Capitalism's Warplanes: CIA AndAl Qaeda Destroy
Socialist Libya's 53rd Highest Living Standard
By Jay Janson
24 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org
An imperative more basic than keeping US backed dictators in power and eliminating non-capitalist regimes is at work in Libya and the Middle East. An imperative that has created all wars. It is imperative for private investment financial capital to accumulate, and to accumulate at an ever increasing rate, pushing the wealthy owners of capital into ever new variations of same ancient conspiracy of the rich against the poor
It's like when you watch a magician perform. You might have an idea how the slight of hand was done. But you don't really know for sure. You just know what you saw was a trick.
You have seen revolutionaries before, real and phony. These heavily armed excited hombres don't look and act the part of the aggrieved, and for the most part don't look like the noble people risking their lives in the streets of Cairo, Tunis, Sana'a and Manama.
Thirdly, the really bad guys, the big bad guys - the very powerful imperialist capitalists who revolutionaries must always fight, are incongruously on the side of "Libyan "revolutionaries.'
Fourthly, if they have it better than everyone else in Africa and the Arab world, why are they willing to kill and be killed to change the leader who has led them in producing an enviable level of social services democratically available to all citizens*(1 ), and side with Libya's former brutal exploiting European masters who now generously bomb Libya again?
Police and security personnel have been killing protestors throughout the Western dominated Arab world. One might be surprized that it happened in socialist Libya (1), but police everywhere are known to get carried away, and in Libya from the very first days, there were attacks on police and foreigners.
In Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Tunisia the contiuning loss of life during massive demonstrations, that were, and are, still being shown to be basically peaceful by plenty of onsite media crowd-coverage, was heartbreaking. We saw for weeks, beautiful simpatico and charming faces of people heroically risking their lives, generous common people, driven to protest by bad living conditions, lack of jobs, health care and education.*(2) The huge amount of desperate poor, in dire straits, especially in Egypt and Yemen had, and continue to have, pressing reasons to get rid heartless U.S. backed dictators favoring the rich. They want to install economic fairness and well being for their children, not that kind of corupt and phony Western parliamentary democracy that supports foreign investment capital and the Mubaraks, Ben Alis, Salehs, Suhartos, Duvaliers and other local rulers of the world's poor for the benefit of investors in the industrialized First World.
Compare the above peacefully massed humanity with the CNN videos of wild-eyed young men jumping up and down denouncing Gaddafi, the leader of the government providing the highest standard of living in Africa - free higher education, health care in good hospitals, highest longevity, lowest infant mortality - most every family with a car*(1).
Given the nine millenniums long history of rivalry between Greek founded Benghazi (Cyrenaica) and Phoenician founded Tripoli, the present climate of Arab anti-government protests and decades of virulent hate Gaddafi stories in the media*( 9) how easy it must have been for the big powers and their pro-democracy organizations. How easy for CIA, M16 and French Secret Services and the overseas based U.S. and British funded National Conference for the Libyan Opposition to coordinate and plan the armed uprising that began with a call for a day of rage on the anniversary of the huge riot over the Danish cartoons insulting the Prophet and a deadly attack on the Italian Consulate in Benghazi in 2006.
For 7,540 years Cyrenaica (Benghazi) and Tripoli have been governed independent from each other during Roman, Vandal, Byzantium, Ummayad of Damascus, Aghlabids, Egyptian Shiites, Spain, the Knights of Malta, Turks and Italians. In 1934 Italy tried to unite the two into one nation named Libya (ancient Greek word for N. Africa). Then came the British and French occupation until 1954.
With British backing, Idris as-Senussi proclaimed an independent Emirate of Cyrenaica in 1949. He was also invited to become Emir of Tripolitania, and ultimately became King Idris of Libya in 1951. Idris had close ties with the British and the United States (ergo the large U.S. Wheelus Air Base). Oil was discovered in Libya in 1959, but King ldris allowed most of the oil profits to be siphoned into the coffers of the oil companies.
In 1969, non-commissioned officer Muammar Gaddafi led coup by a group within the Libyan Army. A republic was proclaimed, the monarchy abolished. What was a predominantly rural and backward country when the king was deposed 42 years ago is today a country with a modern economy and high literacy. But Idris' home was in Benghazi, and Gaddafi resides in Tripoli. Decentralized Green Book Arab Socialism also favored the Tripoli - Cyrenaica rivalry to continue. Perhaps a bit of ""East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet."
Where there is rivalry, there is opportunity for covert funding of disorder and mayhem to whip up insurrection. With false flag operations a lot can be done. With al Qaeda elements and other fundamentalists populating a large area to the South and East of Benghazi, (7) there was no shortage of fanatical manpower for a well planned armed rebellion to be portrayed as peaceful demonstrations for democracy.
Leave the rest to CNN and the other five Networks, who for decades have been lecturing its cartel captive audience about "mad dog' Gadhafi*(9), to immediately have viewers agreeing that Gaddafi, most certainly, for sure absolutely, without a doubt, was going to massacre his own people, as Obama affirmed in his speech to justify air strikes on Libya.(9)
CNN, the unabashed voice of the Pentagon with a history of slandering enemies of imperialism, initially ran cell phone videos of people running with the sound of gun shots - shots from where and whom unknown except for the CNN newscasters excited voices passionately shouting, "Gaddafi!! Gaddafi is shooting, bombing, peaceful protesters asking for democracy."*(3)(4)
Not once, during these two months of high violence in Libya, has this writer heard CNN TV newscasters report any civilian death caused by rebels firing their heavy weapons. But from some European and African news reports we know of a lot, including brutal executions.*(4 )(6) Gaddafi charged early on that there was a massacre by rebels in Green Square, and called for a UN investigation team on the ground in Libya, while continually pleading for meetings and discussions with the rebels. "Gaddafi, must go!" has always been the rejection from the rebel leadership.
Conglomerate owned media, subservient to overseas investment needs, molds it's coverage according to developments. When U.S. planes bomb, Libyan government reports of the resulting civilian death are disparaged as an attempt to make America look bad. When Libyan loyalist forces show success, news anchors show distress and report that Gaddafi is targeting and murdering civilians, not defending the Libyan population and their government from insurgent attack.*(5)
At no time has it been indicated in commercial telecasts that a majority of Libyans support overthrowing their government, much less back a USNATO war to install a western-aligned government in Tripoli with the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG -- Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi Libya), formerly, if not still today, aligned with al-Qaeda, in the front-line of the armed insurrection.*(7) The programers of CNN war promotion high upstairs in the corporate hierarchy must be well aware that Libya is still tribal, and many of the larger tribes would be traditionally staunch supporters of Gaddafi. Der Spiegel Magazine , Germany, 3/30/11, has a feature article on what one would logically expect, namely, "Benghazi isn't a pure rebel stronghold, there are Gadhafi supporters here." http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752580,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...march-benghazi
Libya's biggest tribe joins march of reconciliation to Benghazi
Guardian UK 3/23/11
"With more than a million members, Warfalla live all over Libya, including in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. The tribe's geographical distribution means it is well-placed to help heal bitter divisions by joining a peaceful "green march" to the eastern city to promote reconciliation and avoid the Korea-style partition of the country many fear"
"We will talk to them, not use guns, to discuss their demands," said Bani Walid doctor, Salman al-Dagil. ...
