Boosting Democracy
Containment first laid out by George F. Kennan in 1947 was a foreign policy strategy followed by the United States during the Cold War stated that communism needed to be contained and isolated, or it would spread to neighboring countries. This spread would allow the Domino Theory to take hold, meaning that if one country fell to communism, then each surrounding country would fall as well, like a row of dominoes. The recent Libya war, obviously a regime change operation, was part of the same strategy albeit inversed. Arab Spring is the signal of the right time for the West's influence to spread around Africa allowing for a possible Domino to occur. Presumably if Libya becomes a democratic state of happy consumers comprising a paradigmatic enticing beacon for the whole neighbor the other dictatorships of the African continent might fall or at least the opposition will be strengthened. To fully comprehend this one can imagine the USSR wining the Cold War and engaging in a "regime" change war lets say in Greece to liberate people from the unjust and corrupted bourgeois in an attempt to manipulate the present economic pitfalls of the so called PIGS. In that way Libya's future on independent foreign policy may have been lost for a long time as it became the new sphere of interest in the continent. In the Post Cold War framework Africa remains a rich continent in which the recent developing relations between Syria - Iran - Turkey as the economic infiltration by Russia and China, players without the burden of a colonial past were rather annoying.
Actually both Europe and USA recently made attempts to develop trade and military cooperation with the African states, albeit without the desired success. EU had formed the rusty framework of partnership and later Sarkozy unilaterally attempted to form the Mediterranean Union back in 2007, while France was holding the presidency of the EU, offering $ 3 billions in contracts to Gaddafi who had in mind other plans for the future pushing for the United States of Africa. In the 3rd Africa - EU summit that hold in Tripoli on 29/11/2010 - being the African year of peace and security - among others it was agreed that "we are committed to making the African Peace and Security Architecture fully operational in close collaboration with the regional organizations" and that we will "continue our concerted efforts to bring the Somali conflict to an end, to stabilize the internal situation and to promote timely post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts". Ironically, both commitments were soon proved to be plain bunkum as the "humanitarian" intervention and the recent deaths of 29,000 Somali kids in three months prove.
While Africa was traditionally left in the European sphere of influence US got in to the game. Back in 2007 AFRICOM was activated and only Liberia accepted to host the office and later, on 2010 Mr. Fernandez, US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Energy and Business Affairs, in the US-Maghreb Entrepreneurship Conference that took place in Algeria announced the new NAPEO (North Atlantic Partnership for Economic Opportunity) programme.
Twenty eight days after the summit turmoil broke in Tunisia when young people protested asking for jobs, cheaper food and liberties.
Africa: A Ticking Time Bomb detonated by the Social Media
It must be noted that the problematic African continent is nothing but a demographic time bomb. In Libya par example the teen agers consist over the 40% of the population which has tripled in 38 years. The World Bank has stated that the Arab States should create over 100 million new jobs by 2020 while the danger issuing from this demographic explosion have been emphasized by the UN and the Arab League since 2007. Emmanuel Todd, a demographer that managed to predict the collapse of the USSR and the turmoil in Africa in 2007 thinks that this continent is prone to rebellions predicting a finally "de-Islamicised” Muslim World.
If demographic explosion is the dynamite and the galaxy of youngsters the fuse it only remains a spark to cause the detonation. This spark was lit up by the so called Internet Social Media like Facebook and Twitter. But this hardly came as a plain coincidence. According to the New York Times many West non – governmental organizations like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Freedom House educated activists to organize rebellions. The Serbian organization Otpor and Mr. Gene Sharp were actively involved in the Egypt’s revolt. State Department organized meetings that brought together key – activists with Facebook, Google and CNN titled «Rebooting Politics” while an activist from Egypt was present later Wikileaks revealed that he had assigned 2011 as the year of Mubarak’s fall.
The Reuter's Institute for the Study of Journalism with a branch titled “Can I Tweet its way to Democracy? The Promise of Participatory Media in Afrca” or the Soros “Open Society Institute” are working in the same line. Naturally this is not to say that the outcome was fully predesigned. On the contrary the Arab Spring came up as a premature birth leaving the US before an uncomfortable decision as the past wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were heavily criticized a head of the dark economic landscape.
