Why Regime Change in Libya?
By Ismael Hossein-zadeh
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25317
Global Research, June 20, 2011
In light of the brutal death and destruction wrought on Libya by the relentless US/NATO
bombardment, the professed claims of “humanitarian concerns” as grounds
for intervention can readily be dismissed as a blatantly specious
imperialistploy in pursuit of “regime change” in that country.
There
is undeniable evidence that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and
peaceful protest demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain,
therebellion in Libya has been nurtured, armed and orchestratedlargely
from abroad, in collaboration with expat opposition groups and their
local allies at home. Indeed, evidence shows that plans of “regime
change” in Libya were drawn long before the insurgency actually started
in Benghazi; it has all the hallmarks of a well-orchestrated civil war
[1].
It
is very tempting to seek the answer to the question “why regime change
in Libya?” in oil/energy. While oil is undoubtedly a concern, it falls
short of a satisfactory explanation because major Western oil companies
were already extensively involved in the Libyan oil industry. Indeed,
since Gaddafi relented to the US-UK pressure in 1993 and established
“normal” economic and diplomatic relations with these and other Western
countries, major US and European oil companies struck quite lucrative
deals with the National Oil Corporation of Libya.
So,
the answer to the question “why the imperialist powers want to do away
with Gaddafi” has to go beyond oil, or the laughable “humanitarian
concerns.” Perhaps the question can be answered best in the light of the
following questions: why do these imperialist powers also want to
overthrow Hugo Cavez of Venezuela, Fidel Castro (and/or his successors)
of Cuba, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador,Kim Jong-il
of North Korea, Bashar Al-assad of Syriaand Evo Morales of Bolivia? Or,
why did they overthrow Mohammad Mossadeq of Iran, Jacobo Arbenz of
Guatemala, Kusno Sukarno of Indonesia, Salvador Allende of Chile,
Sandinistas in Nicaragua,Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haitiand Manuel
Zelaya in Honduras?
What
does Gaddafi have in common with these nationalist/populist leaders?
The question is of course rhetorical and the answer is obvious: like
them Gaddafi is guilty of insubordination to the proverbial godfather of
the world: US imperialism, and its allies. Like them, he has committed
the cardinal sin of challenging the unbridled reign of
global capital, of not following the economic “guidelines” of the
captains of global finance, that is, of the International Monetary Fund,
the World Bank and World Trade Organization; as well as of refusing to
join US military alliances in the region. Also like other
nationalist/populist leaders, he advocates social safety net (or welfare
state) programs—not for giant corporations, as is the case in
imperialist countries, but for the people in need.
This
means that the criminal agenda of Messrs Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, and
their complicit allies to overthrow or kill Mr. Gaddafi and other
“insubordinate” proponents of welfare state programs abroad is
essentially part of the same evil agenda of dismantling such programs at
home. While the form, the context and the means of destruction maybe
different, the thrust of the relentless attacks on the living standards
of the Libyan, Iranian, Venezuelan or Cuban peoples are essentially the
same as the equally brutal attacks on the living conditions of the poor
and working people in the US, UK, France and other degenerate capitalist
countries. In a subtle (but unmistakable) way they are all part of an
ongoing unilateralclass warfare on a global scale—whether they are
carried out by military means and bombardments, or through the
apparently “non-violent” processes of judicial or legislative means does
not make a substantial difference as far as the nature or the thrust of
the attack on people’s lives orlivelihoods are concerned.
In
their efforts to consolidate the reign of big capital worldwide,
captains of global finance use a variety of methods. The preferred
method is usually non-military, that is, the neoliberal strategies of
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), carried out by representatives of
big business disguised as elected officials, or by the multilateral
institutions such as the IMF and the WTO. This is what is currently
happening in the debt- and deficit-ridden economies of the United States
and Europe.But if a country like Libya (or Venezuela or Iran or Cuba)
does not go along with the neoliberal agenda of “structural
adjustments,” of outsourcing and privatization,and of allowing their
financial system to be tied to the network of global banking cartel,
then the military option is embarked upon to carry out the neoliberal
agenda.
