Hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of the society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the norm.
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FAIR USE NOTICE FAIR USE NOTICE: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This website distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for scientific, research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.
Monday was the day we heard that the "US believes al-Qa'ida is on the verge of defeat after deputy leader's death" as The Independent headlined the story. It stood out as a sequel to the recent United States action in Pakistan, which brought us the news (but not the body) of a dead Osama bin Laden. It appears that a US operated drone killed Al Qaeda's top deputy, one Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, a Libyan citizen. After decades as a jihadist, Rahman is no more. But is that the end of al Qaeda? (Image: B.R.Q.)
On Tuesday, foreign affairs columnist for the Asia Times, Pepe Escobar, published a remarkable column outlining the command structure of the victorious NATO backed military leaders. Abdelhakim Belhaj, the lead commander of the rebels and the next two commanders, in terms of power, were once affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LGIF). In fact, commander Belhaj was once the subject of a US led extraordinary rendition (aka torture) in Thailand. About the time the US planned to send Belhaj to Guantanamo Bay, the Libyan government of Gaddafi requested his return to Libya.
Terrorist Rehab, Libyan Style
At this point, you may be thinking, "Good grief, that's when the real torture started!" Au contraire! The request for repatriation came from none other than Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libya's former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Saif, and others in the Gaddafi government, began a bold program of repatriating and rehabilitating individuals belonging to LGIF and other jihadist groups. Many fled Libya for Afghanistan where they fought with al Qaeda against the Soviet Union and then the United States Afghan effort. The LGIF had engaged in violent resistance to the Gaddafi regime. A large contingent of the LGIF fought the US in Iraq. According to reports, they "officially joined al Qaeda" in November 2007.
Saif Al Islam Gaddafi had a better idea:
"Saif Gaddafi worked hard to get individuals from the Muslim Brotherhood out of jail and paved the way for increase cooperation between the LIFG and the security services. This helped boost the level of mutual confidence between them." Combating Terrorism in Libya through Dialog and Reintegration, March 2010 p, 6
The gathering of terrorists in Libya served a purpose - terrorist rehabilitation or deradicalization, as the program termed it. Efforts focused on intensive dialog and debate between those employed by the Gaddafi regime and the terrorists. The main goals were a renunciation of violence and surrender of their weapons. From there, a holistic approach was applied to lay the foundations for a reintegration into Libya society. Psychological and social factors were included to reorient those detained as they adapted to a peaceful existence.
On graduation day in March, 2010, Saif Al-Islam presided over a formal press conference. As he freed 214 former members of LGIF, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other groups hostile to his regime, he said:
"Today is an important day because 214 prisoners are released. However, its greatest importance lies in the release of the group's leaders, and therefore, today, we have reached the crest of the reconciliation and dialogue program. Thanks to the efforts of our brothers and the Gaddafi Foundation, 705 people were released including of course this group. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, Press Conference in Tripoli, March 23, 2010 p, 13
It was less than a year later that the February 17, 2011 days of rage marked the start of the Libyan rebellion led by the graduates of the deradicalization program. This was the same program initiated by Gaddafi's son and sponsored by the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations.
The rehabilitation failed.
The Bush Administrations Gaddafi Rehab Program
Before Muammar Gaddafi and his son started their terrorist rehabilitation program, the Bush Administration conducted its own deradicalization effort with Gaddafi. On May 15, 2006, the US restored diplomatic relations with Libya. Then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice said, "We are taking these actions in recognition of Libya's continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism."
Time Magazine heralded the Gaddafi's conversion with a headline; Why Gaddafi is now a Good Guy. It noted that, "Even though Gaddafi has done little to loosen his dictatorship, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, among other statesmen, have already visited Libya to signal the West's pleasure. President Bush, or his successor, could be next to visit the leader in his tent."
The diplomatic contacts went hand in hand with weapons and energy contracts and it was all good until those rehabilitated al Qaeda allies, the LGIF, began stirring the pot.
