And oh, hey, it looks like Medea Benjamin and I did just that in our latest piece, "From 'Liberation' to Occupation," which you can read over at Counterpunch.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Looking back at a crime against humanity
With the U.S. and its allies inching closer to a war to "liberate" Libya from the man they just six months ago were arming with the finest weapons stolen oil money can buy, it's worth looking back at that war crime of yesteryear -- the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation, which celebrates its eighth anniversary on Saturday -- and how that previous war of liberation (or rather, imperial aggression) worked out.
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I've been wondering what, if any, material support the US had given Qadaffi. I know he was no longer on the good 'ol Axis of Evil listing. Do you have any links to articles about US weapons sales to Libya? I'd be interested in using them as my own ammunition when this subject inevitably comes up in conversation.
ReplyDeleteHere's a Reuters article about the Obama DoD eying Libya for weapons sales back in early 2009 (including, as luck would have it, military aircraft): http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/03/06/us-libya-usa-arms-idUSTRE5256H720090306
ReplyDeleteAnd here's another article that provides some detail on the arms sales the Obama administration approved to Libya (and Egypt) in the last two years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365523/Obama-administration-approved-40billion-private-arms-sales-countries-including-Libya-Egypt.html
And here's another article from the US embassy in Tripoli that details the training the US government provided to ... drum roll ... the Libyan Air Force: http://libya.usembassy.gov/news-events/news-from-the-embassy2/the-united-states-and-libya-conduct-military-maintenance-training-seminar.html
Very nice. Thanks for the information.
ReplyDeleteI just posted this as a comment elsewhere, but I am going to repost it here, as I am still motivated:
ReplyDeleteWe are entering the dispute as a humanitarian effort to protect Libya’s oil from its owner. It so happens that he is killing his own people, you know, the ones shooting at him, taking over his cities and overthrowing his government. Were Obama faced with a such a threat, he would round the soldiers trying to assassinate him up, kiss them, and buy them donuts and tell stories through the wee hours of the morning.
The United States has every right to replace Libya’s tyrannical government and the one that follows it and the one that follows the next one so long as the following three conditions are in place:
1. We don’t like the government in control.
2. The government in control is willing to use lethal force to defend itself against lethal internal militaristic attacks.
3. The U.N. supports our imperialism.
Libya has no voice in this matter, as they cannot be objective.
We have or have had the same rights with Sudan, the Ivory Coast (almost, so close), Rwanda, Somalia etc., but we did not exercise it because in those cases no one was shooting at their own people. In all of the aforementioned cases, the genocide / atrocities involved shooting at the enemy, but the revolutionaries in Libya are Gaddafi’s friends. The administration has said in no uncertain terms that in the case of Libya, they think the leader may do unspeakable things. We have every right to protect the nation’s oil against its owner and against our interpretation of his intentions to commit horrific crimes in an effort to defend himself. Not only do we have a right, but an obligation.
In Rwanda, for example, we did not have any such obligation. Does Rwanda even have oil?