The Final Call

Behind the Sound Bites Lies the Hideous Truth

By Gerald A. Perreira -Guest Columnist- | Last updated: Jul 24, 2014 - 1:25:07 PM

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This concoction of insignificant non-entities and murderous gangs parading as “jihadists” are now fighting each other over the spoils of war.

They have been handed a resource rich nation state and are now one of the major supporters of the Islamist death squads throughout the region.

‘It quickly became apparent that the Black face in the White House was the latest addition to White supremacy’s arsenal. Ill-informed and therefore easily misinformed, Obama has committed one foreign policy blunder after another with nightmarish consequences, especially for the Global South.’

Truth be told, Barak Obama is a political dunce. Soon after Obama became the first Black president of the United States, Hugo Chavez presented him with a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s excellent work, Open Veins of Latin America. Obama should have read it.

At that time, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Gadhafi and a number of other revolutionary and progressive leaders saw a glimmer of hope with Obama’s election. It was not that these leaders did not understand the nature of the American political system. Of course, they understood only too well that all talk of U.S. democracy is a sham. They knew that the U.S. political system offers a mere façade of democracy which allows for the rule of capital, and that both Republicans and Democrats are ideological-political expressions of the same ruling class. The ballot box cannot undo the power elite in American society.

They also knew that Obama was a political neophyte—a novice on the global stage—but a seemingly intelligent one, at least that’s how it appeared back then. It seemed that he might have the empathy and intelligence to listen and learn. Unfortunately he did not, and the rest is history. At that moment, soon after his election, when he appointed an array of advisors with connections to all manner of nefarious forces, including well-known Zionists, the hope faded.

Obama chose drones over his promise of diplomacy and dialogue, and chose to appease the forces of White supremacy, over his promise to bring about meaningful change.

It quickly became apparent that the Black face in the White House was the latest addition to White supremacy’s arsenal. Ill-informed and therefore easily misinformed, Obama has committed one foreign policy blunder after another with nightmarish consequences, especially for the Global South.

When Obama made the fallacious comment that “Gadhafi had lost all credibility and that he must go,” it was obvious that he was being fed misinformation by deceptive forces bent on redesigning Africa and the Arab world.

Under his presidential watch, even morons like John McCain have thrived rather than being discredited, and have been used to galvanize support for the Obama’s incoherent and irrational foreign policy.

Muammar Gadhafi “Democracy means, literally, the authority and sovereignty of the people—the entire people. It is not a monolithic product as the West would like us to believe.” Muammar Gadhafi

Recently I heard a sound bite that went like this, “Libya is in chaos as the armed militias that overthrew Gadhafi wage war on each other.” Notice how the pro-imperialist media conveniently remove the mass murderers in Britain, the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the equation, even though it is crystal clear that without their intervention in Libya, the Jamahiriya could never have been overthrown, precisely because there was never a popular uprising against Gadhafi and the revolution. 

Even former Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, in a statement he made during a meeting of his party, Forza Italia, was forced to admit: “This has nothing to do with a popular uprising. The Libyan people love Gadhafi, as I was able to see when I went to Libya … Powerful people decided to give life to a new era by trying to oust Gadhafi.”

The fact is, there was a popular uprising in support of Gadhafi and the Jamahiriya and against the invaders. This has become even clearer in the aftermath of the invasion, as more than 2.5 million Libyans have been forced to flee their country, and this is only the number of those who have been documented at border crossings and by refugee organizations.

The real figures are much higher.

When you consider that the total population was 6 million prior to the invasion, you then realize how devastating the situation has become.

Libya is in chaos and the suffering is tangible. Imagine in the recently held elections, only 630,000 people turned out to vote. That is not a low show—that is a no show.

Gadhafi really did create a Jamahiriya—translated as a state of the masses. The Libyan people stayed away from the polls in droves—it was probably the most impressive election boycott in history.

As Gadhafi outlined in The Green Book, “Democracy means, literally, the authority and sovereignty of the people—the entire people. It is not a monolithic product as the West would like us to believe.”

Authority of the People certainly does not exist in the U.S. or Europe.

Michael Parenti, in his ground-breaking work, Democracy for the Few, pointed out the framers and shapers of the U.S. constitution, people like Elbridge Gerry, Alexander Hamilton and even George Washington, were all contemptuous of democracy. Gerry is on record referring to democracy as “the worst of all political evils.” Alexander Hamilton advocated for a strong state to “check the imprudence of democracy.” And Washington, who once traded an African slave for a barrel of molasses, cautioned those who were drafting the constitution not to produce a document to please the people.