The
powerful interests of global capitalism do not seem to feel comfortable
to dismantle New Deal economics, Social Democratic reforms and welfare
state programs in the core capitalist countries while people in smaller,
less-developed countries such as Libya, Venezuela or Cuba enjoy strong,
state-sponsored social safety net programs such as free or
heavily-subsidized education and health care benefits.Indeed, guardians
ofthe worldwide market mechanism have always been intolerant of any
“undue” government intervention in the economic affairs of any country
in the world. “Regimented economies,” declared President Harry Truman in
a speech at Baylor University (1947), were the enemy of free
enterprise, and “unless we act, and act decisively,” he claimed, those
regimented economies would become “the pattern of the next century.” To
fend off that danger, Truman urged that “the whole world should adopt
the American system.” The system of free enterprise, he went on, “can
survive in America only if it becomes a world system” [2].
Before
it was devastated by the imperialist-orchestrated civil war and
destruction, Libya had the highest living standard in Africa. Using the
United Nations statistics, Jean-Paul Pougala of Dissident Voice reports,
“The
country now ranks 53rd on the HDI [Human Development Index] index,
better than all other African countries and also better than the richer
and Western-backed Saudi Arabia. . . . Although the media often refers
to youth unemployment of 15 to 30 percent, it does not mention that in
Libya, in contrast to other countries, all have their subsistence
guaranteed. . . . The government provides all citizens with free health
care and [has] achieved high coverage in the most basic health areas. . .
. The life expectancy rose to 74.5 years and is now the highest in
Africa. . . . The infant mortality rate declined to 17 deaths per 1,000
births and is not nearly as high as in Algeria (41) and also lower than
in Saudi Arabia (21).
“The
UNDP [United Nations Development Program] certified that Libya has also
made ‘a significant progress in gender equality,’ particularly in the
fields of education and health, while there is still much to do
regarding representation in politics and the economy. With a relative
low ‘index of gender inequality’ the UNDP places the country in the
Human Development Report 2010 concerning gender equality at rank 52 and
thus also well ahead of Egypt (ranked 108), Algeria (70), Tunisia (56),
Saudi Arabia (ranked 128) and Qatar (94)” [3].
It
is true that after resisting the self-centered demands and onerous
pressures from Western powers for more than thirty years, Gaddafi
relented in 1993 and opened the Libyan economy to Western capital,
carried out a number of neoliberal economic reforms, and granted
lucrative business/investment deals to major oil companies of the West.
But,
again, like the proverbial godfather, US/European imperialism requires
total, unconditional subordination; half-hearted, grudging compliance
with the global agenda of imperialism is not enough. To be considered a
real “ally,” or a true “client state,” a country has to grant the US the
right to “guide” its economic, geopolitical and foreign policies, that
is, to essentiallyforgo its national sovereignty. Despite some economic
concessions since the early 1990s, Gaddafi failed this critical test of
“full compliance” with the imperialist designs in the region.
For
example, he resisted joining a US/NATO-sponsored military alliance in
the region. Libya (along with Syria) are the only two Mediterranean
nations and the sole remaining Arab states that are not subordinated to
U.S. and NATO designs for control of the Mediterranean Sea Basin and the
Middle East. Nor has Libya (or Syria) participated in NATO's almost
ten-year-old Operation Active Endeavor naval patrols and exercises in
the Mediterranean Sea and neither is a member of NATO's Mediterranean
Dialogue military partnership which includes most regional countries:
Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania [4].
To
the chagrin of US imperialism, Libya’s Gaddafi also refused to join the
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), designed to control valuable resources
in Africa, safeguard trade and investment markets in the region, and
contain or evict China from North Africa. “When
the US formed AFRICOM in 2007, some 49 countries signed on to the US
military charter for Africa but one country refused: Libya. Such a
treacherous act by Libya’s leader Moummar Qaddafi would only sow the
seeds for a future conflict down the road in 2011” [5].
Furthermore,
by promoting trade, development and industrialization projects on a
local, national, regional or African level, Gaddafi was viewed as an
obstacle to theWestern powers’ strategies of unhinderedtrade and
development projects on a global level. For example, Gaddafi’s Libya
played a leading role in “connecting the
entire [African] continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting
and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and
distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost
connection was made available across the continent, including in rural
areas” [3].
The
idea of launching a pan-African system of technologically advanced
network of telecommunication began in the early 1990s, “when 45 African
nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication
Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash
communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls
to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the
annual$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites
like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same
country. . . . An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of $400
million and the continent no longer had to pay a $500 million annual
lease” [3].
