WEBVTT - Libya with Andrew 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:09.160 Media, so by the time you hear this, the situation 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:13.480 may have evolved in any number of directions. I'm speaking 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.599 in the immediate wake of the United States and Israel's 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:21.479 brutal invasion of Iran. Thus far, over one thousand have 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.400 been killed, including over one hundred school children and the 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:30.440 Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatola Ali Kameni. In response to 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.960 this Americans really aggression, Iran has retaliated by targets in 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.800 both American bases and civilian and energy infrastructure in the 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.360 neighboring countries that have facilitated American presence in the region. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.159 With the strategically and economically critical straight off moods in jeopardy, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.280 with France, the UK, and Germany aka the usual suspects 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:55.040 indicating potential involvement, and with the potential Russian and Chinese 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.160 involvement also being floated in some circles, it seems to 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.800 me that without any formal annow spun, the war on 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:07.600 the world has escalated potentially to a point of no return. Hello, 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.440 and welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.760 andrewism on YouTube, and I'm joined again by. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.200 It's James Hi Andrew, how are you doing. 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:18.360 As well as I can be? 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:21.440 Yeah? That's about the best we can hopeful these days, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:21.800 isn't it. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:22.920 Yeah? 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.000 And in a time like this, I want to take 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:30.080 a look back at history, particularly how past US interventions 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:34.080 have left devastation in their week. Today, I want to 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.720 look at the fate of Libya, a country still dealing 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.319 with his simmer intentions following the end of the post 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.200 intervention civil war. So I suppose we should begin in 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.120 mid February in twenty eleven, and the Arab of Spring 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.680 was sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. Among the 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.560 countries caught up in the fuva against the prevailing states 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.520 was Libya, a North African state ruled for the previous 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.200 forty two years by the Colonel Mumar Algernife's government. Masses 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.720 had taken to the streets across the country, starting in Benghazi. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:08.960 The government had some successors in putting down the revolt, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.600 killing hundreds of rebels demonstrators alike, and some failures as 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:18.480 the masses managed to hold position. The people had many motivations, 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.799 spaning Islamist, democratic, to militant, to tribal to just disaffected 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:31.560 against a government intent on its continued survival, revolutions, uprisings, protests, revolts, 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.440 they tend to be messy affairs. I'm sure James, you're 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:35.320 well away of that. 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:37.440 Yeah. Yeah. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.120 I think it's really easy of like outside observers or 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.760 when we're looking back at history to be like, oh, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.680 this revolution was an Islamist revolution, this was the Marxist 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.440 learning this revolution, this one was an anarchist revolution. But 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.720 every revolution that I have been at the have like 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:01.040 witnessed happening. It's in everything revolution and it starts and 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.280 it later becomes a something revolution. But especially in the 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.440 Arab Spring, right like in that time, it was just 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.560 like we've had enough of being under the boot of 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.560 these regimes and it was extraordinarily heterodox and that was 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.760 quite beautiful in the early. 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:23.880 Days exactly exactly. The heterodox nature of revolution is really 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.280 what I want to drill here, because I think it's 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.160 very easy people to caricaturize and sleep up broad brush 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.799 and its determine oh this is and it gets to 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.040 be around people are saying, oh, it's only monarchists, it's 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.440 monarchists and Zionists going out in the streets when they 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.520 were protesting, when the situation on the ground is always 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:44.440 more complex than that. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.600 Yeah, maybe I'll just take a second to address the 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:53.200 annoying campus tendency. I understand that every time the United 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.680 States rained down death on some part of the world, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.960 it's terrible, right, it's sad, as you just said, Andrew. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.680 And we've seen a girls' school bombed not once but twice, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.640 it seems right, what they call a double attack. That 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.360 doesn't mean that your response has to be to support 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.720 the other people who are killing those same civilians in 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.159 that same place. It is possible for two things to 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.440 be bad. And like in Iran, yeah, there is a 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:23.360 monarchist opposition. 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:28.440 It sucks. I spoke just this morning to a Kurdish. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.320 Group which is opposing the regime in Iran, and they 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.120 had nothing but bad things to say about the monarchists. Right, 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.960 they said, this is the PAK write the Kurdistan Freedom 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.480 Party I'm quoting here. They do not have a foothold 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.479 in society to actually achieve anything. The lies and delusions 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.960 of a group of people sitting in nightclubs cannot make 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.800 any real impact. That You're free to use that one 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.000 next time someone tells you all the opposition in Iran 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:53.719 is monarchist. 