Libya bleeds…
And Europe needs all it’s leaders now to agree and be active about this.
It needs them to be kinda manly.
A bit of big cojones are needed now.
Because a mass atrocity is taking place in Libya right now and its a real crime against humanity, that Europe can prevent from descending into a nasty civil war.
The European leaders need to act now to save lives.
The UN high commissioner for human rights is calling for the Libyan regime to halt it’s offensive against civilians and asks for an investigation into serious crimes against humanity stemming from Libya’s bloody response in the last two weeks of growing democratic protests and freedom seeking demonstrations of the Libyan people.
Peace has been shattered in Libya and the country is on the brink of Civil War and that bodes ill for Europe and the rest of the free world. And for many years Libya has been the centre of the Energy security for Europe providing the floor in sweet crude oil. Always the bottom prices of light crude could be found in Tripoli… and that alone constitutes a debt of honour to the Libyan people.
Now the Libyan government attacks against civilians are with such animosity that are purely criminal in their intensity and in their methods. s an example, they are using advanced warplanes to bomb civilians in their major cities. They are unleashing, helicopter gunships strafing indiscriminately and mercenary troops using live gunfire in the streets, reportedly killing several thousand civilians. And this is a clear crime against humanity.
There has been a heavy government crackdown on protests, however, and demonstrators at the huge anti-government marches in the capital Tripoli, said they came under attack from Libyan air-force fighter jets, helicopter gunships and security forces using live ammunition.
“What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead,” Adel Mohamed Saleh said in a live broadcast.
“Anyone who moves, even if they are in their car, they get hit”
Ali al-Essawi, who resigned as Libyan ambassador to India, also told BBC today, that fighter jets had been used by the government to bomb civilians.
He said live fire was being used against protesters, and that foreigners had been hired to fight on behalf of the government. The former ambassador called the violence “a massacre”, and called on the UN to block Libyan airspace in order to ”protect the people”.
The UN Security Council and Arab League were holding meetings on the crisis as Qadhafi appeared on Libyan national TV saying that he was in Tripoli, directing his army and airforce for a forceful response. In Tripoli and Bengazzi, where protesters are clashing with security forces for the third night in a row, and in a full bloodbath is unfolding, this isn’t welcome news…
Human Rights long held across the world, and long denied to the Libyan people are now sorely tested. Not just the Libyan people’s human rights, but yours and mine.
Cause we are part of that humanity that is violated and raped in Libya tonight.
As expected the most basic human rights are trashed these last few days in Libya and in your home town by definition too.
And we are all Libyans now. And our rights are condemned too.
Let’s start with the right to life that has been taken from the many people of Libya needlessly killed these last few days.
We are sure that what is going on now in Libya is crimes against humanity and not just crimes of war.
In the strongest language yet, the UN Security Council members are calling for some sort of intervention to halt the ongoing atrocities.
And truly, we should not be fooled by Libya’s Maghreb geographic position and cultural proximity to Egypt and Tunisia, nor guided by the debates over how the United States could best help a peaceful protest movement achieve democratic change. Don’t think FB and Twitter and flash mobs are going to do the job here either.
The only appropriate comparison to Libya of today, is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act.
It is time for the United States, NATO, EU, the United Nations and even the Arab League and the African Union, to act forcefully to try to prevent the already bloody situation from degenerating into something much worse. Yet most if not all are loath to help and act forcefully on this occasion.
And that leaves Europe way out on a limb. Because it is Europe’s borders, capacity to absorb a huge wave of refugees and it’s Energy Security that is mostly tested here…
And because these are unsettling times for European defence, border security and energy security as well as the migration patterns from North Africa, the Brussels establishments are shaken to the core. Hope that this will be a wake up call just as much as it should be for the Whitehall, the Reichstag and the Elyse palace. European institutions, mired in bureaucracy, hate change. After all, their whole point and purpose is to protect the status quo without rocking the boat. Keeping Europe fearful of it’s might like a pretend midget.
But times are a changing.
Europe needs to throw it’s own weight around now equitably. Start punching at it’s own weight class. It’s Europe now that saves the Chinese immigrants in Libya from certain harassment and hostage taking. It’s Europe that removes all the foreigners from harm’s way from the ports and airports of Libya… And it’s Europe that needs to remove the Libyans from the clutches of the insane dictator who has no legitimate claim to the helm of this ancient nation.