In
pursuit of financing this project, the African nations frequently
pleaded with the IMF and the World Bank for assistance. As the empty
promises of these financial giants dragged on for 14 years,
“Gaddafi
put an end to [the] futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with
their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put $300 million on
the table; the African Development Bank added$50 million more and the
West African Development Bank a further $27 million – and that’s how
Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.
“China
and Russia followed suit and shared their technology and helped launch
satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second
African satellite was launched in July 2010. The first totally
indigenously built satellite and manufactured on African soil, in
Algeria, is set for 2020. This satellite is aimed at competing with the
best in the world, but at ten times less the cost, a real challenge.
“This
is how a symbolic gesture of a mere $300 million changed the life of an
entire continent. Gaddafi’s Libya cost the West, not just depriving it
of $500 million per year but the billions of dollars in debt and
interest that the initial loan would generate for years to come and in
an exponential manner, thereby helping maintain an occult system in
order to plunder the continent”[3].
Architects
of global finance, represented by the imperialist governments of the
West, also viewed Gaddafi as a spoiler in the area of international or
global money and banking. The forces of global capital tend to prefer
a uniform, contiguous, or borderless global market to multiple
sovereign markets at the local, national, regional or continental
levels.Not only Gaddafi’s Libya maintained public ownership of its own
central bank, and the authority to create its own national money, but it
also worked assiduously to establish an African Monetary Fund, an
African Central Bank, and an African Investment Bank.
The $30 billion of the Libyan money frozen by the Obama administration belong to the Central Bank of Libya, which
“had
been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which
would add the finishing touches to the African Federation – the African
Investment Bank in Syrte(Libya), the establishment in 2011 of the
African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaoundé (Cameroon) . . ., and the
Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria, which when it starts
printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc [the
French currency] through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold
on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to
understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.
“The
African Monetary Fund is expected to totally supplant the African
activities of the International Monetary Fund which, with only $25
billion, was able to bring an entire continent to its knees and make it
swallow questionable privatization like forcing African countries to
move from public to private monopolies. No surprise then that on 16-17
December 2010, the Africans unanimously rejected attempts by Western
countries to join the African Monetary Fund, saying it was open only to
African nations” [3].
Western
powers also viewed Gaddafi as an obstacle to their imperial strategies
for yet another reason: standing in the way of their age-old policies of
“divide and rule.” To counter Gaddafi’s relentless efforts to establish
a United States of Africa, the European Union tried to create the Union
for the Mediterranean (UPM) region. “North Africa somehow had to be cut
off from the rest of Africa, using the old tired racist clichés of the
18th and 19th centuries,which claimed that Africans of Arab origin were
more evolved and civilized than the rest of the continent. This failed
because Gaddafi refused to buy into it. He soon understood what game was
being played when only a handful of African countries were invited to
join the Mediterranean grouping without informing the African Union but
inviting all 27 members of the European Union.” Gaddafi also refused to
buy into other imperialist-inspired/driven groupings in Africa such as
ECOWAS, COMESA, UDEAC, SADC and the Great Maghreb, “which never saw the
light of day thanks to Gaddafi who understood what was happening” [3].
Gaddafi
further earned the wrath of Western powers for striking extensive trade
and investment deals with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and
China), especially with China. According to Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce, China’s contracts in Libya (prior to imperialism’s controlled demolition
of that country) numbered no less than 50 large projects, involving
contracts in excess of $18 billion. Even a cursory reading of U.S.
Africa Command (AFRICOM) strategic briefings shows that a major thrust
of its mission is containment of China. “In effect, what we are
witnessing here,” points out Patrick Henningsten, “is the dawn of a New Cold War
between the US-EURO powers and China. This new cold war will feature
many of the same elements of the long and protracted US-USSR face-off we
saw in the second half of the 20th century. It will take place off
shore, in places like Africa, South America, Central Asia and through
old flashpoints like Korea and the Middle East” [5].
It
is obvious (from this brief discussion) that Gaddafi’s sin for being
placed on imperialism’s death row consists largely of the challenges he
posed to the free reign of Western capital in the region, of his refusal
to relinquishLibya’s national sovereignty to become another
unconditional “client state” of Western powers. His removal from power
is therefore designed to eliminate all “barriers” to the unhindered
mobility of the US/European capital in the region by installing a more
pliant regime in Libya.
