A holy coalition of former colonial powers led by the Big Gun, which humbly call themselves “international community,” has picked Libya for a target. For the mass consumption, the cause is “humanitarian” – saving Libyan civilians from their dictator. By brute military force, of course. If the people who are to be “saved” get harmed by the saviour, that will be the usual “collateral damage”. Of course.
As in the recent bellicose precedents, the infamous one being Iraq eight years ago, global media of mass informing demonstrate, of course, freedom of press. This an unfathomable freedom of worshipping marching orders issued by the US State Department and the UK Foreign Office. For example, the BBC World News keeps playing a fill-rouge announced as the first interview of Colonel Gaddafi to Western media. But there is no interview to see, just a brief sketch of Gaddafi saying to a journalist that he (the journalist) does not understand the Libyan system and the war in it. And that’s it. Ah yes, spiced up by assertion that BBC takes all angles. Of source, it does, as long as it’s the angle of the UK government. If Gaddafi’s statement is idiotic, BBC’s method of “all angled-coverage” is a perfect match. The selection of “experts” and other details clearly demonstrate that old methods of brain programming is back again in full swing. At BBC, CNN, elsewhere... As if the Iraq scam never happened!
I have no sympathy for Libya’s long-time dictator Gaddafi. His good deeds for the mass population of Libya are now buried in the far past. After overthrowing the monarchy in 1969, he was a populist leader who used oil revenues for public good. But he stayed in power for too long, trampling the internal tribal divisions by brute force. I visited Libya in the 1980s. I found a country with eerily emptish public squares, covered with gigantic portraits of the leader of Libya’s “green revolution.” Most people walking on streets were men. Police was everywhere. I kept away from them.
I was especially on the lookout for BMWs with no license plates. I knew their owners were Gaddafi’s revolutionary guards who had extremely broad discretionary rights. Guys with that hair style and sun glasses, a replica of the revolution leader. I’ve suffered their jerky bite right at my entry to Libya at the Tripoli airport. For about one and a half hours, a young guy with a bushy, curly hair searched me, yelled at me, and kept asking who I was and where I was going. All this in spite of the fact that I had a valid business visa. Like a parrot, I was promptly spitting back demanded answers. But to no avail. The scary guy was in for teaching me a lesson in revolutionary piety. This included humiliation (he stripped me naked while searching me “for dollars” that, of course, all "spies" were supposed to have). Piety and fear, did he teach me. No, I do not have sympathies for such a regime. Gaddafi stayed in power far too long, and enjoyed far too much of power. Any power corrupts and big, prolonged power corrupts most.
But if I do not like Libya’s dictator it does not give me a right to remove him. If the US and its allies do not like Gaddafi, they still do not have a right to remove him from power. Only Libyans have that right. Policing their or anyone else’s home from the outside is unacceptable in international relationships among sovereign countries. If sovereignty shouldn’t give dictators a license to kill, this doesn’t mean that the international tailors of limited sovereignty can grab such license for themselves. The United Nations is not the united states but an organization of states that are supposed to be equal before the international law. That is the golden principle. Whenever it is violated with a blessing of The United Nations, this organization loses a boulder in its foundations.
Of course, the war on Libya by the trigger happy coalition has nothing to do with saving civilians. First, based on the attacker’s logic, some Libyans should not be saved because they cooperate with the dictator. Therefore, if these perish in the air attacks, so much the better. But this changes the programming formula into “saving some civilians.”
Second, Libya has lots of oil and of high quality oil, which is always an attractive stake to grab. Gaddafi nationalized the oil sources and barred Big Oil out of the country. A never forgiven sin! Would it not be more convenient to install a puppet government in Libya and rush in to exploit rich oil reserves to make fat pocketbooks of Big Oil even fetter? Of course, it would.
Third, Libya is so strategically positioned that keeping naval bases there gives a huge advantage to the keeper. Both the UK and the US had a military presence in Libya when it was a kingdom. This was the period right after Libya gained independence from the former colonial masters, the UK and France. Of course, these are now partners in the attacking coalition.
Fourth, the peoples’ unrest in the Arab world has got out of control of the Big Gun. Influencing directly the outcome of the civil war in Libya gives a chance to influence political developments in Libya and around. Diplomacy is a tedious business, of course. Putting a military muscle at work warrants quicker solutions in policing.
And fifth, the victim is familiar. The Big Gun already attacked Libya in 1986 and a number of times in undeclared, swift actions calculated at reducing defense capabilities of the country. All in all, it follows that even the programming formula “saving some civilians” needs adjustment. How’s this: “saving some civilians eligible for serving Big Oil and Big Gun?”
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tools of Peace and War
Oh mother oh mother, war the deadly dragon,
Swallows like a python, with no care for love,
Nor fear of God above.