Now things have turned upside down again. The military leadership of the Libyan rebellion is wall to wall LGIF with their links to al Qaeda. The NATO military machine may have taken some advice from its deradicalized allies. There have been reports of NATO bombings in urban areas with a range of civilian casualties. Unfortunately, on May 10, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs stopped its tally of civilian casualties. That was our only chance to know how many Libyans had to be killed in the name of freedom.
So what about the end of al Qaeda announced Monday? What about a Libyan revolutionary military command infested by al Qaeda sympathizers? It doesn't really matter, it appears. The Libyan effort is about something more important - oil (Libya to honor all legal oil deals, August 24)
Just a few years after pronouncing Gaddafi civilized, the US now demands that he leave Libya. Instead of selling him billions in weapons, NATO forms an alliance with a revolutionary military command dominated by members of an organization with strong historical ties to al Qaeda. It is all about oil. Whoever has it is our friend. Those who had but could not hold the oil concession are forgotten.
The United States and Europe have no permanent friends or enemies, to borrow a phrase, just a permanent lust for oil. That can justify any sequence of events. Just bet on the winner and get the goods.
END
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Michael Collins is a writer in the DC area who researches and comments on the corruptions of the new millennium. His articles focus on the financial manipulations of The Money Party, the abuse of power by government, and features on elections and (more...)
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A series of reports from journalists on the ground in Tripoli have provided evidence of mass killings by the NATO-backed forces in the Libyan civil war. These reports, which appear in publications largely supportive of the US-NATO intervention to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, further expose the fraudulent claim that the imperialist war against Libya is driven by humanitarian motives and the desire to protect civilian lives.
The Washington Post carried a prominent report Saturday, headlined, “Revenge Killings Mount in Libya, Extrajudicial Attacks by Rebels Cast Shadow Over New Freedom.” The headline refers to the contradiction between the claims by the National Transitional Council (NTC), the new NATO-backed regime in Libya, as well as the Obama administration that what is taking place is a new birth of freedom in Libya and the reality of politically directed and in some cases racially motivated slaughter.
Post reporter Simon Denyer asserts that Gaddafi’s troops “executed scores or even hundreds of political prisoners this week, even as victorious rebel fighters appear to have carried out their own abuses.” He cites the testimony of Diana Eltahawy, Libya researcher for Amnesty International, who “described a record of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters that has followed the rebels from east to west as they have taken over the country.”
The reporter himself saw five Gaddafi soldiers wounded and dying in a field hospital now patrolled by the “rebels,” without receiving food, water or medical attention, and 15 bodies, mainly of black Africans presumed to be Gaddafi supporters, left to rot in the sun outside the Bab al-Aziziyah compound where much of Gaddafi’s family lived. According to Denyer, “not all of them looked like ordinary battlefield deaths. Two dead men lay face down on the grass, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs.”
McClatchy News Service reported the same gruesome scene: “The dead apparently had been pro-Gaddafi fighters, but they had not gone down fighting. Some had been shot inside their tents, possibly asleep, without shoes on. One had been shot inside an ambulance and another had been shot inside a field hospital, still hooked to an intravenous drip. Others had gunshot wounds in the back of their heads, fueling speculation of executions by rebel fighters.”
Patrick Cockburn of the British Independent described the same scene Sunday, under the headline, “Rebels Wreak Revenge on Dictator’s Men.” He wrote: “The rotting bodies of 30 men, almost all black and many handcuffed, slaughtered as they lay on stretchers and even in an ambulance in central Tripoli, are an ominous foretaste of what might be Libya’s future. The incoming regime makes pious statements about taking no revenge on pro-Gaddafi forces, but this stops short of protecting those who can be labeled mercenaries. Any Libyan with a black skin accused of fighting for the old regime may have a poor chance of survival.”
Amnesty International has confirmed that many of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been labeled “mercenaries” by the NTC forces, by virtue of their skin color, and subjected to imprisonment, torture and summary execution.
