By rahnuma ahmed
?Collateral damage?, according to the US department of defense, is damage or injury caused to those who are not lawful military targets, i.e., to non-combatants.
They occur nevertheless…, in the course of action…, but because they were unintended or incidental, the inflictors are to be let off.
In other words, “collateral damage” is deployed to indicate that the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan etc., caused by CIA’s drone-fired missiles — people attending a wedding party, mourners attending funerals of those killed by drone attacks — is ?not unlawful.? They are unintended, they are incidental. They are, as such, ??collateral? deaths. Sorry for all the killings folks, but war is war.
The term, as Orwell reminds us, is a euphemism. Deliberately crafted to prevent us from feeling repulsed, from being morally outraged at the loss of life, at senseless slaughter.
Can the death of J. Christopher Stevens, US ambassador to Libya, and that of three embassy staff, be dismissed as ?collateral? deaths?
For, after all, the present situation in Libya, post-Gaddafi, as detailed in an Amnesty International report, seems to be pretty grim:
[The militias] are killing people, making arbitrary arrests, torturing detainees and forcibly displacing and terrorizing entire communities, often solely for reasons of revenge. They are also recklessly using machineguns, mortars and other weaponry during tribal and territorial battles, killing and maiming bystanders. They act above the law, committing their crimes without fear of punishment. (Libya: Rule of Law or Rule of Militias, Amnesty International, 2012).
The presence of these militias, says Amnesty, ?threaten[s] the very future of Libya.?
The US Ambassador was presumably not ignorant of the state of affairs. For, according to a CNN news report, a local security official (member of the February 17th Brigade), Jamal Mabrouk, had warned American diplomats in Benghazi three days before the ?assault on the US consulate, that, the security situation was ?deteriorating.? It was not conducive for ?international business.? It had worsened because of the ?growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.? It is ?frightening.? It ?scares us.? (More details emerge on U.S. ambassador’s last moments, CNN, September 15, 2012).
The findings of the Amnesty report — the militias ?act above the law,? they commit ?their crimes without fear of punishment? — is confirmed by Libya’s president. A CNN reporter had asked Mohamed Magariaf, when visiting the heavily damaged consulate, whether the government was not capable of controlling extremist groups. ?You are not far from the truth,? was his reply.
There are other reasons, as well, for the US Ambassador to have been knowledgeable.
He was not new to Libya, having served as the US envoy to Libya’s rebels from April 2011. Stationed in Benghazi — the rebel stronghold, the cradle of the Obama administration supported anti-Gaddafi rebellion — Chris Stevens’ is generally acknowledged to have been a “key player” in the uprising. Or, as I would put it, to not having been new to terror.
To, for instance, terror unleashed from the skies, for, NATO had conducted 24,140 air sorties on Libya, with strike sorties numbering 9,010.? Pro-democracy forces could not have disposed of Gaddafi — who had autocratically ruled Libya for forty years — so quickly if it hadn’t been for the air strikes.
Western leaders maintain however, that their intention was humanitarian, of “protecting” Libyans (by bombing, i.e., killing Libyans).
But as alternative news sources had then revealed, Libya’s “pro-democracy” rebels were led by “former” al-Qaeda affiliated brigades, who were supervised by NATO Special Forces, composed of US Navy Seals, British Special SAS Forces and French Legionnaires. The latter’s identity was not disclosed, they were kept out of photo ops, they blended into the heavily-militarised Libyan landscape, they were reportedly behind major operations directed against key buildings including Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound. The rebel forces, on the other hand, had also included teenaged, untrained, trigger-happy gunmen.
The “liberation” of Tripoli was carried out by by “former” members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LFIG), who reportedly disbanded later. According to CNN, they had repented; Michel Chossudosvky terms it switching labels, former terrorists were no longer “terrorists” but “pro-democracy activists” (Global Research, August 28, 2011).
The commander of the assault on Tripoli, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who had fought the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan — the fighters were then known as the Afghan mujahideen, funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, its leaders feted by then US president Ronald Reagan in the White House — when asked whether the militants planned to hand over control to the National Transitional Council, which had been recognised by Western governments , reportedly made “a gesture of dismissal without answering.”
After his appointment as US ambassador to Libya this May, Chris Stevens had said in a video released by the US State Department, ?I was thrilled to watch the Libyan people stand up and demand their rights.?
The Libyan people. No mention of “former” al-Qaeda affiliated brigades. No mention either, of NATO Special Forces, of US Navy Seals, British Special SAS Forces and French Legionnaires.
He’d added, ?Now, I’m excited to return to Libya [as the Ambassador] to continue the great work we?ve started, building a solid partnership between the United States and Libya to help you, the Libyan people, achieve your goals.?
