No subject

25/08/2011
By Hossam Salama

Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat =96 Abdelhakim Belhadj is the commander of the
Libyan rebel Tripoli Military Council; he emerged as a leader during
the Libyan rebels=92 operation to liberate the Libyan capital from
Gaddafi control. Belhadj is also a former Emir of the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group (LIFG), which was banned internationally as a terrorist
organization following the 9/11 attacks.

The LIFG was founded in the 1990s by Libyan mujahedeen returning from
Afghanistan and was reportedly previously led by Abu Laith al-Libi, a
top Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan who is believed to have been a
training camp leader and key link between Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Belhadj was born in 1966, and graduated from university with a degree
in civil engineering. He is also believed to have two wives; one
Moroccan wife and a second Sudanese wife. Belhadj immigrated to
Afghanistan in 1988 to participate in the Afghan jihad against
occupying Soviet forces. He is believed to have lived in a number of
Islamic countries including Pakistan, Turkey and Sudan. Belhadj was
arrested in Afghanistan and Malaysia in 2004, and was interrogated by
the CIA in Thailand before he was extradited to Libya in the same
year. He was released in Libya in 2008, and announced his renunciation
of violence the following year.

Belhadj is known within Islamist circles as =93Abu Abdullah Assadaq" and
the Libyan uprising has seen his transformation from wanted man to
hero of the Libyan revolution.

The LIFG is considered a key component in the revolution that brought
down the Gaddafi regime. Approximately 800 members of the LIFG are
believed to have participated in fighting alongside rebel forces,
under the leadership of Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Libyan Islamists, especially over the past two decades, have been the
subject to government suppression. An LIFG rebellion was crushed in
Benghazi in 1995 and 1,800 LIFG members were imprisoned. They were
only released after the group=92s ideology was revised in 2008. In
September 2009, the LIFG published a new jihadist =93code=94, a 417-page
document entitled =93Corrective Studies=94 which was published after more
than two years of intense talks between incarcerated LIFG leaders and
Libyan officials, including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

The Gaddafi regime released ten leaders of the LIFG (alongside 214
affiliates of other Islamist trends) on 23 March 2010. Belhadj was
amongst those released, and he has been described as the Emir of the
LIFG. In addition to this, other senior LIFG members were released,
including LIFG theorist Abu Mundhir al Saadi, and LIFG military
commander Khalid al-Sharif.

In March 2011, members of the LIFG reportedly announced that they had
placed themselves under the leadership of the Libyan rebel National
Transitional Council, and that the group had changed its name from the
LIFG to the Libyan Islamic Movement.

