IRON FILE 11.11.11/ London Review of Books: Who said Gaddafi had to go? by Hugh Roberts - Libyan War Criminals - Obama,Cameron and Sarkozy-Let us prepare for re-colonisation (1)- RESISTANCE!-SYRIA AT THE CROSS HAIRS-PALESTINE PAINS HEARTS- Ramayana r
Enrique Ferro
A highly interesting and qualified albeit a bit longish essay. Print it for the week-end and read it quietly, it is very instructive, not just a media parrot, like most of our pro-NATO "intellectuals" have poisoned our mass deception media and outlets...
Who said Gaddafi had to go?
Gaddafi is dead, the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriyya over. But is what we have witnessed, Hugh Roberts asks in the new issue of the LRB, ‘a revolution, or a counter-revolution’? In 1969 Gaddafi and his Free Officers overthrew King Idris, who had cut Libya off from the rest of the Arab world out of deference to the Western powers that had put him on the throne. Once in power, Gaddafi made new friends in Africa: Boumediène, King Hassan, Idi Amin. He even planned to provide the Sahel countries with water from the vast reserves beneath Libya’s desert. This will not be possible, following the success of the Nato-assisted ‘revolution’. Western (particularly French) water companies are queuing up alongside the oil firms for their slice of the action. A system of dual power is emerging, whereby decisions about everything that really counts – oil, gas, water, finance, trade, security – will be made outside the country. Though the NTC occupies centre stage in Tripoli, the country’s formal government, Roberts argues, ‘will be a junior partner of the new Libya’s Western sponsors’. More
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n22/hugh-roberts/who-said-gaddafi-had-to-go?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3322&hq_e=el&hq_m=1265721&hq_l=7&hq_v=ffd8b5307a
Thabo Mbeki
It seems obvious that a few powerful countries seek to turn the Security
Council into an instrument in their hands, to be used by them to pursue
their selfish interests, determined to behave according to the
principle and practice that “might is right”.
The outstanding, but not only, exemplar in this regard is what has
happened during the greater part of this year relating to Libya.
Before saying anything else about this issue, I must state categorically
that those who have sought to manufacture a particular outcome out of
the conflict in Libya have propagated a poisonous canard aimed at
discrediting African and AU opposition to the Libyan debacle on the
basis that the AU and the rest of us had been bought by Col Gaddafi with
petro-dollars, and therefore felt obliged to defend his continued
misrule.
For example, as part of this offensive, relying on all known means of
disinformation, the argument is advanced that Gaddafi’s Libya had
supported the ANC during the difficult struggle to defeat the apartheid
regime.
The incontrovertible fact is that during this whole period, Libya did
not give the ANC even one cent, did not train even one of our military
combatants, and did not supply us with even one bullet. This is because
Gaddafi’s Libya made the determination that the ANC was little more than
an instrument of Zionist Israel, because we had among our leaders such
outstanding patriots as the late Joe Slovo.
Libya came to extend assistance to the ANC after 1990, when it realised
that the ANC was a genuine representative of the overwhelming majority
of our people.
Similarly, the false assertion has been made that the AU depended on
Libyan money to ensure survival. This is yet another fabrication.
The UN Security Council adopted the infamous Resolution 1973 on Libya on
March 17, which imposed a “no-fly zone” and authorised various member
states (Nato) “to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and
civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya”.
The resolution said nothing about “regime change”. However, the fact of
the matter is that the Nato actions had everything to do with the
overthrow of the Gaddafi regime.
And indeed, in a 15 April, 2011 joint letter, presidents Obama and
Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron had openly declared their intention
to achieve this goal. In this letter they said: “Our duty and our
mandate under Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians,
and we are doing that. It is not to remove Gaddafi by force.”
And yet in the same letter they said: “But it is impossible to imagine a
future for Libya with Gaddafi in power. There is a pathway to peace
that promises new hope for the people of Libya: a future without
Gaddafi. Col Gaddafi must go, and go for good.”
And indeed, as leaders of Nato, they ensured this objective was
achieved, directly contrary to what the Security Council resolution
said. And yet the UN Security Council has said nothing about what was a
clear violation of international law.
A week before Resolution 1973 was approved, the AU Peace and Security
Council adopted a road map for the negotiated resolution of the conflict
in Libya and conveyed this to the UN Security Council, as prescribed
under Chapter Eight of the UN Charter. It blocked the AU panel on Libya
from flying into the country to begin the process of mediating a
peaceful resolution of the conflict in that country.
This was despite the fact that Resolution 1973 itself said the Security
Council supports the “efforts (of the special envoy of the UN
Secretary-General) to find a sustainable and peaceful solution to the
crisis” in Libya.
The resolution also noted the decision of the AU PSC “to send its ad-hoc
High-Level Committee to Libya with the aim of facilitating dialogue to
lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and
sustainable solution”.
Libya is an African country. In addition to this, in terms of
international peace and security, the conflict in that country has
impacted and will continue to impact directly and negatively on a number
of African countries.
Despite this, the Security Council, in violation of Chapter Eight of the
UN Charter, which provides for cooperation between the Security Council
and regional bodies, chose completely to ignore the African Union,
preferring to accord a Chapter Eight status to the League of Arab
States, simply because the league had called for the establishment of a
no-fly zone.
Resolutions 1970 and 1973 of the Security Council imposed an arms
embargo on Libya. The latter resolution also specifically excluded “a
foreign occupation of any form or any part of Libyan territory” and
deplored and demanded an end to what it called “the continuing flow of
mercenaries” into Libya.
And yet it is now known that member states involved in the Nato
operation sent weapons to the NTC rebel forces and deployed military and
other personnel inside Libya to support these forces.
Again, this was in violation of international law and yet the UN Security Council did nothing to stop it.
The armed uprising in Libya started one week after the beginning of the
peaceful demonstrations. This can only mean that preparations had taken
place beforehand to effect a military uprising. In its resolutions the
Security Council says nothing about this.
In this regard, in a report on Libya issued on June 6, the International
Crisis Group said: “Much Western media coverage has from the outset
presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the
protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the
Libyan regime’s security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed
demonstrators who presented no real security challenge. This version
would appear to ignore evidence that the protest movement exhibited a
violent aspect from very early on.
“Likewise, there are grounds for questioning the more sensational
reports that the regime was using its air force to slaughter
demonstrators, let alone engaging in anything remotely warranting use of
the term “genocide”. That said, the repression was real enough, and its
brutality shocked even Libyans. It may also have backfired, prompting a
growing number of people to take to the streets.”
It is clear that the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations in Libya
served as a signal to various Western countries to intervene to effect
“regime change”, as clearly explained by Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron in
the joint letter we have cited.
These countries then used the Security Council to authorise their
intervention under the guise of the so-called “right to protect”. Thus
the “right to protect” was abused and international law was violated to
enable some of the major world powers to help determine the future of an
African country.
In this context all measures were taken to deny our continent the
possibility to help resolve the Libyan conflict without the deaths of
many people and the massive destruction of property, and on the basis of
the democratic transformation of that country.
It is clear to many on our continent that what has happened in Libya has
established a very dangerous precedent. The question has therefore been
raised – which African country will be next?
As Africans we have a continuing responsibility to protect our right to
self-determination as well as a duty to work together to resolve our
problems, fully cognisant of the interdependence of our countries and
the fact that we share a common destiny.
In this regard, to protect that right to self-determi1nation, it seems
obvious that we must engage in a sustained struggle to ensure respect
for international law and the rule of law in the system of international
relations. This must include ensuring that the UN Security Council
itself respects international law, which prescribes the rule of law.
This is an edited extract of a speech given by former president Thabo
Mbeki at the AGM of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces at Sun
City on November 5
http://www.thenewage.co.za/blogdetail.aspx?mid=186&blog_id=1547
So when does a blood bath becomes an atrocity? When does an atrocity becomes a massacre?
How big does the massacre have to be before it qualifies as a genocide? How many be dead before
a genocide to be classified as a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
Obama,Cameron and SarkozyCommitted war crimes in LibyaSo when does a blood bath becomes an atrocity? When does an atrocity becomes a massacre?
How big does the massacre have to be before it qualifies as a genocide? How many be dead before
a genocide to be classified as a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
Obama,Cameron and SarkozyCommitted war crimes in LibyaBy Latheef Farook
So, finally the American, British and French crusaders, controlled by the international Jewry, have slaughtered Libya’s oppressive dictator Muammar Gaddafi, massacred innocentpeople, raped and killed women and girls, destroyed the modern infrastructure and pushed this most prosperous Muslim country in Africa into Stone Age.
These war crimes were committed not by Taliban or Al Qaeda but by American President Barack Obama, British Prime Munister David Cameron and French President Nicolai Sarkozy team with the active collaboration of Israel. Of course the Jewish controlled Western media won’t speak about these war crimes.American led NATO AWACS spy plane spotted Gaddafi’s convoy. French Predator drones fired Hellfire missiles at the convoy killing at least 50 people among Qaddafi’s entourage .The British SAS thugs helped their mercenaries, Libyan revolutionaries, to capture, thrash and lynch Gaddafi before he was shot and killed.According to reports Gaddafi was seen walking after being dragged from a vehicle as heavily armed men repeatedly beat him.Gaddafi was dragged through the streets and paraded on a car through Misrata.Then he was pulled to the ground, dragged and shot in the head. Footage showed fighters rolling Gaddafi's lifeless body over on the pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. Later Gaddafi’s dead body was displayed in a meat store freezer for more than four days before burying him in an unknown place.If the American, Britain, France and of course Israeli war mongers wanted they could have killed Gaddafi months before. However they delayed because they needed time to destroy the entire country.In the process Obama, Cameroon and Sarkozi mercilessly bombed and destroyed Libya and committed massacres while sadist NATO troops raped innocent Libyan women.Writing about the NATO troops gang raping of Libyan Muslim women and girls Susan Lindauer, former US Asset covering Libya at the United Nations , had stated that” It's a story CNN won't report. Late at night there's a pounding on the door in Misurata. Armed soldiers force young Libyan women out of their beds at gun-point. Hustling the women and teenagers into trucks, the soldiers rush the women to gang bang parties for NATO rebels—or else rape them in front of their husbands or fathers. When NATO rebels finish their rape sport, the soldiers cut the women's throats.Susan Lindauer, herself a blue eyed Christian from the West added that “Rape parties" are the most graphic examples of NATO's loss of moral control. One weeping father told the fact-finding delegation how NATO rebels targeted seven separate households, kidnapping a virgin daughter from each pro-Gaddafi family. The rebels were paid for each kidnapped girl, just as they are paid for each Libyan soldier they kill— like mercenary soldiers. They hustled the girls into trucks, and took them to a building where the girls were locked in separate rooms.NATO soldiers proceeded to drink alcohol, until they got very drunk. Then the leader told them to rape the virgin daughters in gang bang style. When they'd finished raping the girls, the NATO leader told them to cut the breasts off the living girls and bring the breasts to him. They did this while the girls were alive and screaming. All the girls died hideous deaths. Then their severed breasts were taken to a local square and arranged to spell the word "whore."The grieving father spoke to a convention of workers, attended by the global fact-finding delegation. He was openly weeping, as all of us should. NATO's offenses in Libya are as terrible and unforgivable as Syria's castration and mutilation of the 13 year old boy that shocked the world. Yet so long as NATO's the guilty party, the western media has looked the other way in distaste.So much for the Obama-Cameron, Sarkozy barbarity to plunder Libyan wealth to please oil companies, weapons industries, banking and finance sectors and all other corporate conglomerates.The US-Europe committed this heinous war crimes under the pretext of Humanitarian Intervention to protect civilians with the blessings of United Nations which has been a shameful tool in the hands of US-NATO war mongers in implementing their evil designs on Muslims.'Time to up the ante': Chief of Defence Staff General David Richards has said NATO must allow bombing missions to target infrastructure
Thieves, rogues and collaborators placed in power in Muslims countries by the Judeo-Christian colonial masters were mere spectators while righteous people worldwide, seething with anger and frustrations, watched this 21st century mediaeval barbarity.
The day the vultures came under the guise of Democracy and freedomMuslims worldwide proudly claim that they constitute 1.5 billion in the world population. The question is where they were when the US-European crusaders raped and pillaged this Muslim country for eight longs months. No Street protests, no demonstrations, no condemnation, no picketing and nothing whatsoever showing their anger. Perhaps 1.5 billion mosquitoes would have been better?As usual Western media, integral part of the US-European war machine, misled the world with their well calculated lies and refused to highlight the destructions and killings by the self declared champions of democracy, freedom and human rights in Washington, London and Paris.Gaddafi did not become oppressive dictator overnight. He has been a tyrant for decades and the whole world was aware of it. However the war mongers dealt with him. Even around 2009 Gaddafi was a friend of US which supplied military hardware to Gaddafi while US corporate giants trained Libyan security personnel and civilians who later became “rebels” armed by the very same America to overthrow Gaddafi .Sarkozy, Brown, Blair and Berlusconi with GaddafiDespite all his brutalities and atrocities British war criminal Tony Blair, soaked in the 1.5 million innocent Iraqi people’s blood, visited Gaddafi in his tent, hugged and kissed him to put deals through for which Blair is well known. It was not so long ago that Italy’s sex scandal ridden President Silvio Berlusconi received Gaddafi with all honour. There were reports that Gaddafi funded Sarkozy’s election campaign.So why kill Gaddafi now?To begin with Libya with its abundant high quality oil is the richest country in Africa. Over throwing Gaddafi and installing puppets in power will help oil companies to loot Libya’s oil.US-European oil cartels entered Libya even before Gaddafi was killed and started finalising deals with the their mercenaries, the Revolutionary Transitional Council, RTC, led by Gaddafi’s former Justice Minister Mustapha Abdul Jalil.
Gaddafi threatened US and European drive to plunder Africa. For example;1-Gaddafi provided $300 million for the $ 500 million project to establish an African satellite communication which caused heavy losses to European colonial powers. As the Cameroonian writer, Jean-Paul Pougala wrote, it was Qaddafi’s Libya that offered “all of Africa its first revolution in modern times: connecting the entire continent by telephone, television, radio broadcasting and several other technological applications such as telemedicine and distance teaching. And thanks to the WMAX radio bridge, a low cost connection was made available across the continent, including in rural areas.”China and Russia helped launching satellites for South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and a second African satellite was also launched in mid-2010.2-Qaddafi earmarked $30 billion for three key projects in Africa: the African Investment Bank in Sirte; the African Monetary Fund in Yaounde, capital of Cameroon with a US$42 billion capital fund; and the Abuja-based African Central Bank (ACB) in Nigeria. If the ACB were established and started printing money it would end the monopoly of CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on African countries for more than 50 years. Viewed against this backdrop, one can now begin to understand why Sarkozy said that Qaddafi posed a threat to the global (their own) financial system. So he had to be eliminated.3-Sarkozy was not alone in this. Obama froze $30 billion of the Libyan Central Bank’s assets deposited in US banks as Libyans staged protests across the country. Interestingly, no assets of the former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak or the Bahraini butcher Hamad bin Isa’s have been frozen. Qaddafi’s earmarked contribution to the three key projects would have added the finishing touches to the African federation. With the killing of Qaddafi, a clear message has been sent to other opponents of Western hegemony.4-Gaddafi supported all moves to unite Africa, educate its people and raise their literacy and standard of living.5-Gaddafi refused to join the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland that processes international transactions raking in billions (perhaps trillions) in fees. Thus, the Libyan Central Bank was outside Western control and Qaddafi refused to allow the West to dictate his monetary policies.6- China has rapidly increased its influence throughout Africa.Libya has become the continent’s largest trading partner and a major destination for its oil and mineral exports. Beijing has also cultivated diplomatic and military ties across the region, undermining the dominance of the US and the former colonial European powers. By destroying Libya Obama sent a powerful message to China -that military force can be utilised to destroy any government with which China develops close economic and strategic relations at US expense.7-On top of all Libya is a Muslim country which should not be allowed to raise its head in keeping with the deeply entrenched policies of British-French colonial powers since second half of 19th century. These two colonial powers always wanted to keep Muslim Middle East in turmoil. This is the reason why they planted the alien Zionist Jewish racist entity of Israel in Palestine. Israel’s crime records since 1930s and its role in destabilising destabilise Middle East is common knowledge.Thus Gaddafi had to go. In fact Gaddafi was also to blame for his pathetic end because his 42 year old oppressive and brutal rule had won him intense hatred and opposition from his people despite his generous welfare measures. Gaddafi also failed to take note that that the West was plotting to overthrow him as they trained and armed Libyans in Chad.Drunk with power Gaddafi was also blind to reality when people started demanding political reforms. Had he only talked to the people and attended to their grievances he could have averted the unprecedented tragedy which fell on Libya. Instead he suppressed and brutalised the people and triggered the conflict which provided the opportunity for US-European war mongers to enter Libya under the guise of humanitarian intervention.His failure to realise the realities not only cost him his life when he was killed on Friday 21 October 2011 but also led to the virtual destruction of Libya causing untold misery to its people.Commenting on Gaddafi’s killing Shaikh (Dr) Haitham Al-Haddad asked” Where is Gaddafi now? Who can help him? Where are his children, his troops, his wealth, and his supporters? Now he faces the reality of what he used to do. Over 40 years of tyranny and arrogance have vanished in a few seconds. It was a matter of a few weeks ago when he called his people rats and he, by the will of Allah, vanished hidden in a sewage pipe like a rat.