"All Libyans are related, especially the Warfalla," said Mbrak Ibrahim, a British-educated telecoms engineer. "It means that we have family everywhere. We will be happy if we can open our hearts and stop this bloodshed."
One notices that though CNN anchors are often reporting from Tripoli and other towns not taken or under attack by rebels, they have not been reporting from inside the rebel controlled cities like Benghazi, rather constantly showing themselves along side the pick-up trucks mounted with heavy weapons. The gun mounted pick-up truck has become the U.S. TV. logo of the crusade for democracy.
While U.S. drones blow away suspected al Qaeda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, in Libya veterans of al Qaeda's war against U.S. troops in Iraq along with other fundamentalists shoulder to shoulder with CIA with America giving them aircover and frontline support against the Armed Forces of the government of Libya.*(7). Not the first time CIA has used al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalists to its purposes.*(8)
Within a matter of days the whole imperial West swung into action - warnings from international courts, seizure of Libya's $billions of assets abroad, embargoes, sanctions, threats of military action then finally a UN Security Council go ahead. (Prophetically, just a year ago, Gadhafi, speaking before the UN General Assembly, had called the Security Council "The Council of Terror," for all the post-colonial wars on small naions it has approved and participated in.)
In Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain hundreds died, and are still dying in nonviolent protests. In each county all the deaths were attributed to police, security or government armed forces in daily accounts from the very first days of protests. Yet no armed rebellion took place. We have seen video shots of cadre of the protestors in action maintaining calm and keeping their people nonviolent. Even after terrible loss of life the continued to prevent violence against the government.
Two infamous U.S. backed dictators had already been ousted peacefully though many protestors were murdered. In Yemen snipers continued to kill protesters, the huge demonstrations causing worry in Washington. Mass protests in Bahrain were threatening the home of the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
Then in mid February, the empire struck back with clever vengence: armed insurgents in prosperous socialist Libya, a media campaign of disinformation. Coordinated gangs with heavy weapons occupied the centers of whole cities and US NATO began bombing to protect them from defeat. Bahrain, at the same time, was invaded by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, its Armed Forces repressing the demonstrators and assisting in their persecution. Washington imported a leader for the rebellion in Libya who has spent the past 20 years living with no known source of income a couple of miles from the CIA's headquarters in Virginia; Gen. Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. McClatchy Newspapers, 3/26/11
U.S. empire watchers need not be so deeply versed in history and current affairs (made all the more difficult with TV watching and newspaper and tabloid reading) to know that the civil war conjured up in Libya is just one of more than sixty arranged since 1945, to divide, destroy and conquer for imperial neocolonialist control over vulnerable small nations. The underclasses of the U.S. population and the poor in the third world use their sense of smell to know that the same game is going on in Libya. Invasion experienced Fidel Castro, after the first two days of disturbance expected that NATO would use it as a pretext to invade.
Will history books credit all this bloodshed to Gadhafi having "targeted civilians peacefully demonstrating for democracy?" Or will a plot be uncovered to stage a pretext for civil war with a lot of orchestrated shooting, killing and false flag operations led by a CIA famous for a covert provoking of confusion and violence while heavily armed elements stood ready to be activated (as in past CIA overthows)?
The very first day, 2/15 saw police stations attacked -no deaths. The second day more stations attacked and 6 deaths. On the fourth day, various trustworthy sources report the rebels executed at least fifty-two - twice the total deaths agreed upon for the third day. There are some horrifically gruesome cell phone videos on the Internet of grisly hangings, beheadings, bloody beatings of blacks and others loyal to their government. (Libya has a black population, mostly in South Libya, of half a million. Libya under Gaddafi has eliminated a good deal of race discrimination, so black Libyans are especially loyal to the government.) South Koreans and most all Chinese construction sites have reported attacks by armed anti-government gangs.*( 6)
Obama, with help from European empires of yesteryear, proclaims he is protecting [erstwhile colonially occupied] Libyans. Protecting them from a successful government led by their revolutionary socialist leader Colonel Gaddafi at the same time he protects, for a second time, Afghanis from having an Afghan government, and is protecting Iraqis, Somalis, Yemeni and Pakistanis from their own chosen government, just as the U.S. once protected Lebanese from their government, and protected Iranians from their democracy.
In the same way, America has protected Haitians , Congolese, Chileans, Dominicans and Guatemalans from their elected presidents, the Vietnamese from their popular hero Ho Chi Minh, protected the government of El Salvador from Salvadorians, protected Grenadians, Laotians, Greeks and Koreans from their own people, protected Indonesians from overpopulation, and tried to protect Cubans from their revolution and Fidel Castro, all with either U.S. navy shelling from the sea, bombs, missiles and napalm from the air, WMD in their country, U.S. troops in their cities, a deadly CIA, predatory investment banks, or all of the above at the same time, with commercial mass media TV promoting war and a puppet UN Secretary General colluding.
There is an imperative involved today in Libya and the rest of the Middle East that is more basic than keeping U.S. backed dictators in power or eliminating non-capitalist regimes.The same imperative has driven war upon planet Earth for centuries. It is imperative for private investment financial capital to accumulate, and accumulate at an ever increasing rate. This is a complex modern auto-functioning financial investment imperative pushing the wealthiest owners of capital into ever new variations of the same ancient conspiracy of the rich against the rest of us.
While a lovely and well kept Libya is being destroyed before our very eyes and readied for highly profitable investments, up and coming wars are being planned very seriously.
Even China and Russia can not impede the imperative of the accumulating private capital aggregate. Though Gaddhafi had favored Russia and China in the export of Libyan oil and raw materials, the leaders of both of these emerging capitalist giants felt constrained to abstain on the UN attack resolution rather than use their veto in the name of sanity.*(10)
Too bad. The world's ecology might not be able to take the adjunct imperative of continuous war for maximum accumulation of private capital.*(11)
Stephen Lendman alerts us:
in April 3, AFP headlined, "Libya warns of disaster if 'Great Man-Made River' hit," saying:
If GMMR is bombed, it could cause a "human and environmental disaster." Libya has three underground pipeline systems, for oil, gas, and water. If one is hit, the others are affected, potentially disastrously.
If part of the infrastructure is damaged, the whole thing is affected and the massive escape of water could cause a catastrophe, depriving millions of Libyans of fresh water, 70% of 6.5 people for human consumption, irrigation, and other purposes, not to mention Gaddafi's dream tocontinue turning the desert green.*(12)
With all the strongest capitalist nations' firepower against what now remains of an Arab socialist society, of its blasted army and its heroic loyal citizen militias, it seems impossible that Gaddafi and his Libya will survive, let alone be able turn this blitzkrieg into a second Bay of Pigs defeat for weaponized private capital.