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:55.919 It's nonsense exactly. 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.440 I mean, just it on its face as obviously nonsense. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.320 This notion that these people are hive minds. It's hilariousist 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.200 notion that you see popping up again and again. 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:07.800 Yeah, very orientalist. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.440 Yeah. Anytime people step outside and they have something that 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.120 they're upset about, they just get labeled with this one 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.960 broad sweeping ideological monarcha, whether they snubscribe to it or not. Yeah, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.840 And even within the ideological monarchers, there's always a lot 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:29.520 of nuance and how people understand those ideologies. You know, No, 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.200 to Islamists are necessarily alike. No, two monarchists evan are 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.680 necessarily alike. And those are both ideologies that I absolutely abhor. 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.760 You know right, Yeah, I don't understand how you can 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.080 be a leftist and spend your life like as such 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.359 and then also think that in other parts of the 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.640 world people don't want the same things like I believe 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.560 it is inherently human, yeah, to want dignity and respect 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.320 and the same for others, and to want our communities 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.800 to govern themsels elves. And I don't believe that it's 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.080 any less human if you live in North Africa or 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:08.240 the Middle East or South Africa, or an island in 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.040 the Caribbean, or an island in a Pacific, like I believe, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.640 it comes from our human nature, and so it strikes 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.400 me is therefore obvious that there cannot be a country 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.240 where people's human nature is fundamentally distinct and they're all 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.640 just like knee jerk monarchists. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.640 I wouldn't see the world the way I see it 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:24.920 if I was able to believe that. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.960 Yeah. Yeah, these movements, they're always composed by the choices 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.760 and actions of sometimes millions of people, each of their 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.080 own motivations. And that's easy, particularly in retrospect, to pick 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:43.200 particular leaders or organizations as representative of them all. That 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:43.919 doesn't make it so. 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:44.719 Yeah. 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.360 One of the things that defined the Arab Spring, as 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.800 you mentioned it, was it's a leaderless nature. You had 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.640 new liberals, you had monarchists, you had socialists, you had 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.200 most of all, I would say, people without any ideological 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.240 commitments at all. The majority of the human population has 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:04.359 not ideologically committed one way or the other. Most people 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.440 are just trying to live their lives and meet their 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.640 basic needs, and they're submerged in society that lends them 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.560 towards a particular inclination, but that's not set in stone. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.840 Most people in the Arab Spring likely sought just the 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.600 end of whatever it was they were suffering under before. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.680 And of course, in these kind of incidents, geopolitical actors 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.280 will choose to back particular factions, lend them freedoms and 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.680 prominence according to their geopolitical interests, but don't give them 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.360 undue credit. You know, during the Cool War, for example, 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.200 the US would have backed rebellions they believe benefit them, 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.680 and vice versa, the USSR backed rebellions they thought would 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.000 benefit them. And even today, the US is claiming to 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.280 care about freedom but has continued to work with the 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.000 Saudis who infamously invaded Bahrain to crush the Arab Spring 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.640 that occurred there. And at the time, France's love for 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.760 democracy didn't exactly match their offer to aid Algeria and 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:04.480 Tunisia in putting down their own Arab springs. Now, as 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.160 I've been saying quite often, pointing to our hypocrisy, it's 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.440 kind of a baby's first geopisical analysis, right, None of 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.760 these governments have any consistent values beyond their own interests. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.400 But I think it's important to make this kind of 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:36.320 heterodoxy in movements clear, to contextualize what happened next. There's 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:43.120 another notion that US intervention is entering these countries during 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.240 these conflicts that hold humanitaria and aims to liberate the 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.120 women or to liberate the minorities in that region. The 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.920 United States, like all the governments, is opportunistic right. It 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:00.160 is taking advantage of often genuine struggles by people of 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.760 its own situation or goals without a care for what 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:07.400 happens to those people, either opened the intervening or covidly intervening. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:12.240 Most obvious recent example is with the goods in Syria. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.960 At the time they were convenient the United States interests, 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.880 and so they weren't and they were abandoned. And this 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.839 is especially the case when resources like oil come into 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:27.440 the picture, and Libya is extremely oil rich. So tragically, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.120 the West saw this uprising in Libya as an opportunity. 