Does the West reserve the fate of Libya and Syria for others? How does this relate to the EU’s Neighborhood Policy?

Last Monday the High Representative and Vice-president of the European Commission Federica Mogherini delivered the opening speech, in the ministerial meeting of EU’s Southern partners, in the context of the European Neighborhood Policy that took place in Barcelona. At some point she noticed that out of the 38 foreign ministers who were supposed to participate in this event, 32 were able to participate. She didn’t care though to observe who the absentees were, because among them the nonattendance of the Libyan and the Syrian delegates was conspicuous. Understandably it was impossible for those two emissaries to appear in Barcelona. For one thing nobody knows if Libya and Syria have a foreign affairs minister, not to say anything about the illusory character of the governments of those two practically non-existing anymore countries. Apparently Mogherini didn’t want to elaborate on this issue, fearing that any comment could incite thoughts around the question of who is responsible for the complete destruction of Libya and Syria. Who is responsible? These countries weren’t exemplary forms of democracy or a joyful way of life but still they had developed state structures, which could serve the basic needs of their people, offering security (probably in overdoses) and basic amenities. Surely their citizens didn’t lack water and food. Compare that, with what has become of them now. Their people are split up in countless factions, have armed themselves to their teeth and strive to kill each other. How has this nightmare become an everyday reality for millions of people? Mogherini knows the answer very well and that’s why she didn’t want to elaborate on the reasons, why those two foreign ministers couldn’t make it to Barcelona. For one thing the Damascus government is ostracized by Brussels and the West in general, while the recognized by the EU Libyan authorities are confined on a…ship anchored away from the shore, and their rule barely contains any piece of dry land or even sand. Similar fate Basically the two cases are the same. The West, meaning the US and the EU in tandem, decided that Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad were not democrats enough and had to go. Exactly as it happened in the case of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, where this scheme was applied for the first time. Washington, London, Paris and in many ways Brussels, supported hysterically by some mainstream media mainly of the English language, waged a thoroughly unprovoked war against Libya and Syria. In the case of Iraq, France was absent from the scheme. Everything else was in its place; the lies about the internal situation, the provocative plots and the terrorism nurturing practices alike. The then French President Jacques Chirac had not yet grasped the meaning of the modern times colonialism. It contains no place for the bulk of the people in the conquered lands, that’s why they are encouraged and armed to kill each other. The idea is that the natural resources, the paths on the map to acquire them and the expansion of West’s influence zone are hindered by the people who live there, so they have to be eliminated or seriously crippled. Bosnia-Herzegovina is another famous example of this strategy, with its people starving today in the land that once was the breadbasket of Europe. What really happened? In Libya and Syria the results are now crystal clear for everybody to see. You have to be blind not to understand what happened there. In reality the target was to completely destroy the two states. Egypt avoided complete destruction by returning to dictatorship. The deep roots of the Egyptian statehood into past structures and a developed sense of social coherence helped the country to remain in one piece. Tunisia has barely escaped from obliteration. In comparison, the European colonialism of the 19th and the 20th centuries were benevolent projects. In any case today’s policies are not without problems for Europe itself. The growing waves of refugees from these Mediterranean countries are now causing insurmountable problems to Italy and Greece. It’s not only this though; the terrorism that resulted from the complete destruction of Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan and a number of Middle East and African countries has been aiming now at Europe’s heart. Before the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, it was the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the 2004 Madrid train terror. Some are thriving The European economic and political establishment however didn’t blink before all that. Actually it exploited terrorism and created a brand new sector of grey anti-terror business. As in defense spending, government expenditure on the anti-terrorism strategy follows unorthodox ways. On top of that privacy, civil rights and liberties standards have been largely compromised in the EU. The average European is videotaped many times a day, while the confidentiality of any form of communication is at the mercy of any possible and impossible government agency or any private sector services provider. As for the refugee wave that is expected to take tsunami dimensions this year, the EU has developed a plan to curb it and if possible block it, and this has to be done on the soil of its ‘Mediterranean Partners’. Mogherini made a vague reference to that, when she said that the EU wants to tackle the refugee wave before it makes it to the sea, by working “together with the countries of origin and of transit, face the issue of saving lives first of all”. Others are drowning According to Brussels sources, if those countries show willingness, the EU is ready to finance them to create detention facilities for prospective refugees on their own soil. The EU could then establish its own bureaucracy in those facilities, to examine each case of the people who are detained there. Then any EU country could pick the workers it needs and offer them a safe passage to Europe. In short the EU wants to create something like a refugee-bazaar in the southern and probably the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Nevertheless, those EU plans in order to materialize need the full engagement of the refugees’ countries of origin and of transit. This is rather impossible though because of the appalling situation on the ground. Most probably then the current situation, with people drowning in the Mediterranean by the hundreds, is bound to continue.