On
March 19, the eighth anniversary of the “Shock and Awe”
invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government launched a new war against
Libya. As we go to print, the merciless bombing, day and night, has
reached its seventh day. The Libyan government reports that dozens of
civilians, if not hundreds, have already been killed.
Dismissing
the Libyan government’s unilateral cease-fire and call for
negotiations, British, French and U.S. imperialists launched their
war under the cover of an “international community,” which
is as fraudulent as the “coalition of the willing” that
invaded Iraq. Their aim is to topple the Libyan government, or, as an
alternative, create a de facto partition of the country.
Obama
has repeated that the Libyan government must pull its troops back
from nearly half of the country. Claiming that “parts of the
country declared their independence,” the White House appears to be
preparing for the country’s virtual partition, which would allow
the Western-supported National Transitional Council to become the de
facto government of Libya’s oil-rich eastern territory.
Libya
is Africa’s largest oil producer. The imperialist ruling classes’
jockeying over who will lead the intervention reflects their
competition for these vast oil resources. Likewise, the disagreements
over the operation inside the U.S. ruling class are equally cynical:
if French and British corporations reap the dividends of this
operation, they ask, why should the Pentagon commit the firepower?
Partition
and dismemberment of countries with independent governments has been
a strategy that the U.S., British and French governments employed in
the Kurdish region of Iraq after the 1991 war, in Yugoslavia in the
mid-1990s, and recently in Sudan, which until January was Africa’s
largest country.
Of
course, the biggest prize for imperialist expansion through the act
of dismemberment was the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. For
decades during the so-called Cold War, the U.S. government, and
especially the Central Intelligence Agency, crusaded on behalf of the
“captive nations” of the Soviet Union.
Its
breakup was immediately followed by the eastward expansion of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the incorporation of the
western and southern republics of the former Soviet Union into the
U.S. sphere of influence.
The
breakup or de facto partition of Libya would be a great historical
tragedy for the people, but would become a boon for all of the
western oil giants.
At
the very moment that the U.N. Security Council condemned the Gaddafi
government for the use of violence against the armed rebels in Libya,
a U.S.-backed violent suppression of peaceful protesters was underway
in Bahrain and Yemen.
March
18, in response to the killing of more than 40 unarmed protesters in
Yemen, the White House statement urged “peaceful, orderly”
dialogue, and “an open and transparent process.” The difference
is that the Bahraini and Saudi monarchies, and the Yemeni government,
exist as client dictatorships of the United States.
On
March 17, the same day that the U.S. government and U.N. Security
Council authorized a military attack against Libya on the pretext
that Gaddafi government was employing violence in its own civil war,
CIA drone aircrafts blitzed a village in northwest Pakistan. Multiple
missiles scored a direct hit on a meeting of local people who were
trying to resolve a property dispute. The meeting was allegedly
mediated by Taliban officials, which made the people fair game for
robotic destruction. Twenty-six of the 32 people present at the Jirga
(negotiation council) were killed.
On
March 1, nine Afghan boys were systematically murdered by a U.S.
helicopter attack while they were collecting firewood to heat their
family homes.
For
the last decade, the Libyan government embraced neoliberal reforms
and collaborated with Italian, British and U.S. imperialism. When the
armed revolt began against Gaddafi, the United States and other
powers saw a new opportunity to regain control over this oil-rich
country. Now, even if the imperialists were to reverse course and
accept a ceasefire in Libya, their basic strategy of regime change,
and/or partition, would remain. An unnamed White House official told
CNN today, “If you have a cease-fire in place that is verifiable,
then you can continue turning the noose without taking necessarily
further action.”
The
U.S., British and French governments don’t care about freedom,
democracy or the use of violence. They have employed limitless
violence for centuries against the people of the Middle East, Africa,
Asia and Latin America who suffered the scourge of colonialism and
foreign occupation. The interests of the imperialists are exclusively
predatory.