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.959 Following a timeline and Encyclopedia Britannica, on the nineteenth of 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.280 March twenty eleven, Libya was attacked by the combined forces 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.360 of the United States, the UK, and France. These countries 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.920 now condemned Kadafi as an oppressor of the civilians they 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.920 were swooping in to say, though for years before the 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.600 UK and France were selling him weapons, They alongside their 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.440 Katari and Saudi allies, took advantage of the protests to 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.480 assert their military might. This move was authorized by the 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.199 UN Resolution nineteen seventy three, and NATO would soon take 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.839 command of the operation. While claiming to protect civilians under 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:13.040 a responsibility to protect doctrine, they bombed them. An allegedly 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.520 humanitarian intervention led to the deaths of tens of thousands 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.440 of a national population of just over six million. He 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.120 infrastructure was devastated by the Natal Woman campaign and by 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.960 the struggles between the government and the now armed rebels 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.959 of the National Transitional Council or NTC. A quick note 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.560 by the way the NTC appointed themselves as the leaders 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.240 of the movement, and despite the struggle being kickstarted by 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.880 mostly working and middle class militants, often of an Islamic orientation, 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:49.160 the NTC was composed mainly of regime defectors, businessmen and 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.080 exiles who had a broadly pro Western, conservative and free 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.439 market stance. Some of the elements in Gadaffi's government and 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.840 military had defected to the rebels and equipped those pre 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.120 unarmed protesters with firepower, and so up to now we 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.720 only have estimates regarding the civilian death dool, infrastructural devastation, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:13.040 and arbitrary detentions, disappearances and kidnappings carried out by both 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:18.079 Progadafi and Antigodafi forces, not to mention the Liberate targetsing 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.440 of black Libyans and sub Saharan African migrants by rebel 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.000 forces that took place during and after the twenty eleven war, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.320 with the claim that they were Goodafi's hired mercenaries. Many 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.240 of those Africans attempts to escape were met with callous 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:34.920 disregard by Europe. 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.400 Yeah, callous disregards. I mean, there are no words strong 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.520 enough to express a way I feel about the way 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:47.079 the European Union has treated migrants in Liberated is absolutely 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.600 disgusting and continues to be despicable. Yeah. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.520 Have you read Sally Hayden's book about this? 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:53.520 No? I haven't. 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.640 It's called My Fourth Time We Drowned. Very good book, 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.560 difficult read, I would say, very much. It's some of 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.400 the type of reporting that I try and do myself 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.280 on migration, and that it talks about people, not numbers, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.959 and it centers migrants as individuals with stories. It's a 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.200 great book that I probably not want to read, you know, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:15.040 right before. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.480 Bed I could imagine it sounds heavy. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.560 Yeah, definitely heavy gooing and so. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.600 Following a steelmate between the pro and Grafi camps in 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:29.240 late spring of twenty eleven, the rebels, assisted by NATO forces, 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.559 took Tripoli and toppled Gadaffi's government, and the NTC was 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:38.280 recognized internationally almost immediately as the legitimate government of Libya. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.200 As Matt will Gress notes in Jack ben quote on 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.360 the day Tripoly fell, the New York Times headline the 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:49.000 scramble for access to Libya's oil wealth begins was telling 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.720 Libya's vast oil reserves, along prize by the West for 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.840 being the largest in Africa and incredibly close to Europe, 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.800 were now open to business for foreign investors. As is 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.880 the case with all imperial interventions, the attempts to get 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.120 profits fluent for multinational corporations comes long before any ideas 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:13.280 of reconstructure such as esentral infrastructure projects or insurance services, 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.319 and really up to now that infrastructure has not been 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.880 established and even access to Libya's oil is not yet secured, 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.839 even though they allegedly managed to loot some of that oil. 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.800 In twenty twelve, Nagurdafi himself fled after the fall of Tripoli, 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.280 but he was found NATO bombed his convoy and he 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.840 was captured alive, then executed by NTC forces in October 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.560 twenty eleven, after which the war was declared over and 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:43.280 the NTC declared Libya and Islamic democracy in their constitutional declaration. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.839 The NTC estimated thirty thousand dead, and a UN report 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.800 from twenty twelve estimated that more than nine hundred thousand 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.920 people had to leave the country since February of twenty eleven. 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.840 Many were not Libya nationals, but more than six hundred 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.040 and sixty thousand Libyans also fled, and an estimated two 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:06.240 hundred thousand people had been internally displaced, continuing without timeline. 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.560 In twenty twelve, the NTC handed power over to the 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:14.360 General National Congress or GNC, and despite a formal end 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.320 to the war, Grafi loyalists, local militias, and tribes shaped 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.160 against each other and the GenZ. The militias wouldn't disarm. 