Are The Libyans Already Off On The Wrong Foot?

Namely by taking guff off "the West"?

"The West" (in the persons of the various politicians, bureaucrats, and gasbag pontificators- excuse me, "journalists") is still at it, wringing their hands over Qaddafi's fate, and demanding "investigations."

Typical was NPR 10:02 am Sunday morning 10/23/11: Giles Snyder- “…international concern about how Qaddafi died.” (Best I can tell, the "concern" is limited to Western "elites." Who aren't concerned about the massive human rights violations of themselves. They celebrated the assassination by SEAL death squad of Osama bin Laden. That murder was simplicitly justified by bin Laden's evilness and unpopularity.  So how is Qaddafi different, bourgeois hypocrits? Just asking...)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Queen Bee of the "Democratic" Party, which is anything but, as it is a collection of political hacks fronting for rich oligarchs) made the rounds of the Sunday morning "serious" TV shows, those platforms for official pronouncements and ideological boilerplate.

 “I think everyone would have hoped he could have been captured and brought to justice,” Clinton claimed. (Apparently I'm not part of the human race, since "everyone" excludes me. As well as excluding most Libyans. I guess she meant "everyone who matters," a much smaller and more select group.) Well, he was “brought to justice,” lady, just the way you “brought to justice” bin Laden (U.S. apparatchiks, including Obama, used that exact phrase to describe that hit), al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, and what, 600 others? And in bin Laden’s case, you could have captured him as your hitmen had him cornered in a room, unarmed, and took his corpse with them to throw it into the sea. No autopsy or independent investigation there! No finding out who shot him, or how. Those are State Secrets. Well Libya is a state. Are they entitled to state secrets? Guess not without the masters’ permission.

But Clinton had more rank hypocrisy to display. She also lectured that the new Libya has to start with “the rule of law.” With a straight face, no less. This from a nation that ignores international and even its own laws routinely, and cynically uses "law" as an instrument of political repression. [Currently police in various U.S. cities are attacking anti-Wall Street protesters. Turns out the Constitutional "guarantees" of freedom of assembly and political expression are limited to right-wingers, like Tea Partiers, who can menace even the President of the U.S. with arms.]

The chilling thing is these people repeat their bullshit so often, they probably really believe their own propaganda, and think of themselves as people of great moral rectitude. Where to start with U.S. contempt for law, domestic and international? That would full a number of books.

There is really no comparison between the killings of bin Laden and Qaddafi. The killing of bin Laden was premeditated murder ordered by the head of state, carried out by an organized military. The killing of Qaddafi occurred when a ragtag band of armed civilians happened to find him and acting on their own accord killed him. This is a loose group of people, not part of a hierarchical military organization acting under orders and subject to discipline. It might turn out that some commander said to shoot Qaddafi, but there is no real Government in Libya, and Jabril most certainly didn’t know what happened until after the fact.

“The West” kidnaps people, including its own citizens, holds them incommunicado in torture centers for years, denies them a judicial proceeding, and now they’re bent out of shape because Qaddafi didn’t get a trial? Oh SHUT UP. Just shut the fuck up.

The U.S. media is SO CONCERNED with Qaddafi’s body!

Let's briefly list assassinations by enlightened Western Governments that are so busy wagging their fingers at the bad Libyans- the U.S. assassinates dissidents (and their own President in 1963); the British have a horrible record of colonial assassinations of resisters, including in Northern Ireland up to just a few years ago;

the French assassinated hundreds of Algerians in Paris under DeGaulle- who knows why; the Germans assassinated members of the Red Army Fraction; the Spanish have assassinated ETA members and supporters; the Israelis, not content with kidnapping thousands of Palestinians and imprisoning them, often just assassinate them in raids, sometimes abroad, including in Europe, which cooperates. We could go on, but the point is made.

So “concerned” about how Qaddafi died! This from some of the greatest mass murderers who ever lived. They wanted Qaddafi to have a trial! (Like they always grant to their victims.)

This from the BBC, 10/23/11 Sun. 8:13 am.

BBC hack Stephen Sacker: “Is the new Libya going to be guided by vengeance, or justice?” That's his intro to his show, "HARDtalk" [sic].

Sacker confronts Libyan Interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jabril over the killing of Qaddafi, saying in a tone a tv prosecutor uses on a defendant that it looks like “vengeance.” Proceeds to grill him. The Jabril foolishly is on the defensive, instead of throwing bin Laden and al-Awlaki in Sacker's face- and the Brazilian electrician murdered on the metro by the British secret police, for that matter. (Don't remember him getting a trial.)