Weep not; cry not, enough isn't enough,
For they are so deaf to your plea oh mother,
None will ever bother.
A teacher and poet Jokondino from Uganda wrote these verses and posted them recently on the Internet. Jokondino lives in a northern zone of this African country, which for long has been torn by a local war. As Patience Akpan-Obong, African scholar who lives in the U.S. and investigates Ugandas’s Internet put it, Jakondino gives voice to unspoken fears and dreams unutterable during the war.
The curious part of the Jokondino story is about a lack of reliable, fast access to the Internet available to an average family in Canada. Jokondino accesses the Internet via equipment that runs on 12V solar batteries. Steady supply of electricity is not available in those refuge camps. The battery-operated equipment is an American technology and its installation in refugee camps has been made possible by international aid programs. Akpan-Obong explains that this unusual access to the Internet gives an opportunity to disarmed soldiers and victims of the war to tell their stories to the outside world. Jokondino uses the Internet for practical purposes as well, announcing when his school needs rechargeable batteries and chargers.
In another refugee camp, a secondary school teacher was able to connect via the Internet his students with overseas donors who offered scholarships. Not only that educating overseas has guaranteed better prospects to these young people, but they were also rescued from temptations of surviving by volunteering for paramilitary formations.
These vignettes from Uganda tell us that the Internet can be a tool of peace. It can help communication, openness, discussion, and acceptance of differences as the conditions for democracy and advancement of civic society.
But the same Internet can also be used in the opposite way, as a tool of war. Individuals, groups and organizations with extreme political views air their aggressive agendas on the Internet. Beyond this obvious communication abuse, the Internet can serve as a venue for stealing sensitive information of national interest, breaking into defence computer systems in order to damage them, attacking power grids, water supply facilities and other infrastructure that uses computers connected to the Internet. All this has given rise to a new sort of war called “cyber warfare.”
Cyber warriors include intelligence, military agencies and other government organizations, industrial espionage, and militant groups and individuals around the world. A recent example of cyber war is the attack on computer systems of Google China in December 2009. Google provides the world’s most popular Internet search service, along with a free email system and some other services. The alleged cyber warrior: the Chinese government. The cause for the attack: getting hold of information on human rights activists. A number of other foreign companies doing business in China were also attacked. In fact, militant uses of the Internet continue on the 24/7/365 basis. The dragon of war spits fire through the Internet as well.
Technology is what you make of it.
Swallows like a python, with no care for love,
Nor fear of God above.
Weep not; cry not, enough isn't enough,
For they are so deaf to your plea oh mother,
None will ever bother.
A teacher and poet Jokondino from Uganda wrote these verses and posted them recently on the Internet. Jokondino lives in a northern zone of this African country, which for long has been torn by a local war. As Patience Akpan-Obong, African scholar who lives in the U.S. and investigates Ugandas’s Internet put it, Jakondino gives voice to unspoken fears and dreams unutterable during the war.
The curious part of the Jokondino story is about a lack of reliable, fast access to the Internet available to an average family in Canada. Jokondino accesses the Internet via equipment that runs on 12V solar batteries. Steady supply of electricity is not available in those refuge camps. The battery-operated equipment is an American technology and its installation in refugee camps has been made possible by international aid programs. Akpan-Obong explains that this unusual access to the Internet gives an opportunity to disarmed soldiers and victims of the war to tell their stories to the outside world. Jokondino uses the Internet for practical purposes as well, announcing when his school needs rechargeable batteries and chargers.
In another refugee camp, a secondary school teacher was able to connect via the Internet his students with overseas donors who offered scholarships. Not only that educating overseas has guaranteed better prospects to these young people, but they were also rescued from temptations of surviving by volunteering for paramilitary formations.
These vignettes from Uganda tell us that the Internet can be a tool of peace. It can help communication, openness, discussion, and acceptance of differences as the conditions for democracy and advancement of civic society.
But the same Internet can also be used in the opposite way, as a tool of war. Individuals, groups and organizations with extreme political views air their aggressive agendas on the Internet. Beyond this obvious communication abuse, the Internet can serve as a venue for stealing sensitive information of national interest, breaking into defence computer systems in order to damage them, attacking power grids, water supply facilities and other infrastructure that uses computers connected to the Internet. All this has given rise to a new sort of war called “cyber warfare.”
Cyber warriors include intelligence, military agencies and other government organizations, industrial espionage, and militant groups and individuals around the world. A recent example of cyber war is the attack on computer systems of Google China in December 2009. Google provides the world’s most popular Internet search service, along with a free email system and some other services. The alleged cyber warrior: the Chinese government. The cause for the attack: getting hold of information on human rights activists. A number of other foreign companies doing business in China were also attacked. In fact, militant uses of the Internet continue on the 24/7/365 basis. The dragon of war spits fire through the Internet as well.
Technology is what you make of it.
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