The Consequences of the Six Month G7 NATO Aggression against Libya

The Right-Wing Harper Conservative Government - Culpable and Accountable

Don Currie, Editor Focus on Socialism

Chair, Canadians for Peace and Socialism

www.FocusOnSocialism.ca

August 23, 2011

The people of Libya have been plunged into a bloody conflict perpetrated on their country by the G7 NATO states.  The right-wing Harper Conservative Government, with the active support of opposition MP’s played a leading role in approving the NATO aggression against Libya and now accountable for the atrocities that are certain to follow. 

Political forces that portray NATO as a liberator are in fact its subservient collaborators.  That is the historical fate of those oppositionist forces in Libya that have accepted NATO support.  They are now its captive servants.  That will also be the fate of the Canadian people unless there is a repudiation of the right-wing Conservative Stephen Harper government’s slavish adherence to NATO doctrine.

As events in Libya unfold, left progressive anti-imperialist peace forces are required to remain focused and intensify their public exposure and opposition to the destructive interventionist role of NATO in world affairs.  NATO is the gendarme of the G7 and its finance capitalist elites.  By accepting NATO support, the political forces inside Libya and abroad, claiming to be seeking freedom and democracy forfeited any claim to such noble principles.  There is a more base purpose to NATO intervention.

Big foreign investors consider NATO regime change a business opportunity.  That was the case in Iraq and Afghanistan and that will be the case in Libya.  Financial insiders in the G7 NATO states are lining up to do business.  That includes finance capitalist interests in Canada that are now poised to return to Libya to make deals with a compliant NATO imposed regime.  Talisman and SNC Lavalin will be back with fewer constraints on its profiteering in construction and Libyan oil reserves.[1]  Italy and France can be expected to demand cheaper Libyan oil imports.  A Libyan stock market will arise and flourish for those select individuals with money.  Libyan public assets and oil wealth will be plundered.  Libyan state treasury wealth appropriated by the US, Britain, France, Italy and Canada will be portioned out to pro-western interests with political strings attached such as dropping Libyan solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people.  The G7 NATO states are now in charge of Libya’s economic and political future.

NATO Occupation of Libya

NATO will not be leaving Libya soon.  A form of NATO military occupation is a certainty.[2]  NATO collaborators inside Libya cannot prevail without continued NATO support.  NATO occupation over time will turn into its opposite and will become the focal point of the resistance of all of the patriotic forces in Libya.  It is probable that even among some of the gullible, naïve and euphoric forces that accepted NATO support will quickly learn that as they serve their purpose as combatants they will be quickly relegated and marginalized.  NATO has no interest in rewarding minions that do its dirty work.

The enemy of the Libyan people is NATO and its G7 backers regardless of what alliance of internal forces now form government.  A renewed struggle for Libyan independence will eventually develop.  Libya cannot progress under NATO control.

The Consequence of NATO Wars on the People of Canada

NATO wars anywhere on the planet affect Canadians.  Canada is a G7 NATO state.  NATO is now perpetually at war.  Canada will also be perpetually at war so long as it is a NATO state.  As Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty constantly remind us, Canada is integrated into the global system of capitalism.  That means Canadians are not only vulnerable to periodic collapses of the global economic system of capitalism, it also means Canadians are vulnerable to the consequences of serial wars of capitalism.  The global system of capitalism is perpetually at war and now so is Canada.

Prime Minister Harper enthusiastically promotes Canada as a war state.  His government has no foreign policy plans other than militarization of the economy, closer integration of Canadian armed forces into NATO command, and active participation in future conflicts.  Prime Minister Harper has now put Canada on a permanent war footing.[3]

The Canadian people are now burdened with the costly aftermath of another NATO war sanctioned by the right-wing Conservative Harper Government.  So long as Canada is a member state of NATO it cannot be a force for peace in the world.  NATO is an imperialist war alliance, not a peace alliance.  The Canadian people, without being consulted, are compelled by the right-wing Conservative Harper Government to finance future NATO serial wars at the expense of vital social needs.  Underfunding of public health care, education, pensions and child care are sacrificed by the Harper government to pay for re-arming the Canadian military to make it interoperable with NATO command. 

The right-wing Harper Conservative government has no foreign policy of peace.  The Harper government has abandoned all pretense of an independent Canadian foreign policy of peace and promotes the NATO foreign policy of regime change by overwhelming military power as its first option.  All of the opposition MP’s, with the exception of Elizabeth May of the Green Party have demonstrated their abject willingness to support the Harper Government’s NATO war policy against the government of Libya.

The latest weak-kneed statement by Paul Dewer NDP foreign affairs critic about events in Libya gives no assurance that the NDP is willing to develop a foreign policy of peace opposed to the Conservative policy of perpetual war.  Dewar quoted in the Globe and Mail of August 23, 2011 is reported to have said that he hopes Canada will continue to help Libya by supporting new democratic institutions.  Dewar said he was “concerned” about what the Harper Government’s rhetoric means for the next conflict that surfaces.  What the peace movement needs to hear from the NDP opposition caucus is that it will oppose the next NATO war, not support it.  

