Date: Fri Nov 28 16:37:26 2014
The lessons of Libya
Dan Glazebrook
2014-11-28, Issue <http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/704> 704
<http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausland-1/gaddafi-droht-der-nato-mit-anschla
egen--47018641.html> http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/704/md.jpg
Led by Western self-interest, NATO embarked on a massive military
intervention in Libya in 2011 that leaves many lessons for the Global South.
Above all stands the lesson that Western military intervention cannot bring
about the desired change, but rather creates failed states.
Three years ago, in late October 2011, the world witnessed the final defeat
of the Libyan Jamahiriya - the name by which the Libyan state was known
until overthrown in 2011, meaning literally the 'state of the masses' - in
the face of a massive onslaught from NATO, its regional allies and local
collaborators.
It took seven months for the world's most powerful military alliance - with
a combined military spending of just under $1 trillion per year - to fully
destroy the Jamahiriya (a state with a population the size of Wales) and it
took a joint British-French-Qatari
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/25/libya-rebel-backers-free-funds
> special forces operation to finally win control of the capital. In total,
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18053488> 10,000 strike sorties were
rained down on Libya,
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/libya-war-saving-lives
-catastrophic-failure> tens of thousands killed and injured, and the country
left a battleground for hundreds of
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20584573> warring factions, armed to
the teeth with weapons either looted from state armouries or provided
directly by NATO and its allies. Britain, France and the US had led a war
which had effectively transformed a peaceful, prosperous African country
into a textbook example of a 'failed state'.
Yet the common image of Libya in the months and years leading up to the
invasion was that of a state that had 'come in from the cold' and was now
enjoying friendly relations with the West. Tony Blair's famous embrace of
Gaddafi in his tent in 2004 was said to have ushered in a new period of
'rapprochement', with Western companies rushing to do business in the
oil-rich African state, and Gaddafi's abandonment of a nuclear deterrent
apparently indicative of the new spirit of trust and co-operation between
Libya and the West............
Read it in PDF attachment below:
Berhane
(image/jpeg attachment: image003.jpg)
- application/pdf attachment: The_lessons_of_Libya.pdf