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THE ROVING EYE Let's start by invoking a
Western cultural icon, Dante; "Abandon all hope ye
who enter here" - because international law as we
know it has just been delivered a stake through
its heart. The "new" sociopolitical Darwinism
entails humanitarian neo-colonialism, targeted
assassinations - extrajudicial executions - and
drone wars, all carried out in the name of a
revamped white man's burden.
In the
whirlwind of lies and hypocrisy engulfing the
Osama bin Laden hit job, the key justice-related
fact is how an unarmed man, codename "Geronimo",
was captured live then summarily
executed in front of one of
his daughters - after a lightning-quick invasion
of a theoretically "sovereign" country.
As
for the quagmire war waged by the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) against Libya, the fact
is that Western public opinion was fed a military
attack against a sovereign country that has
committed no violation of the United Nations
charter. Talk about a wolf - neo-colonialism - in
sheep's clothing - "humanitarian war".
At
the heart of the matter is the concept itself of
international law - adopted by all "civilized"
nations, as well as what constitutes a just war.
Yet for Western ruling elites this is just a
detail; there has been no high-level debate on the
implications of an United Nations-justified NATO
war whose ultimate - and always unstated -
objective is regime change.
Tomahawk
Darwinism The dirty operation in northern
Africa reveals itself to be even nastier when it
has been proved that the war on Libya was
initially conceptualized by dubious French
interests; that Saudi Arabia delivered a fake Arab
League vote for the US because it wanted to get
rid of Muammar Gaddafi and at the same time have a
free hand in smashing pro-democracy protests in
Bahrain; that Libya offers the perfect possibility
for the Pentagon's Africom to have an African
base; that a dodgy bunch of "rebels" hijacked
legitimate protests, with Gaddafi defectors,
al-Qaeda-linked jihadis and exiles such as Central
Intelligence Agency asset General Khalifa Hifter,
who had lived for nearly 20 years in Virginia,
taking over.
The going got even nastier
when one learned that on March 19 the
Washington/London/Paris financial elites
authorized the Central Bank of Benghazi to have
its own - Western dictated - monetary policy,
unlike the state-owned, and fully independent,
Libyan national bank in Tripoli; Gaddafi wanted to
get rid of both the US dollar and the euro and
switch to the gold dinar as an African common
currency - and many governments were already on
board.
The war on Libya has been globally
sold under the slogan R2P - Responsibility to
Protect - a "new" humanitarian imperialist concept
that in Washington was brandished with relish by
three Amazon cheerleaders; US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, US ambassador to the UN Susan
Rice and presidential adviser Samantha Power.
Large swathes of the developing world -
the real "international community", not that
fiction in the pages of Western mainstream media -
saw it for what it is; the end of the concept of
national sovereignty, as in a clever "reframing"
completely blurring the original Article 2,
Section 1 of the UN Charter principle of sovereign
equality of states.
They saw that the
"deciders" on R2P were exclusively Washington and
a bunch of European capitals. They saw that Libya
was slapped with NATO bombing - but not Bahrain,
Yemen or Syria. They saw the "deciders" made no
effort whatsoever to negotiate a ceasefire inside
Libya - ignoring plans by Turkey and the African
Union (AU).
And power players Moscow and
Beijing of course could not fail to see that R2P
could be invoked in the case of unrest in Tibet
and Xinjiang - and the next step would be NATO
troops inside Chinese territory. Same to what
concerns Chechnya - with the additional Western
hypocritical factor that Chechens have for years
been armed by NATO via al-Qaeda-linked networks in
the Caucasus/Central Asia.
Even South
American players could not fail to see R2P invoked
in the long run for a "humanitarian" NATO
intervention in Venezuela or Bolivia.
So
this is the new meaning of "international law":
Washington - via Africom or NATO - intervenes
anyway, with or without a UN Security Council
resolution, in the name of R2P, and everyone keeps
silent on collateral damage, on bombing a regime
while denying the objective is regime change, on
not helping boatloads of refugees stranded in the
Mediterranean.
As for why Gaddafi gets the
boot while the al-Khalifas in Bahrain, Saleh in
Yemen and Bashar al-Assad in Syria get away with
it - that's simple; you're not an evil dictator if
you're one of "our" bastards - that is, play by
"our" rules. The destiny of "independents" such as
Gaddafi is to become toast. It helps if you
already have a key US military base in your
country - as with the al-Khalifas and the US 5th
Fleet.
If the al-Khalifas were not US
lackeys and there was no US military base,
Washington would have no problems selling an
intervention in favor of the peaceful, largely
Shi'ite pro-democracy protesters against a ghastly
Sunni tyranny which needs the House of Saud to
repress its own people.
Then there are the
legalese aspects. Imagine putting Gaddafi on
trial. Martial court or civil court? A kangaroo
court - a la Saddam Hussein – or offering him all
the "civilized" means to defend himself? And how
to prosecute crimes against humanity beyond
reasonable doubt? How to use testimonies obtained
under torture, sorry, "enhanced interrogation"?
And for how long? Years? How many witnesses?
Thousands?
It's much easier to solve it
all with a Tomahawk - or a bullet in the head -
and then call it "justice".
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