THE
ROVING EYE Mission regime
change By Pepe Escobar
To follow Pepe's articles on the Great
Arab Revolt, please click here.
How to turn a ''kinetic military action''
- which is not a war - into some sort of endgame,
by bending a United Nations resolution that was
allegedly passed to minimize a humanitarian
threat? You write a lame op-ed. Just ask The Three
Amigos - US President Barack Obama, UK Prime
Minister David Cameron and neo-Napoleonic French
President Nicolas Sarkozy.
In a joint
article published last Friday, The Three Amigos
insisted they don't want to remove Libya's Muammar
Gaddafi by force. But they also insist bringing
democracy by bombing will continue
(allegedly to protect
democracy-seeking civilians). And continue they
will because Gaddafi must ''go and go for good''.
So much for the original UN mandate. So
much for a real ceasefire. The ''enlightened''
West and its coalition of the semi-willing does
not do ceasefires, although the BRICS nations -
top emerging powers Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa - have officially condemned the
bombing and called for a much-needed reform of the
UN Security council.
Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev accused the minuscule coalition of
the semi-willing and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) of being the weaponized arm of
the ''rebels''. In his words, ''the UN forces
should help disengage the parties, and in any case
should not assist any of the parties.''
As
far as Washington, London and Paris go, that's
irrelevant. So now it's official. The bombing goes
until Gaddafi is removed. Welcome to Mission
Regime Change.
History repeats itself
It's no surprise UN resolution 1973
reveals itself to be a farce - as much as the
manufactured Libyan ''revolution'', which has
essentially orchestrated by French intelligence,
British MI6 and the US Central Intelligence Agency
since Gaddafi's former chief of protocol, Nuri
Mesmari, defected to Paris in October 2010.
Dodgy exiles abound - from the
British-supported network of Prince Mohammed
el-Senoussi, currently exiled in London, to
Khalifa Hilter, a CIA asset until recently exiled
near Langley, Virginia and self-appointed
''military commander'' of the ''rebels''.
The ''rebels'' now expect that the no-fly
zone ramblingly implemented by NATO will translate
- farcically - into a weapons supply channel; a
21st-century rerun of the arming of the mujahideen
in Afghanistan during the 1980s, with Britain,
France and Qatar playing the former starring roles
of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US.
And
there will be (Western) boots on the ground -
sooner rather than later, as the narrative is
already being spun across Atlanticist corporate
media.
Next glorious chapter: a column of
glorious M1 Abrams tanks taking Tripoli in
chivalric mood, with the rag-tag
''revolutionaries'' showered with flowers (''If
you're going / to Tripolitania / be sure to wear /
some flowers in your hair''). It didn't work in
Baghdad in 2003 under neo-conservative patronage;
it might as well work in Tripoli under
humanitarian imperialism.
With the
''rebels'' under this Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds-style spell, no wonder the African Union
(AU) mission trying to establish a ceasefire
floundered. What these rebels with a cause don't
know is that their masters' cause prevails. They
are rebels as much expendable as were the
Nicaragua contras and the Afghan mujahideen.
Take me to Somalia No wonder
the apocalyptic theme of the moment is
''Somalia''. On March 2, US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton warned that Libya might become ''a
giant Somalia". On March 30, former foreign
minister and now prized defector Moussa Koussa
said he feared civil war, under which ''Libya
would be a new Somalia".
The Africom, then
NATO, ''humanitarian intervention'' is actually
creating the conditions of a Somalia. The wall of
mistrust between the Gaddafi regime and the
''rebels'' is insurmountable, bound to degenerate
into a Somalia.
Gaddafi's repression of
what was essentially a military coup morphed into
an armed rebellion has been of course brutal. But
that never warranted a definition of genocide - or
was enough to justify R2P (''responsibility to
protect''). By the same standard, the UN would
have to vote for a NATO-enforced no fly zone if
China threatened to repress an insurrection in
Tibet.
And frankly, R2P enforced by
bombing is a cruel, tragic joke. Even more when
compared with the UN's - and NATO's - non-reaction
to a real massacre, the 1991 hardcore repression
by Saddam Hussein of mass rebellions in both
northern and southern Iraq, when over 200,000
people were actually killed, not arguably a few
thousand as in Libya.
In Iraq in 1991,
Washington had vociferously incited the Shi'ites
to rebel against Saddam - just as the CIA today
helps the Libyan ''rebels'' against Gaddafi. Yet
when push came to shove, Washington did absolutely
nothing. And to top it off, a no-fly zone was in
effect (the Americans lifted it so Saddam's
gunships could massacre Shi'ites in peace). Farce,
farce, utmost farce.
The Pentagon
agenda As far as the Pentagon is
concerned, Gaddafi is a serious nuisance. He's
blocking the ''progress'' of Africom; he's in
charge of a strategic stretch of the
Mediterranean; and he's made deals with China. As
a nationalist with a pan-African streak, allowing
China access to the Mediterranean, he's the
ultimate scourge of Africom's agenda of
militarizing Africa for American benefit. So he
has to be at least isolated.
But the fall
of Gaddafi is not a priority. The Pentagon would
rather deal - or not deal - with a cornered
Gaddafi in an impoverished Tripolitania than face
a powerful, unified Libya that in the future might
stand up again against Western imperialist
designs. The Pentagon ''votes'' for balkanization.
For the moment, the Pentagon - via Africom
and NATO - is just taking care of the Big Picture
in the air and in the seas, while subcontracting
possible ground operations to European minions.
Things are going great - as in the partition of
Sudan and the possible Somalia scenario in Libya.
When the boots hit the ground they will be
provided by the European minions; see the French
example in the Ivory Coast.
What comes
ahead may be even messier. NATO as a weaponized
arm of the UN is already a fact on the ground. If
NATO gets rid of Gaddafi, the next target is
Syria. As much as Libya allows Chinese trade
access to the southern Mediterranean, Syria allows
the Russian Navy access to the eastern
Mediterranean.
The Pentagon / NATO /
Africom agenda is and will always remain the same.
To prevent real emancipation of the Arab world. To
prevent real emancipation and unity of Africa. For
all his serious flaws as a ruler, Gaddafi was a
bad example. With the ghastly IMF blackmailing
poor African countries, Gaddafi instead financed
African development projects.
This is not
only about Libya - far from it. This is the
message of the ruling elites in Washington - and
their satrapies in London and Paris - for Africa.
We're going flat out for the military subjugation
of Africa, and for the control of Africa's natural
resources. Keep doing deals with China, and this
is what you get. With NATO as global Robocop,
nothing can stop us - with or without regime
change, but always under the cover of farce.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
