~ Muammar Gaddafi ~ Truth & Victory! ~ ☼♥☼ America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
PART I
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
|
|
Global Research, March 30, 2011
|
|
A war on Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 20 years. Using nukes against Libya was first envisaged in 1996.
On April 14th 1986, Ronald Reagan ordered a series of bombings directed against Libya under “Operation El Dorado Canyon”, in reprisal for an alleged Libya sponsored terrorist bombing of a Berlin discotheque. The pretext was fabricated. During these air raids, which were condemned by both France and Italy, Qadhafi’s residence was bombed killing his younger daughter.
Barely acknowledged by the Western media, a planned attack on Libya using nuclear weapons, had been contemplated by the Clinton Administration in 1996, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The Department of Defense had developed a new generation of bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons for use in the Middle East and Central Asia:
“Military officials and leaders of America’s nuclear weapon laboratories [had] urged the US to develop a new generation of precision low-yield nuclear weapons… which could be used in conventional conflicts with third-world nations.” (Federation of American Scientists, 2001, emphasis added)
The B61-11 earth-penetrating weapon with a nuclear warhead had not been tested. It was part of the B61 series, coupled with a so-called “low yield” nuclear warhead. According to US military sources: “If used in North Korea, the radioactive fallout [of the B61-11] could drift over nearby countries such as Japan.” (B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon, Globalsecurity.org). The B61-11 earth-penetrating version of the B61 was configured initially to have a “low” 10 kiloton yield, 66.6 percent of a Hiroshima bomb, for post-Cold War battlefield operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The Pentagon’s Plan to Nuke Libya
The B61-11 tactical nuclear weapon was slated by the Pentagon to be used in 1996 against the “Qadhafi regime”:
“Senior Pentagon officials ignited controversy last April [1996] by suggesting that the earth-penetrating [nuclear] weapon would soon be available for possible use against a suspected underground chemical factory being built by Libya at Tarhunah. This thinly-veiled threat came just eleven days after the United States signed the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, designed to prohibit signatories from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against any other signatory, including Libya.” (David Muller, Penetrator N-Bombs, International Action Center, 1997)
Tarbunah has a population of more than 200,000 people, men, women and children. It is about 60 km East of Tripoli. Had this “humanitarian bomb” (with a “yield” or explosive capacity of two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb) been launched on this “suspected” WMD facility, it would have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, not to mention the nuclear fallout…
The man behind this diabolical project to nuke Libya was Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold Palmer Smith Junior. “Even before the B61 came on line, Libya was identified as a potential target”. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – September/ October 1997, p. 27, emphasis added)
Harold Palmer Smith had been appointed by President Bill Clinton to oversee nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs with a focus on “the reduction and maintenance of the US arsenal of nuclear weapons”. From the outset, his actual mandate, was not “reduce” but to “increase” the nuclear arsenal by promoting the development of a new generation of “harmless” mini-nukes for use in the Middle East war theater.
Harold Palmer Smith Junior
“Testing” the B611-11 Nuclear Bomb on an Actual Country
The Department of Defense’s objective under Harold Smith’s advice was to fasttrack the “testing” of the B61-11 nuclear bomb on an actual country:
Five months after [Assistant Defense Secretary] Harold Smith called for an acceleration of the B61-11 production schedule, he went public with an assertion that the Air Force would use the B61-11 [nuclear weapon] against Libya’s alleged underground chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah if the President decided that the plant had to be destroyed. “We could not take [Tarhunah] out of commission using strictly conventional weapons,” Smith told the Associated Press. The B61-11 “would be the nuclear weapon of choice,” he told Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Smith gave the statement during a breakfast interview with reporters after Defense Secretary William Perry had earlier told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on chemical or biological weapons that the U.S. retained the option of using nuclear weapons against countries armed with chemical and biological weapons. (http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/B61-11.htm, emphasis added)
While the Pentagon later denied its intention to bomb Libya’s Tarhunah plant, it nonetheless confirmed that “Washington would not rule out using nuclear weapons [against Libya]”. (Ibid., emphasis added.)
Nukes and Mini-Nukes: Iraq and Afghanistan
The US military contends that “mini-nukes” are “humanitarian bombs” which minimize “collateral damage”. According to scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon, they are “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground”,
The B61-11 is a bon fide thermonuclear bomb, a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the real sense of the word.
Military documents distinguish between the Nuclear Earth Penetrator (NEP) and the “mini-nuke”, which are nuclear weapons with a yield of less than 10 kilotons (two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb). The NEP can have a yield of up to a 1000 kilotons, or seventy times a Hiroshima bomb.
This distinction between mini-nukes and the NEP is in many regards misleading. In practice there is no dividing line. We are broadly dealing with the same type of weaponry: the B61-11 has several “available yields”, ranging from “low yields” of less than one kiloton, to mid-range, and up to the 1000 kiloton bomb.
In all cases, the radioactive fallout is devastating. Moreover, the B61 series of thermonuclear weapons includes several models with distinct specifications: the B61-11, the B61-3, B61- 4, B61-7 and B61-10. Each of these bombs has several “available yields”.
What is contemplated for theater use is the “low yield” 10 kt bomb, two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb.
The Libya 1997 “Nuclear Option” had set the Stage…
Neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations have excluded using thermonuclear bunker buster bombs in the Middle East war theater. These weapons were specifically developed for use in post Cold War “conventional conflicts with third world nations”. They were approved for use in the conventional war theater by the US Senate in 2002, following the adoption of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review.
In October 2001, in the immediate wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld envisaged the use of the B61-11 in Afghanistan. The stated targets were Al Qaeda cave bunkers in the Tora Bora mountains.
Rumsfeld stated at the time that while the “conventional” bunker buster bombs “‘are going to be able to do the job’… he did not rule out the eventual use of nuclear weapons.” (Quoted in the Houston Chronicle, 20 October 2001, emphasis added.)
The use of the B61-11 was also contemplated during the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. In this regard, the B61-11 was described as “a precise, earth-penetrating low-yield nuclear weapon against high-value underground targets”, which included Saddam Hussein’s underground bunkers:
“If Saddam was arguably the highest value target in Iraq, then a good case could be made for using a nuclear weapon like the B61-11 to assure killing him and decapitating the regime.” (Defense News, December 8, 2003, emphasis added)
“All options are on the table”… Sheer madness. Nukes to implement “regime change”… What Rumsfeld had proposed, as part of a “humanitarian mandate”, was the use of a nuclear bomb to “take out” the president of a foreign country.
(author’s note: There is no documentary evidence that the B61-11 was used against Iraq).
Is a Nuclear Attack on Libya Still on the Pentagon’s Drawing Board?
“The Coalition of the Willing” under US-NATO mandate is currently involved in “a humanitarian war” on Libya to “protect the lives of innocent civilians”.
Is the use of a nuclear bomb excluded under the Alliance’s R2P Responsibility to Protect Doctrine?
The Bush administration’s 2001 nuclear doctrine contained specific “guidelines” regarding “preemptive” nuclear strikes against several countries in the broader Middle East Central Asian region, which explictly included Libya.
As revealed by William Arkin in early 2002, “The Bush administration, in a secret policy review… [had] ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons [The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review approved by the Senate in late 2002] against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the “axis of evil”–Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–but also China, Libya and Syria. (See William Arkin, “Thinking the Unthinkable”, Los Angeles Times, 9 March 2002)
In addition, the U.S. Defense Department has been told to prepare for the possibility that nuclear weapons may be required in some future Arab-Israeli crisis. And, it is to develop plans for using nuclear weapons to retaliate against chemical or biological attacks, as well as “surprising military developments” of an unspecified nature. These and a host of other directives, including calls for developing bunker-busting mini-nukes and nuclear weapons that reduce collateral damage, are contained in a still-classified document called the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which was delivered to Congress on Jan. 8. (ibid)
The preemptive nuclear doctrine (DJNO) –endorsed by the Obama Administration– allows for the preemptive use of “mini nukes” in conventional war theaters directed against “rogue states”. While the “guidelines” do not exclude other (more deadly) categories of nukes in the US /NATO nuclear arsenal, Pentagon “scenarios” in the Middle East and North Africa are currently limited to the use of tactical nuclear weapons including the B61-11 bunker buster bomb.
The fact that Libya had been singled out by the Pentagon for a possible 1997 mini-nuke “trial run” was a significant element in the formulation of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
It is worth noting that tactical B61 nuclear weapons have also been deployed by America’s NATO partners: five European “non-nuclear states”, including Belgium, The Netherlands and Italy, which are directly participating in the Libya bombing campaign, have B61 mini-nukes stockpiled and deployed under national command in their respective military bases. (Michel Chossudovsky, Europe’s Five “Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States“, February 10, 2010)
These European-based mini-nukes are earmarked for targets in the Middle East. While Libya is not mentioned, according to “NATO strike plans”, the European-based thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs could be launched “against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran” (quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe, February 2005).
