The honourable Libyan anti-imperialist Omar al-Mukhtar is a hero in the Arab world and beyond for resisting Italian occupation, colonialism and imperialism during what is referred to as the inter-war period, that is between World War One and Two. al-Mukhtar was eventually captured and summarily executed by the Italian imperialists. This is a demonstrable fact. The former Guantanamo Bay inmate, the British-Pakistani cause celebre and political icon, Moazzam Begg is in possession of a tenuous relationship with the truth. This too, is a demonstrable fact. In the early part of this decade Begg felt morally qualified to give a lecture about the life of al-Mukhtar. In this essay I argue Begg has an artificial relationship with the truth and is morally unworthy to speak of Omar al-Mukhtar.

In an interview with journalist Dilly Hussain on the 5Pillars news site podcast, “Blood Brothers” Begg shared his thoughts about the regime change war on Syria in the 2010s. In the course of this interview Begg made two glaringly false claims about the regime change war on Libya in 2011 which had preceded the regime change war on Syria. Firstly, he claimed no votes were held to implement a No Fly Zone in Libya in 2011, or to “bomb Libya” as he says. This is false.  There were two votes, one in the United Nations which resulted in the UN resolution 1973 and another vote in the British parliament to implement the UN resolution. The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) bombing campaign began in March 2011 and officially ended October 2011. This campaign in effect provided air-cover for a motley crew of treacherous, Islamically garbed, foot soldiers to overthrow the Libyan state.

Secondly, Begg makes the customary rape accusations, a standard western imperialist propaganda allegation, when manufacturing consent for regime change. Continue reading →