Gaddafi’s
removal from power would serve yet another objective of US/European
powers: to shorten or spoil the Arab Spring by derailing their peaceful
protests, containing their non-violent revolutions and sabotaging their
aspirations for self-determination.Soon after being caught by surprise
by the glorious uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the imperialist powers
(including the mini Zionist imperialism in Palestine) embarked on
“damage control.” In pursuit of this objective, they adopted three
simultaneous strategies. The first strategy was to
half-heartedly“support” theuprisings in Egypt and Tunisia (of course,
once they became unstoppable) in order to control them—hence, the
military rule in those countries following the departure of Mubarak from
Cairo and Ben Ali from Tunis. The second strategy of containment has
been support and encouragement for the brutal crackdown of other
spontaneous and peaceful uprisings in countries ruled by “client
regimes,” for example, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And the third policy
of sabotaging the Arab Spring has been to promote civil war and
orchestrate chaos in countries such as Libya, Syria and Iran.
In
its early stages of development, capitalism promoted nation-state
and/or national sovereignty in order to free itself from the constraints
of the church and feudalism. Now that the imperatives of the highly
advanced but degenerate global finance capital require unhindered
mobility in a uniform or borderless world, national sovereignty is
considered problematic—especially in places like Libya, Iran, Syria,
Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries that are not ruled by
imperialism’s “client states.” Why? Because unhindered global mobility
of capital requiresdoing away with social safety net or welfare state
programs; it means doing away with public domain properties or public
sector enterprises and bringing them under the private ownership of the
footloose-and-fancy-free global capital.
This
explains why the corporate media, political pundits and other
mouthpieces of imperialism are increasing talking about Western powers’
“responsibility to protect,” by which they mean that these powers have a
responsibility to protect the Libyan (or Iranian or Venezuelan or
Syrian or Cuban or ... )citizens from their “dictatorial” rulers by
instigating regime change and promoting “democracy” there. It further
means that, in pursuit of this objective,the imperialist powers should
not be bound by “constraints” of national sovereignty because, they
argue, “universal democratic rights take primacy over national
sovereignty considerations.”In anotoriously selective fashion, this
utilitarian use of the “responsibility to protect” does not apply to
nations or peoples ruled by imperialism’s client states such as Saudi
Arabia or Bahrain. [6].
This
also means that the imperialist war against peoples and states such as
Libya and Venezuela is essentially part of the same class war against
peoples and states in the belly of the beast, that is, in the United
States and Europe. In every instance or place, whether at home or
abroad, whether in Libya or California or Wisconsin or Greece, the
thrust of the relentless global class war is the same: to do away with
subsistence-level guarantees, or social safety net programs, and
redistribute the national or global resources in favor of the rich and
powerful, especially the powerful interests vested in the finance
capital and the military capital.
There
is no question that global capitalism has thus woven together the fates
and fortunes of the overwhelming majority of the world population in an
increasingly intensifying struggle for subsistence and survival.No one
can tell when this majority of world population (the middle,
lower-middle, poor and working classes) would come to the realization
that their seemingly separate struggles for
economic survival are essentially part and parcel of the same struggle
against the same class enemies, the guardians of world capitalism. One
thing is clear, however: only when they come to such a liberating
realization, join forces together in a cross-border, global uprising
against the forces of world capitalism, and seek to manage their
economies independent of profitability imperatives of capitalist
production—only then can they break free from the shackles of capitalism
and control their future in a coordinated, people-centered mode of
production, distribution and consumption.
Ismael Hossein-zadeh, author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), teaches economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.
1.Michel
Chossudovsky, “When War Games Go Live: Staging a ‘Humanitarian War’
against ‘SOUTHLAND’ Under an Imaginary UN Security Council Resolution
3003,”Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24351
2. D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins (New York: Double Day, 1961), p. 436.
3. Jean-Paul Pougal, “Why the West Wants the Fall of Gaddafi?”Dissident Voice: http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/04/why-is-gaddafi-being-demonized/
4. Rick Rozoff, “Libyan Scenario for Syria: Towards A US-NATO ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ directed against Syria?” Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24562
5. Patrick Henningsten, “WEST vs. CHINA: A NEW COLD WAR BEGINS ON LIBYAN SOIL,” 21st Century Wire: http://21stcenturywire.com/2011/04/12/2577/
6.
For an insightful and informative discussion of this issue see (1) F.
William Engdahl, “Humanitarian Neo-colonialism: Framing Libya and
Reframing War—Creative Destruction Part III,” Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24617; (b) Marjorie Cohn, “The Responsibility to Protect - The Cases of Libya and Ivory Coast,” Counter Punch: http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn05162011.html
