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- [00:00]
Andrew Siege
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:04]
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Andrew Siege
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- [01:44]
Podcast Announcer
Call Zone Media.
- [01:49]
Andrew Siege
So by the time you hear this, the situation may have evolved in any number of directions. I'm speaking in the immediate wake of the United States and Israel's brutal invasion of Iran. Thus far over a thousand have been killed, including over 100 schoolchildren and the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In response to this American Israeli aggression, Iran has retaliated by targeting both American bases and civilian and energy infrastructure in the neighbouring countries that have facilitated American presence in the region. With the strategically and economically critical straightforward moods in jeopardy with France, the UK and Germany AKA the usual suspects indicating potential involvement, and with the potential Russian and Chinese involvement also being floated in some circles, it seems to me that without any formal announcement, the war on the world has escalated potentially to A point of no return. Hello and welcome to It Could Happen here. I'm Andrew sage andrewism on YouTube and I'm joined again by James.
- [02:57]
James
Hi, Andrew, how you doing?
- [02:59]
Andrew Siege
As well as I can be.
- [03:01]
James
Yeah. That's about the best we can hope for these days, isn't it?
- [03:04]
Andrew Siege
Yeah. And in a time like this, I want to take a look back at history, particularly how past U.S. interventions have left devastation in their wake. Today I want to look at the fate of Libya, a country still dealing with the simmering tensions following the end of the post intervention civil war. So I suppose we should begin in mid February in 2011 when the Arab Spring was sweeping the Middle east and North Africa. Among the countries caught up in the fervor against the prevailing states was Libya, a North African state ruled for the previous 42 years by the Colonel Muammar Al Gaddafi's government. Masses had taken to the streets across the country, starting in Benghazi. The government had some successes in putting down the revolt, killing hundreds of rebels and demonstrators alike. And some failures as the masses managed to hold position. The people had many motivations, spanning Islamist to democratic, to militant to tribal, to just disaffected against a government intent on its continued survival. Revolutions, uprisings, protests, revolts, they tend to be messy affairs. I'm sure, James, you're well aware of that.
- [04:18]
James
Yeah, yeah. I think it's really easy as like outside observers or when we're looking back at history to be like, oh, this revolution was an Islamist revolution. This was a Marxist Leninist revolution. This one was an anarchist revolution. But every revolution that I have been at, that I have witnessed happening is an everything revolution. When it starts and it later becomes a something revolution. But especially in the Arab Spring in that time, it was just like, we've had enough of being under the boot of these regimes and it was extraordinarily heterodox. And that was quite beautiful in the early days.
- [05:01]
Andrew Siege
Exactly, exactly. The heterodox nature of revolutions is really what I want to drill here because I think it's, it's very easy people to caricatureize and sweep a broad brush and just determine, oh, this is in the case of Iran, people are saying, oh, it's only monarchists. It's monarchists and Zionists going out in the streets when they were protesting, when the situation on the ground is always more complex than that.
- [05:27]
James
Yeah, maybe I'll just take a second to address the like annoying campus tendency. I understand that every time the United States rains down death on some part of the world, it's terrible. Right. It's sad. As you've just said, Andrew, in Iran we've seen a girls school bombed not once but twice. It seems. Right, like what they call a double tap attack. That doesn't mean that your response has to be to support the other people who are killing those same civilians in that same place. It is possible for two things to be bad. And like in Iran. Yeah. There is a monarchist opposition. It sucks. I spoke just this morning to a Kurdish group which is opposing the regime in Iran and they had nothing but bad things to say about the monarchists. Right. They said, this is the Pak, right, the Kurdistan Freedom Party. I'm quoting here. They do not have a foothold in society to actually achieve anything. The lies and delusions of a group of people sitting in nightclubs cannot make any real impact that. You're free to use that one next time someone tells you all the opposition in Iran is monarchist. It's nonsense.
- [06:37]
Andrew Siege
Exactly. I mean, just on its face, it's obviously nonsense. This notion that these people are hive minds, it's really a racist notion that you see popping up again and again.
- [06:48]
James
Yeah, very orientalist.
- [06:50]
Andrew Siege
Yeah. Anytime people step outside and they have something that they're upset about, they just get labeled with this one broad, sweeping ideological moniker, whether they personally subscribe to it or not.
- [07:03]
James
Yeah.
- [07:03]
Andrew Siege
And even within the ideological monikers, there's always a lot of nuance in how people understand those ideologies. You know, no two Islamists are necessarily alike. No two monarchists even are necessarily alike. And those are both ideologies that I absolutely abhor, you know?
