFG veterans wanting to set up a strict Islamic fundamentalism.
Qatari forces, UK SAS and CIA are known to have been on the ground in Libya. The battle-hardened are Al Qaeda and
mercenaries on the pay-roll of interested parties, who follow where wars lead them, so long as they are paid well to
kill, and have licence to loot and rape.
How did this modern-day barbarianism ever come to be?
The specific phrases in UNSC resolution #1973, which NATO nations say permit them to conduct and support this military
action in Libya, are “no-fly zone”, “all necessary measures” and “to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack.”
That’s it. Just a few words. Innocuous enough until NATO got their hands on them and twisted them beyond recognition.
With Orwellian duplicity, air strikes replace ‘no-fly’, war becomes a ‘necessary measure’, and killing civilians constitutes their ‘protection’. Seven months later, 25,194 NATO air sorties later, including 9,363 strike sorties, and more than 50,000 human beings
are dead, civilian infrastructure is destroyed, and a sovereign nation is in crisis.
The distortion of those few words’ intended meaning was almost certainly a factor in the veto by Russia and China of the
recent resolution against Syria. NATO’s actions in Libya are clearly seen to violate UNSC resolution #1973, and some
member states are wary.
Oh, and the evidence that Libyan people needed protecting from imminent danger of their own government firing on them?
Remembering that this pre-emptive NATO action was to “stop Gaddafi from launching a massacre of his own people.”
No evidence was ever produced.
On 1 March, two weeks after the accusations, when asked if he had seen any evidence that Gaddafi intended to fire on
citizens, then US Sec of Defense Robert Gates said, “We’ve seen the press reports but we have no confirmation.” And US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen added, “That’s right. We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever.”
So NATO attacked Libya on the basis of a press report.
Gates had some sense of what was right because he also stated that “the UN Security Council resolution provides no authorisation for the use of armed force.” Gates would be gone by June, replaced by ex-CIA director Leon Panetta.
On 31 March, as NATO strikes in support of the rebels began, more questions were asked of Gates and Mullen by the US
Senate Armed Services Committee. “Was al Qaeda involved in Libya?” Mullen answered, “We haven’t seen anything, other than aspirational, from al Qaeda leadership.” Gates said that Gaddafi was “trying to ‘gen’ up the narrative that the opposition is in fact led by al Qaeda.”
When asked “Do either one of you believe that the Libyan people would stand for an al Qaeda-led Libya?” “Absolutely no evidence to
support that,” said Gates, and Mullen, “No, I don’t.”
Gates, in explanation, added that “the real power in Libya is in the hands of these tribes, and even Gaddafi realises that, and I just don’t understand
how it would be possible for these tribes to want to cede any of that authority to some outside crowd like al Qaeda.”
Interesting. Here we have US Sec of Defense Gates supporting what Gaddafi, rather than merely ‘realising’, has always
strongly stated. Which is that in Libya the real power is in the hands of the Libyan people, in the hands of the tribes.
This fact conflicts with the ‘Gaddafi as dictator’ storyline. It seems the journalists from US, UK, France, and Qatar,
who were in Tripoli until August, had read the Obama/Clinton script, rather than US Senate committee transcript. All
year the foreign press have chosen to ignore the fact that the tribal peoples of Libya - what did Gates say? – “hold the real power in Libya,” and instead used any means to bolster their ‘Gaddafi as dictator’ narrative, and have thus distorted the news that has
beamed into our living rooms since February. News that has formed the opinion of millions, deprived them of the truth,
and so delayed the groundswell of dissent against NATO’s war on Libya.
And about al Qaeda. Gaddafi had said from the beginning that the rebels were al Qaeda led. Gates and Mullen dismissed
that in March, though in vague terms.
It’s become apparent in recent months that Gaddafi was telling the truth again. More camera-shy than the youthful
rebels, the al Qaeda contingent is nevertheless a huge presence. They are led by Abdel Hakim Belhadj, an al Qaeda
affiliate and Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) leader who had “close relationships” and trained with al Qaeda in
Afghanistan. The LIFG is still included on both UK and US lists of terrorist organisations. Belhadj is now the NTC’s new
official chief military commander.
Rehabilitated in the western press and approved by NATO though Belhadj may be, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen got
one more thing right. The Libyan people don’t want a bar of anyone associated with al Qaeda leading them in any
capacity. Nor do they trust Belhadj’s LIFG background. Libya is 97 per cent Islamic, and though other religions are
allowed to practise freely (though not proselytize), one group not tolerated by law in Libya is militant Islamic
fundamentalism.
For months now buried in the official records, Gates and Mullen’s take on Libya is, well, just not politically correct.
Despite the evidence of ‘mission creep’, NATO leaders seem determined to bet against a future Nuremberg-style war crime
action against them, and continue to pound the city of Sirte by night, to ‘break the ground’ for their daytime
sniper-fodder ‘relief team.’
During a two day so-called truce in early October the Red Cross tried to enter Sirte to provide humanitarian aid. On the
first day they managed to visit a hospital on the southern outskirts, bringing in a few needed supplies, but the
hospital came under NTC rebel attack, and they were not able to inspect the whole building let alone get into the city
proper and visit other areas.
On the second day the Red Cross tried to take two large aid trucks into the city. But the rebels began firing and so the
Red Cross backed up quickly and abandoned their attempt. Preventing access for aid, another war crime.
Forever announcing their ‘final’ assault on Sirte, the NTC rebels have not yet quite managed to achieve it. NATO is now
firing missiles from helicopters onto the city. They continue their murderous siege of 135,000 people, maybe more people
because many from other towns months ago sought harbour in Sirte, maybe fewer because many have died or fled. Whatever
the number, the people of Sirte are defending themselves and their city against NATO’s military might.
The United Nations community is being tested. On whether the international member nations have the moral courage to
stand up to the powerful NATO nations, point out the illegality of the war on Libya, and insist that their ambassadors
take that message to the UN. Meanwhile Gaddafi is proven right yet again, when he observed years ago that the UN did not
provide fair treatment for its smaller and less powerful member nations. On this matter, I’d rather he could be proved
wrong.
ENDS