One account of rebel abuses comes from Alex Crawford of Sky News, a British broadcast network owned by Rupert Murdoch that has enthusiastically backed the “rebels.” The correspondent was embedded with the anti-Gaddafi forces and accompanied a unit that marched from Zawiya into Tripoli. “We report it as we see it,” she said. “We saw Gaddafi fighters who were tied up and executed. It’s war. This is what happens. Rebel retaliations here are really upsetting.”
The British news agency Reuters reported the finding of several mass graves in Tripoli, claiming they were evidence of “widespread summary killings during the battle for the Libyan capital.” While attributing the worst single killing, some 53 bodies found in a burned-out warehouse, to Gaddafi’s forces, the Reuters report continued, “Reports of cold-blooded killings by both sides have surfaced in the last few days, darkening the atmosphere in a city where many residents had greeted Gaddafi’s fall with joy.”
The Los Angeles Times on Sunday wrote of “the visceral violence of rebel forces hammering away at residential neighborhoods known to be strongholds of Kadafi supporters. Rebel fighters use artillery and antiaircraft guns in such districts, which include Abu Salim, Hadba and Salahadin. At one point this week, rebels were firing assault rifles into residential apartment blocks in Abu Salim, where they suspected a sniper was holed up.”
In other words, the NATO-backed forces are engaged in precisely the same indiscriminate firing of heavy weapons in residential neighborhoods that provided the original pretext for the NATO intervention, when Gaddafi ordered similar action by his own forces. The Times account ended by quoting a Tripoli taxi driver who told the newspaper, “I have a fear that one day we’ll be like Iraqis, wishing for the days of Muammar Gaddafi.”
The Independent, in its leading article Sunday, warned the National Transitional Council that the savagery in the streets of Tripoli would backfire politically. It was difficult enough for supporters of the intervention—like the newspaper’s own editorial page—when they could claim that Gaddafi was engaged in slaughtering civilians, but “it will become almost impossible if a shift in the balance of power unleashes mass executions.”
The British newspaper also identified Abdelhakim Belhadj, the newly appointed commander of the Tripoli Military Council, as a former mujaheddin who “had fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban and was an Islamist terror suspect interrogated by the CIA.” Belhadj was a founder of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, which became the Libyan affiliate of Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.
A chilling picture emerges of the new regime being consolidated in Tripoli. It is being consolidated in blood, with massacres of civilians in pro-Gaddafi neighborhoods as well as pogroms of African migrant workers, under the direction of an Al Qaeda ally who now takes his orders from NATO headquarters and the White House.
The crimes being committed by the NATO-backed NTC forces demonstrate the hypocrisy of the propaganda campaign spearheaded by the Obama administration and its accomplices in Britain and France to justify the military onslaught against oil-rich Libya in the name of “human rights” and preventing a bloodbath.
Some of the journalists on the spot in Tripoli have been unable to close their eyes to the bloody settling of accounts that is taking place. That is to their credit, and it demonstrates as well the cynical and reactionary position taken by those “left” commentators in the United States and Europe who continue to justify the imperialist war against Libya and cover up its predatory character.
The events unfolding in Libya are an object lesson to the international working class. Those who held out the prospect of a “progressive” intervention by the imperialist powers to defend democracy and human rights are now politically implicated in unspeakable crimes. The only genuine and consistent opposition to imperialism is that conducted on the basis of the historic principles of the revolutionary socialist movement, as advanced by the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party.
Patrick Martin is a regular contributor to the World Socialist Web Site on US politics and international affairs. Read other articles by Patrick.
To take a scientific attitude about war and peace, we must carry the causal analysis a step further. If peace movements are caused by wars and war threats, then we must ask, what are the causes of these wars, both in the short term and in the long term?
Before analyzing the causes of wars, it is necessary to dismiss a false analysis that has been popularized in recent years, the myth that war is caused by a "war instinct." The best biological and anthropological data indicate that there is no such thing as a war instinct despite the attempt of the mass media and educational systems to perpetuate this myth. Instead, "the same species that invented war is capable of inventing peace" (note 15).
