March 19, 2021 - 10:30am
It’s a strange feeling to measure the passage of your life in other people’s wars. A decade ago, I travelled to Libya as a rookie freelance reporter to cover the progress of the revolution against Gaddafi, an uprising whose success was entirely dependent on the NATO-led intervention initiated exactly 10 years ago. The sense of optimism was infectious, as young Libyans demonstrated in the streets, bedecked the revolutionary capital of Benghazi with their artwork, and dreamed of a brighter future.
In the besieged Western Libyan city of Misrata, I lived with rebels in their command centre as they took their city, street by street, from Gaddafi’s government forces. I followed Misrata’s fighters as they fought their way towards Tripoli through the vast olive groves of Dafniya, taking heavy casualties in bitter trench warfare. In Tripoli, after the dictator’s fall, I covered the breakout of fighting between the victorious militias as they battled to divide the spoils. That was the first warning sign that the fruits of victory would not be a political renaissance, but chaos and misery.
Instead of becoming the prosperous, stable oil-exporting state Libyans hoped for, the country plunged into an anarchic decade of conflict as warring militias battled for control. The country’s east fell under the sway of the autocratic general Khalifa Haftar, who rose to power by crushing the alliance of jihadist militias, including the Islamic State, which had seized control of much of Cyrenaica. The rival government in Tripoli struggled to tame the militias who competed for control of both the city’s streets and the country’s oil economy. The country’s desert south has been scarred by inter-ethnic conflict between Arabs, Tuaregs and Tebu tribesmen, a murky and confusing war almost completely ignored by the outside world.
The Misratan rebel commander I lived with, Salah Badi, is now an internationally-sanctioned war criminal. The young Libyans I befriended, my translators and drivers, now find themselves on opposing sides, some fighting in Haftar’s security forces, others supporting the Misratan city state acting as Tripoli’s military guarantor.
No wonder the NATO intervention has been claimed, as Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan terms it, as “simultaneously the high point and death knell of humanitarian interventionism.” With the collapse of Gaddafi’s army, his Tuareg mercenaries looted vast stockpiles of weapons and munitions before returning home to Mali, initiating a civil war which worsens every day, dragging in French and European forces — including our own — in a bloody conflict with no realistic prospect of victory.
With Gaddafi gone, the Libyan coast became the hub for sub-Saharan migration to Europe, destabilising Italian politics, and leading to the revival of slavery in Libya for the first time in a century.
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SubscribeNine miles to the West of the incomparable Roman city of Lepcis Magna, situated right on the edge of the Mediterranean ( Mare Nostrum) is the stunning Villa Selene (Villa of the Moon). It affords us a tantalising glimpse of the sheer opulence and magnificence of the Pax Romana, which endured for centuries in the Roman Province of Africa Proconsularis. Its mosaics are some of finest in existence, its Bath House almost complete, whilst the vista across the Mare Nostrum or as Homer would have it “the Wine Dark Sea’, is truly unforgettable.
Yet here we are two millennia later and the ‘country’ is a cesspit of internecine conflict and slaughter!
Thank you Aris for your erudite description of how Libya has degenerated into Barbarism. In fact we might say “Look on my works ye mighty and despair”.
I wonder went wrong. Could it be that a certain belief system/religion that came to dominate North Africa and the ME? A belief system that will inexorably do to Europe what it has done wherever it has spread?
Precisely, yet another nihilistic, death cult that vomited forth from the Arabian Desert spreading mayhem and destruction in all directions.
As you so appositely say, Europe will be next, unless this poison is vanquished.
We have been warned.
Don’t be such an anti-Islamist. At least the Muslims in Europe have some morals because of their faith, which is lost with the Secular-Humanist-atheism which is now the official Europe-UK state religion.
The problem is not Islam in Europe, it is which ones were allowed to immigrate. The intellectual and Professional class of Muslim are great additions, the unskilled refugee kinds are a different conversation.
Callous and idiotic terrorist attacks by Muslim nutters have destroyed any residual respect the West may have had for Islam.
However if these aforementioned ‘nutters’ were to attempt to emulate their outstanding predecessors, the fabled Assassins, then we might show some interest
Good for you Charles, tar all with the same brush. If 0.001% of a people/Religion do some horrible deed, collective guilt is justified for them all. I think you have a future in the ‘Critical Race Theory’ camp.
