[captionpix imgsrc=”https://thecostaricanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Clinton1.jpg” align=”left” captiontext=”Libya has cost America USD896 million. While UK tax payers have to fork out £200m the total costs to Britain are likely to amount up to £1bn and rising – just to kill one man!”]COLOMBO (IDN) – In 2009 Libya was a friend of the U.S. so much so that it allowed several American corporate giants to enter the country and gave approval for training of Libyan security personnel and civilians.
Those civilians eventually became “rebels” and were given arms by the West to overthrow Gaddafi in a movement called “liberating Libya”. Arming locals is obviously the new strategy to avoid deaths of coalition forces while NATO is tasked to carry out indiscriminate air strikes.
So what has been the cost for killing a man who has ruled a nation for 42 years without debt to the IMF or the World Bank?
It took eight months for U.S.-NATO to “liberate” Libya. The pro-U.S. Libyan Government may celebrate and rejoice but that party will be as short-lived as the jubilations in Iraq and Egypt where the people are beginning to realize their country would have still been better off with Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak!
The world needs to know what Gaddafi has bequeathed Libyans: In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd on the Human Development Index (out of 170 UN member states), making it a “high human development” country.
Gaddafi’s legacy is the right to free education for everyone from elementary school right up to university and post-graduate studies, at home or abroad; free health care; 1:673 doctor-patient ratio, free electricity for all citizen; interest-free housing loans; and free land for farmers.
If a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidizes 50 percent of the price. The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per litre. Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – now frozen globally.
A mother who gives birth to a child receives US$5,000. 40 loaves of bread in Libya cost $ 0.15. 25 percent of Libyans have a university degree. All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 Dinar (US$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family.
Prior to international sanctions on Gaddafi and Libya in the 1980s, it was one of the richest in the world in terms of GDP per capita – with a living standard higher than in Japan. It was the richest in Africa.
Libya is the only country in North Africa where terrorists do not exist. Fundamentalists have no voice whatsoever in Libya. Not a single terror-incident has been recorded in Libya during Gaddafi’s regime.
Gaddafi was no saint but all of the above examples show that the qualities of leadership that made Libya what it was need to be benchmarked against what the U.S. and West have in store for Libya that has been purposely destroyed to advance the West’s agenda.
With the death of Gaddafi the most important question is where are the 50,000 people that Gaddafi is supposed to have killed prior to U.S.-NATO forces attacking Libya? Clearly the “genocide” claim is a lie – a little too late as the objective of killing Gaddafi has been achieved.
[captionpix imgsrc=”https://thecostaricanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Libya1.jpg” align=”right” captiontext=”The pro-U.S. Libyan Government may celebrate and rejoice but that party will be as short-lived as the jubilations in Iraq and Egypt where the people are beginning to realize their country would have still been better off with Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak.”]The number of civilian casualties as a result of U.S.-NATO airstrikes, rebel attacks and pro-Government forces range between 1,000 and 10,000. These remain only “estimates”. Mainstream media has erred in blaming deaths caused by pro-Gaddafi forces, and totally ignoring the reality that the majority of deaths would have resulted by the indiscriminate bombing by U.S.-NATO air strikes.
NATO cannot deny that it has purposely targeted civilian infrastructure – hospitals (Al-Tajura Hospital & Saladin Hospital in Ain Zara), power generating facilities, water purification systems, tv stations & other communication networks, civilian airports, schools, government buildings & residential complexes.
The purpose of such bombings is obviously to destroy the country’s institutions. The UN Human Rights Council and other human rights bodies seem to care little for the reality behind the exercise of freeing Libya and fatalities that have been caused by NATO, which has no mandate whatsoever to carry out air strikes on Libya.
Thus the “humanitarian” bombing campaign as part of the R2P agenda is an integral piece of a new military strategy carved by the West. A major component of this strategy is to destroy civilian infrastructure. This methodology was applied in Yugoslavia and Iraq where bridges, power plants, water systems, cultural and historical heritages, schools and hospitals were all identified as “legitimate military targets” validated in advance. In Yugoslavia the civilian economy was the target.
The U.S. military intervention in Libya has cost America USD896 million. While UK tax payers have to fork out £200m the total costs to Britain are likely to amount up to £1bn and rising – just to kill one man! As a whole the operation to free Gaddafi’s Libya would have cost 2 billion U.S. dollars.
The USA is morally and financially broke, uneducated and sick but guided by arrogance because of which it continues to think that all nations must bow down to U.S. dictates. Post-Gaddafi Libya will soon find out what it is like to live in a country without Gaddafi’s charisma, in a country that is soon likely to be fleeced by the West – a country where people will be broke, without money, hungry, paying for all services but reminded all the while that they are “free, liberated and enjoying the fruits of human rights”.
Meanwhile, the U.S. will ensure that there is friction amongst tribes in Libya so that turmoil will prevail – just as is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan – while Western oil giants seize the oil, gold and all natural resources that Libya possesses, which in reality was the reason for the whole exercise called humanitarian intervention.
It is not difficult to comprehend the trend under way and dangers the West’s financial turmoil embodies for further “humanitarian” operations on targeted nations, the next stop being Syria.
Let all U.S.-NATO nations realize that the people of the world are no fools. Citizens of these nations may be fooled since mainstream media have blinded and brainwashed them with falsehoods. But the nemesis for deaths of the innocent, the destruction unleashed on people and environment will follow U.S.-NATO and their leaders.
By Shenali Waduge*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
*Shenali Waduge is a freelance writer based in Colombo. A version of this article appeared in Sinhale Hot News and Sri Lanka Guardian. The views expressed in this article are those of the writer.