The most probable motive for the U.S. participation in the
Libyan "humanitarian" campaign pertains to the refusal of Gadhafi to support
American plans for the region and his attempts to create an independent Africa
free of American influence. He had
challenged the institutions of global capital such as the World Bank, IMF and
WTO and has refused to join American military alliances, in particular,
AFRICOM. As well, Gadhafi was
campaigning in African nations to transfer their currency to a common currency
called the dinar, forcing the United States to purchase oil from African
countries in gold dinars.
It is clear that the U.S. and NATO forces had no intention
of complying with Resolution 1973 and embarked on their own agenda to support
the rebels in their campaign to overthrow Gadhafi. Barak Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas
Sarkozy wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times on April 15, 2011, in which
they stated that: "But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with
Qaddafi in power"any deal that leaves him in power would lead to further
chaos"so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its operations." It is clear that the three NATO leaders had
an agenda that exceeded that UN mandate and that the removal of Qaddafi from
power violated the UN resolution and was hence in violation of international
law.
It is a highly probable that the rebels would not have
succeeded without CIA training and support, weapons from the NATO countries and
NATO air cover. On November 12, 20-11,
the Economist reported that: "The Libyan rebels who triumphed in their
six-month uprising against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi could not have prevailed
without arms, air cover, funding and diplomatic support from NATO and Arab
allies."
Furthermore, it is clear from Amnesty International reports
that innocent people were targeted without any reasonable justification as
reported in an AI study in March 2012 which disclosed that: "Dozens of
civilians have been killed in NATO airstrikes on private homes in residential
and rural areas where Amnesty International, UN experts, other international
NGOs and journalists found no evidence of military objectives at the strike
locations at the time of the strikes."
These actions constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
As well, NATO warplanes bombed the pipe factory in Brega
killing six people. These pipes were
used to repair the man-made irrigation system that supplies water to 70% of the
Libyan people and is critical to repairing and maintaining their water supply.
Reinforcing the suspicion that the U.S. and NATO leaders
were embarked on a mission to remove Gaddafi from power and to establish a more
Western-friendly leader for the purpose of securing access to Libya's oil
wealth was the speedy recognition of the NTC and its appointment of the latest
prime minister, Abdurrahim El Keib.
The Western-approved government, consisting of the NTC, has
drafted election laws that will exclude a majority of Libyans from running for
office. According to the Wall Street
Journal (January 3, 2012), the new election law: "appears most ambitious"in
laying out more than 20 classes of people who will be prohibited to stand as
candidates in the vote" and "Could be used to against three-quarters of the
country." It contains no representatives
of the Berbers (Amazigh), Touareg, Tebou or any "black' or non-Arab
Libyans. As well, the Guardian
(January 12, 2012) claims that: "The TNC refuses to say who its members
are"Although it appointed a cabinet last month, policy decisions are taken
inside what amounts to a black box"Meeting are held in secret, voting records
are not published."
In addition to the new electoral laws, the new prime
minister, El Keib: "has sent Libya on a bumpy road towards democracy by naming
a cabinet of secularists and thereby snubbing prominent Islamists" according to
the Guardian (November 2011). The
Guardian claims that: "The cabinet is likely to find approval from Libya's
Western backers, concerned about hardline Islamists. Such a move might be welcomed by his Western supporters
but will trigger strong opposition from the Islamists especially since they
were an important part of the revolution against Gaddafi."
The most revealing manifestation of the NATO agenda to
establish a Western-oil-friendly government in Libya is the background of the
people who have assumed leadership roles in the post-Gadhafi Libya.
The current president, Abdurrahim El Keib, who has been in
the United States since 1975, was chosen by the NTC on October 31, 2011. He was a professor of Electrical Engineering
at the University of Alabama where his research was sponsored by such entities
as the Electric Power research Institute, the United States department of
Energy and the Alabama Power Company. In
2006, he resigned his position at the University of Alabama to become the Chair
of the Electrical Engineering of the Petroleum institute in the UAE which is
funded by several international oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP,
Total and the Japan Oil development Company and has connections to the
University of Maryland, University of Texas at Austin and Rice University. In the summer of 2011, he quit his position
at the Institute to join the NTC after a 36 year absence from Libya.
According to Indira A. R. Lakshmanan in an article published
by the Bloomberg News on March 8, 2012, El Keib: "Appealed to U.S. companies
such [as] Exxon Mobil Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to invest in his oil-rich
country, saying [that] Italian and French companies are already moving quickly
to take advantage of opportunities in energy and infrastructure. El Keib also made his case for investment to
190 executives from 100 U.S. companies."
Another key figure in the rebellion is Mahmoud Jibril who
served as the interim Prime Minister as a member of the NTC for a period seven
and one half months during the civil war.
He did his graduate studies in the U.S. at the University of Pittsburgh
finishing in 1985, followed by a number of years of teaching at the same
university under Richard Cottam, a former U.S. intelligence officer. From 2007 to 2011, he served in the Gaddafi
Regime as Head of the National Economic Development Board. According to the Boston Globe (March 28,
2011), Jibril: "played a key role in persuading the United States and its
allies" to militarily intervene against Gaddafi.
In a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable written on November 2009,
Gene Cretz, America's ambassador to Libya, described Jibril as: "as serious
interlocutor who "gets' the US perspective."
In the cable, Jibril also regrets that: "The US spoiled a golden
opportunity to capitalize on its "soft power' after the fall of the Soviet
Union in 1989 by putting "boots on the ground' in the Middle East."
Kalifa Haftar was appointed leader of Libya's opposition
military forces by the NTC. As another
Libyan ex-pat living in the United States since the early 1990s until his
return after the February 127th uprising, Haftar lived in Suburban Virginia
only a few miles from Langley, suspiciously unemployed for the entire period of
his stay.
In an article published in the Washington Times on March 26,
1996, it was reported that: "Many Libyans believe that [there is] a plan to
overthrow Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi and that its leader is Col. Khalifa
Haftar, a contra-style group based in the United states called the Libyan
national Army." Le Monde Diplomatique
published a chapter out of the book Manipulations Africaines indicating that: "Haftar
created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help
of the CIA. As well, the Jamestown
Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., published a study in which it reported
that: "Not only did the CIA sponsor and fund the LNA (Libyan National Army), it
engineered the entry of the LNA officers and men into the United States where
they established a training camp."
Hence three of the high ranking members of the Libyan
opposition spent an extended period of time in the United States and two of
them conveniently appeared just when they were needed in the civil war. All of them have close ties to various
institutions in the U.S.
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