- [07:20]
James
Right, Yeah. I don't understand how you can be a leftist and spend your life like, as such and then also think that in other parts of the world people don't want the same things. Like I believe it is inherently human to want dignity and respect and the same for others and to want our communities to govern themselves. And I don't believe that it's any less human if you live in North Africa or the Middle east or South Africa or an island in the Caribbean or an island in the Pacific. I believe it comes from our human nature. And so it strikes me as therefore obvious that there cannot be a country where people's human nature is fundamentally distinct and they're all just like knee jerk monarchists. I wouldn't see the world the way I see it if I was able to believe that.
- [08:08]
Andrew Siege
Yeah, yeah. These movements, they're always composed by the choices and actions of sometimes millions of people, each with their own motivations. And it's easy, particularly in retrospect, to pick particular leaders or organizations as representative of them all. That doesn't make it so. Yeah, one of the things that defined the Arab Spring, as you mentioned, was its leaderless nature. You had neoliberals, you had monarchists, you had socialists, you had, most of all, I would say, people without any ideological commitments at all. The majority of the human population is not ideologically committed one way or the other. Most people are just trying to live their lives and meet their basic needs and they're submerged in a society that lends them towards a particular inclination. But that's not set in stone. Most people in the Arab Spring likely sought just the end of whatever it was that they were suffering under before. And of course, in these kind of incidents, geopolitical actors will choose to back particular factions, lend them credence and prominence according to their geopolitical interests, but don't give them undue credit. You know, during the Cold War, for example, the US would have backed rebellions that they believe would benefit them and vice versa. The USSR backed rebellions that they thought would benefit them. And even today, the US is claiming to care about freedom, but has continued to work with the Saudis who infamously invaded Bahrain to crush the Arab Spring that occurred there. Yeah, and at the time, France's love for democracy didn't exactly match their offer to aid Algeria and Tunisia in putting down their own Arab Springs. Now, as I've been saying quite often pointing out, hypocrisy is kind of a baby's first geopolitical analysis. Right. None of these governments have any consistent values beyond their own interests. But I think it's important to make this kind of heterodoxy in movements clear to contextualize what happened next.
- [10:12]
Podcast Announcer
Let's be honest, buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com that's m-ood.com Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle. And here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at Mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American owned family farms that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly and ready to elevate your mood. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com, that's M-O-Ood.com to get started.
- [11:09]
Andrew Siege
There's a another notion that US intervention is entering these countries during these conflicts to uphold humanitarian aims, to liberate the women or to liberate minorities in that region. The United States, like all the governments, is opportunistic, right? It is taking advantage of often genuine struggles by people to serve its own situational goals without a care for what happens to those people, either openly intervening or covertly intervening. The most obvious recent example is with the Kurds in Syria. At the time, they were convenient to the United States interests until they weren't and they were banned. And this is especially the case when resources like oil come into the picture and Libya is extremely oil rich. So tragically, the west saw this uprising in Libya as an opportunity following a timeline in Encycloplopaedia Britannica. On 19 March 2011, Libya was attacked by the combined forces of the United States, the UK and France. These countries now condemned Gaddafi as an oppressor of the civilians they were swooping in to save. Though for years before the UK and France were selling him weapons, they, alongside their Qatari and Saudi allies, took advantage of the protest to assert their military might. This move was authorised by the UN Resolution 1973 and NATO would soon take command of the operation. While claiming to protect civilians under a responsibility to protect doctrine, they bombed them. An allegedly humanitarian intervention led to the deaths of tens of thousands of a national population of just over 6 million. Key infrastructure was devastated by the NATO Roman campaign and by the struggles between the government and the now armed rebels of the National Transitional Council. A quick note by the way, the NTC appointed themselves as the leaders of the movement and despite the struggle being kickstarted by mostly working and middle class militants, often of an Islamic orientation, the NTC was composed mainly of regime defectors, businessmen and exiles who had a broadly pro Western conservative and free market stance. Some of the elements in Gaddafi's government and military had defected to the rebels and equipped those previously unarmed protestors with firepower. And so up to now we only have estimates regarding the civilian death toll, infrastructural devastation and arbitrary detentions, disappearances and kidnappings carried out by both pro Qaddafi and anti Gaddafi forces. Not to mention the deliberate targeting of black Libyans and sub Saharan African migrants by rebel forces that took place during and after the 2011 war with the claim that they were Gaddafi's hired mercenaries, many of those Africans attempts to escape were met with callous disregard by Europe.
- [14:08]
James
Yeah, callous disregard. It's. I mean, there are no words strong enough to. To express the way I feel about the. The way the European Union has treated migrants in Libya. It is absolutely disgusting and continues to be despicable. Yeah. Have you read Sally Hayden's book about this?
- [14:25]
Andrew Siege
No, I haven't.
