Starting on 19th March, warplanes of the United States, France, Britain and a few other imperialist countries have rained Tomahawk missiles and other deadly weapons on selected targets in Libya, including its capital city Tripoli.
Starting on 19th March, warplanes of the United States, France, Britain and a few other imperialist countries have rained Tomahawk missiles and other deadly weapons on selected targets in Libya, including its capital city Tripoli.
The aggressors are backed by a UN Security Council resolution to impose a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libyan air space. This means that no Libyan aircraft can fly in Libyan air space, while war planes of the big powers of the Security Council can fly and drop bombs on Libyan territory, in the name of enforcing the no-fly zone.
The imperialists are trying to convince world public opinion that the aggression on Libya was allegedly required in order to prevent the Libyan government of Gaddafi from unleashing force against internal opposition. They declared that the world must not tolerate the ‘blood bath’ that they predicted would take place in Libya. They claim that their intervention is motivated by ‘humanitarian’ considerations. In other words, their war planes and missiles are allegedly aimed at protecting the lives of the Libyan people. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Past experience shows that imperialist aggression can never lead to peace and protection of lives anywhere in the world. Whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan, or any of the numerous other cases in the past, imperialist military intervention has only resulted in death and destruction and further aggravatin of violent cnflict.
In the case of the countries of North Africa and the Persian Gulf region, the imperialists of the United Statesand Europe are precisely the ones who have supported corrupt and traitorous ruling cliques in numerous countries to facilitate imperialist domination and plunder of this oil rich region. The imperialist powers are to blame for the terrible conditions of life against which the people are protesting. How can it be accepted that they are now motivated by the desire to protect the lives and defend the rights of these peoples?
The motivation for the assault on Libya are geo-political. It is one act in a dangerous drama that US imperialism and its allies are enacting in the region. Their aim is to retain and further consolidate their domination and plunder of this region by creating new political arrangements, while deceiving the people and diverting their struggles. They are pursuing their aim through selected military interventions and through the penetration of their ideology and their agents to manipulate the people’s protests. They are striving to deceive international public opinion through massive disinformation and lying propaganda.
The imperialist propaganda is aimed at creating the impression that the struggle within the countries of this region is a struggle of western bourgeois democratic values and systems against the values and systems of Islam. In reality, the struggle is for freedom and independence from neo-colonial domination and imperialist plunder.
The imperialists want to discredit the anti-imperialist forces by branding them as ‘Islamic fundamentalists’. They are promoting their trusted agents as champions of democracy and presenting themselves as being sympathetic supporters of the people’s movement.
A few days before the assault on Libya, the US imperialists had sponsored a military intervention by Saudi and UAE troops into Bahrain, to forcibly crush mass protests against the rulers of that country. US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, who visited Bahrain a few days before the foreign military intervention, praised the King and Crown Prince of Bahrain as being the model for the region, saying, “I am convinced they both are serious about real reform.” In other words, unleashing brute force on people protesting on the streets is considered fine as long as the rulers fall in line with the strategy of US imperialism.
Progressive forces must learn their lessons from history. The Iraq war was planned and then the pretext was concocted about Saddam Hussein having “weapons of mass destruction”. Today it is being said that the bombing of Libya is a reaction to how the Gaddafi regime was responding to its opponents within the country. The truth is that the imperialist aggression was planned ahead of time, and the hype about a possible bloodbath was the pretext that was concocted to implement what had been planned.
There can and must be no doubt in the minds of the working class and peoples that the interests of US imperialism and its allies are inimically opposed to the interests of peace and wellbeing of the Arab and other peoples of North Africa and the Persian Gulf region.
No outside power has any right to fly war planes over Libyan air space, let alone drop bombs on its territory. There is no justification for this blatant violation of the territory of a sovereign state. The working class and peace-loving peoples must not allow such acts to become acceptable practice.
Mazdoor Ekta Lehar unequivocally condemns the unjust and inhuman imperialist aggression on Libya, and calls on the working class and all political parties in our country to do the same!