Libya: Flashpoint For Global Conflict By Stephen Lendman

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Libya: Flashpoint For Global Conflict

By Stephen Lendman

06 July, 2011
Countercurrents.org

On July 3, Peter Dale Scott told Progressive Radio News Hour listeners what he fears most. He repeated it in a July 4 email, citing a Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com article, accessed through the following link:

http://www.infowars.com/report-ground-invasion-of-libya-within-two-weeks

Using information from DEBKAfile, a Jerusalem-based intelligence site with close Mossad ties (providing commentary and analysis on regional terrorism, intelligence, security, military and political affairs), he discussed a frightening prospect. More on it below.

Founded in June 2000, DEBKA calls itself independent, "pioneer(ing) intensive news coverage and analysis of global (Islamic, not Israeli, US, or other Western) terror before it hits" front pages.

Calling its reports "not infallible," Scott said its information deserves attention because some past predictions proved true. Specifically, he cited their June 25, 2003 story that "The Americans are secretly building two giant intelligence facilities in Iraq at a cost of some half a billion dollars."

Doing so and more makes it "seem that America is now indeed acting as recklessly and idiotically as Britain and France did in the (1956) Suez crisis...."

On air and in his email, Scott wondered whether "Washington failed to take into account the reaction of Russia and China (the way Britain in 1956 insanely" didn't bank on America's response at the time). "Or is (America) counting on its (nuclear superiority) to deal with any problems in that area."

Disturbingly, top US officials include extremists who think brute force solutions work best, even high risk ones like nuclear war or simultaneously waging too many conventional ones.

Scott told Progressive Radio News Hour listeners that he's warned for months about Libya being a flashpoint for escalated general war, similar to how WW I began.

Global Research founder/editor Michel Chossudovsky has similar concerns, including in his new E-book titled, "Towards a World War III Scenario," calling today's world "at a critical crossroads."

Citing two major incidents, Japan's Fukushima disaster and imperial war on Libya, he called "(t)hese two seemingly unrelated events....of crucial importance in understanding both the nuclear issue as well as the ongoing US-NATO sponsored war."

Fukushima's implications and fallout go largely unexplained. In fact, except for occasional misreporting, America's media now entirely ignore them, including warnings from Helen Caldicott and others that every commercial reactor is a ticking time bomb "atomic bomb factory."

Moreover, Chossudovsky said "(n)uclear energy is not a civilian economic activity. It is an appendage of the nuclear weapons industry which is controlled by the so-called defense contractors."

In fact, secret "atomic-bomb research facilities (are) hidden inside Japan's civilian nuclear power plants," and perhaps also in America's.

It may not have been coincidence that Libya's war was launched within days of Fukushima's disaster. It's now dramatically escalated as part of America's broader Middle East/North Africa/Central Asia conflict, encroaching recklessly close to China and Russia's borders. Their concerns, in fact, may trigger counter-responses that could dangerously spin things out of control.

In fact, the war Obama won't call war potentially could trigger a "World War III scenario." It worries Chossudovsky, Scott and others enough to highlight it on air and in print. It's repeated in this article, citing another recent one discussing Barbara Tuchman's 1962 book, "The Guns of August," on how WW I began and its early weeks.

Once started, it escalated out of control disastrously, involving dozens of countries directly and indirectly. Moreover, before it ended, over 20 million died, at least that many more were wounded, and a generation of young men were erased before nuclear and today's other mass destruction weapons and technologies existed.

Over a half century ago, it worried Einstein enough to say:

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones" if civilizations survive to do it.

Given the possibility of Libya triggering escalated general or global war, that scenario today is real, especially in light of a "1996 plan to bomb Libya using tactical nuclear weapons." It was shelved at that time, but never eliminated as a possibility against any nation.

In fact, the Bush administration claimed the preemptive right to use nuclear weapons, including against non-nuclear states, based on alleged national security concerns. Obama recklessly maintains the same policy even though America hasn't had an enemy since Japan surrendered in August 1945.

Nonetheless, the prospect of escalating war with nuclear or other mass destruction weapons suggests frightening possibilities, including a potential WW III scenario. It's no less implausible now than WW I seemed in early 1914.

Worry most perhaps about what's least expected, especially to refocus angry millions (suffering from global economic crisis misery) on something greater. It's worked many times before, notably post-9/11, escalating one war into multiple ones and counting.

Given America's out-of-control belligerence, perhaps ad infinitum wars will proliferate until America destroys planet earth to liberate it in a mushroom-shaped cloud. It's possible given alarming reports like Watson's July 4 Infowars one linked above.

On June 15, Infowars contributor Aaron Dykes named sources he called reliable, saying 30,000 US troops will invade Libya by October. Moreover, additional Special Forces are coming this month (besides those covertly there for months) in preparation for a ground war Obama "absolutely" promised was ruled out.