U.S. in full spectrum War with Libya, Pentagon plans to exterminate civilians

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NATO Rejects Gaddafi Ceasefire Offer, Continues Bombing Tripoli

First Posted: 04/29/11 11:55 PM ET Updated: 04/30/11 02:09 PM ET



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/29/gaddafi-says-libya-ready-for-ceasefire_n_855815.html

[chrisfromchi]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/libyan-leader-offers-negotiations-with-nato-powers-as-air-strikes-hit-government-complex/2011/04/30/AFEnb1JF_story.html

TRIPOLI, Libya — A NATO missile struck a house in Tripoli where Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were staying on Saturday, missing the Libyan leader but killing his youngest son and three grandchildren, a government spokesman said.

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi was the sixth son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.

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Predator Drones To “Stop Genocide”?


AfrobeatRadio

May 2, 2011

Download: AfrobeatRadio on Drones and Genocide 04-30-2011.mp3
http://www.anngarrison.com/sites/default/files/mp3/AfrobeatRadio%20on%20Drones%20and%20Genocide%2004-30-2011.mp3

AfrobeatRadio producer Ann Garrison spoke to journalist, human rights investigator, and electrical engineer Keith Harmon Snow about the lobbying campaign to use General Atomics’ Predator Drones "to stop genocide" in Africa.

MUCH MORE

http://uruknet.com/?p=m77362&hd=&size=1&l=e






 

 

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Government by Assassination


BY Lesley Docksey

This video frame grab, obtained from ABC News on May 2, 2011, shows the interior bedroom in the mansion where Osama Bin Laden was killed May 1

May 2, 2011
http://uruknet.com/?p=m77366&hd=&size=1&l=e

So – Osama bin Laden’s dead and any day now we’ll be told that another 'public enemy number one’, Colonel Gaddafi, has also been killed in the noble cause of bringing democracy to the world.

Have the West really reached such rock bottom in world governance that its main policy is assassination of people it doesn’t approve of? It seems we have returned to the ways of the ancient Roman Empire, although then it was done with knives and poison. Now it is done by NATO air strikes and covert operations by Special Forces.

Who gave the West permission to override international law and act as judge, jury and executioner?

The hypocrisy of Western governments pontificating (very selectively at that) about other states’ war crimes is hard to stomach. No one would dispute that under Gaddafi’s leadership towns have been shelled by government forces and civilians killed, acts for which someone should be tried. Serial killers are allowed their day in court, and a chance to defend themselves, but it seems 'public enemies’ are allowed nothing but assassination. With every act the West makes it clear it considers itself above international law, while it points the judgmental finger at other states and interferes by sending in the troops.

The killing of Saif al-Arab Gaddafi on 30 April as a result of a NATO air strike on what was apparently a domestic dwelling has caused a huge amount of anger in Tripoli, along with furious attacks on foreign embassies. It has also greatly strengthened the belief, not just among Libyans, that NATO is quite deliberately targeting Gaddafi himself. Regime change in Libya is for Libyans to decide. For any other state to try to force regime change is against international law. And how much more illegal would it be to achieve that by assassination?

Then again, no one would dispute that under bin Laden’s leadership Al Qaeda has been responsible for violent acts resulting in many gruesome civilian deaths and injuries. But these are criminal acts for which the perpetrators should be tried in court.

If the US knew where bin Laden was living (and it has been suggested that they have known since last September), why didn’t they simply ask Pakistan to send the police in to arrest him? I know that sounds extremely simplistic, but both diplomatically and legally that is what should have happened, and in terms of world public relations it could, possibly, have been a coup for the US. Instead they send in the Special Forces with its accompanying hail of bullets. Why wait until now, unless it suited Obama’s agenda? Who knows how many really died in that attack? And why the 'burial at sea’, or rather, what are they trying to hide? We can look forward to a whole host of theories on that, none of which will help end terrorism or bring peace to the world.

Robert Fisk, speaking on Al Jazeera, pointed out how irrelevant bin Laden and Al Qaeda had become following the tide of revolution that has swept North Africa and the Middle East. The people on the streets did not want an Islamic Caliphate. They wanted freedom. In his words, they wanted to 'be able to breathe’.

From Tunisia onwards, the demonstrations have taken Al Qaeda out of the political game. Al Qaeda, Fisk said, had been as surprised as the West by the uprisings and, apart from the bombing in Marrakech on 29 April, had been remarkable for its lack of activity, not knowing how to react. And like many commentators, he feared that bin Laden’s assassination will result in a wave of retaliatory suicide bombings around the world.

Both in the US and Britain, the security threat level has now been increased. One can expect the same in France and Italy, our partners in the Libyan air strikes. In other words, by their actions, and their determination to govern by assassination, our governments have vastly increased the threat of global terrorism and the public’s risk of being blown up.

Perhaps they don’t want an end to the 'war on terror’. Perhaps they want us all to rebel so that they can crack down and try to assassinate the lot of us. The Roman Empire went through an orgy or assassination and in-fighting, until it reached the point when it became too vulnerable to survive. It collapsed, as empires do. Now it is happening again. Soon the Empire of the West will, in its desperation to control the world, do something so outrageously illegal that it will manufacture its own collapse. Will men in power never learn?

Lesley Docksey
2 May 2011

 
http://uruknet.com/?p=m77366&hd=&size=1&l=e

[bigron]

Middle East
May 6, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME06Ak02.html 
 
Fatigue shows in Libya


By Victor Kotsev


TEL AVIV - Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi is showing first signs of military strain, if mostly because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become so desperate that it has embarked on an assassination campaign against him. It is yet to be seen how many more self-declared red lines the leaders of the intervention will breach to avoid - or delay at great human cost - losing the "humanitarian" war.

It is hard to overlook that operations to "crush the head of the snake" (kill or capture rogue leaders that refuse to be defeated) seem to be the latest military fashion in the West. First it was Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo, who is persistently rumored to have been captured by French commandos rather than by the local forces of his enemy, Alassane Ouattara. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki lays out the case for how the intervention on the part of the international community, and specifically the French, was misguided and morally dubious from the start. [1]

More recently, Osama bin Laden's assassination in Pakistan has raised considerable controversy. [2] Somewhere in between, at least two of what looked a whole lot like attempts on Gaddafi's life took place in Libya - one about 10 days ago, [3] and another one on Saturday, killing his obscure youngest son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi. "Targeted assassinations have become an increasingly favorite tool of US security policy," Stephen Walt, Harvard international affairs professor, writes in Foreign Policy. "...And there's certainly some reason to believe that this is how NATO is trying to resolve the civil war in Libya, though of course we will never say so openly."

It bears noting that the bombing that took the life of Saif al-Arab came roughly at the same time as a new peace offer from Gaddafi, which NATO and the rebels rejected promptly. The moral ambiguity - or outright hypocrisy - of the assassination attempts is also underscored by the fact that Obama has publicly ruled out killing Gaddafi several times in the past.

