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Libyan Crisis (2011–present)

conflicts in Libya from 2011 onwards

The Libyan Crisis is the current humanitarian crisis and political-military instability occurring in Libya, beginning with the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which led to two civil wars, foreign military intervention, and the ousting and death of Muammar Gaddafi.

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  • The assassination of the Austrian crown prince by a Serbian nationalist was the trigger for the conflict, not the underlying cause, comparable in modern times to the explosions of 9/11 that provided the pretext for the war on Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Syria and the Yemen and the total destabilisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The post 9/11 wars have lasted longer than the First and Second Wars put together.
    • Tariq Ali, The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution (2017)
  • We are Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians, the people of various professions (mainly doctors), working in Libya for more than a year. During this time, we became well acquainted with the life of the Libyan people and state with few citizens of other nations living in this social comfort, as the Libyans. They are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious. Today, the people are suffering. In February, the peaceful life of the people was violated by gangs of criminals and insane drugged youth – whom the Western media for some reason called “peaceful demonstrators”. They used weapons and attacked police stations, government agencies, military units – resulting in bloodshed. Those who direct them, pursue a clear objective – to create chaos and establish control over Libya's oil. They misinformed the international community, and said that the Libyans are struggling against the regime. Tell us, who would not like such a regime?
    • Bordovsky S., et. al. Open Letter From Russian Doctors In Libya To The President Of The Russian Federation (March 2011)
  • The brief visit of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Libya in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi.... US-NATO intervention was allegedly undertaken on humanitarian grounds, after reports of mass atrocities; but human rights organizations questioned the claims after finding a lack of evidence....
    Before 2011, Libya had achieved economic independence, with its own water, its own food, its own oil, its own money, and its own state-owned bank. It had arisen under Qaddafi from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in Africa. Education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right; and Libyans participated in an original system of local democracy. The country boasted the world’s largest irrigation system, the Great Man-made River project, which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas; and Qaddafi was embarking on a program to spread this model throughout Africa. But that was before US-NATO forces bombed the irrigation system and wreaked havoc on the country.
  • Of the 3,000 emails released from Hillary Clinton’s private email server in late December 2015, about a third were from her close confidante Sidney Blumenthal, the attorney who defended her husband in the Monica Lewinsky case. One of these emails, dated April 2, 2011, reads in part: Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver . . . . This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA). In a “source comment,” the original declassified email adds: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion... Conspicuously absent is any mention of humanitarian concerns. The objectives are money, power and oil.
  • Aggression has been committed, and the country's leadership, not only Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. And how was he killed? Well, if they had shot him in a battle, it's one thing, but they humiliated and tormented him, they shot at him, they violated him when he was wounded, they twisted his neck and arms, and then they tortured him to death. It's worse than the Nazis once did. Besides, the United States, Italy, France and Germany have up to $150 billion of Libyan money now. They are very interested to grab this wealth. Everything will be even worse in Libya, because it has colossal deposits of resources, and everyone has rushed there to grab those riches.
  • Probably failing to plan for, the day after, what I think was the right thing to do, in intervening in Libya.
  • The attack on Iraq... Libya... Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country. Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education...with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post... While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless women, including the right to life. In 2011, Libya, then a modern state, was destroyed on the pretext that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit genocide on his own people. That was the incessant news; and there was no evidence. It was a lie... In fact, Britain, Europe and the United States wanted what they like to call “regime change” in Libya, the biggest oil producer in Africa. Gaddafi’s influence in the continent and, above all, his independence were intolerable. So he was murdered with a knife in his rear by fanatics, backed by America, Britain and France. Hillary Clinton cheered his gruesome death for the camera, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died!”... The destruction of Libya was a media triumph... According to its own records, NATO launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads... The Unicef report on the children killed says, “most [of them] under the age of ten”. As a direct consequence, Sirte became the capital of ISIS.
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