NATO’s Interference in Libya Led to more Civilian Casualties
by Roni Druken

6 months ago civilian struggle erupted in Syria and Libya. While so far, western countries were not able to pass any serious resolution about Syria’s civil oppression, Libya is a different story.

Concern for Libya’s oil reserves led NATO to launch military mission against Libya. Of course it was never described this way, formally the aim of NATO’s mission was to save civilians in Libya.

But sadly it seems the opposite has occurred. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that NATO’s interference in the conflict between the Muammar Gaddafi regime supporters and the Libyan opposition has increased the number of casualties among civilians.

He highlighted the problem of interfering in civil wars saying, “Members of the international community, first of all our Western partners, have chosen the path of supporting one of the sides in the civil war – probably the party that represented the Libyan people’s legitimate aspirations, but this still increased the number of casualties among the civilian population”.

People everywhere deserve freedom. The people of Libya, the people of Syria, the people of Egypt and anywhere else in the world – they all deserve freedom and democracy. But as a result of drastic revolution and change these countries are now in anarchy. In Egypt, 24 people died yesterday in religion clashes, the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February. Libya fighting still rages on despite the disappearance of Gaddafi.

By supporting the Libyan rebels against Gaddafi, Nato is supporting Al Qaeda influenced elements. Missing anti aircraft missiles have probably been smuggled out of the country already as the United States races to help account for thousands of the weapons stockpiled by the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

As tempting as it is to make it all right, western interference may lead to catastrophic results. While the Arab spring grabbed news headlines across the world, Iran quietly advanced its nuclear weapon program. If there is one lesson that Arab leaders have learned from Gaddafi’s tale it’s that without nuclear weapons, NATO can take them down as well. That’s a frightening future to consider.

30 years ago this week, Egyptian president Anouar Sadat was assassinated for being brave enough to make peace with Israel. He was able to take that leap of faith in peace because he was a strong leader with full control of his army and the people. Let’s hope that such leaders will emerge and bring Egypt and Libya out of anarchy and into the road to freedom and democracy.

Roni Drukan is the co-founder of Giyus.org, a pro Israeli online diplomacy group. A contributor to several news sites she is also known as Israeligirl to her blog readers and social media friends.