Since there are several kinds of war, it is likely that there are several different kinds of causes for war. There are two kinds of war in which the United States has not been engaged for over two centuries. The first are wars of national liberation such as the American Revolution or today's revolutions in Nicaragua and South Africa being waged by the Sandinistas and the African National Congress. The second are wars of revolution in which the previous ruling class is thrown out and replaced by another. In the British and French Revolutions of earlier eras the feudal land-owners were overthrown by the newly rising capitalist class. In the revolutions of this century in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. the capitalists, in turn, were overthrown by forces representing the working class and landless farmers.
The six wars and threats of war that have caused American peace movements in this century have been wars of imperial conquest, inter-imperialist rivalry, and capitalist-socialist rivalry. What are the root causes of these wars in the short term? For the following analysis, I will rely upon some of America's best economic historians (note 16).
The Spanish-American and Philippine Wars of 1898, according to historian Walter LaFeber, were inevitable military results of a new foreign policy devoted to obtaining markets overseas for American products. The new foreign policy was the response to a profound depression that began in 1893 with unemployment soaring to almost 20 percent. Farm and industrial output piled up without a market because American workers, being unemployed, had no money to buy them. Secretary of State Gresham "concluded that foreign markets would provide in large measure the cure for the depression." To obtain such markets, the U.S. went into competition with the other imperialist empires such as Britain and Spain. The U.S. intervened with a naval force to help overthrow the government of Hawaii in 1893, intervened diplomatically in Nicaragua in 1894, threatened war with England over Venezuela in 1895, and eventually went to war with Spain in 1898 and invaded the Philippines in 1898. To quote from the title of LaFeber's book, the U.S. established a "new empire."
Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P ("responsibility to protect"). Instead of neo-conservatives, we had humanitarian imperialists.
But the target is the same: regime change. And the project is the same: to completely dismantle and privatize a nation that was not integrated into turbo-capitalism; to open another (profitable) land of opportunity for turbocharged neo-liberalism. The whole thing is especially handy because it is smack in the middle of a nearly global recession.
It will take some time; Libyan oil won't totally return to the market within 18 months. But there's the reconstruction of everything the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombed (well, not much of what the Pentagon bombed in 2003 was reconstructed in Iraq ...)
Anyway - from oil to rebuilding - in thesis juicy business opportunities loom. France's neo-Napoleonic Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David of Arabia Cameron believe they will be especially well positioned to profit from NATO's victory. Yet there's no guarantee the new Libyan bonanza will be enough to lift both former colonial powers (neo-colonials?) out of recession.
President Sarkozy in particular will milk the business opportunities for French companies for all they're worth - part of his ambitious agenda of "strategic redeployment" of France in the Arab world. A compliant French media are gloating that this was "his" war - spinning that he decided to arm the rebels on the ground with French weaponry, in close cooperation with Qatar, including a key rebel commando unit that went by sea from Misrata to Tripoli last Saturday, at the start of "Operation Siren".
Well, he certainly saw the opening when Muammar Gaddafi's chief of protocol defected to Paris in October 2010. That's when the whole regime change drama started to be incubated.
Bombs for oil As previously noted (see Welcome to Libya's 'democracy', Asia Times Online, August 24) the vultures are already circling Tripoli to grab (and monopolize) the spoils. And yes - most of the action has to do with oil deals, as in this stark assertion by Abdeljalil Mayouf, information manager at the "rebel" Arabian Gulf Oil Company; "We don't have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil."
These three happen to be crucial members of the BRICS group of emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which are actually growing while the Atlanticist, NATO-bombing economies are either stuck in stagnation or recession. The top four BRICs also happen to have abstained from approving UN Security Council resolution 1973, the no-fly zone scam that metamorphosed into NATO bringing regime change from above. They saw right through it from the beginning.
