Libya; Why Not Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc

Libya; Why Not Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc
Written by Paul I. Adujie




Today, France, Britain and the United States began a process which will culminate in the overthrow of Moamar Gadaffi, the dictator and tyrant who has dominated Libya’s political stage for far too long!

In attacking Libya, western nations led by France, have argued that Moamar Gadaffi already has or is at the verge of massacring “his-own-people” as he repelled or took counter measures against legitimate uprising, rebellion and revolution against his more than 40 years dictatorships, tyranny and repression against the people of Libya.

The truth is, the world is witnessing the onset of the invasion and occupation of Libya for her sweet crude oil. This is Iraq all over again, in which Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD was used as smokescreen or camouflage and cotton-wool over the eyes of the gullible, in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Libya is being attacked, Libya will be invaded and occupied with a regime change, under the guise of protecting Libyan people. It is false pretense. A dangerous and terrible precedent is being set, a slippery slope will ensue.

Libya is at cusp of experiencing a regime change, engineered by western nations under some banal pretexts. Western nations have hated and loathed Moamar Gaddaffi forever, as a real and phantom or imagined enemy. Gaddaffi’s preachment and stance as anti colonialist, anti imperialist and anti apartheid endeared him to me in my youth and college days.

Gaddaffi’s contradictions and inconsistencies were revealed to me, through an anti African migrant agreement which he entered with Italy and other European nations, in which Libya would be paid, to act as the gatekeeper for Europe against African citizens desperate to migrate to Europe through Libya, and other nations of North Africa.

Secondly, Gaddaffi’s virulent anti African stance was proven to me beyond doubt, when he publicly suggested that Nigeria should be split into several component parts as separate nations, and along regional, ethnic or cultural and linguistic lines! All believers in the unity in diversity and indivisible plural one Nigeria, as I am were irked by Gaddaffi’s petulance and impertinence.

Let it be known therefore, that my opinion is not anchored on defending Gaddaffi and his sons, as they are clearly indefensible, in equal measure as they are brutal, violent, repressive! Gaddaffi epitomized the worst form of dictatorship and tyranny in the world today.

There is staggering hypocrisy and screeching-loud double standards in the actions of these western nations, particularly in the face of the massacre of more than 40 peaceful protesters in Yemen yesterday by the government of Yemen and it’s paramilitary or militia.

Hypocrisies by western nations is legendary and even brazen now, in view of the fact that the were scores of deaths in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc, all of which have witnesses protests and demonstrations and violence to varying degrees in these North African, Arabian and Middle Eastern nations since onset of these political upheaval in January

On the African continent, we witnessed and are still witnessing instances of rebellions and reprisals against rebels. Somalia is the worst example. Somalia is an anarchic nation state, a disintegrated and failed nation state which have not had a steady government since 1991. And yet, western nations have not intervened to save the lives of innocent civilians. If only Somalia had crude oil!?

Somalia has since 1991 garnered the attention of western nations intermittently, only when pirates on Somalis waters, the Somali flank of the India Ocean, interferes briefly, with western commerce and merchandizing with ocean going vessels, have we noticed ad hoc reactions or seeming recognition of the existence of human life in Somalia. Western nations have had this episodic reactions to the humanitarian crises in Somalia which is the root cause of the Somali pirate phenomenon

In 1994, there were massacres in Rwanda of almost a million persons, a monumental disaster which was later adjudged to have been motivated by hatred and ethnic cleansing, and therefore, genocidal horrors, which arose in schism and chasm between Hutu and Tutsi. Western nations folded their hands, despite the presence of the United Nations troops!

Since then, there have other genocidal horrors in Darfur Sudan, in which millions of Darfurians Sudanese met their untimely death, based primarily on their religion, race and southern origins in the Sudan. President Bashir’s government in Khartoum received criticisms, but there were not interventions, and Sudanese oil flowed even while the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir and Khartoum government. Libya is being attacked and invaded and Gaddaffi slated for overthrow and regime change, but Bashir is not!