His life and death is a lesson not only for other leaders but for all of us since many of us have elements of arrogance and pride within our hearts. Some of us deal in the same manner with our subjects. Others reject any advice as well as signs they see. Many western countries who supported Gaddafi either openly or secretly on different occasions were the first to abandon him when he was falling. Should not we reflect on this and stop seeking shelter from those who change their colours based on their own interests and have no respect for any value?The Libyans have confirmed that our Muslim ummah is still alive and is waking up to take its position. The Libyans have proven that will and determination can turn the impossible into what is possible. Had you asked anyone a few years ago regarding the removal of Gaddafi nobody would have imagined it possible. However, by the will of Allah it was done. Muslims should start changing their views regarding their position and their future as they have managed to remove the three most evil tyrants of the Middle East and will shortly get rid of the worst of them all, the Syrian president. The West should change the way it views Islam and Muslims and needs to realise that the Islamic-West relationship must be re-defined based on new parameters, stated Shaikh Haitham.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Libya a day before Gaddafi was killed and had publicly announced that Qaddafi should be killed. After he was killed there was jubilation in Western capitals .Describing this as sadism Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said “The faces of the leaders of ‘world democracies’ are so happy, as if they remembered how they hanged stray cats in basements in their childhoods,”US Senator Cynthia McKinney said during her visit to Tripoli in July 2011 as it was being bombed: that Tribal rivalry leading to warfare is also a distinct possibility that would leave the country in chaos for decades while Western multinationals resume the plunder of Libyan oil and other resources. The country is awash in weapons and coupled with tribal divisions, it is a recipe for disaster.Sirte was besieged and bombarded and the BBC’s Wyre Davies admitted that “This as almost a scorched earth policy while The British daily, The Telegraph, described Sirte as a “squalid ruin that is “reminiscent of the grimmest scenes from Grozny, towards the end of Russia’s bloody Chechen war.” Even hospitals were bombed and because of the blockade, food, water and medicines were prevented from entering the city to punish the civilians trapped there.Scorched earth policy of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy’s policy of humanitarian intervention.Patrick O’Connor wrote in the website WSWS on 19 October stating that”. The destruction of Sirte stands as a monumental war crime, for which primary responsibility rests with Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicolas Sarkozy.Every building in Sirte, including apartment blocks, homes, hospitals, schools, and other civilian structures, has either been levelled or severely damaged while militiamen looted homes, cars, and shops.The destruction of Sirte raises other historical parallels—Guernica, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the obliteration by the fascist powers of other urban centres in the 1930s and ’40s.All those responsible for the Libyan war ought to be charged with war crimes—beginning with Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy. These figures launched an unprovoked war of aggression, which was the principal charge laid against Germany’s Nazi leaders at the war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg. NATO claimed authorisation for the war in Libya on the pseudo-legal basis of UN Resolution 1973—but the “no fly zone” terms of this document were immediately flouted as soon as it was adopted.Columnist Gerald A. Perreira stated that NATO atrocities were, bolstered by the Arab sheikhdoms, including Al Jazeera’s boss, the Emir of Qatar and the pseudo Islamic House of Saud. These were the very forces that have invaded our lands and plundered and ransacked our resources for more than 500 years. We say to the representatives of ‘the Beast’, Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron, Clinton and the Arab minions who gave credence to this war, that you will surely find your rightful place in the bowels of hell.Mr. Lateef Farook began his journalistic career with the now defunct Independent Newspapers in 1966 before joining the Sri Lanka's premier English Daily Ceylon Daily News and the evening daily Ceylon Observer from 1971 covering local politic and foreign affairs besides finance and economic sectors. in 1976 Ceylon Daily News nominated him for the United Nations sponsored Dag Hammarskold scholarship for the third world journalists. In 1979, he led a group of Sri Lankan Journalists in Dubai, relaunching the Gulf News before joining the Khaleej Times a year later. Rejoining Gulf News in 1987 he subsequently became the Gulf News Bureau Chief in Bahrain. In 2002 he became Head of Special Reports for Gulf News in Dubai before returning home to launch the South Asia News Agency. He is the author of International best seller " War on Terrorism - The Untold Truth" first published in Malaysia May 2007. He is also the author of the book " Nobody's People - The forgotten plight of Sri Lankan Muslims".Now that Qaddafi is no more the way is opened for US-European colonial powers for the re-colonization of not only of Libya but the entire African continent. Ends
AFTER NATO'S VISIT ONLY RUINS AND CORPSES ARE VISIBLE...
Libya Today
Posted by alfatah69
Libya Today
After the criminal and inhumane terrorist attack by NATO and the gangs of bandits, rapists, murderers, looters, arsonists, terrorists
and torturers it unleashed against the people of Libya, what is the
truth today? We examine the stories coming out of Libya, whose people
certainly do not want this scourge thrust upon them as a Government.
For a start, what “dictator” educates his people for free, sends them to Universities abroad, including in the countries which were endemically hostile to the Jamahiriya system of Government (direct rule by people’s communities), what dictator houses his people for free, what dictator gives them free healthcare, what dictator gives them 50% of the price of their first car, what dictator distributes the country’s wealth directly into his people’s bank accounts (in so doing annoying those who made a pretty penny through corruption and who then sided with NATO against Colonel Gaddafi)?
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NATO has now fled with its tail between its legs,
-
knowing it broke every rule in the book in Libya,
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knowing it breached the terms of its mandate,
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knowing it breached UNSC Resolutions,
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knowing it breached the UN Charter,
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knowing it breached the terms of the Geneva Conventions.
NATO committed terrorist acts in Libya strafing civilian structures with military hardware, attacking water supplies, the factories which made pipes to repair them, bombing the electricity grid, interfering in communications, bombing schools, healthcare centers and hospitals.
The result is a massive indictment of NATO and its leaders for war crimes*, the result is a de facto defeat of NATO (for it was not able to achieve its goals by following the rules of engagement – you do not win a soccer match by strafing the opponents with machine guns and grenades and then packing the field with 50 players).
The result is that the tribes reject pleas from the Al-Qaeda, Salafist and Shiite fundamentalists which constitute the rats and the result is that the rats (terrorists supported by NATO – for those who claim otherwise, check their horrendous acts of cruelty throughout the campaign) do not enter Libya south of the coast. The Tuareg consider the rats as enemies, the Warfallah tribe considers the rats as enemies.
And what about the situation on the ground? While the rats deny it, Tajoura, Tarhouna and Bani Walid are under Green (Jamahiriya) control, because the people want to live in the Jamahiriya system and do not want to be controlled by gangs of terrorists and their foreign masters who wish to siphon off Libya’s oil. Rat graffiti is being replaced with Green walls.
The rats are showing clear signs that they are about to start a massive firefight amongst themselves.
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Benghazi wants to be independent from Tripoli,
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Misratah wants to become independent from Tripoli,
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Derna wants to be independent from Tripoli,
Misrata brigades are now speaking about attacking Tripoli.
Meanwhile southern Libya is Green (pro-Jamahiriya and anti-rats) and the population is resolute to rid the country of traitors, terrorists and criminals who sold out to NATO so that the FUKUS countries (France, UK and US) could steal the country’s sovereign funds and its massive resources.
God writes the history book, never Satan.
Photo: “Unarmed” civilians needing protection or a gang of heavily armed terrorists?
Indictment: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/06-11-2011/119534-indictment_nato-0/
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Rebel Atrocity Videos
last update: Nov. 10, 2011
Almost universally, the victims of these crimes are called "mercenaries," usually (black) African, though it now seems that probably none of them were. Their very presence on videos labeled as that, however, went far towards convincing the world when it mattered most.
For moths these have remained, some in several postings watched thousands of times each. But more and more people started noticing that these showed grossly inhumane atrocities, and said so. Consider these excerpts from an excellent article at "Pajamas Media."
While the International Criminal Court has announced that it is investigating charges of war crimes against Muammar al-Gaddafi and other members of the Libyan regime, harrowing video evidence has emerged that appears to show atrocities committed by anti-Gaddafi rebels. Among other things, the footage depicts summary executions, a prisoner being lynched, the desecration of corpses, and even a beheading. The targets of the most serious abuse are frequently black African prisoners. The ultimate source of the footage appears to be rebel forces or sympathizers themselves.This Benghazi beheading video now has a split-off examination, in part for troubling implications for the government whose building this happened at.
What is probably the most harrowing of the clips depicts a public beheading. A man with a long knife can be seen alternately sawing and hacking at the neck of a man who has been suspended upside-down. The victim’s inert body is soaked in blood. The beheading takes place in front of a burnt-out building in what appears to be a public square. The Dutch public broadcaster NOS has identified the location as the main square of the rebel capital of Benghazi. [see below]
A crowd numbering at least in the hundreds cheers on the assailants. At one point, a man begins chanting “Libya Hurra!”: “Free Libya!” According to the NOS translation, someone can be heard saying, “He looks like an African.” As the principal assailant begins to saw at the victim’s neck, members of the crowd yell “Allahu Akbar!” Dozens of members of the crowd can be seen filming the proceedings with digital cameras or cell phones.
Video #3, as given there, is one I have covered in some detail as "the al Baida massacre." It shows nine government soldiers and/or suspected mercenaries, held captive by armed rebels. This article links to a (poorly) English-subtitled version I've now saved a copy of to bolster my previous analysis. That suggests the nine prisoners were accused of shooting at someone's car, but only, they swear, after being shot at. They are all clearly threatened with death, and as noted in the video, compiled for Al-Libya TV, at least one and probably all but two of these nine were among the 21 or 22 found the next morning executed. And those 22 were among 130 Gaddafi soldiers killed by the regime itself, according to the rebels and the West at large, despite this available video proof otherwise (see the link for details).
A longer list of eleven videos accompanied an e-mail sent to Business Insider and oddly re-published by them on April 18. This was re-posted on other sites as well in the following days, and I watched most of them. But I checked the links a week later, and it was sudden attrition - nearly all deleted for "terms of service violation" or terminated account. Documented below are simply the descriptions give for a few of the videos in that e-mail (no guarantee of correct characterizations or implications).
- the boy that the rebels beat up because he supported the gov...The last was still up, the "harrowing" video I cited above, and I saved a copy. (I've saved a lot of these, if anyone ever can't find any, I might have it). I had at first thought the sudden loss of videos showed an attack on them (spurring the saving spree). but it seems the above list was just too reliant on one or two sources. Other postings of most or all of these videos, plus many more, still abound. Here are a few I should have mentioned before but either didn't know of or think of them in time. I'll refrain from embedding them here, only giving optional links. Most people don't really need to see these things, just to know about them in general.
- here is an old man beaten by the rebels
- here some girls from Benghazi who are not with the rebels where raped by the Rebels the peaceful with risk to bring the videos to the public... she is calling for the Libyan army to come to save them!!!
- they are doing it just like the americans.. humiliating sexually - that is a direct evidence of the rebel-CIA connection
- Libyan rebels behead,mutilate a soldier that surrenderd... where is the cnn?
One famous video of a suspected foreign mercenary (who denies it in Arabic but is called a liar), being beaten to death by a crowd in broad daylinght, left face-down on the blood-stained street with his pants pulled down, and later hanged upside-down by one leg. His name is given here as Hesham Shoshan, and elsewhere as Hisham Mansour, DOB: 22-2-1983. I'm not sure the date of this attack, but it was probably within a few days of his 28th birthday. 100% Libyan citizen. This video focusses on the family and fiance he left behind, speaking of him and/or his killers. Wish I knew what they were saying.
21-2-2011 Abuse soldiers Bawhita - التنكيل بالجنود بالبيضاء
Basically, a black man is threatened vigorously with death, by a small armed gang, for several minutes, until he's harangued into saying the right thing. The video cuts without a single death. Wish I knew what they were saying.
Another couple of vids with no visible gore but disproving the myth of "peaceful Protesters" slaughtered by the military. Here they filmed themselves taking the fight to a military base, and seem to be firing numerous weapons - one assault rifle is fired repeatedly into the barracks, trees inside are burning, and at another point (later) they fire in the air to celebrate an ambulance running out of the compound. Real nice. They reportedly stormed the place, probably after getting more guns, and then took more yet.
Well, for one, he was just sorta found that way, all over again it seems, in a video posted March 5, two weeks later, unburied in the desert. Does he look two-weeks dried up compared to the earlier video, or is it just video that's so old old? Isn't that considered an atrocity itself in Muslim society, where burial within 24 hours is mandated? Such niceties aren't for Afro-Merc dogs?
Then there's the "Libya's Western-backed revolution" series, posted by user Sonbakkah. With 25 parts so far, each covering a certain atrocity, it might be close to comprehensive. Some of them ... I've become jaded, but parts 2 and 13 in particular made the bottom drop from my stomach in horror and gave me serious pause. Some are not clear in their relevance - gory dead people with little clue who they are and how they died. Each is just the raw footage, or someone else's edit (Saif Gaddafi's al Libya TV, etc.), with the same text intro, many without the original audio, but instead the same very sad Arabic music that I quite like.
Part 1 - Misrata I believe, a scene others have written of - quite a crowd stands atop a burnt-out tank in a main square while they take turns displaying high for all to see charred pieces of something, in different sizes. I can't make any of them out, but one's said to be a man's heart, another part of his whole de-limbed torso. I don't see what else it would be that everyone wants to see. Sick people, if you ask me.
Part 2 - A lone man on a side-street trying to back away from and fake-fight a nasty gang of about eight pumped-up, possibly stoned young men, some in no shirts, dancing around, swinging clubs and small furniture at him. He might be black, seems skinny and possibly mentally deficient. They tear his white civilian shirt off, revealing a green undershirt, and it cuts before we see the end. Later, someone else I hope (lighter-skinned?) is shown, dead by then I hope, with slices from a heavy blade leaving guts, muscle, and bone visible, seeming to flex and breathe at one point as if alive. But then seeing the face I hoped not - sliced clean open, teeth, tongue, and nasal cavity are all right there. I can't go back and look again, sorry if I remembered wrong. I almost cried there... The story isn't clear. (update 7/18: The especially aggressive shirtless kid is wielding a sword, not a club, so this might well be the result ... at the start, it should be noted, a young boy tries to stop the swordsman but is ignored.)
Part 3 - The famous Benghazi beheading scene - didn't watch it, so it might be a variation.
Part 4 - Same thing by the still image, so unless two of the same were posted, we have at least two recordings from the sea of cameras filming that night.
Part 5 - Fascinating scene. It's nighttime, again in a main square somewhere, and a very large crowd surrounds a struggling black man attacked by some men who finally get a rope around his neck. A crane then yanks him up and leaves him dangling above the throng, which whack him with clubs like pinata. Mercifully, they shoot him a few times until dead after letting this drag on only a few seconds.
Part 6 - Another suspected mercenary, dead, hanging upside down from a fence of what seems a government facility. Stripped from the waist up, his shoulder is slashed open. It's daylight, and a pleased crowd is again taking pictures and video.
Part 7 - Two black men laying dead on debris-strewn ground, stripped from the waist up.
Part 8 - Again the "Al-Baida" massacre, 'dying soldier gets some water' version. I've counted 21 or 22 corpses in that courtyard (besides this likely actor), making this atrocity highly weighted relative to the rest, if not as bizarre and cruel as some. Like ...
