~ Muammar Gaddafi ~ Truth & Victory! ~ ☼♥☼ America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
PART I
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
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Global Research, March 30, 2011
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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.
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Dangerous Crossroads: Is America Considering the Use of Nuclear Weapons against Libya?
PART II
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
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Global Research, April 7, 2011
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*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.
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America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya
PART I
– by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-30
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Thinking the Unthinkable. The Pentagon’s Plan to Nuke Libya
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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
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America’s Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya |
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“Humanitarian Wars are Good for Business”…. Speculators Applaud….
– by Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-18
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Insurrection and Military Intervention: The US-NATO Attempted Coup d’Etat in Libya?
– by Prof Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-07
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US and NATO military advisers and special forces are already on the ground.
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“Operation Libya” and the Battle for Oil: Redrawing the Map of Africa
– by Prof Michel Chossudovsky – 2011-03-09
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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”.
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“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
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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) |
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| 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.”
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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.
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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.
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*****
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.
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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.
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*****
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/.
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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.
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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. |
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24 May 2011From Washington D.C. (USA)Tools  Print SendAll the versions of this article:  françaisThemes  Covert ActionCountries Libya |
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“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.
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Windows Live space 
Ajoutée par alphasex5 le 22 mai 2011
I tell the coward crusaders: I live in a place where you can’t get to and kill me. I live in the hearts of millions. ~ Muammar Gaddafi ~ Truth & Victory! ~ ☼♥☼
Human rights investigations
evidence-based, independent and rigorous investigation of human rights abusesThe cluster bombing of Misrata: The case against the USA Posted on May 25, 2011 by HRI Mark 2
The Cluster Bombing of Misrata was Clearly the WORK OF USA/NATO FORCES
The United States leadership fully approve of cluster munitions
The USA has refused to sign the Convention against Cluster Munitions and these weapons are normal parts of their arsenal with the USA possessing a very large stockpile of cluster munitions.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said cluster munitions are regarded by the US as:
“Legitimate weapons with clear military utility.”
In fact, Secretary Gates signed the policy on 09 July 2008 that all cluster bombs in the US armoury should be of a similar type to the M-120 by 2018.
As Richard Kidd, Director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, U.S. Department of State, wrote in “Is There a Strategy for Responsible U.S. Engagement on Cluster Munitions?” 28 April 2008:
“Cluster munitions are available for use by every combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory, they are integral to every Army or Marine maneuver element and in some cases constitute up to 50 percent of tactical indirect fire support.”
Yet, the alleged war crime of bombing Misrata is also being used by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other authorities to justify an escalation of the conflict in Libya.
The coalition operation in Misrata
On the 14th of April, NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen confirmed that Admiral Stavridis had briefed foreign ministers that Gadaffi’s forces were now in populated areas and that “to avoid civilian casualties we need very sophisticated equipment.”
The US Combat Boat 90 or similar can be transported using a US transport aircraft to anywhere in the world in short order or transported to the immediate region using a naval support vessel.
The main ships involved from the United States Navy – ie “supporting Operation Unified Protector, off the coast of Libya” on the 14th and 15th April are attached to the Kearsarge Amphibious Group – Kearsarge (LHD-3) itself was in port in Augusta Bay, Sicily during the nights on which Misrata was cluster bombed.
The first ship is the USS Barry (DG-52) which is a destroyer and probably the destroyer spotted by CJ Chivers off the coast of Misrata.
The MAT-120 cluster bomb can be fired by naval forces.
The MAT-120 ammunition is indeed mortar-fired, but it is a heavy weapon of a specific type which can be used in specific weapons systems, mounted in a turret.
Weapon of choice for Special Operations
The combination of the MAT-120 ammunition and the Combat Boat 90H has been described as ideal for fire support in urban environments and is one of the only weapons systems in the coalition armoury that can be used for this task.
As Captain Evin H. Thompson, Commander of US Naval Special Warfare Group Four, said in June 2007, in relation to a specific question about US Navy use of the CB90-H and AMOS system (which fires the MAT-120):
“The Amos or something like that – tied into my reduced signature boat gives special operation and our Navy the ability to clandestinely be someplace with the capability to act if circumstances allow.”
US Naval Special Group Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen are specifically trained in night-time raids and close support of SEALS units in coastal waters and have possession of a flotilla of CB-90s.
NATO admit bombing inside Misrata
During the period that these munitions were used there was fierce fighting between rebel and loyalist forces with coalition forces providing firing support and special services support to the rebels in order to prevent loyalist forces retaking the town, which would have seen an end to the rebel’s last foothold in western Libya.
Our update on the bombing of Misrata shows that NATO admit to bombing using “certain weapons” within the city of Misrata.
The weapons systems trail.
A limited number of weapons systems can be used to fire the MAT-120 and these include the USA-built Combat Boat 90H (CB-90) with the AMOS system on board which is manufactured under licence in the USA by AAI Corp.
Interestingly, the commanding Officer of USS Barry used to be Admiral James G Stavridis, the Admiral who is particularly keen on information wars and controlling the internet.
USS Barry participated in an exercise (FLEETEX 2-94) which involved covert SEAL team extraction in shallow water off the Carolina coast. USS Barry is based at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, also the base of Eva H. Thompson – the commander of Special Warfare Unit Four, who we have quoted before, praising the usefulness of the Combat Boat 90 and AMOS system.
The second ship of interest is the USS Ponce (LPD-15), an Austin-class amphibious transport dock. An amphibious transport dock is a warship that embarks, transports and lands elements of a landing force for expeditionary warfare missions. This ship had something of the order of 851 enlisted servicemen and 72 officers on board.
Interestingly shortly after the Misrata operation, both the skipper and executive officer of USS Ponce, Commander Etta Jones and Lt. Cmdr. Kurt Boenisch, were relieved of their commands.
The third ship, of interest, is the USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) which is a dock landing ship and travelled through the Suez canal to join the others on April 13th, the day before the cluster bombing of Misrata. A dock landing ship is a form of amphibious warship designed to support amphibious operations. These amphibious assault ships transport and launch amphibious craft and vehicles with their crews and embarked personnel. usually these forces would be marines and/or special forces.
Embarked on these ships were certain units, including the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (26MEU) and Naval Beach Group Two (NBG2), TACRON 21, Four and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron TWO TWO (HSC-22).
The commander of the task force was Captain Dan Shaffer – who doubled up as Commander Task Force 65 (CTF-65) and Commander Destroyer Squadron 60 (DESRON60). He is under the command of Admiral Stavridis.
Operating from an amphibious transport dock ship, the forces involved, operating at night, could have been confident that they would not be discovered using these weapons.
The forces would also have been confident the use of these weapons would be blamed on the Gaddafi regime, as the operation organiser’s research would have shown (wrongly) that the MAT-120 was a a weapon possessed by Libya.
Human Rights Investigations calls for:
1). A full investigation into the possession and use of cluster munitions by all forces in the Libyan conflict with no impunity.
2). The suspension of military personnel found to be involved pending investigation and prosecution for war crimes.
3). A full investigation by the US authorities.
4). There should be investigations by the United Nations and by each of the nations participating in the coalition as the use of these munitions in a residential area is a clear violation of UN Resolution 1973, and
“those responsible for or complicit in attacks targeting the civilian population, including aerial and naval attacks, must be held to account.”
5). All members of the coalition, including the USA, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to declare their use of cluster munitions and to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
6). An end to the ’information war’ and military distortion of the public debate.
7). An end to the ongoing bombing of Libya which is against the spirit and intent of UN Resolution 1973 which was intended to protect civilians, not justify bombing of civilian areas, never mind justify war crimes and the cluster bombing of Libyan cities.
R2P: ‘No Confirmation Whatsoever’ according to the Pentagon that Gadhaffi ‘Fired on his Own People’
Saturday, 04 June 2011 06:54
‘Responsibility to Protect: The War on Libya was launched but there was “No Confirmation Whatsoever” according the Pentagon that Gadhaffi “fired on his own people from the air”
The war on Libya was launched on the pretext and justification that Gadaffi was killing civilians and that the US and NATO had a responsibility to come to the rescue of innocent civilians.
Below is the transcript of a 01 March 2011 Press briefing at the Pentagon. On the very same day a UN no-fly-zone resolution was being discussed, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Michael Mullen, “admitted their utter ignorance as to what’s happening on the ground in Libya“.’
Read more: R2P: ‘No Confirmation Whatsoever’ according to the Pentagon that Gadhaffi ‘Fired on his Own People’
R2P: “No Confirmation Whatsoever” according to the Pentagon that Gadhaffi “Fired on his Own People”
Read the Pentagon transcript
by Global Research
Global Research, June 3, 2011
Responsibility to Protect: The War on Libya was launched but there was “No Confirmation Whatsoever” according the Pentagon that Gadhaffi “fired on his own people from the air”
The war on Libya was launched on the pretext and justification that Gadaffi was killing civilians and that the US and NATO had a responsibility to come to the rescue of innocent civilians.
Below is the transcript of a March 1st Press briefing at the Pentagon.
On the very same day a UN no-fly-zone resolution was being discussed, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Michael Mullen, “admitted their utter ignorance as to what’s happening on the ground in Libya”
(for further details see Eric Pottenger and Jeff Friesen, Victors’ Justice and the “Responsibility to Protect”: Who are the Real War Criminals? Global Research, June 3, 2011)
Sec Gates and Adm. Mullen plead ignorance.
Q. Do you see any evidence that [Gaddafi] actually has fired on his own people from the air?
SEC. GATES: We’ve seen the press reports, but we have no confirmation of that.
ADM. MULLEN: That’s correct. We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever.
PENTAGON BRIEFING WITH SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES AND ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF MODERATOR: COLONEL DAVID LAPAN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR MEDIA OPERATIONS LOCATION: PENTAGON, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA TIME: 2:44 P.M. EST DATE: TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2011
Federal News Service
March 1, 2011 Tuesday
Q: Mr. Secretary, Admiral Mullen just mentioned that in Libya Moammar Gadhafi is waging war on his own people, as you put it. What — is U.S. military intervention realistic? And what specific kinds of options are you considering? Could you describe, for example, the possibility of a no-fly zone or arming rebel forces?
SEC. GATES:
… I would — I would note that the U.N. Security Council resolution provides no authorization for the use of armed force. There is no unanimity within NATO for the use of armed force. And the kinds of options that have been talked about in the press and elsewhere also have their own consequences and second- and third-order effects. So they need to be considered very carefully.
Our job is to give the president the broadest possible decision space and options, and to go into the things that we’re thinking about, the options that we’re providing, I think, have the potential to narrow his decision space. And I have no intention of doing that.
Q: Do you see any evidence that [Gaddafi] actually has fired on his own people from the air? There were reports of it, but do you have independent confirmation? If so, to what extent?
SEC. GATES: We’ve seen the press reports, but we have no confirmation of that.
ADM. MULLEN: That’s correct. We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever.
Q: Mr. Secretary, could you give us your assessment of the situation on the ground? How bad is it? Can the rebels take Tripoli? Are thousands dying?
SEC. GATES: Well, the — I think the honest answer, David, is that we don’t know in that respect, in terms of the number of casualties. In terms of the potential capabilities of the opposition, we’re in the same realm of speculation, pretty much, as everybody else. I haven’t seen anything that would give us a better read on the number of rebels that have been killed than you have. And I think it remains to be seen how effectively military leaders who have defected from Gaddhafi’s forces can organize the opposition in the country. And we are watching that unfold, as you are.
Q: Do you have any requests from rebel leaders for air strikes — (inaudible) — have you heard of any of that?
SEC. GATES: No.
….
Global Research Articles by Global Research
Uranium bombing of Libya:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/VANEH/videos/42/
http://uncensored.co.nz/2011/06/03/nato-raids-killed-718-libyan-civilians/
See all six parts. This is Part One:
CIA and MI6 were in Libya long before actual uprising
. 1, 2011 3:17 PM ET
US House puts off vote on Libya resolution
DONNA CASSATADONNA CASSATA, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House postponed a vote on a resolution demanding an end to U.S. involvement in Libya amid fears that Democrats and Republicans would unite in backing the measure and hand President Barack Obama an embarrassing foreign policy defeat.
The Republican leadership had scheduled a vote Wednesday on the resolution by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, that “directs the president to remove United States Armed Forces from Libya … not later than 15 days after the adoption” of the measure. The vote was delayed as the leadership and Obama administration realized frustrated lawmakers likely would support it.
Nearly three months after Obama launched air strikes to back the rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi, lawmakers are exasperated with the administration’s inability to spell out a strategy, said one Republican leadership aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely describe the situation.
Forces loyal to Gadhafi and the rebels remain in a standoff as NATO and its partners in the military campaign to protect Libyan civilians said Wednesday they have decided to extend their mission for another 90 days
House Republicans plan to hold a special meeting Thursday to weigh Congress’ next steps, including the possibility of rescheduling a vote on the resolution.
In a statement, Kucinich said the Republican leadership told him the vote had been delayed to obtain more information and consult with the administration.
“I am disappointed that the president and leadership feel the need to buy even more time to shore up support for the war in Libya,” Kucinich said. “It’s not surprising that some are now wondering if a preliminary vote count on my resolution came out in favor of defending the (U.S.) Constitution.”
Kucinich said Obama violated the Constitution because only Congress has the power to declare war. The lawmaker also said Obama violated the War Powers Act requiring congressional authorization 60 days after the start of military operations.
