generalspeaking

Libya's Liberation

NATO was swift to jump into the fray when tribal opponents to the regime of Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi decided they were in the mood to challenge his title of 'King of Kings'.  His tribe had been in the ascendancy long enough, thanks to the military coup he engineered in 1969 that gave him the opportunity to rule the sectarian- and tribally-splintered country for far too long.

 The restiveness of competing interests finally arose to confront his regime, thanks to a rising tide of Arab-Muslim awareness of other possibilities which Tunisia's revolution had brought to the Middle East and North Africa. Regime opponents insisted it was time they had their share of the profits of the oil-rich country, and equal tribal-clan recognition which the regime had always denied them.

France thought that its NATO colleagues should recognize the appropriateness of becoming involved in bringing down the dictator who made an international reputation for himself as a terrorist sponsor and egotistical tyrant who had become regally accustomed to living the good life on the oil revenues of his country.

His brutality toward his countrymen contrasted with his generosity to his African neighbours many of whom relied upon him to augment their state revenues. His propensity to hire black Africans as mercenaries rather than trust his own, gave employment to Africans who would otherwise have spelled trouble for their own countries.

Although he was a state sponsor of terrorist militias, those militias were aware that their funding required that they never have the gall to challenge the hand that fed them. And Gaddafi was fond of informing his Western contacts that he had no truck with Islamists.

He's long gone, but Islamic terrorists linked with al-Qaeda fought alongside the Libyan rebels, they were there in the background, while NATO missions to protect the rebels and afflict the regime's military were flying overhead and paving the way for a change in government. And while, when the conflict finally came to an end, as did Gaddafi's life, in an impromptu revenge mutilation of gruesome quality ... of a type he knew well and encouraged performing on others, NATO smugly departed.

The National Transitional Council was replaced with a working government. Unfortunately, the Tripoli government has never been able to succeed in persuading the tribal armed militias to surrender their arms, and there is no real national military force that is capable of bringing order and security to Libya, the result of which is rampant chaos with raids such as the one that torched the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the mission.

Radical Islamists now feel perfectly comfortable in Libya. They target foreign and Christian missions with confidence. The black flag of al-Qaeda was seen raised when a Coptic church was recently fire-bombed. "The burning of the church was a response to the Egyptian Copts burning the Libyan flag in Cairo and the painting of crosses on the Libyan embassy in Cairo", explained Salem, a Libyan from Benghazi.

The arms depots that were raided, their contents hauled away in triumph by Islamists, and the returning African mercenaries whose lives were endangered by remaining in Libya where they were seen as creatures of the Libyan regime, brought advanced weapons to other North African regimes, soon enough contested by both the returnees and Islamists aligned with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, as demonstrated in Mali and Algeria.

Coptic Christians in Libya are abducted by militias, tortured, threatened with death, and forced to insult their own traditions. Islamists publicly lash Muslims whom they claim are not sufficiently alert to the requirements of Sharia. Ansar al-Sharia, a militant Islamic group, has made its presence well known in Libya, claiming credit as well for the assault on the Benghazi U.S. consulate. Its leader openly flaunts his presence in Libya, with no one in authority feeling compelled to arrest him.

"Secular regimes, such as the one that existed under Gaddafi's, kept Islamist sentiment in check. The collapse of his government, in addition to non-existent security, has allowed such groups [Ansar al-Sharia] to flourish. With no pervasive intelligence services to prosecute them, they are today able to establish virtual states within a state", explained Barak Barfi, research fellow at Washington-based New America Foundation.

Labels: Atrocities, Chaos, Conflict, Controversy, Islamism, Libya

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 21, 2013