A desperate move though this may be, it is unclear how it would help the situation in Libya, beyond giving NATO a symbolic opportunity to declare victory, George W Bush-in-Iraq style, and to deal with the consequences later. Those consequences would be unpleasant, to say the least - for if Gaddafi goes, two alternative evils wait in store.

Firstly, like Osama bin Laden, he is the symbol of his side, but in practice he seems to have delegated a lot of the direct responsibilities to those around him, specifically his sons. To borrow a corporate metaphor, he is more like the chairman of the board rather than the chief executive officer. His son Saif al-Islam is in charge of propaganda and diplomacy (and most likely designated successor) while his sons Khamis and Mutassem seem to be spearheading the military campaign.

This means that although the government in Tripoli would be weakened by his death, it is unlikely to crumble, at least in the immediate aftermath, and the civil war would become even more entrenched as many Libyans would perceive him as a martyr fighting an invasion. The international community - beyond NATO members and a few countries in the Persian Gulf - would also become more vocal against the intervention.

Secondly, if the government does collapse eventually, this would plunge the country into utter chaos and would most likely result in an atrocious civil war and massive waves of refugees flooding North Africa and Europe. Libyan society has never been particularly cohesive, and a lot of bridges were burnt in the last few months as the rebellion pitted the western part of the country against the eastern one. In addition, arms proliferation has soared, [4] and various factions and interests have mushroomed; tribalism is also rampant. This situation is a recipe for disaster.

Some could argue that the unsuccessful assassination attempts were meant to deter Gaddafi, and there are some signs of success - for example, around the time of the first bombing, the colonel pulled his forces away from the center of the largest rebel stronghold in the western part of Libya, the town of Misrata which has been under siege for months.

A stepped-up NATO campaign against his forces, which reportedly killed hundreds of soldiers and destroyed many dozens of tanks and other vehicles, helped degrade his military capability and beat back subsequent incursions in the city and in smaller rebel centers in the western mountains.

However, all this did not contribute to human security or to the protection of civilians. Civilian casualties from the air campaign aside, the frustration of Gaddafi's attempts at conquest of the rebel bastions has led to his use of inaccurate rockets and artillery which have killed and wounded many. While his army failed in repeated attempts to take over Misrata's port and vital link to the world, it managed to lay mines in the waters next to it, and sustained rocket and mortar fire on it despite the bombings.

NATO, meanwhile, is showing signs of strain as well. Recently, France reacted sharply against Italy's decision to grant travel visas to thousands of North African refugees, [5] and even threatened to leave the Schengen treaty. Speak about moral ambiguity - for "humanitarian warrior" Sarkozy, the use of violence is quite fine, but shouldering some of the burdens in his own country isn't.

The rebels, too, are not doing very well - they have so failed to make significant territorial gains against Gaddafi, despite the air campaign. The eastern front is in a stalemate. They did manage to conquer briefly a key border post in the western part of the country, but were later overrun by the government forces, and the fighting has been going back-and-forth since, occasionally spilling into Tunisia. [6]

On Wednesday, moreover, their spokesman said that the Transitional National Council in Benghazi needed urgently US$1.5 billion. "We need this for medical supplies, for food supplies, to keep the minimum functions of normal life - electricity, running hospitals etc," he said, quoted by al-Jazeera.

Yet the alliance - or the most vocal parts of it - is digging in its heels. It seems remotely possible that the strategy is to pack up and run after a symbolic success, but Western military advisors present among the rebels and all the other military assistance (shipments of "non-lethal" military equipment have been confirmed; rumors of covert forces on the ground and arms supplies are becoming louder and louder) tell a different tale. Just last week, Italy's parliament approved an expanded role of the country in the war.

In past interventions in civil wars - Vietnam stands as an extreme case, though Bosnia is also an example - military advisers have been a prelude to "boots on the ground". The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized enforcing a "no-fly zone" over the country, specifically prohibits an invasion, but it has already been stretched so thin that it is irrelevant to the campaign. Moreover, it appears that a modified narrative is being prepared to justify wider involvement.

A couple of weeks ago, right before Gaddafi pulled his forces from the center of Misrata, several world leaders suggested that "humanitarian" forces might be sent there. While the colonel seems to have preempted that - or at least delayed it - now we are starting to hear more and more about Gaddafi's war crimes. The International Criminal Court's top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who in the past has been accused of bias, [7] announced on Wednesday that he will seek an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader and at least two aides for crimes against humanity.

Talk about justice, Obama-kills-Bin Laden-style. A suspicious spin is also emerging about the use of rape as a weapon of war; Moreno-Ocampo specifically accused Gaddafi of this in his speech. There are a number of reports of rape in Libya, and such a heinous crime cannot be taken lightly, but neither should be manipulated allegations of it. "We have a few credible cases of gender based violence and rape, but the evidence is not there at this point to suggest it is of a systematic nature, or an official policy," said last week Fred Abrahams, a representative of Human Rights Watch.

The implicit paradigm is Bosnia. But in Bosnia there were rape camps and systematic campaigns to impregnate "enemy" women in order to challenge and destroy the identity of said enemy. This is not - certainly doesn't seem to be, even from rebel reports - the case in Libya. The collective memory of the international community, however, is short and generally pays little attention to detail.

In any case, such a tactic would indicate that Gaddafi has lost all hope to rule a united Libya again, and is seeking to preempt any possibility for a compromise in order to consolidate his own supporters. I have argued before that he might resort to such tactics, [8] but only as a weapon of last resort, and he just doesn't seem to be nearly as desperate at this time.

A recent al-Jazeera report shows stockpiles of Viagra and Cialis, of which rebels claim to have found large amounts on captured Gaddafi soldiers and in bombed government tanks. [9] The allegation goes that Gaddafi ordered his men to rape "rebel" women, and provided them with the means to do so (perhaps less a statement that government troops are impotent as an implication that they are acting against their own will).

What seems a bit strange in the images - though obviously this is only circumstantial evidence - is that the medications showed seem right off the shelf, neatly packaged with bar-codes and bearing Pfizer logos. Throughout Africa, on the other hand, and specifically on the black market on which Gaddafi reportedly relies heavily, countless generic medications circulate to treat anything from worms to impotence to Malaria to AIDS (the HIV epidemic and expensive AIDS medication patents have significantly boosted this underground trade).

It is hard to imagine, to say the least, that these new containers were found either on the bodies of captured soldiers in a prolonged military campaign, or in burnt-out tanks. It looks too much like a manipulation, and has the logic of one - let's recall, for example, how the US invading invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to bring there women's rights.

Overall, the assisted civil war in Libya seems to be entering a new and uglier stage, whether that involves a protracted civil war after an eventual NATO pullout or a ground war. In both cases, the humanitarian cause will likely suffer the most.