There have been frequent reports from the Congo, reports which suggests that civilians noncombatants have been massacred, raped and abused, with resultant dislocations and no interventions has been suggested.

Liberia and Sierra Leone had their own shares of conflicts, gratuitous violence and dislocations visited upon innocent civilians, but for ECOWAS led by Nigeria, during which Nigeria spent billions of dollars on peace keeping and stability, there were not murmur or hints of intervention on humanitarian grounds, to secure, protect and preserve innocent civilians in Liberia and Sierra Leone, perhaps because Liberia, and Sierra Leone, quite unlike Iraq and Libya, do not have hydrocarbon or fossil fuel oils?

In recent times, France has corralled efforts and world opinion against Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent President of Ivory Coast; Ivory Coast suffered an election impasse or deadlock. President Gbago petitioned the highest court of that nation, which resolved the petition upon adjudication in his favor.

But the candidate preferred by France and other western nations, Alsance Qoutarra is being promoted as the winner of the November 28, 2010 elections. There are plans hatched outside Africa, to invade the Ivory Coast in order to install Alsance Qoutarra as stooge, this invasion would use Africans as tools, Nigeria being the arrow head or the apex of such military intervention in Ivory Coast.

As oppose to the extreme measure which is what military intervention-invasion is, how about a recount of the ballots? Alternatively, why wasn't a repeat and a redo of the elections in Ivory Coast considered? Why the haste and what are the reasons for foreclosing these options in favor of the extreme measure of military invasion over election stalemate?

How about the humanitarian crises and refugees and destabilization of the entire West African sub-region which will probably result from the planned military invasion? A repeat election is more cost effective and better for all parties concerned. Military invasion comes with unintended consequences, even when such invasion had any justification... there are the known and unknowable of wars!

Libya, Iraq before it, and perhaps Ivory Coast is next, are supposed to be politically independent, sovereign nations with territorial integrity, inviolate and sacrosanct. And only extraordinary circumstances ought to trigger external intervention and interference in the internal affairs of a particular nation by another or by several other nations. This affront and breach of international law, conventions and protocols are particularly offensive in view of the fact that it is deployed and used selectively.

Even most egregious examples and apt illustration of western nations’ staggering and jaw dropping hypocrisy and double standards is the fact that the attack against Libya and the Gaddaffi clan, is predicated, ostensibly, on the protection of “innocent-civilians” as Gaddaffi and his sons, the undeclared royal family and unconstitutional monarchy of Libya, have during the past several weeks engaged in violence and massacres directed at Kaddafi’s “own-people”

The glaring contradictions and inconsistencies by western governments in these matters are legendary! Yemen’s political leadership have through it’s militia and paramilitary massacred peaceful protesters and their “own-people” even as recent as yesterday, when over 40 Yemeni citizens were murdered by agents of the government of Yemen. But no planned intervention, invasion, and occupation of Yemen by western nations.

After all, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange enlightened us as to how the American government compelled the government of Yemen to deceive it’s own people, by being the fall guy for American military operations inside Yemen, which have led to scores of deaths in Yemen. All this, not in pursuit of Yemen’s national or strategic interests. Yemen is a client nation state, eager to serve interests of western nations, so, no intervention in Yemen, no invasion and occupation or regime change for Yemen.

In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Algeria and Tunisia and Egypt before that, there were peaceful public demonstrations, and protests, in these nations, which have been stereotyped populaces, culture and region with blood-lusts, where folks are liable to and prone to engage in mindless violence without logic or reason.

Meanwhile, peacefulness have been the key word, and catchphrase in these protests which began in Tunisia, then Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, etc. Peacefulness have been exemplified in the tidal wave of revolutions, political upheaval and demands for individual rights, freedoms and a further demand for democracy, the rule of law and an end to political repressions. Mindless murderers and Political Islam which is dreaded by western nations never capitalized on these peaceful protest. And those who are supposed to be mindless murderers for pleasure in the in Islamic-Arab World, and North Africa, were nowhere to be found!

