The US's "kiss of life" operation… whom did the US kiss, who woke up?

The year is 1986. The end of March, the beginning of April. There is an intense media operation in world media in general, but especially in the Arab media, about the dictatorship, the enmity toward honor and the cruel practices, devoid of any share of humanity, of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In the Arab media, in a way that would also affect the Libyan people, there were reports and images about a harem Gaddafi kept of tiny girls, along with sensational broadcasts about the splendor of the life he lived.

Campaigns in which the media takes part in unison on this scale are generally not a sign that the target person is really as bad as portrayed; on the contrary, they most often point to preparation for operations to be carried out against that person or because of that person. Where the operation will come from, from whom, is a separate matter. Here everyone can immediately think of the US as the usual suspect. But sometimes those who can pay out money on this scale can also sign an operation on their own scale.

In those days it was no secret that Gaddafi's relations with the Arab countries in general were not very pleasant either. His madnesses, his extraordinary acts, his new quests to try to substitute the African Union for the Arab League had begun to thoroughly disturb the Arab world. In those days the news about a great many terrorist incidents Gaddafi was said to be involved in, directed at the US and European countries, was also part of the campaign, and in this situation the impression had formed that both the Arab countries and the Western countries were in an alliance for Gaddafi to go.

This dissatisfaction with Gaddafi had also brought the wish to overthrow Gaddafi to the point of actual action. But instead of starting a war of uncertain end and unforeseeable risks with an attack from outside, taking Gaddafi out with a coup from inside was a more reasonable solution.

According to one account, a junta from within the army, with which an understanding had been reached and all of whose plans had been made in detail, was also ready to overthrow Gaddafi. The Libyan people had already become ready to welcome such a coup because of this image formed about Gaddafi through world and Arab media. There was hardly anyone left in the Arab world to cry after Gaddafi. Let us remember what happened at precisely that moment.

On April 5, 1986, Gaddafi was held responsible for the attack carried out at the La Belle nightclub in Berlin, a haunt of American soldiers, for which in fact no evidence directly linking Gaddafi had been found, and the severity of the incident and its punishment were loaded onto him. Reagan, enraged by this attack, used the expression "the mad dog of the Middle East" for Gaddafi. Claiming that Gaddafi was taking revenge for attacks by US forces on Libyan ships in past years, Reagan began striking Libyan targets on April 16 in retaliation for this attack.

Those familiar with the details of the incident understood very well that this attack, targeting Gaddafi, who had suddenly begun to be portrayed as America's number one enemy, in fact served as a kiss of life for Gaddafi, who would have been overthrown anyway by a coup that was imminent had it not been for the US intervention.

Among the targets hit in Libya was Gaddafi's house in Tripoli, and as a result of this attack a baby named Hanna Gaddafi, whom Gaddafi had announced he had adopted, lost her life. This would suffice to give Gaddafi, all at once, an innocence stemming from victimhood.

What came after this attack is well known. Gaddafi was suddenly reborn as the hero of the Arab world and the Libyan people who stood up to the US. He continued to remain in power, with its ups and downs, until 2011.

Within a day of our writing that, even though the new squabble between the US and Russia had pushed the expectation of war to its peak at any moment, from the style and course of the squabble it was understood that we were not watching a film different from earlier ones, news came that US aircraft had begun striking Syrian targets. Ostensibly we witnessed an operation fitting the story that the US's patience had at last run out and the time had come to take matters in hand. In the operation, described by the US Secretary of Defense as "one-time," only chemical weapons depots and production centers were targeted.

Of course there is no question of chemical weapons depots being targeted because of the deadly harm they did to the Syrian people. As we said before, the Syrian people were already killed, in their hundreds of thousands, with non-chemical weapons, and they continue to be killed.

The US has not the slightest discomfort about these massacres. It itself took part in these massacres and killed tens of thousands of Syrian civilians.

There are many signs that the use of chemical weapons that formed the basis for the US attack is also a complete media campaign.

Let it not be misunderstood, Assad is an extremely cruel, brutal killer devoid of humanity. It is also very clear that he carried out a massacre in Eastern Ghouta. But the need to add a chemical weapon sauce to these massacres is not his but that of the US, which these days has decided to attack Assad somehow. There is the possibility that the chemical weapons that he evidently has might one day be used against Israel, after all…

Even if it were certain that Assad would never use them against Israel, their presence there poses a risk for Israel. The weapons may fall into someone else's hands. A civil war and chaos environment continuing for 7 years. Can it be known what will happen? Well, it will not, but still Assad might lose his mind and want to use these weapons against Israel one day; the chemical weapons he has must be destroyed just in case. Otherwise it is very clear that the US has no problem with Assad.

Here we are watching the same film again. Assad, whom the US attacks again, comes to life with this attack. Just as in many places before. Just as it rescued Gaddafi from the hand of the coup by attacking him. This too is the US's style of operation. Neither its friendship nor its enmity is certain.