The Anti-War Committee’s Statement on Non-Intervention in Libya
The Anti-War Committee urges all its supporters to take a stand against the US war on Libya. Much like at the beginning of the wars on Yugoslavia and the wars on Afghanistan, and even the war on Iraq, we have heard from progressive compassionate people the tendency to accept this military response against Libya as a way to protect the Libyan people from an oppressive tyrant.
We don’t deny the impulse to want to DO something about the atrocities being committed in Libya, and the Anti-War Committee does not have an easy answer, but history has made it very clear that U.S. and Western military aggression are not the answer. Please remember that Milosevic and Saddam Hussein were both called dictators who needed to be ousted lest they continue abusing their people. But dropped bombs and flying bullets don’t just kill dictators (even if that were the result one wanted), they hurt people—civilians–, even the rebels in whose name they are being launched.
We have actually heard stories that a rebel group arrested one of the first British units who entered Libya. They don’t want us there either. The future of Libya is for Libyans to decide.
If humanitarian concerns were truly the motivating factors for this intervention, why has there been no UN resolution or proposed military action about Bahrain and Yemen and Saudi Arabia, who have also been violent with their own opposition groups? The truth is that, once again, this is a war for oil. Libya is an oil-producing nation, and the West is very interested in not being left out at the end of the upheaval.
We are including some links to longer and more detailed articles.
- From the International Action Center: http://www.iacenter.org/nafricamideast/libya011711/
- From Fight Back News: http://www.fightbacknews.org/2011/3/19/war-libya-us-and-nato-air-strikes-cruise-missile-attacks-begin
We encourage all our supporters to look behind the media spin and recognized that this is more colonial aggression in Africa.