I am very much Western, and Right Wing, a Red Neck even, and have great respect for Muslims and Islam because it is deeply moral and about duty and obligation whereas Secular Humanism is all about rights and no responsibility. But then I lived with them, so have an actual understanding of what Islam is.
Come off it! You know it’s far more complex than that.
Centuries of ‘competition’ by two near identical, monotheistic, Semitic faiths, has left an enormous legacy of animosity.
However if Islam can ‘up its game’ and start hitting the correct targets, all is not lost.
The last time I looked, it wasn’t atheists who blew up little girls at the Manchester Arena.
Who says anything went wrong from the Western perspective? Libya was reduced to chaos. Job done.
If the Libyan King had not been overthrown by Kaddafi in 69 the place could have become the other successful MENA lands remaining a Monarchy, Morocco, Jordan, KSA.
Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt (53), all lost their King to become wrecks of themselves in the 1960s and 70s. Personally I blame it all on the French, and to a lesser degree the British and Italians, and to a great deal on FDR who forced the decolonization too fast on the world, and the monstrous Dulls Brothers whose CIA Fingerprints are all over the place. And on the Egyptians and the 7 day war and Pan-Arabist mess, if only they had not overthrown their King (see above) everything may have worked out.
But then watching the utterly wretched Merkle and her puppet Prince I guess one can become a bit anti-monarchist, but rarely has it been a good idea to cut off the Kings head, as the French, Germans, and most others have discovered.
Ah yes, the good old days of King Idris, a slightly ‘smaller’ version of King Farouk.
‘We’ even managed to film “Ice Cold in Alex” in Tripoli!
Hillary Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State at the time and she aspired to run for President based, in part, on her foreign policy bona fides and realistic appraisal of the use of force to further democratic values.
And a few misspeaks! Or what most normal people call lies.
Clinton is a warmongering savage who nearly orgasmed when Gaddafi was sodomised with a bayonet.
Gosh! I did think she had it in her!
It all was from the Liberal Lefti MSM’s cry of ‘Arab Spring’ and their conjured word images of flowers and sweets being passed about in the streets as the tyrants were driven out. Naturally Clinton hopped onboard for the press oppertunity to be a Liberal hero – much as Biden and his creepy VP did with BLM.
The Western Liberal MSM are the greatest force for evil yet appearing in the world.
I strongly dispute your characterisation of the MSM as lefti. They’ve proven themselves thoroughly pro-imperialist warmongers over and over again.
and up is down, and black is white
The Liberal Left’s misguided impulse (led by Hillary and Obama) to encourage the “Arab Spring” totally backfired; not only in Libya but also in Syria (where it led to a civil war and the advent of ISIS). It almost backfired in Egypt (however Abdel Fattah el-Sisi plugged the genie back into the bottle), and there is a big risk that Biden (and if not he, then Kamala Harris when she succeeds him), will similarly screw up the Middle East again.
“use of force to further democratic values.’ She understood how well that worked in Iraq.
Capital D?
What is this nonsense about liberal good intentions? The West’s intention was obvious from the start – get rid of Gaddafi by any means necessary. Libya had been a prosperous, relatively stable, oil-exporting state, and now it’s a failed state, which seems to suit the ‘humanitarian bombers’ just fine. And countries like North Korea can be reminded of what happens to those defying the Western alliance.
Wrong. The West would have loved peace in the Maghreb, Libya also has astoundingly huge underground water reservoirs in the South and could make the desert bloom, and with the oil bring actual success, it should have been good, and everyone wished it the best. The problem is the West are stupid and think everyone is just a Westerner waiting to be set free. But that is not the case, as the non-Western mass migrations should have taught us by now. So we mishandle every non-Western interaction. The only one which worked was Mac Author in Japan, but he was a multicultural Renaissance Man genius. A great pity we had not given China to be run by Vinegar Joe Stillwell, be a different world.
Libya was well on its way to making the desert bloom. Since the West’s ‘humanitarian bombing’ campaign, even basic water supplies are failing.
Libya’s Qaddafi taps ‘fossil water’ to irrigate desert farms Christian Science Monitor, 2010
Your are correct about the ‘fossil water’, or wasn’t it called the New River or some such?
