Editorial IslandƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  April 2, 2013,

The US and Europe erupted in jubilation when Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was dragged out of a culvert, paraded on streets and put to a violent death by the western-backed rebels in 2011. They may have thought that by ousting him they would be able to install a puppet regime in Tripoli and control Libya and its oil resources. British Prime Minster David Cameron and the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Tripoli during the closing stages of the war with Gaddafi still at large. They were given a rousing welcome and some overenthusiastic Libyans went to the extent of naming their newborn babies after Sarkozy.

But, today, the very rebels that the West protected, funded and armed have turned Libya into one of the most dangerous places on earth for Americans and Europeans. Under Gaddafi, there was a semblance of order. On the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Libyan rebels driven by religious fanaticism stormed the US mission in Benghazi known as the cradle of Arab Spring in that country, captured American ambassador Chris Stevens and three others and murdered them in cold blood. The situation became so bad that in January this year, western governments urged their citizens to leave Benghazi forthwith in view of an imminent threat. Having sowed the wind they are now reaping the whirlwind! Unfortunately, it is the ordinary Libyans who have had to bear the brunt of the prevailing lawlessness, tribal warfare and the attendant bloodletting.

Yesterday, we reported a shocking incident where a gang of Libyan rebels turned soldiers raped two British women in front of their father in the very cradle of Arab Spring. The victims were humanitarian workers engaged in taking an aid convoy to Gaza in a bid to defy the Israeli blockade and deliver relief to the besieged. The blame for creating such savages should be apportioned to the British government which backed the Libyan fighters simply because its plans for Libya dovetailed with theirs to some extent. Sadly, the ordinary British citizens are paying for CameronƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s blunders. Blair joined Bush in destroying Iraq, where a dictatorship has given way to anarchy and Cameron has been instrumental in plunging Libyans from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.

Besides harming foreigners, the former Libyan militiamen are unleashing fratricidal violence and perpetrating crimes against hapless civilians who are suffering in silence. Libya is in chaos with a pusillanimous government having lost control over violent rebels who have become a law unto themselves.

The West succeeded in getting rid of dictators in countries like Iraq and Libya by engineering popular uprisings and in so doing it unwittingly paved the way for the rise of religious fundamentalism and terrorism. The worst is yet to come. In what turned out to be a queer turn of events, the US-led western governments backed al-Qaeda combatants among Libyan rebels in a bid to overthrow the Gaddafi regime heedless of the consequences of their action aimed at short term gain while carrying out deadly drone attacks on suspected al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan! In Syria, too, they have made the same blunder as the rebellion in that country, too, is bound to spin out of control as in Libya given the presence of al-Qaeda fighters among the Syrian fighters.

For Libyans and their counterparts in other countries where regime changes have been engineered, the Arab Spring has manifestly given way to a Winter of Despair and the Westerners are being pursued by their Frankenstein. In Libya we see the Afghanistan of Africa in the making.