Evidently there is never a single reason in engaging to a war and oil is always a trigger. Though it is often stated that it could not be the reason of this war, since the big oil companies were already engaged in Libya the fact is that they had harsh problems as the unpredictable Gaddafi threatened always to nationalize the country's resources pushing for better share on profits.
The key trigger of the humanitarian intervention: Bombing civilians
Imposing a no – flying zone can not be perceived as an aggressive act of war. As the UN mandate had the main objective to protect civilians without the involvement of boots on the ground the aerial control was essential. The only lacuna is that the alleged bombing of innocent demonstrators remains to be proved as till now is based on scattered unconfirmed hearsay evidence from the mainstream Media and mainly by the two defected pilots that landed on Malta stating that they had been ordered to bomb their fellow citizens. It must be noted that by this way Libya lost early its only Mirages the best available warplanes. For my opinion this full scale attack on the demonstrators that included mercenaries, helicopters with machine - guns, jets, tanks, poison gas, anti – aircrafts belongs in the sphere of plain propaganda. But before the factual scope of the brutal repression of the rebellion by the Gaddafi’s forces will be assessed the outcome of the civil war is already a fait accompli.
Kudos!! R2P accomplished! (Over 50,000 dead in six months)
The protection of civilian’s lives known as Responsibility to Protect was applied in Libya by the UN for the first time. The actual outcome the increment of the initial 350 dead to over 50,000. It is certain that if this numbers represented lost billions of dollars and the R2P operation was an investment by a Stock Market consultant company called UN, the whole affair should be considered a total failure. It is striking that in the six months of war the West Media failed to expose a single victim from the thousand bombs of NATO’s operation nor pro – Gaddafi victims of the rebels. The partiality of information during a war is a matter-of-course albeit NATO bombed the Libyan State TV following the example of Yugoslavia. Evidently the cost of human life in the Stock Market of geopolitical gain scores under zero.
What’s Next?
Gaddafi was far from being a brutal and self – interested dictator as when in his 27th took over Libya's leadership the country was one of the poorest in the world and managed to reach the living standards of Holland and perform a better Human Development Index than Denmark in 2010. The process of demonization is the first stage of a military intervention if you recall Milosevic or Saddam. In fact he is punished for being part of an old Cold War balance , for being a child of the Arab nationalism nourished by the ideals of socialism and for being too eccentric to create strong allies. Lastly he is punished for abandoning the development of WMD which if he had not, nothing would have happened. And this issue, namely the blockading of the creation of states like North Korea which are practically immune to any conventional warfare is a crucial consideration of the ongoing for the West allies.
The West has every interest in creating a paradigmatic Libya, an exemplar for the surrounding regimes that could spill over democracy and open markets. In real life though the pre – designed calculations are often over – ridden by sleazy factors and sudden shifts of the coarse. The main problem of the current situation is the leadership. The NTC was formed without any voting procedure shaped mainly by regime’s defectors and US educated expats, including CIA’s backed figures and fanatic Islamists so the prospect of a true revolutionary nature is rather elusive. It is very important to underline the great differences of the perceptions on politics between the Arab and the West worlds. The impersonal systemic conception of an organized society is not integrated in the Arab common sense. In fact, as the riots unfolded it became clear that the sole common ground was ousting some person - the dictator - and not changing a system. This implies a personal approach acknowledging the "tyrant" as the only source of present misfortunes. The post - colonial procedure of nation building and the creation of imagined community in areas harshly divided by localization, tribalism and sectarianism has been one necessarily involving suppression and authoritarianism. The strongman in the center of these societies became the ultimate link between conflicting interests and identities. The paternal figure of the "brother leader" shaped a network of benefactors and clients bearing something of the old Roman empire keeping things on track installing peaceful negotiations instead of open confrontations between different tribes.What happened in Libya was not a revolution but merely a revolt.