Postscript:
Seems the Boston Globe might have defected from the New York Times led U.S. corporate media cartel backing the overthrow of the government of Libya. Human Rights Watch is also distancing itself from outright pro-insurgency lies. Here is a Boston Globe OPED 4/14
False pretense for war in Libya?
EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a "bloodbath'' in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
"Misurata's population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people -- including combatants -- have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 -- less than 3 percent -- are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties. "
[Your author would like to point out on the evening of the publication of this article, Diane Sawyer, on ABC's World Report, with a pained expression on her face showed a video of a young girl on camera in Misurata asking pathetically "Why is Gaddafi killing us?"
A truthful report from Human Rights Watch here quoted in this Boston Globe OpEd does little to address the complicity of New York based Human Rights Watch in having stoked the creation of the now firmly held widespread belief that in the third week of February of peaceful protesters were shot to pieces on Gaddafi's orders. The myth created now allows everyone one in business to run with it.]
"Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. "If we waited one more day, Benghazi " could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.'' Thus, the president concluded, "preventing genocide'' justified US military action.
But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libya's civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.
The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially -- including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.
Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. ...
Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire -- each one a tragedy -- but that is urban warfare, not genocide.
Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged . The "no mercy'' warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya's leader promised amnesty for those "who throw their weapons away.'' Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt"
Boston Globe OP-ED April 14, 2011 by Alan J. Kuperman
---------------------
FOOTNOTES
*(1)
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
In last year's 2010 United Nation Human Development Yearly Index of all Nations,
Libya is ranked 53rd in the world, well above nine European nations, for example, Russia, which is ranked 65th.
High human development: Libya 53rd in world (#1 in Africa) Neighbors Tunisia 81st, Algeria 84th
Medium human development (developing countries) Egypt 101, Morocco 114 , Gabon 93,
Low human development (developing countries)
Yemen 133, Sudan 154
(The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide:
Life Expectancy Index
Education Index
Mean Years of Schooling Index ]EXpected Years of Schooling
Income Index (I
Very high human development (developed countries)
Bahrain 39 having braced by Qatar 38 and Portugal 40
(Bahrain has a very unequal income and services range)
---------------------------------
The Library of Congress Federal Research Division Libya country profile of Libya, April 2005 reads, " Basic health care is provided to all citizens. Health, training, rehabilitation, education, housing, family issues, and disability and old-age benefits are all regulated by ... the Social Care Fund . The health care system is not purely state-run but rather a mixed system of public and private care. In comparison to other states in the Middle East, the health status of the population is relatively good. Childhood immunization is almost universal. The clean water supply has increased, and sanitation has been improved. The country's major hospitals are in Tripoli and Benghazi, and private health clinics and diagnostic centers, offering newer equipment and better service, compete with the public sector. The number of medical doctors and dentists reportedly increased sevenfold between 1970 and 1985, producing a ratio of one doctor per 673 citizens. In 1985 about one-third of the doctors in the Libya were native-born, with the remainder being primarily expatriate foreigners. The number of hospital beds tripled in this same time period. Malaria has been eradicated, and significant progress has been made against trachoma and leprosy. In 1985 the infant mortality rate was 84 per 1,000; by 2004, the U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that the infant mortality rate had dropped to 25.7 per 1,000. ... estimates report an infant mortality rate of less than 20 per 1,000.
Having control of their own oil wealth has enabled Libyans, along with neighboring Algerians to provide their citizens with a relatively high income. South Africa is higher but unevenly distributed between white and non-white.
* (2 ) Al Jazeera 12/28/11, "young Bou'azizi doused himself in petrol and set himself aflame on December 17, ... Lahseen Naji, a protester, responded to "hunger and joblessness" by electrocuting himself after climbing an electricity pole." A third, Ramzi Al-Abboudi, under the burden of business debt, ironically made possible by the country's micro-credit solidarity programme, killed himself. On 24 December, Mohamed Ammari was fatally shot in the chest by police in Bouziane. ... 1/14/2011, Tunisian President Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia following a month of demonstrations precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption that resulted in scores of deaths and injuries, most of which the result of action by police and security forces. The UN team leader, Bacre Waly Ndiaye, who investigated the Human Rights in Tunisia, stated that 219 people died as 30 January.
"Protests in Yemen followed the initial demonstrations Tunisia heightening during those in Egypt. The protests, initially against unemployment, economic conditions and corruption escalated to calls for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign" (Only 45 countries have a higher percentage of people living on less than $2 a day, World Bank)
Fifteen shot dead and hundreds wounded after pro-government forces of interim government open fire on demonstrators in Yemen Daily Mail, 4/4/11. 52 Dead in Yemen Protest Bloodbath, AAP 3/19/11, "Medics in Yemen raised the death toll from a sniper attack on protesters from to 52 as thousands rallied despite a state of emergency imposed by the autocratic regime. Witnesses said pro-regime "thugs" rained bullets from rooftops around a square at Sanaa University... The death toll mounts daily."
"In Egypt, grievances of the hundreds of thousands protesters in all major cities against U.S. supported dictator Mubarak[ included high unemployment, food price inflation, and low minimum wages." AFP 1/27/11. After eighteen days of hundreds of thousands to millions protesting, and 840 deaths, Mubarak resigned, even though advised by U.S. presidential envoy Weisner to hang in. The death toll continues to rise as the army under the provisional government attacks demonstrators still protesting injustice and inaction. Almasryalyoun , April, 2011.
How did Egypt become so corrupt under a U.S. and investment banks supported dictator? A picture is emerging of a state where wealth fuels political power and political power buys wealth. Inside Story , 08 Feb 2011
*(3)
The reader is encouraged to check what exactly was reported by all the major print news outlets from Feb. 15th onward in terms of number of casualties for both sides, view whatever videos are offered as proof that Libyan police, security, soldiers targeted civilians peacefully protesting. The internet, Google and YouTube have of course a great deal of material emphasizing mainstream anti-Gaddafi accusations and praise for the rebel attacks on the government, but much can be learned with one's failing to find verified that which CNN, the other five U.S. networks, and printed media have put out, especially in justifying big power military intervention against the government of Libya, almost always referred to as "Gaddafi" or "the Gaddafi regime."
We really didn't see much of planes and tanks "unleashed" until truck loads of heavily armed rebels were well on the road toward Tripoli. One does remember two planes defecting to Malta, two others falling out of the sky, one shot down over the ocean. No pictures of planes bombing cities. No proof that orders were given to do so.
CNN repeated that Gadhafi planes were bombing cites, but showing for many days the same bomb crater outside of town and reporting no one killed.
Footnotes (4) (5) (6) (7) contain documented results of this peoples historian's web search.
*(4)
On the first day, Feb. 15, Reuters reported hundreds of protesters attacking police stations, no deaths, 60 injured.
The next day, Feb. 16, Reuters reported, along with opposition media, 6 dead when more than a thousand protesters attacked more police stations.