Let us now get Europe acting like it matters, because since the fall of the Berlin wall, now 20 years ago, the united Europeans, seem to have faced little else but the ceiling of their own lack of imagination to act. They have failed consistently to intervene forcefully on the right side of History and Humanity. And now this Libyan desert mirage present us with a litmus test. We can fail that again… or take it and use it as a golden opportunity to act.
Because with the North African and Middle East conflicts flaring in the midst of a global economic crisis these are only the latest causes for uncertainty and as such offer, the clarion call for immediate action to stem the flow of bad news and replace them with the ebullience of victory. It’s time for Europe to establish a new paradigm for humanitarian intervention and crisis management near at home and at the same time set a new precedent for early prevention of genocide and enforcement of international law. All the while becoming a European force… A power to be reckoned with in the international arena.
Because this is Europe’s problem. And we need to solve it ourselves. We ought to fight the good fight and win. Let’s finally face it.
Or better yet let’s face the facts. The fact that the citizens of Libya they need help to resume their lives in peace and prosperity within their own borders. They need the basic assurance from us who facilitated the economic survival of the regime to help them throw off the yoke of oppression. We need to intervene, lest they all up stakes and take to the sea to move across the pond to Europe for a quiet life of penury and second class citizenry. It is our duty to help them live in their homeland free and unmolested, from the insane dictator. This plays to our interests as well because Europe right about now isn’t ready nor able to deal with a wave of a million strong boat people migrating from North Africa.
A civil war in Libya has to e averted. Not just because Libya’s instability causes the oil price hikes that will shoot down our own economic recovery, threaten our industrial works but also cause energy insecurity but since this was our own doing to begin with – partnering up for our energy with the dictators ad infinitum - we need to shake free both the Libyan people and ourselves from the addiction to fossil fuels.
And since this is a nother big story for another day, the real impetus here is to motivate the European Leaders to act righteously.
To act today for the first time like they’ve never have done before. Like Europe matters and it’s defense surpasses national and parochial petty interests.
Let’s act like our economic recovery matters, not just because removing the crazy dictator is solving both the refugee problem as well as the Energy problem in one stroke at the root of the evil, but because this is the right humanitarian thing to do.
Europe failed to act time and again. Now is our maturity test. Perhaps this is the right of passage for us. We pontificate security and defence at European level since the end of the second world war. To what end?
We failed to reach and active security platform for Europeans, provided by Europeans themselves over and over again. We allowed genocide to happen within the borders of Europe at the end of the millennium and we were only moved by the Americans sending the cavalry and coming to the rescue once more…
And what did this do for us? Not much in the way of building our self esteem.
Because the Balkan wars of the 1990s were both reason and excuse to put off the profound reappraisal of defence and security in Europe for which the end of the Cold War called.
But with the birth of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at St Malo in 1998, some new thinking began gradually to take hold; and over the last decade we have seen the slow emergence of a new policy, based on a number of important insights.
Twenty years old and twenty missions wiser the ESDP is ready and capable to now act decisively and help Libya become free.
After all this being the Mediterranean border of Europe and the Mediterranean Union, maybe its time to test the European metal in this crucible of fire.
Along with testing it’s rapid response force as came into being through the Lisbon treaty and the ESDP [European Security and Defence Policy] Mandate.
And as it turns out, the ESDP mandate is specifically set up for crisis management outside Europe.
Perfect remit for the ESDP is now Libya. A humanitarian crisis unfolding in our neighborhood. European security, therefore, no longer lies in manning the ramparts and preparing to resist invasion. Rather, it requires the means to move out and tackle problems at source – to intervene in crises and areas of instability, often well beyond Europe’s shores. Consequently, Europe needs now to become a more effective contributor to global security – both close to it’s own shores, in order to safeguard its own interests and also to promote its values and institution building. Such a vocation for ESDP, focused on crisis-management operations,in North Africa’s Maghreb where the bulk of our energy security rests for the foreseeable future, sits comfortably alongside the role of NATO and the new pragmatic and economically constrained US foreign policy initiative.
We need to charge forth bringing Democracy to Libya now. And then maybe we can engage in the ”Desertek” and all other energy development projects too.
