It was in Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood laid the groundwork for today's Islamist movement not in Saudi Arabia, as many now believe. Islamism would not have succeeded without the combination of Hassan al-Banna in the 1920s in Egypt and Haj Amin al-Husseini in Palestine. Nazi German Foreign Office broadcasted propaganda to the Arabs from Berlin, setting up a Muslim SS division, and opposing leniency toward the Jews by countries that belonged to the Axis but were not under direct Nazi rule such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Italy. Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was created prior to that through British assistance, founded by the notorious Jamal ud Din al Afghani who led an agitation against the West in the famous Orabi revolt. The British were then provided with their pretext to invade to ‘stabilize’ the country, and seize the Suez Canal. Dimona Plutonium Nuclear reactor was purchased by Israel from France as part of a secret agreement related to the Suez War, in which the IDF in collaboration with France and England conquered the Sinai Peninsula. Nasser had strong sympathies for Nazi Germany, as did many of his compatriots in the Egyptian military. US hired the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to create “ratlines” to help former Nazis and SS officers escape. Many of whom were brought, under Operation Paperclip, to the US to work for NASA. Others who fled to Italy became part of the notorious Operation Gladio. U.S. Foreign Military Aid program total cost is $5.4 billion per year given to 13 select nations, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Djibouti, Tunisia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Philippines, and Vietnam. People sincerely seemed to believe that, simply by replacing Mubarak, Egypt’s multitudinous problems would be solved. No one really said how any of these problems would be solved, there was just a general assumption that they would be. You did not need a particularly active imagination to look at Egypt, a country with a poor, under-educated, unskilled, and rapidly growing population, and see the potential for trouble. In fact given the shambolic state of Egypt’s economy, its yawning religious cleavages, and the immaturity of its political institutions, it would have been nothing less than a miracle if the post-Mubarak iteration of the country hadn’t ended in total disaster. Few of the brave young men and women behind the Arab Spring have been willing to publicly admit the possibility of a link between their revolutions, which were organic and home-grown, had anything to do with the wars. Unlike other major religions, in Islam (outside India) there is no tradition of separation of church and state. The religious angle has long been adopted by Muslim gangs, feuding tribes and those corrupt looking for some legitimacy for their evil ways, that all this is done to defend Islam. Wahhabinism was supported by the British Imperialism during WW1 to provide religious cover for Saudi tribesmen to attack fellow Muslims, the Ottoman Turks. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, Turkey received a new identity as a modern, liberal and democratic country. Fascism has only appeared when, a society that has known liberty and democracy has been established long enough, but people have become disillusioned with it. The only route available for fascists is through conservatives who, afraid of a socialism revolution, align themselves with the fascists and refuse to work with the left. Fascism movement are based on: 1. Need to control with an aggressive leader (always male) who alone is capable of bring back a group's greatness. 2. Resentment of national humiliation of becoming weak and emphasizing an Intense Nationalism. 3. Superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason. 4. Fear of others & justifing Any action against "others" is good in itself. 5. An intolerance of criticism while encouraging intolerant views or practices. Chest beating is labelled as nationalism & negative press reporting is treason. Every democracy is different, just like every culture is different. Democracy is a messy, inefficient form of government, but compared to all the others, it tends to be preferred by most people. Arabs, even Arab leaders, know they need democracy. They have tried everything else, and nothing else works. The consensus so far is that outside interference was to blame for the poor government in Arab states. Since the 1950s, centuries of Turkish, and, more recently, a few decades of European rule, were to blame. One of the unique problems is opposition from some Islamic conservatives. This is made worse because many Arabs believe what al-Qaeda preaches, that the world should be ruled by an Islamic religious dictatorship, and that this must be achieved by any means necessary (including force against non-Moslems and Moslems who don’t agree.) This sort of thinking has been popular with Islamic