Regime Change in
Libya is No Business of 'Western Adventurists'
"By
egging eastern Libyans on to go for the kill in Tripoli, the western
adventurists are preparing the ground for tribal animosities to engulf Libya. …
If Westerners haven't lost all sanity, they must work for a political
settlement that is in the best interests of the Libyan people - not their
own."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy: In championing military action against the Libyan regime, he has put his political future and French diplomacy on the line.
It's more than apparent now: The
Western adventurists are in Libya for regime change, not to protect civilians, which
is what they were authorized to do by the U.N. Security Council. In fact, under
the cover of that U.N. mandate, they are debilitating Muammar Qaddafi’s
military muscle to allow the eastern revolutionaries to gain the upper hand
over pro-government elements, and to capture more territory. Their sleight of hand
stands exposed by the way they are reacting to popular uprisings in Yemen and
Bahrain, which are so similar to the revolution in Libya.
In Yemen, as in Libya,
military commanders and their units have revolted against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
His own kinsman and military number two, Major General Ali Mohsen
al-Ahmar, has defected to the revolutionary camp.
A number of ministers and diplomats have also defected. Even Yemen's
influential tribal confederacy, which included Saleh's
own tribe, has revolted. And no effort has been spared to brutally crush the
student-led uprising. Saleh, too, has unleashed his security forces and thugs
as well as tanks and guns on street protestors, clamping down under a state of
emergency.
In Bahrain, the Al-Khalifa royals, after
failing to smash a popular revolt with their own forces, have called in troops
from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to crush the movement. In
addition, they, too, have put their Gulf island state under martial law.
Yet neither has drawn a
reaction from Western adventurists as ferocious as has Qaddafi. Obviously in
Libya, their humanitarianism, spurious and self-serving as it is, has given way
to vested interests. They are in fact deeply worried, particularly the
Americans, that if Saleh is toppled by the revolutionaries - which in all
probability he will be - Yemen will no longer be as pliable as is it now. And
they are fearful that if the al-Khalifa royals go, not only will the Americans be
in a pickle, since Bahrain hosts their Fifth Fleet, but the island state may
fall into Iran's orbit.
So the Western adventurists
are full of hedges and caveats when it come to reacting to Yemeni and Bahraini
popular uprisings, while they suffer no such inhibitions in regard to Libya.
But they are playing with a fire that has regional ramifications: Libya is no
monolithic polity, and neither, by and large, are the Arab polities. Like many
of the Arab polities, Libya is a conglomerate of tribes, divided by mutual
rivalries as well as confessional, sectarian and even ethnic antipathies. These
diverse entities were held together under Qaddafi’s authoritative rule, as are
other Arab societies under their own autocratic dispensations.
By egging eastern Libyans on
to go for the kill in Tripoli, the western adventurists are preparing the
ground for tribal animosities to engulf Libya. We may be seeing the beginning
of civil strife that won't remain confined to Libyan frontiers.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Nevertheless, the Western
adventurists seem hardly interested, and now appear to be eyeing Syria as their
next target, as is evidenced by Western media coverage of the popular revolt
there. It is quite evident that here again, Western media not an objective
observer, but a fully partisan participant in the ever-expanding Western adventurism.
One might hope that their
experience in Iraq will hold them back. The U.S.-led war party descended there,
thinking their Iraqi adventure would be a cakewalk. But it turned out to be a
nightmare. And almost ten years down the road and much blood and treasure
expended - to say nothing of the horrific holocaust of Iraqis - they are withdrawing
before it has regained peace with itself and continuesriven by wholesale sectarian, tribal and terrorist bloodletting.
If Westerners haven't lost all sanity, they must work for a political
settlement that is in the best interests of the Libyan people - not their own.
In any case, the forecast for
Libyans looks to be a very harrowing one. But it will also be harrowing for the
West. In its blind desperation, the Libyan resistance should not allow itself
to become just another pawn for transient Western gains. The Libyans will rue
this later. And Qaddafi must also understand that his time is through and in the
greater interests of his people, he must volunteer to lay down the baton he has
wielded for 41 long years. Furthermore, the Arab autocracies and royals that
have reigned despotically for so long must also accept that their party is over
and voluntarily submit to the will, wishes and rights of their enslaved
subjects.
