Libya's Hell, Enabled by Canadian Humanitarians

[JohnyCanuck]

Why 'responsibility to protect' is proving irresponsible.

By Murray Dobbin, Today, TheTyee.ca

Who will protect Libyans now? One of the darkest and most shameful chapters in Western military intervention continues to play out in spades in Libya. The latest news comes from Benghazi where one of the (literally hundreds) of murderous militias opened fire on peaceful, white-flag-bearing protesters (protesting militias), killing at least 20 and wounding over 130. And they didn't use just small arms -- it was rocket propelled grenades, machine guns and even an anti-aircraft gun. It was, even for a horribly violent context, a disgusting slaughter of innocents.

But we hear nothing from the international choir, led here by Lloyd Axworthy, which sang the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) hymn at the top of their lungs two years ago. The R2P, established by the UN in 2005, has lofty principles but in practice has been used as an excuse for any brutal assault on sovereign nations that serves the capitalist interests of the first world. Responsibility to protect states that sovereignty is not a right, but rests on the responsibility of governments to protect their populations. It is triggered by evidence of any one of four "mass atrocity" crimes: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

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Instead of a new model democracy blathered on about by the warmongers after Gadhafi's murder, we are fast approaching the situation that has prevailed in Somalia for over a decade: a completely failed state. Once that situation is established it will take a generation or more to return to some kind of normalcy.

The big brains in America's multi-billion dollar intelligence conglomerate apparently didn't think of what would happen when dozens of militias, al-Qaida cells and criminal armed gangs raided the many arms depots across the country (in addition to getting hundreds of tonnes of arms from NATO). Libya is now described as the biggest open arms bazaar in the world, where the most sophisticated weapons can be purchased by anyone with enough cash. Setting aside the fact that many of these weapons are finding their way to other conflict areas, there is enough weaponry available to keep the conflict in Libya going for years.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/11/25/Libyan-Hell-After-Civil-War/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=251113