Notes

1. What the World Got Wrong in Cote D'Ivoire, Foreign Policy, April 29, 2011.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/29/what_the_world_got_wrong_in_cote_d_ivoire
 
2. Concerns raised over shooting of unarmed bin Laden, burial, Reuters, May 4, 2011.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-binladen-legitimacy-idUSTRE74318620110504

3. NATO Bombs Gadhafi Cribs (But Not to Kill Him, Honest), Wired, April 26, 2011.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/04/nato-bombs-gadhafi-cribs-but-not-to-kill-him-honest/

4. Qaddafi's Great Arms Bazaar, Foreign Policy, April 8, 2011.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/08/qaddafi_s_great_arms_bazaar
 
5. France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty, BBC April 26, 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

6. Libyan fighting spills into Tunisia, The Christian Science Monitor, April 29, 2011.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0429/Libyan-fighting-spills-into-Tunisia

7. African Union accuses ICC prosecutor of bias, Reuters, January 30, 2011.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE70T01R20110130

8. Gaddafi reaches tipping point, Asia Times Online, February 25, 2011.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB26Ak04.html

9. Gaddafi forces accused of rape, al-Jazeera, May 3, 2011.
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/05/20115381016787271.html




Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv.
 
 
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME06Ak02.html

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NATO discusses ground operation, Libya promises hell



RussiaToday


RussiaToday, May 4, 2011

VIDEO & ARTICLE HERE

 
http://uruknet.com/?p=m77425&hd=&size=1&l=e

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Libya-France: French lawyer to prosecute NATO for 'crimes' in Libya

Afrique en ligne


May 8, 2011

http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/libya-france:-french-lawyer-to-prosecute-nato-for-%E2%80%99crimes%E2%80%99-in-libya-2011050610957.html

French lawyer to prosecute NATO for 'crimes' in Libya - A complaint will be filed in the coming days in Brussels, Belgium, against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for 'crimes' committed in Libya, including the killing of the Libyan leader's son and his three grandchildren, French lawyer Philippe Missamou, announced Thursday to PANA. 'This is a complaint for war crimes and crimes against humanity. I am filing it in Belgium because it is the headquarters of NATO. The Belgian court is competent to assess this complaint,' said the lawyer, who is known for handling political issues. He openly accused NATO of violating the rules of armed conflict in its actions in Libya particularly the protection of civilians.

'For instance the attack of the residence of the son of Libyan leader: it is absolutely not a military objective. It's a murder that should not go unpunished. We will use all legal means to obtain redress', said Missamou.

'What is happening in Libya has nothing to do with events in Tunisia and Egypt. In Libya, we are witnessing an armed insurrection. Insurgents loot, kill, burn. It is the duty of the Tripoli regime to respond by all means. What do we want authorities to do? Idly standby? It's unthinkable,' added the lawyer.

Several organizations from the diaspora, including the Federation of African Workers in France (FETAF), and the Association of Guineans residing abroad (AGRE), have recently expressed their outrage about the NATO air strikes on Libya.

The heads of these organizations have mainly sought a cease-fire while demanding immediate acceptance of a political solution under the auspices of the African Union (AU).

Pana 06/05/2011


http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/libya-france:-french-lawyer-to-prosecute-nato-for-%E2%80%99crimes%E2%80%99-in-libya-2011050610957.html



 

[bigron]

 
 11 May 2011 Last updated at 13:34 GMT
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13358885

 
Libya stalemate leaves Nato without a 'Plan B'

By Jonathan Marcus
BBC Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent 

Nato has prevented the rebels from defeat but cannot ensure their victory

 
"Stalemate" is not a word you will hear in public from the lips of ministers or media handlers in the Ministry of Defence here in London.

It was the British and the French, of course, who were at the forefront of pushing for military action in Libya.

Earlier this week, following talks with his French counterpart, UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox rejected any idea of a military stalemate, noting that the mission to defend the population in Libya would continue.

"It is very important," said Mr Fox, "that we give no sign of any wavering in our resolution."

Behind the scenes, though, there is growing concern at the duration of the campaign and the fact that political rhetoric seems to have outstripped what the military means available can deliver.

Shifting goalposts
 
One of America's leading defence commentators, Prof Tony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, puts it this way: "The mission can only succeed if Gaddafi and his regime are made the primary target and driven from power."

Pretending that a no-fly zone or striking at small, dispersed Libyan units can be sufficient "is farce and not the effective use of force," he says.

Another expert, Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, is even blunter: "Nato has gotten itself into a real pickle", he told me.

 Liam Fox says Nato "must not waver" in its commitment to Libya
"The way out seems pretty clear - taking Col Gaddafi out of the equation will probably take the fight out of Libya's forces," said Prof Bacevich.

"Since Gaddafi probably can't be bought, he's going to have to be killed.

"My guess is that alliance leaders understand that, even if they won't say it out loud."

Nato air power has so far prevented the rebel forces from being defeated but it cannot ensure their victory. Air power has struggled even to lift the siege on the town of Misrata.

But almost from the outset, the goal of the operation has been confused.

The UN resolution authorising the use of force is wide-ranging, but solely devoted to the protection of the civilian population. It's not a justification for regime change.

Continue reading the main story “Start QuoteThe best we can hope for at this stage is a de facto partition of Libya - not something Nato aspired to when this adventure began”
End Quote Professor Sean Kay Military analyst
Nonetheless, several of the key governments involved in the operation - not least the US, the British and the French - have made no secret of their desire to see Col Gaddafi gone.

Veteran US foreign policy analyst Leslie Gelb worries that the goal of getting rid of the Libyan leader has meant that too little attention has been given to diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. The intervention of African Union leaders back in mid-April was one such moment.

"I think they [Nato] missed an opportunity with the African presidents' ceasefire proposal," says Mr Gelb.

"The African leaders proposed a too-narrowly-defined ceasefire. The Nato response should have been to define it more broadly, especially since Col Gaddafi accepted it."

In recent days, there have been more Nato air attacks against command centres in Libya - targets where at least potentially the Libyan leader may be. He has not been seen for a number of days. Many analysts wonder if he is now indeed an explicit target.

 Nato air strikes have failed to dislodge Gaddafi
However, long-time Nato analyst Prof Sean Kay is worried about just such a post-Gaddafi scenario.

"Gaddafi's departure might actually solve little if the nation breaks down into a Somalia-type civil war," he told me.

"The best we can hope for at this stage is a de facto partition of Libya - certainly not something the Nato allies had aspired to when this adventure began.

"No matter what the outcome," he says, "it is very hard to imagine scenarios where Nato ground forces in some kind of peacekeeping role will not be needed in Libya, and likely for a very long and expensive duration."

MORE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13358885

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'NATO to privatize Libyan resources'


Interview with Eugene Michael Jones, editor of Culture Wars Magazine, from Indiana

Fri May 13, 2011 2:32PM


NATO will stay in Libya after Colonel Gaddafi is toppled to take advantage of the natural resources and to put an end to the independent banking system, says an analyst.