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.840 The Graffi loyalists continue to fight and the GNC failed 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.840 to put forward a new constitution, so in twenty fourteen 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.640 they were ousted by the newly elected House of Representatives 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.040 and in twenty fourteen a second civil war would begin 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.360 in Libya, with the nation split mainly between the House 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.640 Representatives or ASHUAR with its Libya National Army or LNA, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.920 based in Tobruk to the east, and their rival, made 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.320 up of mostly Islamists from the former GenZ with their 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.320 Libya Dawn Militia based in Tripoli to the west. They 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.360 didn't win the election, they didn't consider it legitimate because 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.120 of its low turnout, and they didn't appreciate the amount 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.120 of former Goodaff supporters in the new government, so they 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.320 rose up to fight, claiming to be the National Salvation 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.960 Government or NSG. So you have the HR and you 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.400 have the NSG. Beyond these two factions, yours had an 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.880 al Qaeda affiliated militia and the Islamic State, both engaged 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:22.560 in insurgent and struggle around the country, sometimes holding entire cities. Eventually, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.280 the two governments came together to sign the LBA, the 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.960 Libyan Political Agreement that formed the Interim Presidential Council and 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.080 Government of National Accord or GNA in late twenty fifteen 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.720 without attempt at cohesion didn't really work out, as the 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.000 U went back to GNA, now based in Tripoli, couldn't 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.280 consolidate power. By the end of twenty sixteen, factions affiliated 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.000 with the NSG still resisted the GNA, and the HR, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.560 still based Intobrook, refused to endorse the GNA's appointments, so 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.760 they went from having two competing governments to kind of 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.800 having three. So the main opposing forces when all the 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.360 g and the HR. The JNA was backed by Tiki, 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:07.680 Qatar and the EU, especially Italy and the UN, while 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:12.080 the HR was backed by Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.360 the United Emirates, and to some extent, France, who technically 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.280 recognized the GNA but also provided support to the HR 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.040 for their struggle against the Islamists. The US was also 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.560 supposed to be back in the GNA, but Trump jumped 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.760 out to praise the HR at one point, so the 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:47.600 US's position was exposed as a lot more ambiguous in practice. Yeah, 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.880 so the GNA and the HR would keep on struggling 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.600 against each other for control over the central bank and 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.640 oil companies and territory over the years. By the end 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.840 of one particularly significant offensive in terms of nineteen, which 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.040 saw the country's largest oil field brought under HR control, 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.120 the situation was such that the HR's leverage came from 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.240 their control over the oil field, and the GNA's leverage 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.399 was that it was internationally recognized and could legally sell 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.520 the oil. GNA leader Fayez Al Seraje and HR leader 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.439 Shalifa Afta seemed to be developing in cooperative relations, and 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.120 in March of twenty nineteen they were supposed to have 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.280 a national unity conference, but then the HR tried to 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:33.000 take Tripoli, whoopsie, so they kind of had to postpone 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.520 that conference. The resultant fighting led to the HR take 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.679 in Sirte, a major city between Libya's east and west halves. 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.200 With Turkish support, the JNA successfully repelled the HR from 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.280 the Metropoli and the situation was stabilized with a battle 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:49.679 line just east of Sirte. 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:55.680 In twenty twenty, yeah, not just Turkish support, Turkey deployed 0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:01.000 the Syrian National Army aka the TFSA, the Turkish Free 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:06.959 Syrian Army. They are widely believed to be rebadged Islamist 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.440 from previous iterations of various Islamist groups in Syria, that 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.560 Turkey has formed into kind of its own proxy force. 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.000 I mean, I'm sure if you go to that Wikipedia 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.480 page there are like seventeen million different war crimes listed. 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:22.919 Like they are there. They are well known for their 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:24.520 affinity for war crimes. Yeah. 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.480 I can imagine the fact that Turkey, Turkey's back and 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.440 them tells me everything I needs to know, I. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:35.159 Think, yeah, right, yeah, and that they're considered like a 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.040 deniable proxy, right, like they could be like Turkey can 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.400 be like, oh, well that wasn't us. That was these 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.000 Syrian guys who we happen to arm and equip and 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:43.840 run air support for. 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.560 Yeah, what is their situation now? Now that Turkey is 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.000 kind of back in the new government in Syria. 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.280 They have largely been folded into the stg's armed forces. 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.480 So like Abu hamsa Is I think a general or 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.320 brigadier I can't quite remember rank, but it's a guy 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:06.360 who has been widely condemned is now a military officer 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.120 within the stg's Ministry of Defense. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:14.359 Huh Okay, So a more accurate description than would be 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:20.359 that Turkey sent their war criminal proxies to support the 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.880 GNA in Repellent Nature or Premier Tripoli, and the situation 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.800 stabilized with the battle line just east of thirty In 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.920 twenty twenty, and after other attempts to reach an agreement 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:35.520 field they agreed to share oil revenue, establish a perminencies fire, 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.199 and get both Turkish forces and Russian mercenaries out of 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.760 the country, so the Second Civil War was officially over 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.800 in October twenty twenty. According to reporting by Al Jazeera. 