Obama spokesman Jay Carney defended the U.S. action in Libya, and said Obama is not exceeding his powers in keeping the U.S. involved in the NATO-led campaign.
Associated Press
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
News Topics: Constitutions, Legislature, Government and politics
People, Places and Companies: Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, Muammar Gaddafi, Jay Carney, Libya, Middle East, United States
Friday, June 03, 2011
“Strettamente Privata”: Benedict Meets Biden… and Silence Abounds
the back page of tomorrow’s edition of L’Osservatore Romano, which was published within the last hour.
The meeting again going unnoted alongside the pontiff’s other audience of the day on the traditional spot of the Vatican daily’s front page, a caption to the small photo said that “On the morning of Friday 3 June, the His Holiness Benedict XVI received Mr Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, Vice-President of the United States, with his wife [Dr Jill Biden] and entourage.”
In what Italian reports have described as a “strictly private” encounter, this morning the Pope received Vice-President Joe Biden, who’s in Rome representing the US at celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification.
Despite being the first Catholic to hold one of the country’s top two posts in a half-century, in an ostensible reflection of the VP’s status …nothing official has emerged from the meeting: no photos.
————————
I think Biden’s decision to see Our Holy Father, had more to do with America’s commitment to bombing, and what he really knows concerning Obama (i.e. the Bin Laden fiasco and truth) than it does about abortion. Before being elected on a duo ticket with Obama, Biden was an outspoken representative against interference in another sovereign Country’s internal affairs. He also advocated withdrawal of troups in American International occupied territories. He already is out of the 2012 race; as Obama has clearly already stated that his new VP, if re-elected, will not be Joe Biden.
In my heart, I think that Biden has a personal moral conflict in what he is being represented to stand for; and the real truth of the NWO greed and corruption which financed and trigered the Libyan War and bombing in the Middle East and North Africa. I do not believe he really wants to go along with the bombing, or Obama’s other murderous policies which ignore America’s Congress and flaunt the U.S. Constitution.
That is why I believe it was a very PERSONAL VISIT of moral conscience; and a wish to express what he feels, knows and believes, to Our Holy Father.
Rooney Resolution: Obama in Violation of War Powers Act
Requires Withdrawal from Libya unless Congress Authorizes Action by June 19
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney (FL-16) today introduced a resolution declaring that President Obama is in violation of the War Powers Resolution, and requiring the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Libya unless Congress authorizes military action by June 19.
Rooney said.
Under the War Powers Resolution, the President must obtain Congressional authorization for military action that lasts longer than 60 days. If Congress does not authorize military action, the President must withdraw troops within 30 days. The 60-day authorization deadline expired on May 20, and the 30-day withdrawal deadline expires on June 19.
Rooney’s resolution is available here.
……………………………………………………………
(Original Signature of Member)
112TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. l
Expressing the sense of Congress that the President is in violation of the
War Powers Resolution regarding the use of United States Armed Forces
in Libya, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. ROONEY submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on lllllllllllllll
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the President is in
violation of the War Powers Resolution regarding the
use of United States Armed Forces in Libya, and for
other purposes.
A)
1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
2 concurring), That the President is in violation of the War
3 Powers Resolution regarding the use of United States
4 Armed Forces in Libya and, if the President does not
5 obtain congressional authorization for the use of the Armed
6 Forces in Libya by June 19, 2011, the President should
B)
1 remove the Armed Forces from Libya and the region as
2 soon as practicable after such date.
_______________________________________________
Bipartisan Congress rebuffs Obama on Libya mission
In two votes — on competing resolutions that amounted to legislative lectures of Mr. Obama — Congress escalated the brewing constitutional clash over whether he ignored the founding document’s grant of war powers by sending U.S. troops to aid in enforcing a no-fly zone and naval blockade of Libya.
The resolutions were non-binding, and only one of them passed, but taken together, roughly three-quarters of the House voted to put Mr. Obama on notice that he must explain himself or else face future consequences, possibly including having funds for the war cut off.
“He has a chance to get this right. If he doesn’t, Congress will exercise its constitutional authority and make it right,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who wrote the resolution that passed, 268-145, and sets a two-week deadline for the president to deliver the information the House is seeking.
Minutes after approving Mr. Boehner’s measure, the House defeated an even more strongly-worded resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, that would have insisted the president begin a withdrawal of troops.Most lawmakers said that was too rash at this point, and said they wanted to give Mr. Obama time to comply. Some also said immediate withdrawal would leave U.S. allies in the lurch.
The Kucinich resolution failed 148-265. In a telling signal, 87 Republicans voted for Mr. Kucinich’s resolution — more than the 61 Democrats that did.Still, taken together, 324 members of Congress voted for one resolution or both resolutions, including 91 Democrats, or nearly half the caucus. The size of the votes signals overwhelming discontent with Mr. Obama’s handling of the constitutional issues surrounding the Libya fight.
Flaunting the Constitutional LAW, when asked about the votes beforehand, the White House/Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and White House spokesman Josh Earnest said they and Obama believe it is following the law by alerting Congress of its intentions regarding Libya, and called the resolutions “unnecessary and unhelpful.”
But members of Congress said the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution require more than alerts about military action — they require congressional approval, which the White House has not sought.
The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, but the power to “manage” the armed forces to the president. The War Powers Resolution, enacted in 1973, tries to bridge that gap by allowing the president to commit troops for up to 60 days, but requires him to seek congressional approval if he wants to extend the commitment beyond that period..
Rep. Tom Rooney Recommends Cutting Funding Of The Military Operation In Libya
Joe Schoffstall
Thursday, May 26, 2011 – 10:46am
Rep. Tom Rooney Recommends Cutting Funding Of The Military Operation In Libya
http://www.mrctv.org/embed/102111
http://www.mrctv.org/videos/rep-tom-rooney-recommends-cutting-funding-military-operation-libya
First, they were not WARSHIPS. There were SEVEN 35′ Coast Guard Vessels [used predominently for search & rescue missions], and there was one very disabled navy frigate under 100 meters in length which was in dock for extensive repairs:
NATO Air-strikes Hit Tripoli, Heaviest Bombing Yet
Faul reported from Benghazi, Libya.
Associated Press Writer Ben Hubbard in Cairo and Bouazza Ben Bouazza in Tunisia contributed reporting.
Posted: Monday, May 23, 2011 9:47 pm | Updated: 2:34 am, Tue May 24, 2011.
Darko Bandic
NATO claims that Gaddafi forces have shed their uniforms, are using civilian vehicles and hiding armour near civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools. The Libyan Government vehemently denies this.
Sky over Tripoli, Libya, is illuminated by explosions during an airstrike, early Tuesday, May 24, 2011. NATO warplanes were repeatedly hitting Tripoli early Tuesday in what appears to be the heaviest night of bombing of the Libyan capital since the start of the air campaign against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
NATO warplanes bombarded targets in Tripoli with more than 20 airstrikes early Tuesday, striking around Moammar Gadhafi’s residential compound in what appeared to be the heaviest night of bombing of the Libyan capital since the Western alliance launched its air campaign against his forces.
The rapid string of strikes, all within less than half an hour, set off thunderous booms that rattled windows, sent heavy, acrid-smelling plumes of smoke over the city, including from an area close to Gadhafi’s sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least three people were killed and dozens wounded in NATO strikes. In one room of the Tripoli Central Hospital, the bodies of three mangled men in their twenties lay on stretchers, their clothing ripped and their faces partially blown away and dusty. A nurse, Ahmad Shara, told reporters taken on a government-escorted visit to the facility soon after the strikes that the men were standing outside their homes when they were killed, presumably by shrapnel.
One man who identified himself as a relative walked into the room where the bodies lay. He halted at their sight, turned around and loudly slapped his hands on a wall as he cried out in shock.
Around 10 other men and women lay on stretchers. They appeared moderately to lightly wounded.
“We thought it was the day of judgment,” said Fathallah Salem, a 45-year-old contractor who rushed his 75-year-old mother to the hospital after she suffered shock. The wide-eyed man described how his home trembled, his mother fainted and how the younger of his seven children cried as they heard the rolling explosions.
“You were in the hotel and you were terrified by the shaking _ imagine what it was like for the people who live in slums!” Salem said, as he interrupted a government spokesman to speak to a crowd of foreign reporters at the hospital.
“Honestly, we used to have problems (with the regime),” he said in Arabic. “But today we are all for Moammar Gadhafi.”
The villages of Galaa and Yefren, are facing critical shortages. There is no water, money or food. They are bombed everyday.
The military aircraft whooshed low over the city during the night, the strikes coming in series of three loud booms, a pause of minutes punctuated by the hissing sound of low-flying jets, then more shaking, shuddering strikes, shaking windows miles away from Bab al-Aziziya. The sound of other more distant explosions could also be heard.
Pro-Gadhafi loyalists beeped their car horns, men screamed and shouted outside the hotel where journalists were staying, declaring their loyalty to Gadhafi.
Observers described the bombing as the heaviest attack on the Libyan capital since NATO began its air campaign on March 19.
In a significant new deployment of firepower, France and Britain are bringing attack helicopters to use in the strikes in Libya as soon as possible, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said Monday.
The use of attack helicopters would appear to mark a new strategy for NATO, which has relied on strikes by fighter planes and seen that result in a stalemate on the ground as Gadhafi forces adapted, often turning to urban fighting to make such strikes more difficult.
Nimble, low-flying helicopters have much more leeway to pick targets with precision than high-flying jets. But they also are much more vulnerable to ground fire. The alliance has had no military deaths since it first started enforcing a no-fly zone on March 31.
Longuet said the helicopters would be used in crowded urban areas, causing fewer civilian casualties. Longuet said France would essentially use Gazelle helicopters, which have been around for some 40 years, but can also use the Tigre, a modern helicopter gunship.
MINISTRY OF DEFENSE, EPA
Britain and France are to deploy attack helicopters against Libya in an attempt to break the military stalemate, particularly in the important coastal city of Misrata, security sources have told the Guardian.
In a significant escalation of the conflict, the Apaches – based on HMS Ocean – will join French helicopters in risky operations which reflect deepening frustration among British and French defense chiefs about their continuing inability to protect civilians.
According to French sources, the battleship Tonnerre, carrying the helicopters, left Toulon last week. The vessel combines the roles of helicopter carrier, hospital ship, and troops transporter.
The French newspaper Le Figaro said the helicopters would be assisted by target identification from French special forces who have been on the ground in Libya since the start of the allied operation there. The Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces’ operations.Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said: “This is a significant development. It is right that the alliance is intensifying military pressure on Gaddafi’s forces, but the British government needs to be clearer about a political strategy for Libya and whether the military commitment to Libya is an open-ended one.”
The first international stabilisation response team has arrived in Libya, the international development secretary Andrew Mitchell has confirmed.
Apaches, which are being used in counter insurgency operations in Afghanistan, can maneuver and attack small targets in relatively built-up areas. Heavily-armed Apaches and French Tiger helicopters are equipped with night vision equipment and electronic guidance systems.
The decision to deploy the helicopters is a clear recognition that high-level bombing from 15,000 feet cannot protect civilians who continue to be attacked by rocket and mortar shells. It brings the NATO offensive much closer to the ground.
Former U.S. congresswoman criticizes American policy on Libyan state television
Late Saturday, former U.S. Rep. decried U.S. policy on Libyan state television, saying the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”
State television is fiercely loyal to Gadhafi, and McKinney’s interview was spliced with footage of what appeared to be pro-Gadhafi rallies.
“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here,” McKinney said in the interview. “And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth.”
She said she was invited to Libya by the “nongovernmental organization for fact-finding,” adding that she intends to bring more people to the country soon so that “they too can understand.”
Gadhafi’s government has repeatedly urged the international community to send fact-finding teams to Libya to report what’s happening on the ground.
At one point during the interview, state TV cut to what it said were live airstrikes, hitting Gadhafi’s compound.
“Is that a bomb?” McKinney asked.
“I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for and it’s not what African-Americans stand for,” she told state TV.
The former Georgia representative also slammed the economic policies of U.S. President Barack Obama and said the government of the United States no longer represents the interests of the American people.
“Under the economic policies of the Obama administration, those who have the least are losing the most. And those who have the most are getting even more,” she said. “The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.”
Separately, McKinney appeared on state-run Press TV this week in Iran. She was reported to be in Tehran attending the International Conference on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace.
CNN’s Amir Ahmed contributed to this report.
COMMENTS: from Tom Farrar Talley .
Is there any knowledge from your end that Qaddafi has something he’s holding back – in the way of weapons – to surprise the Infidels?
Il y a 4 heures · J’aimeJe n’aime plus.Christella Bernardene Krebs He has nothing. NATO claims that Gaddafi forces have shed their uniforms, are using civilian vehicles and hiding armour near civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools. The Libyan Government vehemently denies this.
************
All I can say, Tom, is do you remember they made the same accusations against Sadaam Hussein? He had no WMD either…But they never apologized after destroying Iraq, etc. …when even the perpetrator of the report openly admitted he lied. I dislike comparing these two men, as, unlike Sadaam, Gadhafi is not a dictator and holds no political office what-so-ever. He is just the Libyan “Guide”. the People of Libya’s Jamahiriya congressional commitees run their own country. The whole war is 100% insanity. Thousands of innocents have been killed…and one cannot blame the Libyan government or Gadhafi (when the truth is exposed).