In an interview with Press TV, Eugene Michael Jones, editor of Culture Wars Magazine, said that Western powers are aligning to privatize Libya's natural resources by funding the rebels in their effort to topple Gaddafi


VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT HERE :

http://presstv.com/detail/179717.html

[bigron]

NATO attacks cannot kill me: Gaddafi

Sat May 14, 2011 9:35AM

Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi

Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi has said air strikes carried out on his compound in the capital Tripoli by NATO warplanes can not kill him.


"I tell the cowardly crusader [NATO] that I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me," Reuters quoted Gaddafi as saying in brief audio tape remarks on Friday.

"Even if you kill the body you will not be able to kill the soul that lives in the hearts of millions," he added.

MORE

http://presstv.com/detail/179838.html

[bigron]

Balkanisation of Libya


By Simba Russeau

http://uruknet.com/?p=m77683&hd=&size=1&l=e

CAIRO, May 13, 2011 (IPS) - As the battle for Libya rages on - with the country’s economic heartland, Misurata, being the scene of some of the uprising’s fiercest fighting - experts are warning that a 'Balkanisation’ of Libya is possible if the U.S. and NATO opt to exploit loopholes in U.N. Resolution 1973 by arming the opposition.

In the region, "Muammar Gaddafi was advocating for the African Union (AU) to be independent instead of being subservient to the EU and the U.S. by pushing for the African Development Bank (ADB) and replacing the Franc with an African currency," Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, research associate at the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) specialising on the Middle East and Central Asia, told IPS. "Realistically, the Libyan intervention is an attack on the African continent by cutting its head off. They don’t just want to 'Balkanise’ - fragment and divide - Libya, they want to 'Balkanise’ the entire continent."

"Now the west has rediscovered that Gaddafi is a dictator and a tyrant, they are prepared to take action against his regime, under U.N. Resolution 1973, which is primarily concerned with the protection of civilians. The irony is that NATO is now using EU weaponry to bomb some of the same weaponry it had sold to him earlier," Kaye Stearman, media coordinator with the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) told IPS.

In response, former British ambassador to Libya, Richard Dalton told IPS that "NATO has no strategic interests in Libya or elsewhere beyond what is stated in the North Atlantic Treaty as amplified by publicly announced decisions of the NATO Council. Its concern in Libya is the implementation of UNSC 1973".

"The EU wants to see stability, prosperity and good government in all its neighbours," Dalton emphasised.

According to U.N. Resolution 1973, which authorised action to protect Libyan civilians, all member states must ensure strict implementation of the arms embargo established by paragraphs 9 and 10 of the previous Resolution 1970.

Geographically, Libya is a gateway from North to Central Africa and is positioned between Eastern and Western Africa. Human rights advocates warn that by arming opposition groups tribal conflict could spill outside of Libya’s borders. This would also be in direct violation of the U.N. mandate, they say.

"Some EU countries are also considering whether to supply arms to the anti-Gaddafi rebels, which could increase future instability. This can have unforeseen long-term consequences, which can bring great harm to societies and militate against peace building," says Stearman.

One example of how this has played out in the past, Stearman explains, is the U.S. arming of "mujahedeen 'freedom’ forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, which actively prolonged conflicts, led to the growth of armed extremists, including local and foreign Taliban forces, the proliferation of a warlord-based society and the thwarting of the growth of civil society. In addition, the same weaponry supplied by the U.S. was later used against U.S. and allied forces."

During the Potsdam Conference in 1945 - at the end of the Second World War - the Soviet Union, Britain and the U.S. came to an impasse over the fate of seized Italian colonies in Libya. The U.S. wanted a U.N. trusteeship but the Soviet Union suggested various provincial trusteeships, with Tripolitania under its command, Fezzan under France, and Cyrenaica under Britain.

That history is repeating itself now with the U.S. and the EU not only looking to divide Libya under two administrations in Tripoli and Benghazi, but also to eliminate a key competitor that had visions of uniting Africa, Nazemroaya said.

Libya and China were rapidly becoming key energy partners as Beijing positioned itself to be the third- largest buyer of Libyan oil - with more than 50 investment projects in the works.

Analysts like 'Asian Times’ reporter and author of 'Obama does Globalistan’, Pepe Escobar point out that China has taken a serious hit with the recent unrest in North Africa. Its new contracts in Libya totalling 18 billion dollars have declined by nearly 53 percent - this was the aim of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)’s strategic policy to minimise China’s economic interest in Africa.

AFRICOM, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, is responsible for U.S. military activities in 53 African nations.

The U.S. badly wanted a base in Africa and the Libyan intervention has "now provided the opening", Escobar told IPS. "AFRICOM’s participation is the Pentagon’s strategy to counter Chinese investments in Africa."

Escobar says that at the 2010 Lisbon Summit of leaders of NATO governments the agenda was "total domination of the Mediterranean and the establishment of a NATO 'lake’… Gaddafi’s business dealings with China irked Brussels, Paris, London, and of course Washington".

In recent days, Libya’s opposition claim to have gained an upper hand by seizing control of the besieged city of Misurata, whose strategic seaport has been a key lifeline for humanitarian aid missions evacuating migrants and refugees fleeing the violence.

However, Nazemroaya points out that Misurata - which could be likened to a Shanghai on the African continent - is an important industrial and trade base for Libya and Africa that would be a major economic prize should the opposition maintain control.

"Misurata is a very important industrial city and economic heartland. Qasr Ahmed, which is located 250 kilometres east of Tripoli, is a commercial port, and the main headquarters for the Libyan Iron and Steel Company (Lisco) that exports over 60 percent of its products with nearly 50 percent going to markets in Italy and Spain," Nazemroaya said. "Furthermore, the Libyan National Oil Company - which is one of the top 20 energy companies worldwide - is also based there. Privatisation is happening under the guise of a foreign peacekeeping mission, which is why the EU wants to send soldiers."

(END)


http://uruknet.com/?p=m77683&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

[TahoeBlue]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%E1%BA%BFn_Tre
Bến Tre   is the capital city and municipality of Bến Tre Province, located in the Mekong Delta area of southern Vietnam
...
Vietnam War
One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. officer by AP correspondent Peter Arnett. Writing about the provincial capital,

Bến Tre, on February 7, 1968, Arnett said: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today.

He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong."[1] The quote was distorted in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar,

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

"Now the west has rediscovered that Gaddafi is a dictator and a tyrant, they are prepared to take action against his regime, under U.N. Resolution 1973, which is primarily concerned with the protection of civilians. The irony is that NATO is now using EU weaponry to bomb some of the same weaponry it had sold to him earlier," Kaye Stearman, media coordinator with the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) told IPS

[bigron]

Obama’s Imperial Offensive



by Glen Ford

BAR,May 18, 2011

On Thursday, the worlds most cynical rhetorician will attempt to frame regime change and political assassination as defense of civilians and promotion of democracy. Only Americans will be fooled. President Obama has discarded all but the snakeskin of international law. "The Euro-American imperialists and Arab royal mafiosa hope their joint venture will quarantine or crush the Arab Reawakening outside its (barely and tentatively) 'liberated’ territory in Egypt and Tunisia."

