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Tag: Libya

  • Libya one year after

    Throughout history, to a large extent, revolutionaries are mercurial, fringe, self-opinionated people, who believe that they are avatars, with a mission to destroy the existing order and usher in a new dawn. Among these individuals, some were genuine and knowledgeable, for example, Abraham Lincoln, Lenin, Karl Marx, Mao, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Ernesto Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Gamel Abdul Nasser, Sekou Toure, Dedan Kemati, Jomo Kenyatta, Augustino Neto, Nelson Mandela and others.

    Revolutions come about when massive discontent, social dislocation and agonizing social conditions become intolerable. This type of revolution occurred in France, America, Russia, China and in some African nations.

    In the course of human history, ideological differences led to export of terrorism and revolution. Some states decided to impose their systems of governance on other states, without a serious consideration as to their suitability, in terms of their cultural, religious and state philosophical beliefs. Such ideological impositions have had serious consequences in the last fifty years, world-wide. It led to the Vietnam War, the Korean war, the war in Afghanistan, to mention a few.

    Contrary to the strict provisions of the United Nations Charter, prohibiting intervention in the internal affairs of other states, a new phenomenon of aiding and abetting rebellion became common-place in world geo-politics.

    Revolutions directed at age-long oppression, human degradation, powerful, autocratic and dynastic strongholds, were called “THE Arab Spring”, a misnomer and debatable assertion, which romanticized the reality of the regional upheaval of historic proportions in the Middle East.

    When one reviews the terrible events that happened in the Middle East and North Africa, in  the last two years, it is obvious that revolutions have been overtaken by new revolutionary movements.

    In Libya, things are not quite advancing. In Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia, new revolutionary tendencies, which defy analysis, have emerged. It is not quite clear what has changed after the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Perhaps, we are yet to wait for results. Imposition of Western democratic systems may be based on good intentions, but without preparing the nations to accept or reject the alien contraption precipitates a culture of resistance.

     Very often, the West tries to support leaders they think they can do business with, without reckoning with other dissident factions in the state. As a result, even where there is a semblance of “victory”, a backlash often follows, as we have witnessed in the case of Libya, Iraq and when the Americans pull out of Afghanistan, new revolutionary forces may contend with the Taliban. Revolutions do overtake revolutions. In Russia, Lenin was assassinated by the new revolutionary movement that opposed the Bolshevik Party. In Georgia, new revolutionary forces have overthrown the organized movement of Shakasvili. In the Ukraine, the Timoshenko revolution has been overpowered.

    Why Hugo Chavez revolution has succeeded is because there is an ideological dimension and the changes were populist. The revolution in North Korea is also grounded in the Kim il Sung world-view. IN ORDER TO SUCCEED, A REVOLUTION MUST COME FROM WITHIN AND NOT FROM BENEVOLENT INTERLOPERS.

    When the Bath Socialist Party proposed Marxist, socialist strategies to effect changes in the Middle East, the Movement was opposed by royalist, who feared that they would lose power and privileges. After a very long spell, disaffection, oppression and frustration led to revolt against the ruling monarchies in the Middle East. In Eygpt, that which was not expected by the West happened in that the Muslim Brotherhood is now in power.

    In Iraq, what was not intended happened .Iraq moved closer to Iran. When the Bhutto movement caused the General to flee, revolutionaries caused her death. Ho Chi Ming used revolutionary hard measures to unite

    Vietnam and because that was what the propel wanted, United Vietnam has been stable.

    To impose a foreign way of life on ancient regimes is like pouring water on the back of a duck. As Libya is discovering, it is easier to revolt that to build. Exactly a year ago, Murmar Kaddafi, was killed in circumstances of utmost brutality by an unholy alliance of rebels, political malcontents and foreign powers.

    A year later, Libya is disorganized, destroyed, buried in ruins, with little hope of recovery. In spite of the declarations by foreign interests, which permitted hopes that Libya would become a stable democracy, Libya is neither stable nor democratic. The ruins of Carthage can be seen in Libya. During the Libyan crisis, there was a stampede to recognize the “new government “of Libya. One year later, we have had all sorts of Leaders, none of which is acceptable to the revolutionaries. In an article entitled, “A Hurried Diplomatic Eagerness or A Flawed Diplomatic Response”, I had argued that , his governance  style and arrogance notwithstanding, the destruction of Libya, went too far.