10/24/11 BBC replays attack on Libyan Interim PM Mahmoud Jabril by “HARDtalk” hack Stephen Sacker at 4 am, which Sacker introduced with the sole line, “Are Libyans more interested in pursuing justice? Or vengeance.” [Jabril, it turns out is “Western –educated,” which means indoctrinated in Western imperialist dogma.] Supposedly he was a “reformer” under Qaddafi.

Sacker calls Qaddafi’s killing “an unlawful killing.” BBC never said that about the cold-blooded execution of bin Laden. No one called for the SEAL hitman to be tried for a “war crime.” My point is the blatant double standard. And who made “the West” the Moral Arbiter of this planet? Oh, that’s right, they did. Which might be ok if they were really morally superior, but they most certainly are not.

Sacker attacks the PM’s story of what happened and the PM’s statements, bluntly implying he’s a liar. On the other hand, the various versions of the killing of bin Laden trotted out by U.S. officials, with their numerous contradictions and lies, were never dissected by the BBC. [Sacker takes a very different tack with representatives of U.S. Imperialism on his show, who he allows to lie through their teeth without contradiction. The BBC, like the British Government, is the lapdog of the U.S.]

Sacker bluntly declares to Jabril, speaking of Qaddafi, “He was executed.” He says it as a rebuke, of course, not a compliment, as I suppose he regards U.S. executions. “International voices are calling for an investigation,” he states to Jabril, and it’s a demand, not a question.  Speaking from his moral high horse, Sacker adds “It’s a question of holding the new Libya to a different standard,” presumably from Qaddafi's. Although ironically it's really a different standard from that "the West" holds itself to.

Speaking of summary executions, the British police do it all the time. They did it a few months ago to a man they claimed was killed “in a shootout,” who in fact never even drew his gun and was executed in a cab. They did it when they executed a Brazilian electrician on the metro who made the mistake of living in a “terrorist” house the secret police had under surveillance. (So I guess it was really the electrician’s fault.) In neither case- nor numerous others- are UK police murderers ever prosecuted, or fired, or even administratively punished. 

And Qaddafi was a mass-murdering dictator, not an electrician on his way to work. Just what standard does Sacker demand “Libya” live up to? It sounds like a much higher standard than the one Britain follows.

No matter, Sacker bluntly tells Jabril “Your Government is going to be held to a new standard.” Hey BBC, why don’t you try holding your own Government to a higher standard of humanitarianism some time?

Sacker sticks it to Jabril further by telling him that the White House (the masters of the universe- or at least planet earth) wants “a full accounting” of Qaddafi’s death, and has “major concerns.” (Global assassin Obama objects to the killing of Qaddafi- that’s rich!) The UN’s Human Rights Commissioner wants an investigation. Sacker demands that Libya submit its investigation to Western oversight. Why Jabril didn’t tell him to “sod off” at this point, beats me. I sure would have. It’s not like they need NATO’s warplanes anymore. Ominously, NATO says it intends to keep flying over Libya for the time being- for intimidation purposes, I guess.

10/25/11 Tuesday:  BBC still obsessed with Qaddafi’s body. Nothing else in Libya matters to them-like what’s happening with the survivors of his regime’s death throes, those maimed, those grieving the dead, those picking up the pieces of the wreckage, etc.

Jabril, instead of kissing Western Imperialists’ asses you should be telling them to Shove It. Instead he's squirming like a cornered mouse, putting out lame smokescreens like "a stray bullet may have killed Qaddafi" (love the lawyerly weasel-word, "may") or he was shot in "a crossfire."

The Libyans should say "We are disposing of Qaddafi's body in the approved U.S. manner, throwing it into the sea." And if the U.S. or UN or BBC or whoever are so desperate to do an autopsy, they can dive down and fish the corpse out of the ocean.

Or maybe Jabril knows what happens to leaders who cross the Boss of the World. They can end up badly, like Mossadegh, or Arbenz, or Saddam Hussein (for whom I have no sympathy) or Qaddafi, for that matter, who got what he deserved. Yes, it's better to have due process. But since the Most Powerful Country On Earth (and its various lackeys and stooges around the world) finds it impractical to try "terrorists," who are weak and basically defenseless, it has no business hectoring a country in a state of anarchy about holding trials for deposed tyrants. Let someone with moral standing give that lecture.