And for those afraid of an Islamic emirate rising up in a democratic Libya, let me tell them the same we are telling the people fearful of al Qaeda… NON-SENSE
Because the Jasmine Revolution starting from in Tunisia, is not only a seismic event shattering and renewing the Maghreb and central Arab political order, but also is the key watershed moment in confronting the global al Qaeda threat in the Middle East and beyond. It is now the political, economic, and cultural stagnation that’s gone. And this was the food al Qaeda fed off for more than two decades that has now been replaced by the fastest moving change the region has ever witnessed, and hope for the most promising Arab Spring ever.
Because the burgeoning democracy movement across the Maghreb and the Middle East appears to have thrown al Qaeda completely off guard and threatens to reduce the terrorist group to complete irrelevance. Because all f a sudden now Peoples have Hope. And hope means survival for a better tomorrow. Who cares to listen to fretting fervent and feverish ideologues when they have a hopeful future to uphold for themselves and for their families.
Hope and freedom are the best medicines for any political malaise. Get it?
Hope is nature’s way for keeping us active and alive so we can discover nature itself… because hope throws light in the shadows and makes the snakes disappear under whatever rocks they creeped up from.
“If you have freedom, al Qaeda will go away,” said Osama Rushdi, a former Egyptian jihadist.
And that is the best medicine for Libya now too. And Europe has to deliver it to the waiting patients soonest.
Indeed, Europe ought to have a distinctive value-add to contribute to not only Libya but to the whole democratic change taking place across the North Africa and Middle East.
It takes a mature responsible Europe now to act decisively.
A ”Europe of giants”, doing the right thing means simply to be able to deploy not only military means to end the civil war, but also to deploy such civil resources as equitable nation building, Democratic institution building, elections knowledge and infrastructure, and also police and government expertise, along with Foreign Direct Investment, Aid and the most crucial of it all: Fair Trade.
Fair Trade means not dealing with Dictators and Elites alone and screwing the little people mind You. And finally, a giant Europe of 500 million rich consumers, and abundant militaries, can offer effective interventions and efficient use of resources that require Europeans to co-operate more closely, pooling their efforts not just on multinational operations but also in the industry of promoting and delivering Democracy and Security along with Energy Realpolitik crucible of real Life experience and humanitarian help.
Let us stop advocating Democracy from afar and start delivering a measure of it where it is urgently needed. That is the best inoculation against fear and fundamentalism.
Let’s finally see Europe mature into an active power for good here. Let’s see this action supported also by all the 27 states and by the EAS [European External Action Service]. Because the time is ripe. European Energy Security is also at stake here. And what better time to mesh our dependencies with Democracy and fairness?
And for that we need action.
By acting, I mean a response sufficiently forceful and direct to deter or prevent the Libyan regime from using its military resources to butcher its opponents.
NATO has sternly warned Libya against further violence against its people. The UN Secretary General also has spoken bluntly against the regime’s bloodshed machine. And so has finally the Security Council of the United Nations. Qadhafi has now been sufficiently warned…
But making those warnings credible could mean the declaration and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, presumably by NATO, to prevent the use of military aircraft against the protestors. It could also mean a clear declaration that members of the regime and military will be held individually responsible for any future deaths. The US should call for an urgent, immediate Security Council meeting and push for a strong resolution condemning Libya’s use of violence and authorizing targeted sanctions against the regime. Such steps could stand a chance of reversing the course of a rapidly deteriorating situation. An effective international response could not only save many Libyan lives, it might also send a powerful warning to other Arab leaders who might contemplate following suit against their own protest movements.
And we must act because we created this Monster of a freak Dictator Qadhafi. It was the Bush and Blair pair of oil servants that removed the sanctions against Libya in exchange for some oil and gas… It is well-known that Qadhafi’s strength in Africa and in the Arab world was shamefully bolstered by his oil pact with Tony Blair. What a crock of shite that was and we spoke of it back then but Tony was all-powerful and nobody wanted to listen. Even when the one eyed wonder Gordon Brown let go with an out of jail free card, the only Lockerbie bomber held in the UK. Letting him back to Libya as a hero was a really nasty move…
And to know that the whole of Europe failed us then, is proof that it was Italy, France, the UK and Germany that armed Qadhafi’s army and airforce to enable them to kill its opponents wholesale. Bullets from armament manufacturers of Europe and even Sweden and the bullion of EU ant the US is what propped up his regime way past it’s expiration date.
