Destroying Libya and World Order
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DESTROYING LIBYA DESTROYING LIBYA Political Science • International Law AN D t took three decades for the United States government—spanning and WOR working assiduously over five different presidential administrations (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama)—to terminate the 1969 Qaddafi Revolution, seize control over Libya’s oil fields, and dismantle LD its Jamahiriya system. This book tells the story of what happened, why O it happened, and what was both wrong and illegal with that from the perspective R I D of an international law professor and lawyer who tried for over three decades to ER stop it. Francis Boyle provides a comprehensive history and critique of American TERMINA foreign policy toward Libya from when the Reagan administration came to power Three-Deca THE in January of 1981 up to the 2011 NATO war on Libya that ultimately achieved the US goal of regime change, and beyond. He sets the record straight on the T series of military conflicts and crises between the United States and Libya over the E T Gulf of Sidra, exposing the Reagan administration’s fraudulent claims of Libyan HE QA instigation of international terrorism put forward over his eight years in office. D E U.S. E U.S. Boyle reveals the inside story behind the Lockerbie bombing cases against the DD United States and the United Kingdom that he filed at the World Court for Colonel AFI Qaddafi acting upon his advice—and the unjust resolution of those disputes. C AMPAIGN AMPAIGN R Deploying standard criteria of international law, Boyle analyzes and debunks EVOL the UN R2P “responsibility to protect” doctrine and its immediate predecessor, “humanitarian intervention”. He addresses how R2P served as the basis for the UT ION T NATO assault on Libya in 2011, overriding the UN Charter commitment to O state sovereignty and prevention of aggression. The purported NATO protection in actuality led to 50,000 Libyan casualties, and the complete breakdown of law FRANCIS and order. And this is just the beginning. Boyle lays out the ramifications: the destabilization of the Maghreb and Sahel, and the French intervention in Mali— with the USA/NATO/Europe starting a new imperial scramble for the natural resources of Africa. A This book is not only a classic case study of the conduct of US foreign policy . B as it relates to international law, but a damning indictment of the newly-contrived OY R2P doctrine as legal cover for Western intervention into third world countries. L E ISBN 13: 978-0-9853353-7-3 ISBN 10: 0-9853353-7-3 51895 DESTROYING LIBYA AND WORLD ORDER 9 780985 335373 THE Three-DecaDE U.S. CAMPAIGN TO 978-0-9853353-7-3 • $18.95 TERMINATE THE QADDAFI REVOLUTION FRANCIS A. BOYLE 1 Destroying Libya and World Order spread01.indd 1 2/6/2013 10:51:29 PM 2 “Let the free people of the world know that we could have bargained over and sold out our cause in return for a personal secure and stable life. We received many offers to this effect but we chose to be at the vanguard of the confrontation as a badge of duty and honour. Even if we do not win immediately, we will give a lesson to future generations that choosing to protect the nation is an honour and selling it out is the greatest betrayal that history will remember forever despite the attempts of the others to tell you otherwise.” Muammar Qaddafi* “Qaddafi website publishes ‘last will’ of Libyan ex-leader”, BBC News, 23/10/2011 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15420848> 3 4 DESTROYING LIBYA AND WORLD ORDER THE THREE-DECADE U.S. CAMPAIGN TO TERMINATE THE QADDAFI REVOLUTION BY FRANCIS A. BOYLE CLARITY PRESS, INC. 5 © 2013 Francis A. Boyle ISBN: 0-9853353-7-8 978-0-9853353-7-3 E-book: 978-0-9860362-0-0 In-house editor: Diana G. Collier Cover: R. Jordan P. Santos ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Except for purposes of review, this book may not be copied, or stored in any information retrieval system, in whole or in part, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clarity Press, Inc. Ste. 469, 3277 Roswell Rd. NE Atlanta, GA. 30305 , USA http://www.claritypress.