     With the benefit of hind-sight, the premature recognition was both hurried and flawed. Since Kaddafi was killed, the Tuaregs, who depended on Kaddafi’s pan-African disposition invaded Mali and caused a coup to take place in Mali. Now, ECOWAS states that cannot govern effectively as a result of lack of funds are being told to go on a wild goose chase after Tuaregs in the harsh desert region!!! Who will pay, for what and for how long? It is African blood that will be spilled again in the arid desert.

     The pro-Kaddafi faction is making Libya ungovernable. The Benghazi Libyans are not co-operating with the Tripoli government.

    The Russians and the Chinese are using the violation of the “no fly zone” UN directive as a reason for their non-co-operation in discussions on Syria.

    There are both heavy and light weapons in wrong hands and passionate appeals for these weapons to be surrendered have not been listened to. Like Kosovo, Libyan bombed- out homes are hanging cliffs.

    If it were in the United States, the hurried, premature recognition of Libya and the attendant consequences would have been an electoral debate issue. It will be one day, because our Nigerian citizens are languishing in Libyan jails. I have not seen a hurried eagerness to advocate for their release. What a diplomatic faux pas?

    Revolutions do overtake revolutions. All man-made gods have severe limitations, both in their capacity to reason with Godly purity and with good conscience. They will remain Earth-bound, with soiled historical remembrances. Who wants to be President?

    To those Sons and Daughters of God who are given to understand the nothingness in political power,  do have more serious concerns. We are watching, we are waiting for the dawning of that glorious day, when our Saviour and his Saints, will come down in bright array.

    Culled from nigeriansinamerica.com

  • Libyan Islamist swept out of bases

    Libyan Islamist swept out of bases

    The powerful Islamist militia Washington blames for an attack on its Benghazi consulate was swept from its heavily fortified bases in Libya’s second city in a mass popular uprising in support of the government early on Saturday.

    Reuters reports that the action against Ansar al-Sharia appeared to be part of a coordinated sweep of militia headquarters buildings by police, government troops and activists following a mass public demonstration against militia units on Friday.

    At least four people were killed and 34 wounded, hospital sources said, as militants fought demonstrators.

    Gunfire could be heard in the area before the fighters were forced out.

    Looters carried weapons out of the vacated Ansar al-Sharia military base compound as men clapped and chanted: “Say to Ansar al-Sharia, Benghazi will be your inferno.”

    Ansar al-Sharia has been linked to the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi last week in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died. It denies involvement.

    Chanting “Libya, Libya”, “No more al Qaeda!” and “The blood we shed for freedom shall not go in vain!” hundreds of men waving swords and even a meat cleaver, stormed Ansar al-Sharia’s headquarters in Benghazi.

    “After what happened at the American consulate, the people of Benghazi had enough of the extremists,” demonstrator Hassan Ahmed said. “They did not give allegiance to the army. So the people broke in and they fled.”

    Demonstrators pulled down militia flags and set a vehicle on fire inside what was once the base of former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s security forces who tried to put down the first protests that sparked last year’s uprising.

     

