The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter-Spring 2011)
The Obama doctrine, the transnational elite and the NATO attack on Libya
JOHN SARGIS
The present war against Libya being carried out by the transnational political and economic elite, certified through their UN office and implemented by the US and NATO militaries, sends the message that the “civilized” world will especially not tolerate a regime which does not do as ordered. The run-up to the aggression against Libya initiates the “Obama doctrine” where America will no longer launch a war alone, but will lead the effort with its international partners to depose outdated friendly and unfriendly dictators. In fact, the Obama doctrine only recognizes formally the existence of a transnational elite and not just of an American Empire, as the reformist Left still talks about. The war declared on Libya to supposedly protect the Libyan people in fact aims to protect the interests and values of capitalist neoliberal globalization and to exploit untapped growth throughout the region. Libya is being forcibly integrated into the globalized market economy and the New World Order administered by the transnational elite (roughly the G7 and the international institutions controlled by it).
Barack Obama, the first US African-American President, has no problem presuming his role to usher North Africa and the Middle East into the market economy and representative “democracy”. Obama sent his callous and pitiless secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who as the third woman holding this office, rallied their international peers at the UN, the Arab League, Italians and especially little men Sarkozy and Cameron, into attacking Libya. The African Union suddenly became irrelevant when it presented a ceasefire that was immediately rejected by the war mongers. The overachiever Clinton does not want to be outdone by her predecessor murderesses, Albright and Rice,[1] who are responsible for some 1.5-2.0 million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan alone. These sordid women have shown for 15 years that they are as much up to perpetual war and criminalities as to their equally repugnant male peers. Clinton reminds us to support the long war, “Let us not forget,” she said, “that the battle to stop al-Qaida and its affiliates does not end with one death…we have to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts, not only in Afghanistan Pakistan and but around the world”.[2]
Undermining sovereign nations (covertly or overtly) is the preferred way for regime change required by the Obama-Clinton imperative and the transnational elite in general.[3] Obama plays a contradictory dual role as both a moral beacon Nobel Peace Prize winner and as commander-in-chief of the military wing of the transnational political and economic elite currently laying waste to Libya. Peace after regime change means a safe segue for the integration of North Africa and the Middle East into the internationalized market economy. In other words the US regime treats the victims of its state sponsor of terror, both dictator and those who struggle for revolution, by confiscating power from those citizens fighting for democracy and replacing the dictator with a market friendly “democratic” regime. Thus the political complement of the market economy, representative “democracy”, represents in fact repressive “democracy” for the people with the appearance of free elections.
Obama, taking the advice of his Pentagon boss Robert Gates to use US creative intelligence to murder Libyans, is deploying remote controlled drone Predators. Prowling for victims! What a fantastic use of creative intelligence! The escalating bombardment of Libya (after the Libyan air force was destroyed) places the “civilized” world decidedly on the side of the “rebels”. To oblige the Libyan “rebel” council Obama slipped his bloody hands into the taxpayers’ pocket and pulled out $25 million, in addition to the billion dollars already spent, to donate to the insurgent cause whatever its motives and goals. Taking the offensive lead Predator robots turn the siege of Libya deadlier, less expensive and (for now) no boots on the ground. Cyberwar renders meaningless the US role as purely supportive. Obama and Clinton were not forced into the war for Libya by the supposed massacre on Benghazi. This war of choice is the end result of a double game. It is the culmination of years funding groups to undermine and destabilize Libya while at the same time befriending Gaddafi, seating Libya at the chair of the UN human rights commission and opening the (highly profitable to big business) armament industry to him. So Obama and Clinton, as good delegates of the political and economic elite with their attraction to and fondness for armed force are carrying out US foreign policy as ruthlessly as their male and female counterparts. Any questioning of policy is quickly quieted while the reformist Left is indirectly supporting the integration of Libya into the New World Order and the internationalized market economy, through its blatant support for the so-called “revolutionaries”, who invited NATO in the first place!.[4]
The speeches the elite make are the same everywhere. Obama in his Libya speech speaks the language of his predecessors. "I’ve made it clear”, he says, “that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests.”. Obama’s and Clinton’s doctrine of expanded counterinsurgency and special ops warfare interferes with the freedom for others’ self-determination. Obama says the military action against Libya “is tightening the noose” around Gaddafi (reminiscent of Bush administration officials boasting about the noose tightening around Saddam’s neck). Imagine an African-American talking about a noose tightening around someone’s neck! Yes, America is post-racist (sic)! Obama’s speech on Libya is redundant. The words are the same, but the actors have changed. The power these transnational gangsters have accumulated tolerates no opposition. Elitist discourse about standing up for and living up to the values of freedom, democracy, equality, justice, the rights of man is a front to safeguard the appearance of higher morals. At the same time though covert meddling in internal affairs of other nations prepares the way for their integration into the New World Order. Justice, democracy, freedom, equality are copyrighted words only to be used in market societies (because they do not mean anything) or else. Human rights are quickly fading while the “civilized” nations are protected by draconian laws.
