Rema Abdulaziz writes an opinion piece for the Independent countering the wave of negative press former UK PM David Cameron has received since the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee published its report on Tuesday entitled 'Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options'. Abdulaziz argues that although Cameron should have had more of a plan in place after Gadhafi was deposed, the airstrikes were welcome and if anything should have come sooner.
The fact that our dictator had access to these kinds of funds made the playing field spectacularly uneven. If he had been allowed to continue his reign of terror with an unending supply of troops from throughout the continent, there’s no doubt that he would have retaken every city in Libya the same way. The people of Zawiya were yearning for an intervention to happen earlier like it did in Benghazi. Months of suffering were endured in Zawiya before it was liberated again. The air strikes were welcome, and they should have come sooner.To many western people, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Comparisons with Iraq, for example, always seem to be used, and the terms “imperialism” and “neo-colonialism” thrown around (mainly by white British people attempting to advocate on my behalf). But every situation is different, and Muammar Gaddafi was a genocidal maniac. Public executions and “disappearings” were common under his dictatorship; executions were even broadcast during children’s TV programmes. The secret police in Libya were so terrifying that nobody dared speak a word against Gaddafi in public, and their reach extended into the UK.
The full article can be accessed here.