It was Cheney’s bush oil thirst and reversal of reality in 2003, that removed trade sanctions and long in place embargo against the terrorist Gaddafi regime and allowed the US oil companies back in Libya to explore, mine, and export oil and gas. Of course the trend was starting with Halliburton and Texaco/Chevron as well as Exxon Mobil and score of others getting cheap oil and gas from the Libyans.
And from England it was John Brown as CEO of British Petroleum under Tony Blair’s personal deal with the bloody Colonel Qadhafi, that made BP the lead exporter of oil & gas from the desert dictatorship.
And as Americans we ought to feel especially shamed, because eight short years later we have come full circle, watching Gaddafi on TV with horror when he said “I call on those who love Moammar Gaddafi, who represents glory . . . to come out of your houses and attack” the anti-regime demonstrators. He would not resign, he said, because “Moammar Gaddafi is not the president, he is not a normal human being.”
That much we agree. That Gaddafi is not a normal human being for sure, but for most of the past decade we made believe he was. And that makes us abnormal too.
After the US army made short shrift of Saddam Hussein’s forces in 2003, Gaddafi approached British intelligence and sought to reform himself. Kinda like he said he wanted to come in from the cold. He agreed, after negotiations conducted largely by the CIA and London’s MI6, to abandon terrorism and hand over to the US his programs for developing missiles and weapons of mass destruction. And that was accepted at face value and was proven to be his meal ticket. Libya apparently, stopped seeking WMDs and made some payments to the families of the Pan-Am downed flight over Lockerbie and gave up the chief airplane terror suspect to Scotland. In exchange, the US normalized trade, directed FDI to the oil industry of Libya and even sent an ambassador to Tripoli and allowed Libya to open up an embassy in Washington. All sanctions ended and a strange love-fest ensued between the Republican Neo-Cons and the lunatic tent dweller with the Ukrainian chick bodyguards.
Further along the US stopped blocking Libyan efforts to join United Nations committees, and in 2008 Libya even served for a month as president of the Security Council. [YES astonishing eh ???]
That same year, in 2003 the mighty US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya amid fanfare and secured oil deals for Chevron, Halliburton, Exxon Mobil and Texaco among others… She even strangely enough, encouraged Libya to get more involved in Africa. Gaddafi went so far on that advise as to take the helm of the African Union and cause a hell of a mess there too.
The US also restrained its criticism of Gaddafi’s internal repression and disregarded the brutal regimes murderous suppression of human rights same as it did across all of the Middle East and in every country that produces oil and gas and supplies with it the US. The agreement with Gaddafi that came in 2003, was the same. But it was also delivered the very same year that President George W. Bush delivered his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy saying surreally that “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.”
WOW !
If only Bush knew what he was saying… or what he was doing…
In just hindsight it was all a terrible mistake.
Wouldn’t you say?
No?
Now we must pay back for dealing with the devil, making him rich and arrogant and even giving him French Mirage advanced fighter airplanes to shoot his own people… That to a renown terrorist. Tony Blair and George Bush would have you believe the Michael Jackson wannabe, otherwise known as demented rag head asshole, was reformed.
Well in my book, once a terrorist – always a terrorist…
Commercial support, political tolerance and economic support of bloody dictators is not a good long term policy for anyone. Especially when the transfer of wealth is so massive that allows them to buy out or militarily circumvent basic democratic processes and any and political reform movements.
This is what we’ve done for far too long. Time for change…
Yes.
Now we must repair the damage we’ve done.
Let’s start with a quieting down of his airforce…
A complete No Fly Zone over Libya, can be a useful way to intervene to stop the killing of civilians and peaceful citizens by Qadhafi’s dictatorial regime.
I am not so sure though that it will shift the balance of the imminent civil war.
While it is true that some of the slaughter of civilian demonstrators, has been perpetrated by the Libyan air forces, air assets alone are not responsible for the killing. Qadhafi and his inner circle are intent on violently suppressing this revolt, and they will use their superior ground forces as well, as their foreign missionaries and killing fields mercenaries.
A No Fly Zone is a humanitarian half measure.
And it might let the international community say that it is doing something, but there is very little a No Fly Zone can actually do to stop ongoing slaughter. Comparisons to preventable slaughters of the 1990s, like the April 1994 Hutus’ conducting mass killings of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus, billed as traitors and collaborationists. is what the Europeans and especially Belgians [Colonists of Rwanda] ought to remember. European people need to ask themselves now: What we should do?
