On May 2, NATO bombed Libyan president
Moammar Gaddafi’s home in Tripoli, killing his 29 year-old son, and
three of his grandchildren. It is the second strike in seven days
that has come very close to killing Gaddafi. The week before, a
midnight attack destroyed an office building where Gaddafi and aides
regularly work.
This marks the sixth week that NATO,
U.S. and European war planes have dropped bombs on the country. Many
Libyans and others believe that the latest round of attacks was
specifically targeted at killing Gaddafi.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
declared in a meeting in Rome that it is U.S. policy to overthrow the
Gaddafi government. The U.S. government has further devoted millions
of dollars in taxpayer and Libyan money from stolen Libyan accounts
to fund the opposition. The Libyan opposition asked for $1.5 billion.
The leader of Libya’s opposition
council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, used to be Gaddafi’s justice minister
until he decided that it would be more lucrative to work with Western
powers at overthrowing the government. Libya has Africa’s largest
oil reserves.
Yet, militarily, the U.S. and Europe
are not succeeding in toppling the Gaddafi government. The opposition
has been pushed back and barely controls any territory. Still, the
U.S. continues to funnel money into this effort.
U.S. media promotes imperialist
plots
The U.S. media, however, continues to
spin lies and misinformation about the conflict. Could U.S. and NATO
bombings possibly be out of concern for civilians? It is more than
hypocritical for the U.S. to be speaking about humanitarian
intervention after killing or displacing one-third of the population
of Iraq in that war for oil. This war is no different. Competing
sectors of Libyan society are vying for power now, and the U.S. wants
to be on the side that is going to give it the most control over the
country’s resources.
In a telling incident,it was the U.S.
and NATO that rejected the most recent chance for peace. Last week,
when Gaddafi extended the offer for ceasefire negotiations, NATO
spurned it. NATO prefers to bomb Libya into the ground and install a
government that the U.S. thinks will be more friendly to its
interests.
Throughout the media campaign against
the government of Libya, progressives in the United States must stay
steadfast and clear. It will never be in our interest to support
imperialism’s overthrow of another sovereign state. The U.S. and
NATO have one goal in mind: to control the resources and markets in
Libya for the wealthy of the West. We must stand with our Libyan
brothers and sisters against the NATO bombing and for true freedom
and self-determination for all peoples of the world.