conservatives since Islam first appeared in the sixth century. Since then, it has periodically flared up into major outbreaks of religious inspired violence. But that’s not the only problem. Arabs, in particular, sustain these outbursts with their fondness for paranoid fantasies and an exaggerated sense of persecution and entitlement. U.S. troops in Iraq were amazed at the number of fantastical beliefs that were accepted as reality there. As a result of this opinion polls in Moslem countries have shown a growing approval of democracy, at least in theory. This was especially true in 2011 after the Arab Spring uprisings. But since 2011 that approval of democracy has dimmed a bit as Moslems unaccustomed to running a democracy found that doing so was not easy. They can see that democracy creates superior results where is has been established, but the process of getting democracy to work reliably is a lot harder and more difficult than many Moslems originally believed. What they all have in common is a lack of "civil society" (rule of, and respect for, law), and lots of corruption. The two sort of go together. Another common problem in failed states is a large number of ethnic groups. Europe, and much of Asia, have managed to get past tribalism, although that has not always resulted in a civil society. Tribalism has kept most African and many Arab nations from making much economic progress. There's a similar problem in the Middle East. For example, three current hot spots, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have long been torn apart by tribal and religious animosities. Same with the Balkans and parts of India and Pakistan. No one has come up with a quick, or easy, solution for failed states. It's all a matter of effective local leadership, and that frequently fails to show up. There has been some success in helping good leaders develop, by assisting with installing a democracy. But just letting the people vote often leads to someone, who looked like a good guy, turning into a dictatorial "president for life." One exemplary leader can make a difference. Examples abound. Kemal Ataturk, more than any of his close followers and advisors, turned Turkey from a medieval monarchy into a functioning democracy. Arab leaders are victims of their own success. Their rule is based on corruption and police state tactics. Think East Europe before 1989. Big difference is that, although the populations of East Europe then, and the Arab world now, were both fed up with their leaders and governments, the Arabs were not willing to make as painless a switch as the East Europeans did in the 1990s. That's because the East Europeans had two choices; communism or democracy. The Arabs have four; despotism, democracy, tribal factionalism or Islamic dictatorship. In Iraq we see how the Islamic radicals react to democracy. They call it un-Islamic and kill those who disagree with them. In Iraq, the Sunni Arab minority believe it is their right (or responsibility) to run the country. One minority believes they are rulers by right, and that democracy is an abomination and un-Islamic (or at least inconvenient for the ruling minority). This is the pattern in nearly every Arab country. In this age of undisputed U.S. hegemony, the various setbacks in the war on terror underscore the limits of American power far away from home. These type of war against terrorists, especially religious zealots, cannot be won from the air-firepower (too expensive) and requires well equipped ground forces using artillery and stockpile of other modern weapons (and air transport capabilities). Heavy armored (if without the supporting firepower of light armoured unmanned vehicles) has become less useful in these type of battlefield due to proliferation of portable missiles. Another problem is the lack of radars or other sensors to detect low-altitude (under 100 or even 25 meters) loitering missiles and UAV makes it difficult to detect much less destroy them. At least 15 U.S.-supported officers have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror since 9/11. The total number of U.S.-trained mutineers across Africa may be far higher than is known. The list includes military personnel from Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Chad (2021); Gambia (2014); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, 2021); Mauritania (2008); and Niger (2023). At least five leaders of the most coup in Niger, received U.S. training, according to a U.S. official. They, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerian security forces to serve as governors. North Africa’s old colonial power, France and Italy, are still active. Although France was the political instigator of the idea to intervene in Libya, the United States actually did not lead from behind in the military campaign. The United States conducted the most dangerous initial air strikes before turning the battle over to its ever less-and-less militarily capable NATO allies and also provided critical