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‘You cannot bomb a country into democracy’ – anti-war activist
Published: 16 April, 2011, 01:07
Edited: 16 April, 2011, 19:00
Libya: A Libyan man pleads to God during the Friday noon prayer in Benghazi on April 15, 2011 (AFP Photo / Marwan Naamani)
(20.2Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Politics, Human rights, Law, Modernization, Bill Dod, Opposition, Libya
Chris Nineham from the Stop the War Coalition says the intervention in Libya was all along about removing Muammar Gaddafi from power.
“There is a very big split in the alliance. On the one hand you have people who basically want to stick to the UN resolution, which talks about defending civilians and has very limited aims,” he said. “On the other hand, you have the US, Britain and France, who have now ‘come clean’ and said that they are going for regime change with this intervention, which is something that is not covered in the resolution. As far as I can see, it is illegal.”
Leaving aside the legality of the operation, Nineham added, the conflict has only escalated since the intervention.
“Everything that we have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan tells us that you cannot bomb a country into democracy or liberation, you cannot create progress in a country by launching cruise missiles at it,” he said. “I fail to see how intensifying the bombing is going to do anything more than increase the level of violence, increase the level of suffering of the Libyan people, and spread the civil war across the country.”
Patrick Hayes, a reporter for the news website Spiked.com, believes that the West’s military intervention has taken the power to change Libya’s future out of the hands of its people.
“Even if [the coalition] got rid of Gaddafi… [Libya] is going to have the same Gaddafi regime, just minus Gaddafi,” he said. “Basically, the rebels are going to deal with the people who will end up winning that civil war. When the West comes in and tries to intervene on behalf of the Libyan people, the power is taken away from them, the democratic initiative is taken away from the Libyan people and put in the hands of the Western elite.”
Former UN diplomat and political writer Peter Dale Scott believes that the partitioning of Libya into east and west could be a “good measure to get political processes going on each side of the de facto partition line.”
“As a Canadian, I have a very high priority on stopping the fighting,” he said. “And I think that the reason the Americans don’t want a cease-fire is that a very likely consequence would be a partition of Libya into east and west.”
“I think that would actually be a good way of calming things down, because it represents most of the divided support in Libya right now, and it also represents returning to what has been a usual historical figuration of Libya,” Scott added. “Libya was only united by the Italians in 1934.”
15.04.2011, 23:18
1 comment
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PR101 you see where things are because of the ill-discipline of conspiracy theory and the constant repetition of cult of personality semantics? How is it that you maintain belief that the behaviour of the USA is not calculated to construct the best electoral outcome for French/ American democratic process and that the American/ French belief is not that inclusive and equivalent democratic pressure is seen as a logical expansion of the economic integrity of US French political economy? Whereas you know very well that is exactly the context in which politicians are convinced that force must entail collateral damage to the natural rights and that it is perfectly unavoidable that the people and the military {with penchant to commit suicide in disgust} should not secure wholeness and clarification of military terminology prior to launching war on point of an utter wrath. In the precedent of the priesthood of the blood sacrifice which is in the Pacific.
Clearly, the talk was about imposing a no fly zone to protect the civilians from the government in Libya. Yet as distinct from this alleged pretext, brandished at the United Nations, the subsequent actions of the USA and NATO have followed the doctrine of opening another window of opportunity to spur arms sales for big military contractors , stealing Libyan oil resources and violating the national sovereignty of a UN member state.
And cynically. in a bid to conceal its responsibility for this act of illegality, the consequencies of which is to inflict catastrophic suffering on the Libyans, produce another Somalia in North Africa, US propaganda is spreading the claim that the Libyan government is using civilians as human shields. A classic example of making the victim the villain! Washington jointly with Britain and NATO , as well as their puppet secretary general of the UN, are responsible for this latest calamity for mankind.
This whole attack by America is illegal. Our Teleprompt Reader in Chief is doing the bidding of his Masters, the international bankers. He never went to Congress. He simply did what he was going to, laws be damned. So everyone wonders why Americans are doing whatever they want?? There's no respect for laws anymore, when our own government doesn't abide by them, why should We The People?? Our government does not represent us. It represents international banking interests. PERIOD.