Global Comment

Where the world thinks out loud

Gadhafi and the West: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Philosophers and scientists have long proposed theories in which duality is the propelling force of movement and progress – the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s dialectic offered a process of change in which opposition between two interacting forces creates a thesis and antithesis to form a new synthesis, while physicist Isaac Newton demonstrated that in the Laws of Motion every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

U.S. foreign policy appears to follows the doctrine of duality, except for one factor – progress is frequently backwards. Exempting the Cold War, U.S. State Department history of the last sixty years has proceeded with bi-polar swings between action and reaction and rarely with satisfactory outcomes. Moammar Gadhafi and his challenges to western dominance are an excellent example of this backwards movement.

Would Gadhafi the authoritative, Gadhafi, the self-chosen defender of the world’s dominated, and Gadhafi the conspirator exist if the western nations, represented most by the United States, treated The Third World fairly and did not interfere in the affairs of other nations for their own interests? It is unlikely he would have any raison d’être.

Colonel Gadhafi took power after Italy occupied his nation from 1911-1943, after nations during World War II turned Libya into a major battleground for their own pursuits, and after Udris I became the first and only King of Libya in a constitutional monarchy with inheritance privileges. Britain’s Prime minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkhozy exhibited a lack of historical awareness and an excess of external hypocrisy when they demanded Colonel Gadhafi step down and face justice. Don’t they know that by self-crafting of nations and borders and selection of leaders after World War I, attacks on Arab peoples throughout the 20th century, support of dictatorial and corrupt Arab regimes, and by spurious rhetoric of self-determination after World War II, France and Britain had significant roles in causing the Middle East problems and enabling the emergence of authoritative leaders such as Moammar Gadhafi?

History reveals the duplicity of western policy towards Libya. Beginning with banning military equipment sales to Libya in 1978, continuous and growing sanctions by U.S. administrations provoked several murderous actions and reactions from the Libyan leader. Due to Gadhafi’s refusal to hand over two suspects that the sovereign nation of Libya had arrested in connection with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 civilians, the United Nations instituted its own sanctions on Libya in 1992. By October 1995, the International Herald Tribune reported “that UN sanctions are taking a tragic toll on the country, costing $19 billion and causing as many as 21,000 deaths in the past three and a half years. Libya claims agriculture is the hardest-hit sector, with losses estimated at $5.9 billion.” The sanctions decreased exports, inhibited imports, increased prices of goods and prevented many Libyans from studying and working abroad. After seven years of sanctiions, Libya to handed over the Lockerbie bombing suspects in 1999, causing the sanctions suspension, though the UN did not formally lift the sanctions completely until 2003.

Similar to its dealings with Iraq and Cuba, the United States invoked sanctions with the intention of bringing about the downfall of the pariah, but as with those two countries, only served to pauper the pariah’s people. In 2004, Gadhafi halted developing weapons of mass destruction, took responsibility for compensating victims of terrorist bombings and pledged to change his ways. Sanctions ceased, oil flowed and Libya embarked on a surge of domestic projects that dramatically increased the Libyan standard of living.

Now that Libya has started to recover from the embargo, the U.S. is once again imposing its will on Libya and attempting to cripple its economy; in effect telling the Libyans they have no future with any Gadhafi. Maybe Moammar Gadhafi needs to be deposed, and much of the world seems disposed to that concept, but before disposal isn’t knowledge of the replacement and a process for orderly transition a requirement? Without the latter in place, Libya could turn into the anarchy of post-Saddam Iraq. Alternatively, maybe it does not matter. In a nation that depends on one resource for its wealth, the people may be less interested in the political framework and its leader, and more interested in the wise use and equitable distribution of the wealth derived from the petroleum.

In every respect, politically, economically and morally, the Libyan leader is the other side of the international coin that guides the world’s populations. The west offers a democratic and centralized political system; Gadhafi prefers a decentralized soviet type system of councils. From his Green Book:: “The democratic system is a cohesive structure whose foundation stones are firmly laid one above the other, the Basic People’s Conferences, the People’s Conferences, and the People’s Committees, which finally come together when the General People’s Conference convenes. There is absolutely no conception of democratic society other than this.”

The West encourages free enterprise systems, Gadhafi’s Libya is the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (a state of the masses, governed by the populace through local councils.) The West pursues policies of domination and control, Gadhafi pursues policies to counter the West’s domination and control. The West is brutal to its external opponents, Gadhafi is brutal to his internal opponents.

However, compare Gadhafi’s violence to the Western nations’ brutal actions and the intense focus on Gadhafi becomes suspect. Gadhafi’s victims may number in the hundreds or thousands, but the body count for western nations in their aggressive wars since World War II is more likely to lie in the millions.

None of the mayhem created by Gadhafi can be pardoned. Nevertheless, if the U.S. and European nations also recognized the horrors they have inflicted upon a helpless world, they would have a better case. Duality is also a psychological phenomenon.

Dan Lieberman is the editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter. He can be reached at alternativeinsight@earthlink.net