The African World

The Other Killing:

NATO Demonstrates Why It Needs to Stay Out of Libya

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. BlackCommentator.com Editorial
Board
BC
May 12, 2011

http://www.blackcommentator.com/426/426_aw_nato_libya.php

It happened and received very little attention. Shortly
after Libya's Col. Qaddafi finished a radio address, a
NATO airstrike killed Qaddafi's son, Saif Al-Arab and
three of Qaddafi's grandchildren. Is this what is
supposed to happen in a no fly zone? In case you did
not notice, they were not flying at the time of their
deaths.

I searched the paper looking for explanations for this
murder and could find none. It was as if NATO believed
that it could act with impunity. This killing comes on
the heels of an earlier attempt by NATO to actually
kill Qaddafi himself.

Though in no way a supporter of Qaddafi, I am angered
at what some people are calling "mission creep." Though
the United Nations unfortunately passed a resolution
calling for a "no fly zone" over Libya, allegedly as a
humanitarian gesture in defense of civilians, NATO has
displayed an increasingly audacious approach toward
intervention in what is an internal conflict of the
sovereign nation of Libya.

Many well-intentioned progressives, including some
friends of mine, supported the NATO intervention in the
name of protecting civilians from being massacred by
forces loyal to Qaddafi. In addition to there being a
serious question as to whether a massacre was ever just
over the horizon, it is now important for progressive
and democratic-minded people to assess what is going on
in Libya and what the intentions of the NATO forces
happen to be, not to mention the impact of the NATO
intervention on the pro-democracy forces within Libya.

While Qaddafi's family was being murdered, to the east
in Bahrain, doctors and nurses who had treated injured
pro-democracy protesters were being arrested for the
crime of.treating injured protesters. The Bahraini
government, a very close ally of the USA, has been
acting without restraint. The Obama administration has
done nothing to stop the increased repression, yet
attempts to convince the world that horror of horrors
were being planned by Qaddafi's forces in Libya such
that a military intervention was justified. At last
reports, there have been no surgical strikes to take
out the Bahraini royal family for the brutality that it
is inflicting on the Bahraini populace.

It is worth noting that the NATO countries felt it was
important to go to the United Nations in order to
secure a mandate in order to implement an intervention
under the cover of a "no fly zone." Yet that resolution
did not call for support of regime change and it
definitely did not call for the assassination of
Qaddafi and his family. Yet, despite a slowly growing
international chorus of criticism of NATO for these
aggressive actions, NATO feels no compulsion to explain
what it is doing or to cease and desist from the
efforts that it is undertaking.

While it is quite possible that some individuals in the
administrations of NATO countries believed that they
were embarking on a humanitarian effort, it is
impossible to accept that this is what has been guiding
their strategy. The actions of the NATO countries have
been hypocritical in the extreme. Instead, it is more
likely that NATO aims to set up a reliable client state
in Libya, thereby thwarting the efforts of the Libyan
people to introduce democratic rule. Since it remains
unclear how the revolutionary process will continue to
unfold in Tunisia and Egypt (or whether it will be set
back), and since Algeria remains a potential
flashpoint, Libya, even a divided Libya, could serve
the NATO countries well as an outpost in the midst of
what the West sees as chaos.

The only thing that will stop the NATO aggression is an
aroused populace in NATO countries that understands
that the airstrikes underway in Libya have nothing to
do with aiding the cause of democracy, human rights or
the protection of civilians. If anything, the
intervention will accomplish just the opposite.

The murder of Qaddafi's son and grandchildren cannot be
addressed through a heartfelt apology by President
Obama or any other leader of the NATO gang. NATO must
withdraw from the conflict, and do so immediately.
______________________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill
Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute
for Policy Studies, the immediate past president
ofTransAfrica Forum and co-author of Solidarity
Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path
toward Social Justice(University of California Press),
which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA

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