The Inter-imperialist Confrontation in Libya

In Tripoli in early September 2011, a procession of mounted Berber soldiers, maintaining the same tradition of military parades as under the Rais, marched into the renamed “Martyr’s Square” to celebrate their conquest of the city and the overthrow of the regime, attested to by the victory of the polyhedric National Transitional Council (CNT).

The cessation of hostilities was however not declared until a month later, following the defeat of the last pockets of resistance in Bani Walid and Sirte, and in particular after the death of Gaddafi, clearly eliminated to prevent him from appearing in court and revealing the shady international intrigues around the Libya affair, which we won’t go into here.

Even the experts in military strategy don’t know how to categorise the war which has just taken place; it is of a new type, they say, which required different relationships between states, different command structures, different networks of communication, etc.

It wasn’t a war that was declared between states, despite the considerable number of participants. It wasn’t even a popular uprising sparked off by extreme impoverishment of the general population, as was the case in the neighbouring countries of the South Mediterranean coast. As a matter of fact, Libya is relatively wealthy, and half of the low paid jobs at the time of the uprising were being filled by immigrant labourers from the neighbouring countries and from Asia. There was a crisis, but not severe enough to generate an armed revolt on the scale we have just seen.

The power relations and social struggles in the Maghreb were different from those in Libya and were resolved in different ways. In Tunisia, the dictator Ben Ali, weighed down with gold, fled the country after the first violent clashes. Meanwhile, Muburak immediately clamped down on the widespread demonstrations in Cairo but was then sacrificed to prevent the oppressed classes and the proletariat of Egypt from spreading their strikes, and eventually forming an autonomous organisation, which would then have had to confront the pre-existing politico-religious formations. In both of these countries the ruling bourgeois classes have managed, “by changing everything in order to change nothing”, to regain, for the time being, control of the situation. In response to these class struggles we have denounced, in line with our communist position, the lack of genuine proletarian organisations capable of taking over the leadership of the movement; here as well our class got involved and was used to obtain the objectives which weren’t its own, even if nothing has yet reached a definitive conclusion.

Whereas in Egypt there was no armed foreign intervention, in Libya armed bombardments by the French air force took place almost immediately. The Libyan situation has more in common with Iraq and the hunt for Saddam Hussein than its neighbouring countries, in which there was no disembarkation of troops or any wish to destroy the political and governmental infrastructure. What we have just witnessed isn’t a civil war between the gathering forces of opposed political parties, open or clandestine, because there simply weren’t any of any relevance; and the CNT, created on the spur of the moment, can’t be viewed as a political party due to its extreme lack of homogeneity.

Why the European powers in Libya decided to recognise the CNT so quickly was, above all, an attempt to ensure the continuous flow of oil and to cause minimum disruption to pre-existing economic arrangements.

Although no political power within Libya actually called for military intervention from outside, the “humanitarian saviours” of “Operation Odyssey Dawn” nevertheless arrived in force with a display of military might and cutting edge technology which was clearly out of all proportion to the facts on the ground. Each “saviour” had his own immediate objectives, but they also all shared two in common: getting their hands on Libyan oil, and, the resisting of any encroachment into the North Africa economies, above all by the Chinese; given Beijing’s persistent search for sources of energy, raw materials and markets for its ravenous economy.

To say this flexing of muscles will probably lead to an inter-imperialist military conflict in Libya in the near future would be rash, but it does serve as a warning. The fact that China has always declared itself opposed to the intervention isn’t for no reason at all, but to protect its lucrative contracts. One thing is for sure, it certainly wasn’t an expression of a “communist” country’s solidarity with the Libyan proletariat.

To say this massive military machine was deployed just to get rid of Gaddafi’s regime and remove his clan from power is simply not convincing. It seems far more likely – and this has been confirmed by subsequent revelations – that it was all planned in advance with France taking the initial lead.

