The Death of Muammar Gaddafi and Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud: A Tale of Two Obituaries

Commentaries on the death of Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (of Saudi Arabia) sharply contrasts with that of the death of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. US/NATO just had to help the people of Libya against his evil rule. We all know how crazy Gaddafi was. He had virgin female body guards, funded international terrorism, claimed he was not the leader of Libya while functioning as absolute leader of Libya, killed his own people and constantly said outrageous statements. This is the standard analysis given regarding Gaddafi's legacy. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud was a wise monarch that prudently built up his country militarily: a good statesman in fact.

Even Al Jazeera favors the late crown prince over Gaddafi. I once read on my former professor As'ad AbuKhalil's blog site (the Angry Arab) an interesting observation. He pointed out that Al Jazeera generally has made severe statements about regimes facing revolutions in Arab republics and near silence, or less severe criticism, towards Arab monarchies. This makes sense understanding that Al Jazeera is located in monarchical Qatar. Al Jazeera wrote this a month ago:

Calling themselves the 'Friends of Libya,' 63 world leaders met in Paris on Thursday to discuss the country's future.

Among them, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Al-Thani admits that Muammar Gaddafi could not have been toppled without NATO, but he did point out the Arab League could have done more.

Qatar was the first Arab nation to support the allied forces and send its jets into Libya; a move praised by Western leaders who said the intervention was a turning point for the region.

Oh!I forgot to mention the Emir's monetary donations to Al Jazeera. This may have added a little bias.

It is notable that France, Britain and the US intervened to topple Gaddafi and simultaneously continue to sell so many weapons to Saudi Arabia. Trevor Mostyn of The Guardian writes:

Sultan created a massive military establishment in Saudi Arabia through arms purchases from the US, the UK and France. He built military cities, largely with US support. However, the massive British-supported defence programme was also crucial.

Telling is also the media silence about what Saudi Arabia does with their military aid in places such as Bahrain.

Was Gaddafi more "crazy" and tyrannical than the current Saudi Arabian Wahhabi rule overseen by the late Sultan? In 2002 The Guardian wrote a story on the more "sane" Saudi kingdom:

Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers...One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".

The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police - known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned "it is a sinful to approach them".

The father of one of the dead girls said that the school watchman even refused to open the gates to let the girls out.

"Lives could have been saved had they not been stopped by members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," the newspaper concluded.

I don't see US/NATO zooming in to help Saudi girls anytime soon. Of course it is not clear how NATO's "help" will really help the new Libya just yet. I send all my hopes and wishes to the Libyan people in this post-Qaddafi era and to the Saudis in their continued Wahhabist one.



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US/European Intervention in the Arab World

The Riz Khan show from last week on Al Jazeera English conveniently follows the topic I wrote about in my last blog. The topic covered on Al Jazeera addresses the curiosity many have as to why the West is intervening in Libya but not in places such as Bahrain and Yemen. This episode shows that the Arab and Islamic World are keenly aware that Western interests in Libya could be less than amicable. This skepticism is understandable when looking at the overall legacy (past and present) of Western policies in the North African and Middle Eastern regions.

The US Role in Bahrain Delegitimizes the US Role in Libya

On March 28, 2011 US President Barack Obama gave a speech to the nation regarding the US role in bombing Qaddafi's forces in Libya. Obama stated that the US must help the struggling people of Libya against the tyrant Qaddafi.To expand on his argument to justify intervention, he commented about the revolutionary "change" taking place throughout the Middle East and North Africa:

There are places, like Egypt, where this change will inspire us and raise our hopes. And then there will be places, like Iran, where change is fiercely suppressed. The dark forces of civil conflict and sectarian war will have to be averted, and difficult political and economic concerns will have to be addressed.

The United States will not be able to dictate the pace and scope of this change. Only the people of the region can do that. But we can make a difference.

I believe that this movement of change cannot be turned back, and that we must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us through many storms: our opposition to violence directed at one's own people; our support for a set of universal rights, including the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders; our support for governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people.

Born, as we are, out of a revolution by those who longed to be free, we welcome the fact that history is on the move in the Middle East and North Africa, and that young people are leading the way. Because wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States. Ultimately, it is that faith -- those ideals -- that are the true measure of American leadership.

