you didn’t need to be an expert on Libya to know which way the wind was blowing…

NOVANEWS

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem

Chair of West Midland PSC

Slightly on-topic, here is an excerpt from a NYT article from 3.5 weeks ago that I refrained from posting because I didn’t want to deal with the irate/furious responses of allies accusing me of being a Stalinist-without-Stalin or whatever:

Rebel commanders have begged for American strikes on troops and weapons that have turned on civilians and assaulted strongholds of the resistance. And on Sunday, three prominent members of the United States Senate, from both major political parties, renewed the Senate’s call for consideration of enforcing a  “no-flight” zone to ground the Libyan air force and prevent it from attacking its people. They also pressed the Obama administration for a more aggressive response, including supplying intelligence, arms and training to the rebels.

This is not a nya-nya-I-was-right-you-were-wrong point. Except in the psychedelic hallucinations of former Arab leftists, now heading stage-right destination Christopher Hitchens-ville,  and Juan Cole, who should shut up, this intervention will not embolden Arab revolutionaries. Skip the Arab summer. The people running the show in Brussels, Riyadh, Qatar, and Washington want to usher us in to a frozen Arab winter. Western intervention in Libya is the catalyst for the transformation.

Let’s hope it fails. Revolution is a delicate flower: we don’t know how to make it bloom, but we do know from history quite well know to kill it: foreign intervention. It has been foreign wars that have pushed revolution into decay and reaction, changing the ebullient creativity of collective action into fatigue and terror. Their internal moral economy is perilous — hence why Egyptian radicals refused to meet with the anti-Zionist leftist Amira Hass. They know: historical fragility and temporal evanescence is in the nature of bottom-up revolt.

The ruling class has been franker about this than our friends. Here’s Haaretz:

While the joint Western and Arab action against Libya’s dictatorial regime has widespread support, it raises a complicated dilemma. Up to now, the populations of Arab states such as Tunisia and Egypt managed on their own to topple their regimes, and set the stage for democratic reform. Furthermore, the revolutionary developments in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and (two years ago in ) Iran won public legitimacy because they were viewed as authentic civil uprisings which were not assisted by foreign elements.

In Libya, however, the Facebook revolution is liable to turn into the Tomahawk revolution: The intervention of forces from Western states is liable to undermine the legitimacy of civilian movements there and perhaps in other states.

Put to the side the notion that the Egyptian regime was “toppled”; there was a military coup d’etat alongside a mass insurrection, with what might be after-shocks and what might be continuing tremorsstill shaking Egypt, as unions organize, or fight for their right to organize, against ongoing military repression. Or the idea that the Green Movement was “revolutionary”; one need not bicker about what it was to be clear about what it was not. And finally place to the side the omission of the fact that the developments in Yemen and Bahrain are being crushed with an American and GCC nod. One thing is correct: legitimacy matters, and the absurd adventurism of the opposition elements in Libya shows that they knew from the outset that they could not gain legitimacy. In lieu of a social program, they called for a bombing program. The West surveyed the scene until it decided that the opposition — helmed by a former Qaddafi henchman, advised on economic matter by Ali Tarhouni, a US-educated professor of economics (yes, that’s all we need to know), its defense forces led by CIA asset Khalifa Hifter — would be a set of scoundrels even more pliant to power than post-2004 Qaddafi.

There is no point in being confused about this. It was going a bad way from the outset, and nowblathering Arab Marxists are calling for bombarding Tripoli to prevent the bombardment of Benghazi. Normally it’s Western intellectuals contorting themselves to justify the latest atrocity carried our under the banner of defending freedom. During Kosovo and Iraq, the liberal-left broke right. Today, it’s parts of the Arab radical left calling for bombing their own. The Qaddafi government claims 100 civilians have died during the UN attacks. Who cares if it’s just one. That’s blood on the hands of the left this time, in service to imperialism.

Opposition to imperialist wars need not be well thought-out. We know enough history to know that we always make it worse. Opposition should be instinctual. Period. If by some miracle the bombs of the empire produce revolution, I’ll happily repent. Until then, count the bodies. Each one. They’re not just Obama’s this time. They’re also yours.

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