Libya - Progressiv​e Pakistani-​Canadians

On March 19th NATO, led by the United States, launched yet another military attack on a Third World Muslim country, Libya. This action was carried out immediately after a "no-fly zone over Libya" resolution, pushed by western powers, was passed by the UN Security Council with a tally of 10 votes in favour and 5 abstentions. The ferocity and intensity of the attacks soon thereafter were reminiscent of the "shock and awe” invasion of Iraq exactly 8 years ago, rather than anything resembling a normal process of monitoring and enforcement of a no-fly zone. 

 The United States and Britain wasted no time after the passage of the resolution to launch an initial salvo of 110 of their most deadly Tomahawk Cruse missiles on targets across Libya from air and sea, giving their deceitful and dreadful campaign the Homeric name of "Operation Odyssey Dawn." It is important to note that each of the Tomahawk missiles fired on Libya carries a 1000-pound warhead, reportedly laced with depleted uranium which is not only capable of penetrating and destroying concrete and steel buildings, but leaves behind deadly radiation causing cancers and cell mutations among generations of living beings, as can be witnessed in Iraq. So much for protecting the civilians of Libya!

Obviously, the real aim of bombing Libya, which continues with ever expanding weaponry, is by no means "to protect civilian and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya," as stated in the Security Council resolution 1973. The protests by China, Russia, India, and even the pro-west Arab League, that the perpetrators of the attack have ‘exceeded their mandate’, only affirm the obvious, even if voiced after the fact.  The protection of civilian population of Libya from the army of dictator Gaddafi as being claimed ad-nauseum by the Western press and the Obama-Sarkozy-Cameron trio is simply another monumental lie similar to the infamous deception about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." 

There is no other logical inference but to conclude that the real aim of the Operation Odyssey Dawn is regime change in Libya with the hope of installing a puppet government which will allow the imperial protagonists to completely control the oil wealth of Libya, projected at 50 billion barrels of proven reserve and possibly to set up a military base for Africom  (United States African Command) and NATO.

According to our understanding of developments in Libya, the Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians feels obliged to state

1.  Our condemnation of the NATO attacks on Libya and call for all foreign intervention in the affairs of Libya to cease immediately.

2. Our disapproval of Resolution 1973 passed by the UN General Assembly and regret at the fact that Russia and China allowed it to pass.

3. The people of Libya should be allowed to deal with their own crises by themselves.

4. International concerns about human rights abuses, as well as dictatorship and democracy in different parts of the world should be resolved first and foremost through peaceful negotiations – something which many Latin American countries had suggested at the beginning of the crisis in Libya as has South Africa recently.

5. The government of the United States must divest itself of the delusion that bombing and war making is the solution of all problems, including the problem of protecting civilians in Libya or anywhere else.

6. The government of Canada must end its participation in this imperialist attack on Libya – unfortunately approved by all political parties in Parliament - and immediately cease the bombing of Libya and all forms of military intervention in that country.

Omar Latif

National Coordinator

Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians.

March 31, 2011