Libya: war of aggression, not liberation

By Pet Melliza/The Beekeeper

I was in Guimbal, Iloilo attending a wedding at the Catholic church afternoon of

Saturday,  March 19, when somebody relayed the news that the United Nations imposed a no-fly-zone in Libya. The guy was excited, foreseeing the end of the Ghadaffy “dictatorship".

The next day, TV footages broadcast rapid flashes of light in series that turned out to be missiles from NATO and US forces hurtling into Libya for “violations” of the UN sanction.

I join the voices world wide denouncing the NATO and the US-led war of aggression on Libya. Protecting Libyans is the least of their concern. It is the natural bounties of their victims that they are coveting.

Ghadaffy is being punished for summoning the might of the country’s armed forces to defend the state against armed combatants. There might be unarmed civilians staging peaceful rallies in Libya but, unlike in Tunisia and Egypt which toppled early this year from “people power”, the Libyan imbroglio involved armed combatants and defectors from the army who had seized towns, cities and military camps and were advancing into Tripoli, the nation’s capital.

The arrogance of the super powers leaves the bad taste in the mouth that they have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of countries, effectively barring them from exercising their sovereign right to defend themselves from aggressors and internal threats.

The missile attacks on Libyan cities, the death toll on civilians that came in their wake, have proven costlier than the danger they wanted Libyans be protected from. France accuses Ghadaffy of committing “genocide” against civilians. Its missile attacks on civilian targets are worse.

With that, the UN again has proven itself an instrument of the world powers in justifying wars of intervention and aggression in the case of Libya where, at the behest of the US, France and United Kingdom, it imposed a no-fly-zone. Its moral responsibility in the mass destruction of lives and infrastructures in Iraq and Afghanistan is writ all over its face. Now, it is sullying its image anew by paving the way to the new carnage that is Libya.

The UN’s no-fly-zone resolution licenses the three powers, in particular, France to pummel cities with missiles. The attacks hit population centers suspected to be hosting Libyan leader Muammar Ghadaffy. They killed civilians in the bombing attacks,  ironically, the very crime they accuse Ghadaffy of that, in turn, lead to the controversial UN resolution and the subsequent bombing raids that followed.

Gadaffy was battling armed combatants who the UN security council tagged as “civilians” they wanted protected.

It’s just Libya that is the target. The US and its junior partners merely sat on the fence when the Egyptian Army soldiers opened fire on civilian demonstrators protesting against strongman Hosni Mubarak who eventually toppled. The same powers are silent as well when riot police in Bahrain rioted, that is,  attacking unarmed demonstrators with gunfire and teargas.

The NATO and US forces themselves hold the bloody record of pulverizing communities and killing civilians in aerial bombings sprees and can’t distinguish combatants from civilians as what they did in Vietnam, have been doing in Iraq and Aghanistan, and now are about to do in the newly opened front, Libya.

The peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan despite inferior arms are waging stiff resistance against their more powerful aggressors whose casualties continue to mount and whose economies are being bled by the very wars they waged on Third World countries. That scenario would likely unfold again in Libya should the three powers commit ground troops after the bombings.

Citizens of the US, Britain and France bear the brunt of the war their reckless leaders provoked if only to protect their economic empires. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are rich in natural wealth, oil and mineral resources particularly.

Libya, home to Africa’s second largest oil deposit, also hosts rich fishing grounds and the largest depot of mineral water that European big business, particularly, France, want covet.

The biggest stumbling block to their scheme to reap super profits and enslave the Libyans is Muammar Ghadaffy who nationalized vital industries like the oil industry and public utilities, that in turn, gave the Libyan government resources to provide free education and medical services to its people, among others, which are the envy of other Arab nations.