ALL WOMEN ARE FREE TO SPEAK IN LIBYA
Ajoutée par OnToDenver le 23 mai 2011
National Forum held in Tripoli, which has gathered more than 1500 women, spoke in favor of resolution of the Congress of Libyan tribal elders, against NATO and for the Gaddafi.
Resolution of Congress of Women of Libya:
We, the women of Libya, aware it is our duty in the days of adversity, we want to say that we understand and clear message is clear, the meaning of conspiracy against Libya.
We declare:
Our historical leader and symbol of our glorious revolution lives in the hearts of millions.
All Libyans – one family, and our land – not a subject for bargaining.
Traitors, enemy agents and perpetrators of aggression must respond to the full extent of the law.
Killers and abusers of simple Libyans do not have to escape from retribution.
Women Libya called on all countries involved in the criminal adventure “great powers”, think again.
This statement is made on the basis of the constituent meeting of the National Women’s Forum Libya. 22.05.2011. Tripoli
___________________________________
…they will rather bomb such meetings (bombing the democratic infrastructure) as they already bombed the meeting of libyan Imams in Benghazi about one week ago.
edgar0001 il y a 12 heures
National Forum held in Tripoli, which has gathered more than 1500 women, spoke in favor of resolution of the Congress of Libyan tribal elders, against NATO and for the Gaddafi.
Resolution of Congress of Women of Libya:
We, the women of Libya, aware it is our duty in the days of adversity, we want to say that we understand and clear message is clear, the meaning of conspiracy against Libya.
TatjanaDimitrijevic il y a 13 heures
Répondre
PartagerSupprimerSignaler comme spamBloquer l’utilisateurDébloquer l’utilisateurWe declare:
Our historical leader and symbol of our glorious revolution lives in the hearts of millions.
All Libyans – one family, and our land – not a subject for bargaining.
This statement is made on the basis of the constituent meeting of the National Women’s Forum Libya. 22.05.2011. Tripoli
Please admit to seeing the truth (as it stands well before you). I just want you all you to wake-up to the horrible reality. And I thank you and others, for seeing/ feeling this outrageous slaughter of humanity. This never was an HUMANITARIAN intervention….and sadly too many have died, been mamed for life; and a once blossoming nation is being turned into rubble and dust. Another dream has been shaken by NATO & the USA….IT IS VERY SAD.
Distribution of wealth in LIBYA (WATCH METER OF VIDEO at 00:37)
Dr. Ibrahim Moussa, secretary of the Jamahiriya…
FROM CYNTHIA MCKINNEY: Dispatch From Tripoli–NATO’s Feast of Blood
par Cynthia McKinney, mardi 24 mai 2011, 21:14
By CYNTHIA McKINNEY
Tripoli, Libya 5/24/11
While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism. Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was founded by the United States in response to the Soviet Union’s survival as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue. This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.
NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a “cordon sanitaire” around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack. Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the “Cold War.”
Avowed “Cold Warriors” of today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states of the U.S. whose moves any where on the planet are to be contested. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided an accelerated opportunity to exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence. Africa and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states and Afghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other “stans” of the region, have always factored prominently in the theories of “containment” or “rollback” guiding U.S. policy up to today.
With that as background, last night’s NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable. A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night, rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.
I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.
I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here–along with white phosphorus. If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?
Women carrying young children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their eyes. With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the scene of the attack. Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people.
Sporadic gunfire broke out and it seemed everywhere around me. Euronews showed video of nurses and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those injured from NATO’s latest installation of shock and awe. Suddenly, the streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving. Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?
Whatever the military objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.
I did wonder too if the any of the politicians who had authorized this air attack had themselves ever been on the receiving end of laser guided depleted uranium munitions. Had they ever seen the awful damage that these weapons do a city and its population? Perhaps if they actually been in the city of air attack and felt the concussion from these bombs and saw the mayhem caused they just might not be so inclined to authorize an attack on a civilian population.
I am confident that NATO would not have been so reckless with human life if they had called on to attack a major western city. Indeed, I am confident that would not be called upon ever to attack a western city. NATO only attacks (as does the US and its allies) the poor and underprivileged of the 3rd world.
Only the day before, at a women’s event in Tripoli, one woman came up to me with tears in her eyes: her mother is in Benghazi and she can’t get back to see if her mother is OK or not. People from the east and west of the country lived with each other, loved each other, intermarried, and now, because of NATO’s “humanitarian intervention,” artificial divisions are becoming hardened. NATO’s recruitment of allies in eastern Libya smacks of the same strain of cold warriorism that sought to assassinate Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolution with “homegrown” Cubans willing to commit acts of terror against their former home country. More recently, Democratic Republic of Congo has been amputated de facto after Laurent Kabila refused a request from the Clinton Administration to formally shave off the eastern part of his country. Laurent Kabila personally recounted the meeting at which this request and refusal were delivered. This plan to balkanize and amputate an African country (as has been done in Sudan) did not work because Kabila said “no” while Congolese around the world organized to protect the “territorial integrity” of their country.
I was horrified to learn that NATO allies (the Rebels) in Libya have reportedly lynched, butchered and then their darker-skinned compatriots after U.S. press reports labeled Black Libyans as “Black mercenaries.” Now, tell me this, pray tell. How are you going to take Blacks out of Africa? Press reports have suggested that Americans were “surprised” to see dark-skinned people in Africa. Now, what does that tell us about them?
The sad fact, however, is that it is the Libyans themselves, who have been insulted, terrorized, lynched, and murdered as a result of the press reports that hyper-sensationalized this base ignorance. Who will be held accountable for the lives lost in the bloodletting frenzy unleashed as a result of these lies?
Which brings me back to the lady’s question: why is this happening? Honestly, I could not give her the educated reasoned response that she was looking for. In my view the international public is struggling to answer “Why?”.
What we do know, and what is quite clear, is this: what I experienced last night is no “humanitarian intervention.”
Many suspect it is about all the oil under Libya. Call me skeptical but I have to wonder why the combined armed sea, land and air forces of NATO and the US costing billions of dollars are being arraigned against a relatively small North African country and we’re expected to believe its in the defense of democracy.
What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not “humanitarian intervention.” Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not “humanitarian intervention.” What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why to people now terrified by NATO’s bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings–all in the name of “humanitarian intervention.” Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority? Where is the “Conscience of the Congress?”
For those of who disagree with Dick Cheney’s warning to us to prepare for war for the next generation, please support any one who will stop this madness. Please organize and then vote for peace. People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs. Libyans don’t need NATO helicopter gunships, smart bombs, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium to settle their differences. NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” needs to be exposed for what it is with the bright, shining light of the truth.
As dusk descends on Tripoli, let me prepare myself with the local civilian population for some more NATO humanitarianism.
Stop bombing Africa and the poor of the world!
Cynthia McKinney is a former member of Congress from Georgia and was the Green Party Presidential Candidate in 2008.
See her here:
http://dignity.ning.com/
http://www.twitter.com/cynthiamckinney
http://www.facebook.com/cynthiamckinneyofficial
a heartbreak…All for wealth & power, a free Sovereign nation suffers & is being unrecoverably destroyed. THE USA IS ANCIENT ROME ALL OVER AGAIN…Conquer & DESTROY!
Khadafi Green BookEncounters with Colonel Khadafi and the Green Book
Wed, 11/04/2009 – 01:33 — Glen Ford
Khadafi on capitalism | Khadafi Green Book
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
An American delegation of activists and journalists travel to Libya for a World Conference of Green Book Supporters, and an audience with Colonel Mouammar Khadafi. “What possible use could a political work linked in western minds to the struggles of robed Bedouins have for inhabitants of the wealthy, hi-wired North?” Plenty, it turns out. “’Direct democracy,’ as the Green Book describes it, is of more than passing interest to citizens of the Belly of the Beast, where corporations have the legal rights of persons and money is deemed constitutionally entitled to all the ‘free’ speech it can buy.”
Encounters with Colonel Khadafi and the Green Book
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“The world’s number one proponent of the Green Book believes the Libyan formula for socialism is entirely applicable to the United States.”
The highway that runs from Tripoli’s airport to the rocky Mediterranean shore is punctuated every few hundred yards by small rectangular signs in Arabic, English and French: “Africa – One People,” “Africa is Life,” “Yes for the United States of Africa,” “Africa is Development.” Certainly, Libya’s capital is development, a metropolis of 1.7 million that in places seems mainly comprised of buildings either under construction or in some stage of demolition – a new city thrusting out of the old.
Eleven Americans were on their way to Colonel Mouammar Kadhafi’s “house,” actually a large walled military compound not far from the city center. Headed by former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, the U.S. delegates were among 400 guests of the Universal Association of Green Book Supporters, holding their First World Congress in late October. Colonel Khadafi, leader of Libya since the revolution of 1969 and chief promulgator of the Green Book, had agreed to speak to us.
McKinney had addressed the Green Book World Congress the night before. “Colonel Khadafi should be highly commended,” said the Green Party’s 2008 presidential candidate, “for honoring our ancestors – the framers of true democracy – by reaching out from Africa to the entire world. We would like to thank him for this opportunity to discuss his thoughts as presented in the Green Book.”
In the United States, the Green Book is known just widely enough to evoke derision and eyeball-rolling among the smug and comfortable classes. What possible use could a political work linked in western minds to the struggles of robed Bedouins have for inhabitants of the wealthy, hi-wired North?
“The rich have no right to the wealth they control.”
The American delegation to Tripoli offered some answers. “The universal principles of the Green Book, although widely associated with the conditions and challenges facing developing nations, are equally applicable to the needs of the people of the United States at this period of profound crisis for finance capital.”
McKinney continued:
“The finance capitalist class, through its control of U.S. economic and political institutions, has in the past year effectuated the largest – and speediest – transfer of wealth in the history of humankind…. We categorically reject all claims by capital to our national resources and credit, and declare that corporate power is antithetical to the people’s power. We, instead, put our full faith and credit in the people.”
On basic socialist principles of people’s sovereignty over the national wealth – the fundamental conviction that the rich have no right to the wealth they control– the Green Book speaks plain truth to Harlem and every other gentry-besieged, bankster-bedeviled community in the United States. And every conscious witness to U.S billion dollar elections can testify, as did the American delegation in Libya, that “the ‘multi-party’ systems instituted and spread by western governments have indeed become a means to plunder and usurp the people’s autonomy and authority.”
“Direct democracy,” as the Green Book describes it, is of more than passing interest to citizens of the Belly of the Beast, where corporations have the legal rights of persons and money is deemed constitutionally entitled to all the “free” speech it can buy.
Under the Colonel’s Tent
The 400 guests from 91 countries were gathered under a huge tent, its beige folds billowing high above their heads. Seated in the front row in straight-backed chairs arrayed on carpet the color of sand, were Cynthia McKinney and a few lucky members of her delegation. Colonel Khadafy sat at a plain table near the entrance, dressed in a white suite and green shirt, bareheaded, his voice low and rumbling.
The first order of business, said Khadafi, his words relayed by the English translator speaking through the guests’ headsets, was to observe a moment of silence in memory of the thousands of Libyans deported by Italian occupation forces in October, 1911, never to return to their homeland.
In 2008, Italy and Libya finally signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation, requiring the former colonizers to build a railroad link across the country, “pay compensation to the victims of Italian occupation, clear Libya of land mines and provide information on the fate of deportees.” The Italian agreement was part of a general settling of accounts with the West, which included normalization of relations with the U.S. in 2006 and financial settlement of the Lockerbie passenger jet bombing affair. Tripoli’s feverish building boom followed.
“The rulers’ claim to the national wealth is illegitimate, like any common thief’s.”
“The struggle of mankind was to get rid of oppression and to achieve happiness,” said Khadafi, citing one of the Green Book’s central tenets. But the Green Book is maligned and misrepresented. “The shortsighted people are those who say the Green Book is the book of Khadafi, the book of Libya, the book of Muslims… The Green Book doesn’t say that…They will not find the word Koran” in the Green Book.
All of which is, of course, true, but must be repeated, since Europeans and Americans have always preferred their own racist myths over reality when it comes to the formerly colonized.
Direct democracy, operating through people’s committees and popular congresses, is far superior to Western representative systems and constitutions which, Khadafi said, “are changed many times, whenever the rulers have an ax to grind.”
Khadafi’s socialism breaks with Marx on the issue of nationalism, which the Green Book considers “the real constant dynamic of history.” Yet there is elegance to his straightforward socialism.
In capitalist society, Khadafi informed his guests, the rulers control “trillions. Where did they get it from? This is the wealth of society.” The rulers’ claim to the national wealth is illegitimate, like any common thief’s. “You can break the windows and take the safe, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to do it.”
Tell that to the banksters that instructed the Obama administration to commit, by July of this year, $23.7 trillion of the national wealth to the resurrection of finance capitalism.
Under capitalism, Khadafi continued, “a small number of people control the wealth and make the others poor. The poor don’t have banks, or own the press. They don’t have a member of parliament. The rich create the parliament, they own the press. The poor are made redundant. This is injustice” – an elemental truth rooted in the experience of capitalism.
Europe and America, for five centuries the greatest tramplers of human rights on the planet, murderers of whole civilizations, masters of industrial-strength genocide and enslavement, appoint themselves arbiters and definers of human rights.