The entire U.S. political system is a sham, not just today but from its inception, and every country has the right and should be prepared to defend their gains and national dignity against re-colonization in the guise of their fallacious notions of “multi-party democracy,” “human rights” and “rule of law.”

It is important to note that the so-called rebels never won a single battle during the invasion of Libya; everything was handed to them on a platter by the imperialist ground and air forces. With the overthrow of the Jamahiriya and the murder of Muammar Gadhafi, this bizarre concoction of monarchists, thugs parading as Jihadists and other reactionary forces are now at each other’s throats. They most definitely have no clue as to how to put together a plan to re-build and govern Libya.

What has resulted from the overthrow of the Libyan Jamahiriya is so hideous that even the imperialists don’t have the stomach for it. Libya hardly gets a mention now—the odd sound bite here and there. And anyway, who cares? Now that Gadhafi and the Jamahiriya are gone and Africa is once again a playing field for all and sundry, the mission is accomplished.

Gadhafi’s extensive popularity and influence throughout Africa, along with the fact that Libya was prepared to throw its economic might behind the Pan-African project, acted as a bulwark to all who wanted to lay their hands on Africa’s resources. And that is just about everyone. Even the Saudis and Qataris are buying up large tracts of African land to grow food and ensure their food security into the future. As I have said in so many previous articles, every modern, high-tech society must have access, one way or the other, to African resources. It is estimated that if access was to stop for even two weeks, the so-called developed world would grind to a halt. Rather than embracing this position of African power and strength, something Gadhafi tried to convince the continent’s leaders to do, they chose instead to prostrate themselves before their erstwhile colonial masters. Unfortunately, African countries, with a few exceptions, are governed by neo-colonial elites who pay lip service to Pan-Africanism and African unity. Rather than opposing this new wave of re-colonization they are actually acting as facilitators at worst, and at best, hopeless and helpless in the face of it.

Let us not commit the same error as the imperialist media and take White supremacy out of this equation. The great African leaders and movements of our time, who have fought for the true independence, dignity and unification of Africa, have been stalked and preyed upon by Western intelligence agencies and eventually have almost all been overthrown, murdered and/or demonized. There are too many to mention here. So let us not fall into the white lie that somehow “African regimes are all corrupt and oppressive.” The fact is that every time, and there have been countless times, that a progressive regime comes to power anywhere in Africa or for that matter any part of the Global South, the imperialist mission is “Regime change by any means necessary.” And this entails backing anyone who can do the job, including throat slitting “Jihadists” in Africa and the Arab world, to fascist outfits in Venezuela.

This is why they can be supporting and equipping the Islamists in Syria against the Assad regime on the one hand, while frantically talking with Nouri al Maliki about how to destroy the same group in Iraq on the other. Henry Kissinger put it in a nutshell when he uttered the now infamous dictum: “We have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies—we only have permanent interests.”

Of course, none of this is new—they have always operated this way. Western imperialism, by its very nature, has worked closely with extreme right-wing and fascist forces in every corner of the globe against revolutionary regimes and movements. In the high-tech age, the Empire has simply widened and deepened its dragnet, perfecting its surveillance and propaganda techniques, in its now desperate attempt to stay in control. However, no matter what the Empire does—none of dem can stop da tide. It is plain for all to see that the sun is setting on this Empire. The U.S. and Europe’s influence in world affairs is waning faster than they can do damage control.  They now want to talk to Iran but Iran does not want to talk to them without conditions. How the tables can turn. And U.S. Secretary of State Kerry is pleading with the Kurds to prevent what he is referring to as “the collapse of Iraq.” Surely he knows that Iraq collapsed a long time ago. Even U.S. support for the neo-Nazis in the Ukraine is back-firing on them. In their attempt to undermine and discredit Russia and Vladimir Putin, they have rather strengthened their hand.

Sometimes the enemy can be the best teacher.

“Propaganda becomes ineffective the moment we are aware of it,” so stated Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s propaganda minister.

I doubt that anyone, anywhere, does not see through the lies, deception and blatant hypocrisy emanating from Western capitals. Their propaganda has, as Goebbels suggests, worn completely thin. The less obvious issue is how are we to deal with the new set of events that have emerged with the overthrow of the Libyan Jamahiriya.

(Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG) and International Secretary for ARM (African Revolutionary Movement). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli. This is part one of a two-part series.)