by Devon DB
August 31, 2011
from
GlobalResearch Website
|
Devon DB is 19 years old and
studies political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
In addition to contributing to
Global Research, he has recently become a staff member at
The Progressive Playbook |
In 2011, the United States had its dominance of
the Middle East seriously threatened due to massive peaceful protests that
were sweeping the Arab world.
No longer were people going to put up with
corrupt and oppressive regimes that were backed by Washington. No longer
would they put up with horrid dictatorships in which the only freedom they
had was to obey.
In 2011 began what would be known as the Arab
Spring.
Tunisia
On December 17th, 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi was selling
fruit without a license and when the authorities confiscated his scale, he
became enraged.
When Bouazizi confronted the police, he was
slapped in the face. This led him to plead his case in the town’s government
office, but when it was rebuffed, he went and lit himself aflame.
This small
act became noticed by the populace at large and the anger,
“spread to other towns in the interior of
the country, where unemployment among university graduates was
approaching 50 percent.” [1]
Mass protests soon began with calls to end
dictator Ben Ali’s rule and democratic elections, however, Ali turned to the
police and the slaughtering of protesters began in earnest.
The
organization WikiLeaks also played a role in starting up the
protests, as files were released just days before Bouazizi lit himself
aflame, which confirmed suspicions that many Tunisians already had:
that Ben
Ali was a corrupt dictator, that his family was extremely corrupt, and that
life was incredibly difficult for the Tunisian poor and unemployed.
When this occurred, the U.S. was deeply worried as Tunisia had significant
military ties to the U.S..
Tunisia cooperated,
“in NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor, which
provides counter-terrorism surveillance in the Mediterranean,”
participated in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue, “and allow[ed] NATO ships
to make port calls at Tunis.” [2]
Every now and then the U.S. would criticize
Tunisia for its record on political rights and freedom of expression, yet,
“In parallel with these expressions of
concern, the United States continued to provide military and economic
assistance to the Tunisian government.” [3]
Thus, the U.S. began to play both sides.
About two weeks after Ben Ali had fled the
nation, America sent their top Middle East envoy to Tunisia and tried,
“to press its advantage to push for
democratic reforms in the country and further afield.” [4]
While it may have appeared that the U.S. was
quickly trying to position itself on Tunisia’s good side, they may have had
a hand in Ali’s ousting as,
“According to some rumors in Tunis, the
country's army chief consulted with Washington before withdrawing his
support from Ben Ali - a move which sealed the ousted president's fate.”
[5]
Almost as soon as the U.S. was finished in
Tunisia, they had even bigger problems on their hands with the protests in
Egypt.
Egypt
Due to being inspired by the success of the Tunisian protests, the Egyptian
people launched their own protest movement, calling for the overthrow of
U.S. puppet Hosni Mubarak.
However, the U.S. was busy co-opting the
protest movement.
The U.S.
used the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as a cover to
help co-opt the protest movement. Ironically, the NED is not used for the
spreading of democracy, rather it was established by the Reagan
administration to aid in the overthrow of foreign governments, after the
CIA’s covert operations were revealed.
The NED was supported,
“as a bipartisan endowment, with
participation from the two major parties, as well as the AFL-CIO and
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NED took over the financing of foreign
overthrow movements, but overtly and under the rubric of ‘democracy
promotion.’” [6]
Thus, the U.S. supported both Mubarak and the
protesters, in a bid to make sure that no matter what occurred, America
would still get its way.
The civil society groups had a major influence on Egyptian activists as in
May 2009 the activists,
"spent a week in Washington receiving
training in advocacy and getting an inside look at the way U.S.
democracy works. After their training, the fellows were matched with
civil society organizations throughout the country where they shared
experiences with U.S. counterparts. The activists [wrapped] up their
program this week by visiting U.S. government officials, members of
Congress, media outlets and think tanks." [7]
Thus, due to the U.S. aiding the activists, the
Americans ensured that the protesters owed them a debt and that U.S.
interests would be secure even if Mubarak was ousted.
The U.S. also had deep military ties to Egypt, seeing as how they were the
largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid next to Israel. Also, the U.S. wanted
to make sure that Israel wasn’t threatened, as both nations were worried
that a new government in Egypt might cancel the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace
treaty.
While the Egyptian military is currently in control until elections, no
matter what occurs, America will still have its way.
Bahrain
Protests also began taking place in Bahrain.