Obama and Clinton have appropriated Bush’s extrajudicial policies and are proving to be much more dangerous. Gone to the dust bin are arrests, fair trials and the rule of law! The US is a lawless rogue nation and state sponsor of terror whose CIA and secret special ops criminal gangs (more so now that Petraeus will head the CIA) span the globe with no oversight or anyone to bring them to justice. Assassination is legitimate behavior. These organized murderers of state sponsored terror are no less different from those they dub terrorists. The CIA’s paramilitaries are not accountable to any public inquiry and put democracy at a greater risk than any external “enemy”. Totalitarian states, as Hannah Arendt stresses, pour more and more money into secret programs to fulfill the totalitarian wonderland.[5] Enough of transparency!
The Obama doctrine works against autonomy, so the human freedom the US (as the leading military power within the transnational elite) arrogantly claims to defend is a fiction, a façade, because the doctrine instigates trouble in unfriendly regimes and urges restraint and slow baby step changes for friendly dictators and regal autocrats. It is not for democracy that America is developing a risk-free and cost effective counterinsurgency. It is for keeping safe the global economy and representative “democracy” that America has created, a security state with highly classified assassination squads that Obama is keen to expand into any country. Counterinsurgency is not limited to military or paramilitary operations, but also includes political, economic and psychological actions. For example, the US, through NGOs, governmental offices and other institutions builds alliances with and trains thousands of “youth activists” around the world to use the internet to “spread "democracy"” —as if democracy is creamy and smooth. In Libya the youths are influenced and used by the international political and economic elite and their lackey exiles, who have since returned to Libya, to promote marketization and representative “democracy”. Thus the youth are manipulated into believing the revolution is real. The transnational elite are, naturally, no friend to those who rebel for genuine self-determination. These operatives groom the youth to unhesitantly accept the system of the market economy and representative “democracy” as their way of life—a way of life they will eventually find to be as unfree and undemocratic as before the revolution. So, the transnational elite takes out two birds with one stone—a co-opting and indirect controlling of genuine grassroots anger and faking the appearance of regime change.
When Obama clamors, “But when our interests and values are at stake…,” he is asserting the values and interests of the international economic and political elite, not the average American. When Obama and the international criminal elite let fly accusations that Gaddafi was killing civilians and attacking hospitals and ambulances, etc. it sounded like he was describing what the American military was doing and continues to do in bombing cities and villages across Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade. Thus, the US does the exact same thing around the world that they accuse Gaddafi of doing to his people. The Obama doctrine deploys the same old story that might is right.
When Obama and Clinton attempt to convince everyone that the movements of change in the Middle East and North Africa cannot be reversed or halted, and that the US will stand alongside those who struggle for regime change, their act is smoke and mirrors and cannot be believed (now you see change and now you don’t), because the plan is to integrate the whole region into the global market economy and defeat any genuine grassroots revolt, through its cooptation and control It is the elite’s interest to create upheaval overseas which will produce discord, turmoil, commotion and fill the media and particularly social media with news of conflict as a pretext for sanctions, interventions and change, but turning a blind eye to those allies who terrorize their populations. Any character is accepted until their usefulness runs dry. In the current transnational attack on Libya, the demonization of Kaddafi, whom the elite exhort should be “taken out”, suites American values. No capture, no trial. Assassination is fine and dandy and something to be proud of as an American. Assassination as a form of justice is pure vigilantism. Kaddafi has escaped at least three attempts by NATO murder him.
The time is now to reject the organization of society regulated by the market economy and representative “democracy” as this system is not capable of taking care of people’s needs. It is urgent to overthrow the system and remake society based on new genuine democratic institutions. Inclusive democracy offers an anti-systemic alternative to the system that has created the multidimensional crisis we face.[6]
[1] How is it that Condi Rice and Angela Davis who grew up at the same time, in the same community and experienced the same racist bombings and terror opts to be a war criminal terrorist and a revolutionary respectively?
[2] msnbc.com staff and news service reports, “US: "No definitive evidence" that Pakistan knew bin Laden was in compound” (May 5, 2011). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42910533/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden
[3] See Takis Fotopoulos’ article in this issue about limited sovereignty : The Pseudo-Revolution in Libya and the Degenerate Left.
[4] See Takis Fotopulos’ article in this issue about the “degenerate” Left: “The Pseudo-Revolution in Libya and the Degenerate Left”. http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol7/vol7_no1_takis_Libya_part1_pseudo_revolution.html
[5] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1979), pp. 420-421.
[6] Takis Fotopoulos, “The multidimensional crisis and Inclusive Democracy,” (The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, 2005). http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/pdf files/Multidimensional Crisis Book.pdf