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May 21, 2013
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 Unexpected Revelations in Libya InterventionPosted on Mar 29, 2011MUNICH—Events surrounding the military intervention in Libya these last two weeks, and what already has happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, and what continues elsewhere in the region, have produced two unplanned but important results. The always-implausible notion that the European Union could have a common foreign policy has been exploded. Since early in the Libyan crisis, France and Britain have conducted an effective joint policy, with common goals and a shared main thrust, which has continued through the Barack Obama speech of March 28 and the following day’s London meeting to create an international “contact group” for clarifying, if possible, allied interests and intentions. Germany has also demonstrated that it has a clear and reasonable foreign policy, which is not to go to war. Under intense American pressure, it assumed a military role in Afghanistan that it did not and does not want, and that it now intends to terminate. Such is the will of the German majority. Chancellor Angela Merkel abstained on the U.N. resolution for Libyan intervention, and Germany takes no part in it. Anyone (in this age bereft of historical consciousness) who retains a trace of memory of the 20th century prior to 1945 will rejoice that modern Germany as a nation hates war. Germany’s national model of peace and social and economic justice is an edifying example, and if this is accompanied by a certain sanctimoniousness and condescension toward others, and a lack of grace in dealing with nations less diligent than Germany in the arts of money-making, like Greece and Portugal, then this is the price paid. Other Europeans have shown they are reluctant to make war unless under American command, which is because of their historical memories of being under French, British or German command. This again is reasonable in principle but likely to be invalidated by the confusion and failure of existing (and recent) American foreign policy in the Arab region, and in the developing Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Advertisement The U.S. joined the military effort, under pressure from the smaller European powers that sought American or NATO command, providing a U.S. naval/air combat control facility in the Mediterranean. This allowed the press to describe the military effort as “American-led” and the president, in his speech Monday evening, to claim personal responsibility for the intervention: “I refused to let [a massacre] happen. ... I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. ... I authorized military action.” Actually NATO will not assume full control of the operation until Wednesday, March 30. Where these military operations against Col. Moammar Gadhafi will lead remains a question certainly being asked in Washington, where President Obama claims responsibility for the intervention and its leadership and simultaneously searches for a rapid way out of it—particularly should Libya’s leadership not collapse within the next few days, and the hirsute Libyan colonel remain in place. Obama might have better ignored the demands by the American press, and the Republican (and liberal-humanitarian) hawks in Washington, for dramatic American leadership, and instead allowed French President Nicolas Sarkozy (and his companion in arms, the French celebrity “philosopher” Bernard-Henri Levy, who led the demand for intervention), together with Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, to have the glory, if glory there is to be. The British-French collaboration provided a necessary lesson about Europe and foreign policy. There is no imaginable way by which the 27 members of the EU can agree on a common foreign policy (on anything except defense against some collective mortal threat, and for that they probably will not need Baroness Ashton). There is, on the other hand, every reason why Europe can play a renewed and important world role through coalitions of the concerned and of the willing. I am not a fan of Nicolas Sarkozy, but he has been correct in insisting that getting NATO into this affair has changed the character of what began as another spontaneous uprising of an Arab people to rid themselves of a dictator and re-establish their nation on new and accountable terms. Now the affair risks finishing as just one more imperialist intervention in the Muslim world—for oil, as the left already is saying. Visit William Pfaff’s website for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy,” at www.williampfaff.com. © 2011 Tribune Media Services Inc.  TAGS:
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By MeHere, March 30, 2011 at 1:30 pm Link to this comment
gerard
“When I think of my country now…..” This last paragraph in your post is wonderful! I completely identify with your feelings. Hope seems to have vanished.
Report thisBy Mike789, March 30, 2011 at 12:44 pm Link to this comment
Gerard ~ [”...I long for the America of once-guaranteed, now destroyed Constitutional rights, obligations and guarantees, of freedom and justice for all. Of creativity, of faith. An America organized around principles that do not permit and encourage the rich to steal from the poor…”]
I believe that most Americans believe in these values and strive to resurrect them. I believe they live their lives in accordance with them. So on the whole, we abide in a nation where we collectively live up to your model. A substantial number can make the distinction between the truth and the bull shit.
Unfortunately, as you make plain, not all, but a substantial number of them, belief the lies that are set before them as the one true reality.
As circumstances converge, as they inevitably will, a reckoning will be at hand. Wisconsin may mark a turning point.
