The Anti-Empire Report
On July 9, I took part in a demonstration in front of the White House, the theme of which was “Stop Bombing Libya”. The last time I had taken part in a protest against US bombing of a foreign country, which the White House was selling as “humanitarian intervention”, as they are now, was in 1999, during the 78-day bombing of Serbia. At that time, I went to a couple of such demonstrations, and both times I was virtually the only American there. The rest, maybe two dozen, were almost all Serbs. “Humanitarian intervention” is a great selling device for imperialism, particularly in the American market. Americans are desperate to renew their precious faith that the United States means well, that we are still “the good guys”.
This time there were about 100 taking part in the protest. I don’t know if any were Libyans, but there was a new element — almost half of the protesters were black, marching with signs saying: “Stop Bombing Africa”.
There was another new element — people supporting the bombing of Libya, facing us from their side of Pennsylvania Avenue about 40 feet away. They were made up largely of Libyans, probably living in the area, who had only praise and love for the United States and NATO. Their theme was that Gaddafi was so bad that they would support anything to get rid of him, even daily bombing of their homeland, which now exceeds Serbia’s 78 days. I, of course, crossed the road and got into arguments with some of them. I kept asking: “I hate that man there [pointing to the White House] just as much as you hate Gaddafi. Do you think I should therefore support the bombing of Washington? Destroying the beautiful monuments and buildings of this city, as well as killing people?”
None of the Libyans even tried to answer my question. They only repeated their anti-Gaddafi vitriol. “You don’t understand. We have to get rid of Gaddafi. He’s very brutal.” (See the CNN video of the July 1 mammoth rally in Tripoli for an indication that these Libyans’ views are far from universal at home.)
“But you at least get free education and medical care,” I pointed out. “That’s a lot more than we get here. And Libya has the highest standard of living in the entire region; at least, it did before the NATO and US bombing. If Gaddafi is brutal, what do you call all the other leaders of the region, whom Washington has long supported?”
One retorted that there had been free education under the king, whom Gaddafi had overthrown. I was skeptical of this, but I didn’t know for sure that it was incorrect, so I replied: “So what? Gaddafi at least didn’t get rid of the free education like the leaders in England did in recent years.”
A police officer suddenly appeared and forced me to return to my side of the road. I’m sure if pressed for an explanation, the officer would justify this as a means of preventing violence from breaking out. But there was never any danger of that at all; another example of the American police-state mentality — order and control come before civil liberties, before anything.
Most Americans overhearing my argument with the Libyans would probably have interjected something like: “Well, no matter how much you hate the president you can still get rid of him with an election. The Libyans can’t do that.”
And I would have come back with: “Right. I have the freedom to replace George W. Bush with Barack H. Obama. Oh joy. As long as our elections are overwhelmingly determined by money, nothing of any significance will change.”
Postscript: Amidst all the sadness and horror surrounding the massacre in Norway, we should not lose sight of the fact that “peaceful little Norway” participated in the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999; has deployed troops in Iraq; has troops in Afghanistan; and has supplied warplanes for NATO’s bombing of Libya. The teenagers of those countries who lost their lives to the US/NATO killing machine wanted to live to adulthood and old age as much as the teenagers in Norway. With all the condemnation of “extremism” we now hear in Norway and around the world we must ask if this behavior of the Norwegian government, as well as that of the United States and NATO, is not “extremist”.
You really got the point. it is only the libyans that celebrate while their country is being bomberded. they even thank the bombers as if to say that the place they are bombing is another country and not theirs. why did the UN, EU, NATO refused to conduct an election as demanded by the libyan government. the election cannot include Gaddafi, but his sons and any other libyan has the right to vote and to be voted for.
If they killed Gaddafi, it will be war forever in Libya like in AFGANISTAN and in Iraq. then what they will have is war Lords which may be too many than one man Gaddafi.
The truth is that the developed nations like US,BRITAIN and FRANCE do not want to accept the truth and let Africa alone for God’s sake. they are creating problems for their country, because what they did during slave trade is not yet cleaned from The Africans and by the time they know it, it will be too late for the world. and their may be divissions and United nations will seized to exist in the near future.
For example the ICC that indicted Gaddafi and request for his Arrest was ignored by all the 54 african nations. the AU. Their will be a time when the AU will also lost confidence in the US,and EU Countries including UK.
Stop claiming or playing God because you are not.
have a nice day
Bravo! It turns out that Americans are decent people, too))
This entire incursion into Libya was despicable. The UN is supposed to promote peace, yet it instead promotes war? Why not draw a line in the sand to prevent the bloodshed? Where are the UN Peacekeepers”? NATO bombs a country to pieces to “protect civilians”? It is obvious to almost everyone that this entire campaign has been totally based on lies and deceit. Members of the UN Security Council will never again allow this sort of idiocy to happen.
We claim we are broke, yet we are spending millions of dollars everyday bombing Libya and killing innocent children. In the meantime, we don’t know ‘jack’about the so-called rebels who are so ‘civilized’ that to settle their own internal feud, they had to resort to barbarism by killing their own commander and burning and dumping his body. These are the people we are spending millions of dollars supporting.
Human behaviour is often more sadistic than we like to think. For instance most of the East European countries are now helping to brutally opress the people Afghanistan and Iraq even though only a few years ago they were looking for sympathy for being forced to be part of the Soviet Union. Likewise we see the Serb government handing over those who fought on their behalf in the breakup of Yugoslavia to an obviously corrupt court in the Hague.
I expect the Libyan ex-pats are of the same mold – looking for sympathy for themselves while showing a callous disregard for even their own Libyan fellow countrymen and women.
“But you at least get free education and medical care” – yea… I bet everyone in the US would change Columbia University with the University of Tripoli + having free medical care.
Mr Blum, you are pointing to many right things, but sometimes misses the point. For example, you wrote somewhere that the US bombed many democratically elected countries – theoretically it is OK, but in reality many democratically elected countries behave like cruel dictatorships – for example in Algeria, where Wikileaks pointed to their recent presidential elections as nothing more than fraud. Honestly Algerian security services main headquaters (DRS) in Algers should be bombed, which are the main threat to the entire region. But after the infamous French episode there 1954-62, this country can be safe from any boots on the ground for many years to come.