Canada led the NATO air campaign and we also outdid our allies in our celebratory victory parades. In the wake of all these marching bands and military flypasts on Parliament Hill, the Harper government hoped all Canadians would take pride in our Forces for having ousted a dictator in the name of democracy and human rights.
Like a Hollywood script, the good guys win, the credits roll and everyone heads home feeling self-satisfied.
The "success" in Libya is now being touted as a possible template for international intervention in Syria. There’s no need for western soldiers to get bogged down fighting costly counter-insurgencies like Afghanistan or Iraq when our air forces can simply bomb with impunity for months on end, until the pro-democracy forces finally oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
Unfortunately, those pesky Libyan pro-democracy forces insist on displaying very undemocratic behaviour. Following the capture and brutal public murder of Gadhafi, those Libyans who fought against his tyranny were quick to establish their own.
The various militias and factions that were supported by NATO had little in common other than their opposition to Gadhafi. Whether it was tribal affiliation or religious ideology, the former rebels were as disparate a collection of cutthroats and brigands as was ever assembled.
In the wake of NATO’s victory these ill-disciplined, poorly trained fighters refused to disarm and were soon clashing among themselves. To this day, the rebel faction that captured Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, has refused to turn him over to the impotent National Transitional Council in Tripoli. They are keeping him in custody as a human bargaining chip.
The residents of Bani Walid, a former Gadhafi stronghold, drove former rebels from their town and have proclaimed their own autonomy. Last week the tribal leaders in the eastern, oil-rich region of Cyrenaica also declared their independence from Tripoli.
In response, the unelected, pro-democracy Libyan leader Mustapha Abdel Jalil vowed to use force to defend national unity.
It was in Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, that the tribal leaders first rose up against Gadhafi’s central authority in Tripoli.
When Gadhafi threatened to use force to subdue the rebellion, the United Nations Security Council authorized NATO to impose a no-fly zone in order to protect Libyan civilians.
Now the very same leader that NATO bombed into power in the name of democracy is vowing to employ the same measures Gadhafi would have used to prevent the dissolution of Libya.
Of course, the difference in this case is that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird met with Abdel Jalil for 30 minutes on June 27 as part of a half-day whirlwind visit to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi at the height of the rebellion.
Immediately following that encounter Baird told any reporter who would listen that he was now "a believer" in the National Transitional Council. "They have a roadmap that includes a democratic Libya that respects human rights (and) that respects the rule of law," claimed Baird.
To add emphasis to his statement, Baird, who had already been whisked to the Canadian airbase in Sicily, proceeded to hand-write a message on a bomb: "Free Libya — Democracy."
Two weeks ago, in reaction to news that U.S forces had burned copies of the Qur’an in Afghanistan, Libyan Islamic fundamentalists shocked the West when they desecrated a Second World War Allied cemetery. Among the headstones damaged was that of Flying Officer Martin Northmore, a Canadian pilot killed in 1943 in the skies over Libya.
Such a violent backlash serves to indicate just how little lasting goodwill was gained through NATO’s military assistance in Gadhafi’s overthrow.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: SCOTT TAYLOR
No comments:
Post a Comment