Part 9 - A headless body, neck looking like stretched skin tucked behind - no visible blood. He's also suffered massive trauma to the legs, twisted, broken, swollen, almost unrecognizable, like a mutant with too many knees. One arm is also badly tweaked, with something hanging out of it. It looks like he was pulled through some kind of machine, or drawn and quartered. Possibly left in water and mud for a day or two? Again, the story's just not clear to me, no audio even for Arab speakers, but a document or letter is shown, perhaps barely readable.
Part 11 - Very gory - a soldier in some junk-strewn warehouse, perhaps, with a lot of brain matter blown clear out of a vary large hole in his forehead, collapsing his otherwise intact face. He'd been shot from behind, while his head was over his right forearm, possibly while crawling. Spent casings lay in his blood. Something like seven or eight more dead soldiers in fatigues are panned across closely, piled against a far wall, partly covered in rubble. One has a head wrapped in bandages or cloth strips, none particularly gory. A few more are shown amid wreckage in the next room. Not really sure how much of an atrocity this was - soldiers die all the time in wars.
Part 12 - The same soldier (Hisham Mansour) covered above, and another shown being hanged, plus other Libyan soldiers killed in the massacres (no video available, sorry) have their paperwork and portrait photos in uniform shown. Apparently from al-Libya TV.
Part 13 - Seems to be a rooftop area. I don't know why, but there are body parts strewn about. They don't look like blown-up bodies, but torn up ones. In a recessed area with a rope net stretched across it, hang one dead body and two partial legs from different people (victims, 3). Then on the roof in the noonday sun, a human head, with a huge stretch of back skin attached. There's also an apparent bullet hole taking out his right eye and all surrounding tissue. It's pretty terrible stuff. (He's not black, and looks almost like a burly Roman soldier, not that I've ever seen one).
Part 14 - Several killed loyalists piled into the back of a jeep, some hanging over the sides. The bed is full of death and running with blood, an extra body stuffed in the passenger's seat, his slumped head pulled back for the camera.
Part 15 - The same soldier (Hesham Shoshan/Mansour) covered above, dead and bare-assed on the street, still being abused.
Part 16 - apparently missing. Must have been too horrible, the imagination supposes...
Part 17 - Dead soldiers or loyalists, two pickup truck beds full of them. The same video (which we opened with) is shown elsewhere as being from Misrata.
Part 18 - A man brings a torn-off leg into the hospital.
Part 19 - It looks like a man hanged in the green-painted gate of some official building, so one can't enter without bumping into it. His head is bent back, and someone standing up on the gate kicks it. (below we find he's on a meat hook). A man in a jacket with "POLESI" (?) on the sleeve is pointing and directing others to do something, like clear the area. He seems totally ineffective. It's short, chaotic, and badly filmed.
Part 20 - Dead soldier, Arab in appearance, eyes frozen open, blood had come out his nose and mouth. The cameraman runs across a courtyard to where about six others are piled, hungrily zooming in on their bloodied faces and wounds. One has shirt and pants just soaked in blood, another, a nasty head shot.
Part 21 - the al-Baida massacre, behind the scenes as shown on al Libya, with longer interrogation footage than some versions.
Part 23 - Dead and reportedly burned soldiers beneath blankets. One looks like he was just badly sunburnt, others remain covered. Somewhere between nine and 12 bodies at least are present.
Part 24 - two dead soldiers in the bed of a pickup truck.
Part 25 - dead soldiers across the hood of a truck. Widely re-posted elsewhere.
That last was just posted June 16, and I suspect there are more coming. That'll do for me, however.
---
Update June 29/July 5
I just found the site http://www.obamaslibya.com/, which then quickly disappeared - crashed or hacked, who knows. And I didn't know how to save any of them. Leave it to a spirited anti-Obama partisan to find the most horrible, disgusting-sounding videos I can't watch. I was able to view the first - a close-up knife beheading of a very frightened
The second video I also saw, a re-post of one mentioned above - the extra bloody dead soldiers in a truck (see "part 14"). The third was just funny - an Islamist fighter declaring Jihad and then having his gun blow up in his hands. The others are few, unseen and now lost for the moment, and some I hope to God are mislabeled, exaggerated, something. Here are all the titles:
Libyan rebels behead Libyan Soldier
Libyan rebels Kill and steal weapons from Libyan Soldiers
CIA fighting rebels
Libyan Rebels sodimize Libyan Soldier with pistol
Libyan Protestors and Rebels hang and behead soldier
NATO bombs normal cars
Rebel forces Libyan Solider to cannibalize
Libyan Rebels Torture Small Child by Sticking a Pole Through His Body
:(
I Can't look any more, for two reasons at least. But if anyone's seen this last especially ... is it real? Do we know it was torture and not a horrible accident following an explosion, etc.? Even these monsters wouldn't film that, would they?
---
Update July 18: Obama's Libya is back up - nothing new, just the same eight videos. I still can't find a way to save any of them. The sodomizing one is, again, killed soldier Hesham Mansour - I didn't notice before but the protesters stick what looks like a rifle barrel in his butt crack just before setting his boot on his butt. The "normal cars" NATO bombed are not a rebel atrocity and, according to a comment here, not normal but paramilitary/contractor/mercenary vehicles, and not even from this war, but from Iraq, a few years ago. And the bomb is supposedly a surface car bomb, not anything from the sky.
Does anyone more knowledgeable have anything to share regarding the story here? The text overlay gives this as happening in Misrata, where the government has alleged some other very heinous abuses... (see below)
---
July 5/6, later: Libya S.O.S. adds more videos, via a comment below. One post to start with, showing six videos embedded, but without working Youtube links: http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/06/bloody-scandal.html
top video: see "part 13" - re-post.
middle: See "part 19", this is an addition - the dead soldier (?) first being hoisted up - on a meat-hook under his chin (I may have read of this in an article recently).
Third and fifth, re-posts (al Baida massacre).
Fourth, new to me - dead soldiers in the street, heavily shot up - one's head is just a pile of mush. No particular cruelty shown - war is hell, and the rebels started it.
Sixth: I've seen it and even saved a copy, but didn't link here yet - no guts but lots of blood surround two dead, black, soldiers on the cobblestones near their truck, abused and insulted by the victors. One victim is roughly picked up and dropped again, then mock-stomped in disdain.
---
July 18: Select others from Libya S.O.S., many available under the same titles at their Youtube channel:
(V) A family been raped by the Rebels
[with their clothes on? I don't know about this one - lots of blood, an attractive lady and possibly pre-teen daughter, laying face down, dead, fully clothed (though in short skirts), in a trashed living room, among huge pools of blood. One still image only at 1:05, long slow text additions before and after. The image I've seen elsewhere, given as from Misrata, and had the mother's blood centered at chest level, possibly tying in with the Misrata rebel rape-and-breast-removal stories I'm skeptical of.]
(V) Rape in Libya
[Speak of the devil - the story elaborated on Libyan TV, confessed by a former rebel. I didn't watch the interview, but read the transcript, provided.]
(V) Martyr blood of Varffala in Libya (+18)
[A backup posting of the knife beheading mentioned above - with added details in the text beneath:
"In the video, a man lost his life at the hands of "peaceful rebels".( March 20.2011.) Western-backed Al Qaeda rebels aka 'democracy seekers' beheaded Mr. Hamza al-Gheit Fughi , a truck driver from the Varfalla tribe. They beheaded him because he was pro-Gadaffi.and let that be a lesson to the others, huh?]
(V) Cutting BABY's fingers, legs and hands (+18)
[two small children, a baby, and a heavyset adult dead (apparently for some days) in a muddy room that was blown open by shelling or something. One child is missing half a leg, the baby part of an arm, the adult maybe parts of legs, and part of a hand is also shown. It doesn't look intentional, and it's not clear whose weapons did this.]
(V) BURNED SOLDIER (+18)
[Soldier shot in the street, dead, much blood, is then set on fire by sick people and gasoline for a moment. It doesn't work, the lens steams up (?), and they start to drag him away.]
---
July 26: A new video from Benghazi, I'm presuming late February, covered in its own post here. Al Jalaa hospital, under rebel control. Their idea of medicine: decide the injured black man is a mercenary who doesn't deserve treatment. When he's too weak to stand and walk out, push him down the hall. When he falls and is hacked with a sword, drag him out and toss him on the street. When he just gets stomped and slashed more and can't do anything but die slowly ... well, the end I'll leave to those who read that.
---
July 31: Hator-Ra has a clearer resolution version of police/soldier Hisham Mansour's death and humiliation, in connection with certain weaponry the rebels seized. (post in Spanish, imagery in universal). A non-lethal police weapon used in Libya, given as the FN-303 in another video, seems to be the same they're putting in his butt, apparently the one they caught him with and punished his mercenary ass for having.
---
August 9:
I've been alerted to a new video that's of supreme importance in showing what the Libyan people are up against here. The Nafusah Mountain rebels, illegally armed by French airdrops and emboldened by the West's patronage in general, expaned abusively into surrounding towns about a month ago. Somewhere in there, it seems they slaughtered at least 30 civilians and dumped them in a mass grave at Qala'a. See: The Qala'a Massacre.
Aug 31: The dead there number 34, and of course regime forces are blamed (the video was from one's "mobile phone," rebels say), but that's still in doubt - see above link for further details on what I've re-named the Qawalish tree farm massacre.
Then they took Tawergha, Zlitan, Az Zawiyah, and other cities, committing their atrocities primarily off camera, it seems. And finally the rebel atrocity videos from Tripoli itself started rolling in, but only mysterious, he-said vs. he's-dead, after-the-fact presentations. And the cameras are more professional. Alex Thomson reported for Channel 4 on the arrest of nine "Gaddafi fighters," African migrants called mercenaries whose brutal lynching was averted only by the camera crew staying when the rebels said to go. As he said, it's a dangerous time to be a black man in Tripoli, lately. Then they showed the charred skeletons of 53 people killed by the Khamis brigade, it's said. This has spurred me to finally note the atrocity videos of charred bodies that I'd somehow neglected to add here this whole time:
Now they're there, black men are getting executed in droves all over certain neighborhoods, and we cannot tell who was burned in that shed and by whom. My guess is it's the Khamis brigade, killed by NATO and the rebels, then burnt so false identities could again be attached to the unrecognizably charred dead.
---
Sept. 16: Are some of the rebels' own protesters-killed videos rebel atrocity ones as well? In al Baida, Feb.17, some half-decent evidence says yes. Video Study: Al Baida Snipers
Sept. 30: It's worth noting here too that the videos collected at this post seem to show the aftermath of a major rebel atrocity, for reasons explained there. About 75-100 people, mostly black men, mostly government loyalists, were found dead in a Tripoli hospital. It was said by the rebels who controlled it the old staff ran away fearing gov't snipers, leaving sniper-injured patients to die of neglect, and they just found it that way. But the signs of close-up gunshot executions of staff and patients alike, all over the hospital, kind of go against that. As does the black-skinned patient fully beheaded in his hospital bed.
Oct. 13:
The situation remains somewhat the same in Tripoli, vis-a-vis videos - little more seen of recent violence. Somewhere around August 23 or 24, some people trying to flee in cars with bedding were stopped from doing so, some with deadly force it seems. 20 of them of darker complexion were dumped at the hospital mentioned above. And more atrocities by someone are being uncovered in mass graves of executed prisoners from the battles of late August, with a recent batch said to total 900 bodies. A graveyard of about 800 unidentified pro-Gaddafi dead was also reported around Misrata, along with other such across recently taken areas. There's no video I'm aware of in any of these cases. A rash of atrocities from Sirte is in the offing. Whether or not any videos of the new government's handiwork there will be shared, I can't yet say. (later same day: CNN has footage, re-posted here, of 12 executed prisoners on Sirte's outskirts)
I've also seen several new videos from the older days, here and there. Most are unremarkable. One stands out enough to mention. I have no context information aside from it being in Banghazi and done by rebels, and it looks like rebel work to me. A fighting age man, apparently of partial black descent judging by nose and hair (skin tone medium) lies dead in the morgue. His hands apparently had been bound but aren'tnow, and his feet are still tied together.
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2011/04/rebel-atrocity-videos.html
10/nov/11
By Pravda.Ru
The law case of the century: Indictment against NATO military and political leaders (UPDATED)
NATO: Indictment for breach of international law in the Great
Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The military and political
leaders of NATO are hereby accused of the following crimes committed in
the Libyan campaign of 2011, in which the systematic breaches of
international law are underlined.
Understanding that international law exists and that it is
systematically broken by certain powers with impunity, understanding
that such a situation is unacceptable and that the same set of laws
should apply to all, equally, with the same sets of weights and measures
employed in upholding it, I hereby accuse NATO and the below-mentioned
individuals, party to its acts in the Great Socialist People's Libyan
Arab Jamahiriya from February to September (ongoing) 2011, of breach of
international law;
1. Accusation: NATO war crimes, crimes against humanity, breach
of UN Charter, Breach of UNSC Resolutions, breach of Geneva Conventions,
occasioning murder, attempted murder, actions occasioning grievous and
actual bodily harm, destruction of private and public property.
2. Accused:
Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Denmark) NATO Secretary-General; Charles Bouchard
(Canada), Commander of Operations; Nicolas Sarkozy, Édouard Guillaud
(France); Rinaldo Veri, Commander Allied Maritime Command (Italy); David
Cameron, Sir Stuart Peach (UK); Barack Obama, Carter Ham, Sam Locklear
(USA); Harald Sunde (Norway), Abdullah II (Jordan); Hamad bin Khalifa al
Thani (Qatar), Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan (UAE); Sverker Goranson
(Sweden) and the Defence Ministers Pieter de Crem (Belgium), Anuy
Angelov (Bulgaria), Gitte Lillelund Bech (Denmark); Panos Beglitis
(Greece); Hans Hillen (Netherlands); Gabriel Oprea (Romania);Carme
Chacón Piqueras (Spain); Ismet Yilmaz (Turkey), Liam Fox (UK), Ignazio
La Russa (Italy), Gérard Longuet (France).
William Hague (UK), Hillary Clinton (USA) Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini
(?)
3. Law and breaches:
3.1 Proper procedure was not followed: Under the UN Charter, any
military action which comes outside a UNSC Resolution in any theatre of
conflict must necessarily come from a separate Resolution in the UNSC
and any military action must come after the Military Council is
convened. This was not the case under UNSC Resolutions 1970 and 1973
(2011) covering the Libyan conflict.
Why did NATO not convene the Military Staff Committee of the UNSC? Under
the UN Charter, Chapter VII, Article 46: "Plans for the application of
armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of
the Military Staff Committee". Such committee was never convened.
This is a violation of the UN Charter rendering Resolutions 1970 and
1973 (2011) void; There is also evidence that such Resolutions were
passed on the evidence from a false flag event. The supposed crimes
committed by the Libyan authorities have been hotly contested and must
be investigated;
3.2 Intervention in domestic affairs of a sovereign state: UNSC
Resolution 2131 (XX) of 21 December 1965, containing the Declaration on
the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States
was backed up by Resolutions 31/91 of 14 December 1976, 32/153 of 19
December 1977, 33/74 of 15 December 1978, 34/101 of 14 December 1979 and
35/159 of 12 December 1980 on non-interference in the internal affairs
of States.
3.3 Bombardment of undefended buildings and structures: Article 3 of the
Statute of The Hague International Penal Court which states clearly
that one criterion for indictment for war crimes is:
"Attack or bombardment, by whatever means, against undefended cities, towns, villages, buildings or houses".
Another clause of the same Article 3 could also be invoked:
"Massive destruction of cities, towns or villages or destruction not justified by military necessity".
The attack on Libya's water supply network on Friday July 22 and the
attack on the factory making pipes for the supply system on Saturday
July 23 in al-Brega were not covered under "military necessity" in which
case, under Article 3, this was an act of wanton destruction of
civilian structures with military hardware. This renders NATO liable for
trial by its own court, the ICC at The Hague;
3.4 Support for outlawed organizations and individuals. Despite this admission:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/counter-terrorism/
proscribed-terror-groups/proscribed-groups?view=Binary ...
There is evidence that armed groups fighting inside Libya include the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which according to the British
Government: "The LIFG seeks to replace the current Libyan regime with a
hard-line Islamic state. The group is also part of the wider global
Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by Al Qa'ida. The group has
mounted several operations inside Libya, including a 1996 attempt to
assassinate Mu'ammar Qadhafi" and for which reason is on the Home Office
list of proscribed terrorist groups, despite this, the UK aided and
abetted the said group;
3.5 Failure to apply international law: Under the UN Charter, Chapter
VI, Article 33, member states must "seek a solution by negotiation,
enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement,
resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of
their own choice".