  • US sends spies, drones to Libya

    US sends spies, drones to Libya

    The U.S. is sending more spies, marines and drones to Libya, trying to speed the search for those who killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. But the investigation is complicated by a chaotic security picture in the post-revolutionary country, and limited American and Libyan intelligence resources.
    The CIA has fewer people available to send, stretched thin from tracking conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
    And the Libyans have barely re-established full control of their country, much less rebuilt their intelligence service, less than a year after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
    The U.S. has already deployed an FBI investigation team, trying to track al-Qaida sympathisers thought to be responsible for turning a demonstration over an anti-Islamic video into a violent, coordinated militant attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
    Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy employees were killed after a barrage of small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars tore into the consulate buildings in Benghazi on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of 9/11, setting the buildings on fire.
    President Barack Obama said in a Rose Garden statement the morning after the attack that those responsible would be brought to justice. That may not be swift. Building a clearer picture of what happened will take more time, and possibly more people, U.S. officials said Friday.
    Intelligence officials are reviewing telephone intercepts, computer traffic and other clues gathered in the days before the attacks, and Libyan law enforcement has made some arrests. But investigators have found no evidence pointing conclusively to a particular group or to indicate the attack was planned, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding, “This is obviously under investigation.”
    Early indications suggest the attack was carried out not by the main al-Qaida terror group but “al-Qaida sympathisers,” said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly.
    One of the leading suspects is the Libyan-based Islamic militant group Ansar al-Shariah, led by former Guantanamo detainee Sufyan bin Qumu. The group denied responsibility in a video Friday but did acknowledge its fighters were in the area during what it called a “popular protest” at the consulate, according to Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a private analysis firm that monitors Jihadist media for the U.S. intelligence community.
    The U.S. had been watching threat assessments from Libya for months but none offered warnings of the Benghazi attack, according to another intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about U.S. intelligence matters.
    Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, questioned whether the consulate had taken sufficient security measures, given an attempt to attack the consulate in Benghazi a few months ago.
    Carney said that given the 9/11 anniversary, security had been heightened.
    “It was, unfortunately, not enough,” he said.
    That paucity of resources also applies to the intelligence officers available to monitor Libya on the ground.
    With ongoing counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, as well as the civil war in Syria, the CIA’s clandestine and paramilitary officer corps is simply running out of trained officers to send, U.S. officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the deployment of intelligence personnel publicly. The clandestine service is roughly 5,000 officers strong, and the paramilitary corps sent to war zones is only in the hundreds, the officials said.
    Most of the CIA’s paramilitary team dispatched to Libya during the revolution had been sent onward to the Syrian border, the officials said.
    The CIA normally hires extra people to make up for such shortfalls, often retired special operators with the requisite security clearance, military training and language ability. But the government mandate to slash contractor use has meant cutting contracts, according to two former officials familiar with the agency’s current hiring practices.
    To fill in the gaps in spies on the ground, the U.S. intelligence community has kept up surveillance over Libya with unmanned and largely unarmed Predator and Reaper drones, increasing the area they cover, and the frequency of their flights since the attack on the consulate, as well as sending more surveillance equipment to the region, one official said.
    But intelligence gathered from the air still needs corroboration from sources on the ground, as well as someone to act on the intelligence to go after the targets.
    The Libyan government, though it claims it is eager to help, has limited tools at its disposal. The post-revolution government has been slow to rebuild both its intelligence capability and its security services, fearful of empowering the very institutions they had to fight to overthrow Gadhafi. They have made a start, but they lack a sophisticated cadre of trained spies and a large network of informants.
    “The Libyans in just about every endeavour are just learning to walk, let alone run,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA official and author of the book “Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy”.
    “There is confusion and competing elements within the new provisional government which complicates the task of creating new institutions, including the intelligence service,” he said.
    “There are still some aspects of the intelligence services that still work,” says Barak Barfi of the New America Foundation think tank, including eavesdropping on cellphone calls and spying on computer traffic using equipment from the Gadhafi era. Barfi spent months with members of Libya’s transitional government as they tried to rebuild the nation’s services and infrastructure.
    But the Libyans have not yet even taken full command of their own security services almost a year after Gadhafi’s fall, Barfi said. That’s given the tens of thousands of militiamen who helped overthrow Gadhafi the time they needed to organise and seek new targets, especially Western ones, he said.
  • Technology, politics  and  global security

