NATO's Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa

The NATO Campaign

74 Africa Institute of South Africa The NATO Campaign At present, very few reports have linked the Libyan dominance in the Arab Banking Corporation to the seismic events in Libya since February 2011. Those writers and analysts from Wall Street with the links to the think tanks that they financed were front and centre in the call for war. Although Samantha Power was pushing for war from within the National Security Council of the Obama Administration, the military top brass and the Pentagon were not on board. The division within the national security establishment in the US was on full display when the Defense Secretary told West Point officers in training that, ‘In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined”, as General MacArthur so delicately put it.’160 Later, while the battle over the decision of a no-fly zone was being debated in the press, Gates again made the case against overt military involvement in Libya, warning that America should avoid another big, intractable land war like those underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. In his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, he said, Let’s just call a spade a spade, a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that’s the way it starts.161 The US Treasury froze Libyan assets worth US$30 billion, hoping to placate Wall Street and the forces in the US that wanted full-scale military involvement. But the oil and banking lobby in the US were not satisfied with half-measures. With the manoeuvring of Bernard-Henri Lévy and Hilary Clinton, Sarkozy decided to make the question of military intervention a fait accompli. France’s Chief of Defence said that military operations would last a matter of ‘weeks’ and hopefully not ‘months’. The military leaders in the US were declaring that if they were going to be involved, it would be in a limited manner. However, Sarkozy was not going to await the outcome of US deliberations and political manoeuvring. France acted and started bombing Libya even before agreement was reached. 75 The NATO Campaign Horace Campbell The war was launched on March 19, and officially ended on October 31. Through those seven months of warfare, NATO’s forces could not explain their objectives to Africans or to the rest of the world. After the third day of bombing, when the tanks and air capabilities of the Libyan regime had been degraded, it was clear that the mission went beyond the UN Security Council mandate of ‘responsibility to protect’. By June 27, when the NATO bombings – 150 sorties every day – were becoming counterproductive, the bank and oil forces became desperate and turned up the propaganda heat against Libya and Africa. It was an intensified operation integrating psychological warfare and propaganda which proved beneficial for NATO in relation to European and North American citizens, but alienated Africans and created a base of support for the Libyan government. The propaganda war to demonise and criminalise Gaddafi and his family took the form of an indictment by the ICC at the end of June, 100 days after the ineffective bombing campaign. This indictment was also meant to undermine the diplomatic efforts of the AU and derail the AU Road Map for peace talks. The irony was that there was an ICC indictment against Gaddafi and his family for crimes against humanity, while NATO accepted the support of the President of Sudan, who had himself been indicted by the ICC in 2009. Under the leadership of Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, the AU had been vigorous in seeking a negotiated settlement. In June, Zuma met NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Russia and pressed the case for the AU Road Map, calling for a ceasefire. By this time, Gaddafi had agreed to step aside in order to facilitate negotiations. NATO would not countenance the role of the AU as a mediator. Rasmussen’s response was that he was implementing the UN resolution – even though the objectives of the resolution had been achieved. For the backers of the war, when Tripoli was overrun by troops from Qatar and special forces from France...