| If other NATO members are not willing to discuss it, Turkey should insist on opening this issue for discussion because this is not only about Libya. Will NATO act the same way in Syria, Yemen or North Korea? Could it act this way in Russia or China? Will NATO support every nation suffering under a dictatorship, and then let them kill their “bad leaders”? Is this what NATO is about?
During his leadership, Gaddafi maintained military and economic relations with many NATO member countries, and I don’t recall any discussion about principles back then. As long as he was willing to pursue relations with the West, his dictatorship and his ruling style were simply ignored. The weapons he used to fight against his opponents all these months are of course not Libyan made; he bought them all from foreign countries. The alliances forged around the oil and weapon trade, the deals between Russia and the US, and considerations about the Arab world and Africa have allowed Gaddafi to preserve his power for the last 40 years.
His summary execution may please some people, but this pleasure will not last long. Gaddafi was a man who didn’t serve his people well, who decided to resist change when change was inevitable and who was so disconnected from reality that he didn’t see the end coming. However, one must admit that he was quite talented at blackmailing and he probably had a deep chest in which he stored precious information and documents about many important people. Don’t forget that some members of his close family are not dead; his clan is still around, as are some members of his government.
That’s why it’s not too meaningful to claim that Libya is free now just because Gaddafi is dead or that his death marks the beginning of a totally new Libya. It is obvious that a new era has begun for the Libyans, but no one can guarantee yet that this new Libya will be more stable than the old one. Besides, stability doesn’t automatically mean democracy. NATO is asking for democracy in Libya in its official statements; but democracy can’t be expected in a country where the new rulers did not even think about bringing Gaddafi to justice, and instead enjoyed seeing him killed by an angry mob. Maybe what stability means in this particular context is simply the new Libyan government’s decision to establish close ties with the West.
NATO considered freeing the Libyan people from Gaddafi to be one of its missions, and in exchange it expects Libyans to show their gratitude through several concrete actions. First, the new government must take the necessary steps to stop immigration from Africa toward Europe. This means Libya has to reconsider its relations with the African continent. The second step will be about keeping radical and anti-Western actors out of the new government. The most important steps, however, will be to cover the NATO operation’s expenses and to meet NATO members’ future energy demands.
The problem is that no one knows if the “new” Libya will be capable of doing all this. The country will be restructured in coordination with the West in the hope of making it more open to them; however, is the country’s social fabric ready for that? The existing social fabric may instead make the new Libya a more nationalistic and anti-Western country. A century ago, Egypt asked for Britain’s help to get rid of the Ottomans and then fought against both. If someone finds and opens Gaddafi’s chest, many Libyans will be eager to repeat what the Egyptians did back then.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-260955-gaddafis-chest.html
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