3.6 The Jamahiriya Government of Libya had the right to defend itself
without being attacked: Chapter VII, Article 51 refers to the right of
States to defend themselves against armed insurgency:
"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a
Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence
shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in
any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council
under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems
necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and
security";
3.7 Mercenaries: UNSC Resolution 1973 (2011), in its Chapter on Protection of Civilians, in paragraph 4. states:
"4. Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General,
acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and
acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary
measures, notwithstanding paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011), to
protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in
the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a
foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory,
and requests the Member States concerned to inform the Secretary-General
immediately of the measures they take pursuant to the authorization
conferred by this paragraph which shall be immediately reported to the
Security Council;
There have been numerous reports of mercenaries being used by NATO and
the rebels it supported; French Foreign Legion, Egyptians, Qataris, UAE
forces, among others;
3.8 Boots on the ground: UNSC Resolution 1970 (2011) Paragraph 16:
"16. Deplores the continuing flows of mercenaries into the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya and calls upon all Member States to comply strictly with
their obligations under paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011) to prevent
the provision of armed mercenary personnel to the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya;".
If David Cameron has admitted that UK special services have assisted the
terrorists on the ground, this is against the UN mandate which allowed
NATO to intervene in Libya, and is a war crime.
A request has been sent (August 30) to the British FCO and Ministry of
Defence to confirm or deny that troops have been used in the theatre of
operations; no reply has been forthcoming;
3.9 Non-enforcement of UN Resolution, and violation of international
law, by transporting rebel forces to enter the theatre of operations:
UNSC Resolution 1970 (2011):
In the Chapter on Enforcement of the arms embargo, Paragraph 13 of the same states:
"13. Decides that paragraph 11 of resolution 1970 (2011) shall be
replaced by the following paragraph : "Calls upon all Member States, in
particular States of the region, acting nationally or through regional
organisations or arrangements, in order to ensure strict implementation
of the arms embargo established by paragraphs 9 and 10 of resolution
1970 (2011), to inspect in their territory, including seaports and
airports, and on the high seas, vessels and aircraft bound to or from
the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, if the State concerned has information that
provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo contains items the
supply, sale, transfer or export of which is prohibited by paragraphs 9
or 10 of Resolution 1970 (2011) as modified by this resolution,
including the provision of armed mercenary personnel, calls upon all
flag States of such vessels and aircraft to cooperate with such
inspections and authorises Member States to use all measures
commensurate to the specific circumstances to carry out such
inspections";
In violation of this: supply of French Milan anti-tank missiles, Swedish
Carl Gustav 84mm rifles, 68mm rockets and mortars and Maadi assault
rifles from Egypt; this, in addition to the British, French and Italian
military advisors helping the terrorists.
3.10 Violation of Geneva Conventions: NATO and the Transitional
National Council have given the people of Sirte ten days to surrender or
face a full military onslaught. This is not a cease-fire. While they
await their fate, they will still be subject to artillery fire and NATO
bombing, and food, water and electricity have already been cut off.
These siege tactics have been outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. In
particular, Article 14 of the second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions
states, "Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is prohibited. It
is therefore prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless
for that purpose objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian
population such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of
food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations, and
supplies and irrigation works."
The 4th Geneva Convention prohibits all forms of attacks on civilians
and the collective punishment of civilian populations, so virtually
everything that the combined TNC-NATO forces are doing to the people of
Sirte is strictly illegal and in fact criminal.
4. Sample Crimes:
21.03.2011. Tens of civilians killed on 31st of March in Gharyan city in western Libya (video).
07.04.2011. --- NATO bombers killed 15 rebels and wounded 22 on the outskirts of Brega.
20.04.2011. TRIPOLI NATO Bombing The Libyan Arab Association For Human Rights (video).
27.04.2011. --- NATO attacked the city of Misrata, killing 12 people and wounding 5 others.
30.04.2011. --- The bombing of the Downs Syndrome School in Tripoli (video).
30.04.2011.--- NATO killed inocent civilinas: The youngest son of our
great leader Saif Al arab gaddafi was only 29 years old, grandchildren
of our Great Leader, Saif Mohammed Muammar Gaddafi was one year and 3
months (born on 30 January 2010) , Carthage Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi was
2 years and 9 months old (born on 2 August 2008) and Mastura Humaid
(daughter of Aisha) was 4 months and half (she was born on 15 December
2010) (video).
09.05.2011. --- 600 civilians are reported dead after getting into
trouble on thier boat. They send urgent SOS messages to NATO, but they
were ignored (video).
13.05.2011. The 11 imams (spiritual leaders of Islam) that were killed.
The imams were killed in a NATO bombing in the city of Brega (east),
which also injured about 50 people. (video)
17.05.2011.---The NATO attack on Libya's Anti-Corruption Agency on May
17 was extremely convenient for some Westrern politicians (video).
12.06.2011. --- The bombing of the University of Tripoli. Death toll not yet established. (link) or photo evdence.
15.06.2011. --- At least 12 people were killed and two injured when a
NATO air strike hit a bus Wednesday evening in Libya's Kikla city
(video).
19.06.2011. --- 9 civilians were killed by a NATO air strike on Tripoli (video).
19.06.2011. --- Massacre of Al-Hamedi family 15 civilians, including 3
children, were killed by another NATO air strike on Sorman (link).
19.06.2011. --- Firetracs was bombed (video).
22.06.2011. --- The bombing of the Great Man made Waterway irrigation
system, which supplies most Libyans with their drinking water. Water for
4,5 million INOCENT CIVILIANS IN LIBYA (video).
22.06.2011. -- Zliten - many civilians were chopped into pieces. (link)
28.06. 2011. --- NATO air strike killed 16 civilians (one whole family
killed) and more than 20 injured in public market in Tawergha east of
Misurata (video).
04.07.2011. --- NATO bombing civilian checkpoint in ZWARA. (video)
15.07.2011. --- At least 12 people were killed and 2 injured when a
NATO. The air strike hit the bus with inocent civilians in Kikla City.
(video)
17.07.2011. --- Multiple urban areas were bombed simultaneously this
morning. Anywhere from 60 to 75 bombs may have been dropped mostly in
the areas of Tajura and Seraj, according to eyewitness reports. (video)
23.07.2011. --- The bombing of the factory which makes the pipes for the water system, and the murder of 6 of its employees.
24.07.2011. NATO bombing cattle and poultry project in Torghae city (video).
24. 07.2011. Libya war: NATO Press Briefing, 15 civilians are dead in Tawergha (video).
24.07.2011. ---The bombing of the Hospital at Zliten. Resulting in the
murder of a minimum, of 50 civilians many of them children.(video).
25.07.2011. NATO bombed food storage in Zlitan.(video).
25.07.2011. --- 20 civilians were killed by NATO air strikes in Bir al Ghanam. (video)
30.07.2011. --- NATO warplanes also repeatedly bombed a Libyan television station, killing 3 and injuring 15.
02.08.2011. --- Law School In Zlitan (Zliten) (video).
04. 08.2011. --- Woman and two children (video).
07.08.2011. --- NATO bombed today the vegetable market in Tripoli (link).
08.08.2011. --- Libya: NATO MASSACRED 85 CIVILIANS: 33 CHILDREN, 32 WOMEN and 20 MEN (video)...
The persistent on-going bombing of the civilian population in Zliten,
Sirte and Tripoli, death toll not yet established. All4Peace &
LibyaSOS.
http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/operation-unified-protector-nato-in.html
5. Further documentary evidence of the crimes.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000524791925
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49TOmo3CZOU&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXRwBXK34o
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25221
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbR8FaBwPRw
http://rt.com/news/interview-libya-nato-intrusion-127/
http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/11/operation-unified-protector-nato-in.html
Drawn up by: Timothy Bancroft Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Director and Chief Editor Portuguese Version
Sandra Barr, Nada Pejnovic and Tatjana Dimitrijevic
Christopher C. Black, Barrister, Canada
Will NATO remain after Libyan war? ...
Published: 08 November, 2011, 16:51
AFP Photo / Aymeric Vincenot
Russian political scientist Igor Panarin believes that the Libyan campaign, which ended October 31, demonstrated the weakness of NATO and revealed the military bloc's potential to collapse. In his article for RT, the analyst explains his view.
Will NATO still be there in 2016? Seems like a stupid question at first. Nothing is threatening NATO and nobody is questioning the bloc's further existence. That, however, is just the first impression…
Driving up to the NATO campus in the outskirts of Brussels for the first time, I was slightly surprised to find that the image created over decades of zealous propaganda differed quite a lot from the real picture. In real life, this set of gray, drab-looking, totally identical buildings is puzzling at best. Are we looking at a 'paper tiger', whose might has been overblown by the global media? Is it just that 5 thousand NATO bureaucrats simply need to make a living… and to justify their existence? Besides, they must like living in Brussels as well.
Tranquility, apathy even, reigns supreme in the NATO headquarters. Everybody inside walks slowly, as if drowsing. Laziness and complacency, regularity and cheerlessness are the first to catch your eye in the NATO HQ corridors.
Well, of course, the NATO bureaucrats do work; they organize military operations, the latest of which took place in Libya. Gaddafi was perfectly suited for the role of the 'bad guy' to showcase the might and efficiency of NATO. After all, Gaddafi's army had old weapons and virtually no aviation or air defense. A perfect case for NATO to step in, isn’t it? However, there were skeptics as well: Robert Gates, then Secretary of Defense, protested, saying that his country, already paying 75% of all NATO military expenditure, did not need another military venture. In the end, however, US leaders upheld the idea of intervention.
Key instigators of the military operation were the French, who had amassed quite a debt to Gaddafi. On March 19, they began bombing the government troops. Three independent operations began: the British, the French, and the American. Later, the allies were joined by air forces of Canada, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Holland, Norway, and those of non-NATO-members Sweden, Qatar, Jordan, and the UAE. The naval operation to block the Libyan coast also involved vessels from Turkey and even Bulgaria and Romania.
This patchwork coalition was initially coordinated by American leadership, but on 31 March NATO assumed overall command of the war effort, titled Operation Unified Protector (OUP). Once the air strikes commenced, many war planners and observers believed Gaddafi’s troops would break up and scatter in no time. However, this did not happen. The war was obviously becoming a protracted one, so NATO was forced to change its tactics.
Despite repeatedly denying it in public, the alliance shifted its mission objective to destroying the Libyan armed forces and killing Colonel Gaddafi. To this end, the coalition deployed attack helicopters and spec ops units in Libya, and on the eve of the Battle of Tripoli the rebel troops were secretly reinforced by battle-hardened military professionals from Britain, France, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It was allied spec ops troops that stormed and captured the Gaddafi stronghold at Bab al-Azizia. Thus, a NATO-led operation that kicked off as a civilian protection effort unfolded into a full-scale military campaign.
Despite NATO’s eventual triumph, the war in Libya has revealed its weak spots and generally proved that the alliance is a paper tiger after all.
- It became apparent, for instance, that should the United States ever withdraw from the alliance, the latter will soon collapse: challenged by limited American involvement in the campaign, the European allies took over six months to defeat an enemy as weak as Libya.
- Quite a few NATO allies refrained from engaging in OUP altogether, or limited their participation to a purely symbolic contribution (e.g. Romania). The non-NATO members of the coalition, Qatar and the UAE, proved much more committed to the war effort than some of the allies combined. Therefore, the Libya campaign has revealed deep-seated disunity within the alliance.
- Since NATO has little efficiency given a lack of US engagement, it does not live up to being an inclusive military alliance designed for the protection of the Euro-Atlantic community. Instead, it comes across as a detachment of the US military machine, as well as a front for Washington to use whenever it needs to pass its own military gamble for a well-meaning international effort.
The question is, will the United States remain in a position to afford paying for this expensive fig leaf when faced with a resurging crisis? Or will they abandon it and stick to relying on themselves and fighting strictly for their own purposes, the way they have done in Iraq and Afghanistan, where NATO’s engagement is effectively limited to sentry duties, while American GIs and local security forces take all the heat?
On top of all that, it seems that some of the Europeans are starting to realize how much of a smoke screen NATO is. How long till they get fed up with having to waste their money on backing American military adventures in places that have nothing to do with European security?
Therefore, the Libya campaign has unearthed a crisis festering within the world’s longest-standing military alliance. Given the severe economic downturn ravaging the Western economies, this systemic crisis may trigger a self-destructive process and eventually cause NATO to disintegrate.
Professor Igor Panarin, Doctor of Political Sciences, for RT
http://rt.com/politics/libya-kadhafi-nato-us-783/
I'm afraid NATO and its leaders don't understand ethics.
An interesting Commentary by Dennis South
At the beginning of the NATO aggression against Libya, I "predicted" that NATO, as an institution, would not last another two years. I openly admit that my "predictions" are sometimes purely wishes. At other times, those predictions are based on a combination of gut instincts, as well as observation.
After two months of NATO aggression had passed, it was clear to almost anyone that NATO was a paper tiger, to use the expression that was once used by Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung). Its date of completion of its operations in Libya kept shifting from day to day, week to week, as it faced the fact that the Libyan Defence Force was not a paper tiger, but was a formidable and professional military force.
Those Libya-lovers who were carefully watching NATO's ineptness were greatly encouraged that the war would soon end; that NATO would be forced to pull out, because of its deep failures, week after week. In the beginning, the people in Libya were walking around almost jovially, still conducting their business, as well as their pleasure. No one could have possibly believed that such an inept and murderous alliance could continue to embarrass itself in Libya.
But we all underestimated a few of things about NATO:
1. The cold viciousness, barbarity, depravity, and immorality of the leaders of the NATO countries, especially Obama, Sarkozi and Cameron, including their easy willingness to bomb civilian dwellings, schools, hospitals, clinics, fisherman who were in the sea, in their boats, fishing, camels (in an attempt to starve the Libyans, who eat lots of camel meat), infrastructure;
2. The extent, or depth of the desperation of the failed NATO alliance (which had not won a single war in its existence) to "prove" both its relevance and its capacity to work as an effective military unit;
3. The very large extent to which NATO would use the media to, a.) totally hide from the public the true situation on the ground, that situation being that NATO was losing the war, and b.) the large extent to which NATO would use psychological operations, through the mainstream news media organs, that projected total falsehoods to the reading public, such as the proclaimed "fall" of cities, such as Brega, that had either never occurred, or that had occurred for only part of a day, after which the LDF (Libyan Defense Forces) would take the city back over rapidly.
To everyone's great disappointment, rather than cut its losses, in terms of its military assets, as well as its already pitiful standing as an inept military alliance, NATO continued its operations. Having been defeated, NATO threw all caution to the wind (in terms of any concern over the possibility of accusations being lodged against it, regarding its violations of UN Resolution 1973), and deployed mercenaries on the ground.
There are three prime reasons for this shift in NATO tactics, in its decision to use mercenaries:
1. Ineptitude. Recall NATO's own self-evaluation of its performance in Libya as being "ineffectual" and "pathetic."
2. Arrogance. NATO demonstrated its arrogance from Day 1, bragging that it would defeat the LDF (Libyan Defence Force), "within 3 days." Due to its arrogance, it was not possible for NATO to admit what everyone that had been watching the war closely, knew: that NATO had been defeated by the Libyan Defence Force.
3. The brilliant military expertise of the Libyan Defence Force. NATO's arrogance had caused them to assume that the LDF did not have a snowball's chance in hell to withstand, for more than three days, the onslaught of the "most powerful" military alliance in human history. But, not only did the LDF withstand the onslaught of NATO, but the LDF effectively defeated NATO militarily. The war against NATO had ended. But NATO cheated, violating Resolution 1973 left and right, by importing mercenaries from Colombia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Qatar, Britain, France, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates. In short, putting troops on the ground, which was a direct violation of NATO's mandate. NATO knew that it could not allow the world to see that it had gone down to defeat to a tiny little nation that turned out to be a mighty mouse. So, it cheated.