Already on October 21st 2010, the colonel would be betrayed by his most trusted man, Nouri Mesnari, who wanted a change of regime, even if merely an institutional one and of direct advantage to himself. Indeed, following his flight to Paris, the military information he revealed would come in such profusion that he was nicknamed ‘Wikileaks’ by the French services. In Benghazi on November 18th, French agents attached to a trade mission would meet Abdallah Gerani, a colonel in the Air Force, who was ready to desert. On discovering the betrayal of his faithful collaborator, Gaddafi asked France to deport Mesnari, who instead granted him political asylum. On December 23rd three Libyans were welcomed to Paris: Faraj Charrant, Fathi Bourkhris and Ali Mansouri, important exponents of the group which would later lead the revolt. After Christmas, the first logistical and military support arrived in Benghazi. The revolt must have been planned in Paris with the help of Mesnari at about the same time the Libyan secret services found out about Colonel Gerani and arrested him on 22 January 2011. In early February the English and American instructors in the use of heavy artillery and missile launchers are supposed to have arrived.

On the 17th of that month the revolt broke out in Cyrenaica. Meanwhile, in confirmation of this reconstruction, the news broke that other members of the government and various ambassadors had resigned and distanced themselves from Gaddafi, as though a kind of parallel government and parallel diplomacy was already in place. The rest can be found in the newspapers.

According to the pre-arranged plan the intervention would come to an end on 27 June. It was expected that the revolt would receive massive support from the general population, that there would be mass desertions in the Libyan army and from its command structure, and support would come from the various tribal organisations in the hinterland. But this didn’t materialise. It seems that most of the population stood back, an attitude which was surely due to the fact that, when the revolt suddenly appeared like a bolt out of the blue and the bombs started to rain down, there was absolutely no political opposition of any sort firm rooted amongst the people. After an initial disbandment the army reorganised itself, but had to fall back in the face of greater fire power. Having later regrouped in the desert it was expected they would soon succumb but this took longer than expected. These errors of evaluation and various merely partial victories meant the coalition was forced to extend its onerous duty by more than 90 days, up to 27 September 2011.

As concerns the incredible display, on both fronts, of the most advanced and up-to-date weapons and guidance systems, it is worth recalling that after the lifting of the embargo imposed on Libya between 1986 and 2004, the Rais launched a major programme of modernisation and strengthening of Libya’s military potential, propelled not least by his ambition to become the leading figure in a new North African federation. The arms manufacturers of whatever country, friends or otherwise, egged him on, guaranteed as they were by the substantial oil revenue, supplemented by extra income from the “parallel market”. In this type of business, the banning of the sale of weapons to a ‘rogue state’ prompts two reactions: firstly, it favours competition from other countries, secondly, it makes it difficult to make an accurate assessment of the enemy’s arsenal. However, it is one thing to sell light arms and munitions, in which Italy has a primary global role, and another to sell the increasingly complex weapons systems which need a continuous, technically informed “after sales service” to ensure that personnel are trained, and the ongoing maintenance and supply of replacement parts which are far more difficult to come by in the parallel market. Putting a block on such services has always been a form of control and blackmail over the “destination client”.

The USSR, now Russia, has always been Libya’s main arms supplier, and as recently as 2010, with delivery set for 2011-12, it drew up a 1.8 billion dollar contract with Libya for the supply of next generation Flanker fighter-bombers, 80 land-to-air missile systems, 1.3 billion dollars worth of armoured vehicles, and if we add to this the heavy armour provided by satellite countries, the contract was worth 4 Billion in all. And herein lays the explanation, at least in part, of Russia’s opposition to NATO’s intervention and involvement in military operations.

Lagging behind in the arms sales stakes are France, Italy, China. In fact 28 countries in all, big and small, supply Libya with arms, with neighbouring Malta carrying out the role of third party through which much of this triangular traffic flows. And as far as Britain is concerned, an agreement it signed on 27 May 2007 to supply Libya with missiles and air defence systems is probably the ‘back story’ to the image of Blair and Gaddafi, shaking hands and flashing radiant smiles, which popped up with great frequency in the British media’s coverage of the war.