Feb. 17th, internationally planned Day of Rage, The Evening Standard and Al Jazeera English estimated that fourteen people were killed. Reuters, BBC and opposition media reported 14 or 15 dead. After overnight protests, the following day,
18 February 2011, Guardian.co.uk , Ian Black and Owen Bowcott, Article history:
"Amer Saad, a political activist from Derna, told al-Jazeera: "The protesters in al-Bayda have been able to seize control of the military airbase in the city and have executed 50 African ["]mercenaries['] and two Libyan conspirators. Even in Derna today, a number of conspirators were executed. They were locked up in the holding cells of a police station because they resisted, and some died burning inside the building."
Reuters 7:03 pm reported that " Human Rights Watch [based on Fifth Avenue< New York] said that according to its sources inside Libya, security forces killed at least 24 people in crackdowns on protests". IOL News of South Africa , reported dozens killed by security forces.
"Human Rights Watch shortly after sent someone to the east of Libya, and there he found out that all the 156 captured people, which the rebels described as "African mercenaries", were in fact not foreign mercenaries, but Libyans with black skin color, and that they served as regular soldiers in the Army of Libya. Human Rights Watch found no indication that the Libyan government, as claimed by the rebels, used mercenaries at all to quell the uprising in eastern Libya.
The actually existing strong support for Muammar Gaddafi by black-skinned Libyans Human Rights Watch explained with the fact that Muammar Gaddafi did a lot in the past to end the discrimination against black people in Libya. So it's understandable that the rebels hunted black-skinned people and, regardless whether they were Libyan soldiers or foreign refugees of poverty, executed them as a precautionary measure if possible." The British Guardian reported from Benghazi
On February 24th, shortly after the beginning British Telegraph already reported some more details regarding the observance of human rights by the NATO-backed government opponents in the east of Libya:
"Ahmed Ahmed Ibrahim showed video footage he had captured on his mobile telephone of an African mercenary hanging from a meat-hook in an Al Bayda doorway. " Masquerarding as pro-Gaddafi partisans, they duped the mercenaries, who were described as French-speaking Africans, captured them and then dragged them into the streets of Al Bayda " Mr. Ibrahim, who works in a cafe, said he believes most were executed although he only witnessed two slain foreigners."
The criterion "African" here does not refer -- of course, because all Libyans are Africans -- to an African origin, but to the color of the skin: "African" here means people with black skin. What The Telegrap h described is applied to people with black skin, which the CIA-backed "rebels" had identified as "foreign mercenaries.
The War in Libya: Race, "Humanitarianism," and the Media Los Angeles Times 4/23/11 by Luis Sinco, "rebel held prisoners are asked to speak up. "A middle-aged African waited for a moment before loudly proclaiming his innocence to no one in particular. "I am a worker, not a fighter. They took me from my house and [raped] my wife," he said, gesturing with his hands.
Before he could say much more, a pair of guards told him to shut up and hustled him through the steel doors of a cell block, which quickly slammed behind them."
Libya: Seconds from a bullet in the head , "this alleged African mercenary was captured by furious Libyan opposition fighters yesterday and was about to be shot before a foreign reporter persuaded them not to execute him" , by Mohammed Abbas, 3/4/11, Scotsman
*(5)
The disinformation is led by the NY Times
NY Times Works Hard to Prove US Bombs Only Kill Bad Libyans , 4/12/11 OEN
click here
Libya as a new war, needs to be sanitized and justified as another 'clean' 'U.S. good guys conflict
Though the New York Times, famous for backing every US war in history, has apparently long given up pretending that U.S. air strikes in the rest of the Muslim world do not intentionally include permissible collateral death of women and children (by simply not publishing most of AP wire service reports of U.S./NATO massacres), Libya as a new war, needs to be sanitized and justified as another 'clean' and 'U.S. good guys conflict. The Times has its reporter on Libya, Kirkpatrick make the #1 U.S. newspaper look ridiculous promoting the absurd idea that no one has met death from American missiles and bombs.
CNN anchors, imbedded within the armed rebels and cheering them on explain to viewers, with irony in their voices, that the Libyan government in reporting deaths from American missile strikes might be doing so as propaganda against the United States.
There are millions of people in the world that don't believe CNN and company, because they remember the networks have promoted wars, every war, with tricky reporting, half truths out of context,
news selection with filters to mask what was really taking place in the dozens of countries the U.S. would bomb or invade.
*(6)
Among the many cell phone videos on the fighting in Libya are these three. YouTube required the author to understand it is upsetting to watch and click if at least 18 years of age.
http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Libya-Rebels-pt4-Execute-Behead-Mutilate-Gaddafi-Army-who-Surrender-Where-is-CNN
"pt 4 of 4 - Libyan soldier hanged and beheaded in the city of Benghazi"
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m76906&hd=&size=1&l=e
Libya Rebels (pt4) Execute, Behead, Mutilate Gaddafi Army who Surrender! Where is CN
"Apparently, Pro Gaddafi Soldiers who surrender have been Executed by Rebels in Cold Blood ! Blindfolded, hog-tied, beat, Executed, Hung, beheaded, put on fire, had their bodies mutilated. Anderson Cooper and PBS and Rachel Maddow have described opposition forces of being made up of ordinary citizens who just a short time ago were in their jobs as lawyers, office workers."
Mein Parteibuch Zweitblog , Germany
"Appendix: here is a short video showing how the Libyan "rebels" treat black people: Yes, we can. That's how Obama's new Libyan friends treat black people."
http://wp.me/pr71Q-9A
LIBYA: Rebels execute black immigrants while forces kidnap others
SomalilandPress , Somalia
ADDIS ABABA -- While much of the world's attention is focusing on crude oil prices and the Libyan pipelines in the east of the country, human right groups say rebels are committing crimes against humanity.
In east Libya, African hunt began as towns and cities began fall under the control of Libyan rebels, mobs and gangs. They started to detain, insult, rape and even executing black immigrants, students and refugees.
According to Somali refugees in Libya, at least five Somalis from Somaliland and Somalia were executed in Tripoli and Benghazi by anti-Gaddafi mobs. Dozens of refugees and immigrants workers from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Mali and Niger have been killed, some of them were led into the desert and stabbed to death. Black Libyan men receiving medical care in hospitals in Benghazi were reportedly abducted by armed rebels. They are part of more than 200 African immigrants held in secret locations by the rebels.
In many disputes involving Libyan residents and black Africans, the Libyans are turning in the Africans as mercenaries.
Thousands more Africans caught up in this mercenary hysteria are terrified. Some barricaded themselves in their homes, while others hid in the desert. Insulted, threatened, beaten, chased and robbed. Their only crime was being black and therefore treated as "mercenaries" of Gaddafi.
While the airing of Gaddafi's so called "black mercenaries" by Western media has ignited the issue, some say an xenophobic attitude towards these refugees and labourers has existed for years.... In many situations, Gaddafi and his inner circle preferred black Africans and Libyans from the south over Libyans from the east. Now the angry mobs using the revolutionary movement across Arabia and North Africa are hunting down black people."