The people were tired of a government which,
“failed to abide by their own constitution,
refused to investigate the crimes of torture and continued to
expropriate more than half of the land of the country.” [8]
The Bahrani government was controlled by the
Al Khalifa family, which has ruled Bahrain for over 300 years and has
created an economy where there is a powerful and wealthy Sunni minority
while the Shiite majority constantly faces discrimination in jobs and
education, has little political representation, and are barred from many
government and military positions.
The U.S. was deeply troubled because of the protests as the Al Khalifa
regime allowed for the Americans to station their Fifth Fleet in the
country, which allows the U.S. to patrol,
“the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Arabian
Sea, and the east coast of Africa,” “keep an eye on - and, if necessary,
rattle sabers - close to oil shipping lanes, Iran, and the increasing
activity of pirates,” and “ [provide] basing and overflight clearances
for U.S. aircraft engaged in Afghanistan and [help] cut off money
supplies to suspected Islamic terrorists.” [9]
Thus, the Bahraini regime was of major
importance to U.S. regional interests.
The U.S. showed that it would do anything to make sure that its puppet
stayed in power when they backed the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain.
The Saudis intervened on the behalf of the Bahraini government and began
shooting into crowds of Bahraini protesters. [10]
However, even though the protesters were being
gunned down, they still were determined to fight for their rights against
America’s puppets.
Libya
The Arab Spring movement also reached all the way to Libya, however, things
were quite different as instead of having peaceful protests, opposition
forces were picking up arms and fighting the Libyan military.
Due to the then-leader of Libya, Col. Muammar
Gaddafi, having never truly been a Western puppet, America launched a
propaganda war to allow the U.S.-NATO war machine to intervene in Libya on
the grounds of “humanitarian intervention.”
The question that must first be asked is why the West even wanted to
intervene in Libya. The answer is because Libya has Africa’s largest oil
reserves and Western oil companies wanted access to them. However, there are
also larger economic reasons.
Months prior to the intervention, Gaddafi had
called upon African and Muslims nations to adopt a single currency:
the gold
dinar. This would have excluded the dollar as the gold dinar would have been
used to purchase goods, thus threatening the economies of Western nations.
However, the creation of a gold dinar may have
also empowered the people of Africa, something black activists say the U.S.
wants to avoid at all costs.
“The U.S. have denied self-determination to
Africans inside the U.S., so we are not surprised by anything the U.S.
would do to hinder the self-determination of Africans on the continent,”
says Cynthia Ann McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman. [11]
There was also geopolitics at work as during the
war, Gaddafi,
“vowed to expel Western energy companies
from the country and replace them with oil firms from China, India, and
Russia.” [12]
This would have effectively excluded the West
from ever getting at Libya’s oil.
By ousting Gaddafi, the West would be able
to have a puppet regime to counter Chinese and Russian moves in North Africa
as well as access to Libyan oil.
What many of the media never asked until the conflict was nearing its end
was
who exactly were the rebels.
In the Iraq war, most of the foreign
fighters came from Libya and in that,
“almost all of them came from eastern Libya,
the center of the anti-Gaddafi rebellion.” [13]
A Libyan rebel commander even admitted that some
of his soldiers had links to Al Qaeda:
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi
admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in
eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq.
Some of them, he
said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".
Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters,
"are patriots and good Muslims, not
terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good
Muslims and are fighting against the invader". [14]
Thus, the U.S. and NATO were backing terrorists,
yet they may have known seeing as how a 2007 West Point Study revealed that
the Benghazi-Darnah-Tobruk area was a world leader in Al Qaeda suicide
bomber recruitment. [15]
Due to the U.S. and its NATO allies not wanting to look like the
imperialists they truly were, Obama pressured the UN to pass a resolution
allowing for the establishment of a no fly zone over Libya and an arms
embargo on the nation. However, both were broken quite soon.
The United Nations resolution clearly allowed all member
states,
“acting nationally or through regional
organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect
civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi,
while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of
Libyan territory.” [16]
However, the imperialists admitted that they
wanted to overthrow Gaddafi in an op-ed piece, when Cameron,
Sarkozy, and Obama stated:
“Our duty and our mandate under U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are
doing that. It is not to remove [G]addafi by force. But it is impossible
to imagine a future for Libya with [G]addafi in power.” [17]
The U.S. and NATO clearly stated that their main
goal was to overthrow Gaddafi.
The hypocrisy of the West ran deep as they found an excuse to intervene in
Libya, but not in Egypt, Bahrain, Palestine, or any other location where
people were being oppressed by local regimes. However, Western hypocrisy was
shown near the outset of the conflict when it was reported that Egypt’s
military had begun to ship arms to the rebels with Washington’s knowledge.