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.360 The UN initiated a new attempt at a unifying government 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.679 in twenty twenty one, which was approved originally by both 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.800 rival parliaments, leading to the establishment of the Interim Government 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.600 of National Unity GNU in March twenty twenty one, thus 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.840 replacing the previously UN backed GNA. So we went from 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.200 GNA to GNU, but then the GNU would be opposed 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.480 by the HR, which withdrew from the GNU in September 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.160 twenty twenty one and established the Government of National Stability 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:25.720 GNS in March twenty two. So the GNA was replaced 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.320 by the GNU and the GNU was now opposed by 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.760 the GNS, and thus the country remains split into up 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.840 to today between the UN back to GNU and the 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.800 hr slash Libya National Army backed GNS. And in all 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.880 of this chaos, people on the ground have been suffering. 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:49.040 They've been suffering human rights of uses, disappearances. Up to recently, 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.480 the GNU imposed a morality police, and they have been 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:57.000 numerous reports about open slave markets in Libya where migrant 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.960 Black Africans are auctioned to the highest bidder. Yeah, this 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.760 is a result of human trafficking and death bondage, so 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.000 not exactly the same as chattel slavery, but the experience 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:12.440 and racial undertones are all too familiar. The suffering in 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:17.080 Libya has also spread beyond its borders. Following Gaddafi's fall, 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.119 the weapons of his military stockpiles ended up in the 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.359 hands of militants across the Sahel region of Africa and 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:28.640 even in Syria. You'll remember in my episode on the 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.119 situation in Nigeria, some of those weapons ended up in 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.159 the hands of Bokohoram and other Islamic militant groups in 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:42.119 the region, Pulani herdsman and so on. Tragically, because Libya 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.200 just can't seem to catch a break at all, September 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:50.439 twenty three also saw catastrophic floods devastating the country. The 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.040 hurricane strong storm Daniel caused two dams to burst in 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.800 the coastal city of Durna, which is within Jenness territory 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:01.679 in eastern Libya. The flooding killed at least four thousand 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.680 people or potentially even more, left one thousands missing and 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:10.080 displaced more than forty thousand others. Venetians, still wrought by 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.040 civil war and still unrecovered from the devastation of the 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.280 Natal Obomban campaign, surely could have mustered a more adequate 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.440 response to the tragedy if not for those conditions. In fact, 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.240 it is theorized that the tragedy could have been avoided 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.120 altogether because, according to reports by the Middle East Eye, 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.760 a Turkish company was supposed to rehability to feel dams, 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:35.320 but their works were reportedly interrupted by the twenty eleven 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.440 uprising and subsequent civil war. 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.960 Yeah, it's always the cost of war that we don't count, 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:43.720 right Like, if you look at the twenty twenty three 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.879 earthquake that killed people in Syria and Turkey, right like, 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.080 Undoubtedly that would have done a lot less damage if 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:53.639 that hadn't been for the fact that war had been 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.080 raging in those places for so long, so like everything 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.479 else got put on hold, all the normal infrastructure repair 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.399 and so just that you would expect had to stop 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:03.600 because of their warrant. 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:05.879 That made things like the earthquake worse. 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.480 Yeah, I don't think the people who rose up against 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.920 Gaddaffi and fought and died back in February or twenty 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:19.000 eleven had sought this outcome. Unfortunately, in a world dictated 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:25.120 by the whims of imperialist powers, this was the end 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.679 of their actions. I don't want people to get it 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:33.960 twisted though, because in the time since, as people have 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:38.000 observed the devastation wrought by the civil wars, there has 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:43.159 been an effort to almost whitewash Gaddafi and to limit 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:46.959 our vision of possibilities to a binary of either perpetual 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.320 Gaddaffi rule on one end or perpetual civil war on 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:56.119 the other end. Those are not the only possibilities. So 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.600 we've discussed the legacy of nature intervention, which deserves condemnation 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.679 in this episode, and it should be an indication that 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:06.119 who the Western invasions and war was not going to 0:24:06.119 --> 0:24:11.040 liberate anyone. Yeah, But aside from that accurate analysis of Libya, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:15.040 since the fall of Kadafie. I want to bring in 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:20.760 some conversation on demand himself in the next episode. Until then, 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:24.199 all powets to all the people. This has been, it 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:31.160 could happen here, have been are siege peace. It could 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:33.320 happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:36.600 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.240 Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.359 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:45.560 You can now find sources for it could Happen here 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:47.520 listed directly in episode descriptions. 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:48.560 Thanks for listening.