“The rich create the parliament, they own the press.”
“They talk about human rights, but they cheat millions of people out of their human rights,” said the 67-year-old leader of 5.5 million Libyans, who is also chairman of the African Union. Human rights in places like Britain and the United States amounts to nothing more than “the right to express yourself when you are in pain. They [the rich rulers] have the right to steal, you have the right to protest.” Not the right to redress, or restoration of one’s patrimony and dignity – just the right to protest and cry out. “The Green Book,” said the Colonel, “is a method for emancipation. We should destroy capitalism.”
The world’s number one proponent of the Green Book believes the Libyan formula for socialism, whereby oil revenues have begun to be distributed directly to citizens – starting with the poor – is entirely applicable to the United States. “The wealth of America should be divided among the citizens, equally” – an arrangement that sounded similar to the state of Alaska’s yearly oil revenue payout to citizens. “The wealth of society is the property of all Americans and should be distributed that way,” said Khadafi.
The American delegation’s Libyan interlocutor, a well-educated Black man named Abdurahmane who lives most of the year in Paris, explained that Libyans who have been phased into the redistribution program begin with a “portfolio” worth about $20,000 and receive about $1,000 in revenue a month. Libya’s relatively small population and healthy oil revenues have long afforded the nation one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa. But per capita income means nothing to the average citizen when the rich hoard everything for themselves. Libya makes per capita income (or wealth) actually mean something to the common people. Since when have Americans who call themselves socialists put forward a formula with such crowd appeal and simple elegance?
As Colonel Khadafi puts it, “Use simple language. Enlighten the workers.” BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
News from Libya
Tribal leaders support Gaddafi, propose ceasefire & amnesty
May 7th, 2011
By Editor
Extraordinary News from inside Libya!
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, says that tapping blocked Libyan assets “poses legal problems” [EPA]
Anger at international funding
The Libyan government, meanwhile, has reacted angrily to a decision by several countries to provide funding to Libya’s opposition fighters, terming a plan to use assets frozen abroad as tantamount to “piracy”.Khaled Kaim, the country’s deputy foreign minister, rejected international efforts to set up the fund,
Kaim said on Friday.
Libyan tribal chiefs have urged a general amnesty for all fighters engaged in the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.
In a meeting that ended in Tripoli late on Friday evening, the National Conference for Libyan Tribes called for a
it said in a statement. No timetable for, nor details on, the proposed law were mentioned.
The statement also referred to opposition fighters as “traitors” and pledged that tribal leaders would not “forsake” or “abandon” Gaddafi.
The statement goes on to call for towns “hijacked” by opposition fighters to be “liberated”.
“The conference also calls all Libyan tribes neighbouring the towns and cities hijacked by armed groups to move peacefully in popular marches to liberate those hijacked towns, disarming the armed rebels,” it said.
Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said that the tribal leaders at the conference represent tribes from across the country, including those from the rebel-held east.
Tribal leaders from all over Libya have been meeting in Tripoli. On 7th May it has been reported that they have declared support for the Gaddafi Government, while also offering generous terms to the insurrectionists: total amnesty.
This is an impressive initiative for reconciliation, because there is little doubt some of the rebels have committed serous war-crimes.
Tribes reportedly supporting the peace initiative are:
Eastern Libya
Tarhuna, Bani Walid (Werfella), Gharabulli, Msellata, Zliten, Khoms, Mirgeb, Ben Jawad
Southern Libya
Galo, Ojla, Twareg, Ghadames, Wadi al Hayat, Wadi Alshati, Tiji & Hsawna
Western Libya
Swani Ben Adem, Azzizia, Bir Al Ghanam, Bir Aiad, Gharian, Jefren, Kikla, Mizda, Mshashia , Zanzur, Zahra, Surman, Sab Rata, Zmail, Zuara
NOTE: the source for this story is a report from within Tripoli. It corresponds with an Al Jazeera article posted shortly after the meeting, although Al Jazeera manages to cast a negative spin on the story.
BREAKING NEWS FROM TRIPOLI LIBYA
.par STOP THE WAR IN LIBYA. WE DEMAND IT, samedi 7 mai 2011, 13:37.2 Thousands tribes met last week and ended their conference today in Tripoli giving their allegiance to the Libyan Government as long as there is amnesty for rebels which has been agreed on.
The most important tribes are:
EAST SIDE
TARHUNA
BANI WALID (WERFELLA)
GHARABULLI
MSELLATA
ZLITEN
KHOMS
MIRGEB
BEN JAWAD
SYRTE
WEST SIDE
SWANI BEN ADEM
AZZIZIA
BIR AL GHANAM
BIR AIAD
GHARIAN
JEFREN
KIKLA
MIZDA
MSHASHIA
ZANZUR
ZAHRA
SURMAN
SAB RATA
ZMAIL
ZUARA
SOUTH- EAREA—NEAR FEZZAN AND AROUND
GALO
OJLA
TWAREG
GHADAMES .
WADI AL HAYAT
WADI ALSHATI
TIJI
HSAWNA
.
NOT ALL FRENCH HONOR SARKOZY’s WAR ON LIBYA:
The TRIBUNAL IS ON NOW:
15:00 (GMT) 26 MAI 2011
http://yatv.ru/ITAAL
ONLINE ASIA TIMES
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No wonder a paranoid Anglo-American-French consortium will pull all stops to take out Gaddafi. They don’t want half a spring roll; they want the whole kebab.
The queen’s speech
The new Libyan government kingmaker is actually a queen: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Any doubts that the US State Department is now frantically setting up a new government peppered with English-speaking collaborators have been dismissed after the London conference on Libya.
The “official” Libyan opposition used to tautologically call itself “Interim Transitional National Council”. Now it’s Interim National Council (INC). Anyone running for cover to the sound of the acronym INC is excused; it does bring appalling memories of the Washington-propped Iraqi National Congress and its fabled “weapons of mass destruction” in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
And what about the INC‘s new military commander, Khalifa Hifter – a former Libyan army colonel who spent nearly 20 years in Vienna, Virginia, not far from the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley? Progressives will love to learn that the romantic “rebels” are now led by a CIA asset. At the London conference, the INC launched in style its slick political manifesto – “A vision of democratic Libya” – which makes all the right noises; freedom of expression, presidential and parliamentary elections, and crucially, the promise of “a state that draws strength from our strong religious beliefs in peace, truth, justice and equality”.
This is – extremely polite – code for Islam in post-Gaddafi Libya (so not to ruff Western feathers). Along with the impeccable English redaction, the whole thing screams, “slick Western PR stunt”. The council swears the platform was originally drawn up in Arabic. It definitely doesn’t feel like a Google Translate job.
So the INC says the gift to the West for the Tomahawks, Tornados and Rafales is going to be a secular democracy. Someone else might say a coalition of opportunists and military defectors climbed upon the wave of mass radicalization in northern Africa, profited from the absence of political leadership among the working class and middle class, and struck a military alliance with Western imperialism. Which is more plausible?
The INC now is being paraded for the whole world to see as a Western puppet – totally dependent on political and military support. Welcome to Libya as a Pentagon-style forward operating base (FOB) – to the benefit of the Pentagon itself (via Africom), Western oil majors, and all manner of shady Anglo-French-American business interests (see There’s no business as war business Asia Times Online March 30 ). Welcome to a new Libya hosting a US military base and NATO exercises, and not spending oil money in sub-Saharan African development projects. As major players – the BRIC countries and Germany – had already warned, United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 is being twisted like a pretzel. Queen Hillary now openly says that arming the “rebels” is legal. Another one of the queen’s women combat squad, US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the US had “not ruled out” arming the rebels – mimicking the exact wording of President Barack Obama. Impressed, British Foreign Secretary William Hague agreed. So did Qatar.
Meanwhile, NATO is taking over. Literally. Starting this Thursday, NATO’s air strikes will be conducted out of the Combined Air Operations Center at Poggio Renatico base in Italy, 40 kilometers north of Bologna. But that’s just the start.
Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, told a US senate hearing in Washington NATO was not considering ground forces in post-Gaddafi Libya – at least not yet. But as NATO had installed peacekeepers in the Balkans, added Stavridis, “the possibility of a stabilization regime exists”.
There you have it – the whole package; a Western puppet regime, Western boots on the ground, a squalid Western protectorate. Goodbye to Libya’s sovereignty. And this only a few hours after Obama passionately told the world this was just a humanitarian mission. It requires major suspension of disbelief that an Obama administration that keeps unleashing drones and air strikes over civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and – now and then – Somalia is now deeply concerned with protecting Libyan civilians. “Democratic” Israel may bomb 1,500 Lebanese civilians in 2006 or kill nearly 1,500 civilians in the winter of 2008/2009 in Gaza – and no way there will be a UN resolution, or Tomahawks flying, or righteous humanitarian imperialists invoking R2P (“responsibility to protect”) en masse.
In 1999, NATO almost destroyed Belgrade to “protect civilians” in Kosovo. Kosovo subsequently became an infinitely corrupt protectorate ruled by a drug mafia. Cue to echoes of neo-cons arguing that the real reason for Washington to invade Iraq was to “protect” Iraqis from the evil dictator Saddam by bringing democracy (by shock and awe).
The stark fact is that Washington – now with Anglo-French help – is bombing yet another Muslim/Arab capital. Miraculously – if one believes the Pentagon – with zero “collateral damage”.
And what about the Ivory Coast?
A true genocide is about to happen in the Ivory Coast. There are already one million internal refugees. The “international community” – which now seems to consist of the US, Britain, France, a few NATO countries and a few Arab autocracies, with Qatar as the superstar – has not emitted a peep.
Laurent Gbagbo lost a presidential election in the Ivory Coast but has refused to concede. He controls a huge militia armed to their teeth – and they’re going all guns blazing to snatch elected opposition figures, intellectuals and civil society leaders. Anyone who has supported the winner of the election, Alassane Ouattara, is fair game.
Shades of Gaddafi, anyone? Better yet; shades of Rwanda in 1994, Uganda in 2008 and Congo during the 1990s. Not a few thousand dead civilians but hundreds of thousands of dead civilians (and in the case of Congo, perhaps as many as four million). Not a R2P (responsibility to protect) squeak from the “international community”.
If the Anglo-French-American consortium really wanted to stop the violence in Libya the sensible solution would have been to dispatch an UN fact-finding commission to really analyze the facts on the ground. No one really knows how many civilians Gaddafi forces killed, or how many air strikes his regime conducted. No one really knows how many black Africans have been raped or murdered by the “rebels”, who assumed they were Gaddafi mercenaries. Gaddafi himself agreed to an independent UN commission. The first measure of R2P is not to exercise the Tomahawk option; it is to mediate, call for a ceasefire and start negotiations.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is correct when he says this “humanitarian” war is fast becoming a “second Iraq” or “another Afghanistan”. He also said Turkey is talking to both Gaddafi and the INC. Sensibly – and as part of NATO – Turkey is about to take over the harbor and the airport in Benghazi to speed up humanitarian aid. If there is a ceasefire the credit must go to Turkey – which is working hard to establish a humanitarian corridor, with support from Italy. Neo-Conquerer [Arab “liberator”] French President Nicolas Sarkozy won’t be amused.
Turkey is also linking up with the African Union (AU) – which has been totally marginalized by the Anglo-French-American consortium. France and Britain may be paranoid about the upcoming immigration waves from Africa, now that Libya – which was the cop on the beat for the Europeans – is not playing that role anymore. Italy – already coping with waves and waves of new arrivals at the isle of Lampedusa – at least is trying to work in the humanitarian front alongside Turkey.
There’s no guarantee Turkey’s mediation efforts will work. The Pentagon/Africom/NATO foreign intervention in Libya – “legitimized” by a dodgy UN cover – is shaping up as a counter-revolutionary master coup. Make no mistake as to what is the ultimate target; to squash the great 2011 Arab revolt momentum, to show who’s boss, and to present neo-colonialism with a facelift. To see how it develops, one just has to focus on Queen Hillary’s speech.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at: pepeasia@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_62645.shtml
A CIA commander for the Libyan rebels ( 0) Print This ShareThisBy Patrick Martin
WSWS
Monday, Mar 28, 2011
28 March 2011
The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday night.
Hifter’s arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the “two military stars of the revolution” who “had recently returned from exile in America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence.” The newspaper did not refer to his CIA connections.
McClatchy Newspapers published a profile of Hifter on Sunday. Headlined “New Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 years in Suburban Virginia,” the article notes that he was once a top commander for the Gaddafi regime, until “a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s.”
Hifter then went over to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, eventually emigrating to the United States, where he lived until two weeks ago when he returned to Libya to take command in Benghazi.
The McClatchy profile concluded, “Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, DC.” It cited a friend who “said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.”
To those who can read between the lines, this profile is a thinly disguised indication of Hifter’s role as a CIA operative. How else does a high-ranking former Libyan military commander enter the United States in the early 1990s, only a few years after the Lockerbie bombing, and then settle near the US capital, except with the permission and active assistance of US intelligence agencies? Hifter actually lived in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, for two decades.
The agency was very familiar with Hifter’s military and political work. A Washington Post report of March 26, 1996 describes an armed rebellion against Gaddafi in Libya and uses a variant spelling of his name. The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that “its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.”