In the context of the ongoing war against Libya, “all options are on the table”, including the preemptive nuclear option, as part of a “humanitarian mandate” to protect the lives of innocent civilians.
In 2007, a Secret 2003 STRATCOM Plan was revealed, which confirmed Washington’s resolve to wage preemptive nuclear attacks against Iran, Syria and Libya. While the concepts and assumptions of this document were derived from the 2001 NPR, the Plan formulated by Strategic Command headquarters (USSTRATCOM) focused concretely on issues of implementation.
The use of nuclear weapons including the B61-11 against Libya in the course of the current military campaign, as initially envisaged by the Department of Defense in 1997 and subsequently embodied as the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) cannot, therefore, be ruled out.
|
Dangerous Crossroads: Is America Considering the Use of Nuclear Weapons against Libya?
PART II
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
|
|
Global Research, April 7, 2011
|
|
*Image: Simulated Drop of B61-11 nuclear bomb from a B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber
Shortly after the commencement of the Libya bombing campaign on March 19, the Pentagon ordered the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bomb. These tests announced in an April 4 press release, pertained to the installed equipment and weapon’s components. The objective was to verify the functionality of the nuclear bomb…..
The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber is the “chosen carrier” of the B61 -11 nuclear bombs. The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri was not only sent on a mission to bomb Libya at the very outset of the air campaign, it was subsequently used in the testing of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb.
The B61-11 has a yield of two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. Why were these tests of the equipment and functionality of a tactical nuclear weapon scheduled shortly after the onset of the Libya bombing campaign?
Why now?
Is the timing of these tests coincidental or are they in any way related to the chronology of the Libya bombing campaign?
U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the coordination of US bombing operations directed against Libya was also involved in the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bombs.
Both the bombing of Libya by the B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber (see image above) on March 19-20, as well as the testing of the functionality of the B61-11 nuclar bomb (announced April 4) were implemented out of the same US Air Force base in Missouri.
An earlier article entitled America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya, (PART I) provided details of the Pentagon’s plan under the Clinton administration to wage a nuclear attack on Libya.
|
America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
PART I
– by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-30
|
|
Thinking the Unthinkable. The Pentagon’s Plan to Nuke Libya
|
The Pentagon had envisaged the use of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb against Libya. Categorized as a mini-nuke, the B61-11 is a 10 kiloton bomb with a yield equivalent to two thirds of a Hiroshima bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Planed Nuclear Attack on Libya, Global Research, March 25, 2011)
The Pentagon’s 1996 plan to nuke Libya had been announced in no uncertain terms at a press briefing by Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold P. Smith:
“[The] Air Force would use the B61-11 [nuclear weapon] against Libya’s alleged underground chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah if the President decided that the plant had to be destroyed. ‘We could not take [Tarhunah] out of commission using strictly conventional weapons,’ Smith told the Associated Press. The B61-11 ‘would be the nuclear weapon of choice,’ he told Jane Defence Weekly. (The Nuclear Information Project: the B61-11)
Clinton’s Defense Secretary William Perry –who was present at the press briefing– had earlier told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “the U.S. retained the option of using nuclear weapons against countries [e.g. Libya] armed with chemical and biological weapons.”(Ibid, See also Greg Mello, The Birth Of a New Bomb; Shades of Dr. Strangelove! Will We Learn to Love the B61-11? The Washington Post, June 01, 1997)
The Department of Defense’s objective was to fast track the “testing” of the B61-11 nuclear bomb on an actual country and that country was Libya:
“Even before the B61 came on line, Libya was identified as a potential target”. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – September/ October 1997, p. 27). (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya, March 2011)
While the 1996 plan to bomb Libya using tactical nuclear weapons was subsequently shelved, Libya was not removed from the “black list”: “The Qadhafi regime” remains to this date a target country for a pre-emptive (“defensive”) nuclear attack.
As revealed by William Arkin in early 2002, “The Bush administration, in a secret policy review… [had] ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the “axis of evil” Iraq, Iran, and North Korea but also China, Libya and Syria. (See William Arkin, “Thinking the Unthinkable”, Los Angeles Times, 9 March 2002).
According to the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, adopted by the Senate in 2002, Libya is on the “Pentagon’s list”. Moreover, it is also important to emphasize that Libya was the first country to be tagged and formally identified (at a Department of Defense press briefing) as a possible target for a US sponsored nuclear attack using the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb. This announcement was made in 1996, five years prior to the formulation of the pre-emptive nuclear war doctrine under the Bush administration (i.e the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review).
The Testing of the B61-11 Nuclear Bomb (Announced on April 4, 2011)
What is the relevance of the history of the B61-11 nuclear bomb and earlier threats directed by the Clinton administration against Libya?
Has the project to nuke Libya been shelved or is Libya still being contemplated as a potential target for a nuclear attack?
Shortly after the commencement of the Libya bombing campaign on March 19, the US Department of Defense ordered the testing of the B61-11 nuclear bomb. These tests pertained to the installed equipment and weapon ‘s components of the nuclear bomb.
The announcement of these tests was made public on April 4; the precise date of the test was not revealed, but one can reasonably assume that it was in the days prior to the April 4 press release by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA. Press Release, NNSA Conducts Successful B61-11 JTA Flight Test, Apr 4, 2011,)
The B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber is the US Air Force’s chosen “carrier” for the delivery of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb. In late March or early April (prior to April 4), the B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber from the 509th Bomber Wing operating out of Whiteman Air Force Base, was used in the so-called “Joint Test Assembly” (JTA) of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb.
In other words, the B61-11 was tested using the same B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base, which were used to bomb Libya at the very outset of the air campaign.
B61-11 Simulation
The Joint Test Assembly (JTA) of the B61-11
This JTA testing was undertaken by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) together with the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, which coincidentally is responsible for the coordination of US bombing operations directed against Libya as well as ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The JTA was produced by the NNSA in support of the Joint Surveillance Flight Test Program between the Department of Defense and the NNSA” (Press release, op cit)
The Joint Test Assembly (JTA) in the case of the B61 Mod 11 nuclear bomb, requires testing the equipment of the B61-11 using a proxy conventional non-nuclear warhead. Essentially what is involved is to test all the installed equipment on the nuclear bomb and ensure its functionality without actually having a nuclear explosion. The JTA test “was built to simulate the actual B61-11 weapon configuration utilizing as much war reserve hardware as feasible. It was assembled at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas and was not capable of nuclear yield, as it contained no special nuclear materials.” (Press Release, NNSA Conducts Successful B61-11 JTA Flight Test, Apr 4, 2011)
“JTA tests [are to ensure] that all weapon systems [e.g. B61-11 nuclear bomb] perform as planned and that systems are designed to be safe, secure and effective,”…. A JTA contains instrumentation and sensors that monitor the performance of numerous weapon components [e.g of the B61-11] during the flight test to determine if the weapon functions as designed. This JTA also included a flight recorder that stored the bomb performance data for the entire test. The data is used in a reliability model, developed by Sandia National Laboratories, to evaluate the reliability of the bomb. (Ibid)
B61 Model 11 nuclear bomb at Whiteman Air force base
The B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber operating out of the Whiteman Air Force Base was reported to have “delivered and released” the B61-11 JTA at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is routinely used to test nuclear ordnance. (See Press Release, op cit.).
The Tonopah Test Range while owned by the US Department of Energy, is managed and operated by Sandia National Laboratories, a division of America’s largest weapons producer Lockheed-Martin (under permit with the NNSA). (See http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2004/042812.pdf)
Aerial View of Tonopah Test Range where the B61 11 JTA was tested using a B-2 Spirit Stealth bomber. Source NASA.
The Deployment of B 2 Stealth bombers to Libya
Why were these JTA tests of the equipment and functionality of a tactical nuclear weapon scheduled shortly after the onset of the Libya bombing campaign?
Why now?
Is the timing of these tests coincidental or are they in any way related to the chronology of the Libya bombing campaign?
It is worth noting that the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command was in charge of both the JTA tests of the B61-11 as well as the deployment of three B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers to Libya on March 19.
“Three B-2 Spirit bombers, piloted by two men each, made it back after the 11,418-mile round trip from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri – where they are kept in special hangars – to Libya, where they hit targets on forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and back again.”(Libya-crisis-B2-stealth-bombers-25-hour-flight-Missouri-Tripoli, Daily Mail, March 21, 2011)
In other words, both the deployment of the B-2s to the Libya war theater as well as the JTA test (using the B-2 bomber for delivery) were coordinated out of Whiteman Air Force base.
“Humanitarian war” is carried out through a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg. Three B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers were sent on a bombing mission at the very outset of the Libya bombing campaign. According to the reports, they returned to Whiteman Air Force base on March 21st. The reports suggest that the three B-2s were carrying bunker buster bombs with conventional warheads.