And can we enforce a no-fly zone now in Libya?
But thinking back to Rwanda: Would this action alone, have stopped the machete and AK-47 wielding Hutus from perpetrating the Rwandan genocide? Definitely not.
And even within European soil in Bosnia the No fly zone alone wasn’t adequate at all. Because in Bosnia, there was an effective NATO enforced ”no fly zone” over then Yugoslavia in 1995 when the Srebrenica massacre occurred. And even during the 1999 Kosovo air campaign, as NATO was bombing Serbia, Serb forces accelerated their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Ultimately ”No Fly Zones” may be good at enforcing a stalemate like interwar Iraq, but it is a rather lousy measure of preventing mass slaughter.
This is not to say there is no utility in trying to enforce one over Libya—as Marc Lynch says, it could be one of several demonstrations of the resolve of the international community [along with multilateral sanctions and, perhaps, a Security Council referral to the ICC] But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that a no-fly zone is an effective humanitarian response to a mass slaughter event. It is a gesture. Not a response.
If stopping a slaughter is our top priority, then a more robust response is probably required. That means not just preventing airplanes and attack helicopters from flying over Libya, but defeating the Libyan military infrastructure that is perpetrating the violence.
The word for that is rapid military peace keeping intervention. But very much like going at war footing abroad…
While a UN/US/EU/NATO backed military intervention might be effective at halting the ongoing violence, it may also undermine some of the longer-term goals of a nascent democracy movement in Libya.
After all, the United States/NATO would be intervening on behalf of one side of a civil war (that’s true, even if the level of intervention is only to enforce a No Fly Zone). Given the level of mistrust of the United States, such overt support for the Qadhafi opposing side may backfire — not to mention the fact that people generally don’t like to be bombed by foreigners.
And this puts the brakes in the works really…
Because this is the big policy dilemma facing Europe, NATO, the allies and the international community, but especially the United States. Especially now that Ms Clinton articulated the US response succinctly thus: ”As pro-democracy protests spread around the world, the US State Department today issued its strongest words to date about the situation, offering “to stand by whichever side winds up winning…”
Reasoning well that to intervene forcefully in order to stop the slaughter and risk undermining the long-term prospects for democracy is wrong, the US and Clinton choose to let them fight it out amongst themselves.
But to “stand by” and watch the Libyan military and Qadhafi’s foreign mercenaries, massacre thousands of people is even worse.
Between two evils you choose the lesser one. Right?
Wrong.
Because there is another alternative here. One that presents a unique opportunity for Europe if we can grab it.
And here is where Europe is far more able to act in concert without the interventionist baggage carried by the US.
And with the pragmatic Obama administration this would make a good partnership for long term goal building for Security andcooperation in an increasingly multipolar and fragile world.
It’s Europe’s time.
Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has so far rejected fear.
An insurrection born out of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun.
We need to support it now and nurture it.
Can we grasp the opportunity now?
Yours,
Pano
PS:
That’s probably why Europe must act.
And also why we should be prepared to go whole hog.
No half measures like ”No Fly Zone” that seem to be attractive right now, because it will allow all sorts of European inaction and hesitation to take hold.
Because these are times for decisive bold action, and because if stopping an ongoing slaughter is our top priority, then a European robust response is all that’s required.
That means not just preventing airplanes and attack helicopters from flying over Libya and killing it’s people indiscriminately, but defeating the Libyan military infrastructure attached to the Dictator’s gold, that is perpetrating the violence. Removing the militias and the mercenaries is a job for an expeditionary Pan-European army unit. The word for that in other contexts might be foreign war, but in this case its an express humanitarian intervention and a defensive security action as well.
Because we are deluding ourselves if we think that Qadhafi alone or our suggestions and stern warnings, will stop the slaughter or serve the long term interests of Libya.
We need forceful action now.
Because it will first serve the best interests of Human Rights, Democracy and a peaceful future for the Libyan people and Europeans alike.
And alongside those it will help our failing ”intellect accompanied by strength trade balance” too. Somewhat of the carrot and stick combination doctrine that works wonders for little errant boys…
Because it will allow us to export the progressive Western values, equitable economic development, a rising middle class of hopeful citizenry attached to their dreams and nation and long term Democratic institutions, while importing peace, energy security and safe borders for the continent.
Time to man up