The hypocrisy of Obama and the US government is striking. Or is it hypocrisy? I would argue that they are merely playing out unconvincing propaganda. In Bahrain peaceful civilians have been slaughtered when they have protested against the tyranny of their government. This is occurring with a huge US Navy fleet secured in Bahraini waters. The invasion of Saudi troops to crush the unarmed rebellion has not been condemned by the US. If fact, the US government publicly stated it was not an invasion(Similar in spirit to US Vice President Biden's comments that Mubarak of Egypt was no dictator). Some of the US public may be fooled, but any informed person can see that the US claim to humanitarian concerns in Libya is not convincing.

"Monsieur Lévy, are you satisfied with your war?"

Just when you thought that Bernard-Henri Lévy couldn't get more ridiculous, he claims responsibility for the French military intervention in Libya's uprising (hence the title of this post). That might be true, but it certainly doesn't ameliorate our sense that he's a raving narcissist. Nor will his recent interview with Der Spiegel, in which he largely responds to unwelcome questions with the answers to his preferred questions. I don't know how, but sometime between quoting Jean-Baptiste Botul in his work on Kant, freestyling on Eyjafjallajökull, or dissimulating about the siege of Gaza, he's become a psychiatrist. I'm taking over for Der Spiegel, and the rest is pure BHL.

BHL, with your new training could you please diagnose, from a distance, Gadhafi's mental state? Is he playing with a full deck of cards?  

Lévy: No. Everything was tried, but Gadhafi is a madman, autistic -- he refused to listen. In the night before the summit in Paris, I spent hours on the phone with friends in Benghazi. I tried to allay their fears. They were torn between the fear of Gadhafi's troops and the hope that coalition aircraft would arrive in time. It was a race against time.

I don't know, calling him autistic doesn't seem very sympathetic to others who might live with it. Perhaps you can get around this by suggesting that there is some kind of connection between National Socialism and the government of Angela Merkel:

Lévy: We lost a great deal of time because of the Germans, which is a disaster, mainly for the Libyans, but also for the Germans, who will pay bitterly for abstaining. What happened here will leave a lasting impression in Europe. [...] Angela Merkel jettisoned all principles of German foreign policy since the end of World War II: There was the principle that something like National Socialism should never happen again. Never again crimes against humanity. Merkel and (German Foreign Minister Guido) Westerwelle violated this pact. This is a serious incident, not a minor detail.

Interesting, I'm sure that there is some kind of fallacy concerning these kinds of connections, but please: a moment of wild and universalizing historical speculation:

Lévy: When the Arab League requested that we intervene in Libya, it was a decisive moment in the history of the modern age. The obligation to intervene in the affairs of other countries became universal as a result. Now no one can accuse the coalition of engaging in dark maneuvers or hidden colonialism. This is a radical shift.

BHL, are you up to the task of misusing the word 'radical' or one of its cognates twice in one interview? I mean, could you...

Lévy: The surprise, the incredulity and the gratefulness of the three Libyans when they understood what Sarkozy had just said to them. The great significance of what he proposed to them. The radicalism of his gesture. That moment of astonishment and of realization -- it was a beautiful moment.

This is exhausting. I'll turn this one over to Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Can you imagine a world without Bernard-Henri Lévy?
Lévy: Yes, it would all work quite well without me.

Libya and the Ongoing Revolution and Libyans

Libya is in a life and death struggle between the pro and anti-Qaddafi forces within the country. According to the Hindustan Times of March 5, 2011:

Libya on Saturday plunged into a civil war with see-saw battles going on between Muammar Gaddafi loyalists and rebels for territorial gains, leaving 74 dead in one of the bloodiest day of fighting as the country’s opposition held its first conclave apparently to form a parallel government. The efforts to form a self-declared national-council comes as US and western countries as well as world bodies have virtually derecognised the Gaddafi regime and interpol has issued warrants against him and his family for genocide.

These battles have been ongoing and brutal. Many hope that the conflict will end soon and that the anti-Qaddafi forces will become victorious. I am posting in this blog an Al Jazeera "Inside Story" clip that focused on these developments and the possibility of the revolution's results. I also am posting excerpts from a crazed Qaddafi speech showing,in a small way, what kind of man has ruled Libya for over four decades.

