Berbers in Libya demonstrating outside the rebel parliament. Most groups in Occupied Libya are suffering since the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Sickening US hypocrisy
October 17, 2013 Opinion & Analysis
John Haylett
October 14, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Thursday’s seizure by one militia group and subsequent release by another of Libya’s stooge Prime Minister Ali Zidan shed light on the situation in the country. The fact that the Libyan leader had taken up residence in Tripoli’s Corinthia Hotel – favoured by oil executives and other corporate representatives – for reasons of personal safety speaks volumes for the chaos still reigning after Libya’s “liberation” by Western military force two years ago.
It illustrates that the prime minister’s writ runs less extensively than that of even Afghan puppet President Hamid Karzai, whose sovereignty is limited to Kabul’s Green Zone.
Karzai’s relative security lies in his preference for protection from US military contractors rather than Afghan troops.
However, both government “leaders” share a penchant for lecturing their imperialist sponsors about what they will not tolerate.
Karzai has told Nato that he will not approve air strikes that threaten civilian lives and Zidan declared in the wake of the US kidnapping of al-Qaida-linked Libyan citizen Abu Anas al-Libi: “Libya does not surrender its sons.”
The net result of their declarations has been sweet FA. Nato warplanes and drones still slaughter civilians in Afghanistan and Washington still lifts whoever it wants wherever it wants.
Secretary of State John Kerry defended US special forces’ capture of Libi in what is nominally a sovereign state by suggesting that anyone raising international law was “sympathising” with terrorism.
“I hope the perception is in the world that people who commit acts of terror and who have been appropriately indicted by courts of law, by the legal process, will know the US is going to do anything in its power that’s legal and appropriate to enforce the law and protect our security,” he said in Indonesia.
Kerry added that terrorists “can run but they can’t hide,” borrowing the graphic battle plan of legendary African-American heavyweight boxer Joe Louis.
However, there is a difference between Louis’s relentless stalking of his challengers within a 400 sq ft boxing ring and US imperialism’s extension of the concept to the entire globe.
Louis’s opponents signed up willingly but perhaps unwisely to the task. Washington hasn’t asked the world. It simply asserts its right.
There might be some justice in this approach if it were based on equality and inclusiveness.
If, for example, one country suffered a terrorist bombing of a civilian airliner in which, say, 73 people were slaughtered and it identified those who carried out the atrocity, would it be justified in taking matters into its own hands?
Should its special forces make their way into the state harbouring these terrorists and pick them up for interrogation on one of its warships before putting them on trial?
Or if that proved problematic for a variety of reasons, would a rocket strike be preferable even if this wiped out a number of civilians in Miami as well as the former CIA operatives and lifetime anti-Cuban terrorists Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles?
How would such operations be viewed by our national broadcaster the BBC, which accompanied its reports on the kidnapping of Libi and the attempted capture of al-Shabaab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr in Somalia with reassurances that the US would continue its anti-terrorist work?
International law didn’t get a look-in. The only implied criticism was that the US navy Seals had failed to get their man.
South African blogger Dominic Tweedie recorded on October 6 “at least 462 articles produced since yesterday and relayed by Google News” that described the clandestine raids based on a US military news release.
“In a stealthy seaside assault in Somalia and in a raid in Libya’s capital, US special forces on Saturday struck out against Islamic extremists…” they enthused.
“The US committed a war crime yesterday, not once but at least twice. This is the real story. Who else on this planet is ready to say so?” asked Tweedie.
In contrast to the 462 and counting articles glorifying US piracy, how much of the media paid attention the following day to an emotional ceremony in Barbados at a monument to commemorate the 1976 Cubana Airlines bombing over the island masterminded by Bosch and Posada?
Cuban ambassador Lisette Perez Perez praised the Barbados government for its solidarity, noting: “There is a history of injustice in the waters of Paradise Beach in Barbados.
“The cold-blooded murder of the people on board that passenger plane was a crime against them, their families and their countries. It was also a crime against Barbados and its people.”
Perez pointed out that this wasn’t an isolated example of US-sponsored terrorism against Cuba.
“The cruelty of a 50-year war of terror against Cuba is abhorrent. Since the triumph of the Cuban revolution, terrorists have murdered 3,478 Cubans and incapacitated 2 099 others,” she said.
Bosch was pardoned by president George Bush and died peacefully in Miami in 2011.
Posada Carriles still roams freely in Miami, being photographed last week with recently released Cuban “democracy campaigner” Guillermo Farinas.
Washington still refuses, despite Kerry’s rhetoric about not sympathising with terrorists, to extradite Posada Carriles to Cuba.
Kerry’s not alone in his hypocrisy. Western politicians and media remain shamefully complicit in this selective approach to terrorism.
This article was originally published at The Morning Star.
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