SOWING CHAOS: Libya in the Wake of Humanitarian Intervention / Paolo Sensini

Libya in the Wake of
Humanitarian Intervention

Paolo Sensini

Foreword by
CYNTHIA McKINNEY

ISBN 978-0-9860853-1-4
$23.95 2016

EBOOK:
ISBN 9780986085383
$19.00

SYNOPSIS

In early 2011, Libya came under attack. The anti-Libya coalition included
France, the United Kingdom, the feudal Gulf monarchies, the United States
and other NATO countries. Although during the previous months, Muammar
Gaddafi had visited the nations of Europe where he was welcomed as the
head of a friendly State, the United Nations swiftly approved the coalition-
sponsored U-turn, undertaken in the guise of humanitarian intervention to
protect the Libyan people. Gaddafi was branded “a bloodthirsty, crazed
dictator”, intending and carrying out war crimes to suppress a legitimate
domestic revolt.

This narrative was part of a larger-scale Western strategy adopted to
redesign the entire Middle East in accordance with its interests.
Immediately after the start of the NATO campaign of air strikes, Paolo
Sensini visited Tripoli as a member of the “Fact Finding Commission on the
Current Events in Libya”. He then wrote a fully detailed account of the real
reasons for the attack on Libya, and the outcome. This book outlines the
historical background of the last hundred years and more, from the main
phases of the Italian military occupation (1911-1943) to the dramatic events
of our own times, including an account of the post-war monarchy and
Qaddafi’s rise to power, the air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi ordered by
Reagan in 1986, and the Lockerbie affair.

Sensini exposes the falsehoods propagated in 2011 of the alleged “mass
graves” and “10,000 deaths”. He takes a close look at the “rebels in
Benghazi” – goaded on by Islamic fundamentalists but organised, armed
and financed by the West. The “rebels” provided the pretexts that West
needed for approval of UN Resolution 1973 – the myth of ‘humanitarian’
intervention as embodied in the so-called “responsibility to protect” (R2P)
doctrine. This criminal intervention devastated Libya, unleashing chaos and
a civil war unlikely to cease in the near future.

Sensini addresses what has followed in its wake: the 11 September 2012
murder of American Ambassador Chris Stevens, the role of Hillary Clinton,
and the plight of untold waves of migrants seeking to flee the continental
chaos that R2P has unleashed, resulting in thousands of deaths and
drownings across the Mediterranean, and the potential destabilization of
European states struggling to cope with the mass influx.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I FALL OF THE OTTOMANS, WARS AND MONARCHY

1.        2011: The first centenary of Italy’s attack on Libya
2.        ‘Liberal’ Italy girds for war
3.        The Sanusis
4.        The landing forces reach the coastal cities
5.        Coming to terms with the Sanusis
6.        Stalemate
7.        The colonization policy in Libya during the era of fascism
8.        The era of Italo Balbo
9.        The war ends: British military administration of Libya and the
coronation of King Idris
10.       The Free Officers seize power and expel the Italians from Tripoli
11.       The Jamahiriyya Green Book
12.       Covert ops, and tales of ‘terrorism’…

PART II JAMAHIRIYYA

1.        “Arab Spring”
2.        UN Resolutions 1970 and 1973 against Libya, and the
‘new international law’
3.        Who were Libya’s ‘rebels’? Who backed them?
4.        The role of the Sanusis in the Libyan revolt
5.        Timeline to UN Resolution 1973
6.        Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and their part in Gaddafi’s downfall
7.        What we saw with our own eyes in Libya
8.        Gaddafi’s Jamahiriyya—Facts and figures
9.        The real reasons for going to war
10.      The curtain drops
11.       Once upon a time… Libya

PART III RECIPE FOR DISASTER
1.        The Unending Transition Begins
2.        Benghazi-gate
3.        The Blame Game
4.        The Insoluble Disorder

Names index

Paolo Sensini is a historian and geopolitical expert, whose
books incude La rovina antica e la nostra (Aracne, Rome,
2006), Il «dissenso» nella sinistra extraparlamentare italiana
dal 1968 al 1977 (Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, 2010), Libia
2011 (Jaca Book, Milan, 2011) and Divide et Impera.
Strategie del caos per il XXI secolo nel Vicino e Medio
Oriente (Mimesis, Milan, 2013). Sensini has also curated key
works by Bruno Rizzi, Ante Ciliga, Josef Dietzgen and Sergej
Mel’gunov for publication in Italian.