While NATO was cheating, Muammar Gaddafi was [perhaps mistakingly, I do not know] fighting honorably. There were thousands and thousands of African fighters, from all over Africa, begging Muammar to allow them to come fight. He refused them, stating that their trek across the desert would be too difficult; that they should stay in their own countries and prepare to defend those countries, as the Euro-American empire would one day be heading their way. Muammar wanted the Libyan people to win their own fight against NATO, without any help from outside. Notice that I have not mentioned "the rebels." The rebels were of no consequence, and even NATO often expressed its frustration, even in the mainstream media, with the uselessness and ineptitude of the rebels--a case of the blind leading the blind.
It became clear to those watching the war, even cursorily, that the war was not between the LDF and the rebels. The war was between the LDF and NATO. The existence of the rebels was only a convenience for NATO and the NATO governments: The rebels provided the front, or excuse, for NATO aggression in Libya, i.e., to "bring democracy" to the Libyan people, despite the fact that Libya already had a strong democracy.
The rebel battlefield performance was worse than the pathetic performance of NATO. For new-comers, here was the pattern before NATO decided to cheat and use mercenaries: NATO would bomb the hell out of a city during the day, while the rebels did nothing. The LDF would leave the city to protect itself. Then the rebels would walk into the city and proclaim "victory," usually not having fired a shot. They would take photographs of each other, standing on hills, and send those photographs to Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera would write an article proclaiming, "Rebels take Brega," when in fact the rebels had done nothing. All the work had been done by NATO. Other mainstream news organs simply regurgitated what Al-Jazeera had regurgitated from the lying rebels.
At night, after NATO bombing stopped, the LDF would retake the city within as little as two hours--sometimes less. Then you would not hear a single word in the mainstream news organs for as much as a week, sometimes. This was because Brega, or whatever city, had been taken back by the LDF, and the media, a tool of the northern countries and NATO, would not mumble a word about that in their news organs.
In fact, those of us who watched closely began to know precisely when the LDF was having success on the ground: the media would not mumble a word about Libya. This silence in the mainstream media would cause us to check the "Green blogs" (blogs that support Muammar and the Jamahiriya, and that were reporting on-the-ground battle information), and we would discover that the LDF had made remarkable progress during that week of silence by the mainstream news media..
It is also likely that Muammar did not want to import African fighters, due to the fact that he would have been accused of importing "black mercenaries," illegally, despite the fact that NATO was doing everything illegal under the sun. This was extremely frustrating for many Libya-lovers. But, perhaps Muammar was right: His concern for Africa caused him to tell the African fighters to remain where they were, to protect their territory.
I wrote the above to sort of fill in, for new comers, spaces that might exist in the above article by Professor Panarin. But there is another reason that I wrote the above: to point out the utter depravity of the northern countries and their murderous, inept organization, NATO.
They speak in terms of military victories, or military defeats. They do not see their moral degeneracy as a defeat--their defeat of themselves. Their assault on Libya; their murder of 90,000 Libyan civilians; their destruction of Libyan infrastructure; their depraved war against a tiny population of 6 million people; their support for the attempted genocide of black Libyans; their support of the rape of Libyan women; their use of paid murderers to impose themselves upon a people who were living very successfully, and in peace--All of these things demonstrate the moral blindness, or moral defeat of the northern countries against themselves.
Despite the fact that they know that they have murdered tens of thousands of human beings, their moral degeneracy is so complete that not one single mainstream news organ has reported the murder of 90,000 Libyans; not one single news organ has reported the genocide of 30,000 black Libyans of Tawerga. Not one single news organ has reported on the savagery associated with the fact that every single dwelling in Sirte was demolished by NATO bombs, leaving the people of Sirte homeless, wandering in the desert. Before this war, there was no homelessness in Libya, one of the high marks of achievement of Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan Jamahiriya.
The sad and disgusting thing is that the Euro-American empire seems to believe that it has no other form of achievement to demonstrate other than its self-perceived "achievements" in the 'art' and skill of mass murder; in the destruction of countries, cultures, and peoples; in its ability to create chaos, and in its special and high-tech ability to bully the world into submission to its desires.
Where is its art? Where are its skilled diplomats? What enlightened political vision does it have to share with us? What enlightened economic vision does it have to share with the world?
As time goes by, its societies become more and more crude and vulgar. Its most popular movies are those that display war and bloodshed and "heroes" who are no more than professional murderers. Its religion, in Europe, virtually doesn't exist. Its expression of religion in the U.S. takes the form of "prosperity" mega-churches, where the principal sermon is how to become monetarily wealthy, not how to love your neighbor; not how to have concern for the people of other countries; not how to serve the poor.
It has no conception of the idea of cooperation with other countries. Its only conception regarding relationships between countries is dominance--that it must dominate every other country on earth.
Its hypocrisy has reached the high heavens, as it preaches to North Korea, Iran, and other countries that those countries must not obtain nuclear weapons, when the U.S. maintains an arsenal of 5,113 nuclear warheads. This is astonishing beyond belief. And the incredible thing is that the U.S. will admonish other countries about nuclear weapons, and do so with a straight face.
When has there ever been a real victory for the United States? When has the United States sustained a society, as did the Muslims who ruled Spain for 800 years, of peace and harmony and high cultural pursuits? In the U.S., were it not for a large police force, national guard, and army, the JDL (Jewish Defence League) and the Ku Klux Klan would be out in the streets murdering each other, just as the Al-Qaeda brigades are murdering each other in Libya right at this moment.
Compare that to Muslim Spain. According to Abba Eban, a former ambassador of Israel and hardcore Zionist, the most peaceful time for the Jews in all of their history was under the rule of Muslims in Spain. He stated that explicitly in his book, History and the Jews, which also became a PBS television series.
How disgusting it was to see mainstream news organs (also a part of the rot of northern society) gloat over the deaths of 90,000 Libyans, bragging of NATO's "success." This is the state of the northern countries, and this is their true defeat.
Those of us who have been watching this war from Day 1 recall comparing the cultured, sophisticated, honest and straightforward press conferences of Dr. Musa Ibrahim. He became noted for his truthfulness. He spoke the truth about the situation in Libya, even if the LDF was experiencing difficulties at any particular time.
Compare that to what we've just learned, and that was reported in the mainstream media the last couple of days, but had suspected all along: the mainstream news reporters that were allowed, by the Jamahiriya, to live in luxury in the Rixos Hotel, were not news reporters at all. They were paid informants of NATO, that supplied NATO with the coordinates of facilities and LDF positions in Libya.
And this is what one calls a victory? NATO failed militarily, and was soundly defeated by the Libyan Defence Force. But, more importantly, NATO and the northern countries were defeated morally. Despite the fact that not one single news reporter at the Rixos Hotel reported the truth of what was happening daily in Libya, or even reported nothing, the Jamahiriya demonstrated morality, courage, dignity, and adherence to accepted international protocol by continuing to allow them to stay in the hotel.
Dr. Musa Ibrahim always (and it was astonishing to witness!!) treated every single person at his news conferences with dignity and respect. NOT ONCE did he snap at a reporter. NOT ONCE did he show any disrespect. NOT ONCE did he even so much as make a sarcastic remark during his press conferences. He kept his dignity, and continued to implore the mainstream media journalists to do their jobs honestly.
But, they were morally bankrupt. They had no sense of morality, because that is much of the nature of the countries they come from.
The winner of this war, hands down, are the Libyan people, the Libyan Jamahiriya, and Brother Leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, all of whom showed great dignity, as well as great military prowess, while NATO and the countries it represents have gone down in defeat, both militarily and morally.
About Dennis South
I have been serving, for 43 years, the cause of helping to create a new, balanced and peaceful world.Let us prepare for re-colonisation (1)
By Idang Alibi
If I were a man of some great consequence, I would have the audacity to say that Thursday the 20th of
October, 2011 will go down in my diary as one of the saddest days in my
life. For it was on that day that the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi,
one of the most nationalistic, intelligent, caring, responsive and
responsible leaders among leaders of the developing nations, was killed
and humiliated by imperialists powers under the guise of freeing the
people of Libya from his dictatorship. My sorrow was so immense not only
because a great leader and humanist was killed by the forces of greed
and injustice, but because some members of the human family, including,
unfortunately, some brain-washed citizens of Libya, did not know the
import of what had, some years ago, happened in Iraq and which had now
come upon Libya.
And who can blame those who do not understand the significance of what happened on Thursday 20th October? Being victims of several years of Western media propaganda which demonises any uppity Third World leader that the West cannot easily manipulate for their own purposes, it is hardly surprising that some people, including Libyans, were wildly jubilating and celebrating what they foolishly thought was the fall of Gaddafi, the deserved end of a dictator, a tyrant, a corrupt man, etc. But the truth of the matter is that the Americans, French and Britons who killed Gaddafi had no noble thoughts on their mind at all: that they were out to take out a man who was giving pains to some Arabs. As far as they are concerned it will be better if some crazy folk can kill off all the Arabs in Libya and leave the place empty for them to get their crude oil which is what all the adventure in Libya is about.
What took place that day was not the fall of Gaddafi as is erroneously being thought. What happened is another signpost that the world is being led back to the era of colonisation of various peoples adjudged by some unjust and greedy people to be primitive but who have the strategic resources that the West need for their industries back home. This, in reality, is what happened and, as I said, first, in Iraq and now it has been accomplished in Libya. And instead of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, some people were rejoicing? Is this not a case of ignorance being bliss? We are experiencing the beginning (in Iraq) and the consolidation (in Libya) of a people being subjected to the loss of their country, their freedom and the resources which God is his infinite wisdom gave to them yet, some are so ignorant and so blissful of their impending bondage?
Western powers who feel entitled to all the resources of the earth, are about again to begin a second colonisation of Africa, the Middle East and the rest of the ‘’primitive world’’. Remember that in recent times the West has been referring to Africa as the last frontier of resources in the world. This is a Freudian slip which reveals their covetous desire for the crude oil, gold and other strategic resources of Africa.
With the type of simple minded attitude of taking in and believing everything that our predators tell us about our leaders and their offer to ‘help’ us do away with them, we should just begin to prepare for re-colonisation because that is one of the guises they will hide under to invade our countries to install puppets who will rule us on behalf of the imperialists. Let me tell my people one truth: there are dictators everywhere. Our own may not be worse than those of Europe. The difference between our own dictators and those of Europe and America is that while our own may kill their own citizens who disagree with them, those of America order the killing of thousands of peoples of other countries who have no quarrel whatsoever with America. Please, may I know something: How many ordinary Afghans who cannot locate the map of their own country or that of America’s on the world map and who have no quarrel whatsoever with America have been killed on the orders of Dictator Obama and other dictators of America before him? What are American soldiers doing in Afghanistan? When was there a vote that they should go there? Is that their country? Did the people of Afghanistan ask ‘’democrat’’ Obama to come to their aid against an aggressor? If they did not, what legitimate right does America have to be in that country? If they went to Afghanistan uninvited, theAmerica leader who gave the order for his troops to occupy that country is he a democrat or a dictator? Let someone please tell the simple son of Alibi the answer, please.
I am trying in my small way to puncture some of the fraudulent and fallacious arguments these imperialists put up to justify some of their costly adventures but which some among us who call themselves democrats, human rights activists, non-state actors, feminists and the likes, choose to buy and swallow spoon, fork and knife.
The Americans and the Europeans are in trouble and only their leaders know it. Many of the leaders and ordinary peoples of those continents have sold their souls to Satan. We live in a moral world and whether we believe it or not, there are consequences of our actions. The people have squandered the resources most of which they stole from other people through outright theft, piracy, unfair trade policies and living a life of insatiable greed fuelled by smart advertising in which most of their citizens, especially women, buy what they do not need but which they have been led to believe they must possess if they want to live a good life and be like the Jones across the street. Payback time for a life of greed and living on credit has come.
The politicians of those countries have unsuccessfully tried so many things for their countries to remain afloat but no dice. Imperialism in which an imperial power extracts the resources of client states is not bringing as much money and wealth and with as much speed as the West would like because some leaders of ‘primitive’ countries like Saddam and Gaddafi are not pliable. The West is at its wit’s end: they do not know what trick in the rule books to employ any more. The new option is therefore recourse to old-fashioned re-colonisation: re-colonise the countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia.
What strategy to adopt? Start with those countries with huge
strategic resources but which have wise, intelligent, nationalistic and
assertive leaders such as Saddam and Gaddafi who could act as obstacles.
The calculation is that by such a strategy they can shock, destabilise,
intimidate and overawe the rest. To be concluded next week.
WARMONGERING THIEVES AND PROFITEERING MUST FACE INDICTMENT FOR THEIR BLOODY CRIMES
Hague facing questions over Libya deal
11 11 2011
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, is facing questions over his role in a controversial oil deal in Libya involving a company run by a Conservative donor.
HAGUE IS NOT ALONE, IT IS A WHOLE GREEDY SYSTEM, AN ENTIRE CORRUPT AND MONEY-WORSHIPPING ESTABLISHMENT, WILLING TO MARCH OVER MASS CORPSES TO ENRICH THEMSELVES...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c93Er2CRLww
IMPERIALIST BUSINESS: DESTROY COUNTRIES, MASSACRE TENS OF THOUSANDS, REBUILD COUNTRIES MAKING THEM PAY HIGH... IS THERE ANY ALTERNATIVE TO NATIONAL RESISTANCE AGAINST FOREIGN OCCUPATION AND SOLD OUT QUISLINGS???
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Libya is today a hunting ground for Nato backed racist lynch mobs, who hang Black people in the market square for sport. Through his great love for his people, Muammar Gaddafi, the Lion of Africa, allowed himself to suffer the same fate at the hands of a wild and jeering mob. Colonel Gaddafi was at one with his people, both in their greatest moments of triumph and achievement, and in the horror of foreign invasion and genocide. Nor were his sons any less noble. They faced death as true African warriors.
An art video in tragedy.
www.youtube.comSome art, the spirit of tragedy, and how an African Hero will never die.
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Ex Libyan PM shares his views on the reason why Gaddafi was murdered
Listen to the National Endowment for Democracy Libya representative Mahmoud Jibril say why he thinks Muammar Qaddafi was killed: "Too many things would have been revealed you know. This man was full of secrets, you know. He had too many contacts with too many leaders with too many countries . . . "
Terror and Revenge Engulfs NATO’s Libya
CounterPunch Exclusive
Benghazi
The “new Libya” has entered its own “Terror” which is spreading inexorably, aided by NATO member states including American, French and British SAS units known locally as “disappearance squads”. This is one of the rapidly developing consequences of the UN’s rush to “protect Libya’s civilian population” last spring.
And it is why human rights investigators are arriving in Benghazi, Libya this week.
“Approximately 1,085.92082238 kilometers or roughly 600 miles from Cairo to Benghazi” is what the lovely travel agent who works a couple of doors down from the Swedish Café off Tahir Sq reported as she wanted this observer to take a fancy high rise double decker luxury bus to Benghazi where I was headed from Cairo. In the end I settled for sharing a dump truck at one-third the cost across the Egyptian and Libyan desert to the Courthouse in Benghazi. It didn’t seem such a bad idea following meetings in nearby countries, especially considering alternative routes which would have involved flying to Tunis, then another flight to Jerba and then the six hours jammed service ride to Tripoli. I had been there and done that more than once and needed to leave right away to meet some people who were being held in one of Benghazi’s teeming jails.
Until the NTC announced changes yesterday, anyone bearing an American passport did not need a visa to enter Libya, so grateful has been the NTC for all the financial help that American taxpayers, largely unknowingly, have supplied to NTC officials in addition to presenting them with a country with vast oil reserves and zero national debt.
One of the fortunate language usages in this part of the world is the liberal transliteration tolerances applied to Arabic which helps those challenged by the language. As is widely known there are many ways to write Arabic words in roman characters and most are accepted. But one has to listen carefully in Libya these days to grasp the important distinction between certain English words when referring to the fate of increasing numbers of supporters of the Gadhafi regime. In the current atmosphere one often hears that someone “has disappeared” which, depending on one’s political views is usually good news and it means the person is in hiding or left the area or fled the country to safety. Alternatively, it might be said that a person “is disappeared” meaning that she or he was caught by the new regime and is gone, probably, forever without a trace for loved ones to pursue.
Following meetings with Libyan evacuees (disappeared) from NATO’s nine months of bombing who are now present in nearby countries and from meetings inside Libya with incarcerated former officials and some of their family members as well as fugitive opponents of the new “government” it is clear that the current period is cascading into paroxysmal revenge attacks and political cleansing.