command, control, communications, and logistics, which no other military on earth can contribute. Envisioned as a low-cost, low-risk means to stabilize Libya, the planned force became a case study in the limits of American power to shape events following the upheaval of the Arab Spring. With its small population, oil resources and proximity to Europe, there was no reason the nation should devolve into chaos. An early opponent of George W. Bush’s war there, Obama was determined to avoid another Middle Eastern quagmire. The Obama administration’s plan to help the country rebuild its military, joined by other NATO governments, instead came to symbolize the shortcomings of the West’s approach to post-revolution Libya. This "humanitarian” intervention was based on the false pretense that Gaddafi was already slaughtering civilians, which Obama implied in his public statements. Qaddafi never translated that rhetoric into targeting civilians. France and the United States duped Russia into agreeing to a United Nations Security Council Resolution providing for a NATO "no-fly” zone over Libya—allegedly to prevent Gaddafi from killing civilians in the Libyan city of Benghazi during an Arab Spring revolt. Gaddafi was actually beating back the rebellion, and in the four major cities that he had retaken, no civilians had been massacred. Instead of just clearing the skies of Libyan aircraft, the NATO aircraft, in combination with rebel forces on the ground, destroyed Gaddafi’s security forces and overthrew him. Because Gaddafi had long been demonized, France and the United States just couldn't resist taking advantage of the Arab Spring revolt against him to get rid of him for good. In fact in 2003, Qaddafi had voluntarily halted his nuclear and chemical weapons programs and surrendered his arsenals to the United States, and was providing the United States good intelligence on Islamist terrorists. His reward, eight years later, was a U.S.-led regime change that culminated in his violent death. It is a bad signal to aspiring nuclear nations that non-nuclear nations get no respect from the United States. North Korea released a statement from an unnamed Foreign Ministry official saying that “the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson” and that North Korea would not fall for the same U.S. “tactic to disarm the country.” The harm from the intervention in Libya extends well beyond the immediate neighborhood. For one thing, by helping overthrow Qaddafi, the United States undercut its own nuclear nonproliferation objectives. By late 2010, the elder Qaddafi had sacked his more hard-line son Mutassim, a move that appeared to pave the way for Saif and his reformist agenda. Sixty-nine years old and in ill health, he was laying the groundwork for a transition to his son Saif, who for many years had been preparing a reform agenda. From 2009 to 2010, Saif persuaded his father to release nearly all of Libya’s political prisoners, creating a deradicalization program for Islamists that Western experts cited as a model. He also advocated abolishing Libya’s Information Ministry in favor of private media. He even flew in renowned American scholars—including Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, and Cass Sunstein—to lecture on civil society and democracy. Saif also convinced his father that the regime should admit culpability for a notorious 1996 prison massacre and pay compensation to the families of hundreds of victims. American airstrikes can deliver swift and decisive results on the battlefield. But without a feasible morning-after plan or dependable state institutions to support, shifting the dynamics on the battlefield often makes things worse. Humanitarian intervention should be reserved for the rare instances in which civilians are being targeted and military action can do more good than harm, such as Rwanda in 1994. "It was exactly one week ago at 3:15pm Baghdad time, when a beaming Paul Bremer made that now-famous announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" Source: Ya20 News Saddam Hussein: High Value Target Number One. The Glorious Leader. The Lion of Babylon had been snared. Iraq's most wanted - the ace of spades - had become little more than an ace in the hole." Lynching was formal, cold for Saddam Hussein, hanged in Dec 2006, in a camera of a glow in Baghdad, after a outline hearing underneath American influence. The open lynching was pell-mell as well as Muammar Gaddafi, who was captured, exhibited, trampled as well as maybe finished Thursday, Oct twenty by a horde of insubordinate fury, after being bleeding in a bombing of his procession by NATO forces. The dual dictators came out of a story during a same age (69 years) as well as in a same way: in a detonate of savagery comprehensive issue of a apprehension they had erected in form of government. To a end, however, Muammar Gaddafi as well as Saddam Hussein were sealed in rejection about their degradation. On Syrian air wave hire Al-Rai, a initial