DESTROYING LIBYA: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

EXCERPT

Chapter 3

WHO WERE LIBYA’S ‘REBELS’? WHO BACKED THEM?

Let us now return to the key events and developments of the so called “Arab Spring”. While the top brass in the

West were wary of the political, economic and military implications of the Tunisian and Egyptian “Springs”, the

French, Americans and British immediately and unreservedly supported the Libyan rebels both in Cyrenaica

(where most of the country’s oil wealth is to be found) and in Fezzan. The ‘rebels’ included many Sanusi Islamists,

Egyptians from the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadists from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Qatar, Afghanistan

and elsewhere.1 These men were headed by two leading members of the ousted government of Libya, the former

Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel al-Jalil, and the former Minister of the Interior, General Abdel al-Fattah Younis

(assassinated on 28 July 2011 by Islamist members of the National Transitional Council). The monarchical

conservatives, who wanted to restore the dynasty of King Idris I, joined al-Jalil and Younis in this venture.2

Colonel Gaddafi, however, in speech after speech, insisted that the 2011 revolt was dominated by “Al-Qa’ida”

elements. It had also come to light that tens of British MI6 agents, Special Air Services (SAS) and Special Boat

Services (SBS) operatives, the CIA and the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) were

secretly on the ground in Libya, working as military trainers and organisers for the rebel cause.3

“London had actually sent its special forces to Libya just days before the Cyrenaica revolt erupted, a fact that

raises many questions as to the role of the British in detonating the tribal revolt against Gaddafi”, wrote one

observer.4 It has also been reported that the French and British provided the insurrectionists with arms and

motor vehicles to enable the triumphant march on Tripoli.5

So, many military and intelligence operatives were in Libya even before the United Nations passed the no-fly zone

order. Governments that authorise deployment of operatives in this manner clearly violate international law.6

“Paris decided to initiate air raids over Benghazi the very night Resolution 1973 had been approved”.7 France

thus managed to steal a march on the Coalition of the Willing, made up of the USA and Great Britain (soon to be

Although, during those early days, the information reaching the media from the field was anything but clear,

joined by Norway, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Denmark, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Turkey

Although, during those early days, the information reaching the media from the field was anything but clear,

and

Italy).8

In order to protect the civilian population of Benghazi and Tripoli from Gaddafi the bloodthirsty dictator and

madman, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, imposed the no-fly zone. Of course, the political reasons for all

this, the ousting of a ‘dictator’, were left unmentioned. This was a humanitarian mission, after all! France thus

became the leader of Operation Odyssey Dawn, to then be replaced by Operation Unified Protector (thus

implementing the military embargo on Libya).9

US Admiral William Gortney’s first concern was Gaddafi’s physical safety and wellbeing. It goes without saying that

Gaddafi was not on the coalition’s list of targets, although someone might accidentally kill him... Britain’s Chief of

the Defence Staff, Sir David Richards, was equally insistent that Gaddafi was not to be targeted. Killing Gaddafi

was not a bad thing in itself, but UN law would not permit it.10

The coalition was ‘willing’ to do some things, but less ‘willing’ to do other others. Less willing to admit, for example,

that the aim was precisely to assassinate Gaddafi. The coalition was unwilling to admit that it hoped to bury his

death under Resolution 1973’s ‘collateral’ carnage. However, in a joint letter, Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron did

publicly admit that the Libya mission would not be over until Gaddafi had been removed (he had to “go and go for

good”).11 Hence, the repeated targeting of Gaddafi’s Bab al ‘Aziziyah residential compound (Gaddafi normally

resided there with his family).12

Too cowardly to admit what this humanitarian mission was really all about, the assassins hoped they might

present Gaddafi’s death to the world as something ‘incidental’, prevention of which was beyond the powers even

of the world’s leaders. Carpet-bombing was once euphemistically termed use of smart bombs. We heard of an

excess of bombs raining down on Libya (as though they were part of the weather or climate…). If somebody

dies… well… they probably deserved it anyway… Seeing itself as the superior player because its arms

technology is more advanced, and its resources and power are greater, the West has the power to decide who’s

