Imperialist victory is no gain for Libyan people
2011 2011-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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For the Socialist Action (U.S.) Political Committee Tragically, Libya’s short-lived February 2011 “Arab Spring” was rapidly transformed into a six-month imperialist-led onslaught that wrought death and destruction on the Libyan people. The U.S. and other NATO countries are seeking to establish a beachhead in Libya that can be used to derail the mass revolts that have taken place throughout the region and to restore the status quo.
The “no fly zone” Resolution 1973, approved 10-0 by the UN Security Council on March 17, was immediately followed by more than 20,000, and still ongoing, sorties by U.S./NATO warplanes against the forces of the Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar Gadhafi. These were complemented by drone strikes and artillery bombardments from NATO’s armada, centered on a French aircraft carrier anchored off Libya’s coast.
The UN “no-fly zone” resolution, never more than a license for the wholesale destruction of Libya’s military apparatus and much of Tripoli’s infrastructure—including its water and fuel supplies, electricity, schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods—was a EuroAmerican declaration of war. “Humanitarian wars” conducted by the world’s superpowers will never benefit the oppressed masses in Libya or anywhere else.
In the assault on Tripoli in the last days of the war, Gadhafi’s estimated 65,000 troops were pulverized by an intensive air and sea bombing campaign that NATO commanders estimate to have “degraded”—that is, killed, wounded, or scattered—some 50 percent of his forces. The remainder is thought to have retreated to Libyan cities and towns that continue to support the Gadhafi regime. These are today being bombed with impunity.
Estimates of the number of Gadhafi soldiers killed outright on just one day by this late-August intensive bombardment exceeded 1300. Well before the last week of August, when Gadhafi’s forces were compelled to flee (Above) Libyan rebels capture suspected loyalist soldier in Tripoli, Aug. 25.
(Left) Benghazi celebration as rebels enter Tripoli.
Tripoli, the defection of top commanders of the Libyan army to the imperialist-backed Transitional National Council signaled at least the partial disintegration of the army.
The TNC today “governs” most of Libya, but it is definitely not to be excluded that yet another long-lasting imperialist-abetted war and occupation is in the making. The Tripoli Brigade and associated TNC forces, aided by the ongoing and still massive NATO bombing campaigns, are currently engaged in street-to-street mop-up battles in Gadhafi strongholds in Tripoli as well as in regions of the country still loyal to the deposed dictator.
Historians have documented some 700-plus U.S. in(continued on page 4, in “No nation has been able to escape capitalism’s inherent contradictions. War and austerity are its solutions — consequences”)