The Empty Mask. 1928 Oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm::: ::::David Cameron's gift of war and racism, to them and us6 April 2011The Euro-American attack on Libya has nothing to do with protecting anyone; only the terminally naive believe such nonsense. It is the Wests response to popular uprisings in strategic, resource-rich regions of the world and the beginning of a war of attrition against the new imperial rival, China. President Barack Obamas historical distinction is now guaranteed. He is Americas first black president to invade Africa. His assault on Libya is run by the US Africa Command, which was set up in 2007 to secure the continents lucrative natural resources from Africas impoverished people and the rapidly spreading commercial influence of China. Libya, along with Angola and Nigeria, is Chinas principal source of oil. As American, British and French planes currently incinerate both bad and good Libyans, the evacuation of 30,000 Chinese workers is under way, perhaps permanently. Statements by western officials and media that a deranged and criminal Colonel Gaddafi is planning genocide against his own people still await evidence. This is reminiscent of fraudulent claims that required humanitarian intervention in Kosovo, the final dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the establishment of the biggest US military base in Europe. The detail is also familiar. The Libyan pro-democracy rebels are reportedly commanded by Colonel Khalifa Haftar who, according to a study by the US Jamestown Foundation, set up the Libyan National Army in 1988 with strong backing from the Central Intelligence Agency. For the past 20 years, Colonel Haftar has been living not far from Langley, Virginia, home of the CIA, which also provides him with a training camp. The Mujihadeen, which produced al-Qaida, and the Iraqi National Congress, which scripted the Bush/Blair lies about Iraq, were sponsored in the same time-honoured way, in leafy Langley. Libyas other rebel leaders include Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Gaddafis justice minister until February, and General Abdel-Fattah Younes, who ran Gaddafis interior ministry: both with formidable reputations for savagely putting down dissent. There is a civil and tribal war in Libya, which includes popular outrage against Gaddafis human rights record. However, it is Libyas independence, not the nature of its regime, that is intolerable to the west in a region of vassals; and this hostility has barely changed in the 42 years since Gaddafi overthrew the feudal king Idris, one the more odious tyrants backed by the west. With his Bedouin hyperbole and bizarre ways, Gaddafi has long made an ideal mad dog (Daily Mirror), now requiring heroic US, French and British pilots to bomb urban areas in Tripoli, including a maternity hospital and a cardiac centre. The last US bombing in 1986 managed to kill his adopted daughter.What the US, British and French hope to achieve is the opposite of a peoples liberation. In undermining efforts Libyas genuine democrats and nationalists to free their country from both a dictator and those corrupted by foreign demands, the sound and fury from Washington, London and Paris has succeeded in dimming the memory of Januarys days of hope