Need help: Doing Debate in school about intervention in Libya

[Leftsolidarity]

I am doing a debate in class about intervention in Libya. My side is opposed to invention (mainly USA's intervention). I have material from some speeches I made and articles I wrote last year dealing with US Imperialism but nothing specifically about Libya.

I really need cold hard facts against intervention along with a history of imperialist US interventions around the world. I need to be able to concretely prove that those past interventions were imperialist and "bad".

I'm going to try to move this debate along the lines that US intervention in Libya is imperialist and is against the interests/well-being of the people of Libya (and possibly the USA). I also want to throw Gadaffi in a better light and bring up the good things he did for Libya.

Any help, sources, info, etc. you could give me would be great.

[tir1944]

Just say that Islamists and Terrorists how took power in Libya.:p
I'm sure you'll win the debate that way.

[Ocean Seal]

US Interventions for profit:
Look into East Timor where hundreds of thousands were massacred in order for Haliburton and Exxon-Mobil to pull some very large profits from the oil/rebuilding contracts.
Iraq is another fresh and obvious one.
Installing several dictators proves that the US isn't there to spread democracy
The Shah, Pinochet.
Killing democratically elected leaders, Allende, Lumumba, Mosadeck.
Plus putting in the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

[Hit The North]

On the question of Gadaffi:

I think you should begin by saying that you're not intending to defend a dictator like Gadaffi but that it is important that he is not demonised in an attempt to project a simplistic "good guys, bad guys" type argument. You could point to how he modernised the country, spread literacy, and how Libya had the highest standard of living in Africa. However, the lack of political freedom and the arbitrary nature of the Libyan state are real problems that he was guilty of maintaining and it was the maintainance of this oppressive state structure which led to his downfall.

Gadaffi was a bad guy, but opposing him doesn't automatically make his opponents good guys.

[Nox]

Admit that he was a 'ruthless dictator' who did some very bad things.

But also point out all the great things he did, you can easily find some lists from a simple google search.

Also, point out how the oil will go to Western corporations and how Libya's economy and infrastructure has been destroyed and how either another dictator or an islamist group will take power.

[Threetune]

Just tell it like it is and don’t worry about “wining” the vote!

</H1>http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4610 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4610)

http://killinghope.org/
Table of Contents
It's not a pretty picture.
It is enough to give imperialism a bad name.
Read the full details in:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II.

by William Blum

"Far and away the best book on the topic."
Noam Chomsky

"I enjoyed it immensely."
Gore Vidal

"I bought several more copies to circulate to
friends with the hope of shedding new light
and understanding on their political outlooks."
Oliver Stone

"A very valuable book. The research and organization
are extremely impressive."
A. J. Langguth, author, former New York Times Bureau Chief

"A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope,
important."
Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

"Each chapter I read made me more and more angry."
Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of
the anti-nuclear and environmental movements
Introduction (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/Intro2004.htm)
1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/italy1.htm)
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/indo1.htm)
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/ecuador.htm)
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/cuba.htm)
(http://killinghope.org/bblum6/cuba.htm)31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/uruguay.htm)
(http://killinghope.org/bblum6/uruguay.htm)34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said
the President of the United States
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution" (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/guat3.htm)
(http://killinghope.org/bblum6/guat3.htm)38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/angola.htm)
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/bulgaria.htm)
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/iraq2.htm)
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/afghan.htm)
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest? (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.htm)
56. The American Empire - 1992 to present
Notes
Appendix I: This is How the Money Goes Round
Appendix II: Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-1945
Appendix III: U. S. Government Assassination Plots (http://killinghope.org/bblum6/assass.htm)
Index

[Tim Cornelis]

Exactly, specifically point out that it was already apparent to the Western powers--through the French intelligence agency--that the majority of the National Transitional Council were monarchists and Islamists, and that a great deal of jihadists who fought US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were now fighting with the US. The fact that Western powers ignored the role of Islamists evidences it was a war for profits.

[Threetune]

BTW When I was fifteen we had a ‘debate’ in our class about the “Vietnam War”. At the time I was on the US side being a good Catholic lad and against the “godless communists”.

A communist miner’s son gave a great speech about the bombing of poor peasants and US soldiers setting fire to the grass houses. Within months I had dumped religion and started the serious search for answers to poverty and war.

[Leftsolidarity]

Anyone have any good links for evidence that invention in Libya is imperialist?