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Last Will and Testament Muammar Qaddafi Introduction / 11 Chapter 1 Using International Law to Analyze American Foreign Policy Decision-Making / 16 Chapter 2 The Confrontation Between the Reagan Administration and Libya over the Gulf of Sidra and Terrorism / 38 Chapter 3 The Reagan Administration’s Criminal Bombings of Tripoli and Benghazi / 66 Chapter 4 Resolving the Lockerbie Dispute by Means of International Law / 106 Chapter 5 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) versus International Law / 154 Chapter 6 The 2011 U.S./NATO War Against Libya / 173 Conclusion / 201 Index / 207 7 8 The Green Book. Inscription Translation: “My appreciation for honorable Francis, salutations Muammar, August 12, 1987” 9 10 “ (translation from the back cover the 1980 English version of The Green Book) The thinker Muammar Qaddafi does not present his thought for simple amusement or pleasure. Nor is it for those who regard ideas as puzzles for the entertainment of empty-minded people standing on the margin of life. Qaddafi’s ideas interpret life as it erupts from the heart of the tormented, the oppressed, the deprived and the grief-stricken. It flows from the ever-developing and conflicting reality in search of whatever is best and most beautiful. Part One of THE GREEN BOOK heralded the start of the era of the Jamahiriya (state of the masses). Part Two inaugurated an international economic revolution which does away with the old economic structures and brings them down on the heads of the exploiters. Part Three of THE GREEN BOOK launches the social revolution. It presents the genuine interpretation of history, the solution of man’s struggle in life and the unresolved problems of man and woman. Equally it tackles the problem of the minorities and the blacks in order to lay down the sound principles of social life for all mankind. The living philosophy is inseparable from life itself and erupts from its essence. It is the philosophy of Muammar Qaddafi.” Introduction INTRODUCTION I have unique experience in Libya. To the best of my knowledge, during the 1980s I was perhaps the only American professor to spend a significant amount of time in Libya because of the serial armed hostilities and the imposition of draconian travel prohibitions and economic sanctions inflicted by the Reagan administration. I spent a sum total of four weeks in Libya on three different trips. In 1985 Libya invited me to conduct a week-long lecture tour and visit. I lectured at universities in Tripoli and Benghazi. I also lectured live on Libyan national television from their studio in Tripoli, and some of my public lectures were broadcasted by Libyan television. During my first trip to Libya, I spent an entire day visiting their museum dedicated to the documentation of the Holocaust that had been perpetrated upon them by Italy. In 1911 Italy had attacked and invaded the territory we now call Libya and proceeded to occupy it until toward the end of the Second World War. During this period of time (1912-1943), Italy exterminated somewhere “between 250,000 and 300,000” Libyans out of a population of somewhere “between 800,000 and 1 million at the time.”1 About one-third of all Libyans. In proportional terms, this approached the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Of course Italy also exterminated Jews and Ethiopians as well as Libyans. These victims included the Italian murder of Libya’s acclaimed national liberation hero and martyr, Omar Muktar. At their request, I would later advise Libya on how to sue Italy over its colonization and outright genocide perpetrated against the Libyans. Protracted negotiations between Libya and Italy eventually led to a settlement of those claims that was concluded between Colonel Qaddafi and Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi in 2008, providing for a $5 billion dollar compensation package to be transferred to Libya over twenty years. This token sum was a mere pittance compared to the actual number of human deaths and the amount of physical destruction that Italy had inflicted upon Libya. Nevertheless, that agreement was treacherously repudiated by Berlusconi during the course of his 2011 11 11 Destroying Libya and World Order war against Libya. Berlusconi’s illegal and despicable act has re-opened Libya’s claims for colonization and genocide against Italy. During my first trip to Libya, I was surprised to see that women were free and empowered to do anything they wanted all over the country. I asked my government-provided translator about this. He advised: “Qaddafi decreed that women are equal to men. The old men don’t like it. But there is nothing they can do about it.” As I can attest from my three trips to Libya, under Qaddafi women held up half the sky in that country. I doubt very seriously that the 2011 US/NATO war will advance the cause of women in Libya. Indeed, Libyan women could very well retrogress from Qaddafi’s days as, undoubtedly, will the general well being of the Libyan population from its standing in the 2010 U.N. Human Development Index.2 In 1987 I returned to Libya for another two weeks after the Reagan administration had bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 and attempted to murder the entire Qaddafi family sleeping in their home at night. I visited all the bombing sites in the Metropolitan Tripoli area and had a tour of the bombed-out Qaddafi home.