The report suggests that the B-2 Stealth bombers dropped 45 one ton satellite guided missiles on Libya, which represents an enormous amount of ordnance: “At $2.1bn, they are the most expensive warplanes in the world and rarely leave their climate-controlled hangars. But when it does, the B-2 bomber makes a spectacularly effective start to a war – including during this weekend’s aerial attack on Libya’s air defences. (Daily Mail, March 21, 2011, op cit)
While we are not in a position to verify the accuracy of these reports, the 45 one-ton bombs correspond roughly to the B-2 specifications, namely each of these planes can carry sixteen 2,000 pound (900 kg) bombs.
VIDEO: Returning to Whiteman Air force base on March 21.
Whiteman Air Force Base
Concluding Remarks: The Decision to Use Nuclear Weapons
Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, the B61-11 “mini-nuke” is presented as an instrument of peace rather than war.
In an utterly twisted logic, low yield tactical nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”.
In this regard, US nuclear doctrine ties in with the notion that the US-NATO war under Operation Odyssey Dawn is a humanitarian undertaking.
The important question addressed in this article is whether the recent test of a B61-11 is “routine” or was it envisaged by the DoD directly or indirectly in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn, implying the possible deployment of mini nukes at some future stage of the Libya bombing campaign. There is no clear-cut answer to this question.
It should be emphasized, however, that under the doctrine of “pre-emptive nuclear war” mini nukes are always deployed and in “a state of readiness” (even in times of peace). Libya was the first “rogue state” to be tagged for a nuclear attack in 1996 prior to the approval of the mini nukes for battlefield use by the US Congress.
The Pentagon claims that “mini-nukes” are harmless to civilians because “the explosion takes place under ground”. Not only is the claim of an underground explosion erroneous, each of these ‘mini-nukes’, constitutes – in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout – a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945….
We are at a dangerous crossroads: The rules and guidelines governing the use nuclear weapons have been “liberalized” (i.e. “deregulated” in relation to those prevailing during the Cold War era). The decision to use low yield nuclear nuclear weapons (e.g. against Libya) no longer depends on the Commander in Chief, namely president Barack Obama. It is strictly a military decision. The new doctrine states thatCommand, Control, and Coordination (CCC) regarding the use of nuclear weapons should be “flexible”, allowing geographic combat commanders to decide if and when to use of nuclear weapons:
Known in official Washington, as “Joint Publication 3-12”, the new nuclear doctrine (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations , (DJNO) (March 2005)) calls for “integrating conventional and nuclear attacks” under a unified and “integrated” Command and Control (C2).
It largely describes war planning as a management decision-making process, where military and strategic objectives are to be achieved, through a mix of instruments, with little concern for the resulting loss of human life.
Military planning focuses on “the most efficient use of force”, i.e. an optimal arrangement of different weapons systems to achieve stated military goals. In this context, nuclear and conventional weapons are considered to be “part of the tool box”, from which military commanders can pick and choose the instruments that they require in accordance with “evolving circumstances” in the “war theatre”. (None of these weapons in the Pentagon’s “tool box”, including conventional bunker buster bombs, cluster bombs, mini-nukes, chemical and biological weapons are described as “weapons of mass destruction” when used by the United States of America and its “coalition” partners). Michel Chossudovsky, Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? Global Research, February 22, 2006
Authors note:
In researching these issues, I have attempted to present the documented facts without drawing simple conclusions as to the potential use of nuclear weapons in the Libya war theater.
Having examined the various facets of US nuclear doctrine for many years, I have become increasingly aware that the use of nuclear weapons does not belong to the field of abstraction. Neither does the testing of the equipment of the B61-11 nuclear bomb including its various installed functions.
The matter needs further examination, the release of more information, discussion at all levels, questions in the US Congress and above all a detailed, honest and unbiased media coverage.
It is my sincere hope that this article will contribute to an understanding of US nuclear doctrine as well as a greater awareness of the impending dangers of nuclear war.
Michel Chossudovsky, April 2011
Related Articles
|
America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya |
 |
All Out War on Libya, Surge in the Price of Crude Oil…
“Humanitarian Wars are Good for Business”…. Speculators Applaud….
– by Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-18
|
|
.
|
 |
Insurrection and Military Intervention: The US-NATO Attempted Coup d’Etat in Libya?
– by Prof Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-07
|
|
US and NATO military advisers and special forces are already on the ground.
|
|
|
“Operation Libya” and the Battle for Oil: Redrawing the Map of Africa
– by Prof Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-09
|
|
ANNEX The B-2 Spirit Stealth BomberThe B-2 Spirit aircraft is described as “deadly and effective’ yet at the same time it is upheld as an instrument of “humanitarian warfare”. Used at the outset of Operation Odyssey Dawn, this aircraft has the mandate under UN Security Councill resolution 1973 to “protect the lives of civilians”.
|
“An assessment published by the USAF showed that two B-2s armed with precision weaponry can do the job of 75 conventional aircraft. That makes it a powerful weapon to strike targets including bunkers, command centres, radars, airfields, air defences.” (Ibid) The mission is said to have have dropped a total of 45 one ton satellite guided missiles, which broadly corresponds to the 15 out of the 16 2000 pound bombs mentioned above.(Ibid)
The B-2 Spirit as carrier of the B61 mod 11 bunker buster bomb, is equipped to accommodate 16 B61-11 mini-nukes of about 1,200 lb (540 kg).
See the following videos:
Northrop Grunman Video Clip on the B-2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcX9LbR4pqc
Military PR videoclip on the B-2
The B-2 was brought down by the Yugoslav air defense system in 1999, which the video does not mention
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-yYHdlkn2o&NR=1
Returning to Whiteman Air force base on March 21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhw2yoFb7fs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVpzHAWR85g
Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky
|
Michel Chossudovskyis an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. NEW BOOK:
The Global Economic Crisis  Michel Chossudovsky Andrew G. Marshall (editors) |
|
| Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky | |
America’s New Middle East Agenda:
8 Reasons For Attacking Libya
Posted: 07 MAY 2011
From: Mathaba.net
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=626597
Artwork by @MoamerATRIX Serbian Evolutionary Committee
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article on Syria quoted Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, explaining Washington’s longstanding plan to “creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.”
He explained it also includes redrawing the Eurasian map, balkanizing or reconfiguring countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, perhaps Baltic states, the entire Persian Gulf, Syria, Lebanon, and, of course, Libya to assure Western control of its valued resources. Besides already having created three Iraqs, the strategy involves “divid(ing) and conquer(ing to serve) Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.”
*****
Currently it’s playing out violently in Libya, addressed in numerous previous articles as Western intervention heads closer to invasion, knowing air strikes alone can’t topple al-Qathafi unless a “lucky” one kills him. It’s a key administration goal despite official denials, while defending the right to bomb his compound having no other purpose than assassination.
Notably on April 26 Los Angeles Times writer David Cloud headlined, “NATO widens air war in Libya, targeting key sites in Tripoli,” saying:
Predator drones are being used “to strike directly at the pillars of the regime, including (al-Qathafi), in the heart of Tripoli,” according to a senior NATO officer, explaining:
“This is a shift, absolutely. We’re picking up attacks on these command-and-control facilities. If (al-Qathafi) happens to be in one of those buildings, all the better,” stopping short of saying he, in fact, is the target.
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the attacks, saying:
“They said they didn’t want to kill al-Qathafi. Now some officials say: ‘Yes, we are trying to kill al-Qathafi.’ Who permitted this, was there a trial? Who took on the right to execute this man, no matter who he is?”
Putin denounced the efforts, saying they exceed the UN resolution’s mandate. As a result, Libya asked Russia to convene a new Security Council meeting to address illegitimate NATO action, functioning as the insurgency’s air force, taking sides instead of staying neutral in Libya’s internal affairs.
China also objects to Western military “advisers” intervening, special forces aiding insurgents besides CIA and MI6 agents doing it also for months. Now Britain will deploy troops on Tunisia’s border with Libya, inching closer to invasion. UK Defense Minister Liam Fox justifies it, saying Britain’s prepared for the “long haul,” adding:
“It is essential that the international community gives a very clear signal to the Libyan regime that our resolve isn’t time-limited….Politically, economically, militarily, we are moving forward,” stopping short of explaining key Western goals.
They’re unrelated to humanitarian intervention or protecting civilians, the bogus reasons always given (besides WMDs or other spurious security threats) to attack, conquer, colonize, and plunder targeted countries. Now it’s Libya’s turn at the same time Syria experiences Western destabilizing intervention, perhaps ahead of “shock and awe” and whatever else US/NATO planners have in mind.
In fact, the Obama administration threatens the entire region, using “constructive chaos” to create “an arc of instability, chaos, and violence,” affecting all Eurasian countries to solidify unchallengeable US control.
