By Scott Taylor
Last week, seemingly in advance of Remembrance Day commemorations, the Embassy of Canada in Egypt tweeted a Veterans Affairs Canada message, which depicted Canadian sailors aboard HMCS Charlottetown during the war in Libya.
The Embassy’s tweet read “10 years ago [Canadian flag] was one of the first countries to respond to the Libyan people’s demand for democracy. CAF members served in the air and sea, helping to enforce a no-fly zone, evacuate people and patrolling the waters.”
To anyone completely unaware of the current state of affairs in Libya this message would appear to be a salute to the Canadian Armed Forces for a job well done.
To correct this false narrative we need to first look at the fact that it was sent by our embassy in Egypt, not Libya.
The reason for that is that Canada does not staff the embassy in Tripoli because after the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, violent anarchy has continued unabated throughout Libya.
There are two main factions, each claiming to be the legitimate government of Libya, propped up by hundreds of warlords with their private militias.
There may have indeed been Libyan voices calling for democracy and Canada may have thought that was the goal when we joined in the fray early on. However by the time the rag-tag assortment of rebels defeated the Gadaffi loyalists it was clear that a Liberal democracy was not going to be the result.
We promised democracy but delivered anarchy to the Libyans.
Contrary to the Embassy’s tweet, Canadian military personnel did not simply enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
The original U.N mandate was to have an allied NATO led air force authorized to prevent Gadaffi from using his warplanes to inflict revenge bombings on the rebels. Instead the very NATO force that was to prevent Libyans from being bombed then proceeded to bomb those Libyans who were loyal to Gadaffi.
Led by Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, the NATO forces bombed military targets, vital infrastructure and despite their best intentions, inflicted casualties on the very civilians that they were to protect.
Once Gadaffi was brutally executed by jubilant rebels, it was clearly evident that the thugs to whom NATO assisted to win victory were not of the rules based international order.
Predictably chaos ensured, with these heavily armed civilians empowered and unwilling to surrender that power to a civilian authority. Between the unsecured arsenal abandoned by the defeated Gadaffi loyalists and the vast amount of weapons supplied by NATO forces to the rebels, post Gadaffi Libya was awash with weapons and munitions.
This directly led to the Tuareg and al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb seizing territory in neighbouring Mali. That conflict continues to the present despite the presence of large French and U.N peacekeeping contingent.
Libya also was the staging area for large number of foreign fighters making their way to fight against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It was a two way street however as Daesh (aka ISIS or ISIL) soon found their way back into Libya.
What was a thriving north African, oil-exporting nation just ten years ago is now a failed state, gripped by violent anarchy and lawlessness. One of the darkest elements to this present power-vacuum in Libya are the slave traders who prey upon those migrants trying to make their way to a better life in Europe.
Had Canada contributed to actually bringing democracy, stability and prosperity to Libya one could point to the collateral damage suffered by the population during Gadaffi’s ouster as having to break some eggs in order to make an omelet. Instead, we failed to deliver on democracy and in doing so removed the pre-existing stability and prosperity from the Libyan people. Essentially we broke a lot of eggs and left them to rot.
This is no way the fault of the members of the CAF who participated in this war. They did what their government ordered them to do. It is the government of Canada along with our willing allies who failed to deliver in Libya.
To have the Canadian embassy salute the anniversary of this catastrophe is disturbing in the extreme.
