Saif Gaddafi
Saif al-Islam - Once sentenced to death, now freed (though wanted by the ICC) and running for President of Libya.
The news that Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, recently released from prison, is running for president in elections next year seemed, for a brief moment, to herald a new dawn for Libya as it attempts to crawl out of the hell NATO made for it in 2011.

But Libya is not yet near the stability it needs to make a political solution take hold.

You may have noticed the furor last month over 'black slaves being sold in Libya', which prompted 'screaming at the sky' from liberal classes everywhere. It turns out that the source of that hysteria was none other than... CNN, which published the bombshell 'discovery' following an undercover investigation inside Libya, made sometime during the summer, and which produced thoroughly dodgy mobile phone recordings as 'evidence' for the report's extraordinary claims. [Warning: link leads to Fake News. Viewer discretion advised].

No prizes for guessing then that CNN's report remains completely unverified. Certainly, cash is changing hands in Libya for the transportation of black Africans, but there is a very plausible reason for that which doesn't involve needlessly hystericizing people: fees being passed to people smugglers by black African migrants and Libyan war refugees seeking a route out of hell to Europe.

Remember, this is the same CNN caught faking Libya horror stories to get NATO's war juices going back in 2011. It was by no means alone, but it was up to its neck in it. Curiously, although the UN-recognized government in Libya said it would 'look into the report', a Libyan state broadcaster picked up on a tweet by US president Trump that bashed CNN about a week after the story broke:

Libyan broadcaster 'Libya-218' cited the tweet while questioning the credibility of the CNN 'slave trade' video. Incredulity was also expressed in other African capitals, "with the Niger ambassador to Libya denying it had any knowledge of a Nigerien citizen being sold as a slave in Libya."

So this solitary, unverified report from Fake News Central led spurred protests in European capitals and grossly misinformed viral petitions. It also triggered a laughable 'debate' in the London parliament after a petition in the UK was launched by a certain Constance Mbassi Manga, whose profile on Kings College London university describes her as a PhD student 'researching':
  • Camfranglais
  • Hybrid urban linguistic registers with a special interest in Pidgins/Other African hybrid registers
  • Language and Identity/Ethnicity in Post-Colonial Diasporic Populations
  • Super-diversity in African urban contexts
A real expert on Libya then.

Her petition reads:
CNN has released video footage of a black Africans being sold into slavery in Libya. I am asking the UK government to put pressure on the Libyan government to take immediate action to stop these criminals from selling more people, to set current prisoners free, arrest the criminals and end this.
The level of naivete in the above statement is astounding. Hopefully this article will help dispel the myth of 'righteous intervention' that led more than 250,000 people to sign this woman's petition. Because while it may make one feel 'super-diverse' to think one is 'saving the Africans', the reality is much darker; it was 'righteous intervention' that caused all of Libya's problems in the first place.

The 'Libyan Government'

Anyone who is in any way truly concerned about the state of the planet, and the people living on it, should by now be well aware of the fact that there is, right now, no 'Libyan government' to 'stop the bad guys'. They would know that the Libyan government (along with several Libyan cities - and there weren't that many there to begin with) was destroyed by NATO back in 2011 and that the result was a power vacuum that has fueled an intense and bitter civil war that is ongoing to this day.

In May last year there were at least four main forces vying for control of the country - the Council of Deputies, based in Tobruk, which was 'democratically-elected' during Libya's collapse; the General Nation Congress, which lost out to the UN's 'unity government'; and the Tribes Council, which, from a Western perspective, might as well not exist, despite being the only body with nationwide grass-roots support.

At that time, The Council of Deputies, based in Tobruk, was 'recognized by the international community' (which means it's recognized by the Western Empire) and, backed by the Libyan Army, is commanded by CIA spook, General Khalifa Haftar.

Then there's the 'Islamist' General National Congress, based in Tripoli, and backed by its own militias. Formed in 2014, it has not been granted 'international recognition', probably due to the fact that its last president, Khalifa al-Ghawi, requested Russian assistance in the fight against ISIS, a request which Russia had said they'd be happy to honor. Sadly, this initiative never made it off the ground, with NATO intent on making sure it remains that way. For his 'crimes', Ghawi earned himself sanctions and has been ostracized by said 'international community'.

The 'new' government, appointed by the very powers that destroyed the country, is led by Fayiz as-Sarraj, a man "tasked with demanding official military intervention at the United Nations, as soon as possible, against ISIS forces in Libya."

If his 'government' successfully 'wins' Libya, Sarraj and his people stand to inherit the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - the largest African wealth fund, worth some $65 billion, but which is mostly 'frozen' in Western bank accounts. This amount is probably only the tip of an iceberg; some estimates put the amount of Libyan assets frozen by the West at $1 trillion. Something tells me Libyans will be lucky to see any of it ever again.

Control over the LIA account is currently being fought in court by Hassan Bouhadi and Abdul-Magid Breish... and guess who has purposefully bungled the legal proceedings...
For now, the LIA battle is in London but in a bizarre twist the case was last week controversially stopped in mid flow on advice from Britain's Foreign Office.

The judge making the order, which keeps both existing governments from getting their hands on this $65 billion asset, is none other than William Blair, brother of - you guessed it, Tony.
What do the Blairs have to gain from keeping $65 billion out of the hands of the sparring governments in the country? Well, for one, this is very useful leverage over the future of the country.

Last, and certainly not least, there are the tribal authorities, representatives of the traditions of the Libyan people. However, they will never be recognized by Western powers, since they are a lasting legacy of Libya's strong democratic and nationalist tradition under Qaddafi. They represent the human creative principle and a threat to NATO's plans for the region.