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Neville Adams <nada01 at claranet.co.uk> wro=
te:
> I am puzzled by your use of the term =91felicity=92.=A0 I am happy with m=
y
> arguments.=A0 Do you mean veracity?=A0 Yes, there needs to be a move to t=
he
> generation of principles vis-=E0-vis intervention in other states, prefer=
ably
> ones that stem from a democratised international legal order, where, in
> short hand, democratised refers to bottom up law formation.=A0=A0 In the =
interim
> we try to squeeze as much out of the normative potential of what exists i=
n
> relation to international law and the states supposedly bound by them, to
> further progressive ends.=A0=A0 And in that interim, when shit happens an=
d
> others prefer to pontificate about the lack of ideal circumstances, it is
> better to run with that normative potential knowing full well that =A0the
> unfinished business of the enlightenment means that western states stare
> back at us Janus faced reflecting the reality that their ostensible,
> =91universal=92 values of freedom, equality and such like can be undergir=
ded by
> repressive particularisms.=A0 =A0There is a chance then that intervention=
 in
> support of the Libyan people might turn into an imperialistic relationshi=
p.
> =A0However, having asked for help - =A0and we should not be so patronisin=
g, or
> hubristic, as to believe that they did not know the risks - it is, in the
> first instance, up to the Libyan people to ensure that that does not
> happen.=A0=A0 Our role =96 those living in the west=A0 who supported the
> intervention =96 is to try to ensure that requested intervention does not=
 trip
> over into dependency revisited.
>
>
>
> Peter=92s point was, as I understand it, about =A0trying to comprehend th=
e world
> still through the prism of a Palaeolithic =A0Marxism.=A0=A0 My point is t=
hat
> intervention in support of those with emancipative aims who request it ha=
s
> occurred before.=A0 The absence of a fully worked out set of guiding
> principles, international laws and inter-state governance arrangements
> should not be a barrier to responding positively to that, which I think i=
t
> is for you.=A0=A0 So to your last point about whether or not other means =
had
> been exhausted.=A0 =A0=A0People who live under a regime in which violence=
 of
> differing sorts is insinuated into almost every =A0aspect of society,
> particularly their relationship to the state, do not, when they rise up
> against this, initiate the violence.=A0 You can=92t seriously be suggesti=
ng that
> they should have first had some form of =91indaba=92 about the best way
> forward?=A0=A0 That very act itself would have been interpreted as an act=
 of
> violence against the state by the Gaddafi regime, and dealt with violentl=
y.
>
>
>
> You are not the only one concerned about the lack of an adequate framewor=
k
> within which to assess the claims for help. =A0I=92m simply not hamstrung=
 by
> that absence.
>
>
>
> Neville
>
>
>
> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.o=
rg]
> On Behalf Of Riaz K Tayob
> Sent: 28 August 2011 17:20
> To: Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote information and analys=
es
> of interest to the independent left in South and Southern Africa
>
> Subject: Re: [Debate] (Fwd) Is Qaddafi's overthrow a blow or a boon? (Pha=
m
> Binh)
>
>
>
> I do not know why you see this as condemnatory hubris when I am quite
> willing to change the label of container, while you continue to avoid my
> points on content regarding felicity to the arguments made in support of =
the
> intervention/solidarity (insert appropriate term here) actions.
>
> It is precisely because I am willing to engage on these issues, and I am =
not
> unresponsive to the idealism that drives the will to intervene, that I
> question the felicity of the arguments made. Which I find quite wanting. =
As
> Peter put it in his crit of Yoshie, there is a need to move to
> generalisation of issues and principles so that some obligation to
> compliance can be made. Arguments like Achcar's or Devan's are not
> convincing.
>
> On your question, oppressed peoples deserve our support. But no
> uncritically. And the bar is set much higher when we make common cause wi=
th
> imperialism. It simply will not do to say that something positive is bein=
g
> done so we must support it, because of the old hard-learned addage - bewa=
re
> foreigners bearing gifts (and we should look a gift horse in the mouth).
> That the brutalities we see in far too many third world countries has
> neither a principled basis nor even a useful procedure (the SC is about
> threats to international peace) to address it is worrying. And it is
> possible to have the development of laws on this through state practice i=
f
> not through treaty. But the interventionists or neo-humanitarians steer
> clear of this.
>
> Your comparison, in your question to me, is context speficic in the cold =
war
> or during the hey days of self determination and decolonisation (or the
> process to complete independence). This is where PeterW points to Yoshie