Reuters UK edition 4/3/11
Chad says citizens abused in rebel-held Libya
"Since the beginning of the Libyan crisis, Chadians in Libya, especially those in areas controlled by the transitional national council, have been singled out," a statement from Chad's government spokesman Kalzeubet Pahimi Deubet said.
"Dozens of Chadians have known this sad fate," he said.
The statement said several Chadian nationals had been arrested, some were "paraded on television as mercenaries and sometimes executed" despite denials that Libya had recruited any mercenaries from its southern neighbour.
The government of Chad had said about 300,000 of its citizens resided in Libya before the crisis.
"The Chadian government is calling on international coalition forces involved in Libya and international human rights organisation to stop these abuses against Chadians and other migrant Africa workers," the statement said.
Libyan protesters attack S. Korean & Chinese companies , Feb 22, 2011 Reuters Sri Lanka
click here
"On February 17/18,about 200 Libyans in the eastern coastal town of Darnah invaded a South Korean-run construction site and set fire to a dormitory for Korean workers. According to the South Korean Foreign Ministry, the offices of some South Korean companies were looted on February 19. The Ministry said there are currently about 1,400 South Koreans in the country.
A construction site run by Huafeng Construction Co., Ltd. from China's Zhejiang Province was looted by a group of armed gangsters Sunday afternoon in the eastern city of Agedabia, and nearly 1,000 Chinese workers there were forced out of the site and became homeless. "Some Chinese workers here said nearly all Chinese companies in the country were "attacked or looted."
*( 7)
"Our Man in Tripoli": US-NATO Sponsored Islamic Terrorists Integrate Libya's Pro-Democracy Opposition by Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch, 4/3/11
"There are various factions within the Libyan opposition: Royalists, defectors from the Gaddafi regime including the Minister of Justice and more recently the Foreign Minister, Moussa Moussa, members of the Libyan Armed Forces, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) and the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO) which acts as an umbrella organization.
Rarely acknowledged by the Western media, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG -- Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi Libya), is an integral part of the Libyan Opposition. The LIGF, which is aligned with al-Qaeda, is in the frontline of the armed insurrection."
Chossudovsky, an Emeritus Professor of Economics at Ottawa University, and director of Montreal's Centre for Research on Globalization, notes that the paramilitary LIFG was founded in Afghanistan by veteran Libyan Mujahedeens of the Soviet-Afghan war". There are contradictory reports as to whether the LIFG is part of Al Qaeda or is acting as an independent jihadist entity. One report suggests that in 2007 the LIFG became "a subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).'"
During its lifetime, "The LIFG was supported not only by the CIA and The British Secret Intelligence Service but also by factions within Libya's intelligence agency, led by former intelligence head and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who defected to the United Kingdom in late March 2011." ...
Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch , 4/3/11
click here
Libya Rebels: Gaddafi Could be Right About al-Qaeda -
Two documents suggest northeast Libya, centre of rebellion, is an al-Qaeda hotspot. By Alexander Cockburn, First Post , 3/24/11
" a secret cable to the State Department from the US embassy in Tripoli in 2008, part of the WikiLeaks trove, entitled "Extremism in Eastern Libya", which revealed that this area is rife with anti-American, pro-jihad sentiment.
According to the 2008 cable, the most troubling aspect "... is the pride that many eastern Libyans, particularly those in and around Dernah, appear to take in the role their native sons have played in the insurgency in Iraq " [and the] ability of radical imams to propagate messages urging support for and participation in jihad."
The second document, or rather set of documents, are the so-called Sinjar Records, captured al-Qaeda documents that fell into American hands in 2007. They were duly analyzed by the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point. Al-Qaeda is a bureaucratic outfit and the records contain precise details on personnel, including those who came to Iraq to fight American and coalition forces and, when necessary, commit suicide.
The West Point analysts' statistical study of the al-Qaeda personnel records concludes that one country provided "far more" foreign fighters in per capita terms than any other: namely, Libya.
The records show that the "vast majority of Libyan fighters that included their home town in the Sinjar Records resided in the country's northeast". Benghazi provided many volunteers. So did Dernah, a town about 200 kms east of Benghazi, in which an Islamic emirate was declared when the rebellion against Gaddafi started.
-----------------------------
The CIA's Libya Rebels: 2007 West Point Study Shows Benghazi - Darnah-Tobruk Area was a World Leader in Al Qaeda Suicide Bomber Recruitment, By Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D., Tarpley, Washington D.C., 3/24/11
" The rebels are clearly not civilians, but an armed force. What kind of an armed force?"
--------------------------------------
Libyan Rebel Commander Admits his Fighters Have Al-Qaeda Links - Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. by Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham, The Telegraph 3/26/11
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".
by Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham, The Telegraph 3/26/11
n an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".
Libya: WikiLeaks Cables Warn of Extremist Beliefs By Heidi Blake
Leaked diplomatic cables obtained by the WikiLeaks disclose fears that eastern Libya is being overrun by extremists intent on overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi's regime.
click here (For Benghazi being the closes African port to Italy, it has apparently become a crime center for the lucrative human traffic trade with a lot of tough hombres in town.)
The revolt started in Benghazi in eastern Libya. A very important point not mentioned anywhere in the international media is the fact that due to geographic location, being one of the closest point to Europe from the African continent, Benghazi has over the past 15 years or so become the epicenter of African migration to Europe. The human trafficking industry, grew into a billion dollar a year industry in Benghazi. When the first demonstrations took place in Benghazi the loose coalition of terrorist cells and human trafficking gangs immediately took advantage of the turmoil to attack the high security prisons outside of Benghazi where their comrades were locked up.
*(8)
Ex-National Security Chief Brzezinski admits:
Afghan Islamism Was Made in Washington
Le Nouvel Observateur' (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76
"former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [" From the Shadows" ], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention."
President Jimmy Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski convinced Carter to order the CIA to secretly fund, arm and train the fundamentalist hill tribes to overthrow the new (very popular according to Robert Fisk) socialist, women liberating government in Kabul. They were at the time already murdering government teachers who taught school to girls.
During the Reagan administration some U.S. funds went to bin Ladin's al Qaeda
and earlier to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , who had a reputation of assassinating local tribal leaders that might rival his power and is credited to have as the first to unleash the technique of throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women. War Lords of Afghanistan click here
Terrorism Monitor Volume: 4 Issue: 18
September 21, 2006, by Omid Marzban
"While at Kabul University, Hekmatyar's radicalism began to show its face: he was notorious for spraying acid on the university's female students"
In Iraq, during President Bush Jr., a policy that was called successful in defeating al Qaeda was to hire al Qaeda linked elements to disaffect away and help defeat Shiite militias. Seymour Hersh wrote of this in the New Yorker, and intimated that the CIA was behind heating up the sectarian violence in Iraq. Hersh explained there was such intentional confusion and factions within factions, that no one could possible tell where U.S. covert funds were winding up.