——-
Moreover, at a time when “Let them eat cake” arrogance trumps growing public needs, America plans more than ever military spending. In addition, Britain’s Fox said the Libyan campaign won’t “be limited by pounds, shillings and pence” to conclude the mission successfully.
Nor do royal weddings costing her majesty’s subjects a shocking 7.28€ billion, including official understated expenses, security, and declaring a national holiday, depriving millions of Brits of a day’s pay they can’t afford to lose.
______________
*****
Kill al-Qathafi
In America, congressional calls are increasing to assassinate him, Washington’s favored regime change method besides externally instigated coups. In recent days, figures like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called for:
“cut(ting) the head of the snake off. Go to Tripoli, start bombing al-Qathafi’s inner circle, their compounds, their military headquarters….The people around al-Qathafi need to wake up every day wondering ‘will this be my last?’ The military commanders supporting al-Qathafi should be pounded. So I would not let the UN mandate stop what is the right thing to do.”
He wasn’t asked to explain how violating UN Resolution 1973, its Charter, as well as international and US law is “right” when daily war crimes keep mounting. Nonetheless, others in Congress agree, including Senator John McCain, preferring winning on the ground only because it’s chancy “taking him out with a lucky air strike.” Senator Joe Lieberman also says he’s “got to start thinking about whether they want to more directly target (him) and his family.”
Bipartisan support in both Houses concurs, as well as Obama, despite official denials. In fact, current efforts may be to accomplish Ronald Reagan’s failed 1986 objective. At the time, White House press secretary Larry Speakes called killing al-Qathafi “a fortunate by-product of our act of self-defense,” against what he didn’t explain nor apologize for murdering so many Libyans, as well as injuring thousands more, mostly civilians, those always harmed most in wars and other conflicts.
_____________
Earlier, however, House and Senate members from both parties criticized Obama for not seeking congressional authorization for war, saying it exceeded his constitutional authority, but stopping short of wanting attacks stopped.
In fact, under the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8, only Congress may declare war, what hasn’t happened since December 8, 1941 against Japan, making all US wars since illegal. Obama once taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. In addition, as a presidential candidate in December 2007, he told the Boston Globe:
“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
That was then. This is now as Republicans and Democrats plan authorizing it after the fact either by resolution or a symbolic “sense of the House and Senate” motion or confirmation.
If so, it will legitimize the illegitimate as Congress can’t invalidate UN Charter provisions explaining under what conditions intervention, violence and coercion (by one state against another) are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, including no-fly zones that are acts of war.
In addition, Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral or other external threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or otherwise authorized by the Security Council.
Moreover, so-called “humanitarian intervention” amounts to modern-day colonialism to achieve geopolitical objectives. Besides, America never showed concern for human rights in pursuit of strategic aims.
Notably, dovish US diplomat, advisor, and father of Soviet containment George Kennan (advocating diplomacy over force) explained what became America’s post-WW II foreign policy. In his February 1948 “Memo PPS23,” he stated:
“….we have 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. (It makes us) the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships (to let us) maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national society. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction….”
“We should dispense with the aspiration to ‘be liked’ or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism….We should (stop talking about) unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans (ideas and practices), the better.”
As a result, when America intervenes militarily, it’s for policy goals, never for human rights or humanitarian priorities, rhetoric notwithstanding.
_____________
*****
Why al-Qathafi Is Targeted:
Previous articles explained that he wasn’t fully on board, or put another way, “with the program.” Specific reasons are explained below.
(1) He opted out of AFRICOM, one of nine global Pentagon commands, to control the Africa and the Mediterranean Basin, including its strategic energy transit routes and choke points, crucial to keep open for world economies. All African countries participate except Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, and Libya. He also backed an initiative to create a United States of Africa, whereas Washington wants easily exploitable divisions.
(2) Besides ranked ninth in the world with 42 billion proved barrels of oil reserves (and large amounts of gas), its untapped potential is believed much greater. Moreover, being nearly sulfur-free, it’s even more valued for its extremely high quality. At issue isn’t access, it’s control over who develops, produces and receives it in what amounts.
(3) In January 2009, al-Qathafi wanted to nationalize Libyan oil, but his timetable faced internal resistance. According to Pravda.ru’s March 25, 2011 article titled, “Reason for war? Gaddafi wanted to nationalise oil,” he considered the option because of low oil prices at the time, saying:
“The oil-exporting countries should opt for nationalisation because of the rapid fall in oil prices. We must put the issue on the table and discuss it seriously. Oil should be owned by the State at this time, so we could better control prices by the increase or decrease in production.”
In February 2009, he asked for public support to distribute Libya’s oil wealth directly to the people. However, senior officials feared losing their jobs “due to a parallel plan by al-Qathafi to rid the state of corruption.” He was also advised about the possibility of capital flight.
As a result, Libya’s Popular Committee voted 468 – 64 to delay nationalization plans, even though a 251 majority viewed the change as positive.
Note: Gal-Qathafi didn’t consider how powerful insiders manipulate all markets up or down for profit, including oil, irrespective of demand. It’s brazen fraud but goes on all the time, especially on Wall Street in collusion with Washington.
(4) Libya’s Great Man-Made River (GMMR) is developing an ocean-sized aquifer beneath the desert for irrigation, human consumption, and other uses. At 2007 consumption rates, it could last 1,000 years. No wonder al-Qathafi calls his Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”
At issue, of course, is the wish of the global elite to control water, privatizing it, making water unaffordable for many, perhaps most Libyans. In other words, neoliberal control will exploit it for maximum profits, not equitable use as a public resource.
(5) Ellen Brown’s April 13 article titled, “Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?” raised another, easily overlooked, issue. Who controls Libya’s money, the lifeblood of every economy? In 1970, Henry Kissinger said, “Control oil and you control nations. Control food and you control people.” He neglected to add, control money and you control everything because without it economies collapse.
At issue is whether it’s public or private like most nations, including America under the Federal Reserve that isn’t federal and has no reserves as Ron Paul explains.
Under al-Qathafi, “the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State owned.” In other words, it creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, interest free to be used productively for economic growth, not profits and bonuses for predatory bankers.
*****
However, after Washington’s led NATO intervention, the privately controlled Central Bank of Benghazi was established to let Western bankers, not Libyans, run things. Money control indeed appears an important reason for intervening, perhaps most important of all.
(6) On April 24, Manlio Dinucci’s Global Research article headlined, “Financial Heist of the Century: Confiscating Libya’s Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF),” saying:
Besides money, oil, gas, water, and other reasons, the “Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) manages” an estimated 50.99€ billion, “rising to more than 109.27€ billion (including) foreign investments of the Central Bank and other bodies. But it might be more.”
Confiscation gives US/NATO interests easy money to use for their own purposes, no matter that doing so amounts to grand theft, an American/Western specialty in league with Wall Street and its European counterparts.
The USA has already confiscated 23.31€ billion and 45 billion Euros, the former was starting capital for African projects, see below.
(7) Libya was central to Africa’s independence, and cutting loose from foreign private central banks, as well as the ability to issue its own currency instead of that issued abroad, such as the CFA Franc. This too is the reason for the overthrow of Gbagbo in Ivory Coast.
After funding Africa’s first and only communications satellite, saving Africa some 364.25€ million annually, by paying 218.55€ million with the remainder of the total one-off cost of 274.64€ million, allowing the price of calls to and from Africa to drop drastically, Libya put aside 23.31€ billion for a 30.6€ billion African fund to launch a non-private African Central Bank (HQ in Nigeria), African Monetary Fund (HQ in Cameroon) and African Investment Bank (HQ in Libya).
Obama’s administration has stolen the 23.31€ billion, that would have launched this massive African fund this year, and allowed health, eduction and communication projects and infrastructure development all over Africa. This huge robbery is going unreported.
Additionally 45 billion Euros, and unknown other amounts of billions of Libya’s money has been “confiscated” (stolen) in Europe.
(8) Qathafi has been advocating a new “Gold Standard” and use of gold dinars instead of U.S. paper dollars, a plan that has won the support of much of Africa and the Muslim world, as it would provide real monetary wealth and value, rather than privately printed money from private central banks. The U.S. printing of paper dollars by a printing machine of the private central Federal Reserve Bank would become useless in its dealings with purchases of oil and other commodities from much of Africa and Asia, and perhaps Latin America too.
A Final Comment:
*****
“Constructive chaos” takes many forms, including conquering and colonizing nations, then carving up the corpse for profit to the detriment of its people. That’s always imperial Washington’s grand plan, playing out disruptively throughout the region and violently in Libya.
A previous article discussed US intervention in Syria. On April 28, Washington Post writers Joby Warrick and Liz Sly headlined, “Senators press Obama to take strong action against Syria,” saying:
Besides ongoin wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya, “Sens. John McCain (R.-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R.-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) demanded tangible steps to pressure Assad,” issuing a joint letter stating:
“The escalating crackdown by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the Syrian people has reached a decisive point. By following the path of Muammar al-Qathafi and deploying ‘military forces’ to crush ‘peaceful demonstrations’, Assad and those loyal to him have lost the legitimacy to remain in power in Syria.”