I recall seeing the pipes (UK made) in Benghazi. They were so huge I wondered why the CIA hadn’t declared them a “Super Gun” and bombed them.
Off course Gaddafi had been a rather naughty by giving the IRA minuscule amounts of SEMTEX during out little war in Ireland (1969-97).
Nothing off course compared to the support the IRA received from the vile Kennedy Clan and the US terrorist organisation known as NORAID.
How many Nukes did Mac Arthur think would be required to put China back in her ‘box’. I seem to recall it was more than ten.
Twenty to thirty.
But let us remember MacArthur was the man who re-built Japan, and was loved by the Japanese – the nation nuked into submission – so WHO in the world had a closer look at the cause/effect of that? I feel the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the greatest humanitarian acts USA made in the war, it was a hard choice and you have to respect Truman for making it.
When USA troops arrived on the shores of Japan, Japan had 3-6 WEEKS of food left! That food was 100% marked for the troops so they could fight on the shores and land when USA invaded, the civilians were to starve to death in their tens of millions!!!!!
It was calculated that even if ONE more WEEK had passed before surrender a million may have starved before the massed aid could have been brought in and distributed.
It was figured a million Western troops would die, and many million Japanese Troops and MANY more than that of Japanese Civilians.
Things are not easy and clear. Maybe not going into China was like the Treaty of Versailles, with all its consequences..
MacArtthur would have made a great Roman Proconsul and conqueror of China.
An opportunity lost indeed.
Gaddafi had complied with US demands. HRC’s reckless efforts cost more than Libya but trust as well.
“get rid of Gaddafi ….. ” The US waited and waited and waited until the G made it possible – remember Lockerbie – it really is as simple as that. Payback – every time.
Lockerbie is far from simple. Some of the victims’ relatives, who have spent years researching the issue, are convinced Libya was not responsible.
Except Iran ‘did’ Lockerbie for the very reason you state “payback”
Simple, n’est pas?
Gaddafi gave up his WMD program years ago with the promise he would be left alone. I guarantee you, other would-be dictators are taking note and I honestly have no idea what the hell our foreign policy goals even are anymore.
Chaos, misery and destruction have been the main results of Western foreign policy lately. For this to have happened once could be passed off as a mistake, but with the ever growing list, from Afghanistan through Iraq, Libya and Syria, to Yemen, it looks like these are the goals.
In another words to emasculate Islam for a thousand years. QED.
Shameful to see such whitewashing of recent history.
What NATO did to Libya was nothing short of Hague-worthy war crimes. The author participated in such activities by giving cover to “rebel forces” and should be charged and fairly tried along with his fellow travellers.
Tyburn Tree had three arms.
We should hang Blair on one, Brown on another and Cameron on the last, if there were any justice in this festering planet
The usual trail of ‘unintended consequences’ that, certainly by 2011, many could have foretold.
One bizarre irony here is that – allegedly* – Gadaffi more or less funded Sarkozy’s victorious presidential campaign. Sarkozy then responded by doing a great deal to take down Gadaffi. There’s gratitude for you.
*I believe this case comes to court quite soon.
A bit like poor old Saddam Hussein , very useful to combat the raving loony Ayatollahs during the seven year Iran -Iraq War, then stabbed in the back by the “Village idiot from Texas” & the absolutely loathsome Blair creature.
Saddam caused a trench war with Iran which killed a million conscripts. He raped Kwait, genocided the Shia Marsh Arabs, gassed the Kurds, tortured, impoverished the people, was going to invade Saudi, and actively seeked WMD, destroyed the Great Marshes, and was an all round tyrant of the most despicable kind. He needed killing.
The loss of the peace post Iraq war was from two reasons, Paul Bremmer being given Mac Aurthur like controll wile being a complete idiot, and the French stabbing USA in the back by not agreeing with the UN authorized war, and thus enboldening Saddam, and thus emboldening Syria to be the friend of the ‘resistance’ and breaking the international cohesion.
The rodent from Texas was equally culpable along with our wretched Blair creature to name but two.
Is it a bizarre irony, or part of the reason Gaddafi had to be neutralised?
France is paying the price of Kaddafi’s fall by the weapons massed and taken North to keep war in the Sahel, which France then tries to dampen down, and by streams into the Banlieues from people smugglers departing Libya.
The shambles that is MENA can be summed up in one word, Islam.