San Diego Examiner April 14th, 2011
US payments to ... Afghan warlords threaten American/NATO troop s
According to separate Congressional and Senate reports, the American government pays more than $2 billion for Host Nation Trucking (HNT) or in layman's terms, private security firms that protect U.S. military convoys and materials in dangerous tribal areas.
A report titled "Warlord, Inc., Extortion and Corruption along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan" was published by Congressman John Tierney (D-MA) in June of last year. The report detailed the billions of dollars spent to protect U.S. military supply convoys in Afghanistan- the majority of the money is paid by the DOD through defense contractors and finds its way into the hands of Taliban leaders and warlords.
According to the comprehensive report, the principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority in the region."
--------------
The CIA agent who shot two men in Pakistan city was discovered by Pakistani investigators to have telephone numbers of known al Qaeda linked insurgents.
"The expected additional information on the antecedents of CIA agent Raymond Davis, carrying a US diplomatic passport, has complicated the case of murder against him at a Lahore sessions court. His cell phone has revealed contacts with two ancillaries of al Qaeda in Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has led to the public conclusion that he was behind terrorism committed against Pakistan's security personnel and its people.
This revelation is strengthened by the admission appearing in the hitherto self-gagged American press that he was a CIA "contractor' working "under cover'. The complication introduced into the Raymond Davis affair is that high functionaries in Punjab are now suggesting that he be tried in a military court. This will strike people as America in cahoots with the Taliban and al Qaeda against the state of Pakistan targeting, as one official opined, Pakistan's nuclear installations.
click here
Raymond Davis: The plot thickens
Editorial, Tribune with International Hearld Tribune, 2/22/11
*(9)
One presumably cannot correctly understand the events and character of someone else's life except in the context of events, conditions and circumstances in the world around him or her.
From past history of Western imperialism, one might assume that ever since a handsome lowest rank officer Gadhafi overthrew the British installed King Idris (1969) and had Libya nationalize the "Free World's" oil, M16, CIA, and French secret service should have had a relatively easy time hatching plots for Gaddafi's assassination within the contentious tribal society of that half-Berber nation.
This just might perhaps explain the years of back and forth counter assassination episodes culminating, after decades, with President Reagan's bombing attempt to assassinate Gaddafi by missiles fired on his compound from planes off an aircraft carrier that killed a hundred Libyans, Gadhafi's daughter among them. The "community of nations' never has much of a problem with U.S. bombings. Conglomerate media of Western savage capitalist civilization went on blaming Gadhafi, and never President Reagan.
Then came a bizarre arrangement under which years of Western nation embargoes and sanctions on Libya would be lifted upon Libya allowing two Libyans to stand trial in Scotland on circumstantial evidence and Libya paying a indemnity to families of victims of a PamAm flight bombed over Scotland by persons unknown. Strangely, after a trial ending in conviction that United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Nowak among others in attendance called a "abominable miscarriage of justice," in which no hard evidence, was presented, Libya was admitted to the "community of nations' and able to trade once more.
When one who was convicted was recently released for being terminally ill, or by covert agreement, was welcomed home as a hero for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the nations restitution, mainstream media had its captive audience hit the ceiling. All very confusing, except to know that somehow Libya's oil was somehow playing a part from the time Gadhafi had Libya nationalize it. Self-righteous eminent Western hero politicians like John McCain, the twenty-four time bomber of Hanoi, (body count not available) figures on no one reading up on the trial in foreign and independent media, as he proclaims with taken for granted certainty that Gaddafi ordered the bombing of said Pan Am flight.
Gaddafi's, as an Arab has been outspoken in support for Palestinians in their struggle over their land being taken away from them firstly by the colonial-powers-founded-and-controlled United Nations, which awarded more that 55% of the British Mandate (colony) of Palestine to the mainly European colonizing immigrant Jewish third of the then total population of the Mandate. Gaddafi holds the belief that this UN decision was meant to both assuage wealthy white capitalists' conscience for having built up a poor Nazi Germany to world #1 military power, knowingly investing in Hitters well announced plans to persecute Jews, and secondly, to establish a colony of Europeans in the middle of the oil rich Arab world.
Pitilessly hateful remarks attributed to Gaddafi after the horribly indiscriminate massacre at Israel's Lod Airport by a Japanese terrorist group, can be understood, if not forgiven, as having been made by someone suffering the awareness that none of the massive number of Israeli massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese has ever been condemned by European and American governments or in their news media nor by the Israelis, Arabs are supposed to condemn their reciprocating atrocities, but except some earnest criticism from Scandinavia, Israeli massacres are of no interest in Washington, London and Paris.
The same might be said for the double standard that rightfully condemns financial support for Arab terrorist organizations but is not even interested in American and European covert funding of terrorist organizations in dozens of third world nations since the end World War Two and before, including the Carter/CIA funding, arming and training of the very first fundamentalist terror to overthrown a women liberating Socialist Kabul government and draw the Soviets into a trap.
This is the "holier than thou' racist attitude in a world still basically owned and manipulated by wealthy white capitalists with few exceptions.
With Africa ever dominated by competing Europen investments and competing nations for hegemony and profits funding terror and civil war to their investments advantage, Gaddafi inevitably has been drawn in to support which ever group judged to be for liberation from cruel European exploitation, Europeans in their corporate controlled media are able to accuse Gaddafi of supporting terror. But in the cruel Realpolitik of a neo-colonized Africa of shifting covert machinations, no one is able to stay clean.
A mixed bag of horror groups fighting in constantly paid off alliances have been funded and supported by quite a list of governments, corporations and secret services of Euopean and interwoven comprador Africa governments
But here we come to the end of the above listed attempts to dismiss Muammar Gaddafi as a "mad dog'
On Gaddafi's watch and protection from European exploitation, Libya as risen (along with Algeria and Tunisia), from from the dirt poor poverty of the rest of an Africa still cruelly enslaved economically, after two centuries of military occupation and the earlier forced export of millions to slave for fledgling capitalism in the white man's world at gunpoint. But Algeria has suffered horrific violence since free of French occupation, and Tunisia, three decades under Western investment capital supported dictator bin Ail, is ranked by the UN far below (Gaddafi's) Libya in its Human Development Index 2010. Libya 53rd highest / Tunisia 81st (Algeria 84th).
Gadhafi like Nkruma before him, leads a movement for African unity against European economic exploitation.
Before that, Gaddafi worked for years to unify the Arab nation into one unified pan-Arab movement following the efforts of another young revolutionary officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, who was also reviled in the Arab world dominating industrialized nations.
Gaddafi is no "rambling speaking," inappropriately dressed "mad dog" for the undeserving poor, and by imperialism oppressed, majority of the nearly seven billion human beings that make up humanity, struggling to survive on a planet half owned mostly controlled by private finance investment capital. For majority mankind Gaddafi is in a category with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Patrice Lumumba and others who have fought to liberate the disenfranchised and exploited from lack of food, health care, education of decent income for their children.
