Open Season on Gadhafi

The International Criminal Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi. Meanwhile, Libya has been bombed for more than 100 days in the name of humanity. Warrants were also issued against Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, as well as Libya’s chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.

The basis for the warrant is an indictment over 70 pages in length that was provided by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The indictment supports his claim of “crimes against humanity” with, among other things, statements made by “rebel” witnesses who are cooperating with NATO and “intelligence” supplied by Western agencies. Gadhafi responded by threatening attacks on Europe if the NATO airstrikes against his government don’t stop.

Justification for Continued Bombing

The warrant focuses on the claim that — following the events in Tunisia and Egypt early this year — the “highest levels of the Libyan government” pursued a policy to repress Libyan civilian demonstrators against the Gadhafi regime with any means necessary. According to the indictment, in carrying out this policy, security forces killed, injured, arrested or imprisoned hundreds of civilian demonstrators during the month of February 2011.

If one wants to apply this elevated standard equitably, it would then be necessary to issue warrants against the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain, as well as against Washington’s supporter in Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It is hardly surprising that this “coalition of the willing” arrest warrant that has had only limited success in bringing Gadhafi to justice by aerial bombardment is still supported by the West because it provides a handy justification to continue the attacks on Libya. Cease-fire offers made by Gadhafi “the war criminal” can simply be ignored.

A Government’s Normal Reaction

The fact that Gadhafi is condemned for actions that the American government wouldn’t hesitate to use was pointed out by sharp-tongued columnist Paul Craig Roberts, who served the first Reagan administration as assistant secretary of the Treasury: “Gadhafi has resisted the armed rebellion against the state of Libya, which is the normal response of a government to rebellion. The United Sates would respond the same as would the U.K. and France.”

But in order to prevent his government from being overthrown and his country turned into another U.S. puppet state, Gadhafi has filed suit. That notwithstanding, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says that the arrest warrant issued for Gadhafi reinforces the reason for the NATO mission to protect Libyans from Gadhafi’s armed forces.

“High Noon” from Above

No one can say whether Gadhafi will ever appear before the ICC. It’s far more likely that ever-increasing murder attempts from the air — now fueled by the international arrest warrant — will sooner or later be successful. Several members of Gadhafi’s family have already been killed. It fits the image being emphasized by the U.S. government to rely increasingly on a strategy of “targeted deaths” — for example, by unmanned drones — and less on what anti-terror adviser John Brennan has termed “deploying large armies abroad.”

That’s not too surprising seen against a backdrop of imminent national bankruptcy. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and, most recently, Somalia are said to be potential drone targets. No one can accuse the United States of a lack of creativity in its global police actions. “High Noon” will happen less frequently face-to-face on the ground and more frequently anonymously and “cleanly” from the air. The decision as to who will be targeted and for what reasons will be, of course, the sole prerogative of the American government.