The Animated Libyan Sands

“All that is new comes from Libya” — the historian Herodotus (5th century B.C.)

The mind may be distracted by stories of revolutionaries, colonial resistance and harassment by tyrannical Italians, and the high, energetic leader Omar may be recalled when one hears the name Libya, but for a long time before that, between the years 1801 – 1804, the Libyan Navy was able, under the leadership of the commandant of Tripoli, to launch strikes at the rising American power during the Four Years war, to seize the destroyer Philadelphia and to force America into paying tribute to Tripoli in the most humiliating treaty in U.S. history, according to the American historian Glen Tucker. “Libo,” as its name appears in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, “Lebos” as the ancient Greeks called it and “Libya,” in Arabic, is an old country. Five thousand years old. It was fertile land for the horses of the Greeks, lovers of myths. Herodotus, known as the “father of history,” said of Libya after he visited it in the fifth century B.C.: “Libya extends greetings to you from two fronts and enamors you from all sides.”

“All that is new comes from Libya,” is a saying applicable to Libya’s current condition, but in a calamitous manner, since it was unprecedented for Libya to undergo a four-decade long reign by one individual leader who believes his mind to be omniscient and who neglects others and their views, seeing them as trifling and superficial. He tyrannized, governing for many years despite the tragedies, disasters and lost opportunities that passed his country by. Now the sound of battle has arisen. The blood of the revolutionaries boils as they demand his resignation and an end to his rule over this geographically vast, treasure-rich country. The dangerous issue is the presence of inclinations among the international forces possessing colonial, opportunistic backgrounds to exploit the tragic conflict going on in Libya between Gadhafi and his opponents; tendencies inclined to interfere in order to serve the ambitions of the powerful at the expense of the Libyan people. One of the indications of this desire to intervene is the existence of reports of Western battleships approaching the Libyan coasts, along with the U.S. putting all options on the table (meaning the presence of the military option). Another piece of evidence was the success of the Libyan resistance in capturing several Britons in Libya who claimed to be diplomats. In their possession were passports representing four nations, and they were accompanied by British Special Forces!

Britain justified the presence of the diplomats as a diplomatic mission to communicate with the resistance and said the Special Forces were sent to protect the diplomats. Yet the Libyan opposition made the British leave the country because their presence harms the popular resistance more than any other faction. One could ask: What is the legal and political justification for the presence of these forces and these individuals on Libyan territory, without coordination with the Libyan opposition?

There is no doubt that the Western powers are trying to exploit the armed conflict in Libya in order to penetrate deeply into this land, even if only indirectly, since direct intervention by Western powers in the current situation would be very difficult and comes at a high political, military and economic cost. The Western powers, with the United States at the helm, are still bleeding both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as a consequence of the global financial crisis. The Western powers possess a hegemonic and exploitative predisposition. They are seeking to find a foothold in Libya and thereby connect the Mediterranean Sea with Africa, and northeast Africa with northwest Africa. Naturally, in this critical historical moment, the West needs to establish a foothold on the animated — and in most cases scorching — Libyan sands. This Western imperative became definite after the loss of a great strategic ally in the Hosni Mubarak regime, and the West’s prior loss of another ally to the west of Libya (Tunisia) represented by the regime of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. These powers therefore need to nose themselves in between Egypt and Tunisia, or at least create a state subservient to their political dictate in a way that constitutes an element of pressure on — and even blackmail of — the two systems which are currently being formed in Egypt and Tunisia.

The latent Western desire to play a larger role in Libya does not mean that the Libyan revolutionaries are responsible for any Western presence directly or indirectly taking shape in Libyan territory. Rather, the primary and final responsibility belongs to the Gadhafi regime and Gadhafi himself, who ruled tyrannically for four decades, during which time he undertook despicable, unjustifiable acts, which in turn harmed many Libyans, their destinies and even reputation — as evidenced by his audacity in acknowledging that he committed the awful Lockerbie airplane atrocity, and then paid exorbitant sums of the Libyan people’s money in order to compensate for his barbaric crime. Among his other reprehensible acts were the founding of a program for weapons of mass destruction and the subsequent relinquishment of it, which compromised both Libya’s reputation and pocketbook. His regime even got in a fight following European pressure on the Bulgarian nurses accused of polluting the blood of nearly four hundred Libyan children with the deadly AIDS virus, with Gaddafi ignoring the rulings of his judiciary and neglecting the lives of these poor Libyan children.

This predicament that Libya finds itself in, this deepening human tragedy caused by fierce fighting, first of all requires vigilance on the part of the Libyan opposition to preserve Libyan independence as well as the state’s future autonomy. And if there is any outside intervention called for, then it needs to be under independent Arab and international patronage and devices, so that there is no exploitation of the Libyan crisis at foreign hands, who could yet again wreak havoc on the destinies and future security of the Libyan people.