"The shock of seeing the empire’s death pass in front of its eyes caused the Obama administration to kick the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance machinery into high gear."

President Obama’s speech to "reset" the U.S. stance in the Middle East will take place at the State Department, but the Pentagon is the true epicenter of American policy toward the Arab Reawakening. Briefly paralyzed early in the year by the specter of resurgent Arab nationalism in the planet’s most vital energy reservoirs, Washington quickly launched a massive military assault on Libya in collaboration with European mini-imperialists to show the Arab world who’s really the boss. In the Persian Gulf region, the Saudi Arabian monarchy gathered up their fellow emirs, sultans and sheiks to safeguard the common patrimony of royal families against democratic or nationalist subversion.

Moammar Gaddafi was drafted as imperialism’s designated demon in North Africa, while Shi’ite Iran served as the scapegoat for royal reaction in the Gulf. The monarch-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council, acting through a confused Arab League, gave moral cover to the Euro-American bum-rush of an equally confused United Nations Security Council. "No-fly" Resolution 1973 landed on the heads of Libyan soldiers amidst the methodical destruction of the country’s infrastructure. Thousands of miles to the east, the Saudis and lesser royals brutally smashed the democratic aspirations of Bahrain’s Shia majority, and schemed to save Yemen from a peaceful people’s uprising.

"R2P is now wholly discredited in the eyes of the conscious world."

In the short-term, the Euro-American imperialists and Arab royal mafiosa hope their joint venture will quarantine or crush the Arab Reawakening outside its (barely and tentatively) "liberated" territory in Egypt and Tunisia. But the shock of seeing the empire’s death pass in front of its eyes in the form of a democratic – and, by definition, anti-U.S. imperialism – Arab nationalist oil dominion caused the Obama administration to kick the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance machinery into high gear. The world needed to know that this president will not allow American spheres of hegemony to shrink on his watch, and that he has the means and the inclination to kill at will. In the space of a few days, hits were made on Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gaddafi and Yemeni-American Anwar al-Awlaki. Should anyone have been fooled by President Obama’s soothing "A New Beginning" speech in Cairo back in June, 2009, they were quickly reminded that Assassinations-R-US.

At the State Department on Thursday, Obama will likely attempt to elevate "humanitarian" military intervention, or "Responsibility to Protect" (R2p), to something akin to an Obama Doctrine – weaving it into his rhetorical "reset" of relations with Arabs, Muslims and the Greater Middle East. Only the American audience (and imperial-minded Europeans) will take him seriously. No sooner was the UN Security Council resolution to "protect" Libyan civilians issued, than it was mangled into a mandate for regime change and political assassination at NATO’s discretion. International law became its opposite. R2P is now wholly discredited in the eyes of the conscious world –which, unfortunately, excludes most Americans.

The International Criminal Court, to which the United States is not a signatory, but which it deploys to indict selected Africans – and only Africans – for human rights offenses, has been eclipsed by Obama’s imperial offensive. Why go through the motions of indicting designated enemies, when Full Spectrum Dominance enables the U.S. to execute them at leisure. The Rubicon has been crossed. Obama’s "reset" speech will only prove that the First Black President is a more outrageously cynical international outlaw than his predecessor.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 
http://uruknet.com/?p=m77857&hd=&size=1&l=e

[Geolibertarian]

U.S. in full spectrum War with Libya, Pentagon plans to exterminate civilians

But it's "humanitarian" extermination, so that makes it okay.

Right, Obamanoids? 

[decemberfellow]

Obamanoids            lol, good word Geo love it.

[Protean]

US/British Imperialist Full Court Press continues-------------


Map of Arab Rage: Imperialism in the making?

http://youtu.be/80GJ30yvLzI

[Protean]

Jibril, Jalil, Younis, and Hifter: NATO’s Libyan Puppet Warlords

Russia Today – May 18, 2011
Note: Tarpley interviewed at 4:40 mark

RT Video interview on page---
http://tarpley.net/media-interviews/

[bigron]

Pirates of the Mediterranean

By William Bowles

20 May 2011 — williambowles.info

http://wp.me/p107R3-aN3

"The media rush to glorify Obama the 'warrior president’ is symptomatic of a Western society that has come to view war as entirely normal… It is by now almost impossible to imagine that the West would not always be attacking, or targeting for attack, some defenceless nation or other." — 'You Cannot Kill An Ideology With A Gun' By Media Lens

All things being equal, which undoubtedly they are not, and surely that’s point, the long overdue arrival of a truly socialized, globalized planet would have been able to tackle the mess capitalism has made of things. After all, our disasters are now planetary in scale and thus can now only be handled by the planet as a whole. That means all of us, not just a privileged few.

And, it is surely an irony that 'globalization’ has been heralded, nay crowed over by the Pirates as the solution to all our problems, yet it’s the nature of capitalist 'globalization’ that is the main source of not only our local but also now the global crises that multiply by the day as the Empire desperately seeks to hang on to its ill-gotten gains. Problems that now threaten our future as a species, never mind a better future for all.

No doubt when comrade Marx first branded our socialist vision with 'Workers of the World, Unite’, he had no idea just how badly his world would screw up everything, for although he was the first true globalist and experienced first-hand the awesome power of industrial capitalism to 'tame nature’, I am sure given the lack of knowledge about the real nature of the biosphere as well as capitalism’s astounding ability to consume everything in its path, nothing could have prepared him for Fukushima or Chernobyl.

One of the Pirates, Gen. Sir David Richards

Operation Odyssey Dawn however would have been ever such familiar territory to him. Such 'escapades’ formerly known as Gunboat Diplomacy had helped build the world Marx inhabited. The only difference was that back then they didn’t need a pretext, might was right, end of story. Nowadays, with all the talk of 'human rights’ and war crimes, gunboat diplomacy is a tad out of sync with all the horseshit being peddled by the Pirates.

The outrageous call by Gen. Sir Richard Davis the other day to bomb everything in Libya illustrates what lurks beneath the veneer of civilization. And believe me, Gen. Sir Davis comes from a long line of pirates stretching all the way back to the 16th century and the reign of Elizabeth I when the pirates were described as 'privateers' or to call them by their contemporary name, private military contractors.[1]

Googling the man, I found plenty of refreezes of his outburst but not a single criticism or even a question from our political masters or the MSM about the military interfering directly in the political process. And it is no accident that the military has moved into the political spotlight, after all, the Empire has had no choice but resort to armed force as its 'solution’ to political/economic problems (caused by its policies in the first place!).

