Libya’s descent into civil war: The bitter fruit of the pseudo-left’s pro-imperialism
10 April 2019
The threat of a bloody battle for Tripoli has continued to mount as “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar has massed troops and tanks south of the Libyan capital and warplanes belonging to his so-called Libyan National Army have bombed the city’s sole functioning airport, stranding civilians seeking to escape the country.
Partial casualty figures have included 51 dead and over 181 wounded. Thousands have fled their homes to escape the fighting, and there are reports that thousands of refugees and migrants, held under unspeakable conditions in concentration camps run by various rival militias, are frantic over the prospect of becoming helpless victims of a potential massacre.
In the midst of the escalation toward full-scale civil war, the United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned that any attack on civilians in Libya could amount to war crimes and demanded that all sides “respect international humanitarian law, and to take all possible measures to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and prisons.”
The UN human rights body’s attitude toward the latest flareup of violence in Libya stands in stark contrast to its response to the one-sided US-NATO war waged in 2011 under the pretext of protecting civilian lives from repression at the hands of the government headed by Col. Muammar Gaddafi. A UN resolution allowing for a no-fly zone was used as the pretext to launch a seven-month-long bombing campaign in support of CIA-backed Islamist militias to destroy Libya’s security forces and vital infrastructure and overthrow its government. This campaign culminated in the carpet bombing of the coastal city of Sirte, a Gaddafi…