Peacefulness or no peacefulness, it is the case that citizens who have engaged in legitimate demand for economic, political and constitutional reforms in the aforementioned North African, Middle Eastern-Arab and Persian nations, have subjected to brutal attack, extremely draconian and murderous attacks by the various dictatorships and tyrannies in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and more particularly so, in Yemen.

Western nations’ military armada are now engaged in direct intervention, invasion and occupation of Libya, predicated on the propaganda, neatly packaged, which insists that Moamar Gaddaffi and his sons are engaging in massacres of “their-own-people” innocent civilians and all! But, it must be pointed out, and these pretentious western nations should be reminded that the innocent civilians in Libya, those engaged in uprising and revolution or rebellion in Libya are not different in the plights, predicaments and fates when compared to equally beleaguered peaceful protesters and demonstrators in other North African Arab and Middle Eastern nations already mentioned above. What exactly is the criteria for selecting Libya? And how can western nations sustain reasonable argument which would convince anyone as to the difference between Libya, and most of the North African and Middle Eastern nations with similar uprisings? Why cherry pick Libya, as opposed to Yemen etc?

Why is it that western nations are splendidly disinterested in economic and political reforms, or the establishment and promotion-advancement of democracy in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Egypt, etc? These are nations where single individuals and or families have dominated and colonized political space for decades, with winks and nods and active encouragements by and from western nations which are only interested in free flow of oil and the protections and preservation of their parochial and myopic interests.

Western nations have historically and perennially mouthed so-called western ideals a la democracy, due process, the rule of law and human rights etc, and yet, when the chips are down, and when it is time for these same western nations to put their monies where their mouths are, they have always preferred to undermine, subvert and rather truncate democracy and good governance in the hot pursuit of their national and strategic interests, based on expediencies and exigent and ad hoc worldview. This repeated concave and shortsightedness have often backfired historically. Think Cuba, Chile, Iran, Afghanistan etc

This shortsightedness, this myopia, this parochial worldview, measured only by fleeting and fluid western interest is root causes of all the troubles in the world. This invasion, occupation and regime change in Libya is again motivated by land grab and the new scramble for resources, particularly oil in the Middle East, Arabia, Persia, and in the case of Libya, you could say, North Africa, perhaps it is time to raise our collective alert to the fact that there is a new scramble for Africa and her resources, and Libya is the first step, and the first salvo was fired today, led by the French, Britain and America, albeit, with tacit and arguably feeble support from the Arab League and the African Union.
It is extremely shameful to see how often expedient western interests trumps and trounces so-called ideals


All things considered and particularly in view of the situations in the various North African and Middle Eastern nations which are already referenced and outlined above, many are curious to know, why there are no plans to similarly intervene directly, invade, occupy and do regime changes in all the nations which are currently undergoing tidal waves of political upheaval by way of peaceful demonstrations and protests. Especially, as in Yemen where peaceful protesters have been murdered and massacred in large numbers!

The question which should be on everyone’s lips, therefore, is, why Libya? If Libya, why not Somalia, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc? I hold all dictators and tyrants in equal contempt and disdain, and it is irrelevant whether such dictatorships or tyrannies are theocratic, monarchical or military

Libya possesses the highly valued crude oil, a particularly less sulfuric version, known as the sweet crude, a West Texas Intermediate sibling or equivalent.

And only a fool and a communist would believe that crude oil in Libya has anything to do with western nations’ attacks, intervention, and planned invasion, occupation and regime change in Libya.

Only a floozy conspiracy theorist, would as fathom the silly idea, that Libya’s resources and strategic geographic location, makes Libya a launching pad for the new scramble for resource on the African continent and Middle East region by western nations!