May 21, 2014
The Guardian (UK)

Coups and Terror Are the Fruit of Nato's War in Libya

The dire consequences of the west's intervention are being felt today in Tripoli and across Africa, from Mali to Nigeria

by Seumas Milne

Iraq may have been a blood-drenched disaster and Afghanistan a grinding military and political failure. But Libya was supposed to have been different. Nato's war to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 was hailed as the liberal intervention that worked.

The western powers might have had to twist the meaning of the UN resolution about protecting civilians, the city of Sirte might have been reduced to rubble, large-scale ethnic cleansing taken place and thousands of civilians killed. But it was all in a noble cause and achieved without Nato casualties.

This wasn't Bush and Blair, after all, but Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy. The people were free, the dictator was dead, a mooted massacre had been averted - and all this without any obvious boots on the ground. Even last year the prime minister was still claiming it had all been worthwhile, promising to stand with Libyans "every step of the way".

But three years after Nato declared victory, Libya is lurching once again towards civil war. Over the past few days, the CIA-linked General Hiftar launched his second coup attempt in three months, supposedly to save the country from "terrorists" and Islamists. . . .

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Enver Masud, "Libya: Who's Terrorizing Whom," The Wisdom Fund, March 26, 1996

"Letter to President Obama About Libya Signed by Hundreds of 'Democracy' Activists," Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, March 14, 2011

"Libya: A 'Socialist Paradise' Under Colonial Attack," The Wisdom Fund, April 1, 2011

Jean Herskovits, "In Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem," New York Times, January 2, 2012

"NATO Accused of War Crimes in Libya," The Wisdom Fund, January 19, 2012

Nick Turse, "Africom Conducting Operations in Almost Every African Country," tomdispatch.com, May 15, 2014

Ahmed Elumami, "Libyan premier wins congress backing after ex-general's threats," reuters.com, May 25, 2014

[ . . . the so-called Arab Spring revolts were a peculiar mix of revolution, counter-revolution and foreign intervention.--Patrick Cockburn, "Libya's Slow Motion Coup," counterpunch.org, May 26, 2014]

Jesse Franzblau, "Libya: A Cautionary Tale," antiwar.com, June 10, 2014

"The Ex-CIA Asset Trying to Conquer Libya," thedailybeast.com, July 14, 2014

"Libya: western countries urge citizens to leave as civil war intensifies," theguardian.com, July 27, 2014

[General Hifter now represents the public face of the US supported forces in the western edge of the present wars in North Africa.

. . . Hifter now 71 had been in the Libyan military from the time of the military coup in 1969, but after 1987 he defected from the Gadaffi government. When the West had imposed sanctions on Libya, Hifter was associated with opposition National Salvation Front of Libya (NSFL). In 1988 he relocated to the United States and lived well in that notorious suburb of Washington, DC, - Langley, Virginia. When the NATO bombings started in March 2011, Hifter returned to Libya and joined in with the numerous factions.--Horace G Campbell, "The United States, NATO and the Destruction of Libya," counterpunch.org, August 1, 2014]

Libya in Chaos, Democracy Now, August 25, 2014

"Court issues warrant for Libya's Haftar," aljazeera.com, November 26, 2014

Ian Black, "Human rights abuses 'leave a third of Libyans with mental health problems'," theguardian.com, November 26, 2014

[ . . . the BBC had to admit that Gaddafi's "particular form of socialism does provide free education, healthcare and subsidized housing and transport"--Brian Cloughley, "Libya: Be careful what you wish for," atimes.com, December 11, 2014]

Glenn Greenwald, "Hailed as a Model for Successful Intervention, Libya Proves to be the Exact Opposite," firstlook.org, February 16, 2015

[A controversial anti-Islamist, General Khalifa Haftar, has been named head of the Libyan army.--"Libya names anti-Islamist General Haftar as army chief," bbc.com, March 2, 2015]

Garikai Chengu, "Libya: From Africa's Wealthiest Democracy Under Gaddafi to Terrorist Haven After US Intervention," counterpunch.org, October 20, 2015

Michael Krieger , "'We Came, We Saw, He Died' - Revisiting The Incredible Disaster That Is Libya," libertyblitzkrieg.com, January 7, 2016

Chris Ernesto, "Who Is Khalifa Hifter?," antiwar.com, February 23, 2016

[The objectives are money, power and oil. . . .

African oil-producing nations were planning to abandon the petro-dollar, and demand gold payment for oil/gas.--Ellen Brown, "Exposing the Libyan Agenda: a Closer Look at Hillary's Emails," telegraph.co.uk, March 14, 2016]

John Wight, "Obama and the Destruction of Libya," counterpunch.org, March 15, 2016

Michael Shields and Gareth Jones, "Support for Libyan unity government 'crumbling': U.N. envoy," reuters.com, August 12, 2016

Missy Ryan, "A former CIA asset has become a U.S. headache in Libya," washingtonpost.com, August 17, 2016

[This week's report from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee into the Western intervention in Libya made uncomfortable reading for Britain's former Prime Minister David Cameron . . .

. . . "government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated, and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change."--Jonathan Marcus, "An obituary for the age of intervention?," bbc.com, September 17, 2016]

Alex MacDonald, "ANALYSIS: The rise of Khalifa Haftar, Egypt's true Libyan goal," middleeasteye.net, May 29, 2017

VIDEO: Max Blumenthal, "From Libya to Manchester, Western Intervention Endangers Civilians," therealnews.com, May 30, 2017

[The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi . . . was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years.--John Pilger, "Terror In Britain: What Did The Prime Minister Know?," johnpilger.com, May 31, 2017]

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James W. Carden, "Refusing to Learn Lessons from Libya," consortiumnews.com, August 17, 2017

Ted Galen Carpenter, "Libya Is a Failed State (and It's America's Fault)," nationalinterest.org, November 24, 2017

[GDP has been halved, . . . two thirds of the population have fled overseas, at least temporarily.--Thierry Meyssan, "Libya according to the UN and the harsh reality," voltairenet.org, June 5, 2018]

"Haftar and the battle for Libya's oil wealth," Al Jazeera, April 7, 2019

[In 2016, Haftar seized most facilities in Libya's east and this year his forces swept through the south, taking control of the major El Sharara and El Feel oilfields.--Ahmad Ghaddar, "Explainer: What's at stake for Libya's oil as conflict flares?," reuters.com, April 29, 2019]

[their backers in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are engaged in an aerial campaign that's seen them target each other's unmanned planes in a bid to determine Libya's future in their favor--Samer Khalil Al-Atrush, "When the Sun Sets in Libya, Two U.S. Allies Get Down to War," reuters.com, August 23, 2019]

Danielle Paquette, "Mali coup leader was trained by U.S. military, officers say," msn.com, August 21, 2020

The African Leader Who Betrayed Col. Gaddafi, December 26, 2022