Those increasingly being targeted by “disappearance squads” are family members and associates, even former domestic employees such as gardeners, handymen, and household staff of former regime affiliates. Homes, cars, furniture, of former regime affiliates are being systematically confiscated. Torture has become the normal means to elicit information regarding the whereabouts of individuals thought to still be supporting the former regime. The reason, according to one former Libyan official who barely escaped one of the French squads and who now resides in Egypt, “is the same reason drones are so popular with your US military, torture works. Not 100% but it’s better than the other options.”
There appears to be a Tell Tale Heart paranoia settling in among some NTC elements who believe that if there is one Gadhafi supporter left in Libya it might mean the return of his ideas for Libya’s role via a vis the West and its re-colonization of Africa plans, control of Libya’s natural resources and its relations with the rapidly changing Middle East.
Even Libya’s NATO-managed NTC members are worried that they may be investigated by the International Criminal Court after its prosecutor said allegations of crimes committed by NATO in Libya would be examined “impartially and independently.” Some western lawyers currently in Libya who are here to help victims of NATO crimes are oddly being approached by members of the new regime for discussions relating to the possibility that the ICC may come after them. This is also one of the reasons why rumors that Saif al Islam is about to surrender to the ICC are false. Saif is being advised to wait and rest because the ICC case will collapse as more facts of NATO crimes surface. Former Libyan officials in hiding are also well advised to stay safe if possible as time may be on their side.
Government officials of countries bordering Libya are being advised to allow sanctuary for supporters of the former Libyan government and to refuse extradition requests because activity currently taking place in The Hague may well pre-empt a war crimes investigation.
Tunisia is today under great pressure from NATO not to change its mind and not to decline the NTC extradition request for Libya’s former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. NATO is concerned because American lawyers recommended last month that Baghdadi apply for U.N. political refugee status with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to try to prevent his extradition from Tunisia. On 11/11/11 the UN acknowledged receipt of Dr. Baghdadi’s petition.
Other reasons the NTC and NATO are concerned is that there is currently being undertaken in the Hague an encompassing internal legal review of all incidents in which NATO bombing or other NATO or NTC actions caused civilian casualties. An American led team is nearing completion of its six month investigation which is expected to be forwarded to the ICC and made public soon
A main reason former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril resigned recently, and others will, is the pressure he has been under from Islamists and many others who remember his record as the former regime’s Minister of Justice and Jibril’s concern that he may be investigated himself by the ICC for many decisions he has made over the past eight months that are now coming to light. Following his statement about how Muammalr Gadhafi was killed after he was taken into custody alive, which constituted a clear war crime, Jibril is now claiming that it was not him who gave the order to assassinate Gadhafi or even his former friend, General Younnis, but rather as he explained at a news conference yesterday, amid snickers from assembled journalists, that “a third party maybe a State, or a President or leader in any way who wanted Gaddafi killed, so as not to reveal the many secrets that only Gaddafi could have known.” Jibril did not have to mention that Gadhafi knew many secrets about himself and other NTC officials and he is not alone among NATO and NTC officials in fearing an ICC investigation.
It is this atmosphere that is significantly fueling the Terror across Libya.
Franklin Lamb is reachable c/o fpl...@gmail.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/11/terror-and-revenge-engulfs-nato%E2%80%99s-libya/
NOW THE REAL REVOLUTION STARTS: THE REBELS ACTUALLY IMPERSONATED A COUNTER-REVOLUTION, AS EPITOMIZED BY THE MONARCHIC FLAG, BY THE RESTORATION OF THE SHARIA AND THE FOREIGN MILITARY PRESENCE.
The UN referring Aisha to the grotesque ICC? A distinction of honour, were it not for the hideous reality behind it: the persecution and extermination of a whole family, including babies! While Hitlery laughs at the death of an old man, and the al Qaeda killers roam freely sowing terror and corpses in the Libyan cities, the UN and ICC don't raise a little finger, they only persecute a dignified young lady, a martyred mother, daughter, sister, wife... SHAME ON ALL OF THEM, FILTHY BASTARDS!
Dr. Aisha Qaddafi also laughed at the irony of the United Nations referring her to the International Criminal Court recently, when it once “begged” her to be a UN goodwill ambassador.
Libyan Resistance News – November 10, 2011 – 5 VIDEOs (Eng-Ita)
The CNT has hired Egyptians mercenaries in Libya – AlgeriaIsp
– Guide Maoummar Gaddafi in Libya helped the Egyptians by offering them
work, a house and everything they need to live in dignity. And now, in
return, they took weapons and they fought against the Libyan army, they
were involved in the destruction of Libya and the killing of Libyans
civilians.
The Egyptians are returned home while the Libyans have no longer home.
Congratulations pharaohs, ..!!??
A French secret agent worked with Al Qaeda to share ransoms – Ennahar/online – According to a Tuareg envoy during negotiations for the release of French hostages of the company Areva, abducted by the Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in northern Mali, an officer of the French intelligence service, known as “the engineer”, who owns a security company in Mali, would have proposed to the terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar to work with him as an intermediary in the negotiations for the release of foreign hostages
In its latest edition, Paris-Match reported that an emissary of the Touareg to Paris, who held a high position in the company Areva in Nigeria has been sent on July 29 by the Nigerian authorities to lead negotiations with the terrorist groups in the Grand Sahara.
After visiting three times the Adrar Iforas region, the hideout of the group of Abu Zeid in Mali, where he holds the French hostages, the Tuareg envoy had travelled to Touboukou, 70 km away to meet Mokhtar Balawar.
According to the envoy, Belmokhtar would have spoken of negotiations taking place in order to free the French hostages, carried out, according to him by a French dubbed “the engineer”, an intelligence officer, sent to Mali to free the hostages abducted by Belmokhtar before deciding to create a security company in the country.
According to the emir of the terrorist organization in the Sahara, the engineer had contacted Al Qaeda to make the offer to work as part of negotiations with the countries of origin of the kidnapped foreigners, and in exchange gets a share of the ransoms they receive.
Even the Malian President Toumani Toure Mamadou, quoted by Paris-Match, acknowledged that the engineer was an agent of the French intelligence services.
MORE: http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/urgent-11112011-the-great-green-libya-revolution/
Libyan Resistance News – November 11, 2011 – update 11:55 (Eng-Ita) – (Video)
News from the Green Revolution in Zawiya – Akhbar El Mokamwama Libya – The Green Revolution had a good start, before midnight yesterday, attacks by fighters of the Libyan Liberation Army against ‘rebels’ and mercenaries in various cities of Libya.
- Prisoners were released, the barracks were attacked and many heavy weapons were recovered.
- The Battle of Zawiya start at dawn on Friday, November 11, 2011
- The ‘rebels’ lost control of several areas in the city of Zawiya and they are concentrated in downtown.
- A cloud of smoke covering the whole flaming Camp No. 27 which is located between Zawiya and Tripoli.
- The national anthem of the Green Libyan Jamahiriya is heard throughout the city.
- Release of all prisoners of Zawiya, and perhaps Colonel Tentouche Omer.
It appears, the operation against the rebels of Zawiya is led by Mujahid Seif El Islam.
A video shot by a civilian in Zawiya an hour before the day of the revolution of November 11, 2011 -
He filmed the operation against the barracks No. 27 of Zawiya
-
Fighting in Zawia, Libya 11.11.11, NATO Crimes In Libya. 5,000 Qataris and a few 1000s of global Islamists will never subdue a whole people fighting for its freedom and justice!
THE ROVING EYE
Anyone who hoped the Arab Spring might eventually take over the Persian Gulf and those lands once known as Arabia Felix has enough reason to drown in sadness.
The Arab counter-revolution is stronger than ever - led by the House of Saud and its monarchy minions at the Gulf Counter-revolution Club (GCC), officially known as Gulf Cooperation Council. And their most precious ally is the Pentagon.
The New York Times made it official by relaying related White House/Pentagon spin. Considering the NYT can hardly pose as an icon of credibility since those months in 2002/2003 when its front page peddled outright lies about Iraq's nukes and/or itscarnal ties with al-Qaeda, the spin must be translated.
The further militarization of the counter-revolutionary Persian Gulf - especially via more boots on the ground in Kuwait, and more warships - is being sold as a response to "a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran".
Note that both are pure wishful thinking. The NYT's martial sources insist, "the withdrawal [from Iraq] could leave instability". The fact is the Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad effectively booted the Americans out (the Pentagon wanted at least 20,000 US boots on the ground after late 2011).
Thus the necessity of revamped Pentagon Central Command (Centcom) newspeak, as well as a Plan B, a grand new "security architecture" for the Persian Gulf crammed with air and naval hardware and even missile defense sold as a bland "post-Iraq footprint in the region".
As for "the threat of a belligerent Iran", very precise interests - sections of the industrial-military complex, the Republican party as a whole, the Israel lobby, the majority of corporate media - have been cheerleading for a strike on Iran for years.
Major General Karl R Horst, Centcom's chief of staff, is a big fan of "commitment in building partner capability and partner capacity" (translation; what we say, goes). He sold the firepower increase in the Persian Gulf to the NYT as a bland, Hollywoodish "back to the future" strategy, focused on "smaller but highly capable deployments and training partnerships with regional militaries".
Translation: lots of special forces, lots of weaponized drones and an inflation of those "partnerships" the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are so fond of. This is spun as "more efficient ways to deploy forces and maximize cooperation with regional partners"; or the best way to "expand security relationships", especially when there will be a "steep decrease in the number of intelligence analysts assigned to the region" (translation; let the towel heads do the footwork).
It also helps that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) proved their unlimited love for NATO in the Libya war (while Bahrain and the UAE have boots on the ground in Afghanistan). That Arab willingness to please the masters goes a step further than the standard mantra, "the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf."
To sum it all up; think of all this as the GCC as a de facto annex to NATO.
Behind the 'security architecture'
Out there in Tajikistan - where she was examining the non-proliferation of the Arab Spring in Central Asia - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton encouraged what was later leaked to the NYT as "a robust continuing presence" throughout a region that "should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy."
So this means the further militarization of the Persian Gulf comes as a response for US/Saudi interference preventing democracy? That can't possibly be; somebody's got to rewrite the script.
This whole scenario was predictable ever since Washington struck a deal with Riyadh for the consolidation of the Arab counter-revolution; you get us an Arab League vote so we take Muammar Gaddafi out, and we leave you alone to do what you want in the Persian Gulf (see Exposed: The US-Saudi deal Asia Times Online, April 2, 2011).
This led to the House of Saud invading Bahrain; Qatar training Libyan NATO rebels in their own territory while also sending Qatari special forces to Libya; and now a "stronger, multilateral security alliance" between the GCC and the Pentagon.
Lost in space US senators spinning that the US withdrawal from Iraq will be interpreted as a "strategic victory by our enemies in the Middle East", is business as usual. But it's another thing to see the NYT being gullible enough - or basically treating its readers as idiots - as it swallows the Saudi propaganda line that Iran is "the most worrisome threat" to all GCC members "as well as to Iraq itself". It's as if the paper was edited in Riyadh.
As a matter of fact, the Barack Obama administration's foreign policy in the Middle East seems to be edited in Riyadh. One just had to follow the US corporate media falling over themselves to kiss the hem of the gown of the new crown prince (the next in line for the throne) at the House of Saud, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz.
Nayef, 78, supported by the nec plus ultra of medievalism and counter-revolutionary, damn-this-Arab Spring forces, is essentially the House of Saud's inquisitor-in-chief. Since 1975 he has presided over the security apparatus at the Ministry of Interior, which along with the US-trained National Guard, faithful to frail King Abdullah, 87, are the best weaponized bodies in Saudi Arabia.
Nayef is the Darth Vader of a 130,000-strong paramilitary force, all the national and local police, customs, immigration, the coast guard, the border guard and the dreaded religious police. His ministry's response to the Arab Spring has been a non-stop crackdown. Anyone who's even suspected of trying to start a political demonstration, not to mention a movement, is arrested; that includes young people uploading YouTube videos.
There are at least 20,000 political prisoners in Saudi jails. Since April, it's illegal to "threaten national security" or "insult Islam"; Nayef was responsible for the vagueness of the new law and all that implies. Anyone trying an Occupy Riyadh or Occupy Jeddah would be beheaded.
Yet for his countless Washington fans, who beam at this 36-year counter-terror CV, Nayef is a "conservative pragmatist". This is his official denomination since revealed by a WikiLeaks 2009 State Department cable.
No wonder they love Nayef in Washington. His Holy Trinity is Washington-Riyadh joined at the hip; his hatred of Iran and Shi'ites in general (even Saudi Shi'ites); and his war on terror commitment against al-Qaeda.
No one talks about his visceral hatred of women's rights, and his visceral hatred of all things democratic; that's when the label "social conservative" comes handy. At the start of the Arab Spring, Nayef dismissed Tunisians as "basically French", and Cairo residents as "louche urbanites". The only true Arabs were Saudis; democracy, as they see it (or as the House of Saud sees for them) is for sissies.
In internal House of Saud politics, that palace intrigue realm of desert macho men who love to dye their moustaches black, Nayef's top opponents are not his brothers, the powerful Sudayri seven, who are now five (after the death of King Fahd and recently Prince Sultan), named after the tribe of their mother Hassa, Ibn Saud's favorite wife.
Still gerontocracy is the name of the game; brothers Bandar, Musaid and Mishaal's health conditions are appalling. As for brother Salman, the governor of Riyadh, he likes to pose as a journalist, as owner of the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
Nayef's top opponents are the nephews of Ibn Saud, starting with wily former Washington ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush; Prince Talal, father of billionaire prince al-Waleed; Vice Minister of Defense Khaled bin Sultan; and Prince Turki al-Faisal, former head of intelligence in the 1980s and former Osama bin Laden pal.
None of these will threaten Nayef; what matters for the House of Saud is the dynasty's survival. As King Abdullah prepares to meet his maker, the Pentagon could not find a more reliable regional partner: Grand Inquisitor Nayef.
NATO will soon rule over the whole Mediterranean as a NATO lake. Africom is implanting itself deeper and deeper in Africa. Centcom rules the Persian Gulf with the GCC in tow. Democracy is for sissies; there's no business like the "security architecture" business.
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 pepe...@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MK02Ak01.html
Truth and Falsehood in Syria
As insurrection in Syria lurches towards civil war, the brakes need to be put on the propaganda pouring through the Western mainstream media and accepted uncritically by many who should know better. So here is a matrix of positions from which to argue about what is going on in this critical Middle Eastern country.
1. Syria has been a mukhabarat (intelligence) state since the redoubtable Abdel-Hamid Al-Serraj ran the intelligence services as the deuxième bureau in the 1950s. The authoritarian state which developed from the time former Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad took power in 1970 has crushed all dissent ruthlessly. On occasion it has either been him or them. The ubiquitous presence of themukhabarat is an unpleasant fact of Syrian life, but as Syria is a central target for assassination and subversion by Israel and Western intelligence agencies, as it has repeatedly come under military attack, as it has had a large chunk of its territories occupied, and as its enemies are forever looking for opportunities to bring it down, it can hardly be said that the mukhabarat is not needed.
2. There is no doubt that the bulk of the people demonstrating in Syria want a peaceful transition to a democratic form of government. Neither is there any doubt that armed groups operating from behind the screen of the demonstrations have no interest in reform. They want to destroy the government.
3. There have been very big demonstrations of support for the government. There is anger at the violence of the armed gangs and anger at external interference and exploitation of the situation by outside governments and the media. In the eyes of many Syrians, their country is once again the target of an international conspiracy.
4. Whatever the truth of the accusations made against the security forces, the armed groups have killed hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians, in total probably close to 1,000 at this stage. The civilian dead include university professors, doctors and even, very recently, the son of the grand mufti of the republic. The armed gangs have massacred, ambushed, assassinated, attacked government buildings and sabotaged railway lines.
5. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has a strong base of personal popularity. Although he sits on top of the system, it is misleading to call him a dictator. The system itself is the true dictator. Deeply rooted power in Syria — entrenched over five decades — lies in the military and intelligence establishment, and to a lesser degree in the ruling Baath Party structure. These are the true sources of resistance to change. The demonstrations were Al-Assad’s opportunity to pass on the message, which he did, that the system had to change.
6. In the face of large-scale demonstrations earlier this year, the government did finally come up with a reform programme. This was rejected out of hand by the opposition. No attempt was even made to test the bona fides of the government.
