FIDEL CASTRO'S REFLECTIONS: NATO'S INEVITABLE WAR (PART ONE)

As opposed to the situation in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies first place in the Human Development Index within Africa and has the highest life expectancy rate on the continent. Education and health receive special state attention. The cultural level of the population is without a doubt higher. Its problems are of another nature. The population is not in need of food or basic social services. The country requires many foreign workers to implement its ambitious production and social development plans.

Therefore it offers employment to hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other nations. It has an enormous income and hard currency reserves deposited in the banks of rich countries, with which it acquires consumer goods and even sophisticated weapons, supplied by the very countries which now want to invade in the name of human rights.

The colossal campaign of lies unleashed by the mass media has created much confusion in world public opinion. Some time will pass before what really has happened in Libya is reconstructed, and real events are separated from the falsified ones which have been disseminated.

Serious and prestigious broadcasters such as Telesur have been obliged to send reporters and photographers to one group's activities and then to the opposite side's, in order to report what was really occurring.

Communications were blocked; honest diplomatic officials risked their lives touring neighborhoods, observing activities day and night to report what was transpiring. The empire and its principal allies employed the most sophisticated media to disseminate falsified information about the events, requiring one to infer traces of the truth.

No doubt, the faces of young people protesting in Benghazi, men and women, with veils and without, expressed real indignation.

The tribal component of this Arab country is noticeable, despite the Islamic faith sincerely shared by 95% of the population.

Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned about the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, which produces a large portion of the oil sustaining the consumer economies of the rich, developed countries – could not miss the opportunity to take advantage of Libya's internal conflict to promote a military intervention. The statements formulated by the United States government from early on were clearly in this vein.

The circumstances could hardly be more propitious. The Republican right wing dealt President Obama, an expert in rhetoric, a severe blow during the November elections.

The fascist "mission accomplished" group, ideologically supported by the extremist Tea Party, has reduced the current president's options to a merely decorative role, with even his health program and the doubtful recuperation of the economy in danger, as a result of the budget deficit and the uncontrollable increase in the public debt, which has broken all historical records.

Despite the torrent of lies and the confusion created, the United States was unable to drag China or the Russian Federation into the UN Security Council's approval of military intervention in Libya, although it did achieve its current objectives within the Human Rights Council. As for a military intervention, the Secretary of State declared in words which did not leave the slightest doubt, "No option is off the table."

The fact is that Libya is involved in a civil war, as we had foreseen, and there is nothing the United Nations could have done to prevent it, except that its own Secretary General sprinkled a hefty dose of fuel on the fire.

The problem which these actors perhaps never imagined is that the very leaders of the rebellion have burst upon the complicated scene, declaring that they reject any foreign military intervention.

Various news agencies reported that Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, spokesperson for the Libyan National Council, stated on Monday 28th that "The rest of Libya will be liberated by the Libyan people."

"We can count on the army to liberate Tripoli," Ghoga assured, announcing the formation of a "National Council" to represent the country’s cities in the hands of the insurrection.

"What we want is intelligence information, but in no case that our air, land or sea sovereignty is affected," he added during a meeting with journalists in this city 1,000km east of Tripoli.

"The intransigence of opposition leaders over national sovereignty reflected opinions spontaneously expressed by many Libyan citizens to the international press in Benghazi," according to an AFP cable this past Monday.

That same day, Abeir Imneina, a professor of political sciences at the University of Benghazi, stated, "There is a very strong feeling of nationalism in Libya."

"Moreover, the Iraqi example scares everyone in the Arab world," she stressed, in reference to the 2003 U.S. invasion which was to have brought democracy to that country and then, by contagion, to the region as a whole, a hypothesis totally refuted by the facts.

The professor continues, "We know very well what happened in Iraq, which is in the throes of instability. Following in those footsteps is not appealing at all. We don't want the Americans to come and then to have to regret (the end of the rule of) Gaddafi." But according to Abeir Imneina, "There is also the feeling that this is our revolution and that it is up to us forge ahead."

Just a few hours after this cable was published, two of the major U.S. newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, hastened to provide new versions on the subject, as reported by the DPA news agency the following day, March 1, "The Libyan opposition could ask the West to undertake air strikes on the strategic positions of forces loyal to Muammar al Gaddafi, the U.S. press states today."

The issue is being discussed within the Libyan National Council, according to online editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The New York Times notes that these discussions reveal the growing frustration of the rebel leaders at the possibility of Gaddafi retaking power.

"In the case of air strikes being executed within the framework of the United Nations, they would not imply international intervention," explained the Council spokesperson, quoted by The New York Times.

"The Council is composed of lawyers, academics, judges and prominent members of Libyan society."

The cable states:

"The Washington Post quoted rebels who recognize that, without Western support, battles with forces loyal to Gaddafi could last a long time and cost a large number of human lives."

It is striking that the cable does not mention one single industrial, agricultural or construction worker, anyone linked to material production or the young students or combatants who can be seen in the demonstrations.

Why the effort to present the rebels as prominent members of society demanding U.S. and NATO air strikes to kill Libyans?

Some day the truth will be known, through people like the professor of political sciences at the University of Benghazi, who narrated with such eloquence the terrible experience which killed, destroyed homes and left millions of people in Iraq jobless or forced to emigrate.

Today, Wednesday, March 2, the EFE news agency presents the known rebel spokesperson making statements that, in my view, simultaneously affirm and contradict those of Monday: "Benghazi (Libya) March 2. The Libyan rebel leadership today asked the UN Security Council to launch an air strike ‘on mercenaries’ from the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime."

"Our army cannot launch attacks on the mercenaries, given its defensive role," stated rebel spokesperson Abdel Hafiz Ghoga at a press conference in Benghazi.

"A strategic air strike is not the same as an international intervention, which we reject," emphasized the spokesperson for the opposition forces, which have consistently expressed opposition to any foreign military intervention in the Libyan conflict.

Which of the many imperialist wars would this one resemble?

That of Spain in 1936, that of Mussolini against Ethiopia in 1935, that of George W. Bush against Iraq in 2003 or any one of the dozens of wars promoted by the United States against the peoples of the Americas, from the invasion of Mexico in 1846 to that of the Malvinas in 1982?

Without excluding, of course, the mercenary invasion of Girón, the dirty war and the blockade of our homeland during 50 years, the anniversary of which is next April 16.

In all of those wars, such as that of Vietnam, which cost millions of lives, justifications and the most cynical measures reigned supreme.

For those harboring any doubt as to the inevitable military intervention which is to take place in Libya, the AP news agency, which I consider well informed, led with a cable published today affirming, "Some NATO countries are drawing up contingency plans modeled on the no-fly zones over the Balkans in the 1990s in case the international community decides to impose an air embargo over Libya, diplomats said."

It goes on to conclude, "The diplomats, who could not be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the options being looked into are modeled on the no-fly zone which the Western military alliance imposed over Bosnia in 1993 that had a U.N. mandate… and NATO's aerial offensive against Yugoslavia [via Kosovo] in 1999, WHICH DID NOT HAVE IT."

I shall continue tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 2, 2011
8:19 p.m.

Source: http://www.cubadebate.cu/