Over the years, good business relations have developed between Italy and Libya in the arms trade, and Italian sales would rise from 15 million in 2006 to around 57 million in 2007. Along with the “friendship, cooperation and partnership treaty”, signed in Benghazi in 2008 by Berlusconi and Gaddafi, other contracts were signed, which for Finmeccanica alone produced earnings of 250-300 million dollars and future orders worth 800 million. A major turning-point in Italy-Libya arms sales, celebrated by the arrival in Rome of the Rais, occurred in September 2009 when there was a formalisation of the acquisition of an significant portion of Finmeccanica by a Libyan government holding company, which thus became the second largest proprietor of this strategic company which produces large-scale armaments such as ships, aircraft and armoured vehicles. On the same occasion the sale of war materials was authorised by other companies in the sector such as Benelli, Beretta, Oto Melara with sales totalling 8 million euros. Not long afterwards, SELEX Sistemi Integrati S.p.A, the company of the wife of the Managing Director of Finmeccanica, would sign a 300 million euro contract for the construction of a radar and missile security and protection system along the Chad Libya border.

Italian capitalism is well known for its double-dealing and this occasion provided yet more evidence: on the one hand the “suspension” of the Treaty of friendship (between plunderers) was the premise for transferring these juicy contracts to the CNT, with whom the foreign minister Frattini ‘got into discussions’ to make sure they’d kick in again once peace was declared; on the other hand, Italy hasn’t been able to wriggle out of its commitments as a NATO country. Nothing new there as far as diplomacy and trade is concerned.

The most complex of the Weapons systems can expect to fetch higher prices and gain access to wider markets if they can be advertised as ‘tested in combat’. Conflicts which are local and of short duration, but of ever increasing intensity, have always served as the testing grounds for all types of weapon in the lead up to the great world wars, the Spanish Civil War being one of the most notable examples. And since there is almost always some such conflict taking place somewhere in the world, they provide a convenient opportunity to ‘field test’ the continual modifications and improvement being made to armaments. We need only think of the continual evolution of the drones, the small pilot-less remote controlled aircraft which have gone from being simple means of aerial observation to long range weapons equipped with rockets; and which, having given constant proof of their effectiveness during the interminable conflict in Afghanistan, have now gone on to be sold elsewhere.

Thus did Sweden grab the opportunity of the war in Libya to test the new Gripen (Griffin) fighter jet manufactured by SAAB, base price 60 million euros; although the Rafale French Multi-role jet fighter stole a march on it by carrying out its first mission a few hours before the agreement in Paris between the countries participating in the mission had actually been signed off. Commenting on this, the co-director of the Institute for Strategic and International Relations in Paris stated: “The decision to carry out the first attack was political and not tactical, and produced the secondary effect of giving the Rafale major visibility”. Indeed the media gave widespread coverage to images of the attack on the one Libyan plane which was actually hit, after a pursuit and aerial battle, by a Rafale. Dassault, the French company which makes the Rafale, boasts about its marvellous product, but after the 300 examples acquired by the French government, its sales have ground to halt, having failed in the competitive tenders for this type of equipment in Asia, Africa and South America, and thereby obviously creating major problems in terms of recuperating investments and lost earnings.

The rest of the operations in the air, most of which were filmed and distributed through all the television networks, were carried out using the classic Tornadoes, which are more adaptable, less technological and benefit from well trained crews. The greater the complexity of a system, the greater the number of personnel needed to keep it functioning. We need only consider that the deploying of the few dozen English Typhoons (European Fighter Aircraft) for “superior air patrols” requires the input of at least 100 technicians.

The list of armaments is considerable and we will leave it at that; basically everyone had weapons systems they wanted to try out, and this is a consequence of a notable acceleration in the arms race and of increases in military expenditure, which, incidentally, are confirmed in the relevant statistics which the party continues to analyse on an ongoing basis.

In terms of gigantism and hypertrophic systems, naturally the most impressive role is played by the USA, who are putting into practice their doctrine of “Shock and Awe”, namely, intimidating the enemy with a massive display of imposing military organisation. Certainly nothing any army would consider a great novelty.

