Libya is in rubble and ruin, and wracked by civil war.
It wasn’t always like that.
Before it was destroyed by the Libyan War, launched in 2011 by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and Prime Minister of England David Cameron, it was the most prosperous nation in Africa.
The nation’s infrastructure, which was one of the most advanced in the region, was severely damaged by the U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign. Sitting on the world’s ninth largest oil reserves and also rich in mineral deposits, Libya’s strategically long Mediterranean coastline has long been a key target for foreign interests… and it still is.
Bad Times Getting Worse
Since 2014, the country has been divided between the Government of National Accord (GNA), endorsed by the United Nations as the legitimate government, and the Libyan National Army (LNA) rebel faction in the eastern part of the country led by former CIA operative Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
While the GNA’s ruling government in Tripoli primarily is backed by Turkey, which has an agreement to extract some of the country’s oil reserves, the rebel factions have the support of Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
As for the United States, while President Trump initially stated in 2017 that he was not going to get involved, in April of last year, it was revealed he had a phone conversation with Haftar and later commended his “significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources.”
Over the past months, Field Marshal Haftar’s forces have failed to successfully take over the capital, pushed back by the GNA with substantial military aid from Turkey.
The Heat Is Turned Up
Last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a threat to deploy military forces into Libya if the GNA tries to seize the Mediterranean port city of Sirte, an important strategic gateway to oil reserves that is now controlled by the LNA.
In a statement released last week, the LNA accused Turkey of trying to occupy its territory. Over the past few weeks, Turkey has supported GNA forces against Field Marshall Haftar, including air power, ground weapons, and troops from Syria.
Last Wednesday, after appearing publicly with Egyptian President al-Sisi, Haftar raised the stakes in the ongoing Libyan conflict when he stated he would “welcome” the Egyptian military to intervene on his faction’s behalf.
Last Friday, Tukey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned UAE backing of Haftar’s forces as “piratical,” and that “steps taken by Egypt here, especially their siding with the putschist Haftar, show they are in an illegal process.”
As previously reported in the Trends Journal, on 19 January of this year, a global summit was held in Germany in which major world leaders agreed to cease supplying weapons to the warring parties in Libya.
That pledge was quickly broken. Since the global summit, the geopolitical situation has become more dangerous. Last Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the Libyan situation had entered a new phase “with foreign interference reaching unprecedented levels.”
TREND FORECAST: As we go to press, it is reported that GNA troops are moving closer to Sirte in an effort to take over Libya’s main oil terminals.
Absent in the news is the fact that U.S.-led and supported wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, etc., primarily are responsible for the flood of refugees into Europe who are fleeing to escape the pillage and carnage that has devastated their nations.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Also absent in mainstream media coverage is that prior to the French, U.K., and U.S.-led overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s GDP per capita and life expectancy were the highest on the continent. Unlike today, with the nation ravaged in destruction, before Gaddafi was murdered, fewer citizens lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands, and they had free healthcare, free education, free electricity, and interest-free loans.
But now, when writing about the war-torn, oil-rich country, newspapers such as the New York Times ignore the fact that life was much better for Libyans under Gaddafi’s rule and, instead, refer to what’s going on as a “nasty civil war,” and “a mess”… never mentioning those, such as their beloved Barack Obama, who created it.
