It was painful, very painful to watch President Obama struggle during seemingly endless minutes, at a White House photo-op, to find the right words that, simultaneously, supported the need to bomb a dictator in Libya while the Emir of Qatar, sitting next ti him, had to be bestowed with democratic accolades. I have rarely witnessed such a duplicitous performance by any US President – and then to think that many thought that he would restore credibility to the office!?
It seems meanwhile that, once modern-day leaders have engaged in wars of choice under the flag of installing democracy and saving human lives, the very roots of our western society are being trampled, as necessary, be that in praising a very useful Arab autocrat as a friend of democracy, or in conveniently shoving aside widely held beliefs about Moussa Koussa, Khadafy’s former right hand.
It was a surprise, perhaps only for the public at large, that Koussa could fly to Qatar to inform the Contact Group (apparently nobody trusted the UK Minister to produce an informative summary of the long-running debriefings). Not often do prosecutors allow suspects (who, moreover, might want to try and escape) to fly around the world – not even in private jets. And when autocrats belatedly discover unintended lapses in certain processes, they usually correct things retro-actively such that a case can be made that logic had indeed been respected.
Obviously, Koussa’s travels have been retro-actively approved by the proper authorities. Today the BBC reports as follows on its website:
Alex Salmond [premier of Scotland] said if there had been evidence he was a suspect he would have been arrested by the authorities. It comes after the Treasury announced Mr. Koussa had been removed from the EU sanctions list in a notice on Thursday. It said Mr. Koussa was deleted from the list of people and companies who have their assets frozen by the EU. The former head of Libyan intelligence fled Libya and Col Muammar Gaddafi on 30 March for the UK. He has been accused of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing during his time with Libya’s intelligence service.
From a long-standing belief that Koussa was instrumentally involved with the Lockerbie bombing, the sponge was wiped over all suspicions and accusations in a couple of days! The “Group of Three” is apparently so desperate to prove themselves “right” that they are prepared to throw all the core values of the Western Civilization out of the window to justify their grand ambitions. It is no secret that Sarkozy has never been able to escape his Louis XIV ambitions, but Obama and Cameron?
If anything, the Libya wars may very well be viewed by history as the beginning of the end of the Enlightenment Empire, coming in the wake of the Fall of Capitalism, propagated by the politico-financial bulwarks of the late 20th century. Perhaps the people in the Old Countries need to start working on a Restoration?
Grimburger, 15th of April 2011