The comparison is to the “contra” terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra scandal, which rocked the Reagan administration in 1986-87, involved the exposure of illegal US arms sales to Iran, with the proceeds used to finance the contras in defiance of a congressional ban. Congressional Democrats covered up the scandal and rejected calls to impeach Reagan for sponsoring the flagrantly illegal activities of a cabal of former intelligence operatives and White House aides.
A 2001 book, Manipulations africaines, published by Le Monde diplomatique, traces the CIA connection even further back, to 1987, reporting that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi’s army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.
According to this book, “the Haftar force, created and financed by the CIA in Chad, vanished into thin air with the help of the CIA shortly after the government was overthrown by Idriss Déby.” The book also cites a Congressional Research Service report of December 19, 1996 that the US government was providing financial and military aid to the LNSF and that a number of LNSF members were relocated to the United States.
This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the “freedom fighters” of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services.
Nor have the liberal and “left” enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its multilateral and “consultative” approach to war, supposedly so different from the unilateral and “cowboy” approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That the result is the same—death and destruction raining down on the population, the trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial country—means nothing to these apologists for imperialism.
The role of Hifter, aptly described 15 years ago as the leader of a “contra-style group,” demonstrates the real class forces at work in the Libyan tragedy. Whatever genuine popular opposition was expressed in the initial revolt against the corrupt Gaddafi dictatorship, the rebellion has been hijacked by imperialism.
The US and European intervention in Libya is aimed not at bringing “democracy” and “freedom,” but at installing in power stooges of the CIA who will rule just as brutally as Gaddafi, while allowing the imperialist powers to loot the country’s oil resources and use Libya as a base of operations against the popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
Source: WSWS
Once this Bill passes the American Senate, the USA will not only be permanently under MARSHALL LAW, but it will be legal to assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world which the USA wants to “take-out”. It will be the American law to be able to invade any country under the pretext of “Amerian National Interest” (not that the USA does not already; but, before this bill, it was considered an illegal Act of War against the American Constitution). Actually, with this law, there are no longer any human rights left in America; and anyone who disagrees with the American Government, not only is considered a traitor and can be incarcerated or executed–even before any trial. With the already passed Patriotic Act, all communications are 100% monitored and there is no need for a house warrant. What happened to America? If this does not prove that the NAZIs have taken America over, nothing does. People are too blind (enjoying their popular entertainment and media News) in America to even begin noticing what is occurring. Also with Media Games and War TV series made so popular, the populace has been conditioned to be very hardened of heart and even blood-thirsty! Meanwhile also, the American populace is also being culled, by inducting poor young people into Army Careers—where they are expendable as FLIES….And horrific catastrophies are being artificially created to wipe-out masses of the populace, etc.
How hypocritical is the USA to condemn a nation and great man as Moammar Gadhafi who would never dream of harming ANY one, much less the children of His Nation of the Jamahiriya!
[Forgot the Mention] America’s OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY:
the AMERICAN “Homeland Security ACT” extension was also passed in the USA the other day, enabling all personal information [inc. teens and children and senior citizens/ ALL/EVERYONE & ANIMALS too] on all passenger jets coming in or out of the USA to be kept on file for a minimum of 15 years….And the U.S.-government can use that information for any purpose they wish to use it. This was in contradiction to many European State Laws—who hold “minor” information only, for a max of 5 years. A request was already presented to the World Court in Belgium to enforce this law even onto un-co-operative European States, and to extend this legally to the Arab Nations as well. THE USA/NATO intend to POLICE THE ENTIRE WORLD: THIS IS REAL NWO INTERNATIONAL- NAZISM!
And the USA seems to be getting away with all this!
There are 6 pages to the American” WORLD-WAR ACT”
STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.R. 1540 – National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012
(Rep. McKeon (R-CA) and 1 cosponsor)
PDF file: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saphr1540r_20110524.pdf
Ivan Pavlov:
NATO is the army of the biblical Babylon… they kill every righteous man and destroy every righteous culture and nation just for material wealth. and then they spread lies about how bad they were. actually, I put all my hopes in Gadhafi, for in him I see a righteous man that is guided by god. bless all supporters of culture, religion, truth and humanity. in other words bless all supporters of Gadhafi.
IVAN: YOU ARE 100% right. Gadhafi has been demonized by the West, just like Pope Benedict XVI, or even your beloved Putin….The AXIS/NATO knows how to watershed/ or brainwash one from the truth.
Who gave Hillary Clinton the right in the first place, to set-up a de-Facto government in a Sovereign State? And have the Western AXIS recognize it!
Including its own banking system? and the right to sell its crude & refined oil reserves abroad to foreign bidders?
Besides what right do leaders of foreign Nations have, in freezing the assets of the Libyan people who may have accounts in those countries; and then to steal those funds from them and give it to a puppet insurgency to pay for equipment, arms and other weapons of destruction and mass murder—And to deprive other citizens of Libya their basic necessesities and a share in the wealth that was legally promised them.—THAT IS OUTRIGHT THIEVERY. (“THOU SHALL NOT STEAL!”)
___________________________________________________________________
Africa Libya Europe Analysis
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NATO Defies Africa By Intensifying Bombardment Of Libya
Posted: 2011/05/27
From: Mathaba
Civilian deaths and injuries, many permanently maimed or crippled, are rising fast as NATO has apparently widened its targets to all manner of infrastructure
At African Union Headquarters in Addis Abeba, African leaders recently once again demanded that NATO stop its bombardment on Libya, and yet again the West disregarded the call and has in fact been intensifying its war against the Libyan Jamahiriya.
The African Union had called for an immediate cessation at the outset of the NATO countries bombing of Libya in March, which was also snubbed by the United Nations Security Council which contradicted the African organization which embraces 52 African states.
Only Morocco is not a member of the African Union, with its king having opted to join the far-away Gulf Cooperation Council in order to provide a surrounding of Libya, by the alliance of Arab dictatorial states against the Libyan democratic government.
All North African states with the exception of Libya are part of a NATO contact group, and the Arabian Gulf dictatorships are friendly to NATO, whilst the African Union has refused the military U.S. Africa Command AFRICOM to have any headquarters in Africa.
The African leaders met on May 25-26 to find a solution to Libya’s crisis following three months of rebellion that have seen former colonial powers Britain, France, Italy and other European states along with the United States leading an all-white nations onslaught against Africa’s wealthiest nation, Libya.
While the African leaders have said only a political solution will resolve the country’s problems and want NATO to cease its operations, they remain thus far powerless in the face of Western powers which are unfazed and have vowed to see Qaddafi, Libya’s popular proponent of The Green Book, eliminated.
In essence, the African leaders’ demand for a ceasefire is of no consequence as the western powers have so far simply ignored it as with previous African Union decisions, in the same way the French intervened militarily to remove former Cote d’Ivoire president Laurent Gbagbo by force, despite African opposition to any foreign military intervention.
Advisers to the African Union have told Mathaba that the way for African governments to take a stand, would be to withdraw all cooperation and membership of the African Union and of each African state from the United Nations.
The African countries and its umbrella AU are within their rights and international law, as well as natural justice to do so, they point out, given that the African Union has not been given a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, with veto powers, and the UN has allowed its own Security Council resolutions to be violated.
The advisers have told Mathaba that even though these resolutions were drafted by the US, Britain and France, the UN itself is powerless to take action against those same countries, and Russia and China have also been unwilling to step on US toes, in defence of attacks on an African sovereign state.
The African Union has many powers to defeat the onslaught against Africa which has started against Libya, with some previous success stories being examples to follow, they say, especially the breaking of previous UN resolutions against Libya that were deemed to be unjust after many years of refusal by the western powers to negotiate a solution.
The advisers referred to the African defeat of the last long UN Sanctions and No-Fly Zone imposed on Libya. African leaders from a number of African states flew in their aircraft to Tripoli in defiance of the UN resolutions.
At the time the event was not covered by the news media networks of the NATO countries, but the British and US governments quickly responded by lifting the sanctions and no fly zone, rather than have it openly violated, as they could “not afford to go and bomb a number of African countries into submission.”
Others point out the success of Nigeria in its diplomatic tit-for-tat with Britain, in response to the treatment of Nigerians applying for visas to Britain and the British embassy in Lagos.
When Nigeria responded by raising the prices of visas to Nigeria for British businessmen and making applicants or their secretaries queue outside the Nigerian embassy in London for days on end in the rain, Britain quickly relented and improved its visa processing in Lagos.
The advisers quoted these examples and others saying that all that is required is for the African Union to start taking some pro-active action and long-term planning on handling the western colonial powers, in order to prevent a return to the slavery of the continent.
This year, largely with Libyan money, Africans had planned to set up an African National Bank, under the control of the governments and not any private interests, with headquarters in Lagos, as well an African Monetary fund to be based in Yaounde, Cameroon and an African Investment Bank based in Sirte, Libya, with a capital of at least $US 42,000 million.
The United States has confiscated the Libyan contribution of $32,000 million, thus making it impossible for the project to continue. Mathaba has learned from informed sources that the western powers had requested that some of their nationals be allowed to sit on the boards of the African Monetary Fund but that they had been turned down, and told that this was an African institution for Africans only.
Libya had also been advocating for the use of gold as currency for payment of oil and other African resources and goods in international trade, which would set Africa at an advantage or at least a fair trade rather than reliance upon foreign paper money which is printed overseas and is rapidly losing value.
Ivory Coast’s former president-elect Ggagbo had also indicated his government would print its own currency and ditch the CFA Franc, printed in France and issued by the French bank for most of its former colonies in Africa. The French then sent in their military forces to remove him from power, after elections that were contested.
The British Prime Minister on Thursday authorized the use of helicopters in Libya, again in total disregard to the African Union position of absolutely no foreign military on African soil to be involved in the Libyan conflict.
Sky News reported Friday morning that the British Apache helicopters would be deployed over Libya in the following 24 hours to boost the campaign in support of the Libyan National Army, the CIA-funded and US-trained military wing of the Transitional National Council which is seeking to overthrow the Libyan government with the help of Al-Qaida and other opposition groups supported by NATO.
The British Prime Minister also confirmed that French helicopters would also be deployed to Libya, as NATO forces seek to be more accurate in dealing with ground targets, and they may also deploy A-10 aircraft which are geared to close support of ground forces.
The NATO presence in Africa, the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and the support for new governments in Tunisia and Egypt – to mention a few cases – show that the West wants to pave the way for a re-entry into Africa, which they call the Operation Odyssey Dawn – effectively a “return” to Africa.
With the G8 – largely ignored by media in its current meetings – offering Arab countries “in transition to democracy” at least 12 billion pounds (nearly 20 billion U.S. dollars) in aid, loans and debt relief, the Libyan conflict is likely to continue as rebels are spurred by the prospect of a financial bailout if they win the war.
Britain is immersed in the conflict and the “fledgling democracies” in the Arab world and has also pledged to set aside 110 million pounds (about 181 million U.S. dollars) “over the next four years to foster democracy and economic growth in Tunisia and Egypt as part of a wider international package to show support for the Arab spring.”
Speaking Thursday on the opening day of the G8 summit of leading economies in France, the British Prime Minister Cameron argued that if Britain did not help the fledgling democracies of North Africa, the result would be poisonous extremism and waves of illegal immigration into the United Kingdom.
However, analysts point out that the strongest bastion against extremism was exactly the direct participatory democracy “Jamahiriya” government of Libya, founded by Qaddafi, since 1977, and which the NATO alliance is now attempting to overthrow by force, with the very aid of those extremists.
The G8 group of the world’s most industrialized nations, with the exception of Russia, is generally agreed on the course of action against Qaddafi and is determined to see him either killed or leave Libya, despite that he has no position within the government, while backing Arab “democratic transitions” that follow the western-prescribed “multi party” electoral system.
As NATO continues with its bombardment on Libya and ignoring the AU’s demands, African leaders find themselves stuck with a resolution they cannot enforce, and the only option would be to take some actions such as retaliation or boycotts.
The rebels fighting the Libyan Jamahiriya government have rejected the latest overtures for a ceasefire by Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, Secretary of the General People’s Congress, demanding that the only way forward would be “Qaddafi’s exit”.
The AU may now be pinning hopes on South African President Jacob Zuma, who is scheduled to head other African leaders to Libya in Monday, May 30th, to find a roadmap for a peaceful resolution to the conflict following an earlier unsuccessful trip in April.
What will remain critical, however, is how Zuma and his High Level Panel for the Resolution of the Conflict in Libya will engage NATO following their meetings in Tripoli.
http://www.mathaba.net/news/libya
MIKE RADDIE writes: “As far as I can tell, the people of Libya have no need for a revolution – they have one of the best run economies and the most comprehensive welfare states on the planet. These so called rebels are in the pay of the international banksters…. Libya has no national debt, in fact creates all of its money supply debt free and spends it into existence. This is not humanitarian intervention, not when we’re using depleted uranium tipped missiles (watch the sudden increase in birth defects over the coming months). This is deep geo politics and it stinks.”
GADHAFI is a threat financially (to the IMF & WORLD BANK) and materially to them, and will push any agenda necessary to demonize and oust him. When Pope Benedict XVI reformed the Vatican Bank, he too became a threat to the NWO; so, they continue to demonize him as well….and there was a proposed warrant also out for the Pope by Belgium (JUST LIKE GADHAFI) and the USA Federal Supreme Court!
Remember that Germany (like Russia, China & the BRIC nations) refused to go along with the AXIS and refused to Bomb Libya.