UN Resolution 1973 the Pretext for Regime Change

After the experience with the Blair-Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld manipulation of the UN and the so-called coalition of the willing to pave the way for shock and awe war on Iraq it should now be amply clear that a G7 NATO formula for regime change war has been developed.

It was clear from the beginning that the G7 NATO states had targeted the Qaddafi government and were aiming at another war of regime change.  The pretense of the NDP, the Liberals and the Bloc that they didn’t know that was the goal of Prime Minister Harper is disingenuous in the extreme.   

UN Resolution 1973 was not about protecting civilians.  It was a carbon copy of similar resolutions authorizing NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan.  The objective of NATO intervention in Libya was regime change.  Without NATO military intervention on the side of a disparate Libyan insurgency the Qaddafi government would have defeated the opposition forces and restored the unity of the country.  The accusation of the large scale massacre of civilians was a concoction of the western media and it will not be too long before that monstrous lie will also be exposed just as the monstrous lie spread by the Blair-Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction and was poised to unleash them on North America.  

The overthrow by NATO military force of the Qaddafi government is a long planned NATO coup for which all NATO states are now accountable.  NATO is the de-facto power in any alliance that will now emerge in Libya.  Within that alliance US imperialism wields the greatest political and military influence.   Regardless of what internal alliance of political forces emerge as the governing power in Libya it will be militarily and politically controlled by NATO and its economic future will be determined by the IMF, the World Bank, the European Central Bank and competing finance capitalist power elites of the G7 NATO states.

A New Reality of NATO Domination and Occupation of Libya

The people of Libya now confront a new reality.  Against their will, NATO intervention has embroiled their country in a long period of bloody turmoil.  From one of the most prosperous and peaceful and secular countries in North Africa the people of Libya have now been cast into the ranks of a growing list of states that includes the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti all in the depths of disunity, poverty and criminality.  The very forces Prime Minister Harper claims threatens Canada, Islamic terrorists, colluded with NATO and are now actively vying for power in Libya.

The objective of the NATO aggression against Libya was to establish western imperialist control over Libyan oil and destroy all achievements of the Libyan people that can be attributed to any form of socialist endeavor.  The geo-political purpose of the NATO aggression is to attempt to intimidate all of the popular anti-imperialist forces of Africa and the genuinely popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia from considering a non-capitalist path of development.  Prime Minister Harper in harmony with President Obama, President Sarkozy, President Berlusconi and Prime Minister Cameron asserts that the people of the Middle East and Africa are free to choose any economic system they wish so long as it has the approval of the G7 NATO IMF states.  The attack on Libya with the tacit support of Israel is designed to weaken pro-Palestinian support among the people of North Africa and the Middle East of which Colonel Qaddafi was a consistent exponent.  The G7 NATO plot to remove the Qaddafi regime will now be attempted against Syria.

The defeat of the Qaddafi government will now be followed by a long US-NATO military presence in Libya.  The construction of a US NATO military base is a virtual certainty.  The base will be used by the US AFRICOM command as a forward staging and training area to intervene militarily in Africa.  Canada is seeking bases in Kuwait to play its assigned NATO role in the Middle East and Central Asia and is being pressured to provide occupation forces in Libya.  The Prime Minister was tentative about the future role of Canada in Libya but clear that Canadian armed forces will stay for as long as required and that cannot rule out an occupation role.[4]

Peace...NATO Style  - Libya according to NATO propagandists is now free

The people of Libya are now free of peace, free of a unified country, free  of universal public education, free public health care, free of the right to decide their own economic system, free of diverse people’s living in secular harmony, free of the gains Libyan women achieved during the Qaddafi years, free of children living without the trauma of war, free of assured employment for the youth, free of public housing, free of flourishing of traditional Libyan art and culture, free of the ownership and control of their own oil and water resources, free of government programs to protect their own natural environment, free of the right to set the terms and limitations on foreign investment and development. Free of the right to determine inter-state relations with other North African states.  Free of people’s sovereignty and independence.  Free of the Libyan form of socialism.

Canadian Government Complicity and Support for G7 NATO Regime Change

The G7 NATO imperialist states formula for regime change has once again been used against a member state of the United Nations that poses no threat to Canada or its people.  Prime Minister Harper and his cabinet now routinely participate in the G7 NATO planning of the overthrow of independent states.  They are presently heavily involved in planning NATO intervention in Syria.  Federal government support for NATO wars of intervention is a useful and cynical political means to deflect public attention from domestic politics with the bonus of justifying increased military spending and appeasing investment insiders in particular those engaged in military procurement. [5]

Windfall profits can be made by forcing by war, small vulnerable independent states into the global imperialist camp and compelling them to accept the role of subject in the global system of imperialism.  The G7 NATO set piece for success has been fine tuned and will now be used against Syria.

