NATO in Libya: "We’re Drone-a Get Ya"

We’ve been tweeting recently, and a bit cynically, about NATO’s murky role in the Libyan uprising. This morning, Marc Herman has a nice piece in The Atlantic about propaganda leaflets being dropped over Libya. There’s more to the whole post, but we honed in on, particularly, this flyer.

What’s interesting about this leaflet is that it shows far more partisanship than NATO, Obama, or Sarkozy would have the non-Libyan public believe. Overthrow, not protection of innocent civilians, was the aim.

Another very interesting thing (to us, at least) is the power accorded the drone in that part of the world (and we believe that’s a drone pictured). It’s a badass, scary symbol of American might and pretty creepy considering how many civilians have been killed by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our visual symbols may be the flag and 4th of July and political rallies and suburbs here, but to the people of the Middle East and Northern Africa, the visual currency of our power is a pilotless, silent, windowless aircraft that bombs the fuck out of your family, then flies away.

(photo: Marc Herman/Atlantic)