So it’s a double-whammy once again, a feast of imperialist wars abroad and economic/social crises at home, a re-run of the 1930s (and all for pretty much the same the reasons), replete with elected, alleged socialists morphing into fascists through a sophisticated 'rebranding’ of what it is to be fascist. Now we’re fascists abroad and humanitarian at home, well that’s how most of the world sees us and quite rightly so. Unfortunately we don’t see that view represented in our mass media/entertainment behemoth. What we get is the Big Lie, repeated over and over again.

For example, the BBC’s coverage of the invasion of Libya consists either of jingoistic displays concerning 'our boys and girls’ doing their thing with their things, eg:

VIDEO: Footage of air strikes on Libyan warships
BBC News 20/05/2011 at 07:49
Nato air strikes have hit eight warships belonging to Col Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in co-ordinated raid on Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte.

VIDEO: Cockpit video of Tripoli attacks
BBC News 17/05/2011 at 16:32
Nato says overnight air strikes in Tripoli hit important Libyan government buildings.

VIDEO: 'Scanning thousands of miles in minutes’
BBC News 11/05/2011 at 19:05
The BBC’s Caroline Wyatt is the first broadcast journalist to be allowed to film on board an RAF Sentinel spy-plane on a sortie over Libya

And of course, the 'pirate’s’ call,

'VIDEO: Libya: Calls for Nato to 'up the ante’
BBC News 15/05/2011 at 07:38
The head of the UK armed forces has called for Nato to intensify the military campaign in Libya.

The rest of the BBC’s coverage is without exception the Empire’s view of events, there is not a single article on the BBC’s Website that questions Operation Odyssey Dawn and the reasons for the invasion. Just as with Nato and its governments, it is an a priori assumption made by the BBC that every act of the Empire is done for humanitarian reasons or at the very least, the right reasons. There is simply no reason to entertain any alternative to the BBC’s reality and to question it invites disdain and dismissal with a healthy dollop of sarcastic condescension thrown in, itself a sign of weakness when challenged.

Andrew Marr, the then political editor of the BBC to Media Lens:

"I’m afraid I think it is just pernicious and anti-journalistic. I note that you advertise an organisation called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting so I guess at least you have a sense of humour. But I don’t think I will bother with 'medialens’ next time, if you don’t mind."

(Email dated October 7, 2001, after being challenged on his analysis of the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia. For more on this, see our Media Alert, 'The BBC’s Political Editor Responds', October 13, 2001)

In a very real (and I hazard a guess, legal) sense the BBC is complicit (as is the rest of the MSM) in the committing of war crimes not only by accepting the idea that force is the only means of resolving conflict, but also by actively promoting this view in its 'news’ coverage.

Note

1. See also 'Call for Attacks on Libyan Infrastructure Provides Glimpse of NATO’s Real Motives By Conn Hallinan' for more on this pirate of the Mediterranean.


http://wp.me/p107R3-aN3
 

[bigron]

May 26, 2011
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-libyan-itty-bitty-kind-sort-quasi-war-5354

The Libyan Itty-Bitty, Kind of, Sort of, Quasi War

More [1] |

May 24, 2011

by Doug Bandow [2]

Many presidents have been lawyers. Barack Obama is one of the few to have been a constitutional law professor. But he is no less ready to violate the Constitution.

President Obama took the country into war against Libya without a declaration of war. He continues to bombard Libya contrary to the War Powers Resolution. He has compounded one of America’s stupidest wars by making it indisputably illegal.

U.S. participation in Libya’s civil war never made any sense. The conflict posed no security threat. The oil supplies at stake were modest. Most civilian casualties resulted from the fighting, not government massacres. The national “interests” identified by the Justice Department to justify the president’s decision were farcical: “preserving regional stability and supporting the [UN Security Council’s] credibility and effectiveness.”

Moreover, Washington is essentially broke. Busy with one very hot war and the remains of an even hotter one, America cannot afford another war.

Perhaps that is why the president did not go to Congress. It was easier to start bombing and hope legislators would rally around the flag than to make a persuasive case that Washington had reason to bomb Libya—just enough to save civilians, but not quite enough to oust dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Because of this foolish Goldilocks strategy the war goes on, with desultory U.S. and NATO involvement, two months later. And still there is no end in sight. The greatest military alliance in human history is reduced to claiming as a great victory unconfirmed reports that Qaddafi’s wife and daughter have fled the country.

The latest military misadventure yet again illustrates why the Framers wrote the Constitution as they did. If Congress had said yes, it would share responsibility for the impending debacle. If it had said no, it would have spared the country yet another unnecessary and stupid war.

Today chicken hawks fill Congress, but the early Americans were not fond of war. They particularly didn’t like the British system that allowed the king to plunge the entire empire, including the American colonies, into war for the most frivolous of reasons. So the Founders were determined to make war less likely.

George Mason explained that the president "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to decide to go to war. He advocated "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson approved of the constitutional convention’s work, pointing to the "effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose."

James Wilson insisted that the new Constitution "will not hurry us into war." The new system “is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at large.”

The Constitution is clear. Article 1, Sec. 8 (11) states that "Congress shall have the power...to declare war." James Madison explained that the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature." Other essential war powers also were given to Congress: raise the army, set the rules of war, issue letters of marque, ratify treaties, and approve military spending. In contrast, the president’s power was limited to managing the armed forces as commander-in-chief.

Those who favor executive war making are reduced to arguing that to “declare” is just to acknowledge reality. The president can launch an unprovoked invasion of another nation thousands of miles away, while Congress is limited to affirming that yes, indeed, the two countries are at war.

Obviously, the Founders could have made this the law. They knew it well, since it was the British system. But at the constitutional convention only South Carolina’s Pierce Butler pushed to give the president monarchical war powers. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts responded that he "never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive to declare war." During the ratification debates Butler sought to assuage worried South Carolina legislators, noting while some had advocated giving the president this authority, the idea was rejected “as throwing into his hands the influence of a monarch, having an opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her destruction.”

One might think that Alexander Hamilton would have wanted to turn the American president into an analog of the British king. Yet, explained Hamilton, the commander-in-chief was merely the “first general and admiral” of the armed services. The president’s military authority was "in substance much inferior to” that of the British monarch. Indeed, added Hamilton, “It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces...while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war."

If there is a war to be run, the president runs it. But it is Congress that decides whether there will be a war to be run.

Of course, the president is empowered to deploy the military to defend the nation from attack. For this reason the convention delegates changed Congress' power from "make" to "declare" war. Roger Sherman approvingly noted that the president could "repel" war. That, however, is very different from the president initiating war against other states.

The final refuge of those who want to read congressional war powers out of the Constitution is that small wars don’t count. After all, American presidents have unilaterally used the military in this way throughout history.