In fact, as the earlier article explained, “peaceful demonstrations” include provocateurs inciting violence that, in turn, trigger a robust government response, resulting in security force deaths as well as civilians expressing legitimate demands for reform.
According to reports, only sanctions so far are being considered. In fact, they made be step one ahead of already being discussed harsher measures. It takes little insight to imagine what kinds.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
–—
On Friday 20 May 2011, NATO also struck a facility near the capital Friday and a command and control hub near Sebha, a Gadhafi stronghold deep in Libya’s southwestern desert, a NATO statement said in Brussels.
The NATO forces/ & the USA alligned to use a BUNKER-BUSTER NUKE, 200 miles s-west
of Tripoli, where they believed that Moammar Gadhafi and some members of the congressional
committees (with their families) were believed to be hiding out since the intensified bombings of
Tripoli by NATO.
________________________________
Al Gathafi Speaks – Speech on Libya TV – 2011-05-30,
Al Gathafi Speaks – Speech on Libya TV – 2011-05-30, Arabic – 1 hour 18 min.wmv
خطاب الاخ القائد 30-05-2011
Muammar Al Gathafi: “I will die for my people, I will never leave my people who have sacrificed themselves for me. If you allow me to lead the fight, I will lead the fight and die for my country.”
| The recycling of Bin Laden’s men Once NATO enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, now NATO allies in Libya by Webster G. Tarpley* Drawing on the West Point Military Academy’s analysis of records seized in the Islamic Emirate of Iraq, U.S. historian and journalist Webster G. Tarpley demonstrates that the Libyan National Transitional Council is largely made up of elements affiliated with Al-Qaeda. In the context of a vast reorganization of its secret operations, the United States is enlisting in Libya – and in Syria – the jihadists that it is tracking down in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Bin Laden is dead! Long live the Bin Ladenists”, cynics in Washington could well be proclaiming. |
 |
24 May 2011From Washington D.C. (USA)Tools  Print SendAll the versions of this article:  françaisThemes  Covert ActionCountries Libya |
|
“Serpents, thirst, heat, and sand … Libya alone can present a multitude of woes that it would beseem men to fly from.” The current military attack on Libya has been motivated by UN Security Council resolution 1973 with the need to protect civilians. Statements by President Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron, French President Sarkozy, and other leaders have stressed the humanitarian nature of the intervention, which is said to aim at preventing a massacre of pro-democracy forces and human rights advocates by the Qaddafi regime. But at the same time, many commentators have voiced anxiety because of the mystery which surrounds the anti-Qaddafi transitional government which emerged at the beginning of March in the city of Benghazi, located in the Cyrenaica district of north-eastern Libya. This government has already been recognized by France and Portugal as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people. The rebel council seems to be composed of just over 30 delegates, many of whom are enveloped in obscurity. In addition, the names of more than a dozen members of the rebel council are being kept secret, allegedly to protect them from the vengeance of Qaddafi. But there may be other reasons for the anonymity of these figures. Despite much uncertainty, the United Nations and its several key NATO countries, including the United States, have rushed forward to assist the armed forces of this rebel regime with air strikes, leading to the loss of one or two coalition aircraft and the prospect of heavier losses to come, especially if there should be an invasion. It is high time that American and European publics learned something more about this rebel regime which is supposed to represent a democratic and humanitarian alternative to Gaddafi. The rebels are clearly not civilians, but an armed force. What kind of an armed force? Since many of the rebel leaders are so difficult to research from afar, and since a sociological profile of the rebels cannot be done on the ground in the midst of warfare, perhaps the typical methods of social history can be called on for help. Is there a way for us to gain deeper insight into the climate of opinion which prevails in such northeastern Libyan cities as Benghazi, Tobruk, and Darnah, the main population centers of the rebellion? It turns out that there is, in the form of a December 2007 West Point study examining the background of foreign guerrilla fighters — jihadis or mujahedin, including suicide bombers — crossing the Syrian border into Iraq during the 2006-2007 timeframe, under the auspices of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This study is based on a mass of about 600 Al Qaeda personnel files which were captured by US forces in the fall of 2007, and analyzed at West Point using a methodology which we will discuss after having presented the main findings. The resulting study [1] permits us to make important findings about the mentality and belief structures of the northeastern Libyan population that is furnishing the basis for the rebellion, permitting important conclusions about the political nature of the anti-Qaddafi revolt in these areas. Darnah, northeast Libya: World Capital of JihadisThe most striking finding which emerges from the West Point study is that the corridor which goes from Benghazi to Tobruk, passing through the city of Darnah (also transliterated as Derna) them represents one of the greatest concentrations of jihadi terrorists to be found anywhere in the world, and by some measures can be regarded as the leading source of suicide bombers anywhere on the planet. Darnah, with one terrorist fighter sent into Iraq to kill Americans for every 1,000 to 1,500 persons of population, emerges as suicide bomber heaven, easily surpassing the closest competitor, which was Riyad, Saudi Arabia. According to West Point authors Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, Saudi Arabia took first place as regards absolute numbers of jihadis sent to combat the United States and other coalition members in Iraq during the time frame in question. Libya, a country less than one fourth as populous, took second place. Saudi Arabia sent 41% of the fighters. According to Felter and Fishman, “Libya was the next most common country of origin, with 18.8% (112) of the fighters listing their nationality stating they hailed from Libya.” Other much larger countries were far behind: “Syria, Yemen, and Algeria were the next most common origin countries with 8.2% (49), 8.1% (48), and 7.2% (43), respectively. Moroccans accounted for 6.1% (36) of the records and Jordanians 1.9% (11).” [2] This means that almost one fifth of the foreign fighters entering Iraq across the Syrian border came from Libya, a country of just over 6 million people. A higher proportion of Libyans were interested in fighting in Iraq than any other country contributing mujahedin. Felter and Fishman point out: “Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone. Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia.” [3]
But since the Al Qaeda personnel files contain the residence or hometown of the foreign fighters in question, we can determine that the desire to travel to Iraq to kill Americans was not evenly distributed across Libya, but was highly concentrated precisely in those areas around Benghazi which are today the epicenters of the revolt against Colonel Gaddafi which the US, Britain, France, and others are so eagerly supporting. As Daya Gamage of the Asia Tribune comments in a recent article on the West Point study, “…alarmingly for Western policymakers, most of the fighters came from eastern Libya, the center of the current uprising against Muammar el-Qaddafi. The eastern Libyan city of Darnah sent more fighters to Iraq than any other single city or town, according to the West Point report. It noted that 52 militants came to Iraq from Darnah, a city of just 80,000 people (the second-largest source of fighters was Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which has a population of more than 4 million). Benghazi, the capital of Libya’s provisional government declared by the anti-Qaddafi rebels, sent in 21 fighters, again a disproportionate number of the whole.” [4] Obscure Darnah edged out metropolitan Riyadh by 52 fighters to 51. Qaddafi’s stronghold of Tripoli, by contrast, barely shows up in the statistics at all.