to live and who’s to die. In the name of human rights, it has the power to decide who is to enjoy these rights and

who must do without. Principles don’t come into this picture. Today, as in the past, tyrants are often greeted with

open arms and welcomed into western countries. Others are rubbed out, and the cities of their peoples are

bombed.13

Among the coalition’s members there was a diplomatic row as to who was to lead the Libya operation. It was

decided that it should be NATO. Having performed more than 15,000 aerial bombing and naval shelling

missions—causing countless civilian deaths, and often using arms with depleted uranium—NATO was the ideal

candidate. It had the experience required for missions of this kind.14

To assuage any possible public outbreak of conscience, the international media repeatedly told us that Gaddafi

ordered the Lockerbie massacre that took place on 21 December 1988 (270 victims).15 Gaddafi was a “terrorist”.

If we read the Lockerbie trial records, we learn that on 31 January 2011, the British justice system acquitted one

of the two accused, Ali Amin Khalif Fhimah, due to insufficient evidence.16 The other, ‘Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed

al-Megrahi, imprisoned for years, was then extradited to Libya in August 2009.17 The charges against al-Megrahi

remain unsubstantiated. In February 2011,

Robert Black, the Scottish law professor who devised the format of the

Netherlands-based trial, was quoted as saying he was ‘absolutely astounded’ that Al Megrahi had been found

guilty. Mr Black said he believed the prosecution had ‘a very, very weak circumstantial case’ and he was reluctant

to believe that Scottish judges would ‘convict anyone, even a Libyan’ on such evidence.18

Black was not alone. A major Scottish newspaper that had followed the affair over the years concluded on 28

August 2005 that the evidence against al-Megrahi had been fabricated.19 Amid the various claims and

counterclaims, the Libyans paid a high price: an embargo lasting ten years, with Gaddafi making payments in

damages in the order of 10 million dollars for each Pan Am passenger who died20 in order to break the siege.

The former Libyan Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdel al-Jalil, felt obliged to draw “the entire world’s attention once

more to the responsibilities of Gaddafi over Lockerbie”.21 Mustafa Abdel al-Jalil was Justice Minister until 21

February 2011, when he passed directly into the ‘rebel’ camp.22 From his point of view, if it would galvanise

public opinion and justify the upcoming massive attack on Libya, it made perfect sense to point to Libyan

responsibility for Lockerbie.23

The Benghazi ‘rebels’ were the West’s new ally. Benghazi was a stronghold of tribal and religious traditionalist

tendencies. The ‘rebels’ were to be encouraged. Photo ops were arranged. For the benefit of visiting TV

journalists, the rebels shot their guns into the air and charged around on pickup trucks fitted out with heavy

machine guns.24 Poster boys perhaps they were, but they were not very popular in Libya.

Perhaps they were well armed and trained, but they were still at the ‘rag tag army’ stage. The insurgents

repeatedly fell back when faced by the loyalist army, and they received little support from the people of Libya. It

required an effort of imagination to see these people, who lacked popular support, as having anything to do with

a popular revolt.25 “It is very likely,” concluded Thierry Meyssan, “that there are more NATO Special Forces

commandos on the ground than the number of Libyan combatants they are supposed to oversee”.26

The government appointed itself at the request of these ‘rebels’. It called itself the National Transitional Council.

Its existence was announced on 27 February 2011, but it was not clear how it was composed. Mahmud Jibril was

appointed executive president.27 Jibril, who was once Gaddafi’s right hand man and the former director of the

National Economic Development Board (NEDB) (since 2007), made the arrangements for key operatives from the

armed forces of various Western States to come in and train the insurgents.28

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the leader who showed the greatest determination in demanding military

intervention against Gaddafi’s Libya. He is said to have frankly admitted that “We were the ones who created the

rebels’ Council [in Benghazi], and without our support, our money and our arms, the Council would not exist”.29

The opposition forces needed greater credibility. So the media ran stories about the Libyan dictator’s tremendous

cruelty and brutality. It was claimed (with considerable clamour) that he had hired black mercenaries who

committed the most terrible acts of violence. Bernard-Henri Lévy (the famed à la carte French ‘philosopher’ also

widely known as BHL) was the first to reveal to a stunned world how the tyrant had hired many low cost

mercenaries from Sub-Saharan Africa.30 No one thought to remind BHL that the tribes of southern Libya are

mainly black, or that blacks were to be found at the time at all administrative levels in Libya. Various Libyan

functionaries and ambassadors were black.

