"If we refuse to investigate the truth ourselves...it is because we are afraid. Afraid of seeing our true faces naked.”

Jean-Paul Satre

It is a wonder the Western left still have any credibility. How many times must it learn the same lesson? The British State and Western foreign policy operate on a plane devoid of morality. To apply moral logic to amoral situations is to fall into the honey trap of modern propaganda. A lion doesn’t eat a gazelle because it finds it morally justifiable, but for survival.

The West does not operate in the global sphere for any other reason but to maintain the cycles that perpetuate their system; a system the Western left are supposed to be opposed to at root. Instead, once again, they have found themselves being the cheerleaders for empire; singing from its hymn sheet and even writing its slogans.

"The elite establishment does not change the world by their compassion, they never have. All progress has come from force."

As any Third World historian knows, Western history progresses through compromises made to retain power, reforming to conserve. The elite establishment does not change the world by their compassion, they never have. All progress has come from force. Changes are made to placate the internal masses or maintain general global positioning. As CLR James wrote “The anniversary orators and the historians supply the prose poetry and the flowers (1937; 51).”

The Arab uprisings have forced movement on the part of the West. In Egypt and Tunisia they have been forced to make concessions and are bartering like crazy to ensure that the “stability” of the status quo is maintained. However, with sacrifice comes opportunity. The bitter Neo-Cons, who from the Tory backbenches lambasted Blair for treason when he bridged the gap between Britain and Gaddafi’s Libya, got their chance to right Blair’s wrong and secure resources in North Africa. The force came from the teetering of the Gulf regimes, but it would not be wrong to label it as utter opportunism; a vendetta that historical forces created the conditions for. Libya represents a happy marriage between imperial conquest and a circus distraction to blind us all to the real struggle for the Gulf (see Chandan, 2011).

Britain, the mastermind of this intervention, has expropriated the legitimate grievances of the Libyan people and crowned the People’s leadership CIA and Mi6 supported groups from Eastern Libya. Miscalculating and embarrassing themselves the whole way, the British have pulled the ever concerned and compassionate “International Community” into a ludicrously ill conceived intervention. The American distance that has been stressed and the opposing position of Germany are major signals that this is a French and British policy, not supported and endorsed by all. The top US military officials predict a war of attrition that is not worth fighting.   

"Liberals support the conquest; aware as they are of their governments contradictions and ill intentions, finding morality in the amoral/immoral."

John Pilger was not wrong when he said “David Cameron and George Osborne are essentially fossilised spivs who, in colonial times, would have been sent by their daddies to claim foreign terrain and plunder”, apart from the fact he spoke of their colonialism in the past tense. “Claiming foreign terrain and plundering” is just what they attempting to do, and with the moral support of the masses. A tsunami of propaganda has flooded the press; appealing to the “compassions” of the nice British liberals; “masking the true intention” (Jacques Ellul; 1965, 58-9). Liberals support the conquest; aware as they are of their governments contradictions and ill intentions, finding morality in the amoral/immoral. The abstract liberal discourse of human rights, vulnerability and suffering endorses any act that seeks to ameliorate general badness. These people are suffering and somebody is helping them!

Therefore, our “crusade”, as Putin labelled it, is good.

The question of why these Libyans are suffering is never answered. We are kept in the dark even as to who they are. All we know is that they are “a poorly defined group of mutually hostile and suspicious tribes and factions that have failed to coalesce, at least so far, into a meaningful military force.” (Freidman, 2011)  Why these Libyan’s mean more than the ones that will be killed by bunker busters or starvation though sanctions is not addressed. What makes Libyan life so much more important than Pakistani, Palestinian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Afghani, Saudi or Bahraini life? Let alone the black Libyans getting lynched by their Arab brethren on the streets of Benghazi.

"When the mud-slinging of Gaddafi started, his Stop the War coalition marched and protested outside the Libyan Embassy."

Let no one forget that Cameron managed to harpoon Gaddafi while selling arms to Gulf regimes now brutally murdering their own citizens. Andrew Murray made a profound and astute observation when he said “Some humans are more in need of humanitarianism than others, apparently, and if you are rebelling against the wrong dictator you are bottom of the heap”. But Murray’s analysis should not be praised blindly. When the mud-slinging of Gaddafi started, his Stop the War coalition marched and protested outside the Libyan Embassy. When Cameron was banging the war drum, members of StW Coalition were occupying Saif Gaddafi’s mansion and were still there when their government invaded and may even be there now. Suddenly they may feel a little foolish. When bombs are being dropped by British jets and SAS troops are on the ground – the British left and anti-war movement are calling for the “Toppling of the Tyrant”- but are anti-intervention?  Groups, who genuinely do know a thing or two about Western imperialism, are acting like a moth towards a light. On song with empire until the bombing starts - just like the Arab league.

Libya has been a litmus test for the British left. Not even 10 years after Iraq and none of the lessons have been learnt. Very few who profess their anti-imperial credentials actually are. Halon’s razor states: “never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity”. At the very least, demean yourself as stupid if you professed anti-imperialism but supported the moral crusade against Gaddafi’s Libya. Yet, to label it naivety is just too easy. It is not naivety which implies innocence. Rather, it is complicity.

"The stirring of public opinion can bring down governments. We personally must be accomplices to the crimes that are committed in our name, since it is within our power to stop them. We have to take responsibility for this guilt which was dormant in us, inert, foreign and demean ourselves in order to bear it."

- Jean-Paul Sartre
“You are Wonderful”