> make imminent sense, as things have changed and moved on. And this is the
> fork in the road where we can (and do differ). Unlike the neohumanitarian=
s
> (sic) and Chomsky (in interventions) the choice over a brutal dictator an=
d
> imperialism should lead to support for the latter is not as obvious.
>
> The problem with responding to oppressed people calling for help with a
> military response is one of substance and procedure. Is violence the corr=
ect
> means? Have other means been exhausted? Who decides? And how do they deci=
de?
> We do lack the laws and the means for this but in the context where the s=
ame
> people who write state practice in pre-emptive war and Devan's any means
> necessary are not the sort of folk to be entrusted with such unilaterally=
!
> Which brings us to the point of what are the principles that guide the mo=
ve
> to justify Libyan intervention aside from uniqueness?
>
> The lack of felicity to the arguments presented sets a dangerous preceden=
t
> for parochial interpretation when in any event whatever principles are
> derived would be subject to paradiastole.
>
>
>
> On 2011/08/28 07:04 PM, Neville Adams wrote:
>
> There you go again, Riaz,=A0 exercising a condemnatory hubris through
> reductive labelling =96 =91interventionists, =91neo-humanitarians=92, and=
 so
> forth.=A0=A0 Having read your responses so far to the Libyan issue, I am =
only
> too aware of =91the complexity of the paranoid politics that foreign
> interference breeds in local politics.=92=A0=A0 I seem to recall a vigoro=
us call
> for foreign intervention of differing sorts =96 disinvestment, boycotts e=
tc .
> =96 against apartheid South Africa.=A0 Was there not military interventio=
n by
> proxy on the part of the USSR and its satellites through the arming and
> training of the ANC?=A0 =A0In the case of Zimbabwe, I remember the UK bei=
ng
> caricatured =96 quite rightly - as a toothless old lion for not using bru=
te
> force to end the UDI.=A0 =A0In the history of liberation struggles, it wo=
uld
> appear then that some of those struggling against oppressive regimes
> actively sought supporting =A0intervention by others.=A0=A0 So, given the=
 scenario
> of the oppressed rising up and calling for help, under what circumstances
> would such a type of intervention be unacceptable?
>
>
>
> Neville
>
>
>
> From: debate-list-bounces at fahamu.org [mailto:debate-list-bounces at fahamu.o=
rg]
> On Behalf Of Riaz K Tayob
> Sent: 28 August 2011 09:44
> To: pbond at mail.ngo.za; Debate is a listserve that attempts to promote
> information and analyses of interest to the independent left in South and
> Southern Africa
> Subject: Re: [Debate] (Fwd) Is Qaddafi's overthrow a blow or a boon? (Pha=
m
> Binh)
>
>
>
> Sure this makes sense, but has not been much in evidence IMHO on this lis=
t.
>
> Problem is that some of the Libya interventionists on this list have not
> being willing to embrace the complexity of the paranoid politics that
> foreign interference breeds in local politics... and this relates to all
> sorts of interference, from World Bank loans and neo-liberalism through t=
o
> betting on one or other candidate.
>
> To me it seems that this would mean eschewing the simplicity of anti-stat=
ism
> in third countries with a more sophisticated, but no less critical, posit=
ion
> (many third world elites do aspire to be part of the globalised elite). A=
nd
> this is not to be reductionistic in critique - which goes to the heart of=
 my
> characterisation of interventionists and the shortcomings in arguments in
> support of the intervention.
>
> If one adds Binh's point to the equation one can see how foreign forces
> undermined progressive movements from Egypt to Libya. This was the case e=
ven
> in countries where it is reasonably foreseeable that the sceptre of forei=
gn
> involvement would haunt and undermine the progressive movements. In some
> places there is the implicit view that international solidarity is the
> monopoly of the West, which is not acceptable.
>
> If the quote you like from Binh is viewed as valid, it should not be limi=
ted
> to peoples revolutions only. One would then also have to look at issues l=
ike
> the Meghrahi case, which as an indictment of the Collective North of an
> order of magnitude that is not even permitted public gaze, not even by
> neohumanitarian interventionists. But then the challenge is how does one
> integrate this level of sophisticated brutality by the Collective North i=
nto
> the assessments which are further complicated by Q's idiotic and brutal
> actions?
>
> On 2011/08/28 11:16 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
>
> (This makes sense to me: "We in the West need to do what we can to keep t=
he
> hands of our rulers off of other people=92s revolutions, which means taki=
ng a
> stand against imperialist intervention even when it is disguised as aid t=
o a
> beleaguered rebellion.")
>
> August 27, 2011
>
> Qaddafi=92s Overthrow: a =93Blow to the Arab=A0Spring=94?
>
>
>
> By Pham Binh
>
>
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--=20
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>