It remains to be seen if the death tall and burning hatred can lead to a better future.
Evidently there is never a single reason in engaging to a war and oil is always a trigger. Though it is often stated that it could not be the reason of this war, since the big oil companies were already engaged in Libya the fact is that they had harsh problems as the unpredictable Gaddafi threatened always to nationalize the country's resources pushing for better share on profits.
The key trigger of the humanitarian intervention: Bombing civilians
Imposing a no – flying zone can not be perceived as an aggressive act of war. As the UN mandate had the main objective to protect civilians without the involvement of boots on the ground the aerial control was essential. The only lacuna is that the alleged bombing of innocent demonstrators remains to be proved as till now is based on scattered unconfirmed hearsay evidence from the mainstream Media and mainly by the two defected pilots that landed on Malta stating that they had been ordered to bomb their fellow citizens. It must be noted that by this way Libya lost early its only Mirages the best available warplanes. For my opinion this full scale attack on the demonstrators that included mercenaries, helicopters with machine - guns, jets, tanks, poison gas, anti – aircrafts belongs in the sphere of plain propaganda. But before the factual scope of the brutal repression of the rebellion by the Gaddafi’s forces will be assessed the outcome of the civil war is already a fait accompli.
Kudos!! R2P accomplished! (Over 50,000 dead in six months)
The protection of civilian’s lives known as Responsibility to Protect was applied in Libya by the UN for the first time. The actual outcome the increment of the initial 350 dead to over 50,000. It is certain that if this numbers represented lost billions of dollars and the R2P operation was an investment by a Stock Market consultant company called UN, the whole affair should be considered a total failure. It is striking that in the six months of war the West Media failed to expose a single victim from the thousand bombs of NATO’s operation nor pro – Gaddafi victims of the rebels. The partiality of information during a war is a matter-of-course albeit NATO bombed the Libyan State TV following the example of Yugoslavia. Evidently the cost of human life in the Stock Market of geopolitical gain scores under zero.
What’s Next?
Gaddafi was far from being a brutal and self – interested dictator as when in his 27th took over Libya's leadership the country was one of the poorest in the world and managed to reach the living standards of Holland and perform a better Human Development Index than Denmark in 2010. The process of demonization is the first stage of a military intervention if you recall Milosevic or Saddam. In fact he is punished for being part of an old Cold War balance , for being a child of the Arab nationalism nourished by the ideals of socialism and for being too eccentric to create strong allies. Lastly he is punished for abandoning the development of WMD which if he had not, nothing would have happened. And this issue, namely the blockading of the creation of states like North Korea which are practically immune to any conventional warfare is a crucial consideration of the ongoing for the West allies.
The West has every interest in creating a paradigmatic Libya, an exemplar for the surrounding regimes that could spill over democracy and open markets. In real life though the pre – designed calculations are often over – ridden by sleazy factors and sudden shifts of the coarse. The main problem of the current situation is the leadership. The NTC was formed without any voting procedure shaped mainly by regime’s defectors and US educated expats, including CIA’s backed figures and fanatic Islamists so the prospect of a true revolutionary nature is rather elusive. It is very important to underline the great differences of the perceptions on politics between the Arab and the West worlds. The impersonal systemic conception of an organized society is not integrated in the Arab common sense. In fact, as the riots unfolded it became clear that the sole common ground was ousting some person - the dictator - and not changing a system. This implies a personal approach acknowledging the "tyrant" as the only source of present misfortunes. The post - colonial procedure of nation building and the creation of imagined community in areas harshly divided by localization, tribalism and sectarianism has been one necessarily involving suppression and authoritarianism. The strongman in the center of these societies became the ultimate link between conflicting interests and identities. The paternal figure of the "brother leader" shaped a network of benefactors and clients bearing something of the old Roman empire keeping things on track installing peaceful negotiations instead of open confrontations between different tribes.What happened in Libya was not a revolution but merely a revolt.
It remains to be seen if the death tall and burning hatred can lead to a better future.
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