vitupérait, there have been still a couple of days, opposite “rats” a National Transitional Council (CNT), a domestic masquerade of fighting back Jamahiriya, denying that his system of administration fell. Facing a judge, after his constraint by U.S. forces in Dec 2003, a second paraded with honour intact, as if he were still boss of Iraq feared. Both were innate in medium circumstances: a Bedouin tent in a dried of Sirte, Gaddafi to about 1942, as well as a tillage encampment nearby Tikrit in 1937 for his change ego in Iraq. The armed forces serves as springboard for a immature Muammar whilst Saddam, flunked by a troops academy in Baghdad, rock climbing a ranks of a Baath party. Paranoia as well as imprudence An extreme ambition, desirous by a onslaught opposite a former colonial power, Italian Libya as well as British in Iraq, they come to energy in a late 1960s. Gaddafi overthrew King Idris upon an aged st Sep 1969 as well as takes a zenith over his associate coup. Saddam Hussein stands out as a clever male of Iraq, in a shade of President Al-Bakr, he programmed a manoeuvre in 1968 as well as force him to renounce in 1979. Power, any has a own style: ruthless mental disorder to Saddam Hussein, who sees conspiracies everywhere enforces a opponents in tighten order, as well as though blinking electrocute Kurdish as well as Shiite minorities, a imprudence as well as cruelty to Muammar Gaddafi that conceals a strictness of his persecution by his whims anti-imperialist, his logorrhea foutraque as well as individualist clothes. But otherwise, their diet is similar: same cult of celebrity delusional, even carry out of son – Uday as well as Qusay upon a Iraqi side, Saif Al-Islam, Khamis as well as Moatassem, Libyan side – upon a confidence organs, as well as even kleptocracy. ” Saw in a 1980s by Paris as well as Washington, who conclude a modernist sermon as well as cruise it as a aegis opposite a risk of Iran, Saddam Hussein feels even some-more chaste he is gentle sitting upon oil reserves. Fatal error. The advance of Kuwait by his army, in 1990, initiates a delayed routine of disgrace, that concludes with a U.S. advance of 2003. Instructed by a disappointments of his counterpart, Gaddafi follows a trail around. First renegade of a general community, inebriated in 1986 by a United States who credit him of ancillary terrorism, a Libyan personality creates a fantastic molting from 2003. Rules of a jot down of a Lockerbie bombing, desertion of a chief program, rallying to a fight opposite terrorism. The turnaround captivated to Western capitals overthrow Benghazi in February. Against Libyan armoured column that bluster to vanquish a fighting back in blood, Paris, London as well as Washington send their aircraft. Reason Central operation authorised by a UN: “protect civilians” . Text roughly as presumable as a track for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, a central role of a second Gulf War. Libya as in Iraq, a ouster of a tyrant has turn a priority over a pale. Saddam Hussein had finished his mare in a little subterraneous hideout, a rodent hole, that a U.S. troops had extricated, fluffy as well as dazed. Gaddafi himself, was prisoner in a sewer, half dying. Their trail has been identical even in this miserable period. A a single difference: a constraint of a master of Baghdad was seen as a chagrin in a Middle East. But by a beauty of a “Arab spring”, a killing of Gaddafi was hailed as a liberation. The U.S. achieved most of its objectives in Libya. It stopped Gaddafi from selling his oil in gold. It stopped Gaddafi from starting and African central bank and an African monetary fund. It stopped Gaddafi from completing his Great Man-Made River Project that was in the last year of its 25-year and $21 billion completion projection. It stopped Gaddafi from finishing his RASCOM initiative in which, with the help of Russia, Africa could have begun putting telecommunications satellites into space to tie Africa together with advanced communications as opposed to having to pay ruinous fees to the U.S. or the EU. (by Suhasani Haidar) "To begin with, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) actions in Libya completely contravened any mandate given by the United Nations Security Council, or request made by the Arab League. In a matter of weeks, a resolution authorising the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya was turned into Mission 'Get Gaddafi.' In the course of 'Operation Creep,' as it came to be known, NATO bombers did not just defend rebel positions, they actively destroyed Muammar Gaddafi's troops and their armoury, ensuring the recapture of towns such as Misrata and Zawiyah more than once. To start with, as in 1980 in Afghanistan, the support was essentially monetary, with countries such as Turkey and Egypt helping fund the resistance in Benghazi. Next, MI-6 and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives moved in to train National Transitional Council (NTC) troops, and to provide