The military assault on Libya which has just started is another bloody, western imperialist war of aggression against a poor country, a former colony.

Apparently western governments want to protect Libya’s civilians. It is as if other governments are not killing civilians in the region. How hypocritical.

The war is more about the control over oil and stopping the rebellion of workers and younger people in the region from being more radical and anti-systemic. The war is about a regime change: to create a new regime that will be deferential to oil companies and western imperialist states more than the current one.

Also: what better way to divert attention from western governments’ attack on the political and economic rights of their own people, thousands of whom languish in jails, than to start another war?  The governments launching the assault on Libya have been saying that they do not have money for education and health care, etc., but how are they finding the money to support a war now. Liars.  

The military attack on Libya proves the theory of endless war in the age of new imperialism. The question is: what is to be done?

Raju J Das
York University, Toronto