Russian translated: 28.05.2011 10:04: The wife of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Safia accuses NATO of war crimes against her country
She stated this in an interview with television channel CNN.
Video: http://www.viddler.com/explore/VANEH/videos/42/
“My children – civilians, but they are the t…argets of attacks. NATO had killed my son, as well as other Libyans. They are committing war crimes. But slander us. And they accuse us of stealing billions from the citizens of Libya. My conscience would not allow to make such . Against us 40 countries. Life is worth nothing. All I want today – that the truth was heard. If it is God’s will, we will be victorious. We will live or die, next to the Libyan people. And in the end history will judge us ” .
This is the fifth night in a row when the planes of the international coalition committed airstrike on the capital of the North African state.
Tripoli.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.echo.msk.ru%2Fnews%2F779227-echo.html&h=5b02f
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We won’t turn our back on Gaddafi – Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
21 February 2011
Speech by the then president on SA’s friendship with the Libyan Leader, June 13 1999
SPEECH BY PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA AT A LUNCHEON IN HONOUR OF MUAMAR QADDAFI, LEADER OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE LIBYAN JAMAHARIYA, Cape Town, 13 June 1999
Your Excellencies
Distinguished Guests
And My Dear Brother Leader
Those who dedicate themselves to causes affecting the lives of millions ought to have a clear understanding of history. They should plan their actions with a sense of their impact on those for whom they believe they act.
I know, My Brother Leader, that you and I, who have both been privileged and obliged by circumstance to be in such positions, have each in our own way tried to be true to that responsibility. Even so, we could not have planned things in such a way that you would be the last head of state I would officially receive on a bilateral basis before retiring from public office.
I am happy that it did, by chance, transpire this way.
The relationship between our two selves and between Libya and democratic South Africa has not been without controversy and therefore some special significance in world affairs.
As a responsible member of the international community of nations, South Africa would never defy predominant international opinion deliberately and merely for effect. This is a particular responsibility in a world that is fraught with possibilities of misunderstanding and consequent conflict and conflagration.
We remain convinced that respect for our multilateral bodies and compliance with their decisions, is crucial to stability, development and progress in a world still marked by tension, inequality and backwardness. This is so even where we may disagree as individual nations with those decisions.
In a world where the strong may seek to impose upon the more vulnerable; and where particular nations or groups of nations may still seek to decide the fate of the planet – in such a world respect for multilateralism, moderation of public discourse and a patient search for compromise become even more imperative to save the world from debilitating conflict and enduring inequality.
When we dismissed criticism of our friendship with yourself, My Brother Leader, and of the relationship between South Africa and Libya, it was precisely in defence of those values.
There must be a kernel of morality also to international behaviour. Of course, nations must place their own interests high on the list of considerations informing their international relations. But the amorality which decrees that might is right can not be the basis on which the world conducts itself in the next century.
It was pure expediency to call on democratic South Africa to turn its back on Libya and Qaddafi, who had assisted us in obtaining democracy at a time when those who now made that call were the friends of the enemies of democracy in South Africa.
Had we heeded those demands, we would have betrayed the very values and attitudes that allowed us as a nation to have adversaries sitting down and negotiating in a spirit of compromise. It would have meant denying that the South African experience could be a model and example for international behaviour.
In many ways, our modest contribution to resolving the Lockerbie issue will remain a highlight of the international aspects of our Presidency. No one can deny that the friendship and trust between South Africa and Libya played a significant part in arriving at this solution. If that be so, it vindicates our view that talking to one another and searching for peaceful solutions remain the surest way to resolve differences and advance peace and progress in the world.
We look forward with joy and anticipation to the full re-entry of Libya into the affairs of our continent and the world.
We have already seen Libya take up its role as an important actor on the African continent to help advance the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
South Africa is proud to acknowledge the coincidence between its own position and SADC’s, on the one hand, and that of Libya on the other. We share the view that peace in the DRC can only be achieved through the withdrawal of all foreign forces and an inclusive political process of Congolese groups.
We appreciate very much Libya’s indication that its own efforts will be co-ordinated with those of our regional organisation, SADC. This approach confounds those who suggest that Libya is less than fully committed to multilateralism. My Brother Leader is involved in the Congolese process as a facilitator of the SADC process, just as we were involved in the Lockerbie issue as facilitators for the United Nations. In such ways we advance the ideals of multilateral co-operation and discipline. And for that we thank our Brother Leader and the Libyan people.
It was with much appreciation that I received reports from my Minister of Trade and Industry about our recent trade delegation to Libya. The friendly political relations between our two countries are now being consolidated and deepened through trade. We look forward to South African companies and Libyan entities bridging our continent from North to South in concrete expressions of African unity.
My Brother Leader, I know that in the abstemious conditions of the North African desert it is not the custom to propose a toast. We are, however, overwhelmed by at last having here on this southern tip of Africa one of the revolutionary icons of our times.
I shall therefore take the liberty to invite our guests to rise and raise their glasses with me in salute to Muamar Qaddafi, our Brother Leader of the Revolution of the Libyan Jamahariya, and to growing friendship between the people of our two countries.
Issued by the Office of the President, June 13 1999
From Cynthia McKinney: Anatomy of a Murder: How NATO Murdered Qaddafi Family Members
.par Cynthia McKinney, samedi 28 mai 2011, 16:14.From Cynthia McKinney
Anatomy of a Murder: How NATO Killed Qaddafi Family Members
28 May 2011
How many times must a parent bury a child?
Well, in the case of Muammar Qaddafi it’s not only twice: once for his daughter,
murdered by the United States bombing on his home in 1986, and again on 30 April 2011 when his youngest son, Saif al Arab, but yet again for three young children, grandbabies of Muammar Qaddafi killed along with Saif at the family home.
Now, I watched Cindy Sheehan as she bared her soul before us in her grief; I cried when Cindy cried. Now, how must Qaddafi and his wife feel? And the people of Libya, parents of all the nation’s children gone too soon. I don’t even want to imagine.
All my mother could say in astonishment was, “They killed the babies, they killed his grandbabies.”
The news reports, however, didn’t last more than one half of a news cycle because on 1 May, at a hastily assembled press conference, President Obama announced the murder of Osama bin Laden.
Well, I haven’t forgotten my empathy for Cindy Sheehan; I haven’t forgotten my concern for the children of Iraq that Madeleine Albright said were OK to kill by U.S. sanctions if U.S. geopolitical goals were achieved. I care about the children of Palestine who throw stones at Israeli soldiers and get laser-guided bullets to their brains in return. I care about the people of North Africa and West Asia who are ready to risk their lives for freedom. In fact, I care about all of the children–from Appalachia to the Cancer Alley, from New York City to San Diego, and everywhere in-between.
On 22 May 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the residence of the Qaddafi family, bombed to smithereens by NATO. For a leader, the house seemed small in comparison, say, to the former Clinton family home in Chappaqua or the Obama family home. It was a small whitewashed suburban type house in a typical residential area in metropolitan Tripoli. It was surrounded by dozens of other family homes.
I spoke with a neighbor who described how three separate smart bombs hit the home and exploded, another one not exploding. According to the BBC, the NATO military operations chief stated that a “command and control center” had been hit. That is a lie. As anyone who visits the home can see, this home had nothing to do with NATO’s war. The strike against this home had everything to do with NATO adopting a policy of targeted assassination and extra-judicial killing–clearly illegal.
The neighbor said he found Saif Al-Arab in his bedroom underneath rubble; the three young grandchildren were in a different room and they were shredded to pieces. He told of how he picked up as many pieces as he possibly could. He told us that there are still pieces there that he could not get. He asked us to note the smell–not the putrid smell of rotting flesh, but a sweet smell. I did smell it and thought there was an air freshener nearby. It smelled to me of roses. He asked me why this was done and who was going to hold NATO accountable.
Muammar Qaddafi was at the house. But he was outside near where the animals are kept. It is a miracle that he survived. From the looks of that house and the small guest house beside it, the strike was a complete success if the goal was to totally and thoroughly demolish the structure and everything inside it.
NATO wants us to believe that toys, items and clothing, an opened Holy Koran, and a soccer board game are the appointments found in military command and control offices. I wonder if we could find such articles in NATO’s office in Brussels.
The opened Holy Koran seemed to be frozen in time. In fact, there was a clock dangling from its cord–dangling in space. And indeed, for the four young people in that house at the time of NATO’s attack, time had stopped.
The concussion fron the bombs were so great that eery tile on the walls and floors of the home had been knocked from the walls. Black burn marks scorched the walls. The force broke a marble or granite countertop. The bathtub was literally split into two parts. Shards of the bomb were everywhere. I wondered if the place was now contaminated with depleted uranium.
The Qaddafi home is a crime scene–a murder scene. The United States prisons are full of men and women who are innocent–even on death row. I wonder where the guilty who are never prosecuted go.
Now, if the International Court of Justice were really a repository of justice, it would be investigating this crime. Instead, it is looking for yet another African to prosecute. We in the United States are familiar with this: on our local news every night, we are saturated with photos of Black and Brown criminals with the implication being that White people don’t commit crime. The moment the face of someone arrested is not shown, then we know that the culprit is White. It’s the unwritten code that we people of color all live by wherever in the world we might happen to be. Global apartheid is alive and well and exists on many levels.
I left the house sick in my heart. As I was about to depart, the neighbor begged me, asked me over and over again, why had this happened? What had they done to deserve this? He seemed to not want me to leave. Honestly, I think I was his little piece of America, his little piece of President Obama and I could help him to understand why this course of action was necessary from my President’s point of view. He said NATO should just leave them alone and let them sort out their problems on their own.
I did leave his presence, but that man’s face will never leave me.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
In response to my previous article, “NATO, A Feast of Blood,” I received the following quite about Buddha from Shiva Shankar who excerpted Walpola Rahula’s “What The Buddha Taught:”
“… The Buddha not only taught non-violence and peace, but he even went to the field of battle itself and intervened personally, and prevented war, as in the case of the dispute between the Sakyas and the Koliyas, who were prepared to fight over the question of the waters of the Rohini. And his words once prevented King Ajatasattu from attacking the kingdom of the Vajjis. …
… Here is a lesson for the world today. The ruler of an empire publicly turning his back on war and violence and embraced the message of peace and non-violence. There is no historical evidence to show that any neighbouring king took advantage of Asoka’s piety to attack him militarily, or that there was any revolt or rebellion within his empire during his lifetime. On the contrary there was peace throughout the land, and even countries outside his empire seem to have accepted his benign leadership. …”
Please don’t allow special interest press and war mongering gatekeepers of the left to blot out the tragedy unfolding in Libya. Please don’t allow them to take away our chance to live in peace throughout our land and with countries inside and outside our hemisphere. Congress should vote to end NATO’s action in Libya and barring that should assert its Constitutional prerogatives and require the President to come to it for authorization of this war. And then, Congress should heed the wisdom of the people of our country who are against this war and vote for peace.
—
http://dignity.ning.com/
http://www.enduswars.org/
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House Bars Obama From Sending Ground Troops to Libya
Rebukes on Libya War Included in Massive Defense Spending Bill
by Jason Ditz, 26 May 2011
On Wednesday, the House agreed to an amendment to the $690 billion defense spending bill that reiterated that Congress has not authorized the war in Libya. Today, they went a step further in barring US ground troops, including contractors, from being sent to Libya.
Today’s vote passed in an overwhelming manner, 416-5. The only 5 representatives who opposed the ban were Reps. Shelley Berkley (D – NV), Steve King (R – IA), Gwen Moore (D – WI), Jim Moran (D – VA), and Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA).
The Obama Administration launched the Libya War on March 19, and informed Congress on March 21 (the following Monday). The war officially became illegal under US law on Friday, May 20, when President Obama failed to secure Congressional authorizations within 60 days. Despite this, the administration does not appear to have any intention of ending the war.
Which leaves open the question of how much impact the new amendment will have. Surely if the president has no qualms about thumbing his nose at the war’s illegality, he will be just as will to shrug off a formal ban on ground troops when he decides it suits his purposes.
African Union Calls for End to NATO Strikes on Libya
Alliance Says NATO Strikes Go Beyond UN Mandateby Jason Ditz, 27 May 2011
An African Union summit in Ethiopia ended with a call for NATO to halt all air strikes against Libyan territory. The AU Peace and Security Commissioner insisted that the strikes are going far beyond the UN mandate 1973 and are necessary to reach a political solution.The African Union had previously tried to broker a transition deal in Libya which would lead to free elections, and for Moammar Gadhafi to remove himself from any authority in the Libyan Government. The Gadhafi regime even endorsed the deal, but it was halted by rebel opposition, stemming from the belief that NATO would eventually help them win the war without a negotiated settlement.
Indeed AU chief Jean Ping accused unspecified international players (presumably NATO members) of deliberately undermining the talks, saying that the nations were trying to leave the AU in “observer” status in the war.
The U.S. once again rejected calls for a ceasefire today, vowing that the war would continue and saying that the calls were insincere. The Gadhafi government has reiterated its support for the AU talks.
U.S. Rejects Libya Ceasefire, Vows War Will Continue
Gadhafi Regime Reiterates Support for AU ‘Road Map’by Jason Ditz, 27 May 2011
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Libyan officials have directed phone calls to a number of NATO member nations urging a ceasefire in a ongoing NATO war. The call was immediately spurned by the US, who said the offer was “not credible” and vowed the war would continue.
