2. Beware of wishful illusions over a heroic "rising of the masses'
There was no such spontaneous uprising in Libya. The opposition factions were well established (if disunited) before 2011 and the creation of the NATO-backed "National Transitional Council' (NTC): Islamic groups, exile groups armed by the US from the 1980s, Benghazi clans, including those linked to the deposed monarchy (5) along with technocrats who recently defected from Gaddafi's government and wanted fuller engagement with western capital (notably Mahmoud Jibril and Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, along with the late Abdul Fatah Younis, murdered in July by his TNC colleagues) (6). It is no coincidence that those same groups, having prevailed only because of NATO air power, are now warring, not only with Gaddafi loyalists, but amongst themselves, over the spoils (7).
3. "Eccentric' foreign leaders are not fair game for murder
Gaddafi certainly ran a different political system to the alleged western "democracies' (which reify a nominal vote plus corporate dictatorship). While the point of international relations has never been whether outsiders agree with a national system, the Libyan system did have some advantages. Libya under Gaddafi, had a high degree of social inclusion and social citizenship. There was a free education and health system, cheap energy and credit and most owned their own homes. Libya's human development ranking under Gaddafi was by far the best in Africa (8). Further, a UN Human Rights Council report in January 2011 recognised and supported a range of human rights developments in the country (9). All that was gone after the NATO-backed insurrection, complete with missile and drone attacks, carpet bombing, the slaughter of tens of thousands (western audiences have become accustomed to this) and the public assassination of the leader of a non-aggressive regime. Branding a foreign leader a "dictator' has become the new "license to kill'.
4. Why see "humanitarian intervention' as a desirable development?
The only regimes advocating "humanitarian intervention' are the imperial powers and the former colonists (10). We know what their track record is (11). They habitually seek to control resources and markets, and to dominate entire regions. Why should any intelligent human being believe in the "Santa Claus' theory of international relations? It should have been no surprise to anyone that the NATO-dependent rebels, early in the conflict, offered a large swag of their country's strategic resources to a certain NATO member, in exchange for military backing (12).
5. Beware the imperial role of UN agencies, including the ICC
While the UN's Security Council did not authorise the bombing of Libya and "regime change', it did give NATO the proverbial foot in the door. Other multilateral agencies, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (in the constant attacks on Iran) and the International Criminal Court (which appears to only prosecute African leaders) are now heavily compromised by the big powers. In the Libyan case the ICC head Luis Moreno-Ocampo even backed US accusations against Gaddafi which had embarrassed the Europeans (13). But then, as Wikileaks showed, as early as March 2009 Moreno-Ocampo had been collaborating with US diplomats over the management of political regime change in Africa (14)
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