CPI Statement on Libya

'War is not a video game'

The Communist Party of Ireland condemns the savage military onslaught now being unleashed by the United States and its EU and NATO allies against Libya.

Events now unfolding in and around Libya have more to do with western governments attempting to reassert control over the region than with the protection of the Libyan people from attack by the volatile Gaddafi regime.

We witness once again the role of the western media presenting events in terms of “good” and “evil,” presenting the savage use of superior NATO military weaponry as some sort of real-life and real-time video game, rather than as a massive military assault that will cause the deaths of ordinary people.

The manipulation of the UN vote used the cover of certain Arab states to justify these actions by western military forces to secure their economic and political interests. They may get corrupt Arab regimes to give them cover for their military aggression, as those very regimes are under pressure from their own people’s struggle for freedom, for social and economic justice. These regimes need the support of the west to stay in power. It is in their self-interest to back the west.

The actions of the imperialist powers are not for protecting Libyans but have more to do with the fact that they are attempting to shape and circumvent the continuing popular uprisings now sweeping the Arab world, removing one pro-western regime after another.

They care little for the people of Libya, just as they have said or done nothing to support or aid the people of Bahrain, whose corrupt government was secured and kept in power only by the invasion by Saudi Arabia; nor do they care about the people of Yemen, as that brutal pro-western and pro-imperialist dictatorship unleashes snipers to murder dozens of its own people.

The CPI calls upon western military powers, the United States and its NATO allies to cease their military aggression and their bombing of Libya. The Libyan people must be allowed to decide their own destiny. They people must be allowed to solve their difficulties in a peaceful way that protects the sovereignty and independence of Libya.