What explains this extraordinary concentration of anti-American fighters in Benghazi and Darnah? The answer seems related to extremist schools of theology and politics which flourished in these areas. As the West Point report notes: “Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in Libya.” These areas are in theological and tribal conflict with the central government of Colonel Gaddafi, in addition to being politically opposed to him. Whether such a theological conflict is worth the deaths of still more American and European soldiers is a question which needs urgently to be answered. Felter and Fishman remark that “The vast majority of Libyan fighters that included their hometown in the Sinjar Records resided in the country’s northeast, particularly the coastal cities of Darnah 60.2% (52) and Benghazi 23.9% (21). Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in Libya, in particular for an uprising by Islamist organizations in the mid-1990s. The Libyan government blamed the uprising on ‘infiltrators from the Sudan and Egypt’ and one group—the Libyan Fighting Group (jama-ah al-libiyah al-muqatilah)—claimed to have Afghan veterans in its ranks. The Libyan uprisings became extraordinarily violent.” [5] Northeastern Libya: Highest Density of Suicide BombersAnother remarkable feature of the Libyan contribution to the war against US forces inside Iraq is the marked propensity of the northeastern Libyans to choose the role of suicide bomber as their preferred method of struggle. As the West Point study states, “Of the 112 Libyans in the Records, 54.4% (61) listed their ‘work.’ Fully 85.2% (51) of these Libyan fighters listed “suicide bomber” as their work in Iraq.” [6] This means that the northeastern Libyans were far more apt to choose the role of suicide bomber than those from any other country: “Libyan fighters were much more likely than other nationalities to be listed as suicide bombers (85% for Libyans, 56% for all others).” [7] The anti-Qaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Merges with al Qaeda, 2007The specific institutional basis for the recruitment of guerrilla fighters in northeastern Libya is associated with an organization which previously called itself the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). During the course of 2007, the LIFG declared itself an official subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). As a result of this 2007 merger, an increased number of guerrilla fighters arrived in Iraq from Libya. According to Felter and Fishman, “The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaeda, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda on November 3, 2007.” [8] This merger is confirmed by other sources: A 2008 statement attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group has joined al-Qaeda. [9] Terrorist “Emir” Touts Key Role of Benghazi, Darnah in al QaedaThe West Point study makes clear that the main bulwarks of the LIFG and of the later AQIM were the twin cities of Benghazi and Darnah. This is documented in a statement by Abu Layth al-Libi, the self-styled “Emir” of the LIFG, who later became a top official of al Qaeda. At the time of the 2007 merger, “Abu Layth al-Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan jihadis in his announcement that LIFG had joined al-Qa’ida, saying: ‘It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of Sabha, and the sands of the beach.’” [10]
This 2007 merger meant that the Libyan recruits for Al Qaeda became an increasingly important part of the activity of this organization as a whole, shifting the center of gravity to some degree away from the Saudis and Egyptians who had previously been most conspicuous. As Felter and Fishman comment, “Libyan factions (primarily the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) are increasingly important in al-Qa’ida. The Sinjar Records offer some evidence that Libyans began surging into Iraq in larger numbers beginning in May 2007. Most of the Libyan recruits came from cities in northeast Libya, an area long known for jihadi-linked militancy.” [11] The December 2007 West Point study concludes by formulating some policy options for the United States government. One approach, the authors suggest, would be for the United States to cooperate with existing Arab governments against the terrorists. As Felter and Fishman write, “The Syrian and Libyan governments share the United States’ concerns about violent salafi-jihadi ideology and the violence perpetrated by its adherents. These governments, like others in the Middle East, fear violence inside their borders and would much rather radical elements go to Iraq rather than cause unrest at home. U.S. and Coalition efforts to stem the flow of fighters into Iraq will be enhanced if they address the entire logistical chain that supports the movement of these individuals—beginning in their home countries — rather than just their Syrian entry points. The U.S. may be able to increase cooperation from governments to stem the flow of fighters into Iraq by addressing their concerns about domestic jihadi violence.” [12] Given the course of subsequent events, we are on firm ground in concluding that this option was not the one selected, neither in the closing years of the Bush administration nor during the first half of the Obama administration. The West Point study also offers another, more sinister perspective. Felter and Fishman hint that it might be possible to use the former LIFG components of Al Qaeda against the government of Colonel Qaddafi in Libya, in essence creating a de facto alliance between the United States and a segment of the terrorist organization. The West Point report notes: “The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s unification with al-Qa’ida and its apparent decision to prioritize providing logistical support to the Islamic State of Iraq is likely controversial within the organization. It is likely that some LIFG factions still want to prioritize the fight against the Libyan regime, rather than the fight in Iraq. It may be possible to exacerbate schisms within LIFG, and between LIFG’s leaders and al-Qa’ida’s traditional Egyptian and Saudi power-base.” [13] This suggests the US policy we see today, that of allying with the obscurantist and reactionary al Qaeda fanatics in Libya against the Nasserist modernizer Qaddafi. Arming the Rebels: The Experience of AfghanistanLooking back at the tragic experience of US efforts to incite the population of Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation in the years after 1979, it should be clear that the policy of the Reagan White House to arm the Afghan mujahedin with Stinger missiles and other modern weapons turned out to be highly destructive for the United States. As current Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes close to admitting in his memoirs, Al Qaeda was created during those years by the United States as a form of Arab Legion against the Soviet presence, with long-term results which have been highly lamented. Today, it is clear that the United States is providing modern weapons for the Libyan rebels through Saudi Arabia and across the Egyptian border with the active assistance of the Egyptian army and of the newly installed pro-US Egyptian military junta. [14] This is a direct violation of UN Security Council resolution 1973, which calls for a complete arms embargo on Libya. The assumption is that these weapons will be used against Gaddafi in the coming weeks. But, given the violently anti-American nature of the population of northeast Libya that is now being armed, there is no certainty that these weapons will not be soon turned against those who have provided them. A broader problem is represented by the conduct of the future Libyan government dominated by the current rebel council with its large current majority of northeastern Islamists, or of a similar government of a future Cyrenaica rump state. To the extent that such regimes will have access to oil revenues, obvious problems of international security are posed. Gamage wonders: “If the rebellion succeeds in toppling the Qaddafi regime it will have direct access to the tens of billions of dollars that Qaddafi is believed to have squirreled away in overseas accounts during his four-decade rule.” [15] Given the northeast Libyan mentality, we can imagine what such revenues might be used for. What is al Qaeda and Why the CIA Has Used ItAl Qaeda is not a centralized organization, but rather a gaggle or congeries of fanatics, dupes, psychotics, misfits, double agents, provocateurs, mercenaries, and other elements. As noted, Al Qaeda was founded by the United States and the British during the struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many of its leaders, such as the reputed second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri and the current rising star Anwar Awlaki, are evidently double agents of MI-6 and/or the CIA. The basic belief structure of Al Qaeda is that all existing Arab and Moslem governments are illegitimate and should be destroyed, because they do not represent the caliphate which Al Qaeda asserts is described by the Koran. This means that the Al Qaeda ideology offers a ready and easy way for the Anglo-American secret intelligence agencies to attack and destabilize existing Arab and Muslim governments as part of the ceaseless need of imperialism and colonialism to loot and attack the developing nations. This is precisely what is happening in Libya today. Al Qaeda emerged from the cultural and political milieu of the Moslem Brotherhood or Ikhwan, itself a creation of British intelligence in Egypt in the late 1920s. The US and the British used the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to oppose the successful anti-imperialist policies of Egyptian President Nasser, who scored immense victories for his country by nationalizing the Suez Canal and building the Aswan High Dam, without which modern Egypt would be simply unthinkable. The Muslim brotherhood provided an active and capable fifth column of foreign agents against Nasser, in the same way that the official website of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is trumpeting its support for the rebellion against Colonel Qaddafi. I have discussed the nature of Al Qaeda at some length in my recent book entitled 9/11 Synthetic Terrorism: Made in USA, and that analysis cannot be repeated here. It is enough to say that we do not need to believe in all the fantastic mythology which the United States government has spun around the name of Al Qaeda in order to recognize the basic fact that militants or patsies who spontaneously join al Qaeda are often sincerely motivated by a deep hatred of the United States and a burning desire to kill Americans, as well as Europeans. The Bush administration policy used the alleged presence of Al Qaeda as a pretext for direct military attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama administration is now doing something different, intervening on the side of a rebellion in which Al Qaeda and its co-thinkers are heavily represented while attacking the secular authoritarian government of Colonel Gaddafi. Both of these policies are bankrupt and must be abandoned. Rebel Leaders Jalil and Younis, Plus Most of Rebel Council are Members of the al Qaeda-linked Harabi TribeThe result of the present inquiry is that the Libyan branch of Al Qaeda represents a continuum with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group centered in Darnah and Benghazi. The ethnic base of the Libyan Islamic fighting group is apparently to be found