Libya's Pre-1996 History Revisited: Part 2

A Wall Street Journal editorial recently proposed that the Democratic Obama-Clinton Administration consider the option of some kind of “humanitarian military intervention” in Libya in 2011 in response to the recent deadly attacks on demonstrators inside Libya by the current Libyan regime’s security forces. Yet most people in the United States know very little about the hidden history of Libya. Guy Arnold’s 1996 book, The Maverick State: Gaddafi and the New World Order, for example, observed:

“During 1971 Gaddafi twice stepped down from office, a tactic he was to employ on a number of occasions thereafter. In January he did so briefly saying he would not run for the office of president but within two days had relented due to `popular pressure’. In September he stood down for three weeks at a time when there was a rift in the Revolutionary Command Council [RCC], some of whose members opposed his rigid attitudes over Islamic purity and pan-Arabism. However, explaining his three-week resignation in a speech delivered at Sabrata on 7 October, he said he had resigned because neither the public nor the bureaucracy had risen to meet the challenges of the revolution…

“On 21 February [1973] Israel shot down a Libyan airliner that had strayed over Sinai. The failure of Egypt to retaliate for such `aggression’ sparked off disturbances in Benghazi leading Gaddafi to call a meeting of the RCC and resign. He then retired to the oasis of Houn in the desert where he spent two months in meditation. On 15 April [1973], the anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday, Gaddafi re-emerged and reversed his resignation…At Zuwara, in a speech that came to be known as the Zuwara Declaration, he said that he had been profoundly disturbed by the unwillingness of the people to make sacrifices for the revolution and argued that the revolution was in danger from lack of Arab solidarity; he attacked both Syria and Egypt for failing to retaliate against Israel for the forcing down of the Libyan Airline flight LM114…

“…At the end of June [1973] to a press conference of Cairo journalists, he said he was giving power to the people to prevent the development of dictatorship or a police state…; then on 4 August [1973] he told students that the transfer of power to the people required a `psychological change’ in outlook…

“The early days of the revolution were marked by both enthusiasm and confusion: over 1000 people were arrested for anti-revolutionary activities including the tearing up of revolutionary posters by members of the Islamic Liberation Party and the Communist Party while some Palestinians complained of victimization during the revolutionary purges…

“During 1978 the implementation of the economic theories in The Green Book was begun. These included one house per family and the consequent takeover by the state of rented property; a limit of 10,000 dinars on personal bank deposits; restrictions upon moving funds overseas; and the takeover by state agencies of almost all production and commerce. These were straightforward moves towards a socialist economic state…

“The small population of Libya and its commensurately large oil wealth have enabled Gaddafi to provide major economic and social improvements for his people in the fields of housing, health, education, employment and social services while still retaining large revenues to pay for his external policies…”