- [14:26]
James
It's called My Fourth Time We Drowned. Very good book. Difficult read. I would say it very much is some of the type of reporting that I try and do myself on migration and that it talks about people, not numbers, and it centers migrants as individuals with stories. It's a great book, but probably not one to read right before bed.
- [14:48]
Andrew Siege
I could imagine it sounds heavy.
- [14:51]
James
Yeah, definitely heavy going.
- [14:53]
Andrew Siege
And so following a stalemate between the pro and Gaddafi camps in late spring of 2011, the rebels, assisted by NATO forces, took Tripoli and toppled Gaddafi's government. And the NTC was recognized internationally almost immediately as the legitimate government of Libya. As Matt Will Grass notes in Jacben, on the day Tripoli fell, the New York Times headline, the Scramble for Access to Libya's Oil Wealth Begins was telling. Libya's vast oil reserves, long prized by the west for being the largest in Africa and incredibly close to Europe, were now open to business for foreign investors. As is the case with all imperial interventions, the attempt to get profits flowing for multinational corporations comes long before any ideas of reconstructure, such as essential infrastructure projects or insurance services. And really up to now, that infrastructure has not been established and even access to Libya's oil is not yet secured, even though they allegedly managed to loot some of that oil in 2012. Now, Gaddafi himself fled after the fall of Tripoli, but he was found, NATO bombed his convoy and he was captured alive, then executed by NTC forces in October 2011, after which the war was declared over and the NTC declared Libya an Islamic democracy. In their constitutional declaration, The NTC estimated 30,000 dead, and a UN report from 2012 estimated that more than 900,000 people had to leave the country since February of 2011. Many were not Libyan nationals, but more than 660,000 Libyans also fled, and an estimated 200,000 people had been internally displaced. Continuing with our timeline, in 2012, the NTC handed power over to the General National Congress, or gnc. And despite a formal end to the war, Gaddafi loyalists, local militias and tribes chafed against each other and the gnc. The militias wouldn't disarm, the Gaddafi loyalists continued to fight, and the GNC failed to put forward a new constitution. So in 2014, they were ousted by the newly elected House of representatives. And in 2014, a second civil war would begin in Libya, with the nation split mainly between the House of Representatives, or hor, with its Libyan national army, or lna, based in Tobruk to the east, and their rival made up of mostly Islamists from the former gnc, with their Libya dawn militia based in Tripoli to the west. They didn't win the election, they didn't consider it legitimate because of its low turnout, and they didn't appreciate the amount of former Gaddafi supporters in the new government. So they rose up to fight, claiming to be the National Salvation Government, or nsg. So you have the HOR and you have the nsg. Beyond these two factions, you also had an Al Qaeda affiliated militia and the Islamic State. Both engaged in insurgent struggle around the country, sometimes holding entire cities. Eventually, the two governments came together to sign the lpa, the Libyan Political Agreement to form the Interim Presidential Council and Government of national accord, or GNA, in late 2015. But that attempt at cohesion didn't really work out as the UN backed gna, now based in Tripoli, couldn't consolidate power. By the end of 2016, factions affiliated with the NSG still resisted the GNA and the HOR, still based in Tobruk, refused to endorse the GNA's appointments. So they went from having two competing governments to kinda having three, though the main opposing forces were now the GNA and the hor. The GNA was backed by Turkey, Qatar and the eu, especially Italy and the un, while the HOR was backed by Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and to some extent France, who technically recognized the GNA but also provided support to the HOR for their struggle against the Islamists. The US was also supposed to be back in the gna, but Trump jumped out to praise the HOR at one point. So the U.S. s position was exposed as a lot more ambiguous in practice.
- [19:09]
James
Yeah.
- [19:21]
Andrew Siege
So the GNE and the HOR would keep on struggling against each other for control over the Central bank and oil companies and territory over the years. By the end of one particularly significant offensive in 2019, which saw the country's largest oil field brought under HOR control, the situation was such that the HOR's leverage came from their control over the oil fields, and the GNA's leverage was that it was internationally recognized and could legally sell the oil. GNA leader Fayez Al Siraj and HOR leader Shalifa Haftar seemed to be developing cooperative relations. And In March of 2019, they were supposed to have a national unity conference, but then the HR tried to take Tripoli. Whoopsie. So they kind of had to postpone that conference. The resulting fighting led to the HOR taking Sirte, a major city between Libya's east and west habs. With Turkish support, the JNA successfully repelled the HOR from their Tripoli and the situation was stabilized with a battle line just east of Syrte in 2020.
- [20:24]
James
Yeah, not just Turkish support. Turkey deployed the Syrian National Army, AKA the tfsa, the Turkish Free Syrian Army. They are widely believed to be re badged Islamist. From previous iterations of various Islamist groups in Syria that Turkey has formed into kind of its own proxy force. I mean, I'm sure if you go to their Wikipedia page, there are like 17 million different war crimes listed. Like they are. They are. They are well known for their affinity for war crimes.