But the fact that prior presidents may have acted unconstitutionally does not give a later president the authority to do so. Moreover, the list of earlier actions is a motley mix of limited events, conducted under colorable legal authority, undertaken for vaguely defensive purposes, and/or pursued by commanders without authorization who lied to cover their tracks. Many of these actions may have constituted acts of war, but they weren’t actually going to war.

President Obama once believed that the Constitution limited executive authority. Candidate Obama was asked whether he could bomb Iran. He responded: “The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Candidate Hillary Clinton was equally direct: “I do not believe that the president can take military action—including any kind of strategic bombing—against Iran without congressional authorization.”

Senator Joseph Biden also took Congress’ war powers seriously. He threatened impeachment if President George W. Bush bombed Iran without congressional authority. Sen. Biden explained that the Founders “were determined to deny the president” the “unfettered power to start wars.” He added that the “Framers intended to grant to Congress the power to initiate all hostilities, even limited wars.”

This has all been forgotten with Libya.

The administration decided that Libya was an itty-bitty, kind of, sort of, quasi, not exactly real war. So a declaration was not required. But on March 21 President Obama notified Congress that he was intervening in Libya pursuant the War Powers Resolution, which limited any military action to 60 days.

As the two-month mark approached, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that the president was committed “to act consistently with the War Powers Resolution.” But stopping an already unconstitutional war obviously was not an option. Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, explained: “We will not halt our current operations.”

Rather, the administration considered various stratagems to get around the law. The only thing that seemed to matter to the administration was not going to Congress under any circumstance.

One idea was to end strikes by predator drones, leaving support activities. A more creative proposal was to temporarily halt all military action, and then start again. The president then could claim it was a new war, restarting the clock under the War Powers Resolution.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried the Harry Truman gambit—just rename the conflict. The three-year Korean War became a “police action.” Secretary Gates called Libya a “limited kinetic action,” whatever that is. When pressed, however, he admitted that if he were “in Qaddafi’s shoes” he would think of it as war.

Presidential press secretary Jay Carney then joined conservative advocates of a monarchical executive when he questioned the validity of the War Powers Resolution: writings about the law “over the years could fill this room, and none of it would be conclusive.”

For a time the administration acted like it hoped the issue would just go away and the congressional leadership seemed inclined to avoid responsibility by doing nothing. But with the deadline looming a half dozen Republican Senators as well as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Ca.) pressed for an answer: did the administration intend to comply with the law?

On Friday, President Obama wrote congressional leaders explaining that congressional approval no longer is required since America’s role is “more limited,” “non-kinetic,” and “in support.” An administration official added that “the kinetic pieces of that are intermittent.”

Two months ago the president admitted that his actions came under the War Powers Resolution. He used the act to get around the Constitution. Now he refuses to comply with the act. But he reiterated that he would welcome a congressional resolution of support.

This blatant law breaking sets the current administration apart from even George W. Bush’s extraordinary presidency. Jack Goldsmith, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel early in the Bush years, observed: “this appears to be the first time that a president has violated the War Powers Resolution’s requirement either to terminate the use of armed forces within 60 days after the initiation of hostilities or get Congress’s support.”

President Bill Clinton bombed Serbia for nearly three weeks after the deadline, but at least he could argue that Congress signaled its implicit approval of the war by voting continued funding. Congress has not done so with Libya.

Libya is a war. The U.S. leads a military alliance that has mounted two months of attacks on another nation’s government installations and military units. American bombs or drones have been killing Libyan personnel and destroying Libyan equipment every week for two months. Washington’s oft-expressed, informal objective is regime change, with strikes targeting the foreign leader and killing his family members. The fact that U.S. participation is modest does not change the character of the action. Libya is a war.

The Founders would accept no excuse. Columbia law professor John Bassett Moore wrote: “There can hardly be room for doubt that the Framers of the Constitution when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace.”

President Obama likes to channel Abraham Lincoln. Before becoming president, the latter lauded the Framers for understanding war “to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.”

Another good role model would be Dwight Eisenhower. He observed: "I am not going to order any troops into anything that can be interpreted as war, until Congress directs it." George Washington, another chief executive with military experience, wrote: “no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.”

Nearly four years ago candidate Obama declared: “No more ignoring the law when it’s inconvenient.” Today President Obama should obey the law. If he doesn’t, congressional Republicans and Democrats alike should hold him accountable. With war having seemingly become a permanent condition, America desperately needs to revive a constitutional provision that Thomas Jefferson rightly called a “check to the dog of war.”

More by .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source URL (retrieved on May 26, 2011): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-libyan-itty-bitty-kind-sort-quasi-war-5354
Links:
[1] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/doug-bandow

[bigron]

   
 

Murdering Libya: Managing Public Perception

Obama Subtly Shifts War Aims in Libya


By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER

May 26, 2011 "NY Times" - -WASHINGTON — President Obama has subtly shifted Washington’s public explanation of its goals in Libya, declaring now that he wants to assure the Libyan people are “finally free of 40 years of tyranny” at the hands of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, after first stating he wanted to protect civilians from massacres.

But if regime change is now the goal in Libya, Mr. Obama’s trip through Europe this week has highlighted significant tensions over how much time the NATO allies have to finish a job that is now into its third month.

Mr. Obama has urged strategic patience, expressing confidence that over time the combination of bombing, sanctions and import cutoffs will force Colonel Qaddafi from power. “Time is working against Qaddafi,”’ Mr. Obama said on Tuesday during a news conference in London with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain.

But in Europe and in Libya, patience is calculated differently. Many countries are struggling with the rapid pace of operations, and some, like Norway, have already said they will sharply reduce their forces beginning next month. Colonel Qaddafi, according to NATO officials, has a calculation of his own under way: Indicted by the International Criminal Court, he now has few places to go and nothing to lose from waiting out NATO and betting that European public opinion will tire of the bombing campaign and its costs.

In interviews in Washington, in NATO headquarters in Brussels and in the alliance’s southern command center in Naples, Italy, officials have described a new strategy to intensify the pressure — and drive out Colonel Qaddafi, a goal that officials now acknowledge extends beyond the boundaries of the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

This week they are intensifying attacks on government targets in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. They plan to step up the effort even more this week, with the arrival of a dozen French and four British attack helicopters that can hit targets more precisely in and around Tripoli, but are also more vulnerable to ground fire.

“The real challenge is public opinion in Europe and the nations’ patience,” said one senior NATO officer in Naples. “They’d like the war to be over, and have it done properly with no allied casualties or collateral damage to civilians.”

Mr. Obama, however, has taken a gradualist approach that is based on America’s bitter lessons in Iraq. From the start, Mr. Obama has declined to commit ground troops, and quickly handed off the lead in combat operations to other NATO allies, a move that was widely seen in the United States and Europe as an effort to avoid “owning” a war in a nation the United States does not consider strategically vital. White House officials have also said that Mr. Obama was acutely sensitive to not leading a conflict in a third Muslim nation, while Americans are still withdrawing from Iraq and deeply engaged in Afghanistan.