7. The claim that armed opposition to the government has begun only recently is a complete lie. The killings of soldiers, police and civilians, often in the most brutal circumstances, has been going on virtually since the beginning.
8. The armed groups are well armed and well organised. Large shipments of weapons have been smuggled into Syria from Lebanon and Turkey. They include pump action shotguns, machine guns, Kalashnikovs, RPG launchers, Israeli-made hand grenades and numerous other explosives. It is not clear who is providing these weapons but someone is, and someone is paying for them. Interrogation of captured members of armed gangs points in the direction of former Lebanese prime minister Saad Al-Hariri’s Future Movement. Al-Hariri is a front man for the US and Saudi Arabia, with influence spreading well beyond Lebanon.
9. Armed opposition to the regime largely seems to be sponsored by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. In 1982, the Syrian government ruthlessly crushed an uprising initiated by the Brotherhood in the city of Hama. Many thousands died, and part of the city was destroyed. The Brotherhood has two prime objectives: the destruction of the Baathist government and the destruction of the secular state in favour of an Islamic system. It is almost palpably thirsting for revenge.
10. The armed groups have strong support from outside, apart from what is already known or indicated. Exiled former Syrian vice-president and foreign minister, Abdel-Halim Khaddam, who lives in Paris, has been campaigning for years to bring down the Al-Assad government. He is funded by both the EU and the US. Other exiled activists include Burhan Ghalioun, backed by Qatar as the leader of the “National Council” set up in Istanbul. Ghalioun, like Khaddam, lives in Paris and like him also, lobbies against the Al-Assad government in Europe and in Washington.
Together with Mohamed Riyad Al-Shaqfa, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, he is receptive to outside “humanitarian intervention” in Syria on the Libyan model (others are against it). The promotion of the exiles as an alternative government is reminiscent of the way the US used exiled Iraqis (the so-called Iraqi National Congress) ahead of the invasion of Iraq.
11. The reporting by the Western media of the situations in Libya and Syria has been appalling. NATO intervention in Libya has been the cause of massive destruction and thousands of deaths. The war, following the invasion of Iraq, is yet another major international crime committed by the governments of the US, Britain and France. The Libyan city of Sirte has been bombarded day and night for two weeks without the Western media paying any attention to the heavy destruction and loss of life that must have followed. The Western media has made no attempt to check reports coming out of Sirte of the bombing of civilian buildings and the killing of hundreds of people. The only reason can be that the ugly truth could well derail the whole NATO operation.
12. In Syria the same media has followed the same pattern of misreporting and disinformation. It has ignored or skated over the evidence of widespread killings by armed gangs. It has invited its audience to disbelieve the claims of government and believe the claims of rebels, often made in the name of human rights organisations based in Europe or the US. Numerous outright lies have been told, as they were told in Libya and as they were told ahead of the attack on Iraq. Some at least have been exposed.
People said to have been killed by state security forces have turned up alive. The brothers of Zainab Al-Hosni claimed she has been kidnapped by security forces, murdered and her body dismembered. This lurid account, spread by the TV channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya amongst other outlets, was totally false. She is still alive although now, of course, the propaganda tack is to claim that this is not really her but a double. Al-Jazeera, the British newspaper The Guardian and the BBC have distinguished themselves by their blind support of anything that discredits the Syrian government. The same line is being followed by the mainstream media in the US. Al-Jazeera, in particular, having distinguished itself with its reporting of the Egyptian revolution, has lost all credibility as an independent Arab world news channel.
13. In seeking to destroy the Syrian government, the Muslim Brotherhood has a goal in common with the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, whose paranoia about Shia Islam reached fever pitch with the uprising in Bahrain. WikiLeaks has revealed how impatient it was for the US to attack Iran. A substitute target is the destruction of the strategic relationship between Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah. The US and the Saudis may want to destroy the Alawi-dominated Baathist regime in Damascus for slightly different reasons, but the important thing is that they do want to destroy it.
14. The US is doing its utmost to drive Syria into a corner. It is giving financial support to exiled leaders of the opposition. It has tried (and so far failed, thanks to Russian and Chinese opposition) to introduce an extensive programme of sanctions through the UN Security Council. No doubt it will try again, and depending on how the situation develops, it may try, with British and French support, to bring on a no-fly zone resolution opening the door to foreign attack.
The situation is fluid and no doubt all sorts of contingency plans are being developed. The White House and the State Department are issuing hectoring statements every other day. Openly provoking the Syrian government, the US ambassador, accompanied by the French ambassador, travelled to Hama before Friday prayers. Against everything that is known about their past record of interference in Middle Eastern countries, it is inconceivable that the US and Israel, along with France and Britain, would not be involved in this uprising beyond what is already known.
15. While concentrating on the violence of the Syrian regime, the US and European governments (especially Britain) have totally ignored the violence directed against it. Their own infinitely greater violence, of course, in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places doesn’t even come into the picture. Turkey has joined their campaign against Syria with relish, going even further than they have in confronting the Syrian regime.
In the space of a few months Turkey’s “zero problem” regional policy has been upended in the most inchoate manner. Turkey eventually lent its support to the NATO attack on Libya, after initially holding back. It has antagonised Iran by its policy on Syria and by agreeing, despite strong domestic opposition, to host a US radar missile installation clearly directed against Iran. The Americans say the installation’s data will be shared with Israel, which has refused to apologise for the attack on the Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara, plunging Israeli-Turkish relations into near crisis. So from “zero problems”, Turkey now has a regional policy full of problems with Israel, Syria and Iran.
16. While some members of the Syrian opposition have spoken out against foreign intervention, the “Free Syrian Army” has said that its aim is to have a no-fly zone declared over northern Syria. A no-fly zone would have to be enforced, and we have seen how this led in Libya to massive infrastructural destruction, the killing of thousands of people and the opening of the door to a new period of Western domination.
17. If the Syrian government is brought down, every last Baathist and Alawi will be hunted down. In a government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the status of minorities and women would be driven back.
18. Through its Syria Accountability Act, and through sanctions which the EU has imposed, the US has been trying to destroy the Syrian government for 20 years. The dismantling of unified Arab states along ethno-religious lines has been an aim of Israel’s for decades. Where Israel goes, the US naturally follows. The fruits of this policy can be seen in Iraq, where an independent state in all but name has been created for the Kurds and where the constitution, written by the US, separates Iraq’s people into Kurds, Sunnis, Shias and Christians, destroying the binding logic of Arab nationalism. Iraq has not known a moment’s peace since the British entered Baghdad in 1917.
In Syria, ethno-religious divisions (Sunni Muslim Arab, Sunni Muslim Kurd, Druze, Alawi and various Christian sects) render the country vulnerable in the same way to the promotion of sectarian discord and eventual disintegration as the unified Arab state the French originally tried to prevent coming into existence in the 1920s.
19. The destruction of the Baathist government in Syria would be a strategic victory of unsurpassed value to the US and Israel. The central arch in the strategic relationship between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah would be destroyed, leaving Hizbullah geographically isolated, with a hostile Sunni Muslim government next door, and leaving Hizbullah and Iran more exposed to a military attack by the US and Israel. Fortuitously or otherwise, the “Arab spring” as it has developed in Syria has placed in US and Israeli hands a lever by which they may be able to achieve their goal.
20. It is not necessarily the case that a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Egypt or Syria would be hostile to US interests. Wanting to be seen as a respectable member of the international community and another good example of “moderate Islam”, it is likely and certainly possible that an Egyptian government dominated by the Brotherhood would agree to maintain the peace treaty with Israel for as long as it can (i.e. until another large scale attack by Israel on Gaza or Lebanon makes it absolutely unsustainable).
21. A Syrian government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood would be close to Saudi Arabia and hostile to Iran, Hizbullah and the Shia of Iraq, especially those associated with the Shia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr. It would pay lip service to the Palestine cause and the liberation of the Golan Heights, but its practical policies would be unlikely to be any different from the government it is seeking to destroy.
22. The Syrian people are entitled to demand democracy and to be given it, but in this way and at this cost? Even now, an end to the killing and negotiations on political reform are surely the way forward, not violence which threatens to tear the country apart. Unfortunately, violence and not a negotiated settlement is what too many people inside Syria want and what too many governments watching and waiting for their opportunity also want. No Syrian can ultimately gain from this, whatever they presently think.
Their country is being driven towards a sectarian civil war, perhaps foreign intervention and certainly chaos on an even greater scale than we are now seeing. There will be no quick recovery if the state collapses or can be brought down. Like Iraq, and probably like Libya, looking at the present situation, Syria would enter a period of bloody turmoil that could last for years. Like Iraq, again, it would be completely knocked out of the ring as a state capable of standing up for Arab interests, which means, of course, standing up to the US and Israel.
23. Ultimately, whose interests does anyone think this outcome would serve?
Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/17/truth-and-falsehood-in-syria/
Syria after Assad may plunge into abyss of never-ending tribal wars
Posted by alfatah69
Syria after Assad may plunge into abyss of never-ending tribal wars
Qatar initiated the urgent meeting of the Arab League (the League of Arab States) on November 12, 2011. The meeting will be devoted to the situation in Syria. Last week, Qatar also summoned the session of the Arab League in connection with “repressions of the opposition by Bashar Assad‘s regime.
As a result, Syrian officials promised to withdraw the troops from
Homs, where violent clashes with the adversaries of the regime took
place.
It has already become a tradition for Western leaders to criticize Assad’s regime for “repressions against peaceful demonstrators”. To which extent such accusations are true to fact? Pravda.Ru asked expert opinion from a senior researcher of the Center for Arab Research, Vladimir Isaev.
“There are some things that make me doubt that the situation is like that indeed. Each of those demonstrations ends with violence when they kill police officers. Take a look at what happened in the beginning of June in Deir ez-Zor, where over 700 Syrian military men were killed.Western media described those events as “an uprising against the regime.” They herewith recognized the fact that many participants of those “peaceful demonstrations” were not peaceful in their intentions at all. I am inclined to believe the official version of it all which says that certain external forces smear in terrorists to conduct terrorist activities.
Syria has been a rogue state for the West and a number of Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf for a long time already. They do not accept Bashar Assad’s regime just because he is Iran’s ally. Teheran created a stable channel to support Shiite organizations in Lebanon. So when we hear Western officials saying that Bashar Assad supports Hezbollah, we have to believe them – it is true. To all appearance, the weapons to support the movement are delivered via Syria. It is worthy of note that Damascus helps other Palestinian organizations, including Palestine Liberation Organization that used to struggle against Israel.
“The sitting Syrian president inherited all previous problems of the country from his father. The Kurdish problem is one of the most important ones of them. The Syrian Kurds are loyal. They welcome the positive changes that have happened to them recently. They now hold the Syrian citizenship, but they still want to have their own state.
“Another problem is connected with the Province of Hama. Thirty years ago, Bashar Assad’s father brutally suppressed the uprising of Muslim Brotherhood. As many as 2,000 soldiers and officers were killed in the battles with extremists. There were many casualties during the siege of Hama as well. Needless to say that people neither forgive nor forget such things. They blame the regime.
“Iran still supports Syria in spite of the fact that the West has been putting so much pressure on the country recently. Iran still supports the country financially. Iranian pilgrims visit Syria on a regular basis.
“Bashar Assad’s regime acts when it’s already late to act. This is the weakest point of this regime. The country needs to conduct reforms, of course, but the government should look forward when running reforms. The adversaries of Assad’s regime are certain that the regime is weak because it was forced to conduct certain changes. If so, they will ask more from the weak.
“If Bashar Assad’s regime collapses, Syria will fall into pieces. The country will plunge into the abyss of never-ending tribal wars.”
Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.Ru http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/07-11-2011/119543-syria-0/
http://www.theprovince.com/news/daily+struggle+Iraq+widows/5682222/story.html
The daily struggle of Iraq's widows of war
U.S. invasion, sectarian conflict left thousands of widows
By Aseel Kami, Reuters November 9, 2011
Um Hassan, a 30-year-old widow, holds a picture of her late husband as she sits among her children in a room at her in-law's house in Baghdad's Sadr City Jan. 2008. Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq, but the number of women left without breadwinners is mounting.
Photograph by: Kareem Raheem, Reuters
BAGHDAD - Halima Dakhil lost her husband in the sectarian slaughter that engulfed Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003 and now spends her days tearful and scared, knowing her $250 monthly wage won't pay the rent and feed five children.
One of an estimated 2 million women who are primary breadwinners in Iraq, Dakhil is but one face of the humanitarian crisis left behind as U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq nearly nine years after toppling dictator Saddam Hussein.
Rent takes $210 of her monthly earning as a cleaner in a medical clinic. She depends mainly on the kindness of neighbours and other donors to feed her family.
"When my husband was killed in 2006, my youngest child, Ridha, was only a toddler," said Dakhil, wiping away her tears with her abaya, as Ridha stood by her side.
"I took on the role of both mother and father. I support them and pay the rent. The rent is destroying me."
Dakhil said militants beheaded her husband, along with his brother and nephew, as they traveled to sell a car and buy another in Diyala province, a centre of ethnic and sectarian strife east of Baghdad.
In a cruel irony, Dakhil's spouse, a Sunni, was killed by Sunni militants who thought he was a Shi'ite because his ID badge was issued in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, she said.
Dakhil, herself a Shi'ite, she was displaced shortly after her husband's death from their Sunni area in northern Baghdad to Sadr City, with no money, no furniture and no family support.
As Iraq emerges from nearly nine years of what many here think of as an occupation by U.S. forces, and the decades of Saddam's reign before, it faces an uphill battle to help the poor, the wounded, the widowed and others scarred by war.
"I wish the war never happened and my husband was still alive. What is his fault? What is the fault of the innocent people?" said Dakhil, who is raising four boys and a girl.
Tens of thousands of men -- soldiers, police, insurgent fighters and civilians -- have died in bombings, tit-for-tat sectarian slaughter and other violence during a war that has killed more than 100,000 Iraqis, by some estimates.
LITTLE HELP FOR WIDOWS
Minister of Women's Affairs Ibtihal Gasid al-Zaidi estimates there may be 2 million women breadwinners in Iraq, most of them widows of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the sectarian conflict that followed, the first Gulf war or the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
The humanitarian group Relief International estimates there may be 1.5 million widows, nearly 10 percent of the female population. The International Committee of the Red Cross said there are more than 1 million women leading households in Iraq.
"The ICRC sees women-headed households as among the most vulnerable in Iraq today," the group said.
Zaidi said 23 percent of oil-rich Iraq's estimated 30 million people, around 7 million, live under the poverty line and more than half are women.
Many widows struggle with the realities of their new lives; raising children alone, with little money or family support.
"The woman's suffering is huge in these difficult circumstances because she is the father, the mother, the care-giver and the breadwinner," Zaidi said. "She is taking huge responsibility, inside and outside the home. We are trying to help her as much as we can."
During Saddam's reign, widows were paid a monthly benefit and were given land and a car, which helped to placate many. He also rewarded members of the military who married widows.
Those benefits stopped when he was toppled.
In 2009, a new law was passed to help victims of war and their relatives, and a state-run compensation committee to help those hurt by militant attacks began its work in July.
Standard compensation includes 5 million Iraqi dinars ($4,275) for a government worker who is killed and 3.75 mln dinars ($3,200) for non-government worker, along with land and a monthly pension, in addition to social security benefits.
So far the committee has given out 55 billion dinars ($47 million). Land has been distributed in some provinces but not in Baghdad yet, said Hazem al-Haidari, the head of the committee.
A widow's monthly social security is 100,000 Iraqi dinar($85). Each child receives 15,000 ID ($13).
"I agree it is little. But there is a real plan to increase these benefits," Zaidi said.
Iraqi women say registering for government pensions is a bureaucratic nightmare due to corrupt workers who demand money to complete the paperwork.
One divorcee said she spent almost a year registering and when she was about to finish the process the pension office told her that her file had been lost. She gave up.
The government has allocated $1.2 billion a year to a plan to reduce the poverty level to 16 percent by 2014, said Hassan al-Zubaidi, a professor at Kufa University in Najaf and one of the plan's authors.
The plan sets the poverty line at 77,000 ID ($66) a month; a line to which too many Iraqis are dangerously close.
"Most of (the people) are close to the 77,000 ID, which means with any security and economic crisis, many people will be under the poverty line," Zubaidi said.
WINDOWS, BUT NO GLASS
The 75-square-metre home where Dakhil is raising her five children has no glass in the windows. A broken air cooler sits in the front yard.