- [20:57]
Andrew Siege
Yeah, I can imagine. The fact that Turkey. Turkey's back in them tells me everything I need to know, I think.
- [21:03]
James
Yeah, right, yeah. And they're considered like a deniable proxy. Right. Like they could be like. Turkey can be like, oh, well, that wasn't us, that was these Syrian guys who we happen to arm and equip and run air support for.
- [21:17]
Andrew Siege
Yeah. What is their situation now? Now that Turkey is kind of back in the new government in Syria, they
- [21:23]
James
have largely been folded into the STG's armed forces. So like Abu Hamza is, I think a general or a brigadier, I can't quite remember his rank, but this guy who has been widely condemned, is now a military officer within the STG's Ministry of Defense.
- [21:42]
Andrew Siege
Huh. Okay, so a more accurate description then would be that Turkey sent their war criminal proxies to support the GNA in repelling the HOR from their Tripoli. And the situation stabilized with a battle line just east of Sirte in 2020. And after other attempts to reach an agreement failed, they agreed to share oil revenue, establish a permanent ceasefire, and get both Turkish forces and Russian mercenaries out of the country. So the second civil war was officially over in October 2020. According to reporting by Al Jazeera, the UN initiated a new attempt at a unifying government in 2021, which was approved originally by both rival parliaments, leading to the establishment of the Interim Government of national unity, or GNU, in March 2021, thus replacing the previously UN backed GNA. So we went from GNA to GNU, but then the GNU would be opposed by the HOR, which withdrew from the GNU in September of 2021 and established the Government of National Stability, OR GNS in March 2022. So the GNA was replaced by the GNU and the GNU was now opposed by the GNS. And thus the country remains split in two up to today between the UN backed GNU and the HORS Libyan national army backed gns. And in all of this chaos, the people on the ground have been suffering. They've been suffering human rights abuses, disappearances. Up to recently, the GNU imposed a morality police. And there have been numerous reports about open slave markets in Libya where migrant black Africans are auctioned to the highest bidder. This is a result of human trafficking and debt bondage. So not exactly the same as chattel slavery. But the experience and racial undertones are all too familiar. The suffering in Libya has also spread beyond its borders. Following Gaddafi's fall, the weapons of his military stockpiles ended up in the hands of militants across the Sahel region of Africa and even in Syria. You'll remember in my episode on the situation in Nigeria, some of those weapons ended up in the hands of Boko Haram and other Islamic militant groups in the region. Fulani herdsmen and so on. Tragically, because Libya just can't seem to catch a break at all. September 2023 also saw catastrophic floods devastating the country. The hurricane Strong Storm Daniel caused two dams to burst in the coastal city of Derna, which is within JNS territory in eastern Libya. The flooding killed at least 4,000 people, though potentially even more left thousands missing and displaced more than 40,000 others. The nation still wrought by civil war and still unrecovered from the devastation of the NATO bombing campaign, surely could have mustered a more adequate response to the tragedy if not for those conditions. In fact, it is theorized that the tragedy could have been avoided altogether because according to reports by the Middle East Eye, a Turkish company was supposed to rehabilitate the failed dams, but their works were reportedly interrupted by the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war.
- [25:11]
James
Yeah, it's always the cost of war that we don't count, right? Like if you look at the 2023 earthquake that killed people in Syria and Turkey, right. Undoubtedly that would have done a lot less damage if it hadn't been for the fact that war had been raging in those places for so long. So everything else got put on hold. All the normal infrastructure repair and such that you would expect had to stop because of that war. And that made things like the earthquake worse.
- [25:39]
Andrew Siege
Yeah. I don't think the people who rose up against Gaddafi and fought and died back in February of 2011 had sought this outcome. Unfortunately, in a world dictated by the whims of imperialist powers, this was the end of their actions. I don't want people to get it twisted, though, because in the time since, as people have observed the devastation wrought by these civil wars, there has been an effort to almost whitewash Gaddafi and to limit our vision of possibilities to a binary of either perpetual Gaddafi rule on one end or perpetual civil war on the other end. Those are not the only possibilities. So we've discussed the legacy of NATO intervention which deserves condemnation in this episode, and it should be an indication that further Western invasions and wars are not going to liberate anyone. Yeah, but aside from that accurate analysis of Libya since the fall of Gaddafi, I want to bring in some conversation on the man himself in the next episode. Until then, all power to all the people. This has been It Could Happen Here I've been Andrew Siege Peace
- [27:03]
Podcast Announcer
It Could Happen Here is a production, of course, Cool Zone Media for more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.
- [27:21]
Andrew Siege
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.