[18]
This clearly shows that supposed arms embargo on
Libya was in reality, an embargo on Gaddafi’s forces.
To whip up support for their “intervention,” a massive media propaganda
campaign was conducted against Gaddafi. The mainstream media were reporting
things such as Gaddafi gave his troops Viagra to rape women, bombed
civilians, and that Libyan troops gunned down civilians. Despite these
claims being false, the mainstream media still reported it.
However, what many people ignored was the fact
that the rebel and NATO war crimes.
In mid-August,
“a NATO bombing campaign near the Libyan
city of Zlitan earlier this month reportedly killed almost 100 civilians
- more than half of them women and children.” [19]
However, NATO denied all claims arguing that
they had struck legitimate targets.
This is just one example of many NATO war crimes
in Libya, ranging from killing civilians to bombing the rebels themselves.
There were also reports that Libyan rebels were targeting and killing black
Africans.
All across eastern Libya the rebels,
“and their supporters [were] detaining,
intimidating and frequently beating African immigrants and black
Libyans, accusing them of fighting as mercenaries on behalf of
[Gaddafi],” in some cases “executed suspected mercenaries captured in
battle, according to Human Rights Watch and local Libyans,” and
“arbitrarily killed some mercenaries and in others cases failed to
distinguish between them and non-combatants.” [20]
Yet, despite these and other numerous reports,
the Libyan rebels excused their war crimes, saying that they didn’t have the
structures in place to deal with matters such as these.
What was also somewhat ignored was the fact that the rebels were extremely
fractured, only united in their goal to overthrow Gaddafi. This was clearly
seen after the assassination of General Al-Younes and two top military
commanders aides.
Their deaths,
“resulted in internal fighting
within the Transitional Council” with “Factional divisions [developing]
within rebel forces.” [21]
This factional divide may soon play itself out
in the creation of a new Libyan government.
Finally, there was the fact that Western special forces were on the ground.
The initial appearance of Western special forces was when British SAS troops
were captured near Benghazi in March.
However, U.S. CIA agents were in Libya
[22] and there may have been French and U.S. special forces in Libya aiding
the rebels.
In a March interview on the O’Reilly Show,
retired Colonel David Hunt of the U.S. Army and Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a
former Army intelligence officer were interviewed about the situation in
Libya.
Hunt stated the following when asked about
special forces being in Libya:
Yes, absolutely. You've got British service
been in there about three weeks ago and actually got captured and
released.
The French GIGN have been in there and our special forces and
our U.S. intelligence operatives and their assets. We do not conduct
operations like this, large scale air operations, without people on the
ground.
They have been very successful, very good,
not a lot of contact with the rebels because you don't know who to talk
to. But, yes, we have got intel gathering and rescue guys and special
operations guys on the ground, have had them for about 12 days.
[23]
Shaffer agreed, saying:
Yes, I have heard from my sources - I got a
call from one of my key sources on Monday and that's exactly what's
going on.
Let's be really clear here. You have got to have these
individuals doing what Dave just said, especially when you are talking
about trying to protect, and the stated goal here, Bill, is humanitarian
support.
So you don't want to have weapons hitting
the wrong targets. So, Dave is very good on the fact that we have
special operations guys sitting there with laser designators. Bill, you
saw… [24]
The Americans constantly denied that they had
boots on the ground, yet, as usual, they were lying.
The imperialists already had plans for a post-Gaddafi Libya, which consisted
of,
"proposals for a 10,000-15,000 strong
'Tripoli task force', resourced and supported by the United Arab
Emirates, to take over the Libyan capital, secure key sites and arrest
high-level Gaddafi supporters.”
However, the plan may be problematic as it is,
“highly reliant on the defection of parts of
the Gaddafi security apparatus to the rebels after his overthrow.”
[25]
There were far reaching economic consequences as
it was reported that the new government would favor Western oil companies at
the expense of Russian, Chinese, and Brazilian firms. [26]
Due to the imperialists succeeding in Libya, many are worried that the
U.S.-NATO war machine may set its sights on a new target: Syria.
Syria
Protests in Syria began in earnest in May and have not let up since then.
While there are calls for intervention into
Syria, there is much at stake for America in terms of Syria’s relationship
with Iran.