in the anti-Qaddafi Harabi tribe, the tribe which makes up the vast majority of the rebel council including the two dominant rebel leaders, Abdul Fatah Younis and Mustafa Abdul Jalil. The evidence thus suggests that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the elite of the Harabi tribe, and the rebel council supported by Obama all overlap for all practical purposes. As the late Foreign Minister of Guyana Fred Wills, a real fighter against imperialism and neo-colonialism, taught me many years ago, political formations in developing countries (and not just there) are often a mask for ethnic and religious rivalries; so it is in Libya. The rebellion against Qaddafi is a toxic brew compounded of fanatical hatred of Qaddafi, Islamism, tribalism, and localism. From this point of view, Obama has foolishly chosen to take sides in a tribal war. When Hillary Clinton went to Paris to be introduced to the Libyan rebels by French President Sarkozy, she met the US-educated Libyan opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril, already known to readers of Wikileaks document dumps as a favorite of the US. While Jibril might be considered presentable in Paris, the real leaders of the Libyan insurrection would appear to be Jalil and Younis, both former ministers under Qaddafi. Jalil seems to be the primus inter pares, at least for the moment: “Mustafa Abdul Jalil or Abdul-Jalil (Arabic: مصطفى عبد الجليل, also transcribed Abdul-Jelil, Abd-al-Jalil, Abdel-Jalil or Abdeljalil; and frequently but erroneously as Abud Al Jeleil) (born 1952) is a Libyan politician. He was the Minister of Justice (unofficially, the Secretary of the General People’s Committee) under Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi…. Abdul Jalil has been identified as the Chairman of the National Transitional Council based in Benghazi… although this position is contested by others in the uprising due to his past connections to Gaddafi’s regime.” As for Younis, he has been closely associated with Qaddafi since the 1968-9 seizure of power: “Abdul Fatah Younis (Arabic: عبد الفتاح يونس) is a senior military officer in Libya. He held the rank of General and the post of Minister of Interior, but resigned on 22 February 2011….” What should concern us most is that both Jalil and Younis come from the Haribi tribe, the dominant one in northeast Libya, and the one that overlaps with al Qaeda. According to Stratfor, the “…Harabi tribe is a historically powerful umbrella tribe in eastern Libya that saw their influence wane under Col. Gadhafi. The Libyan leader confiscated swaths of tribal members’ land and redistributed it to weaker and more loyal tribes…. Many of the leaders now emerging in eastern Libya hail from the Harabi tribe, including the head of the provisional government set up in Benghazi, Abdel Mustafa Jalil, and Abdel Fatah Younis, who assumed a key leadership role over the defected military ranks early in the uprising.” [16] This is like a presidential ticket where both candidates are from the same state, except that Libya’s ferocious tribal rivalries make the problem infinitely worse. The Rebel Council: Half the Names Are Kept Secret; Why?This picture of a narrow, sectarian tribal and regional base does not improve when we look at the rebel council as a whole. According to one recent version, the rebel council is “chaired by the well-spoken former justice minister for Libya, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, [and] consists of 31 members, ostensibly representatives from across Libya, of whom many cannot be named for “security reasons”…. “The key players on the council, at least those who we know about, all hail from the north-eastern Harabi confederation of tribes. These tribes have strong affiliations with Benghazi that date back to before the 1969 revolution which brought Gaddafi to power.” [17] Other accounts agree about the number of representatives: “The council has 31 members; the identities of several members has not been made public to protect their own safety.” Given what we know about the extraordinary density of LIFG and all Qaeda fanatics in northeast Libya, we are authorized to wonder as to whether so many members of the council are being kept secret in order to protect them from Qaddafi, or whether the goal is to prevent them from being recognized in the west as al Qaeda terrorists or sympathizers. The latter seems to be a more accurate summary of the real state of affairs. Names released so far include: Mustafa Abduljaleel; Ashour Hamed Bourashed of Darna city; Othman Suleiman El-Megyrahi of the Batnan area; Al Butnan of the Egypt border and Tobruk; Ahmed Abduraba Al-Abaar of Benghazi city; Fathi Mohamed Baja of Benghazi city; Abdelhafed Abdelkader Ghoga of Benghazi city; Mr. Omar El-Hariri for Military Affairs; and Dr. Mahmoud Jibril, Ibrahim El-Werfali and Dr. Ali Aziz Al-Eisawi for foreign affairs. [18] The State Department needs to interrogate these figures, starting perhaps with Ashour Hamed Bourashed, the delegate from the terrorist and suicide bomber stronghold of Darnah. How Many al Qaeda Members, Veterans, or Sympathizers are on the Rebel Council?Seeing as clearly as we can in the fog of war, it looks like slightly more than a dozen of the members of the rebel council have had their names officially published — in any case, not more than half of the reported 31 members. The US and European media have not taken the lead in identifying for us the names that are now known, and they above all have not called attention to the majority of the rebel council who are still lurking in the shadows of total secrecy. We must therefore demand to know how many LIFG and/or al Qaeda members, veterans, or sympathizers currently hold seats on the rebel council. We are thus witnessing an attempt by the Harabi tribe to seize dominance over the 140 tribes of Libya. The Harabi are already practically hegemonic among the tribes of Cyrenaica. At the center of the Harabi Confederation is the Obeidat tribe, which is divided into 15 sub-tribes. [19] All of this might be of purely academic ethnographic interest, were it not for the fact of the striking overlap between the Harabi tribe and the LIFG and al Qaeda. The Senussi Movement of Libya — Monarchist Democracy?The political-religious tradition of northeast Libya makes this area such fertile ground for the more extreme Muslim sects and also predisposes it to monarchism rather than to the more modern forms of government favored by Qaddafi. The relevant regional tradition is that of the Senussi or Sanussi order, an anti-western Moslem sect. In Libya the Senussi order is closely associated with monarchism, since King Idris I, the ruler installed by the British in 1951 who was overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969, was also the leader of the Senussi order. The Senussi directed the rebellion against Italian colonialism in the person of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani and his army in the 1930s. Today, the rebels use the monarchist flag, and may advocate the return to the throne of one of the two pretenders to the Idris line. They are far closer to monarchism than to democracy King Idris, Revered by the Libyan Rebels of TodayHere is the Stratfor view of King Idris and the Senussi: “King Idris came from a line of rulers of the Sanussi order, a Sufi religious order founded in 1842 in Al Bayda, that practices a conservative and austere form of Islam. The Sanussiyah represented a political force in Cyrenaica that preceded the creation of the modern state of Libya, and whose reverberations continue to be felt to this day. It is no coincidence that this region is the home of Libyan jihadism, with groups like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The Gadhafi family has thus been calling the current uprising an elaborate Islamist plot….” [20] Under the monarchy, Libya was by some estimates absolutely the poorest country in the world. Today, Libya ranks 53 on the UN Human Development Index and qualifies as the most developed country in Africa, ahead of Russia, Brazil, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Qaddafi’s stewardship has objective merits which cannot be seriously denied. Glen Ford’s Black Agenda Report has correctly sought to show the racist and reactionary character of the Libyan insurrection. The tribes of southern Libya, known as the Fezzan, are dark skinned. The tribal underpinning of the Gaddafi regime has been an alliance of the tribes of the West, the center, and the southern Fezzan, against the Harabi and the Obeidat, who identify with the former monarchist ruling class. The Harabi and Obeidat are known to nurture a deep racist hatred against the Fezzan. This was expressed in frequent news reports from the pro-imperialist media at the beginning of the rebellion evidently inspired by Harabi accounts, according to which black people in Libya had to be treated as mercenaries working for Gaddafi — with the clear implication that they were to be exterminated. These racist inventions are still being repeated by quackademics like Dean Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. And in fact, large numbers of black Africans from Chad and other countries working in Libyan have been systematically lynched and massacred by the anti-Gaddafi forces. The Obama White House, for all its empty talk of not wanting to repeat the massacre in Rwanda, has conveniently ignored this shocking story of real genocide at the hands of its new racist friends in Cyrenaica. Against the obscurantism of the Senussi, Qaddafi has advanced the Moslem equivalent of the priesthood of all believers, arguing that no caliphate is necessary in order to discover the meaning of the Koran. He has supplemented this with a pan African perspective. Gerald A. Perreira of the Black Agenda Report writes the following about the theological division between Gaddafi and the neo-Senussi of northeast Libya, as well as other obscuranitsts: “Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for [Qaddafi] to be tried in a court…. [Qaddafi] has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so…. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.” [21] And what would be for example the status of women under the neo-Senussi of the Benghazi rebel council? Al Qaeda from Demon to US ally in LibyaFor those who attempt to follow the ins and outs of the CIA’s management of its various patsy organizations inside the realm of presumed Islamic terrorism, it may be useful to trace the transformation of the LIFG-AQIM from deadly enemy to close ally. This phenomenon is closely linked to the general reversal of the ideological fronts of US imperialism that marks the divide between the Bush-Cheney-neocon administrations and the current Obama-Brzezinski-International Crisis Group regime. The Bush approach was to use the alleged presence of Al Qaeda as a reason for direct military attack. The Obama method is to use Al Qaeda to overthrow independent governments, and then either Balkanize and partition the countries in question, or else use them as kamikaze puppets against larger enemies like Russia, China, or Iran. This approach implies a more or less open fraternization with terrorist groups, which was signaled in a general way in Obamas famous Cairo speech of 2009. The links of the Obama campaign to the terrorist organizations deployed by the CIA against Russia were already a matter of public record three years ago. [22]