ground intelligence for NATO air strikes. Finally in August, when it seemed like a stalemate and Gaddafi remained in control of Tripoli, the US authorised the doubling of drone missions, and that enabled the fall of the Libyan capital. In September, with Gaddafi on the run but still in control of several towns, the British Royal Air Force carried out its biggest air-raid, sending formations of RAF Tornado GR4s equipped with Brimstone missiles to 20 separate targets, to capture towns such as Sebha. Finally, it was predator strikes and French jet bombings on Gaddafi's convoy just outside Sirte that led to the capture and killing of the former dictator. In the seven months and 26,000 air missions that it took for Operation Libya to be completed, NATO turned a blind eye to the means used for its ends - whether that meant bombing civilian areas, or ignoring reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that rebel soldiers were perpetrating human rights abuses on towns supporting Gaddafi. But the really surprising brush-aside has been to concerns that the rebel forces included Islamic radical groups such as the al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), defeated by Gaddafi in the past. Very little attention was paid to the situation when the NTC's commander, General Abdel Fatteh Younes, was assassinated by radical militiamen. But the obvious gainer was Abdel Hakim Belhaj. He is now the commander of the NTC, and many al-Qaeda watchers were aghast when they saw him lead the rebels into Tripoli. After all, Belhaj was the head of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) that he started from Pakistan while serving with the Mujahideen against the Soviets. He built the LIFG fighting alongside the Iraqi al-Qaeda two decades later. In 2003 Belhaj was captured by the CIA, and in 2004 he was transferred to a Libyan prison as a gift from the US to Gaddafi. The curious turn of events this year that saw NATO troops training men who had spent the past 30 years fighting for al-Qaeda is a cause for worry. " "And now a new report by Amnesty International has concluded that the British government, as well as many other European nations, did indeed supply large quantities of weapons to repressive governments in the Middle East and North Africa before this year's uprisings. This despite having substantial evidence that they could be used to commit serious human rights violations. The Amnesty report examines arms transfers to Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen since 2005. It found that the main arms suppliers to these countries were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK and the USA. Meanwhile, at least 11 states provided military assistance or allowed exports of weaponry and munitions to Yemen. These include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the USA. Amnesty also identified 10 states whose governments licensed the supply of weaponry and munitions to Colonel Gaddafi's Libyan regime since 2005, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5sVyB8qHhY Algeria Italy’s second-largest gas supplier. Spain gets 52% of its natural gas from Algeria. Algeria’s beaches are 469 miles from those of France. If Algeria descended into violence and its gas supplies were somehow disrupted, Europe would have a significant problem. Algeria and Libya are huge countries that border Chad, Mali, and Niger, which are themselves confronting extremist violence. Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia all have terrorism problems that affected Europe. Energy, migration, extremism in North Africa is a security challenge for Europe. There are only 146 miles separating the Tunisian coast and the Italian coast and 286 miles from Libya to Greece. Poor migrants arriving on European shores via North Africa did not create Europe’s far right-wing nationalist like the the Alternative for Germany party and neo-fascist parties, but they did have a devastating effect on Europe. A democratic Germany is a bedrock of European stability and prosperity. The Oil Is Safe
Most of US-backed Khalifa Hiftar's forces LNA (Libyan National Army) is there to ensure order in the big oil production and export facilities. Production is holding steady at 1.2 million BPD (barrels per day) and the safety of the oil facilities has been restored. Despite that, the LNA is still encountering problems with the NOC (National Oil Company), Central Bank and the UN over how to operate all these facilities and spend the oil income. The UN-backed GNA (Government of National Accord) has sought, with some success, to deprive the LNA of much oil income. There were also continuing problems with corruption in how oil income was spent. One thing the NOC and LNA can agree on is that the longer the fighting goes on the greater the risk is of oil production being disrupted once more. The Tripoli and Misrata militias are hostile to ISIL but not to Al-Qaida. Comments are closed.
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