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When I said my critique of Counterpunch was limited to their posts on Syrian I wasn't so much being disingenious as I was being forgetful. You are absolutely right that I did, at one point, allude to Counterpunch's support for Qaddafi. I did critique Thomas Mountain's Counterpunch "Is Libya the Next Somalia?" <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/25/is-libya-the-next-somalia/> in my "The Left and the Arab Spring." <http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=1965> > This is wishful thinking on Mountain's part. As a long time supporter > of Colonel Qaddafi, Mountain wishes only bad things for the Libyan > people that overthrew him. As we will see as we go through this, his > latest piece on Libya in *counterpunch*, his analysis is based not on > an examination of the reality in Libya now but on an extrapolation of > what he believes must be the case based on his long held > misconceptions about the country and Qaddafi's rule. More... <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-left-and-arab-spring_2659.html> I never got around to critiquing your "Libyan Winter" view of the Libyan revolution so I will do so now, if only briefly. I just took a look at your Counterpunch article: > March 23, 2011 > > Why Nothing Good Will Come of This > > > Intervening in Libya > <http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/23/intervening-in-libya/> > Do you still stand by your opinion that nothing good came of that? Because it sounds like if you had your way, Benghazi and Misrata would look like Homs and Aleppo and the people of Libya might still be involved in a desperate struggle against the Qaddafi regime and his Russian backers. Things may not be hunky-dory in Libya today but you will find very few Libyan who have regrets. The Counterpunch crowd has done everything it can to trash the Libyan Revolution, pointing up the negative and not covering the positive. Yes, poat-Qaddafi Libya is still a dangerous place, in 2012 it had a murder rate half that of Chicago and one-tenth that of Venezuela, but few would feel safer in Aleppo than Benghazi. I have given my own assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Libya Revolution elsewhere, including "The State of Libya." <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-state-of-libya_1275.html> and "Is Libya better off than it was?" <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2012/06/is-libya-better-off-than-it-was_566.html> I see you called Libya a stalemate <http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/07/libya-as-proxy/> just six weeks before Tripoli fell in "Libya as Proxy." <http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/07/libya-as-proxy/> In it you also speak of "NATO's war on Libya." I regard that as a very pro-Qaddafi view of the situation. Certainly he would have no objection to that formulation but I know that the Libyan revolutionaries would. This is what I said about such a formulation ( a commonly held pro-Qaddafi position among the non-interventionist Left) of the situation at the time <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2011/08/ccds-statement-on-libya-critique_8697.html>: > IMHO this is already taking a position that equates the Qaddafi regime > with /"Libya."/ NATO would argue that their military activities are > against the forces of the Qaddafi regime not Libya, and frankly the > revolutionaries would agree. As a matter of fact there is very little > evidence that NATO has attacked Libyan population centers or > infrastructure in the way they did in Iraq. [see my How Many Libyans > has NATO Killed? > <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/24/998191/-How-Many-Libyans-has-NATO-Killed?via=user> > for details and background] You say: > Libya is the first battleground of a new "cold war," this one not > between the U. S, and the Russia, but between the G7 (and its military > arm, NATO) and the BRICS (who have not much of a military arm). BRICS had plenty of weapons for Qaddafi however, and both Russia and China might dispute your assessment of their military power. But where are the Libyan revolutionaries in your formulation, in fact where are they in this article? I think your calling the Libyan revolution a proxy war is subject to the the same critique I made in my current piece on Counterpunch and Syria. This article rendered the thuwar invisible. It also sounds like, just months before the complete victory over Qaddafi, you promoted a defeatist (.i.e. counter-revolutionary) view of the military situation ("stalemate") and favored a position that would still leave Qaddafi in power: > If the NATO chiefs could pressure the Benghazi Transitional Council to > back down from its maximalist position (Qaddafi must go immediately), > Zuma suggested, the way could open for peace talks. What you call NTC's " <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/05/convulsions-in-libya/#> y maximalist position", i.e. complete abolition of the Qaddafi state and rebuilding a new state and a new "monopoly of violence", is the very thing that made this the most revolutionary of all the Arab Spring uprisings. You seem to be favoring a reformed Qaddafi regime over the revolutionary change the Libyan people were demanding and fighting for. What's more, you look to NATO to help force this counter-revolutionary position on the NTC. Yes , you are citing Zuma, but it seems to me, approvingly. Now turning to your: > The Grammar of Guided Democracy > > > Convulsions in Libya > <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/05/convulsions-in-libya/> > > The social and political conditions are unprepared for the niceties of > electoral democracy. Again we have the view that the Libyans are puppets of a proxy war. This is the strongest message I get from your writing on Libya and I consider it a counter-revolutionary one. > A resurgent "Green Resistance" has begun to assert itself in the > margins of Libyan society. But the Qaddafi regime never made a come back. If there has been anything like a "green resistance" (a term favored by the pro-Qaddafi sources like Libya SOS, whom I recently exposed <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-do-they-keep-digging-up-reburying.html> as using the pictures of dead Afghan children and claiming they were victims of NATO bombing, that promised a vigorous counter-revolutionary guerrilla war, it has been limited to terrorist bombings and assassinations. "Green Reisistance" <http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com/category/libya/libyan-resistance/the-libyan-liberation-front/libyan-green-resistance/> is a term I have come to associate with pro-Qaddafi websites that are hoping for a come back. Its a romatic term for a bunch of thugs and reneges trying hard to bring winter to Libya. > General Khalifa Hifter (who I had called "America's Libyan" in March > last year) I hope you can back that up with more than where he lived in the US. > There is too much at stake for the US, its European allies, and the > neoliberal clique that runs the National Transitional Council. This is precisely the pro-Qaddafi view on the NTC, they were puppets of NATO. > Considerations of geo-politics prevent the views of the Libyans from > coming to the surface. Bans on political parties are only one part of > the muzzle. But political parties weren't banned, they flourished <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2012/06/libyan-elections-to-be-held-july-7th_3713.html>, 349 different political parties or other political entities had candidates in the 7 July 2012 national elections, and "unprepared" or not 2,563 candidates stood before more than 2.7 million registered voters in an election that was generally considered fair and above board and with very little violence. I think this election, only a year after you were calling the revolutionary war a stalemate and advising that they learn to live with Qaddafi, a great victory for the revolution. In the above statement you make this election sound like a NATO show with little Libyan input. I, here and now, challenge you to either back up that statement with facts or retract it, as I consider this a great insult of the thuwar and an accomplishment that revolutionaries everywhere should have celebrated but you seek to put down. > This amnesty is of a piece with NATO's refusal to allow an evaluation > of its bombardments on Libya. Again you put NATO in charge of Libya's affairs even after there planes have all flown home, but there were at least 3 independent investigations of NATO bombing and they found ~72 wrongful deaths. See my "UN: NATO killed 60 civilians in Libya" <http://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2012/03/un-nato-killed-60-civilians-in-libya_1168.html> and if you dispute the findings of AI, HRW and the UN on this score, I say again, bring on the facts. Name the deaths not covered in their reports. So while my recent critique focused on Counterpunch's views on Syria, I stand by the conclusion that the same can also said about their views of Libya, and that includes you. In Solidarity, Clay ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