BHL’s misconceptions (if we may call them that…) arise out of his racist mindset, according to which Africans of

Arab origin and Negroes must know their respective places within the cultural hierarchy. BHL absurdly claimed on

television that “Gaddafi’s army is a rag tag affair made up of 300 poorly equipped wretches” . Did BHL convince

monsieur le president that the war would be over in three days?

The myth of the Negro mercenaries caused quite a stir in the West. Journalist Fausto Biloslavo, an eyewitness,

commented,

There surely are mercenaries, but I think very few are professionals or true warriors. I think, and as I

personally saw, quite a few were in the area because they were immigrants looking for a job, frequently

illegal immigrants and with no embassy to protect them. They were forced to join the ranks of the

combatants and were probably never even actually paid. So I wouldn’t really call them mercenaries. I’d call

them wretched souls who kill so as not to be killed, under the threat of a bayonet behind their backs. In

Tripoli, a number of columns of these illegal immigrants who were attempting to leave Libya were blocked,

and basically the ‘rebels’ gave them a choice. They might be considered mercenaries and therefore

summarily executed, or they could join the rebels. When I was at the anti-Gaddafi strongholds, as in

Zawiya, which has now been wiped out, I saw a black skinned soldier, because he came from the Fezzan

region in southern Libya. He was paraded in front of the TV cameras as though he was a foreign

mercenary, when in actual fact he was a Libyan policeman. Believe me, in Libya today, they’re all mad

dogs, and that includes the best among them .

As time went by, various international investigations were conducted to verify the Libyan government’s alleged

use of ‘mercenaries’. According to a number of African governments, black immigrants in Libya, and witnesses

interviewed by humanitarian organisations such as the Féderation internationale des droits de l’homme (FIDH),

in eastern Libya—controlled by the rebels—innocent migrant workers were accused of being ‘Gaddafi

mercenaries’ and were lynched, tortured, killed or in any case subject to racist attacks and theft. The rebels, as a

number of videos confirm, executed and tortured Libyan soldiers, especially blacks” .

Over and above the question of the existence of these government mercenaries during the early stages of the

war, we should remember that the Anglo-Americans had already imported this ignoble practice into Afghanistan

and Iraq. It is well known that top officials in the United States believe that the deployment of mercenaries has led

to progress in management of the war theatres of the twenty-first century.

The term, ‘mercenaries’, has been euphemised. As ‘contractors’, they do exactly what we traditionally expect from

mercenaries (they are paid to fight or to conduct intelligence operations). The advantage of hiring mercenaries is

that one need no longer abide by, or have anything to do with, the rules of military conduct. ‘Contractors’ is a

politically correct term, and the Anglo-American warmongers know how important image and media discourse is.

It was also officially announced that the ‘rebels’ received arms and other equipment from Qatar, with oil as the

medium of exchange. These arms and equipment had previously been shipped to Libya secretly . Sheikh Hamad

bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first Chief of State to officially recognise the Libyan ‘rebels’. He was the first member

of the GCC to provide NATO with support, deploying French Mirage F1 fighters and American C-17

Globemasters. He also installed the satellite channel Ahrar TV on behalf of the Transitional Council, shipped in

many MILAN missile-launchers, and (not least) he immediately engaged in the overseeing of oil exports from

Cyrenaica. Such behaviour was entirely illegal: the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and UN Resolutions 1970 and 1973

explicitly prohibit the arming of groups such as the ‘rebels’, who do not represent the legal government of Libya .

The governments of the West also felt free to ignore these provisions. They recognised the NTC (then renamed

National Liberation Army, NLA) as the only legal government of Libya . American government officials told the

Washington Post (30 March 2011) on condition of anonymity that, “President Obama has issued a secret finding

that would authorize the CIA to carry out a clandestine effort to provide arms and other support to Libyan

opposition groups” .

Public opinion in the USA is familiar with the illegal wars of the infamous Bush era. Obama’s bandit war came into

being on 21 March 2011. According to the War Powers Act (WPA)—passed in 1973 over Nixon’s veto −, unless

he/she receives approval from Congress, the President must order that all military intervention that has

commenced cease within sixty days (the limit rises to ninety days

if the President determines and certifies to the

Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces

requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such

forces”).