After his death/murder, we now see the Libyan president say, “foreigners” were involved in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. Suspects have been imprisoned; the Libyan authorities are sharing intelligence with American officials. He was silent however, about who were these foreigners, or where they had come from (NBC, September 15, 2012).
At first, the consulate attack was assumed to have spun out from protests by Libyans who were furious at the anti-Islam film, “Innocence of Muslims.” But this was soon discarded. US officials, quoted by news outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, Russia Today, and the Washington Post, said, they believed the attack was pre-meditated. Makes sense, for, as commentators point out, who brings along rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine guns to a spontaneous protest about a YouTube video? The mortars, which were later fired at the secret safe house where the US embassy staff had been evacuated, were very accurate. “Too good for ordinary revolutionaries,” said Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, of the February 17 Brigade, who took Libyan troops and an eight-strong American rescue team from Tripoli, to the safe house, “It began to rain down on us, about six mortars fell directly on the path to the villa.” (Gregory Patin, Embassy attacks, protests: Are they really about a movie?, September 15, 2012).
But far more alarming questions seem to face the US administration: how did the better-than-ordinary revolutionaries know the address of the safe house? Well in advance too, it would seem. Had insider sources leaked this confidential information? It is a reminder of what are known as green on blue killings, as Afghan soldiers increasingly turn their guns on western ?forces, but, already, in Libya? It had taken the Afghans more than a decade, whereas, the Libyan “revolution” is merely a year old.
Despite all indications that the attack on the consulate was pre-meditated, acknowledged as well by the US government, the Obama administration has now reverted to the official story line, “the current global situation is all over a YouTube video.”
There is an added reason for insisting that it’s the video and nothing else, for as protests spread globally — with protestors having been killed to protect US embassies and diplomats, with attempts to storm other western embassies as well ?– it is increasingly clear that Muslim rage is fundamentally against US foreign policies. That, these protests have mushroomed into a “new wave of anti-Americanism” (Reuters).
This is vigorously being denied by the Obama administration, as is quite clear from ?White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s words, “This is a fairly volatile situation and it is in response not to United States policy, not to obviously the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.”
Much is being made of Google having turned down the request made by White House to pull down the anti-Islam film clip. Google has responded by saying it has restricted the clip in compliance with local laws, the video is being censored in India and Indonesia, blocked in Egypt and Libya, that it would not give in to “political pressure.” What is however being ignored by mainstream western media, is that clips which allegedly show the American Ambassador having met a fate similar to that of Gaddafi’s — sodomised, lynched and killed by an angry mob — are unavailable. One is met by the message, “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content. Sorry about that.”
The video story must stick, because on it hinges continuing Western depictions of Muslims as being “irrational” and “fanatic,” which, are put into play to lessen, if not justify, feelings of revulsion and moral outrage at the senseless slaughter of Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and so on. The video story is aided by preaching and hectoring by the likes of Ed Hussein, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, who informs us that “Heresy and blasphemy are essential parts of free and democratic societies” in an article headlined, “Arab Spring nations don’t yet grasp freedom of dissent” (CNN Special, September 14, 2012).
CNN has other talking point headlines as well, “Was the Arab Spring worth it?” — leading me to wonder whether this is indicative of a shift, over fears of the “new wave of anti-Americanism.”
To return to the official story about the Ambassador’s death, it has changed. Preliminary news reports had said that he had probably died when his car was attacked en route to the safe house. But we have later been informed that the Ambassador died of smoke inhalation, caused by firing. CNN tells us, his body was found in a suite at the consulate which was protected by a large door with steel bars, its windows too, were protected by steel bars. That, his body was discovered after looters broke into the room, that he was taken from the consulate to the Benghazi medical centre by locals, “unresponsive and covered in soot by the fire” (CNN, September 15, 2012). But the photo (see picture 2) widely available on the internet, published in some western dailies as well, show no signs of him being covered in soot. What really happened? Will the details be suppressed? To save the face of America’s political and military leadership? News reports say that ambassador Stevens will be cremated, will that be before, or after, a post-mortem? Surely necessary, because we cannot after all, treat an American ambassador’s death lightly. As mere “collateral damage.”
The US has since dispatched a Marine Corps anti-terrorist security team to boost security in Libya, moved two Navy destroyers towards the Libyan coast. It has also deployed military teams to 17 or 18 locations in Muslim majority countries, ones that are of “strategic interest to Pentagon,” to respond to unrest.
While president Obama promised that the ambassador’s killers will be brought to “justice”, secretary of state Hillary Clinton seemed to moan, “Indeed, I asked myself, how could this happen, how could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?”
Hopefully, she and other members of America’s ruling class will figure out the answers soon. Better late than never.
Published as, ” US AMBASSADOR TO LIBYA KILLED. Collateral Damage,” in New Age, Monday, September 17, 2012
