A Different Take on Qadhafi: The West as Enablers

The superb Mahgreb blogger The Moor Next Door — who originated the description of Qadhafi's "Stream of Consciousness Foreign Policy" — gives a rather different take on Brother Leader's UN speech: he's at least as hard on the West as he is on the Guide of the Revolution, or more precisely, he sees the West's hunger for Libyan oil as an enabler and legitimizer for Qadhafi's typically Qadhafi-esque behavior (unedited, some typos in the original):

Libya is full of oil and gas and so Western states are willing to abandon most of their principles to get it, he is quite capable of saying and doing most of what he pleases rhetorically, without any real threat of consequence. Qadhafi, who purports to speak for a thing called “Africa,” which used to mean something to big dreamers, was perhaps most successful in drawing world attention away from that continent and offered the African Union’s leaders only a reason to look to their nearest fellow African heads of state and call each other “dunces” for allowing a man who wears outfits in immitation of Michael Jackson videos on state videos, who speaks of “traditional kingdoms” on a continent where such kingdoms barely survive and who uses his country’s wealth to outfit his sons like perfume ads while funding upheaval in all the areas he possibly can. And Americans and Europeans speak with indignation that Qadhafi has been allowed to vomit forty-years worth of rhetoric (for this was his first address to the UN) and to offer a “hero’s welcome” to Meghrahi: this is the result of Western policy. It can be attributed nowhere else but to the greed of the most powerful Western states who have sought to reintegrate him into the world system, in exchange for gas and his abandonment of his nuclear program. To paraphrase a saying of another North African leader, who spoke of reordering the world system, but who lacked the vanity and flamboyance of Qadhafi, the West has sought Libyan oil and cooperation at any cost. And it must be said, though, that Libya is, to the West, not much of a threat, given its complete military incompetence (in its war with Chad, more than twenty colonels were captured by Chad; Colonel is the highest rank in the Libyan armed services) and its enduring marginality in the world beyond Africa, where it would easily be displaced by any reasonably powerful outside power.

No one in the French, Italian or British Foreign Ministry should be surprised with what they’ve got from the Brother Leader. No American leader should be confused. This is Qadhafi and it is what one gets when he deals with Libya. Western gaming on Libyan oil and cooperation has done untold damage to the credibility of the African Union, for it made his leadership acceptable in the eyes of the outside and on the continent; it has deeply dented the moral standing of multiple Western countries, the United States, Italy, France, Britain and others, though it would be curious to find that the leaders of those countries actually cared on either count. the process of “normalizing” Libya, a place that cannot be called “normal” regardless of how much oil or gas it exports, to whom those exports go or however quietly Western leaders make their deals with Qadhafi, has been one that has been beneficial to no person in need: not to the Lockerbie victims, not to the hungry peoples of Africa, not to the Palestinians, not to the Philippine Muslims and not to the Libyan people. It has benefited Qadhafi, his delinquent sons, Western money grubbers and those who commit terrible crimes while the Colonel blusters, Westerners react and Libya sends them money with which to sow mischief. As a wise man once put it: everyone “involved in it should be ashamed” Congradulations to Mr. Qadhafi for getting himself out of the dog house without consequence.

The spectacle of 24 September is that a world of misery will go without any meaningful attention from Western presses, leaders or diplomats and it will have been the fault of everyone involved that serious issues were ignored in favor of continual stupidity and bluster. While the rich may laugh, in rewording Qadhafi for his despotism, murder and gas, Western states have ensured that many peoples’ plight will go without advocacy. Dominated by Libya, Africans will not be heard. As miserable as many African leader may be, few in the biggest and most important states come as close to Mr. Qadhafi in their vulgarity and destructiveness. By letting Qadhafi out of his cage, the wealthiest nations have taken from the peoples of the South any opportunity for a credible and serious admonition of the North and those who continually make times rough for common people. African leaders, too, should be ashamed, but Qadhafi’s horror show could not have happened on their initiative alone. And no African state would be capable of the kind of empowerment that British and American firms have offered the Colonel by their lobbying and fetish with Libyan hydrocarbons. In the West, some commentators will snigger in warm homes and secure societies. But there is nothing to laugh at in any of today’s goings on, lest one finds humor in human suffering and inequality, and the predatory depravity that characterizes the way powerful men in Europe, America and Africa have hidden their greed and lust behind Qadhafi’s mischief. But this, after all, is politics.

Strong stuff. But I suspect at least partially deserved.