On 28 May the conservative intellectual, George F. Will, slammed the Obama’s intention to “degrade the rule of

law”. The opinion piece appeared in

Washington Post

and was republished by other newspapers such as

“The New York Post”. At that very time, Dennis Kucinich, a leftist Congressman, submitted a motion to the House

demanding that the government cease its operations against Tripoli. Senator Richard Lugar, heading his party

delegation on the Foreign Affairs Committee, also wrote Obama a letter reminding the White House of its

obligation to consult Congress and to act consistently with the War Powers Resolution (WPR). Lugar complained

that Obama had cancelled without explanation a Foreign Affairs Committee briefing on Libya with the chief of the

White House military staff. He complained that the government was obstructing all debate .

Congress was concerned over the costs involved and the irresponsible manner in which the war on Libya was

being conducted (outside the legal framework set forth in the War Powers Act). Under pressure, Obama sent to

John Boehmer (the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives) a 32-page document in which he

claimed that the White House did not require Congress approval. “Business Insider” summed up the White House

response as follows—“We don’t need Congressional approval because this is not technically a hostile action

(because we don’t have ground troops in Libya)” . A close observer of Washington practices remarked, “Obama’s

flagrant violation of the War Powers Act in Libya would make him subject to impeachment, and this possibility

might become more likely if the US economy continues to deteriorate” .

Through its indifference toward questions of constitutional legality, the Obama administration showed it was

uninterested in the kind of “change” that had been promised after Bush jr.’s tragic double mandate. Indeed,

Obama sent Chris Stevens to Benghazi. Stevens, formerly second-in-command at the US embassy in Tripoli, was

instructed to “work with the opposition, get a clear idea of what they needed, work out how we can help them and

fill in the gaps in what we know about them” . While there were many “gaps” in what Western public opinion knew

about the Libyan opposition, the American government knew very well who it was dealing with.

Let’s join a few dots...

ENDNOTES Excerpt left:

1 C. Jean. L’intervento in Libia: la situazione attuale e gli scenari futuri, in “Italianieuropei”, no. 4,
April 2011, pp. 21-22.

2 The Sanusis idolised the King when the movement rose once more to power in 1951 following the
declaration of independence of Libya. Muhammad Idris I reigned until 1969 (Gaddafi and his Free
Officers declared the end of the monarchy on 1 September 1969).

3 R. Norton-Taylor and C. Stephen, Libya: SAS veterans helping NATO identify Gaddafi targets in
Misrata, in “The Guardian”, 31 May 2011; M. Hosenball, US agents were in Libya before secret
Obama order, in “Reuters”, 31 March 2011; C. Jean. L’intervento in Libia: la situazione attuale e gli
scenari futuri, cit., pp. 23-24.

4 G. Gaiani, Soldati occidentali tra i ribelli, in “Libero”, 1 June 2011.

5 G. Gammel, N. Meo and J. Kirkup, Libya: SAS Mission that Began and Ended in Error, in “The Daily
Telegraph”, 6 March 2011.

6 A. Jamal, US, UK, French Forces Land in Libya, in “Pakistan Observer”, 28 February 2011.

7 V. E. Parsi, Il nuovo protagonismo internazionale nel mediterraneo, in “Italianieuropei”, no. 4, April
2011, p. 15.

8 O. Karmi, US deploys Naval and Air Forces near Libya, in “The National”, 1 March 2011; I. Black et
al., Libya Crisis: Britain, France and US prepare for Air Strikes against Qaddafi, “The Guardian”, 17
March 2011.

9 In article appearing in the “Telegraph”, General Younis, former Minster of the Interior under
Gaddafi who then became the military commander of the ‘rebels’ expressly asked “that the west
should be ready to launch airstrikes against Colonel Gaddafi’s palace in Tripoli to prevent him
attacking the Libyan people with chemical weapons or causing terrible casualties in some other way.
He was also in favour of establishing an international no-fly zone as soon as possible.” (N. Meo, Libya’
s rebel army struggles to create order from chaos, in “The Telegraph”, 5 March 2011).

