Killing Another #2 and the Perpetually Self-Defeating 'War on Terror'

Abu Yahya al-Libi and this perpetually self-defeating 'war on terror'
Behind the killing by drone strike of al-Qaida's No 2 lies a story of the senseless brutality by which the US makes its enemies

Moazzam Begg
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 June 2012

"A man for all seasons … He's a warrior. He's a poet. He's a scholar. He's a pundit. He's a military commander. And he's a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within …"

This statement could easily be construed as praise, even admiration, for the possessor of such qualities – until one reads who and what it's referring to: "… al-Qaida, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement." So says Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst and Westpoint research director, regarding Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was reportedly killed in a US drone-strike in Waziristan this week.

Last September, on a visit to Libya, I met with a rebel military commander who told me that his country wanted "a good relationship with the Americans". That man was Abu Yahya's brother.

I couldn't help wondering at the time, just two weeks after the fall of Tripoli, whether he'd shared his views with his brother, who I knew was regarded by the US as a high-ranking of member of al-Qaida. This was a bizarre paradox: the people I'd come to see, including Sami al-Saadi and Abdel Hakim Belhadj, had been, along with their families, victims of rendition to Gaddafi's Libya instigated by the British government. Yet, now, the cause of these men and that of the duplicitous nations that had facilitated their rendition and torture did, at least for the short term, coincide.

During my stay in the Libyan capital, I visited the notorious Abu Salim prison, where both al-Saadi – who lost two brothers in the infamous 1996 prison-massacre – and Belhadj had been held. Spray-painted on one of the doors by rebels who had broken free from the prison were the words in Arabic: "Life [imprisonment] in Guantánamo is not even a day in Abu Salim." Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but I have also met Libyan former Guantánamo prisoners, who were held in both prisons, and they were not objecting tot his assessment. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/07/abuyahyaallibi-perpetually-selfdefeating-war-on-terror