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the US was absolutely opposed to the ceasefire because the Gadhafi-led government is “not complying with UN demands.” That was obviously false; but it is so far unclear if other NATO member nations may be more open to the idea.
The Libyan government has more than complied to all U.N. demands sofar; it is the INC that has not. Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Ali Mahmoudi insisted that the offer was sincere and that Libya is “serious about a ceasefire.” He said the offer was to be based on a former peace proposal in the African Union road map nation, which Libyan officials endorsed previously.
Mustafa Jalil, the 20 year CIA-Virginian-American head of the East Libyan rebel government, INC, said that his faction is only open to “any initiative which starts with the departure of Gadhafi.” The rebel government previously rejected the African Union ceasefire.
The Goal Is Freedom | Sheldon RichmanLawless Government
Obama flouts the War Powers Resolution.
Posted 27 May 2011
Everyone pays lip service to the rule of law. Indeed I’ve never heard of anyone rejecting it as undesirable. (It has been called impossible under prevailing circumstances but that is a different point.) So why is the principle so flagrantly violated with almost no public outrage?
Take President Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war. Even if we grant that he could legally enter that conflict by his own unilateral decision – a big if, which we’ll explore below – the War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires him after 60 days to cease operations or ask Congress for authorization to continue. One week ago today the clock ran out on the Libyan intervention, yet Obama has neither ceased operations nor asked for authorization.
He’s violated the law. (Never mind that Obama said that Operation Odyssey Dawn would take days not weeks.)
To their credit a few members of Congress are protesting. “The president is not a king, and he shouldn’t act like a king,” Republican Rep. Dan Burton said. Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman agreed: “It’s time to stop shredding the U.S. Constitution in a presumed effort to bring democracy and constitutional rule of law to Libya.”
Now there’s bipartisanship one can applaud.
Unilateral Authority
How one feels about the Libyan intervention should be irrelevant here. (I think it’s improper by any reasonable criterion.) What’s under challenge is the executive branch’s unilateral authority to take the country into war, putting Americans and others at risk, not to mention spending billions of dollars in borrowed money. To say the least, the founders were determined to prevent just this from happening. Thus the Constitution gives only the Congress the power to declare and appropriate money for war. But since 1942 no president has asked Congress for a declaration of war. (“Authorizations” that give blank checks to a president don’t count.) That’s why the War Powers Resolution was adopted. It was a half-hearted attempt to restore some measure of congressional authority over war-making. The problem is that no president has accepted it, and members of Congress generally have been too pusillanimous to stand up to a president. Considering the Supreme Court’s reluctance to enter this kind of dispute between the “political branches” (as if the Supreme Court were not political), the Court probably would have ducked any challenge anyway.
So presidents have repeatedly gotten away with lawlessness. Yet as Glenn Greenwald notes, that does not make new violations lawful.
Under the War Powers Resolution a president can commit troops to combat on his own say-so only in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” Thus the Libyan intervention is illegal under the Resolution. The battle between Muammar al-Qaddafi and rebel forces clearly fails to satisfy that description of “national emergency.” Obama, then, had no obvious authority whatever to lead a NATO air campaign against the Libyan government. Saving Libyan civilians from danger (even if that were a realistic prospect) cannot justify U.S. intervention. (On the dubious threat of a civilian massacre see Steve Chapman’s “Obama’s War of Choice.”)
What does the administration say? “[T]he President had the constitutional authority to direct the use of force in Libya because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest,” a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memorandum (pdf) states. “We also advised that prior congressional approval was not constitutionally required to use military force in the limited operations under consideration.”
In other words, if a president judges a military operation in the national interest, he may on his own commit forces. The absence of congressional authorization or even funding is of no import.
The only problem is that the War Powers Resolution says nothing like that.
Sixty-Day Rule
The past cannot be changed, so let’s move on to the next key part of the Resolution: the requirement that after 60 days a president must stop combat operations or get authorization from Congress. (A president can take 30 days more if troops would be endangered otherwise.) In 1980 the Office of Legal Counsel gave its constitutional blessing to this provision, and that apparently has not been reversed. Revealingly, according to the New York Times, “Administration officials offered no theory for why continuing the air war in Libya in the absence of Congressional authorization and beyond the deadline would be lawful.”
There you go. So it is written, so it shall be done. They don’t need no stinking theory. The closest we got to a justification came from press secretary Jay Carney, who said that the commentary about the Resolution “could fill this room, and none of it would be conclusive.” Even if that were true, shouldn’t the administration err on the side of dispersed rather than concentrated power?
The Times quoted Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, who ran the Office of Legal Counsel in 2003 and 2004, on the unprecedented nature of Obama’s action: “There may be facts of which we are unaware, but this appears to be the first time that any president has violated the War Powers Resolution’s requirement either to terminate the use of armed forces within 60 days after the initiation of hostilities or get Congress’s support.”
Mental Contortions
Some allies of the President have undertaken prodigious mental contortions in arguing that the Resolution doesn’t apply to Obama’s action. It’s been said that deadly drone attacks (which have killed noncombatants) and the U.S. supporting role for NATO don’t count as warfare. That’s laughable. Besides, the Times quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying just this week: “Even today, the United States continues to fly 25 percent of all sorties. We continue to provide the majority of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.”
If it looks, sounds, and smells like war, it’s war.
Some may wonder why Obama didn’t ask Congress for authorization, since he could surely have gotten it. Greenwald knows why: “The Obama White House is simply choosing not to seek it because Obama officials want to bolster the unrestrained power of the imperial presidency entrenched by [the Bush administration].”
It would behoove Obama to heed the words of a once-future president who said:
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.
and:
No more ignoring the law when it’s inconvenient. That is not who we are. . . . We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers.
That was candidate Barack Obama. The fair-weather foes of arbitrary centralized power have much to answer for.
There Are 13 Responses So Far. »
Comment by Joshua Farrell on 27 May 2011:
And an another top notch article from Mr. Richman!
I am wondering why no one else is making this a big deal. He is breaking the law that governs his office.
Comment by Lex de Azevedo on 27 May 2011:
The “American experiment in liberty” cannot exist without a law-abiding citizenry. How can we hope to maintain a law-abiding citizenry without a law-abiding government?
Comment by George Leef on 27 May 2011:
The oath of office requires the president to uphold the Constitution and faithfully execute the laws. Barack Obama has repeatedly trampled upon the Constitution and refused to faithfully execute the laws, with this instance being the most recent. The legal remedy for malfeasance in office is impeachment.
Comment by Libertarian jerry on 27 May 2011:
So whats new. 90% of what the Federal Government does is either illegal or not Constitutional.The Constitution is a dead letter. We do not live in a country of the power of the law,but a country of the power of a few men. People have to realize that in America there is a power elite that controls the organs of government. Most of the politicians,judges and bureaucrats have been bought and paid for. Most of the American people are more or less on the government gravy train. The fact that the train is heading over a cliff doesn’t phase the average American serf,as long as the checks and benefits keep rolling in. When the elite finally pulls the plug on whats left of the American economy, then the American serfs will clamor for a dictator to lead them to “the promised land.” For those people who are self reliant and self supporting and who truly think independently, better to be prepared and let the fools go down with the ship. Keep your powder dry and be prepared. What is happening to America has happened over and over again throughout history,nothing is new,sorry to say.
Comment by Claus-Erik Hamle on 28 May 2011:
Drone attacks and night raids often killing many civilians should be stopped immediately. 48 prisoners at Gitmo will never get a trial and will never be released. And all, or probably almost all are completely innocent. The evil,crazy,stupid Americans paid locals for information. He is even worse than Bush but the problem is that McCain,Palin,Gingrich are clearly insane. But the same could be said about Obama who feels above the law. He tried to kill two US citizens driving a car in Yemen by drone attack. Godfather Obama did kill the two in the car but the SUPPOSED terrorists had changed car. Judges are like cancer, says Berlusconi and Godfather Obama.
Comment by John Hawk on 28 May 2011:
…why is anybody surprised that the American citizenry is not outraged at the shredding of our Constituition? Americans are the most pathetically ‘dumbed-down, numbed-out’ creatures on the planet!
Comment by admin2war on 28 May 2011:
Thanks Sheldon. How many of us outraged, heartsick Americans who understand all this will still continue to vote for Democrats because the Republicans as per the post are “clearly insane”? At the end of the day, “insane” Republicans plus complicit Democrats equals The War Party. The first thing Democrats did upon regaining control of the House in 2006 was to take impeachment off the table; indeed there was not one single hearing held to investigate Bush/Cheney’s run-up to war in 2001/2002/2003. And let’s not forget the complete BS that was the 9/11 Commission. Neither truth or respect for life matters and hasn’t for a long time. It’s all about money, power and dumbing it down. It takes a lot of time to figure out where this actually started (if you want a good read on this, try House of War by James Carroll) but this is where we are now. Politics follows economics and what’s for public consumption at least is all sideshow (good info at Richard Wolff, http://www.rdwolff.com). We are so deep down the rabbit hole now I fear there’s no arguing with Libertarian Jerry above, especially when good, thinking people who truly hate war, follow the news and try to learn from history continue to somehow support Dems like Obama. How many drone strikes are on the menu for this Memorial Day weekend? We suck.
Pingback by Non Sub Homine? on 28 May 2011:
[…] The President is above the law. […]
(Well, do not we know this?)
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The David Icke Newsletter Goes Out On Sunday:
Obama is a man of war claiming to stand for peace; a man of lies talking about standing for integrity. The dream-world is on public display. Boy Bush was a deeply unpleasant character; grossly arrogant in a ‘my daddy is bigger than your daddy’ sort of way; and an empathy-deficient idiot. But Obama is far beyond that. This man is dark, real dark. Behind the painted smile lies a cold, calculating, ruthless, narcissistic, psychopath/sociopath with eyes to match.
In other words, a lack of empathy with those who suffer the consequences of your actions. …This is the Illuminati blueprint for their place-people in government. How could it be anything else when empathy would stop you slaughtering the innocent? What use is a conscience to a tyranny?
Obama and Cameron are blueprint ‘leaders’ and …perfected the mould which was used to clone this pair of professional liars and hypocrites. Its basic software program is to constantly smile in public to hide the darkness of your eyes which betray the darkness of your soul; and to speak of peace, justice, integrity and ‘values’ while you bomb vast numbers of people unjustly under the cover of lies and deceit, because you ‘value’ only power and to follow the orders of your hidden masters.
Isn’t that right, Mr Rothschild?
Blair sent British forces to war five times in his first six years in office – more than any other prime minister in history – and yet claimed to stand for peace and integrity, as do Obama and Cameron today, as they currently engage their troops in open wars and many others if you include the dark arts of covert manipulation and, in Obama’s case, the gathering war with Pakistan. …they have to hide what they really are behind carefully-designed fake personas called ‘nice chap, man of the people, one of us, pretty straight kind of guy.’
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3415698556870016651#
Where are an American-military man’s first loyalties: to the U.S. CONSTITUTION (as he took under oath when he joined the military) or to the President of the U.S. (The Commander-in-chief) ?
Obamination
But I would not say as secret covenant with God; rather he means: A PACT WITH THE DEVIL
TNC `Rats Council` Attacked in Benghazi: British, American, French Invaders Killed
Posted: 2011/06/02
From: Mathaba
Breaking news: the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, referred to by the Libyan resistance as the `rats council` has been attacked and the dead include British, American and French citizens, according to reports reaching Mathaba
Libyan National Security has confirmed that last night free Libyan resistance bombed the headquarters of the so-called Transitional National Council in Benghazi.
The council is made up of known corrupt former government officials who defected to a coordinated French-British-American intelligence coup supporting an armed insurrection by bandits released from prisons in Benghazi.
Most of the members of the TNC are either fictitious or secret as they still have not been named after its formation announcement in February.
Many foreign mercenaries, tied to Al-Qaida groups in North Africa from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt but also European and American agents, have been gathered in Benghazi during the past few months, in violation of Libya’s sovereignty and waging armed attacks against Libya’s legitimate government.
In the attack by Libyan resistance to the NATO-led foreign occupation American, British and French citizens were all killed, showing that there is a heavy foreign involvement in the TNC.
Some of those killed were from the Blackwater mercenary company. #http://www.mathaba.net/news/libya
NATO raids killed 718 civilians: Gaddafi aide
01 June 2011 | 06:42:25 PM | Source: AAP
Libya has accused NATO of killing 718 civilians and wounding 4,067 in 10 weeks of air strikes, as African efforts for a truce stalled.
A look at Lampedusa boat people
Bombs fall on Tripoli as Zuma leaves
The toll of dead and injured was given at a news conference in Tripoli by government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, who also warned the departure of Gaddafi would be a “worst case scenario” for Libya.
“Since March 19, and up to May 26, there have been 718 martyrs among civilians and 4,067 wounded – 433 of them seriously,” Ibrahim said, citing health ministry figures which cannot be independently verified,
He said these figures do not include Libyan military casualties, a toll the defence ministry refuses to divulge.
“If Gaddafi goes, the security valve will disappear,” Ibrahim said, ruling out that the embattled “GUIDE” will step down from power.
“Gaddafi’s departure would be the worst case scenario for Libya,” he told reporters, and warned of “civil war.”
Ibrahim also denied that South African President Jacob Zuma, who met Gaddafi in Tripoli on Monday, had discussed an “exit strategy” with him.