Their new supercarrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, considered the biggest mobile military base in the world, embarked on its maiden voyage to the Mediterranean after receiving its “certificate of readiness for combat operations” only a month before combat operations commenced in Libya. To give an idea of the scale of the operation we should point out that the George H.W. Bush Strike Group 2 is a combination of at least 10 naval units of various types, including possibly nuclear submarines, with a total crew of 7,500. The nuclear air craft carrier alone has four and a half hectares of deck space (45 thousand square meters), which is equivalent to 7 football pitches, 5,500 crew, and it can carry up to 90 aircraft and helicopters. It cost 6.2 billion dollars back in 2009.

The limited, targeted intervention in Libya was preceded by Exercise Saxon Warrior, a major naval exercise off the South Coast of England with 26 ships from 6 countries. In view of the programme and execution of this exercise, which went way beyond contingent events in Libya, and the enormous display of force, many considered it as a preparation for operations on a far greater scale and indicative of a possible military escalation, which could be extended beyond the Libyan borders to the whole of the South Mediterranean.

But this enormous muscle-bound giant would from then on be set in motion by an uncoordinated brain, and produce results falling well short of expectations. Impatient France was well aware that without the support of the American electronic command systems, the AWACS radar invisible aircraft and the cruise missiles, there wasn’t a lot they could do. Great Britain, in order to employ dozens of Tornadoes in Libya had to leave half of its air fleet at home without spare parts and suspend flights of its missile defence interceptors. The United States Africa Command (U.S. Africom) had its own war plan which seemingly consisted solely of eliminating and replacing Gaddafi, and which didn’t include a long and costly ‘no-fly zone’ or the destruction of the Libyan air force. Maybe it was due to disagreements between the three “saviours” that overall command of the operation was later passed to NATO. And then the liquidation of the Libyan forces turned out not to be as easy as had been anticipated, with subsequent military events manifesting as a miscellaneous hotchpotch of the various different approaches.

According to the Strategic Culture Foundation the cost of this short war has been incredible, and it is still rising. On June 3 the Pentagon declared it had borne costs of 716 million dollars, plus one million to reconstitute the reserves of the Ministry of Defence, plus another million in ‘humanitarian aid’. Additional costs, from September 30 onwards, are forecast to be around 400 million. Each Storm Shadow missile launched from the nuclear submarines cost 1.1. million dollars, whilst the tried and tested Tomahawk missiles each cost 800 thousand. The French Minister of Defence declared that expenses up to May 3 to have been 53 million Euros for Operation United Defender plus 32 millions for the munitions. By May 8 Great Britain had spent 44 million pounds on high precision guided weapons. The dispatching of 4 Tornado GR4 bombers, 3 Typhoon Eurofighter interceptors and related technical back-up cost 3.2 million dollars per day. With fuel, maintenance and training costs taken into account, the costs of one flight hour in a Tornado is 33 thousand dollars. The Typhoons cost 80 thousand an hour. Poverty stricken Italy’s minister of Defence announced it would have to reduce its contribution to the costs of participating in the operation from 142 to 60 million dollars. On September 30 it was forecast that that the full cost of the operations in Libya it had sustained would be 1.1. billion dollars.

Maybe this was one of the reasons for giving a new twist to the war by assassinating Gaddafi.

We don’t yet know the full scale of the destruction and how many died in this conflict, but we know, from an estimate given by the International Monetary Fund, that the war “probably cost the 6 and half million Libyan citizens 35 billion dollars, that is, 50% of Libya’s GNP, which in 2010 was over70 billion” (from the Italian daily, Il Manifesto, 29/10/11).

This enormous expenditure and mass destruction have been paid for with surplus value extorted from the proletarians and workers in Libya and in all the other countries involved. Meanwhile the capitalists gloat over the fat profits they have made from it all. There is absolutely no point in the proletariat using the democratic process to demand a reduction in military spending or calling for a general cessation of military interventions and wars; it needs instead to reconstitute its class organisation in order to counter bourgeois militarism with force, in order to counter the war between states with the class war of the proletariat of all countries against global capitalism.