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Frankenstein`s monster on the rampage
Friday, 14 September 2012 - 11:37 AM SL Time
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Wednesday`s killing of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya has shocked the world. That barbaric crime must be condemned by one and all and the perpetrators brought to justice. That the killers had been provoked by a spoof of Islam cannot be cited in extenuation of that brutal act. President Barack Obama has vowed to track them down.
It is a supreme irony that the place where the US diplomats perished is Benghazi, described as the cradle of US-backed uprising against Gaddafi. Where are those who danced in the streets, claiming that Libya had been liberated from the clutches of a tyrant when Gaddafi was captured and summarily executed? US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reportedly jubilant when she received the news of the dictator`s violent end. `Wow!`, she famously exclaimed. President Obama declared that the rule of an iron fist had come to an end in Libya.
But, today, Libya seems to be in a far worse predicament. It is not safe even for the envoys of the very nations that masterminded the anti-Gaddafi uprising and backed the rebels to the hilt! This is the price the US has had to pay for its ill-conceived regime change campaigns and for having let the genie out of the bottle.
In Afghanistan, the US unwittingly paved the way for the rise of Taliban and al Qaeda by neglecting that country after ousting the Russians with the help of a disparate group of Islamic fighters the Mujahideen. Osama bin Laden was also its creation and how disastrous its retaliatory intervention in Afghanistan has been is only too well known.
In Libya and Iraq, the US has made the mistake of plunging feet first into overthrowing dictators without giving two hoots about what to do next. The US-led forces were blinded by an insatiable thirst for oil and hegemonic interests in Iraq, where various terrorist groups have moved in to fill the void created by the removal of Saddam Hussein and deadly bomb blasts have become a daily occurrence. In Libya the anti-Gaddafi combatants have become a law unto themselves they are committing revenge killings, rape, torture, kidnapping and extortion with impunity. America`s attempts to `export democracy` to other countries at gunpoint have manifestly ended in disaster. Haiti is another example.
Interestingly, former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake, who had a narrow escape from death in a terrorist attack in this country, is currently here on an official visit. On Feb. 27, 2007, the LTTE shelled a chopper carrying Blake, German Ambassador Juergen Weerth, Italian Ambassador Pio Mariani, Minister for Human Rights and Disaster Management Mahinda Samarasinghe and several others in Batticaloa, inflicting shrapnel injuries on Blake and Mariani. Fortunately, the LTTE missed the target. Else, all three envoys and high profile representatives from Japan and the UN would have been killed together with Minister Samarasinghe. Strangely, Washington did not vow to `track down` the perpetrators. It chose to soft-pedal the issue.
Worse, when Sri Lanka`s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated in 2005, the US lent its voice to a collective of nations that chorused in unison that a crumbling `peace process` they were propping up here had to go on. Ambassador Blake happened to say in an interview the following year: `I don`t think a military solution is possible without a parallel political strategy. The LTTE has a significant capability to attack, using terrorist means. We should not underestimate that .` But, today, the international community insists that the military presence in the North and the East be reduced since there are no terrorist threats! And Blake could visit any part of Sri Lanka without fearing terrorist attacks.
It is ironical that the killing of Ambassador Stevens by the rabble who benefited from the US involvement in Libya coincided with the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 terror strikes masterminded by America`s one time blue-eyed boy, bin Laden. While the battle for Tripoli was being fought last year we argued in these columns that the US was creating another Frankenstein`s monster in that there were many al Qaeda cadres within the ranks of anti-Gaddafi fighters. Some of them even admitted that they had fought against the US military elsewhere. But, the Obama administration did not give a damn about the danger they posed. Ambassador Stevens and other American citizens have paid for Washington`s blunders with their precious lives.
The US is hoist with its own petard. Gaddafi must be guffawing wherever he may be!
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