(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
A new report by the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee shattered a judgment on Britain's participation in the war against Libya in 2011. The report also undermines the alleged factual basis for the rhetoric Norwegian, red-green politicians have used to justify the war.
According to the report (which reads the full name "Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK's future policy options"), France was the foremost driver of military action against Gaddafi. In addition to the alleged fear of a massacre of Benghazi civilians as well as the influence of opposition Libyan emigrants, the report reproduces what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's advisor Sidney Blumenthal described as President Sarkozy's motives for the intervention: gaining control of a larger portion of Libya's oil production, increase France's influence in North Africa, increase his personal position in France, give the French military an opportunity to show its power to the world and stop Gaddafi's plans to replace France as the dominant power in the French-speaking part of Africa.
Don't kill civilians. The report emphasizes that Gaddafi's forces did not carry out any form of violent attack on civilians in any of the many cities they occupied on the road from Tripoli to Benghazi – neither after the cities were conquered nor during the fighting itself. An example is mentioned: During the battles for Misrata in February and March 2011, the local hospital registered 257 killed and 949 wounded. Of these, only 22 were women and eight children – indicating that "the regime's forces attacked male combatants in a civil war, and did not make arbitrary attacks on civilians." It is also mentioned that Gaddafi during his 40 years as head of state Never had committed mass killings on civilians.
Two of the committee's expert witnesses, Professor George Joffé and analyst Alison Pargeter, stated that "the fear of a civilian massacre was massively exaggerated" and that there was "no real evidence that Gaddafi was preparing a civilian massacre". The Committee therefore concludes that the UK's strategy was based on erroneous assumptions and incomplete understanding and that "the threat to civilians was exaggerated". Joffé says straight out that the politicians had not really bothered to investigate properly what was going on.
Støre and Solhjell are shaking. Norwegian politicians have constantly cited the defense of Benghazi civilians as the main reason for Norway taking part in the bombing of Libya. At the same time, they have rejected that the war should be about regime change. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, in his address to the Storting on May 9, 2011, emphasized that "the UN mandate is only for the protection of civilians – not to assist military forces with regime change. Of course, we do this strictly. In a debate with Terje Tvedt in the Aftenposten in September 2015, SV's foreign policy spokesman Bård Vegar Solhjell also reiterated that "in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, there was an acute danger of a massacre of civilians". This father was thus exaggerated and did not rely on intelligence, according to the British Parliament report. The report also highlights that on April 15, 2011, President Obama, France's President Sarkozy and Britain's Prime Minister Cameron published a joint letter declaring that the goal of the war was "a future without Gaddafi". This happened three weeks before Foreign Minister Støre guaranteed the Storting that this for was the target of the intervention.
Sunhell, for its part, wrote in the Aftenposten that "in the spring of 2011, the military effort in Libya changed the character [...] to become a war against the regime [...] something that led the SV to step down to become very critical to the war ». This happened at a national meeting resolution on May 7, 2011, where the SV decided to work to end Norway's participation in the bombing war by June 24. However, the UK Parliamentary Report states that this change of character – from protecting civilians to regime change – happened long before the SV's National Assembly decision. Yes, it actually happened before Norway had joined the war at all. The committee writes that Gaddafi's forces withdrew 40 miles from Benghazi after being attacked by French aircraft on March 20, and then states that "if the primary objective of the intervention was the immediate need to protect civilians in Benghazi, this would be achieved in less than 24 hours »after the war began on March 19. Norway released its first bombs over Libya on March 24, and released a total of 569 bombs until the Norwegian aircraft were withdrawn on August 1.
Predictable emergence. The report states that the rise of militant Islamist groups in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi should have been possible to predict in advance. It was a well-known case that many Libyans had fought with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq. The report states that "militant Islamists played a significant role in the February 2011 uprising". After Gaddafi was sodomized and killed, the new insurgent defense minister prioritized building the Islamist militia "Libya's shield" rather than building a national army. Libya's shield was responsible for killing protesters who protested the militia's growing power in Benghazi and Tripoli in 2013.
It goes on to state that the intervention forces had no realistic plan for how to secure the post-war Libyan weapons depots, which resulted in large quantities of Libyan weapons being sent out of the country and strengthened the military capabilities of terrorist groups in Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Tunisia. Insurgent groups in Syria and the Islamist militia Boko Haram also obtained weapons from looted Libyan weapons stockpiles. The power vacuum in Libya also created room for ISIS to establish itself in the country. The terrorists who killed a total of 50 tourists in Tunisia in March and June 2015 were trained by ISIS in Libya following the intervention.
Violent aggravation. The report indicates that Libya's average income has been reduced from NOK 110 in 000 to NOK 2010 in 65. While in 000 Libya was ranked as the world's 2016rd most developed country, it had fallen to 2010th place in 53. 94 of Libya's six million people are displaced internally. The security in the country is so reduced that the Foreign Affairs Committee did not dare to enter the country to conduct investigations.
The British newspaper Daily Mail has interviewed a number of Libyans on the situation after Gaddafi's fall following the report's launch. The newspaper concludes that today's life in Libya is characterized by "power outages, a fivefold increase in food prices, unpaid wages on a monthly basis, threats of terror" and that female residents "no longer feel safe leaving home after dark. », In addition, there is a shortage of medicines and vaccines. Salem medical student tells the newspaper: "We thought things would get better after the revolution, but they will only get worse and worse. Many more people have been killed since 2011 than during the revolution and Gaddafi's 42-year reign combined. We never had these problems under Gaddafi. We always had money and electricity, and even though people didn't have big wages, everything was cheap, so life was easy. Some of my friends have even gone by boat to Europe with the migrants because they don't feel they have a future here. ”
The British Foreign Affairs Committee concludes that the results of the 2011 war against Libya were economic collapse, war between tribes and militias, a humanitarian crisis and a migration crisis, widespread human rights violations, the proliferation of Libyan weapons across the region and the rise of ISIS in North Africa. . In anticipation of a separate Norwegian investigation, Norwegian politicians should read the British report – and thoroughly.
