Another Arab Spring Success Story
"The Libyans will not make it alone. We have one side of the coin to get rid of the dictatorial regime. The other side is to build a state. If you are going to build a state, it means you have to provide the required assistance in a timely manner."What he is stating is anything but unreasonable. After all, what began as a rebellion by various tribes in Libya against the oppression of their dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, ended as a victory for his removal and the freeing of the country from his rule. That happened because NATO decided to become involved, mostly at the insistence of France and Britain, former collegial investment partners with the Gadhafi administration, aided by U.S. ships launching cruise missiles and France, Britain and Canada along with other NATO countries flying air cover for the rebels, and destroying Libya's airforce.
"We are not a charity case. And I have to make it very clear; it is the obligation of the international community, on the neighbouring countries -- either north of the Mediterranean, south of the Mediterranean -- to take the case of Libya very seriously."
"If Libya is becoming a failed state, the price will be paid very high not only for the Libyans, but also for the neighboring countries and the community as a whole."
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz
Without the intervention of NATO and the free air zone they created over Libya the hard-pressed rebel militias, unorganized and incapable of mounting a defence against Libya's military war machines would never have seen success. But with success came abysmal failure. With the Gadhafi regime gone, NATO said its goodbyes and good-lucks and departed. And the looted caches of military weapons were distributed across north Africa, with Mali, Niger, Chad, Somalia and northern Nigeria feeling the impact as Islamists took their possession and made their violent gains.
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| Financial Post |
And in Libya, the confrontations continued between opposing militias, all refusing to surrender their arms to live under a central authority and respect a national police and military force to bring order to the country and keep the peace. That peace never did arrive, as militias swaggered about with their arms, threatening nascent stability, and taking their spoils of the war by requisitioning peoples' cars, their homes, their belongings, with no one to stop them.
Tripoli is in a state of apprehended insurrection, the government too weak to assert a central authority, much less a strictly regional one. There is so much chaos as militias assert their independence and continue to plague civility and order that the international community has seen fit to recall their envoys because the environment is simply too dangerous for foreigners to remain present in the country. The Libyan government itself can no longer have its parliament meet in its capital city.
"A new beginning for Libya is within grasp and we will help them seize it. The Arab Spring is a step further away from oppression and dictatorship and a step closer to freedom and democracy. ... We helped the Libyan people to liberate themselves and we now have the prospect of a new partner in the Southern Mediterranean", waxed former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, as Britain pulled out of the area with a job well done, post-Gadhafi.
But it wasn't well done and the city of Benghazi proved it when the same rebels who revelled in the no-fly zone with cries of "thank you NATO, thank you America", transforming themselves into the terrorists who attacked the American consulate putting it to the torch, and killing four Americans, among them the U.S. Ambassador to Libya. Armed militias continue to carve up personal territories and to plague the lives of ordinary Libyans.
The very same ordinary Libyans who hoped against hope that their country would be transformed and they would advance with it into a free and democratic future. While they now despair, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb rejoices.
Labels: Conflict, Islamism, Libya, NATO, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Friday, August 08, 2014
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