[Leftsolidarity]

Well I might have to do my debate today and here's the opening speech I have right now. It is pieced together from some old speeches I have made and random thoughts I wrote down. Luckily, I'm good at speaking so hopefully I can make it sound better than it is haha



When does a sovereign nation become American/NATO’s property? What gives America/NATO the authority to dictate what goes on beyond our borders in an area controlled by a sovereign nation?
To support U.S./NATO interventions as the world's police force is to destroy the concept of independent and sovereign nations. It is to say that the world is the property of America/NATO and we will only give all other countries the facade of being independent and sovereign when it is convenient for us.
If you look at who we “help” they are strictly in countries/areas that America/NATO has invested interests in. We go into these countries, no to genuinely help the people there, but to make sure our profits and interests are secure.
Libya has the 6th largest oil reserves in the world and Ghaddafi has always been a thorn in the side of Western superpowers trying to exploit Africa. This “humanitarian intervention” is nothing but piggy-backing on the true Arab Spring to strike against a country that as long stood against the exploitation of Africans by foreign businesses.
Don’t take just my word for it though, the New York Times agrees. “West Sees Libya as Ripe at Last for Businesses." That was the headline on the October 29th edition of the New York Times. They must have found this headline a little too, what you would call truthful, because the headline on the online edition was changed at least twice ending up as, “Western Companies See Prospects for Business in Libya." (source: workers’ world newspaper)
This shouldn’t be surprising though because the long history of US interventions and “aid” has the same story. From Chile to Panama to Vietnam to Grenada to Guatemala, the list goes on and on. Libya is just the latest country to fall victim to Western aggression for profits.
NATO's intervention is not for humanitarian reasons. If that were so we would not have killed a possible 13,000 civilians (source: guardian). Speaking with RT, former MI5 agent Annie Machon claimed NATO’s intervention has plunged Libya back into the Stone Age.
“They’ve had free education, free health, they could study abroad. When they got married they got a certain amount of money. So they were rather the envy of many other citizens of African countries. Now, of course, since NATO’s humanitarian intervention the infrastructure of their country has been bombed back to the Stone Age. They will not have the same quality of life. Women probably will not have the same degree of emancipation under any new transitional government. The national wealth is probably going to be siphoned off by Western corporations. Perhaps the standard of living in Libya might have been slightly higher than it perhaps is now in America and the UK with the recession,” she said. (source: RT news)
If NATO was truly concerned about humanitarian causes, why is it not also intervening in places like Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and all the other places where governments are brutality suppressing their people? Not only do NATO forces not intervene in those places but they actively back and supply some of those governments. So no, NATO's intervention is NOT humanitarian.
America/NATO has a history of intervening in countries to “help” but ends up leaving it: war-torn, economically/politically in shambles, under a dictatorship or puppet government, or just not leaving it at all!
I want to address the charges against Ghaddafi of being a so called “dictator” and “tyrant”; this is an ethnocentric charge. We are holding OUR standards of Western democracy onto another country across the global with completely different conditions and culture.
Libya's political system was actually one that involved principles of direct democracy and peoples' control. Ghaddafi overthrew an oppressive monarchy in a bloodless coup and gave power to the Libyan people through community councils. Each area had community councils where the people would gather and decide what to do in a democratic manner. Ghaddafi was just the person who officially presided over the entire country as more of a figure head and a symbol of national unity. While Ghaddafi was nowhere near perfect, he is the victim of a relentless smear campaign of lies and misinformation.
Under Ghaddafi, all Libyans gained healthcare, education, and housing. Libya ranked among the highest in all of Africa for GDP and living-standards.
These rebels are responsible for war-crimes and crimes against humanity. There are many reports of them committing mass rapes in cities they have conquered and having massacred black Africans for the color of their skin. One report reads, “The internationally backed rebels trying to seize power in Libya have also been accused of numerous war crimes and wide-scale barbarity — some of it too horrendous (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/06/07/going-rogue-natos-war-crimes-in-libya/) even to mention. Numerous gruesome videos have been posted online showing beheadings, lynchings and other crimes, proving that at least some of the allegations are true.” (source: The New American)
Once they had captured Ghaddafi, they beat him, sodomized him with a knife, and murdered him. Needless to say, this is in major violation of international law.
One of the key groups of the rebel army is Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which is officially recognized as a terrorist organization. (http://www.nctc.gov/site/other/fto.html (http://www.nctc.gov/site/other/fto.html)) It has been well-known by NATO from the start the main forces of the rebel fighters and their higher-ups are tied to Al-Qaeda. “In 2004, former Director of Central Intelligence at the CIA George Tenet actually warned (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23947) the Senate Intelligence Committee about the same Libyan group. "One of the most immediate threats [to U.S. security] is from smaller international Sunni extremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaeda links. They include ... the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group," he said. (source: The New American)
“A document released by the TNC explicitly establishes Islam as the state religion and specifies that the principal source of all laws lawfully promulgated under the proposed constitution will be the precepts of Shari.” (source: The New American)
We are helping and supplying the very same groups we have spent the last 10 years fighting against. Yoichi Shimatsu, an expert on Islamic militancy in North Africa, said in an analysis for New America Media, ““Protection for the malcontents, including Al Qaeda militants, holed up in Benghazi is the worst rationale for any intervention in the annals of American history...If this twisted logic was to be transferred to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Marines should be saving Taliban outposts from the Afghan Army or providing security for car-bomb drivers against the Iraqi police.”” (source: The New American)


Edit: I don't know why some of the font copied over so strangly

[brigadista]

follow the money..

[Leftsolidarity]

Oh btw, I won this debate and people loved it. Thanks for the help everyone.