NATO Through the Back Door Again

A Little Incidental History on Libya

I love flags. This one belonged to the old province of Tripolitania on the northwestern coast of Libya, hence the shortened capitol name, Tripoli. Following WW I, it was annexed as an Italian colony, one of the few pieces of real estate that the Italians managed to capture. Like most land grabs, this one was done under the guise of saving the Ottoman Wilayats from...well, apparently some other Ottomans. Seems the Ottoman Sultan was in the rather uncomfortable position of having picked the wrong side in 'the big war,' and Turkish nationalism was just hitting the prickly-going-on-dangerous period of its development. The movement was headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- 1st President of what would become a modern and secular nation-state. Kemal himself could fill two or three pages on his own, but the point here is that if he didn't make a move following WW I, the big powers would turn Turkey into a garage sale.

Back to Italy in Libya. By 1920, both the Sultan & the Caliphate (more on that later) were sent somewhere more sympathetic, and while Italy granted Tripolitania a degree of autonomy, they quickly reneged on the deal and occupied the territory. WW II trashed the whole area and Libya was pretty much occupied by allied forces until about 1947. Most of the Italians were sent home. 1951 saw the establishment of Libya as a constitutional monarchy of sorts. Oil was discovered, the king got a little too rich and it seemed like BP, Chevron & the US Air Force were running the place. While the King was being medically treated in Turkey (1969), a young Gadhafi & some military buddies staged a coup. Arab nationalism was on the rise and running fast throughout the middle east and northern Africa.

Now to the present and probably the real point at hand. First we had the 'Great Game' with all its various ramifications, intentional diversions and subterfuge. Once the Soviet Union swallowed its own tongue and left the US as the predominant military power in the world, the UN playing field didn't really level out -- just tilted a little more toward the scary idea of independent thinking making an impact on that indecisive mob hunkered down in New York. Nobody was offering 'free bridges to nowhere' -- at least in the short term. At the same time, China was elevated to the 'big table,' allowing it the opportunity to finally be a 'deal-breaker.' The changing world structure also seemed (emphasis on seemed) to render NATO a little redundant as a military deterrent to the Red (now red, white & blue) Menace.

So a couple of Bush [es] and probably creative folks like sure-shot Dick Cheney thought, "Gee, the UN won't cooperate on our invasion plans, so lets use NATO." We should remember here that NATO means 'North Atlantic Treaty Organization' and its stated manifesto is to defend western Europe from the not-so-red menace. Basically, a mutual-defense treaty.

That brings up two important questions: What's NATO doing in Afghanistan when that country is south, not north and a damn long way from any ocean, much less the Atlantic one. And second, why would a NATO spokesperson state today that, "[Libya] is in our immediate neighborhood," that statement inferring some kind of legitimate agenda for...what? Hopefully just a geography quiz. And both questions are rhetorical.

So what we have in NATO, I guess, is our own little United Nations, and since we probably finance most of the costs for defending the North Atlantic through our branch offices in Kabul and Baghdad, everybody dances to the music. Seems the only solution is to have the UN denounce NATO as a mercenary force. Gee, it sort of is actually.