But such a reversal of field cannot be improvised overnight; it took several years of preparation. On July 10, 2009, The London Daily Telegraph reported that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group had split with Al Qaeda. This was when the United States had decided to de-emphasize the Iraq war, and also to prepare to use the Sunni Moslem Brotherhood and its Sunni Al Qaeda offshoot for the destabilization of the leading Arab states preparatory to turning them against Shiite Iran. Paul Cruikshank wrote at that time in the New York Daily News about one top LIFG honcho who wanted to dial back the relation to al Qaeda and the infamous Osama Bin Laden; this was “Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. While mainstream Muslim leaders have long criticized Al Qaeda, these critics have the jihadist credentials to make their criticisms bite.” [23] But by this time some LIFG bosses had moved up into al Qaeda: the London Daily Telegraph reported that senior Al Qaeda members Abu Yahya al-Libi and Abu Laith al-Libi were LIFG members. Around this time, Qaddafi released some LIFG fighters in an ill-advsided humanitarian gesture. Northeast Libyan Jihadis Killing US, NATO Forces in Afghanistan Right NowOne of the fatal contradictions in the current State Department and CIA policy is that it aims at a cordial alliance with Al Qaeda killers in northeast Libya, at the very moment when the United States and NATO are mercilessly bombing the civilian northwest Pakistan in the name of a total war against Al Qaeda, and US and NATO forces are being killed by Al Qaeda guerrillas in that same Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of war. The force of this glaring contradiction causes the entire edifice of US war propaganda to collapse. The US has long since lost any basis in morality for military force. In fact, terrorist fighters from northeast Libya may be killing US and NATO troops in Afghanistan right now, even as the US and NATO protect their home base from the Qaddafi government. According to this account, a top Al Qaeda commander in northwest Pakistan was killed by US action as recently as October 2010: “A senior al Qaeda leader who serves as al Qaeda’s ambassador to Iran, and is wanted by the US, is reported to have been killed in a Predator air strike in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan two days ago…. [This was] Atiyah Abd al Rahman, a Libyan national who has been based in Iran and served as Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to the mullahs. Unconfirmed press reports indicate that Rahman was killed in an airstrike….” [24] The US State Department’s Rewards for Justice page for Atiyah Abd al Rahman notes that he was al Qaeda’s “emissary in Iran as appointed by Osama bin Ladin.” Atiyah “recruited and facilitated talks with other Islamic groups to operate under” al Qaeda and was “also a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al Sunna.” [25] Rahman was ranked high enough in al Qaeda to be able to give orders to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qeada in Iraq, in 2005. Also killed in Pakistan was another apparent northeast Libyan going by the name of Khalid al Harabi, whose choice of a nom de guerre may well link him to the jihadi farm among the Harabi tribe in Cyrenaica. According to one account, “Khalid al Harabi is an alias for Khalid Habib, al Qaeda’s former military commander who was killed in a US Predator strike in October 2008.” [26] The Scenario Uncovered by the 1995 Shayler Affair is Operative TodayIn 1995, David Shayler, an official of the British counterintelligence organization MI-5, became aware that his counterpart at the British foreign espionage organization MI-6 had paid the sum of £100,000 to an Al Qaeda affiliate in exchange for the attempt to assassinate Qaddafi. The assassination attempt did occur, and killed several innocent bystanders, but failed to eliminate the Libyan ruler. As Shayler understood the MI-6 scenario, it included the liquidation of Gaddafi, followed by the descent of Libya into chaos and tribal warfare, with a possible option for a direct seizure of power by al Qaeda itself. This situation would then provide a pretext for Britain, probably but not necessarily acting together with the United States or other countries, to invade Libya and seize control of the oil fields, probably establishing a permanent protectorate over the oil regions, the pipelines, and the coast. [27] This remains the goal today. Timed to coincide with the attempt to assassinate Qaddafi, MI-6 and other Western secret intelligence agencies fomented a considerable insurrection in northeast Libya, almost precisely in the same areas which are in rebellion today. Its insurrection was successfully crushed by Qaddafi’s forces by the end of 1996. The events of 2011 are simply a reprise of the imperialist attack on Libya 15 years ago, with the addition of outside intervention.. http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-433962193837007700&hl=fr&fs=true David Shayler’s testimony at the Axis for Peace Conference organized by Voltaire Network in 2005. The War Against the Nation StateToday’s attack on Libya comes in the context of a broad attack on the institution of the sovereign nation state itself, as it has existed since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The United States and the British are deeply concerned by the large number of nations which are seeking to escape from Anglo-American hegemony by actively pursuing large-scale cooperation with Russia on security, with China on economic questions, and with Iran for geopolitical considerations. The CIA/MI-6 response has been a wild orgy of destabilizations, people power coups, color revolutions, and palace putsches, signaled by the document dumps by the CIA limited hangout operation known as Wikileaks, which has targeted names of the CIA hit mist from Ben Ali to Qaddafi. The Obama strategy would have preferred an exclusive reliance and the illusion that the Arab Spring was really a matter of youthful visionary idealists gathering in the public square to praise democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. This was never the reality: the actual decisions were being made by brutal cliques of generals and top officials bribed or blackmailed by the CIA who were moving behind the scenes to oust such figures as Ben Ali or Mubarak. Whatever else Qaddafi has done, he has undoubtedly forced the CIA and NATO to drop the pleasant mask of youthful idealism and human rights, revealing a hideous visage of Predator drones, terror bombing, widespread slaughter, and colonialist arrogance underneath. Qaddafi has also ripped the mask of “Yes We Can” off Obama, revealing a cynical warmonger intent on the continuation of Bush’s infamous “Dead or Alive” and “Bring it on” policies, although by other means. A Distant Mirror for Imperialists in Libya: Lucan’s PharsaliaModern imperialists eager to rush into Libya should ponder Lucan’s Pharsalia, which treats of warfare in the Libyan desert during the contest between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great at the end of the Roman Republic. A critical passage in this Latin epic is the speech by Cato of Utica, a follower of Pompey, who urges his soldiers to undertake a suicide mission into Libya, saying: “Serpents, thirst, heat, and sand … Libya alone can present a multitude of woes that it would beseem men to fly from.” Cato goes forward, and finds “a little tomb to enclose [his] hallowed name, Libya secured the death of Cato….” [28] Let us not imitate this folly. Investigative leads from the West Point Study: An Appeal to ScholarsThe West Point study, as noted, was conducted on the basis of almost 700 Al Qaeda personnel files captured by coalition forces in Iraq. The authors of the study have promised to keep available online the documentary basis of this investigation, both in the form of the raw Arabic language al Qaeda personnel files, and also of the same file cards in English translation. Assuming that this material remains available, it might be possible for researchers and reporters, and especially those with capabilities in Arabic not possessed by the present writer, to investigate the Libyan fighters who went into Iraq with a view to determining whether any of them are family members, neighbors, or even political associates of the known members of the Benghazi rebel council or of other anti-Qaddafi forces. Such a procedure could contribute to allowing the European and American public as well as others around the world to better understand the nature of the military adventure currently unfolding in Libya by gaining a more specific knowledge of who the Libyan rebels actually are, as distinct from the hollow panegyrics purveyed by the controlled Western media. Attached documents
[1] Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Al Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighter in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center, Department of Social Sciences, US Military Academy, December 2007). Cited as West Point Study. [2] Op. cit. [3] West Point Study, pp. 8-9. [4] Daya Gamage, “Libyan rebellion has radical Islamist fervor: Benghazi link to Islamic militancy, U.S. Military Document Reveals,” Asian Tribune, March 17, 2011. [5] West Point Study, p. 12. [6] West Point Study, p. 19. [7] West Point Study, p. 27. [8] West Point Study, p. 9. [9] « Libya releases scores of prisoners », Al Jazeera English, 9 april 2008. « Libya : Scores of prisoners released from jail ». AKI, 9 april 2008. [10] West Point Study, p. 12. [11] West Point Study, p. 27. [12] West Point Study, p. 29. [13] West Point Study, p. 28. [14] « Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels », by Charles Levinson and Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal, 17 march 2011. And « America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels », by Robert Fisk, The Independent, 7 march 2011. [15] Gamage, op.cit. [16] Stratfor, “Libya’s Tribal Dyanmics, February 25, 2011. [17] Venetia Rainey, “Who are the rebels we are fighting to protect,” The First Post. [18] Statement by “Transition National Council,” Voltaire Network, March 5, 2011 [19] Massimo Introvigne, “L’occidente alla guerra delle tribù,” La Bussola quotidiana, March 22, 2011. [20] Stratfor, Op. cit. [21] Gerald A. Perreira, “Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective,” Black Agenda Report, March 2, 2011. [22] Webster G. Tarpley, “Obama Campaign Linked To Chechen Terrorism: Grant Of Taxpayer-Funded U.S. Asylum For Chechen Terror Envoy Gave Obama Foreign Policy Guru Zbigniew Brzezinski ‘One Of The Happiest Days Of My Life,’” February 2, 2008, Obama the Postmodern Coup: The Making of a Manchurian Candidate (Joshua Treet CA: Progressive Press, April 2008), pp. 97-115. [23] Paul Cruikshank, “How Muslim extremists are turning on Osama Bin Laden,” New York Daily News, June 8, 2008. Cruickshank is a fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security and the co-author, with Peter Bergen, of the … cover story in The New Republic, “The Jihadist Revolt against Bin Laden.” [24] « Al Qaeda leader linked to Iran may have been killed in recent Predator strike », by Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal, 9 october 2010. [25] Ibid. [26] Ibid: [27] See Machon, Annie (2005). Spies, Lies & Whistleblowers. MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair. Lewes, East Sussex: The Book Guild Ltd. 185776952X; Hollingsworth, Mark; Nick Fielding (1999). Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair. Andre Deutsch Ltd. ISBN 0233996672; see also Guardian, April 10, 2000. [28] Lucan, Pharsalia, Book IX, trans Riley (London: Bell, 1903), p. 355.
|
Windows Live space 