"My children went to bed without dinner the other night," she said. "I want compensation from the government. I want them to build us a house."
In a camp near the Iraqi capital's Sadr City slum, the plight of widows is slightly better than Dakhil's. The Baghdad Provincial Council distributed 150 caravans to displaced families rent-free.
Ibn Sina, a non-governmental organisation, helps widows find jobs. The group bought one a sewing machine and another a refrigerator and food supplies so they could earning a living.
Kadhmiya Mohammed, 35, a mother of five, sells used household goods at the camp, but barely meets the needs of her family. Her husband disappeared in 2005 and despite searching hospitals and prisons she was unable to find any trace of him.
He was declared dead by a court two years ago.
"My husband went (missing) but I have children. Who should raise them?" she said. "Our conditions are tragic. For how long shall we stay like this?"
© Copyright (c) Reuters
Enrique Ferro shared a link.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10907.htm
In case you missed it:
US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war:
Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. "The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you," he told Mr Cohen. "I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position."
In case you missed it:
Incinerating Iraqis; the napalm cover up :
Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had "lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq". (06-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims.
SHAME ON THEM!
Palestinian-UN Bid Rejected
Friday November 11, 2011 23:15
by Alaa Ashkar - IMEMC & Agencies
UN Admission Committee, specialized for recognizing new states’ applications, submitted its report to the UN Security Council on Friday, reading that the Palestinian-UN full membership has been rejected after discussions regarding the Palestinian bid.
PA President, Abbas submitting bid to UN www.maannews.net
Eight members voted in favor of the Palestinian-UN bid, which are Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Niger, Gabon and Lebanon while 7 other members voted against the bid including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Columbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Portugal has abstained.
It is worth mentioning that the committee’s stand has been leaked out few days ago which cause the Palestinian Minister Foreign Affairs, Riyad Al-Maliki, confirming the Palestinian bid for full membership at the UN. He further stated that the Palestinians would continue their attempts in order for Palestine to be a full member at the international body.
http://www.imemc.org/article/62493
From Mazin Qumsiyeh:
Land Confiscation, Actions, and more
(Please scan for important action items at bottom in bold)
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2011/11/land-confiscation.html
Back to the (ab)normal and unpredictable situation here in Palestine. I give talks to visiting international delegations, we deal with problems, we organize activities, we attend events including various forms of non-violent resistance, I teach students, I do clinical service, I write on my upcoming books, eat great food, have wonderful conversations etc. I keep up with the news of my friends who were on the boats to Gaza. The Canadian abductees arrived home. Some Irish abductees were re-imprisoned. Israeli armed guards prevented them boarding planes at the last minute (more at http://witnessgaza.com/). But the world is outraged and politicians while still attached to their failing positions, are feeling besieged by their own people. Delegations from Sweden, Ireland, the US, and many others pass through Palestine and then stay in touch via the internet learning and becoming even more active against the idiotic policies of mainstream Western politicians. Thousands of people are finally saying: we will not take it anymore. The Empire and its servants are pushing for a war on Iran now (after they pushed for an illegal war on Iran) but judging from average people reaction and the jitters in the stock market, there is no constituency for war. I do not think it will happen. Racism will lose anyway, with or without their racist wars.
New Land Confiscation in Beit Jala (Bethlehem area)
http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=3661
(today there was a prayer for peace in the area with clergy from different denominations)
Action 1: For Palestinians who can attend, we will have a meeting Saturday 12 Nov 2011 at 4 PM in Ramallah to plan a series of activities including on Tuesday 15 November, on Christmas, on Land Day, on Easter, and more. Join us. Email in...@palestinejn.org for details and to confirm attendance.
ACTION 2: Get your Palestine solidarity pack from "If Americans Knew" in time for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (November 29) and hold an event of solidarity/support
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/solidaritypack.html
ACTION 3: Join us in Palestine
November 15 (Tuesday) Palestinian Freedom Riders to Challenge Segregation By Riding Settler Buses to Jerusalem. Meeting point: the Ramallah Cultural Palace at 1:00 PM
in Christmas http://www.palestinejn.org
on March 30 for the Global March to Jerusalem www.globalmarchtojerusalem.org
(autonomous North American GMJ group at www.gmj-na.org)
and April 15-21 for the Welcome to Palestine Campaign http://www.welcometopalestine.info, and http://www.BienvenuePalestine.com
Young and Jewish: This is a great video (must see)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jyp-3ulZmQI
Funding illegal Israeli settlements? Priceless. by Bernard Keane
Visa, Mastercard and PayPal all enable donations to be made to US-registered groups funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law but restricted donations to wikileaks!
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/13/funding-illegal-israeli-settlements-priceless/
Disarm the conflict (Who is arming the occupation) http://disarmtheconflict.wordpress.com/
Join Interfaith Peace builders Upcoming Delegations to Palestine
http://www.ifpb.org/delegations/upcoming.html
Americans Pay Dearly to Maintain Israel's Nuclear Secrets by Grant Smith
U.S. renews financial aid to Palestinian Authority. Action comes after top AIPAC-supported congressional leaders drop their opposition. The Obama administration assured the occupied congress that this is in the national interest of the US and that "Israel does not abject" to renewal of this "security assistance."
Présentation de la nouvelle mission Bienvenue Palestine II. Le vendredi 25 novembre · 18:30 - 21:30
Lieu de présentation: Rue du Chevreuil n°4 à 1000 Bruxelles Près de la place du jeu de Balle http://www.BienvenuePalestine.com
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Enrique Ferro shared a link.
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"It doesn't matter to them if it's untrue. It's a higher truth"
By William Blum "We came, we saw, he died." Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of 9-11: "We came, we saw, 3,000 died ... ha-ha." Clinton and her partners-in-crime in NATO can also have a good laugh at how they deceived the world. The destruction of Libya, the reduction of a modern welfare state to piles of rubble, to ghost towns, the murder of thousands ... this tragedy was the culmination of a series of falsehoods spread by the Libyan rebels, the Western powers, and Qatar (through its television station, al-Jazeera) — from the declared imminence of a "bloodbath" in rebel-held Benghazi if the West didn't intervene to stories of government helicopter-gunships and airplanes spraying gunfire onto large numbers of civilians to tales of Viagra-induced mass rapes by Gaddafi's army. (This last fable was proclaimed at the United Nations by the American Ambassador, as if young soldiers needed Viagra to get it up!) *1 The New York Times (March 22) observed:
The Los Angeles Times (April 7) added this about the rebels' media operation: It's not exactly fair and balanced media. In fact, as [its editor] helpfully pointed out, there are four inviolate rules of coverage on the two rebel radio stations, TV station and newspaper:
The Libyan government undoubtedly spouted its share of misinformation, but it was the rebels' trail of lies, both of omission and commission, which was used by the UN Security Council to justify its vote for "humanitarian" intervention; followed in Act Three by unrelenting NATO/US bombs and drone missiles, day after day, week after week, month after month; you can't get much more humanitarian than that. If the people of Libya prior to the NATO/US bombardment had been offered a referendum on it, can it be imagined that they would have endorsed it? In fact, it appears rather likely that a majority of Libyans supported Gaddafi. How else could the government have held off the most powerful military forces in the world for more than seven months? Before NATO and the US laid waste to the land, Libya had the highest life expectancy, lowest infant mortality, and highest UN Human Development Index in Africa. During the first few months of the civil war, giant rallies were held in support of the Libyan leader. *2 For further discussion of why Libyans may have been motivated to support Gaddafi, have a look at this video: If Gaddafi had been less oppressive of his political opposition over the years and had made some gestures of accommodation to them during the Arab Spring, the benevolent side of his regime might still be keeping him in power, although the world has plentiful evidence making it plain that the Western powers are not particularly concerned about political oppression except to use as an excuse for intervention when they want to; indeed, government files seized in Tripoli during the fighting show that the CIA and British intelligence worked with the Libyan government in tracking down dissidents, turning them over to Libya, and taking part in interrogations. *3 In any event, many of the rebels had a religious motive for opposing the government and played dominant roles within the rebel army; previously a number of them had fought against the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. *4 The new Libyan regime promptly announced that Islamic sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation, and laws that contradict "the teachings of Islam" would be nullified; there would also be a reinstitution of polygamy; the Muslim holy book, the Quran, allows men up to four wives. *5 Thus, just as in Afghanistan in the 1980-90s, the United States has supported Islamic militants fighting against a secular government. The American government has imprisoned many people as "terrorists" in the United States for a lot less. What began in Libya as "normal" civil war violence from both sides — repeated before and since by the governments of Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria without any Western military intervention at all (the US actually continues to arm the Bahrain and Yemen regimes) — was transformed by the Western propaganda machine into a serious Gaddafi genocide of innocent Libyans. Addressing the validity of this very key issue is another video, "Humanitarian War in Libya: There is no evidence". The main feature of the film is an interview with Soliman Bouchuiguir, Secretary-General, and one of the founders in 1989, of the Libyan League for Human Rights, perhaps the leading Libyan dissident group, in exile in Switzerland. Bouchuiguir is asked several times if he can document various charges made against the Libyan leader. Where is the proof of the many rapes? The many other alleged atrocities? The more than 6,000 civilians alleged killed by Gaddafi's planes? Again and again Bouchuiguir cites the National Transitional Council as the source. Yes, that's the rebels who carried out the civil war in conjunction with the NATO/US forces. At other times Bouchuiguir speaks of "eyewitnesses": "little girls, boys who were there, whose families we know personally". After awhile, he declares that "there is no way" to document these things. This is probably true to some extent, but why, then, the UN Security Council resolution for a military intervention in Libya? Why almost eight months of bombing? Bouchuiguir also mentions his organization's working with the National Endowment for Democracy in their effort against Gaddafi, and one has to wonder if the man has any idea that the NED was founded to be a front for the CIA. Literally. Another source of charges against Gaddafi and his sons has been the International Criminal Court. The Court's Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is shown in this film at a news conference discussing the same question of proof of the charges. He refers to an ICC document of 77 pages which he says contains the evidence. The film displays the document's Table of Contents, which shows that pages 17-71 are not available to the public; these pages, apparently the ones containing the testimony and evidence, are marked as "redacted". In an appendix, the ICC report lists its news sources; these include Fox News, CNN, the CIA, Soliman Bouchuiguir, and the Libyan League for Human Rights. Earlier, the film had presented Bouchuiguir citing the ICC as one of his sources. The documentation is thus a closed circle. Historical footnote: "Aerial bombing of civilians was pioneered by the Italians in Libya in 1911, perfected by the British in Iraq in 1920 and used by the French in 1925 to level whole quarters of Syrian cities. Home demolitions, collective punishment, summary execution, detention without trial, routine torture — these were the weapons of Europe's takeover" in the Mideast. *6 The worldwide eternal belief that American foreign policy has a good side that can be appealed to On April 6, 2011 Moammar Gaddafi wrote a letter to President Obama, in which he said: "We have been hurt more morally than physically because of what had happened against us in both deeds and words by you. Despite all this you will always remain our son whatever happened. ... Our dear son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oubama, your intervention in the name of the U.S.A. is a must, so that Nato would withdraw finally from the Libyan affair." *7 Before the American invasion in March 2003, Iraq tried to negotiate a peace deal with the United States. Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction and offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search; they also offered full support for any US plan in the Arab-Israeli peace process, and to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. If this is about oil, they added, they would also talk about US oil concessions. *8 ... Then came shock and awe! In 2002, before the coup in Venezuela that briefly ousted Hugo Chávez, some of the plotters went to Washington to get a green light from the Bush administration. Chávez learned of this visit and was so distressed by it that he sent officials from his government to plead his own case in Washington. The success of this endeavor can be judged by the fact that the coup took place shortly thereafter. *9 In 1994, it was reported that the leader of the Zapatista rebels in Mexico, Subcommander Marcos, said that "he expects the United States to support the Zapatistas once US intelligence agencies are convinced the movement is not influenced by Cubans or Russians." "Finally," Marcos said, "they are going to conclude that this is a Mexican problem, with just and true causes." *10 Yet for many years, the United States provided the Mexican military with all the training and tools needed to crush the Zapatistas. The Guatemalan foreign minister in 1954, Cheddi Jagan of British Guiana in 1961, and Maurice Bishop of Grenada in 1983 all made their appeals to Washington to be left in peace. *11 The governments of all three countries were overthrown by the United States. In 1945 and 1946, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, a genuine admirer of America and the Declaration of Independence, wrote at least eight letters to President Harry Truman and the State Department asking for America's help in winning Vietnamese independence from the French. He wrote that world peace was being endangered by French efforts to reconquer Indochina and he requested that "the four powers" (US, USSR, China, and Great Britain) intervene in order to mediate a fair settlement and bring the Indochinese issue before the United Nations. *12 Ho Chi Minh received no reply. He was, after all, some sort of communist. America's presstitutes Imagine that the vicious police attack of October 25 on the Occupy Oakland encampment had taken place in Iran or Cuba or Venezuela or in any other ODE (Officially Designated Enemy) ... Page One Righteous Indignation with Shocking Photos. But here's the Washington Post the next day: A three-inch story on page three with a headline: "Protesters wearing out their welcome nationwide"; no mention of the Iraqi veteran left unconscious from a police projectile making contact with his head; as to photos: just one — an Oakland police officer petting a cat that was left behind by the protesters. And here's TV comedian Jay Leno the same night as the police attack in Oakland: "They say Moammar Gaddafi may have been one of the richest men in the world ... 200 billion dollars. With all of the billions he had, he spent very little on education or health care for his country. So I guess he was a Republican." *13 The object of Leno's humor was of course the Republicans, but it served the cause of further demonizing Gaddafi and thus adding to the "justification" of America's murderous attack on Libya. If I had been one of Leno's guests sitting there, I would have turned to the audience and said: "Listen people, under Gaddafi health care and education were completely free. Wouldn't you like to have that here?" I think that enough people in the audience would have applauded or shouted to force Leno to back off a bit from his indoctrinated, mindless remark. And just for the record, the 200 billion dollars is not money found in Gaddafi's personal bank accounts anywhere in the world, but money belonging to the Libyan state. But why quibble? There's no business like show business. The Iraqi Lullabye On February 17, 2003, a month before the US bombing of Iraq began, I posted to the Internet an essay entitled "What Do the Imperial Mafia Really Want?" concerning the expected war. Included in this were the words of Michael Ledeen, former Reagan official, then at the American Enterprise Institute, which was one of the leading drum-beaters for attacking Iraq:
After a year of the tragic farce that was the American intervention in Iraq I could not resist. I sent Mr. Ledeen an email reminding him of his words and saying simply: "I'd like to ask you what songs your children are singing these days." I received no reply. Has there ever been an empire that didn't tell itself and the world that it was unlike all other empires, that its mission was not to plunder and control but to enlighten and liberate? The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo — 20 years in a row For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an "international pariah". We don't hear that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions): 1992 yes: 59, no: 2, no votes: US, Israel Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments. How it began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: "The majority of Cubans support Castro ... The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. ... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba." Mallory proposed "a line of action which ... makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."14 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its eternally-declared enemy. Notes *1: Viagra: Reuters, April 29, 2011 |
 India's Hindu right-wing is celebrating the removal of an essay on the Ramayana from Delhi University's syllabus that was deemed "blasphemous" and "capricious" for exploring the epic's numerous interpretations. By insisting the only Ramayana is Valmiki's, the right-wing has endangered a golden thread that's linked Asia's peoples for millennia. - Sudha Ramachandran (Nov 9, '11) |
THANK YOU, RICHARD, FOR THIS WONDERFUL POEM!!!
Best wishes,
Gabi
http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/
Preparing for Revolution
by RICHARD FALK
5 Nov
PREPARING FOR REVOLUTION
To be human
is to be
naked
before and after
the law
To be protected
if ever
if at all
only by
the decency
of others
And when unprotected
abused neglected
there are
dark clouds
in the sky
of the citizen
He who seems proud
only when
saluting
flags
paying bills on time
this code of his:
‘virtuous obedience’
My code
is learned
(if ever learned)
only by moonlight:
‘disobedience is love’
Nurtures
the heart
in hard times
even amid strangers
even on crowded streets
Silence
helps also
until the time
finally comes
and when it does—
it will
Then
to do to undo
to act
ready to kiss one another
ready to die
--
“They have succeeded in dominating us more
through ignorance, than through force”.
Simon Bolivar
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" - Steve Biko