10 S. Gowans, West on Guard against Outbreak of Peace in Libya, in “The Herald”, 20 April 2011
.
11 Cf. MPs rebel over Libya mission creep as Cameron, Obama and Sarkozy promise to keep
bombing until Gaddafi Regime is Gone, in “The Daily Mail”, 15 April 2011.

12 U. De Giovannangeli, Libia, l’obiettivo della NATO è assassinare Gheddafi. Intervista ad Angelo
Del Boca, in “l’Unità”, 26 June 2011 [the article consists in an interview with Libya historian A. Del
Boca—translator’s note]

13 T. Cartalucci, NATO’s Terror over Tripoli, in “Infowars”, 20 June 2011.

14 P. Escobar, What’s Really at Stake in Libya, in “Asia Times”, 30 June 2011. M. D. Nazemroaya
has collected considerable amounts of evidence of the use of depleted uranium missiles: see NATO
War Crimes: Depleted Uranium found in Libya by scientists, in “Voltairenet”, 5 July 2011; C. Hallinan,
Using up USA’s Depleted Uranium—for Weapons in Libya, in “Nuclear News”, 13 April 2011. See also
the study conducted by Professor M. Zucchetti, of the Politecnico di Torino, Missili Cruise all’uranio
impoverito sulla Libia: studio delle conseguenze, in “Libyan Free Press”, 7 July 2011. For an overview
of NATO military actions and an account of the many thousands of Libyan civilians who died as a
result of the Coalition of the Willing’s aerial bombing raids , cf. F. P. Lamb, France says NATO
Bombing has Failed, in “Activist Post”, 11 July 2011.

15 One source, by way of illustration, is Lockerbie and the Libyans, in “The Economist”, 8 April 1999.
16 D. Vandewalle, A History of Modern Libya, cit., p. 169.

17 A. Cramb, Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi expected to be Freed, in “The
Telegraph”, 20 August 2009.

18 Gaddafi to give Lockerbie “evidence”, in “BBC news”, 5 February 2011.

19 “A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in
the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated”, in M. Mega, Police chief: Lockerbie evidence was faked,
in “The Scotsman”, 28 August 2005.

20 Lockerbie Settlement, in “The New York Times”, 14 August 2003.

21 K. Hamadé, “Khdaffi gav order om Lockerbie-attentatet”, in “Expressen”, 23 February 2011.

22. T. Pearce, Ex-Minister says Gaddafi Ordered Lockerbie Bomb, in “Reuters”, 23 February 2011.

23 The entire affair has been reconstructed by R. Backer, Libya: Connect the Dots-You Get a Giant
Dollar Sign, in “Who What Why”, 6 June 2011.

24 K. Fahim, Rebel leadership in Libya shows strain, in “The New York Times”, 3 April 2011.

25 Cf. C. Boucek, Islamist terrorists are running loose in Libya. Why isn’t the US paying attention?, in
“The Christian Science Monitor”, 11 May 2011.

26 T. Meyssan, L’OTAN face à l’ingratitude des Libyens, “Voltairenet”, 11 July 2011. Nato and the
ingratitude of thre Libyan people, “Voltairenet”, 17 July 2011.

27 Self-appointed Prime Minister of the Republic of Libya, Jibril graduated at the University of
Pittsburgh. France, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom and Qatar promptly recognised his
government (an artificial construct set up by NATO after the failed coup d’état of February 2011). The
Jibril government was accepted as the only legitimate representative of Libya. As on 22 August 2011,
the vast majority of UN Member States were clearly not enthusiastic about this ‘new boy in town’. As a
representative of the NATO-supported opposition, Jibril shared his responsibilites with another
militant from the United States, Khalifa Belqasim Haftar. The latter had once been colonel in the
Libyan army, and had resided in Falls Church, Virginia (located seven miles away from the CIA’s
Headquarters in Langley). Many knew that Khalifa Belqasim Haftar was payrolled by the CIA (cf. P.
Martin, Mounting Evidence of CIA Ties to Libyan Rebels, in “Uruknet”, 4 April 2011; G. Raz, In Libya,
A Civil War, not Uprising, in “NPA”, 2 April 2011; K. Nimmo, CIA Operative Appointed to Run al-Qaeda
Connected to Libyan Rebels, in “Infowars”, 29 March 2011).