The set piece is as follows: First a corrupt media demonizes the government of the G7 NATO targeted state.  The UN imposes escalating sanctions.  It does so with the tacit complicity of western backed regional allies hoping to get some spoils.  The instruments of the UN such as the Security Council veto that could be used to curb war and open the way to diplomacy are undermined by the failure of Russia and China to resolutely oppose imperialism even as NATO surrounds their countries with aggressive intent.  Then trade embargos, no fly zones, and outright theft of the financial assets of the targeted state by capitalist banks follows.  Aggrieved pro-western opposition forces suddenly emerge where they have been sheltered in the USA and Britain.  Internal well armed adventurist often feudal forces appear.  Government violence is alleged.  NATO forces are mobilized and rapidly deployed.  After the political alignment of G7 states is achieved NATO advanced technical weaponry is employed.  The outcome is predictable.  The defeated government leaders and their supporters, men women and children are murdered and/or transported to The Hague for mock trials and imprisonment.

Even as the scenario plays out, the big banks and investor classes of the G7 states are preparing to move in to profit from re-building the carnage, from privatization of public resources and assets and from the apportioning of natural resources.  The country in ruins is subjected to IMF austerity.  The people are burdened with paying for US-NATO permanent military bases and installations.  People’s sovereignty over their own natural resources, the social gains they have achieved, the right to choose the economic system of their choice is expunged and the majority are plunged into unrelenting poverty and exploitation to survive.  Inevitably drugs, crime and the degradation of women and children result.

Canada and Libya - Government and Opposition Party Collusion

The right-wing Harper Conservative Government, the Liberal and NDP members of Parliament under international law are now personally legally responsible for any atrocities that NATO backed opposition forces unleash on Libyan civilians who support the Qaddafi government.  There is no international statue of war that absolves individuals and the military of legal responsibility for atrocities committed on occupied territory, not even if the occupying force claims it is on a humanitarian mission.  NATO officers have been engaged in leading insurgents in battle on the territory of Libya.  The peace movement must not permit the Harper Government to spin its involvement in this war to escape its legal responsibility for its aftermath.[6]

Prime Minister Harper supported by all of the opposition MP’s in the House of Commons with the exception of Elizabeth May of the Greens, committed Canadian armed forces to intervene on one side in a civil war.  Claiming to be motivated to protect civilians, the Harper Government and the opposition MP’s approved over 4000 NATO air strikes on Libyan military and civil infrastructure that killed many Libyans.

The Harper Government and opposition MP’s endorsed the limited mandate of the UN Resolution 1973 ostensibly to protect civilians.  When that mandate was violated and became the pretext by NATO to overthrow by force the government of Libya, the Harper Government and the opposition MP’s continued to support the NATO air bombardment. 

The protection of civilians means also the protection of Libyan civilians that opposed NATO intervention in their country.  Foreign Minister Baird is called upon to clarify whether the Harper Government will look the other way as Libyan opposition forces, some of whom share similar views as the Taliban, carry out a campaign of revenge and attempt to install an extremist faith based regime.

Prime Minister Harper and the opposition parties must explain to Canadians why NATO aggression against a member state of the UN that posed no threat to Canada and its people and with whom Canada was engaged in peaceful joint ventures should not be considered a war crime under international law.

That is the question that the peace movement must have the courage to place before each and every Member of Parliament.

Canadians have a right to know if the opposition MP’s have voluntarily ceded Canadian foreign and military policy to NATO.  The Harper Government considers NATO military force as the first option of its foreign and military policy.  The Harper Government has abandoned any pretext of an independent Canadian foreign policy of peace.  Canadians have a right to know if that is also the foreign policy position of the opposition parties.  

The right-wing Harper Conservative government failed to make any proposals at the UN, at NATO or to its allies, either politically or diplomatically that could have avoided NATO military aggression and saved the lives of Libyans on all sides of the conflict.  It is pure fiction that there was no mass popular support for the Qaddafi government.  According to the interpretation given to US Resolution 1973 by all parties in Parliament Libyan supporters of the Qaddafi government are not people, not civilians and therefore expendable.  

NATO is now the de-facto military power in Libya.  The overthrow of the Qaddafi government by NATO military force was planned over a long period and could not have succeeded without collusion and political agreement among G7 NATO states, principally the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

The complicity of the members of the Security Council in endorsing a no-fly zone to protect civilians has led to complete regime change in Libya.[7]  The credibility of all states supporting UN Resolution 1973 in particular China, Russia, India and Brazil, politically powerful states all claiming to speak for peace and the working people, in failing to use all diplomatic and political means to prevent the tragic events now be perpetrated by US-NATO cronies in Libya are complicit in what is now unfolding in Libya.

The leaders of the left progressive democratic forces and the organized labour, farm and peace movements who have been conspicuously absent from these events must be called to explain their ambivalence and explain why it is defensible in principle, to oppose the ruthless anti-working class, anti-farmer domestic policy of the Harper government while simultaneously supporting the Harper Government’s NATO foreign policy of war. 

The right wing Conservative Harper Government is consistently reactionary at home and abroad.  It is time for all of the democratic forces in Canada to break with ambivalence and demand with one voice - Canada Out of NATO Now!

Left Turn Canada!