Report thisBy MK Ultra, March 30, 2011 at 9:22 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Other Europeans have shown they are reluctant to make war unless under American command…”
Uh, I dunno bout that. France and certainly the UK seemed to be quite ready to jump at the opportunity to drop bombs and siphon oil from Libya, there didn’t seem to be much arm-twisting there at all. In the case of the UK, in particular, it is painfully obvious that they’re reliving their empire days thru the crosshairs of the US weapons. They’re quite happy and willing to go along with all of the US ill-fated crusades. That Germany is an exemption is only to their credit. Anybody that rejects warmongering and concentrates on their society is all the better for it and Germany are proof of it.
Report thisBy fearnotruth, March 30, 2011 at 1:48 am Link to this comment
curiously (or not so), considering this is the blogosphere - imminent domain of
the unpublished - some here seem to find it virtually impossible to engage in
polemics free of personal attacks of one sort or another
citations of reports and analyses, accompanied by limited commentary, seem, in
particular, to rile them - why is unclear
perhaps because they are given almost entirely to expressing only opinion and
unconfirmed ‘facts’, accompanied by intensely personal vitriol
the only redemption in reading such diatribes is that one can feel some measure
Report thisof relief in that they don’t have to literally share the air such characters breathe
By diamond, March 30, 2011 at 1:23 am Link to this comment
Still spinning fearnotruth? Tell all your fine conspiracy theories to the people of Benghazi who were about to be butchered and have their city razed to the ground until the US intervened. These things involve real people, not pieces on a chessboard. And not only their fate but the future of democracy in the Middle Easy versus dictators who are unelected and completely unaccountable to the people they rule also hangs in the balance. Not to act would have been completely immoral but don’t let little things like morals get in the way of your ripping tall tales they’re so much more entertaining than the mere truth.
Report thisBy gerard, March 29, 2011 at 11:19 pm Link to this comment
As to having “the glory, if glory there is to be”—we can never do that because that would mean that the entire machinery of “America First” will die.
Report thisAmerica is unfortunately so used to that legend—and so in love with the glory of it all—that without it to cling to, there would be practically no reason for doing anything. Our national pride would be in the dumps. Our self-image would sneer back at us for the fools we are, and we would have to charge off into yet another suicidal war somewhere to try in vain to reclaim our self-glorifying image.
No, I don’t hate America. I love America as it could be, should be. I long for the America of once-guaranteed, now destroyed Constitutional rights, obligations and guarantees, of freedom and justice for all. Of creativity, of faith. An America organized around principles that do not permit and encourage the rich to steal from the poor. A government that does not depend on wars to keep its economy running. A country that is not hard-edged and smart-aleck, fearful and unforgiving. A country where people refuse to believe lies because they remember the truth. A country where people are encouraged to cooperate and organize to improve their living conditions, a countriy where people care about each other.
When I think of my country now, this is the image that comes to mind: A skinny, bereft youngster standing in the middle of a rain-soaked city street, bare-headed, stockings falling down over shoe-tops, hugging a ragged jacket up under her chin. Her eyes are enormous and filled with loneliness. She does not smile. I reach out, hoping to take her hand and ask her to come home with me. We are very close—yet she cannot see me. She walks through me and passes on. My soul knows an emptiness I have never felt before in all my 97 years.
By Bj Muller, March 29, 2011 at 10:03 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Obviously the author is not yet willing to understand that The EU is not a Federation but an association of sovereign countries only on the economical level. Each nation decides on their own foreign policies, which means that neither country can “lead” any kind of imaginative alliance in respect of wars that are instigated by dubious organizations like NATO. No one is actually calling for “leaders” here, although mainstream media are trying hard to convey a different picture. After all, who would accept a loudmouthed buffoon like France’s Sarkozy in a leading role ? France and Britain can have a coalition under the NATO flag, but certainly not as “leaders” of the EU foreign policy. Besides, quit dreaming - the European peoples will not accept any orders from the US of A.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 29, 2011 at 7:59 pm Link to this comment
Gee, imagine that.
Report thisBy fearnotruth, March 29, 2011 at 6:53 pm Link to this comment
RE: ...The U.S. joined the military effort, under pressure…
_________________________________________________________________
yes of course, for public consumption… certain revelations belie the notion
e.g. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers-m28.shtml
A CIA commander for the Libyan rebels
28 March 2011
The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the
rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA
collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a
former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for
ABC News on Sunday night.
Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14,
followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the
Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the “two
military stars of the revolution” who “had recently returned from exile in
America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence.” The
newspaper did not refer to his CIA connections.
McClatchy Newspapers published a profile of Hifter on Sunday. Headlined “New
Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article
notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a
disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”
Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to
the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya
to take command in Benghazi.
The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early
1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a
friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and
that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”
To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised
Report thisindication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking
former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s,
only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US
capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence
agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA
headquarters in Langley, for two decades.