28 K. Dilanian, CIA officers in Libya are aiding rebels, US officials say, in “Chicago Tribune”, 30
March 2011. The Anglo-Americans claimed that they knew very little about the National Transitional
Council. Admiral James Stavdiris told the United States Armed Services Committee that, as supreme
commander of the military operations of the European Command of the United States (EUCOM) and
of NATO, he was deeply concerned over the behaviour of the Libyan opposition (United States
Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. European Command and U.S. Strategic Command in review
of the Defense Authorization request for fiscal year 2012 and the Future Years Defense Program,
112th Congress, 2011, 1st Session, March 20 2011).

29 See the interview with Sayf al-Islam Gaddafi published by the Algerian newspaper “El-Khabar”, 11
July 2011; see also Trattative con Gheddafi, Parigi smentisce, in “La Stampa”, 12 July 2011; R.
Monteforte, Libia, il figlio del raìs annunica: “Contatti diretto con la Francia”, in “l’Unità”, 12 July 2011.

30 B.-H. Lévy, What Can We Do for the Young Libyan Revolution?, in “Huffpost World”, 6 March
2011.

B.-H. Lévy, Scènes de la vie dans la Libye libre, in “Le Point”, 10 March 2011.

E. Oliari, Libya: una guerra fatta soprattutto di disinformazione. Intervista a Fausto Biloslavo,

in “Oliari.wordpress”, 28 May 2011.

M. Correggia, Libia: e se fosse tutto falso?, in “Famiglia Cristiana”, 14 June 2011.

Confirmation of such incidents may also be found in an interview with Peter Bouckaert, a

Human Rights Watch activist: HRW: No mercenaries in eastern Libya, in “Radio Netherlands

Worldwide”, 2 March 2011. It was learned that “nightly manhunts” were organised “for about

8,000 people named as government operatives” (D. Zucchino, Libyan Rebels appear to take

Leaf from Kadafi’s Playbook, in “Los Angeles Times”, 24 March 2011.

R. Nordland, Libyan Rebels Say They’re Being Sent Weapons, in “The New York Times”, 16

April 2011.

J. Kirkup, Libya: Arab States urged to Train and Lead Rebels, in “The Daily Telegraph”, 22

April 2011.

M. D. Nazemroaya, Operation Libya: Recognizing the Opposition Government Constitutes a

Pretext for Military Intervention, in “Global Research”, 13 March 2011.

K. DeYoung and G. Miller, In Libya, CIA is gathering Intelligence on Rebels, Washington Post,

30 March 2011.

See G. F. Will, Is Obama above the Law?, in “The Washington Post”, 28 May 2011.

Cit. in J. Weisenthal, Obama Overruled by Two Top Lawyers. Who told him War must be

Terminated, in “Business Insider”, 17 June 2011; It doesn’t Pass the Straight Face Test:

Republican Speaker pours scorn on Obama claim of Authority for Libya Mission, in “Daily Mail”,

16 June 2011.

W. G. Tarpley, The CIA’s Fake “Arab Spring” Becoming a Long, Hot Summer of War, in

“Tarpley.net”, 20 June 2011.

J. Gelman, Tribulaciones Libias, in “Página 12”, 3 April 2011.

REVIEW

"It is rare for a historian to write a history of a significant issue and bring it into the present
time; even rarer when the work coincides with the reemergence of that issue on the world
stage. Paolo Sensini has done just that with Sowing Chaos: Libya in the Wake of Humanitarian
Intervention (Clarity Press, 2016). It is a revelatory historical analysis of the exploitation and
invasion of Libya by colonial and imperialistic powers for more than a century...

Sowing Chaos: Libya in the Wake of Humanitarian Intervention is a superb book. If you wish to
understand the ongoing Libyan tragedy, and learn where responsibility lies, read it. If the tale it
tells doesn’t disgust you, I’d be surprised.
Prof. Edward Curtin, GlobalResearch

“Dismissing the claim that the West’s Gaddafi-killing intervention in Libya, which played a big
role in the chaos in the Middle East, was for humanitarian reasons, this book explains the real
reasons. Of special interest is the author’s discussion of the central role played by 'the ever-
destructive Hillary Clinton.'”
– David Ray Griffin,

author of

Bush and Cheney: How They

Destroyed America and the World

, and

Unprecedented: Can

Civilization Survive the

CO2 Crisis

Sensini in front of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.