Interestingly a man who has led Libya through an Arab socialism of having by UN ranking the highest living standard far above others in Africa in longevity, infant mortality, access to free education and health care to a degree much higher than nine European countries including Russia, and has been clever enough to survive so many assassination attempts, including the Reagan ordered air strike on his home that killed his daughter among a hundred others, be about massacring his own people according to CNN and other corporate owned disreputable news gathering media with a history of manufacturing consent for dozens of bloody U.S. wars in the third world?
And the schlock of lies and absurd innuendoe goes on with all kinds of obviously planted stories about America's enemies. Lies which though eventually will be found out and proven false when the issue is no longer topical and of interest. Who cares about the Gulf of Tonkin lies, the Iraq WMD lies, that Iraqi soldiers didn't pull out the life sustaining tubes of babies in Kuwait hospitals, that the planes that bombed Cuba were indeed American, that the dug up North Korean torpedo could not have blown a South Korean warship in two? Books have been filled up with such lies with absolutely no attention received from eminent and esteemed liars.
Lies have long become a way of life in military, jingoistic, Big Brother media approaching the level of described in George Orwell's novel, "1984." Only Gaddafi and we ourselves are living in 2011, a date twenty-seven years on, in a climate of corporate mind control through programed fear, disinformation and self-serving but dangerous righteous pride in ignorance more advanced than we think.
Author finds Gaddafi's short self-defense worth the read for his description of the inhumanity of capitalist governance.
"Recollections of my Life: Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi, The Leader of the Revolution," opednews.com, April 8, 2011]
click here
In line with our synopsis that points to understanding private investment finance capital driving before it everything else is an article of economic interest out of Russia:
http://kir-t34.livejournal.com/14869.html
Bortovoi Journal, Russia, 3/26/11
"Bombing of Libya -- Punishment for Gaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar' , China had announced minting of golden yuan and the Eastern countries also discussed the possibility of golden standard. Mummar Ghaddafi became the main initiator of idea of refusing from dollar and euro and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the Persian gold dinar. In 2002 Malaysian prime minister Muhammad together with Mummar Ghaddafi proposed initiative to launch golden dinar. At the beginning this idea was approved by Iraq, Sudan and Bruney, next year Indonesia, United Arabian Emirates and other countries joined to it. They began work on this idea. there were some sessions of Ministers of Finance of these countries and the project about refusing from dollar and euro and using golden dinar began to be transfered to life. There was a pilot project where golden coins were already minted and it began to be used in Malaysia, Indonesia and Iran. They were even used in common shops and they are still can be used there as well as common banknote money.it means that if Muammar Ghaddafi will drop bank system and will start trade only in gold, he will trade only with countries that have gold. (China has almost cornered the gold market?) ... There must be chain reaction, because everyone is tired to be a slave for USA Federal Reserve Fond and its head Mr. Bernanke. Because Bernanke gives money in debt for USA (Federal Reserve Fond of USA gives money to central Bank of USA). If Muamman Ghaddafi found time to launch golden coins before the war started, not only muslim countries would follow him. There would be many countries, including maybe even Germany. Everyone in the world who doesn't want to be a slave of Bernanke wants to trade for gold.
Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the US and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Gaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.
If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank [created by the rebels in March] joins the BIS, whether the nationalised oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and healthcare continue to be free.
*(10)
US to Recoup Libyan Oil from China
Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury.
by Press TV / April 20th, 2011
Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi has made two mistakes: It blocked the US Africa Command by not joining it and let China into Libya with major energy investments instead, says a former US official.
Press TV has interviewed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury from Panama City, who gives his insight on the revolution in Libya and why US President Barack Obama needs to overthrow Qaddafi when no other US presidents did.
Paul Craig Roberts: Yes they do. First of all, notice that the protests in Libya are different from the ones in Egypt or Yemen or Bahrain or Tunisia and the difference is that this is an armed rebellion.
There are more differences: another is that these protests originated in the eastern part of Libya where the oil is -- they did not originate in the capital cities. And we have heard from the beginning, credible reports that the CIA is involved in the protests and there have been a large number of press reports that the CIA has sent back to Libya its Libyan asset to head up the Libyan rebellion.
In my opinion, what this is about is to eliminate China from the Mediterranean. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya. They are looking to Africa as a future energy source.
The US is countering this by organizing the United States African Command (USAC), which Qaddafi refused to join. So that's the second reason for the Americans to want Qaddafi out.
And the third reason is that Libya controls part of the Mediterranean coast and it's not in American hands.
they are not supposed to be in there fighting together with the rebels.
But of course the CIA is. i the next target will be Syria because Syria has already been demonized.
Why are they targeting Syria? -- Because the Russians have a very large naval base in Syria. And it gives the Russian navy a presence in the Mediterranean; the US and NATO do not want that. If there is success in overthrowing Qaddafi, Syria is next.
Already, they are blaming Iran for Syria and Libya. Iran is a major target because it is an independent state that is not a puppet of the Western colonialists.
Press TV: With regards to the expansionist agenda of the West, when the UN mandate on Libya was debated in the UN Security Council, Russia did not veto it. Surely Russia must see this expansionist policy of the US, France and Britain.
PCR: Yes they must see that; and the same for China. It's a much greater threat to China because it has 50 major investment projects in eastern Libya. So the question is why did Russia and China abstain rather than veto and block? We don't know the answer.
Possibly the countries are thinking let the Americans get further over extended or they may not have wanted to confront them with a military or diplomatic position and have an onslaught of Western propaganda against them. We don't know the reasons, but we know they did abstain because they did not agree with the policy and they continue to criticize it.
the CIA is the originator of this so-called revolt and protest and is fomenting it and controlling it in a way that excludes China from its own Libyan oil investments.
In my opinion, what is going on is comparable to what the US and Britain did to Japan in the 1930s. When they cut Japan off from oil, from rubber, from minerals like ore; that was the origin of World War II in the pacific. And now the Americans and the British are doing the same thing to China.
The difference is that China has nuclear weapons and it also has a stronger economy than do the Americans. And so the Americans are taking a very high risk not only with themselves, but with the rest of the world. The entire world is now at stake on American over-reach; American huberus -- the drive for American hegemony over the world is driving the rest of the world into a World War.
Press TV: So these other countries would welcome having NATO troops on the ground?
PCR: Of course. They are in the CIAs pocket. It's a CIA operation, not a legitimate protest of the Libyan people. It's an armed rebellion that has no support in the capital city. It's taking place in the east where the oil is and is directed at China.
Qaddafi has been ruling for 40 years -- he goes back to Gamal Abdel Nasser (before Anwar Sadat) who wanted to give independence to Egypt.
He (Qaddafi) was never before called a brutal dictator that has to be removed. No other president has ever said Qaddafi has to go. Not even Ronald Reagan who actually bombed Qaddafi's compound and tried to kill him. But all of a sudden he has to go. Why?
