WikiLeaks cables expose
Washington’s close ties to Gaddafi
By Bill Van Auken
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26236
Global Research, August 27, 2011
US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday
and Thursday expose the close collaboration between the US government,
top American politicians and Muammar Gaddafi, who Washington now insists
must be hunted down and murdered.
Washington and its NATO allies are now determined to
smash the Libyan regime, supposedly in the interests of “liberating” the
Libyan people. That Gaddafi was until the beginning of this year viewed
as a strategic, if somewhat unreliable, ally is clearly seen as an
inconvenient truth.
The cables have been virtually blacked out by the
corporate media, which has functioned as an embedded asset of NATO and
the so-called rebel forces that it directs. It is hardly coincidental
that the WikiLeaks posting of the cables was followed the next day by a
combination of a massive denial of service attack and a US judge’s use
of the Patriot Act to issue a sweeping “production order” or subpoena
against the anti-secrecy organization’s California-based Domain Name
Server, Dynadot.
The most damning of these cables
memorializes an August 2009 meeting between Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi and his son and national security adviser, Muatassim, with US
Republican Senators John McCain (Arizona), Lindsey Graham (South
Carolina), Susan Collins (Maine) and Connecticut “independent” Joe
Lieberman.
McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in
2008, has in recent speeches denounced Gaddafi as “one of the most
bloodthirsty dictators on Earth” and criticized the Obama administration
for failing “to employ the full weight of our airpower” in effecting
regime change in Libya.
In the meeting held just two years ago, however,
McCain took the lead in currying favor with the Gaddafis. According to
the embassy cable, he “assured” them that “the United States wanted to
provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its security” and “pledged
to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress.”
The cable continues to relate McCain’s remarks: “He
encouraged Muatassim to keep in mind the long-term perspective of
bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will
emerge from time to time that can be overcome. He described the
bilateral military relationship as strong and pointed to Libyan officer
training at U.S. Command, Staff, and War colleges as some of the best
programs for Libyan military participation.”
The cable quote Lieberman as saying, “We never would
have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being
welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi.” It states that the Connecticut
senator went on to describe Libya as “an important ally in the war on
terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.”
The “common enemies” referred to by Lieberman were
precisely the Islamist forces concentrated in eastern Libya that the US
then backed Gaddafi in repressing, but has now organized, armed and led
in the operation to overthrow him.
The US embassy summarized: “McCain’s meetings with
Muammar and Muatassim al-Qadhafi were positive, highlighting the
progress that has been made in the bilateral relationship. The meetings
also reiterated Libya’s desire for enhanced security cooperation,
increased assistance in the procurement of defense equipment, and
resolution to the C130s issue” (a contract that went unfulfilled because
of previous sanctions).
Another cable issued on the same meeting deals with
McCain’s advice to the Gaddafis about the upcoming release from a
Scottish prison of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who had been convicted for the
1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. McCain, who now
fulminates about Gaddafi having “American blood on his hands,” counseled
the Libyan leader that the release was a “very sensitive issue” in the
US and that he should handle it discreetly, “in a way that would
strengthen the growing relationship between our two countries, rather
than hinder its progress.” Ultimately Gaddafi and other leading Libyan
officials gave a hero’s welcome to Megrahi, who has proclaimed his
innocence and had been set to have his appeal heard when the Scottish
government released him.
Other cables highlight the increasingly close
US-Libyan military and security cooperation. One, sent in February 2009,
provides a “security environment profile” for Libya. It notes that US
personnel were “scheduled to provide 5 training courses to host
government law enforcement and security” the next month. In answer to
whether the Libyan government had been able to “score any major
anti-terrorism successes,” the embassy praised the Gaddafi regime for
having “dismantled a network in eastern Libya that was sending volunteer
fighters to Algeria and Iraq and was plotting attacks against Libyan
security targets using stockpiled explosives. The operation resulted in
the arrest of over 100 individuals.” Elements of this same “network”
make up an important component of the “rebels” now armed and led by
NATO.
Asked by the State Department if there existed any
“indigenous anti-American terrorist groups” in the country, the embassy
replied “yes”, pointing to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG),
which it noted had recently announced its merger with Al Qaeda in the
Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Again, elements of the LIFG are
active in the leadership of the so-called rebels.
An April 2009 cable preparing Muatassim Gaddafi’s
trip to Washington that month stresses plans for anti-terrorist training
for Libyan military officers and potential arms deals. In its
conclusion the embassy states: “The visit offers an opportunity to meet a
power player and potential future leader of Libya. We should also view
the visit as an opportunity to draw out Muatassim on how the Libyans
view ‘normalized relations’ with the U.S. and, in turn, to convey how we
view the future of the relationship as well. Given his role overseeing
Libya’s national security apparatus, we also want his support on key
security and military engagement that serves our interests.”
A May 2009 cable details a cordial hour-long meeting
between Gaddafi and the then-head of the US Africa Command, General
William Ward.
An August 2008 cable, a “scene setter” for the
“historic visit” of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Tripoli,
declares that “Libya has been a strong partner in the war against
terrorism and cooperation in liaison channels is excellent ...
Counter-terrorism cooperation is a key pillar of the U.S.-Libya
bilateral relationship and a shared strategic interest.”
Many of the cables deal with opportunities for US
energy and construction firms to reap “bonanzas” in the North African
country and note with approval privatization efforts and the setting up
of a Tripoli stock exchange.
Others, however, express concern, not about the
Gaddafi regime’s repressive measures, but rather foreign policy and oil
policy moves that could prejudice US interests. Thus, an October 2008
cable, cynically headlined “AL-QADHAFI: TO RUSSIA, WITH LOVE?” expresses
US concern about the Gaddafi regime’s approach to Russia for lucrative
arms purchases and a visit to Tripoli harbor by a flotilla of Russian
warships. One month later, during a visit to Moscow, Gaddafi discussed
with the Putin regime the prospect of the Russian navy establishing a
Mediterranean port in the city of Benghazi, setting off alarm bells at
the Pentagon.
Cables from 2008 and 2009 raise concerns about US
corporations not getting in on “billions of dollars in opportunities”
for infrastructure contracts and fears that the Gaddafi regime could
make good on the Libyan leader’s threat to nationalize the oil sector or
utilize the threat to extract more favorable contracts from the foreign
energy corporations.
The cables underscore the hypocrisy of the US and its
allies in Britain, France and Italy, who have championed “regime
change” in the name of protecting Libyan civilians and promoting
“democracy.”
Those like Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Berlusconi who
have branded Gaddafi a criminal to be hunted down and murdered were all
his accomplices. All of them collaborated with, armed and supported the
Gaddafi regime, as US and European corporations reaped vast profits
from Libya’s oil wealth.
In the end, they seized upon the upheavals in the
region and the anti-Gaddafi protests in Libya as the opportunity to
launch a war to establish outright semi-colonial control over the
energy-rich country and rid themselves of an ally who was never seen as
fully reliable or predictable and upset his patrons with demands for
better deals with big oil, closer ties with Russia and China and the
threat of replacing the euro and dollar with a “gold dinar.”
