The Libyan Connection

Time and again Western security services have been shown to be up to their necks in promoting, training and giving operational support for Islamists to do their dirty work. It started in the 1950s as a strategy to mobilise the most backward and conservative sections of society against nationalist, independent and mostly progressive currents in the Middle East. They managed to destroy every single one of these currents, leaving a politically barren landscape dominated by political options that have no future and, despite their ultra-anti-Western rhetoric, which cannot fight against Western imperialism.

Then came the CIA’s war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, with the US funding Osama bin Laden’s group and other jihadis to fight the Russians. Then there was the training and deployment of thousands of jihadis to fight Serbia in the war in the former Yugoslavia. Then the training and deployment of thousands of jihadis to fight in Chechnya with the sole purpose of destabilizing Russia. Many of the latter had previously fought in Serbia. Then came Libya, where the security services sent hundreds of these operatives to undermine Gaddafi in 2011. Then came Syria, where the security services sent in hundreds of armed Libyan jihadis to fight Assad.

Not a lot of people know that many of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay’s US military prison was or is a former CIA- or MI6-trained fighter. They sent them there because they knew they were committed jihadists, as opposed to the less dangerous Iraqi or Afghan nationalists who were just fighting to oust foreigners from their countries and had no global or ideological pretensions.

Now the web site MiddleEastEye lifts the lid on the Libyan connection to this week’s Manchester bombing that the British authorities do not want to talk about. It explains why, within hours of the attack, the security services were already declaring that a network was involved. They knew whom they were dealing with!

Susil das Gupta, 26 May 2017

'Humanitarian Intervention' in Libya

The UK parliamentary report on the 2011 intervention in Libya and its aftermath gives an interesting summary of events. The whole thing, in President Obama's words, became a 'shit show'. However, the real lesson that comes from reading the report is how calls for 'humanitarian intervention' are a cover for big power interests. In this case, it turns out that even these interests were not fully thought through by the key advocates for intervention, first France, then the UK and the US.

The Libya report is published today, now that a certain David Cameron is not in the embarrassing limelight. One note in the report, however, sums up the general stance taken by British politicians: the House of Commons voted by 557 to 13 in favour of British intervention. Of the 13 opposed, just 8 were from the Labour Party, two were from the Conservative Party, two were from the SDLP and one was a Green MP.

Such parliamentary reports aim to identify problems ... so that they may be avoided next time. This report has been relatively prompt in the making, but during the five and a half years since the Libyan intervention, the major powers have not been slow to get involved in plenty of other mischief and destruction.

A concluding note on France's rationale for intervening in Libya (the report spends little time on the UK's), taken from a US State Department report of a meeting in April 2011 with French intelligence agents. President Sarkozy's plans in Libya were reported to have been driven by:

a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
b. Increase French influence in North Africa,
c. Improve his internal political situation in France,
d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in
the world,
e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to
supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.

So much for Bernard-Henri Levy and the humanitarian 'public intellectuals'.


Tony Norfield, 14 September 2014

PS: For those interested, the Parliamentary debate on intervention in Libya was on 21 March 2011. Details of who said what are available in the Hansard report here.

Libya is for Everyone?

These are some factors to bear in mind when assessing the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya:

1. The European powers are now best placed to gain influence in Libya, especially Britain, which had already led the way in rehabilitating Libya back into the imperialist fold under Gaddafi. Britain’s BP had already struck oil and gas exploration deals with the regime in 2007 – its ‘single biggest exploration commitment’.[1] Alongside this, the LSE (latterly dubbed the ‘Libyan School of Economics’ after the Saif Al-Islam fiasco) was busy mentoring the Libyan elite in the wonders of ‘governance’. This was no doubt encouraged by the UK Foreign Office in order to gain influence over a new generation of rulers.

2. Libya is a rentier state, with the main spoils from energy revenues going to Gaddafi and his clan. There was normally enough left to distribute to other clans to keep them quiet; if not, then political repression kept the regime in place. However, political unrest grew after the Arab spring, which appeared to open up the possibility of regime change to Gaddafi’s disparate clan rivals. Gaddafi was fine for Britain and other powers while he was unchallenged and was becoming a stable partner. Post-Tunisia and post-Egypt, he was not.

3. The Libyan Investment Authority had been responsible for investing surplus oil funds and had assets valued at over $50bn in mid-2010. Before the sanctions on Libya earlier this year, it had already been suckered by western banks into loss-making bets on things like Société Générale shares and investments promoted by Goldman Sachs, and others, that lost almost all their value. Apart from the potential oil and gas revenues, control or influence over these funds will also be of great interest to western powers.

4. The NATO attack on Libya was initially promoted by Britain and France. Starting out under the usual false flag of ‘humanitarian intervention’, it quickly became an overt means of promoting regime change by backing one side in a civil war. The Libyan rebels in Benghazi quickly fell into the arms of western powers, with British intervention to open up ‘discussions’ being prominent. Since the end of July, the National Transitional Council has had an ambassador in London, after the expulsion of Gaddafi’s staff. The British have also been releasing previously-frozen Libyan funds held in London to finance the NTC. Today, the Financial Times reports that Britain’s office in Benghazi (!) has deployed a UK-led ‘international stabilisation response team’ to back up the NTC and ‘a separate British team is helping to build command and control capacity and assistance including communications kit and police training’.[2]

5. The US provided most of the firepower for the attack on Libya, but has effectively been sidelined by the British and the French. Italy, busy with the Berlusconi show, has had little role, despite being the previous colonial power and having extensive economic and financial relationships with the country. Over 20% of the Libyan Investment Authority’s $6bn equity investments are in Italian companies, eg Unicredit and ENI.

6. So far, Libyan events look like a big success for British imperialism: regime change to a more pliant group, big deals ahead, and at a cost of less than £300m for the military budget. But the ‘new Libya’ will still be fought over by the other powers, and the US will be unimpressed with spending $1bn to subsidise British strategy.

In the early hours of this morning, speaking on the Libyan opposition's TV network, Mahmoud Jibril, chairman of the NTC said ‘Libya is for everyone and will now be for everyone’. He meant that all Libya’s people would now participate in building the country, but the real message for imperialism is that Libya is now up for grabs.

Tony Norfield, 22 August 2011

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[1] See the BP website: http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7033600

[2] See ‘Cameron welcomes Gaddafi retreat’, Financial Times, 22 August 2011.