Because he's blocking the US African Command, he controls part of the Mediterranean and he has let China in to find its energy needs for the future. We (the US) are trying to cripple our main rival, China by denying it energy. That's what this is really about; a reaction by the US.
If the US was concerned about humanitarianism, it wouldn't be killing all these people in Afghanistan and Pakistan with their drones and military strikes. Almost always it's civilians that are killed. And the US is reluctant to issue apologies about any of it. They say we thought we were killing Taliban or some other made-up enemy.
Press TV: Who will benefit from all of this other than the US? The other countries that comply with US wishes- What do they stand to gain from this?
PCR: We are only talking about NATO countries, the American puppet states. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, all belong to the American empire. We've had troops stationed in Germany since 1945. You're talking about 66 years of American occupation of Germany. The Americans have military bases in Italy -- how is that an independent country? France was somewhat independent until we put Sarkozy in power. So they all do what they're told.
America wants to rule Russia, China, Iran, and Africa, all of South America. They want hegemony over the world. That's what the word hegemony means. And they will pursue it at all costs.
*(11)
click here=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
War in Libya Could Drag On, Military Analysts Say , New York Times 4/20/11 by Steven Anger
PARIS -- "France and Italy said Wednesday that they would join Britain in sending liaison officers to support the rebel army in Libya, in what military analysts said was a sign that there would be no quick and easy end to the war in Libya."
Whew! Mega colonial conquerers and exploiters of Africa, Britain and France bad enough, but to think that the Italian government which once brought death to millions of Libyans, now sends military advisers to help overthrow the government it apologized to (under Gaddafi)??
"The dispatching of the liaison officers -- probably fewer than 40 of them, and carefully not designated as military trainers -- is a sign also, they said, that only a combination of military pressure from the sky, economic pressure on the government and a better-organized and coordinated rebel force will finally convince Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that he has no option but to quit."
"Some countries thought the Libya operation could be over quickly," said a senior NATO ambassador. "But no military commander thinks so."
And now, one supposes the investors in war can sit back and relax knowing that a long drawn out bloodiest of wars is going along as hoped for, because Obama has ordered personnel siting in front of a screen of coordinates somewhere in the midwest to begin firing those pin point accurate missiles from drones already in the air in reconnaissance over Misurate, Libya. This in turn has precipitated a widening of the fighting according to BBC April 22.
Libya crisis: Misrata tribes 'may fight rebels'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13173628
Tribes loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have given the army an ultimatum to drive rebels out of the besieged city of Misrata or let them do the job, a senior official says.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said the army had tried to keep civilian casualties low but he tribes would not show the same restraint. The tribes were angry that people's lives had been disrupted by weeks of fighting that had cut the main coastal road and stopped trade in the city.
Tribal leaders say the seaport is for all Libyans not just the rebels, Mr Kaim said.
"The tactic of the army is to have a surgical solution but with the (Nato) air strikes it doesn't work." The US has authorised the use of armed, unmanned Predator drones over Libya to give "precision capabilities".
US Adm Mike Mullen, said the war in Libya was " moving towards stalemate" , even though US and Nato air strikes have destroyed 30-40% of Libya's ground forces.
Guardian, UK , 4/21/11, David Swanson Libya: Another Neocon War
click here
Former supreme allied commander Europe of Nato, from 1997 to 2000, Wesley Clark claims that in 2001, a general in the Pentagon showed him a piece of paper and said:
"I just got this memo today or yesterday from the office of the secretary of defence upstairs. It's a, it's a five-year plan. We're going to take down seven countries in five years. We're going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we're going to come back and get Iran in five years."
That agenda fit perfectly with the plans of Washington insiders, such as those who famously spelled out their intentions in the reports of the thinktank called the Project for the New American Century. The fierce Iraqi and Afghan resistance didn't fit at all. Neither did the nonviolent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. But taking over Libya still makes perfect sense in the neoconservative worldview.
The Libyan government controls more of its oil than any other nation on earth, and it is the type of oil that Europe finds easiest to refine. Libya also controls its own finances, leading American author Ellen Brown to point out an interesting fact about those seven countries named by Clark:
"What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.
*(12)
- Libya's Great Man-Made River (GMMR).
The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) lies beneath four North African countries - Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, called the world's largest fossil water system because it's ancient and non-renewable. In fact, the Qur'an's (Koran) Surah 2, Verse 74 says:
"For among rocks there are some from which rivers gush forth; others there are which when split asunder send forth water."
In fact, three major aquifers lie beneath the Sahara, NSAS the largest, containing an estimated 375,000 cubic km of water.
Covering two million square km, it's an ocean of water beneath the desert for irrigation, human consumption, development, and other uses. At 2007 consumption rates, it could last 1,000 years. Gaddafi calls NSAS the "Eighth Wonder of the World." Its web site says it's the largest global underground network of pipes and aqueducts, consisting of:
-- over 1,300 wells;
-- 7 million miles of pre-stressed steel wire to strengthen 12-foot diameter pipes;
-- 3,500 km of pipeline covering an area equal to Western Europe;
-- four pipelines - two east and two west, connecting with links north; and
-- thousands of miles of roads between and connecting its various lines and infrastructure, supplying 6.5 million cubic meters of fresh water daily to Libyans and others in the region. Extracting water at a depth of from 1,600 - 2,500 feet, the system purifies and supplies it mainly to populated coastal cities.
Conceived in the late 1960s, feasibility studies were conducted in 1974. Construction then began in 1984, divided in five phases, each largely separate, then combined into an integrated system. Funded by Gaddafi without loans from other nations or Western banks, the project cost $25 billion so far.
Inaugurated in August 1991, phase I provides two million daily cubic meters of water along a 1,200 km pipeline from As-Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirt, via the Ajdabiya reservoir. Phase II delivers one million daily cubic meters from the Fezzan region to the fertile Jeffara plain in the Western coastal belt, also supplying Tripoli.
Phase III is in two parts. Its first adds an additional 1.68 million cubic meters daily through another 700 km of pipeline and pumping stations. It also supplies 138,000 more cubic meters daily to Tobruk and the coast from a new Al-Jaghboub wellfield through another 500 km of pipeline.
The final phases involve extending the distribution network by pipelines linking the Ajjabiya reservoir to Tobruk, then connecting Eastern and Western systems at Sirt into a single integrated network. When fully operational, Gaddafi hopes to make the desert as green as Libya's flag.
The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) Authority, funded by Gaddafi's government as explained above. However, with war raging, the system is jeopardized as well as Gaddafi's dream to turn the desert green.
On April 3, AFP headlined, "Libya warns of disaster if 'Great Man-Made River' hit," saying:
Libya's Great Man-Made River 15 April, 2011 Countercurrents.org by Sephan Lendmen.
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman150411A.htm
This article originally published and headlined by OpEdNews, 4/24/11
jay janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England, India and the US, and now resides in New York City. Howard Zinn lent his name various writing projects. GlobalReserch, CounterCurrents, InformationClearingHouse, DissidentVoice, HistoryNewsNetwork are among those which often republish his articles.
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