    Technology, politics  and  global security

    The  killing of the US  Ambassador in Benghazi, Libya this week over the  alleged blasphemy on Islam in the film – Desert Warriors – said to be about life 2000 years ago, bring to the fore the good, the bad and ugly side of the internet as a fast and speedy generator of information and ideas. The presence of objectionable scenes on the Holy Prophet and Islam sparked off murderous protests in the Middle East with protesters looking for Americans to kill  maim or skin alive. In Cairo the situation was similar to that in Benghazi . Just as  in Senaa the Yemeni  capital where protesters besieged the US embassy and tried to enter it.
    The US has reacted in a tough way and has sent war ships to the area but it has to respect and use diplomacy first and has asked that the governments of Egypt and Libya cooperate with it in securing the lives  and property of diplomatic staff. Libya on its own has apologized to the US  government for the killing of the US  ambassador and four other Americans in the embassy. In  a tribute to the fallen ambassador who reportedly died of suffocation  the wife of the US president said it was particularly painful because the Ambassador was one of those who saved Benghazi during the uprising against the Muammar Gaddafi regime. Which shows clearly that the use of information in the internet  age can be particularly dangerous especially with  the speed with which bad or good news spreads without giving time  for clarifications, authentication or verification.
    Today,  we discuss the dangerous use and misuse of information generally  especially with regard to the younger generation and the use of information technology in securing our environment  as well as its potential for doing just the opposite. We  do this without  any pretences whatever and acknowledge that Nigeria is in the same boat as any of the North African or Middle East nations- involved in street revolutions – but are now biting the finger that fed them in staging successful revolutions against dictatorship – which is information technology and the internet featuring social networks like facebook and twitter.
    This is because the Boko Haram strategy of attacks  in Nigeria have been to use  home made bombs and we have been shown armories of the sect and the implements used in making bombs from knowledge and skills acquired from the internet to bomb churches  and other targets in Nigeria. Yet, the internet was created to germinate and spread information and knowledge in a form of democratization that breaks the monopoly or hoarding of information and brings data and hitherto protected information within reach of the masses  in terms of spontaineous availability and accessibility. Given the horror and  the speed of the killing of the US ambassador and the rising profile of Boko Haram bombings in Nigeria, one is tempted to ask if there has not been a mistake somewhere on the expected use of information on an unfettered internet and totally free social networks and  on – line information sharing systems.
    Again, we stress that   the essence of information is in its sharing and usage to promote causes and events. As events this week show this can be a double edged sword. This  is because just as a phone call or information on facebook can lead a suya seller to make bumper sales by moving his wares to a different location based on information  received, the same telephone can tell a bomber the location to detonate his bomb for maximum effect.
    In Tahrir Square  in Egypt, the demonstrators that gathered to oust Housni Mubarak were aided by IT gadgets which were seized and were to be tendrered as evidence against them by Mubaraks agents and they would have been sentenced by the Egyptian authorities still pro Mubarak then. But the US government intervened and the IT gadgets were released and some of the trials stopped. Now Egypt   has an elected President who was elected by a revolution that rode on the back of mass mobilisation  through IT but the US embassy was under siege this week in Cairo  and American lives were  on the line because of information from the internet on a blasphemy on Islam  in a film.
    The same can be said of Libya and Yemen where the same people the US supported against their oppressors  turned their anger  on the same US. Which really shows in violently pragmatic ways that it is not only in diplomacy that we say that there are no permanent friends but permanent interests. In social networking too whilst the essence of sharing information is to galvanise interest in causes and events there are no permanent friends in the subsequent flow and direction of information. That is the bitter truth the death of the US Ambassador has revealed in Benghazi, Libya this week.
    This throws up again the issue of Wiki Leaks and its founder now holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London whilst the British government struggles not to break international law – especially the sanctity and sovereignty of  resident embassies, in seeking to arrest and send him to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. I  have never been an admirer of the Wiki Leak founder because I think he violated privacy and security bounds and laws in revealing information on governments and  diplomacy online just because a frustrated and wayward US soldier was willing to get paid for such information. Yet the Wiki Leak founder was made a Man of the Year by a leading Nigerian newspaper sometime ago – which I found repugnant. Just as I feel bad that some people have revealed information in Nigeria  on leading SSS officials on line thus  blowing their cover  and jeorpadising their security.
    This to me is like  giving jailed convicts unfettered access to the judges that jailed them. The result is predictable – sheer murder and mayhem fuelled by a mad  urge for retaliation and vengeance  against public officials who have just done their legitimate functions and duties. Which certainly is most unfair.
    This brings to mind again the optimism of the CEO of Facebook  Sheryl Sandberg at  the beginning of this year in an article in the publication – The World In 2012  – from The Economist stable. In  the article titled –Sharing the Power of 2012 – the Facebook boss, a lady noted that after the earthquake in New Zealand in 2011 which destroyed property worth over $10bn in Christchurch  – social media connected people to the resources they needed to begin rebuilding their lives.  On Egypt she wrote that   in 2011   the Egyptian  people confronted a government that was not listening to them and used social technologies to amplify their voices.
    Technology she said  gives  ‘a name and a face – a true identity – to those who were previously invisible and it turns up the volume  on voices that may have otherwise been too soft to hear’. She ended gleefully that in 2012 greater  sharing of information around the world is inevitable and that deeper and richer caring will be profound. Definitely the Facebook boss never thought of the sort of Information backlash that turned technologies that created freedom into weapons of destruction  this week in the Middle East. Which also brings to mind bitter memories of the beautiful daughter  – of a Nigerian general -who made friends on the internet who lured her to her death in Lagos from Abuja on the fraudulent pretext of being business experts.
    In essence then  and quite ominously the Americans must prepare for events like the murder in Benghazi this week and the reason is not far fetched. Technology – spawned democracies are prone to religious backlashes simply because they are not immune to religious sentiments  and the Middle East  is a hotbed of religion and Islam is the major religion.
    In addition whilst the nations  and citizens of the Middle East may thank the US for aiding the advent of  democracy they hate the Americans with the same vigor with which they hated the dictators that the US has helped them to  depose. Indeed   in deposing  the dictators the masses of the Middle East have not forgotten that it was US foreign policy that kept the deposed tyrants in power for so long  in the first instance. So  they reason that if the US can abandon its friends so easily it is better not to be too cosy with a nation  that really has no permanent friends  in their region but only  permanent interests this time woven around technology. More importantly, technology and its usefulness and power capabilities aside, there is no way the people of the Middle East can be true friends of the US as long as the support for the state of Israel remains the corner stone of the US Middle East Foreign Policy . That really is the true import of the deadly  information backlash that claimed the ambassador’s life in Benghazi, Libya this week.
  • Murder in Benghazi