This news is important to follow as the revolution wages within Libya, but I think it is also important to see Libyans beyond the face of Qaddafi. Libyans are giving their lives up for freedom. Some have resisted in the past with less popular support, but there has always been resistance. Libya, throughout the entirety of Qaddafi's rule has produced artists willing to take on Qaddafi's tyranny. On March 1, 2011 Jeffery Brown from "Art Beat" interviewed Libyan born poet Khaled Mattawa. Part of the interview addressed the role of poetry under the Qaddafi regime:

JEFFREY BROWN: I was going to ask you about the role of literature and poetry in a regime like that.

KHALED MATTAWA: Well, they basically put a generation of writers and poets who were in their 20s in the late '70s, they put them in jail. Whole generation of them who were in their 20s, they got out of jail in their late 30s. They tried to promote their own poets; they never got any measure of poets to work for them. The compromise they made with some writers was to guarantee them some degree of independence, to write about subjects that are far away from the current situation. Whether it is about the desert, or about relationships-- just stay away from realism in the real sense. Basically writers were imprisoned for most of the '80s. When they started getting out, they began to publish. The '90s in poetry is the generation of symbolic poetry. Clearly the poetry was unhappy, but it never got very specific. By the 2000s, people could write about the time when they were in prison, just dating the poem and the place of it, written in 1981 in such and such prison. Putting that as a tag in the bottom of poem was a revolutionary thing, because it had never happened to Libya before.

Here is a poem Mattawa wrote:

Ecclesiastes

The trick is that you're willing to help them.
The rule is to sound like you’re doing them a favor.

The rule is to create a commission system.
The trick is to get their number.

The trick is to make it personal:
No one in the world suffers like you.

The trick is that you’re providing a service.
The rule is to keep the conversation going.

The rule is their parents were foolish,
their children are greedy or insane.

The rule is to make them feel they've come too late.
The trick is that you're willing to make exceptions.

The rule is to assume their parents abused them.
The trick is to sound like the one teacher they loved.

And when they say "too much,"
give them a plan.

And when they say "anger" or "rage" or "love,"
say "give me an example."

The rule is everyone is a gypsy now.
Everyone is searching for his tribe.

The rule is you don't care if they ever find it.
The trick is that they feel they can.

The US Government Just Loves Dictators Too Much To Let Them Go

The Tunisians kicked out their US-backed dictator and the US was completely caught off guard. The Egyptians resisted their US-backed dictator and the US eventually (Dare I say reluctantly?) sided with the protesters. Now the US-backed dictators of Yemen and Bahrain are slaughtering their people while the US makes cynical comments such as, "The US government is opposed to violence on both sides." As if there were two sides. The unarmed pro-democracy protesters are being fired on with live ammunition by the heavily armed US-backed pro government forces.

This first news clip I post reveals the mind set of ruling class Arabs and aspects to US foreign policy strategy. I have a hunch that all elites really are shaking in their boots right now. The US, unlike its monarchical friends, is at least supposed to pretend it supports democracy. Alas, phony rhetoric has a nasty habit of always being seen for what it is.

Lest we forget Libya. The so-called (or once upon a time) revolutionary Mu'ammar Qaddafi does not officially rule Libya. He merely represents it like a mascot cheering on the actual rulers, which are the people themselves. That's in theory anyways. He wrote about all these wonderful ideas in what is called al-Kitab al-Akhdhar, the Green Book. An excerpt from it reads:

The question arises: who has the right to supervise society, and to point out deviations that may occur from the laws of society? Democratically, no one group can claim this right on behalf of society. Therefore, society alone supervises itself. It is dictatorial for any individual or group to claim the right of the supervision of the laws of the society, which is, democratically, the responsibility of the society as a whole.

Perhaps the US government has one thing in common with good ol' Qaddafi, namely, they both use the ideas of democracy to do the exact opposite. Notice the protesters in Libya sharing their thoughts on the Green Book. The Arabs just might teach their corrupt leaders and the US what democracy really means.