To make matters worse (for them), only three days before the Pentagon's Africom launched its first 150-plus Tomahawks over Libya, Colonel Gaddafi gave an interview to German TV stressing that if the country were attacked, all energy contracts would be transferred to Russian, Indian and Chinese companies.
So the winners in the oil bonanza are already designated: NATO members plus Arab monarchies. Among the companies involved, British Petroleum (BP), France's Total and the Qatar national oil company. For Qatar - which dispatched jet fighters and recruiters to the front lines, trained "rebels" in exhaustive combat techniques, and is already managing oil sales in eastern Libya - the war will reveal itself to be a very wise investment decision.
Prior to the months-long crisis that is in its end game now with the rebels in the capital, Tripoli, Libya was producing 1.6 million barrels per day. Once resumed, this could reap Tripoli's new rulers some US$50 billion annually. Most estimates place oil reserves at 46.4 billion barrels.
The "rebels" of new Libya better not mess with China. Five months ago, China's official policy was already to call for a ceasefire; if that had happened, Gaddafi would still control more than half of Libya. Yet Beijing - never a fan of violent regime change - for the moment is exercising extreme restraint.
Wen Zhongliang, the deputy head of the Ministry of Trade, willfully observed, "Libya will continue to protect the interests and rights of Chinese investors and we hope to continue investment and economic cooperation." Official statements are piling up emphasizing "mutual economic cooperation".
Last week, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the dodgy Transitional National Council (TNC), told Xinhua that all deals and contracts agreed with the Gaddafi regime would be honored - but Beijing is taking no chances.
Libya supplied no more than 3% of China's oil imports in 2010. Angola is a much more crucial supplier. But China is still Libya's top oil customer in Asia. Moreover, China could be very helpful in the infrastructure rebuilding front, or in the technology export - no less than 75 Chinese companies with 36,000 employees were already on the ground before the outbreak of the tribal/civil war, swiftly evacuated in less than three days.
The Russians - from Gazprom to Tafnet - had billions of dollars invested in Libyan projects; Brazilian oil giant Petrobras and the construction company Odebrecht also had intrests there. It's still unclear what will happen to them. The director general of the Russia-Libya Business Council, Aram Shegunts, is extremely worried: "Our companies will lose everything because NATO will prevent them from doing business in Libya."
Italy seems to have passed the "rebel" version of "you're either with us or without us". Energy giant ENI apparently won't be affected, as Premier Silvio "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi pragmatically dumped his previous very close pal Gaddafi at the start of the Africom/NATO bombing spree.
ENI's directors are confident Libya's oil and gas flows to southern Italy will resume before winter. And the Libyan ambassador in Italy, Hafed Gaddur, reassured Rome that all Gaddafi-era contracts will be honored. Just in case, Berlusconi will meet the TNC's prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, this Thursday in Milan.
Bin Laden to the rescue Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - of the famed "zero problems with our neighbors" policy - has also been gushing praise on the former "rebels" turned powers-that-be. Eyeing the post-Gaddafi business bonanza as well, Ankara - as NATO's eastern flank - ended up helping to impose a naval blockade on the Gaddafi regime, carefully cultivated the TNC, and in July formally recognized it as the government of Libya. Business "rewards" loom.
Then there's the crucial plot; how the House of Saud is going to profit from having been instrumental in setting up a friendly regime in Libya, possibly peppered with Salafi notables; one of the key reasons for the Saudi onslaught - which included a fabricated vote at the Arab League - was the extreme bad blood between Gaddafi and King Abdullah since the run-up towards the war on Iraq in 2002.
It's never enough to stress the cosmic hypocrisy of an ultra-regressive absolute monarchy/medieval theocracy - which invaded Bahrain and repressed its native Shi'ites - saluting what could be construed as a pro-democracy movement in Northern Africa.
Anyway, it's time to party. Expect the Saudi Bin Laden Group to reconstruct like mad all over Libya - eventually turning the (looted) Bab al-Aziziyah into a monster, luxury Mall of Tripolitania.