    Murder in Benghazi

    Libya and its pro-democracy revolution had no better friend than J. Christopher Stevens, the United States ambassador who was killed along with three other Americans in Tuesday’s attack on the consulate in Benghazi. It was an outrageous act that deserved the strongest condemnation.
    President Obama’s statement of outrage and his vow to bring the killers to justice received bipartisan support, including from politicians otherwise committed to partisan warfare, like the House speaker, John Boehner, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who rarely misses a chance to attack Mr. Obama.
    But not from Mitt Romney, who wants Americans to believe he can be president but showed an extraordinary lack of presidential character by using the murders of the Americans in Libya as an excuse not just to attack Mr. Obama, but to do so in a way that suggested either a dangerous ignorance of the facts or an equally dangerous willingness to twist them to his narrow partisan aims.
    Mr. Romney could easily have held his fire during this crisis, if he could not summon the decency to support the United States government. Instead, he misrepresented the administration as “sympathizing” with the attackers. There was no truth in what he said. In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made the first official comment on the killings, a strong condemnation, before Mr. Romney released his statement. Even after having a night to reconsider his response, Mr. Romney merely doubled down on his false charges, as he is prone to do.
    Mr. Stevens, 52, was Washington’s envoy to the rebels in Libya when they were overthrowing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. He became ambassador and, undaunted by the dangers, worked to build partnerships among the country’s disparate groups and guide the fragile new democracy during a difficult transition. A fluent Arabic speaker, he had a deep understanding of Libya’s culture and people.
    On Wednesday, the Obama administration said it appeared that an organized group armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades had exploited a protest over an anti-Muslim video to unleash the attack. Some news reports suggested Al Qaeda may have been responsible. American officials noted the contrast with Egypt, where unarmed protesters, decrying the same video, spontaneously stormed the Embassy perimeter and tore down a flag but did little other damage.
    Libya’s shaky new government will need American support to bring the killers to justice. The origins of the video, which mocks the Prophet Muhammad, are not clear. There is considerable speculation about who even produced the film, which largely went unnoticed until it was promoted on the Internet by Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian ally of Terry Jones, a Florida pastor and hatemonger whose threats to burn a copy of the Koran inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011.
    However offensive the video is, it could never justify the violence in Benghazi and Cairo. But Mr. Jones, Mr. Sadek and whoever made the film did true damage to the interests of the United States and its core principle of respecting all faiths.
    Religious fundamentalists, moderates and liberal secularists are all jockeying for power in Middle East nations after the Arab Spring. The violence done on Tuesday was apparently the work of a relatively small group of radicals not associated with any legitimate protest.
    The worst thing now would be for the United States to turn away from its commitments to work with Libya and Egypt as they try to build stable new societies. A number of Libyan security guards died trying to save the Americans, and Libyan leaders have condemned the killings and promised to work to apprehend those responsible. Egyptian leaders, inexplicably, have not followed that lead.
    – New York Times