Libyan patriots are nevertheless beginning to show signs of increasingly organized resistance:
Exactly one week ago [late February 2016], NATO, after the failure of the "national consensus government" in Libya, has another problem - the daughter of the leader of Jamahiriya - Aisha Gaddafi. After four years of silence, in a letter from Eritrea, she turned to the Libyans with a call to resist the new conquest of the West and declare themselves the successor of her legendary father - "the mother of Libya." The largest Libyan tribe "the warfalla", in the town of Beni Walid (Misurata), has already sworn allegiance to Aisha, proclaiming their commitment to the Jamahiriya. In response, the BBC circulated new, updated footage of the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi, aware of the particularly acute nervous reaction of his daughter. Meanwhile NATO convened an emergency meeting in the Netherlands on the situation in Libya.
And what happened right after NATO's emergency meeting? The US and UK sent special forces to Misrata, just north of the town of Beni Walid, to begin training 'rebels'. The official line is that they were awaiting a request by their puppet government to invade (how very thoughtful!), in the interests of 'defeating extremism', of course. Once again the line between 'terrorist' and 'freedom fighter' is deliberately blurred to perpetuate wars of plunder and sadism, and keep Libya 'down for the count'.

In June of this year Saif al Gaddafi was released from prison, though he is still wanted by both Libyan and international courts. Upon release, he announced a military campaign to cleanse the country. His sister, Aisha, seems to have dropped off the radar following his release - perhaps, having already served her purpose in keeping the flame alight, she was urged to lay low for the interim.

The UN-based decision which led to Sarraj's 'unity government' has expired, leading General Haftar to announce that it is time for him to step down. Sarraj, leader of the Western-imposed government, has signaled that he has every intention of clinging to power despite the expiration of his authority. He met with Donald Trump on December 1st, seeking assistance against Haftar, and a promise of US intervention in order to defend his Tripoli bloc. Assistance was not forthcoming.

Russia, in keen diplomatic maneuvering, has been courting Haftar even while he has been receiving support from Israel and the US - something which the US establishment has deemed 'very concerning'. As long as both major local players - Haftar and Sarraj - owe their political and military power to the West and Israel, Libya will likely continue to be embroiled in conflict. But with a third force emerging - Gaddafi, Russian diplomacy, and the spirit of a people that still remembers the legacy of prosperity and dignity his family brought to the country - it is clear the West senses its 'ownership' of Libya is being challenged.

The UN has announced plans for elections by the end of 2018. Haftar has remained uncommitted about whether or not he will run. But Saif al-Gaddafi is going for it. The rightful heir to the Libyan tribal throne (his father was literally Africa's 'king of kings', by the way), his lawyer had this to say:
"Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan president, enjoys the support of major tribes in Libya so he can run for the upcoming presidential elections due in 2018.

Saif al-Islam plans to impose more security and stability in accordance with the Libyan geography and in coordination with all Libyan factions".
Not only does Saif Gaddafi intend to run for President, but Russia has been holding talks to restore Gaddafi-era economic ties with the war-torn country. These were massive infrastructure plans that went up in flames when NATO decided to effect 'regime change'.
On the economic side, Libya is an important market for Russia's revitalized armament industry and for other companies. This could include a $2.4-billion high-speed railway project between Sirte and Benghazi, which was suspended in 2011. Furthermore, an influence on Libya's hydrocarbon industry is desirable for Moscow. In 2009, Russia was already close to signing a major gas contract with Gaddafi. This would have allowed the Russians to dominate the European gas market even more than what is already the case.
Notice that when Russia (and China) attempt to engage with a nation in conflict like Libya, there is always a component of developing the infrastructure and an effort to put the country back on its feet. When was the last time you heard about (or witnessed) the US or NATO doing the same? Consider the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. 11 years in total, and the country is still in ruins, although it is finally attempting to extricate itself from toxic American influence. After dozens of years of US meddling in the affairs of several African nations - in many cases staging coups, assassinations and arming 'rebel' groups - the only US corporations that have made significant investment there are the energy companies, which was usually the reason for the coup/assassination/conflict-incitement in the first place.

For those concerned about the plight of Libyans, the push for 'saving the Libyan slaves' is not about 'fighting slavery'. As many others have suggested, the truth is that such 'concern' is really about the upcoming elections in the country and recent economic developments, as well as the likelihood that the Western-imposed forces may lose their already tenuous grip on the country to Russian-Chinese influence.

The consistently pusillanimous French government has jumped on the 'intervention' bandwagon, with Macron demanding a "concrete military solution." The UN Security Council has already met to discuss ways to remove obstacles to "boots on the ground." I very much doubt, after it gave Western covert intervention in Syria the boot, that Russia will let NATO's jackboots run roughshod over Libya a second time this decade.

I'm sorry to have say this to all you 'humanitarian interventionists' out there, but this is not about 'saving the slaves'; this is cynical 'realpolitik', and real lives are at risk while willfully ignorant SJWs in the West - who were conspicuously silent when NATO was bombing the crap out of Libya 6 years ago - scream #MeToo at the top of their lungs.

This crisis was seen well in advance by those who led the 2011 attack against Libya. They knew full well that an immigration crisis would follow. They knew full well that a power vacuum would lead to a civil war, and that this would empower unsavory characters. They knew all of this, and pushed ahead with their 'regime change' anyway, because they care nothing for the lives of ordinary people.

Their minds are not clouded by the ridiculous sentimentality of the liberal intelligentsia, the likes of which would lead a Constance Mbassi Manga - herself of African origin and perhaps well-meaning - to demand imperial intervention in order to 'fix' the results of imperial intervention. What could go wrong?

No, their minds are clouded by something else - delusional entitlement. They are the real 'criminals' in Libya. It'll be a cold day in hell before people like Mbassi Manga wake the hell up and smell the West's lust for wealth and power that sits behind all this BS about 'saving the poor African slaves'.