As Cameron's battle for Libya thunders on we have to admit that it bears no resemblance to the original idea of an “Arab Spring” What was originally floated as a wee umbrella to help the pro-democracy uprising in Libya get on with the their revolution, has now changed into a NATO attack on the government of a North African country. In the regime change being sought in Libya, we have to ask the question, “who is doing the changing” and why? The Libyan people would do well to remember that there is no such think in politics as a free lunch, and also, that NATO and the Europeans are not spending a projected £1 billion in a six month military expenditure out of benevolence towards a North African pro-democracy movement. The European track record in that part of the world does not read of benevolence and democracy.
The best that the Libyans can expect out of this is a partitioned country, or a civil war. In either case the infrastructure of their country will be in tatters, they will be dependent on the West for loans in an attempt to reconstruct the country. The West will have it troops in, just to keep the peace, of course, and it will also have control of the oil. The Libyans meanwhile can get on as best they can with their civil war or partitioned country.
Is there anybody out there that believes that the Libyan people will come out of this the victors? When the "rebels"called in a foreign imperialist military power, they sold their revolution. They may get rid of Gaddafi, but their new masters, the West backed up by NATO will prove to be just as ruthless and perhaps even more so. When it comes to oil and profit, people come away down the scale.
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