U.S. Imperialism Continues to Meet With Mortifying Failures in Libya

September-28, 2020 - The results of the U.S.-led destabilization campaign and regime change operation in Libya sound a call against the re-establishment of the foreign yoke of colonial and neo-colonial domination on the Arab world.

The resounding failure of the reigning mandate system finds one of its recent counterparts in the latest UN Security Council resolution about the mandate. After months of briefings describing the circumstances on the ground as a rapidly deteriorating situation of calamities and destruction, the Security Council voted on September 15 to carry out its "civilizing mission" for at least another year.

According to the duplicitous logic of the U.S.-NATO aggressors, the reason for supporting so-called "low intensity conflict" followed by regime change in Libya was to protect civilians from violence and to prevent a massacre. According to this chauvinist logic, American imperialism is entitled to be the judge, jury, and executioner of the world. It can "liberate" countries by invading them. It can label whole peoples as "terrorists" and "extremists" and then turn around and "oppose terrorism" by bombing them.  It can "spread democracy" by keeping them under the permanent bondage of its political and economic system.

Since 2011, a bloodbath has ensued and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the "nation-building" operation. In a July 8 press release (SC/14243), the UN Security Council admitted that the number of Libyans currently displaced inside the country as a result of the war is over 400,000.

The U.S.-NATO war of destruction is also resulting in the reversal of all the measures of economic and political independence gained by Libya through its national liberation struggle of the last century. The renewed plunder of the country's riches has been accompanied by the imposition of the law of the jungle on the basis that "might makes right." In addition to stepping up the exploitation of Libya's national assets such as its large oil and natural gas reserves, the Western powers have also undermined the economic security of large numbers of Libyan workers who have been converted into an extremely cheap labor force for the colonizers operating in Libya and in their home countries. So too, since 2011, the Big Powers have multiplied the country's external debt by 3 times to its current level of $98 billion.

In short, the yoke of colonial and neo-colonial domination is being reimposed on Libya through force of arms in order to 1) dramatically increase the transfer of its wealth to the big U.S. and international bankers through massive interest payments and ever-increasing debt, 2) privatize the manifold reserves of the country's economy which are stores of wealth built up over generations of labor, and 3) increase the direct imperialist ownership and control of the economic infrastructure of the country.

The people of Libya are continuing their fight for liberation to get rid of this yoke. The cruel U.S.-NATO war of aggression will be crushed by the Libyan people and no amount of Big Power intimidation will obstruct their struggle to regain their rights.

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