The Americans are quite interested in the link between Iran and Syria,
noting that there have been several joint ventures between the two nations
in the financial and manufacturing sectors, as it was noted that,
“there have been several reports of
increased Iranian investment and trade with Syria,” “Iran has stated its
intention to establish a joint Iranian-Syrian bank, possibly involving
Bank Saderat and the Commercial Bank of Syria,” and “the Iran Khodro
Industrial Group has established a car assembly plant in Syria through a
joint venture known as the Syrian-Iranian Motor Company.” [27]
There are also military links as Iran supplies
weapons to Syria which, from the U.S. perspective, pose a threat to its ally
Israel.
“In June 2010, Iran reportedly sent Syria an
air defense radar system designed to detect Israeli aircraft or possibly
increase the accuracy of Syrian and Hezbollah missile strikes against
Israel in the event of a regional war.” [28]
Thus, the U.S. was deeply worried about the link
between two anti-American nations and the growing friendship between them.
Due to these worries, the U.S. became involved in Syria’s protest movement,
using methods that are similar to the ones the Americans used in the
Egyptian revolution and in the Libya conflict..
For the past five to six years, the U.S. policy toward Syria has used what
could be called a two-pronged strategy to push for regime change.
The U.S.
has supported “civil society” activists or external opposition
organizations. It has also worked to delegitimize, destabilize and isolate
the country through the application of sanctions and various other measures,
which could be applied to exploit vulnerabilities. [29]
One “civil society” organization that is being used by the U.S. is the
Movement for Justice and Development (MJD), which is,
“closely affiliated with the London-based
satellite channel Barada TV, which started broadcasting in April 2009
but ‘ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria.’”
[30]
The Americans may have wanted to work with MJD
due to the fact that they are a moderate Islamic group which wants to end
the Assad regime via democratic reform.
This democratic reform may very well play right
into America’s hands if the U.S. does intervene in Syria, they can back the
MJD and argue that they are the same as Libya’s rebels: people who want to
end their oppressive regime and replace it with a democracy.
The U.S. is using U.S. organizations such as,
“Freedom House, American Bar Association,
American University, Internews and work done by MEPI with the Aspen
Strategic Initiative Institute, Democracy Council of California, Regents
of the University of New Mexico and the International Republican
Institute” [31] to aid in fomenting regime change in Syria by
working with and funding Syrian “civil society” groups.
There have been many reports of the Syrian
regime attacking unarmed protesters, however, one should be quite skeptical
of these reports.
The U.S. media has reported that there are
violent Syrian protesters [32], which should make one question
the official narrative that the protesters are peaceful. One must also
include the fact that there are absolutely no outside media sources in Syria
whatsoever. Journalists have contacts whom they can get information from,
but who says that these sources are being objective, much less telling the
truth?
All the reports that are being shown in the
mainstream media may very well be half-truths, if not outright fabrications.
The U.S. may very well plan to attack Syria if manipulating civil societies
does not work.
The Arab Spring, while an overall movement to overthrow oppressive regimes,
has too many times been co-opted by foreign powers who seek only their
personal gain.
Due to this, the Arab people may never
experience true freedom.
Notes
1: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/20/60minutes/main20033404.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
2: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21666.pdf
3: Ibid
4:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hDbfg1WFaPPd7sbU5Ghogi4YHQ2w?docId=CNG.148a6c382024ebbebe64021de441dac9.b91
5: Ibid
6: http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/the-ned-tibet-north-korea-and-zimbabwe/
7: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=989
8: http://www.ihrc.org.uk/activities/press-releases/9568-bahrains-revolution-underway-as-the-day-of-rage-announced
9: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0219/U.S.-faces-difficult-situation-in-Bahrain-home-to-U.S.-Fifth-Fleet
10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnwCHs_a9cs&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1
11: http://rt.com/news/economy-oil-gold-libya/
12: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/gadhafi-west-oilcompanies-conflict/2011/03/17/id/389809
13: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/19/extremists-among-libya-rebels_n_837894.html
14:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html
15: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23949
16: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm#Resolution
17: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.html
18: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704360404576206992835270906.html
19: http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/africa-mainmenu-27/8651-nato-rebels-accused-of-war-crimes-in-libya
20: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/04/world/la-fg-libya-mercenaries-20110305
21: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25827
22: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/world/africa/31intel.html?_r=1
23: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/are-us-troops-already-ground-libya
24: Ibid
25: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/iraq-haunts-plans-for-post-gaddafi-libya/story-e6frg6so-1226111211251
26: Ibid
27: http://www.euronews.net/2011/08/22/libya-end-game-pulls-down-oil-prices/
28: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf
29: Ibid
30: http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/05/wikileaks-cables-the-us-strategy-to-push-for-regime-change-in-syria/
31: Ibid
32: Ibid
33: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/30/501364/main20067379.shtml
