[D66] The destruction of Sirte

[Antid Oto]

The destruction of Sirte
19 October 2011

The Libyan city of Sirte is being systematically destroyed by National
Transitional Council “rebel” fighters and NATO fighter planes. The operation
stands as a monumental war crime, for which primary responsibility rests with
the leading forces behind the military intervention in Libya—US President Barack
Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sirte has been under siege for weeks. TNC forces have prevented all supplies
from entering the city, including food, medicines, and other basic necessities.
NATO bombs have rained down, together with a heavy and indiscriminate
bombardment by TNC mortars, tank shells, and rockets. Basic
infrastructure—including water, electricity, and sewerage systems—has been
destroyed as part of the calculated effort to trigger a humanitarian crisis in
the city and terrorise its inhabitants into submission.

Every building in Sirte, including apartment blocks, homes, hospitals, schools,
and other civilian structures, has either been levelled or severely damaged by
the “rebel” forces trying to finally take the city. Militiamen are looting
homes, cars, and shops, with truckloads of residents’ stolen possessions now
leaving Sirte every day.

A Reuters correspondent reported seeing a group of fighters firing machine guns
at a safe in an electronics store for 15 minutes before they managed to open it
and see what could be taken. Many homes, after they are looted, are being burned
to the ground.

Journalists covering the brutal operation have been shocked by what they have
witnessed. The BBC’s Wyre Davies reported: “This is almost a scorched earth
policy. The pro-Gaddafi fighters defending this city won’t surrender, so Sirte
is being systematically destroyed, block by block. Fighting is intense,
incredibly destructive, and almost mind-numbing.” Reporters for the British
Telegraph described Sirte as a “squalid ruin” that is “reminiscent of the
grimmest scenes from Grozny, towards the end of Russia’s bloody Chechen war.”

The destruction of Sirte raises other historical parallels—Guernica, the Warsaw
Ghetto, and the obliteration by the fascist powers of other urban centres in the
1930s and ’40s.

All those responsible for the Libyan war ought to be charged with war
crimes—beginning with Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy. These figures launched an
unprovoked war of aggression, which was the principal charge laid against
Germany’s Nazi leaders at the war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg. NATO claimed
authorisation for the war in Libya on the pseudo-legal basis of UN Resolution
1973—but the “no fly zone” terms of this document were immediately flouted as
soon as it was adopted.

The atrocities now being committed in Sirte arise directly out of the nature of
the neo-colonial intervention itself. US imperialism and its European allies
hijacked the anti-Gaddafi demonstrations that erupted last February, launching a
regime change drive that was centrally aimed at capturing Libya’s enormous oil
reserves and reasserting their domination of North Africa in the wake of the
revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt that threatened Washington’s
geostrategic standing across the region.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday visited Tripoli, declaring that
Libya was “blessed with wealth and resources.” In discussions with TNC leaders,
Bloomberg reported, she “promised assistance to diversify the oil-dominated
economy.” Clinton said nothing about the bombardment of Sirte, other than to
note continued “bloody fighting” in the country.

There are definite political calculations involved in the destruction of Sirte.

For the NATO powers, the violence is intended to serve as a deterrent to any
resistance emerging within Libya to the new order now being established in
Tripoli through the TNC client administration. The Sirte operation is also
directed towards the governments of Syria and Iran, warning them about the kind
of retaliatory measures they face if they defy US-European diktats. At the
beginning of the NATO intervention in Libya, Sarkozy openly threatened that
“every ruler, and especially every Arab ruler” could confront a similar attack.

The Obama administration also intends the destruction of Sirte to send a message
to the Chinese government. China has rapidly increased its influence throughout
Africa, including in Libya, becoming the continent’s largest trading partner and
a major destination for its oil and mineral exports. Beijing has also cultivated
diplomatic and military ties across the region, undermining the dominance of the
US and the former colonial European powers. Libya has provided an opportunity
for Washington to teach its powerful rival a lesson—that military force can be
utilised to destroy any government with which China develops close economic and
strategic relations at US expense.

If at any point during Libya’s civil war Gaddafi’s forces had done what the TNC
fighters are doing now, there would have been blanket media coverage and howls
of outrage from Washington, London, and Paris, including demands of charges for
war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet the crisis in Sirte is unfolding
without a word of protest being raised in official political and media circles
in the US and Europe.

The various “left” and liberal forces that have enthusiastically promoted the
war on Libya as a worthy humanitarian mission, such as US Professor Juan Cole
and the Nation magazine, have maintained a strict silence about the events in
Sirte. None of them have sought to account for the fact that NATO’s
“humanitarian” war—supposedly waged in order to prevent the possibility of
civilians being killed in one city, Benghazi—has now led to the destruction of
another city, with thousands of civilians likely killed and wounded.

Among these pro-war layers, French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy has spoken out
about Sirte to defend the crimes being committed by NATO and the TNC.

Lévy played a key role in France earlier this year in agitating for the war, in
order, he insisted, “to protect the civilians of Misrata, Sirte, and Benghazi.”
He personally organised the first meeting between Sarkozy and members of the
TNC. Now, in article titled “Justice for the Liberators of Sirte!” and published
on the Huffington Post website, Lévy issues a grotesque diatribe against any
criticism of what the TNC forces are doing in Sirte.

The celebrity philosopher dismisses evidence of the city’s systematic
destruction as mere “rumours of violent acts against civilians” and “inevitable
blunders.” Blaming the civilian population for their own plight, he insists that
the NTC “held off for several weeks before giving the order to attack—enough
time for those who wanted to and could to be evacuated.” Lévy ignores the fact
that thousands of civilians, including the most vulnerable, had no way of
escaping the fighting.

The entire piece is littered with blatant lies. At one point the writer denies
the fact that TNC fighters deliberately shelled Sirte’s main hospital in order
to prevent a Red Cross team delivering medical supplies. He declares that “when
one of their shells hits the roof of a hospital, it’s horrifying, a monstrosity,
a tragedy—but it’s also an error, an unpremeditated act.” Lévy concludes: “I
continue to salute the dignity of these fighters of happenstance who, as they
have from the first day, wage war but do not like it.”

Lévy’s stance on Sirte underscores the political function of the entire layer of
upper-middle class “liberal” proponents of humanitarian war—mouthpieces for
imperialist aggression.

Patrick O’Connor

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/pers-o19.shtml