Zuma “never discussed any exit strategies as they have been described in the media,” the spokesman said.
Earlier, a statement from the South African presidency in Pretoria said Gaddafi would not leave Libya despite growing international pressure and intensified NATO strikes on his regime.
“Colonel Gaddafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue. He emphasised that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties,” Zuma’s office said in a statement.
NATO pounded Tripoli earlier on Tuesday, only hours after Zuma left Libya’s capital having failed to close the gap between Gaddafi and rebels fighting to oust him since February.
Zuma said raids by NATO were undermining African mediation efforts.
South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane called for an immediate ceasefire after Zuma said Gaddafi has always been “ready” to implement an African Union peace plan already rejected by NATO and the rebels.
Friday, March 25, 2011Libya: The Zionist Dragon and The Drums of War
The Zionist Dragon; seen here,
looking to feast on Lebanon.
It now seeks to destroy Libya.
by Jonathan Azaziah
It’s happening all over again. Do you hear them? You must be able to. The deaf, those incapable of hearing the sounds of serenity and calamity since birth, could hear them due to their almost wretched loudness. What? What you ask? The drums of war of course. And the drummers are composing their iniquitous cacophony from the same locations that they always do. Tel Aviv. Washington D.C. London, the City of London to be most precise. The audience for their bloodthirsty melody this time around? Libya. Their previous audiences included the ravaged nation of Afghanistan and the devastated nation of Iraq.
War, classically defined, is a state of armed, hostile conflict between nations. But the war of the drummers is different. Their war, in their minds, is waged on children of a lesser God. Women of a lesser state of being. Men of a lesser right. Their war is mass murder of unarmed innocents, occupation, theft of land and resources, desecration and dehumanization. Their war is genocide. These drummers sometimes appear to be of an otherworldly nature; vampires from movies produced in the dregs of the morally destructive institution known as Hollywood. Their aim is to remain. Remain as the sole holders of the globe; the lone controllers; the only existing cabal of masters and elders, who will govern masses of cattle.
20 years of sanctions, occupation and decimation of land, water and natural resources in the shell of a nation known as Iraq left the people, the steadfast and courageous Iraqis, intimate with the inner workings of the drummers and their compositions of mayhem. Add another 10 years to the equation, and the resolute and brave people of Afghanistan could also write essays on the murderous music known as American interventionism. In both cases, the dismemberment of their societies came under the guise of “humanitarianism.” The bullets came wrapped in heroic garb. The missiles and bombs were packaged with false sympathy for the oppressed. The rapes were for liberation. The murders were for freedom. Libyans beware; the drummers want to make your nation their next humanitarian adventure.
Incumbent Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi overthrew King Idris, a monarchical stooge for the Zionist-occupied US war machine and Italy, seeker of re-colonization of Libya in one form or another, in 1969. It was Qaddafi who removed the American military bases from Libya.
McKinney Leads DIGNITY Delegation of Independent Journalists to Libya on Fact-Finding Mission by ynthia McKinney:
01 June 2011 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia –
Today, independent journalists from across the United States departed on a truth-telling, fact-finding mission to Libya. This coincides with what was supposed to have been a debate in Congress on U.S. involvement in the… war against Libya, but the debate got sidelined due to the fact that the legislation requiring a pullout by the U.S. could actually have passed. Both Democratic and Republican leadership are responsible for pulling the bill at the last minute. Al Jazeera film footage shows that Western soldiers have their “boots on the ground” in Libya overstepping authority granted by the United Nations Security Council for action in Libya. Every day that President Obama contributes to the military action against Libya, he tests the United States Congress and defies the United States Constitution and the War Powers Act which limit Presidential acts of war, subject to authorization by the U.S. Congress. Incredibly, in what yet may prove to be another act beyond the mandate of the United Nations Security Council Resolution, NATO extended its operations in Libya for another 90 days. Because the public has become increasingly unable to rely on embedded media to tell the American people the “whole truth and nothing but the truth,” the DIGNITY Delegation will shed rare light on NATO’s actions inside that country. According to some estimates, the American people and the global community were lied to 935 times by Administration officials and the media in the lead-up to the Iraq War. As Aeschylus said, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” The DIGNITY Delegation is expected to make daily reports while on the ground of the ongoing NATO actions in the country. For more information please contact: dondebar@optonline.net — http://dignity.ning.com/ http://www.enduswars.org/ http://www.livestream.com/dignity http://www.twitter.com/dignityaction http://www.myspace.com/dignityaction http://www.myspace.com/runcynthiarun http://www.twitter.com/cynthiamckinney http://www.facebook.com/CynthiaMcKinney http://www.youtube.com/runcynthiarun Silence is the deadliest weapon of mass destruction.
On Cynthia McKinney’s FB SITE:
Atle Skaperen:
Keep up the good work. I posted a link to video 1/2 at the NATO made fake “Libyen Youth Movement”, here at FB and was told that your where paid by Gadaffi to do this. Then I was expelled from posting any more. So if anyone with a sense of h…umor, reads this, please feel free til visit the fake movement and ask some questions. I post everything AGAINST the war there and its not popular. I am now out of FB accounts, as you get blocked from posting if you are not supporting the WAR…
Rich Tabron:
Thank you for standing up for those with no voice and being a voice for truth and right. May you be blesses in all that you do. You are a light on humanity! Be proud of yourself. You do a great service to a great many ! I love you! In my opinion you are too good to hold the filthy office of president of the United States.
Cynthia McKinney:
This is Anita posting this for Cynthia. Keep up the good work of getting the TRUTH out there! Sometimes that will alienate some of us in certain circles, but the TRUTH is more important! Thanks for your support of Cynthia!
Atle Skaperen:
She is the kind of a person that just gives courage to others like me. Its not a matter of if, but what.
Ajoutée par EntBlog90210 le 30 avril 2011
Well after the UN racist and anti-Semitic nazis along with B.P./Great Britain saw that Ghadeffi had not only handed out free education to his people with women making up 60% of the college graduates along with kicking out the predatory European oil companies and Central Banks-while forcing oil companies to pay taxes, which he handed out to the Libyan people, every year, in the form of $500.00 checks-we all of a sudden get the crack head CIA Bush Oil Whore Token, Obama, to sink nearly 1 billion into an illegal war(but they wanna cut food stamps and Medicare), simply for the racist predisposition of the UN, into the hands of Al Quedia aka Libyan Rebels.
Now the cowards of America, have sent in drones on behalf of the oil companies and Central banks which are now killing innocent Libyan kids! This is Satanic.
Not only is the UN and NATO Nazis funding Arab terror group, Al Queida, but they gave them weapons, which Hillary Clinton smuggled to Saudi Arabs, to kill Black African Libyans! This Congress needs to be abolished. The Media are nazi liars in America and the Congress is a HUGE waste of money and un-needed.
An Italian resident of Tripoli speaks the truth:
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq “1,455,590”
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Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 4,777
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Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 2,513
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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28265.htm
Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan
$1,203,019,841,238
For more details, click here.
Libya: NATO’s War Of Aggression Against A Sovereign African State
By Obi Nwakanma
June 06, 2011 “Vanguard” — France and Great Britain, leading a NATO alliance, are effectively at war in Libya on the pretext of a United Nations’ mandate. The United States, led the early charge against Libya’s Ghadaffi from the air, but has taken something of a back seat, and allowed Britain and France to continue what can now be considered a war of aggression against a sovereign African state, far beyond the mandate of the UN.
They have been bombing Libya relentlessly from the air. They have killed Ghadaffi’s son in a direct personal attack on the home of the Ghadaffis. The relentless strafing of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, in the past two weeks has also led to serious civilian casualties which the Libyan authorities have reported and which NATO has denied. The NATO alliance at the fore of this new colonial war in Africa has now moved beyond its mandate to seek regime change; to undermine the sovereignty of Libya, and create a civil war situation in this North African country and member-nation of the African Union.
The French have positioned their aggression against Libya as a fight to free Libyans from the tyranny of Moumar Ghadaffi. They have not hidden the fact that they wished to make it impossible for a transition of power from Ghadaffi to a newer generation of Libyan nationalists who may follow in the state policies of Ghadaffi, particularly as it affects oil. It is not a secret that Libya sits on the vastest oil field in Africa and that Ghadaffi has prevented the international oil cartel from exploiting Libya’s oil and had forced them to comply with the strictest standards in oil production.
It is no longer a secret that behind this NATO alliance war on Libya, and far beyond the “do-good” face it places or wears as its mask as its reason for bombing Libya to smithereens, is the quest to control the oil fields of Libya, guarantee Western access to energy sources in the face of growing concern over the rise of China and India and their own emergent gluttony for oil, and, of course, solve the problem of an intransigent African nationalist challenge to Western shenanigans. It is the 19th century all over again.
Libya is the first flashpoint in the resource war that is bound to once more make Africa the battlefield of the great industrial powers. Once they take out Ghadaffi, that challenge to organise and fund a formidable African resistance against a new colonial mandate using the UN will weaken.
The new scramble for Africa will more than likely commence. It is, therefore, ridiculous that Nigeria, a more than likely victim of this potential threat sits idly, voting with those who have launched a new aggressive war on Libya. The Nigerian government under President Goodluck Jonathan has failed to understand the wider dimensions of this NATO campaign on Libya.
The Nigerian delegation was among those African countries who sided with the voters in the UN to commence the operations in Libya. The mandate, of course, was for a low-grade, protective operation against the potential of the Libyan military use of force against civilian populations, particularly in Benghazi, the so-called outpost of the Libyan resistance.
Last week, at the G-8 meeting in France, and, in justifying America’s participation in the fight in Libya, the US President Barack Obama said it was a pre-emptive action by the NATO alliance, presumably the world’s chief defenders of humane mores and democratic freedom, to prevent a possible massacre of wide proportions against the Libyan civilian opposition against Ghadaffi. But the Libyan opposition is not a civilian opposition, it is an armed rebellion.
The UN decision in which Nigeria participated basically tied the hands of the legitimate government of Libya behind its back, gave ammunition to a fringe rebellion, and has aided a civil war in Libya in which Libya’s national Armed Forces was prevented through relentless air attack from defending the territorial integrity of the Libyan state for which it is established. The West has aided a small fissiparous and ill-organised militia to destroy an African country.
It is like NATO deciding to bomb the Nigerian Armed Forces if it goes after the increasingly organised Boko Haram militia in the North. Nigeria has in voting with France and Great Britain and the NATO alliance given ammunition to the new conquest of Africa and this is why she is seen roundly in Africa and by most Africans as the handmaiden of the West. This image of Nigeria as a consistent ally of the West against the interests of a free, independent, and prosperous continent is why most Africans and African nations do not take Nigeria seriously, and even, in fact, are amused by its claims of leadership in Africa.
They think her quest for the UN seat is a joke given the weakness of its leadership and the inconsistency of its foreign policy. But contrast this with the strategic position of the South Africans on this matter, leading the African union to demand an immediate NATO cessation of the bombing of Libya. Last week, Jacob Zuma, the South African President went to Tripoli for consultations with the Libyan authorities, and the African Union issued a demand for NATO to stop bombing Libya.
It is a follow-up to AU’s earlier intervention in which they have proposed a negotiated settlement between Tripoli and Benghazi. But NATO countries, busy setting up new embassies, and cutting new oil deals with the Libyan rebels against the long-term interest of Libya, are fobbing off any attempts for the Africans to sort out the situation in Libya and ease off Ghadaffi with less sanguinity. It is remarkable that Nigeria’s own president has continued to play possum to this NATO disregard of the African Union. Indeed, within the week of Zuma’s visit to Tripoli, NATO announced heightened military action against Ghadaffi’s Libya, and the use of more direct boots on the Libyan streets.
The use of Western troops in Africa – particularly in the case of France – the use of its paratroopers, first in Ivory Coast, and now in Libya, represents a new strategic declaration of war against Africa, the African interest, and the African continent. In NATO’s disregard of AU, there is without doubt a remanifestation of that ontological disease of the Western mind that regards Africa as simply a place without history and without agency. It is not surprising that Sarkozy is leading this war in Africa. Here was a man who came to Africa, at the Cheik Anta Diop University in Dakar to declare that “the African man has not entered history;” he is still a hewer of wood fit only for the enlightened charity of France and the West.
At the core of Sarkozy’s racist mind lies this quest to cut Libya and Ghadaffi down to size and seize her property – the oil. But here is the irony: the West had to wait for a weakened Ghadaffi, weakened by his decision to dismantle his nuclear arsenal and open up to the West, before the NATO alliance in a joint and cowardly effort decided to attack him from the air using a UN mandate.
What is the lesson here? Nigeria must be alert to its duties to the continent and join the AU effort to more forcefully demand NATO’s cessation of her bombing operations in Libya, failing which it must then regard further operations in Libya as an open act of war and aggression against an African country. Africans have a right to defend themselves and their continent by all means necessary. Perhaps, it is time to re-open the discussions about an African High Command.
MAY all the world never forget Moammar Gadhafi and the Jamahiriya.
Comfort and bless in this great man in this time of need, and present his Life INTEGRALE to this ailing planet, who needs his understanding and wisdom to help cure her ills.—-GOD BLESS HIM AND THE JAMAHIRIYA. Indeed, let this BE a good birthday for him despite the anguish and loss of loved-ones.
WE LOVE YOU GREAT “GUIDE”!