The International Court of Justice in the Hague has issued arrest warrants for Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi for crimes against humanity. Gadhafi recently stated that his back was against the wall, that he was not afraid to die and that the fight against Western invaders will go on until the bitter end.
These claims could be met with either a chuckle or disgust. The fact is that when a vicious tyrant exhibits signs of bravery, it does not turn him into a white knight. But perhaps it would be wise to take another look at this issue, as things are not always what they seem. A little history lesson cannot hurt.
During his decades-long rule, Gadhafi came to be known as a colorful and very complex man. On one hand, he is a thinking man, searching for original ways to improve the plight of his people, his country and the world, a socio-political philosopher who denounces capitalism and communism in his Green Book and suggests an alternative ideology combining Islamic social values and Arab nationalism. On the other hand, he is the head of an aggressive state known to shelter terrorist organizations and despots of all kinds and which has been directly involved in murderous acts of terrorism, the most infamous of which was the 1998 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 300 people were killed.
The dramatic change began at the onset of the second millennium: Gadhafi vehemently denounced al-Qaida after September 11, 2001. The following year, he apologized for the Lockerbie bombing and offered to compensate the victims' families. In 2003, he admitted that he was developing weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear program as well. He agreed to terminate the program and destroy his stockpile under international supervision.
What was the reason for his divine revelation? The answer is simple: fear of a fate similar to that of Saddam Hussein. In short, Moammar Gadhafi went from being the man everyone loved to hate, to the West's favorite, the man everyone loved to love.
Then why is the West, which had embraced this quirky character, now committing so many resources to speed his demise? What stands behind the unwavering European drive, which has managed to drag the United States along with it, to kill this man both physically and politically?
What is currently happening in Libya is not a popular uprising but rather a civil war. The rebels are not all cut from the same cloth, and many among them are religious zealots. A period of murderous turmoil is likely to ensue once the final battles for Libya are over. Is the West making the same mistake it made in Afghanistan, where the U.S. and Western Europe supported the Taliban against the former Soviet Union? We know how that turned out. And why did the West choose to back the rebel side, which has its own war crimes record, and not the other?
Gadhafi himself, after surviving an American airstrike, called for all nations to give U.S. President Barack Obama a chance and support him as the man who opposes wars in which previous American presidents have become tangled.
So why are they trying to assassinate him now, and not, for example, the Syrian president, who has been ruthlessly massacring his own people on no smaller scale. Why don't NATO bombers fly eastward and drop their democratic payload there? It was not so long ago that they chose not to fly south towards Darfur, where a real genocide took place under the West's impotent watch.
The answer is oil. Oil and politics. Europe is hampered by economic problems and waning political strength, and is taking advantage of the Libyan civil war to promote its own interests, gaining control of Libyan oil with binding contracts, just as Europe did in the 19th century and later on in the neo-liberal and neo-colonial 20th century. All the holier-than-thou preaching and claims to a higher moral standard are worth nothing more than bitter laughter. It is hard to escape the truth: Moammar Gadhafi is the scapegoat serving to heal the political and economic frustrations of the West and serve its interests, as always, for the short term.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו