Empire’s Overtly Covert Action In Libya

Now, Empire is going to take overtly covert action in Libya. It is not new. Covert action was there for long, but not formally. It was through friends. This is for the Empire’s Libyan “democracy” enterprise.

But, dust of war on the Libyan desert is sending smokes over the Washington sky. Politics and public opinion in the US is being influenced by the Libyan involvement.

Obama has signed a secret order, known as presidential “finding”, authorizing covert US support for anti-Gadhafi forces. An exclusive Reuters report informed this development on the Libya front.

Such “findings”, the report said, are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the CIA. White House spokesman refrained from comment on the issue. The CIA declined to comment. So, the general public will have no clear idea about the step. A “transparent and accountable” style, indeed!

The ground reality is: neither Gadhafi’s forces nor his opponents, the “pick-up basketball team”, as Obama’s director of national intelligence compared them, appear able to make decisive gains.

The “pick-up basketball team” will now formally get cash or arms or both from the Empire. Sending arms would arguably violate the UN arms embargo on Libya although the mighty – the US, UK and France –will find out loophole in the resolution.

Covert action, “any US government effort to change the economic, military, or political situation overseas in a hidden way”, encompasses propaganda, funding, electoral manipulation, arming, training, and even encouraging a coup. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to press reports referring US officials, have indicated their willingness to supply the Libyan “democracy” visionaries with arms. The New York Times already reported that the CIA had sent its operatives and that British operatives were directing air strikes.

The Libyan friends are now being armed covertly, although the world media know it. The Egyptian friends are providing training. But, Egypt with a “revolutionary” fervor prefers to keep it secret, although the world media also know it. Future “covert” actions will also take the friendly Egyptian help. It, in the name of “technical assistance”, will help bypassing the NATO-consensus-driven command structure, and help change the military stalemate in the Libyan theater despite a dozen days of air strikes by the coalition of competitors.

On the other hand, a number of US lawmakers are uneasy with walking into Libyan desert. A number of them are asking questions about the cost of the Libya operation and expressed concern about the makeup of the “pick-up basketball team”. They expressed frustration because the US officials couldn’t say the time period for concluding the US involvement. Some of them are anxious about their government’s activities in Libya, and some of them have recalled the end use of the US arms to the proxy fighters fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. There are apprehensions for similar experience in Libya. Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, opposed supplying arms to the Libyan rebels “at this time.”

There is the question of cost of the enterprise. The Pentagon puts it at so far $550 million. It could be, according an estimate, $40 million a month depending on the length of the operation for the US. Even, “It could be higher,” an official said.

This carries possibility of serious question among the general public at a time of overpowering budget deficit. People can question the logic behind spending millions for Libya strife while teachers, cops and firemen find them laid off because of shortage of money.

An Associated Press-GfK poll found the US split on the US involvement in Libya, with 48% approving and 50% disapproving. Only 13% favored US ground troops there.

Referring to the poll, Liz Sidoti, AP’s National Political Writer, wrote: “Americans are growing increasingly pessimistic about the economy as soaring gas costs strain already-tight budgets.”

Prices on everything, many feel, are going up, and that’s hurting. “Americans are”, the AP report said, “acutely focused on their financial well-being, even as turmoil in the Middle East commands international attention. And the foreign unrest is directly affecting them by boosting oil prices. More Americans — 77 percent, up from 54 percent last fall — now say gas prices are highly important to them.”

The survey, conducted in March 24-28, Liz opines, “highlights a central challenge Obama will face in his campaign for re-election. The president will have to convince a lot of voters who are still feeling financial hardship that things are getting better.” “But the disconnect between negative perceptions of the economy and signs that a rebound are under way could provide an opening for Republicans at the outset of the 2012 campaign.”

Only a third of the respondents in the survey are optimistic of better times ahead for the US, down from about half earlier this year while 28% thought that the economy would get worse, “the largest slice of people who have expressed that sentiment since the question was first asked in December 2009.” Half of Americans still approve Obama’s performance.

The poll finding comes as there could be a partial government shutdown without further action by Congress. Without agreement, some Republicans say they won’t approve funding to keep the government operating. About half in the survey expressed that enormous federal budget deficit to cause a major economic crisis for the US for the next decade, and most were worried with the mounting federal debt that will hamper the financial future of the posterity. Participants in the poll view everyone negatively when it comes to handling the deficit.

Does the economic reality, and the perception of economic situation by the people are influencing the Libya involvement? And, shall not these – economic reality, the perception and the involvement – influence politics in Washington DC? And, shall it be wrong if it is sarcastically told that Gadhafi is also playing with politics at the center of the center of the world system? 
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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 1 April, 2011

Libya: Arms For “Democracy”

Arms are required for “democracy” in Libya. The masters of world “democracy” feel the demand. This reiteration of old imperialist ethics carries implication for those not in agreement to the world powers.

With resorting to arms in Libya, it will be a democracy of the oil, by the oil, for the oil, a “democracy” exported to grab oil, the strategic mineral, and to demolish the Libyan people’s journey to democracy capable to design their own economic and political life.

The US and UK, the two “democracy” defenders felt the need to, formally, arm Libyan “democracy” rebels. At the London Libya Conference (LLC), Clinton and Hague perceived that the UN resolution provides them the legal coverage to arm their Libyan friends of “democracy” in the theater of intervention to oust Gadhafi, their friend turned foe.

Susan Rice, the US’ UN envoy informed that the US had “not ruled out” arming the rebels. Hague, the UK foreign secretary, agreed that the resolution made it legal “to give people aid in order to defend themselves…”. Qatar, West’s one of the Gulf allies and defenders of “democracy” and “human” rights, also feels the need of the present “democracy”-hour. The “pro”-people Qatari premier said: “We cannot let the people suffer for too long.” People, it seems, is the magical password that allows everyone to pass the door of legitimacy.

The French and the Italians disagreed with their Anglo-American friends’ interpretation of the UN resolution. Juppé the French foreign minister, contested: “It is not part of the UN resolution”. Germany expressed reservations about the current military intervention in Libya.

This part of the story, interpreting the UN resolution, carries another connotation: competition to control stooges and oil. The powerful shall prevail in the job of providing interpretation.

The interventionists are uncertain about outcome of their “endeavor” in Libya as their un-limits of power are now being shadowed by crises, public dissension in homes, and gradually increasing competition. With the present air strike power, the Libya strife can live longer than the designers imagined.

Libyan nouveau-“revolutionaries” fled in panicked scramble from the localities they occupied, the western media reported, as Gadhafi forces hammered them with assault. Their “courageous” advance with interventionist air support turned into cowardice retreat. A spokesman for the Western ally in Libya boosted: They would have finished Gaddafi “in a few days” had they arms. He expressed: Western political support and arms “would be great.” The routing of the Libyan “democracy visionaries” in some areas shows their dependence on masters’ air power.

What’s in exchange of support? The LLC agreed to study a Qatari “benevolent” proposal to sell oil from intervention-ally occupied areas of Libya, to provide revenue for the insurgents. Shall the revenue go to pay for arms? The dealers are not hiding their impatience for oil.

So, the interventionists are resounding battle cries. Cameron acknowledged that “the Libyan people cannot reach that future on their own. ... We are all here … to help the Libyan people in their hour of need.” This “praise”-worthy Western-Eastern (as there are Qatar and the Emirates also) intervention in the energy-strategic land in Africa now also finds Sweden, although not a NATO member, as a friend. Sweden, as press reported, plans to send fighter jets to the Libyan air space.

Whom the “democracy” architects support there in Libya? Clinton admitted that they “do not know as much” of their Libyan ally, “visionaries” for a “democratic” Libya, Sarkozy’s favorite trans-Mediterranean political partner. Some officials attending the LLC admitted that they had little knowledge of the Libyan partner. Then, is it an act of desperation? What’s the circumstance that makes one desperate, and don’t allow enough time to know a friend? Is it only a geostrategic move? Or, are there reasons lying in home? Admiral James, NATO’s commander in Europe, told that intelligence analysis had revealed “flickers” of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah presence inside the movement. In an open letter to the international community, Gadhafi called for a halt to the “monstrous assault” and asserted that the Benghazi-band is supported by the al-Qaeda.

It can be assumed that, on the basis of experience of past incidents of intervention, Special Forces from other countries are already in action in Libya. The US and France are sending diplomats to Benghazi to strengthen bonds of deal. Formal shipments of arms will now follow the supply line already established through old friends.

In the West, it has been mentioned that western intelligence has had its fingers in parts of the Libyan opposition for years. At the same time, today’s “democracy” mongers were arms contractors of Gadhafi. They had vibrant business with the ruler. They now plan to take the ruler to the international criminal court, the arrangement one world power does not recognize. History, it seems, is on the side of the world powers.

Obama plans to “deny the [Gadhafi] regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work … to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power” as he outlined his objectives in Libya. He cautioned Gaddafi “that history is not on [Gadhafi’s] side.” However, Obama has not forgotten one of the costly lessons learnt from Iraq: “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq. [R]egime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.” According to Obama, the U.S. goal remains regime change, but that could not be pursued as a military strategy because it goes far beyond the related UN Resolution.

But, he has more hawkish friends and critics at home, some of whom are determined to act in a way so that history remembers them as champion of “poor”, “human” rights, and “democracy”. But history ultimately laughs at pseudo-champions of people’s causes. 
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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 31 March, 2011