Bob Fitrakis
September 13, 2012
As a direct result of the illegal United States-led attack on Gaddafi and the subsequent coup, pan-Islamic fundamentalists killed the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya Tuesday, on the anniversary of 9/11. As anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently noted, “Libya today is the creation of the U.S., NATO, and Al Qaeda, acting in a criminal partnership.”
The Obama administration referred to their efforts that led to the unleashing of al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists in Libya as a “kinetic humanitarian action.” In reality, it was regime change, a hi-jacking of resources, and an illegal war.
Libya, under Gaddafi, was stable. Gaddafi had nationalized Libyan oil resources and his nation had one of the highest standards of living in Africa and in the Middle East. At the time he was overthrown by the U.S.-led coalition, he was busy promoting an African currency and a continental development bank to liberate all the natural resources of Africa from the International Monetary Fund. In fact, Gaddafi bragged that he was the first state leader to issue an international arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden.
When the disorganized group of Islamic fundamentalists first rose up in Benghazi, it was the U.S. and NATO who provided legitimacy and aided in the organization of the Transitional Council. One of the first things that the Council did, was seize Libya’s central bank which controlled an estimated 144 tons of gold.
Libya was plunged into chaos through Obama and NATO’s actions. While the U.S. and other Western mainstream corporate media savagely denounced Gaddafi, they conveniently ignored the obvious al Qaeda operatives that would come forward after his removal.
We could pretend that the current crisis in Libya is simply the unintended and unpredictable consequences of a humanitarian intervention. What we would have to do is ignore the facts. Almost a year ago, ABC News reported that former Gaddafi regime hand-held missiles were popping up at Egyptian bazaars and that the going price for a heat-seeking shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile had dropped from $10,000 to $4,000. ABC later reported that out of the estimated 20,000 portable surface-to-air missiles in Gaddafi’s arsenal, 15,000 were missing.
The CIA has a term for unintended consequences — “blowblack.” That term has no application in the current Libyan crisis. Blowback implies that results are unintended. A much better thesis is provided by former high-ranking CIA official John Stockwell, who in his book In Search of Enemies, offers the perspective that the U.S. military industrial complex and its cohorts in the security industrial agencies intentionally keep the third world in chaos and turmoil to justify their unprecedented budgets.
Amidst this predictable chaos, it is much easier for the former colonialist nations of NATO to extract 144 tons of gold and vast oil and gas reserve from the once independent nation of Libya, now a haven for Islamic terrorists.
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Bob Fitrakis was part of Cynthia McKinney’s group visiting Libya in 2009 for the Conference on the Study of the Green Book, and was in Gaddafi’s tent. See Bob’s article from earlier this year on Libya at Article