But Mr. Obama’s description of the objectives has shifted. In a speech to the nation in mid-March, he described the effort as simply one of protecting civilians, and the White House denied that ousting Colonel Qaddafi was critical to that effort. “Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake,” he said. In fact, while sporadic attacks on civilians continue, more than two months into the air campaign, the United States and its allies have largely achieved that objective, NATO and American officials contend. The rebel-held ground in eastern Libya is secure, and rebel forces backed by allied air power have pushed back loyalist Qaddafi forces from the contested port city of Misurata
 
 
MORE

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28195.htm

[bigron]

 

Cluster Bombing of Misrata Committed by US Naval Forces,

 Not Qadhafi


By Human Rights Investigations (HRI)

Global Research, May 27, 2011
humanrightsinvestigations.org 


The ongoing HRI investigation of the cluster bombing of Misrata in April 2011 has found convincing evidence the bombing was committed by US naval forces.

The bombing of Misrata

On the 15th April 2011, during the day, sub-munitions of a MAT-120 cluster bomb were shown to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and C.J. Chivers, a journalist for the New York Times, in Misrata. On that evening, during ongoing clashes between rebel and loyalist forces, Human Rights Watch workers witnessed 3 or 4 cluster munitions landing in residential areas of Misrata. HRW attest to further subsequent such bombings.

Civilians were killed in these attacks and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned:

“The reported repeated use of cluster munitions and heavy weaponry by Libyan government forces in their attempt to regain control of the besieged city of Misrata.”

She noted that one cluster bomb had reportedly exploded a few hundred metres from a hospital in Misrata while another two clinics were apparently hit by mortar or sniper fire.

“Using imprecise weaponry such as cluster munitions, multiple rocket launchers and mortars, and other forms of heavy weaponry, in crowded urban areas will inevitably lead to civilian casualties.”
 
MUCH MORE (INCLUDING PICS AND VIDEOS)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25004

[bigron]

Qaddaffi’s Secret Stock Investments Revealed

 



 On Friday May 27, 2011, 12:44 pm EDT

International Advocacy group Global Witness says in a recent report that Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi has stashed billions in Western banks and non-bank companies.  The report notes:

HSBC (NYSE:HBC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) are among the key western bankers for Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, a 2010 document leaked to Global Witness appears to show. The document details the whereabouts of state oil revenues.  However the Libyan people could not know where it was invested or how much it was, because banks have no obligation to disclose state assets they hold. Global Witness is now calling for new laws requiring banks and investment funds to disclose all state funds that they manage.

Other banks and non-bank companies listed in the report include:

HERE

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Qaddaffi-Secret-Stock-wscheats-97351624.html?x=0&.v=1

[TahoeBlue]

Qaddaffi’s Secret Stock Investments Revealed

 
 On Friday May 27, 2011, 12:44 pm EDT

International Advocacy group Global Witness says in a recent report that Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffi has stashed billions in Western banks and non-bank companies.  The report notes:

HSBC (NYSE:HBC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) are among the key western bankers for Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, a 2010 document leaked to Global Witness appears to show. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Qaddaffi-Secret-Stock-wscheats-97351624.html?x=0&.v=1

How am I not surprised?
HSBC (NYSE:HBC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) are among the key western bankers for Colonel Gaddafi’s regime,

[bigron]

Libya: Britain prepares 'bunker buster' bombs for assaults

BY  Richard Norton-Taylor

Bunker buster' bombs are to be loaded on to RAF tornados for possible attacks on command centres and communications nodes in Libya. Photograph: David Moir/Reuters

Paveway bombs weighing 2,000lbs to be loaded onto RAF jets for possible strikes on Gaddafi command centres


May 29, 2011

 
MORE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/29/libya-bunker-buster-bombs-assaults

[bigron]

 
"Boots on the Ground": Sarkozy and Cameron Prepare to Land in Libya


Powerful Naval Strike Group enters Mediterranean

By Manlio Dinucci
 
Global Research, May 31, 2011

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25063

 
Il Manifesto, translated from Italian - 2011-05-28





At the end of the G8 summit, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would visit Benghazi with the British Prime Minister David Cameron, since "we think alike," essentially they agree that they "cannot negotiate with Gadhafi." President Barack Obama expressed the same thought: "We will not relent until the people of Libya are protected, and the shadow of tyranny is lifted." In other words, they are preparing to occupy Libya.


And while the G8 demands from Tripoli "the immediate cessation of the use of force," NATO intensifies air raids; in less than eight weeks more than 8,500 have occurred. Most of the planes leave from bases in southern Italy, with supplies coming from others. Pisa is continually crossed over by C-130J and other cargo planes that, from the U.S. Camp Darby base, transport bombs and missiles to bases in the South (foreshadowing what will come into operation when the national air hub opens and begins to transit all troops and materiel to the operational theaters of war.) That the air strikes are preparation for a landing is confirmed by the entry into operation of the French Tiger helicopter, probably accompanied by the British Apache.


Even more significant is the arrival in the Mediterranean of a powerful naval strike group, led by the most modern and powerful Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, named George H.W. Bush, in honor of the president who in 1991 led in the Persian Gulf the first war in the post-Cold War era (we are now at the fifth). The ship is 333 meters long 40 meters wide and has on board 6,000 personnel, 56 aircraft (which can take off at 20-second intervals) and 15 helicopters, and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare systems. It is thus a large mobile military base. At the same time it is a mobile nuclear power plant: It has two pressurized water reactors PWR A4W/A1G, which drive the steam turbine of the four propellers. A nuclear power plant which, despite having on board reactors more dangerous than those in Fukushima, enters the Bay of Naples and other ports.
 
MORE

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25063

[bigron]

Libya: NATO failing in Libya, media hiding the truth, says Prof Del Boca


Asia News



May 30, 2011

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=54647&t=Libya%3A+++NATO+failing+in+Libya%2C+media+hiding+the+truth%2C+says+Prof+Del+Boca

For Angelo Del Boca, journalist and Libya expert, the high costs of the No Fly Zone have reduced to nothing any hope to see the blitz against Gaddafi succeed. Instead, the war might last several months because the Libyan leader still has troops, weapons and personal assets worth more than a billion ...



Rome – "The high costs of the operation against Gaddafi have turned a blitzkrieg in a media-led phony war. What NATO expected to obtain with the No Fly Zone is now gone," Prof Angelo Antonio Del Boca told AsiaNews. A journalist and university scholar, Prof Del Boca has studied Libya and its leader for more than 30 years. According to the historian, "Gaddafi still has more than a billion Euros and the war could still last several months."

Citing statements by a top Libyan official, Del Boca said that NATO destroyed less than 30 per cent of Libya’s military hardware. Great Britain and France no longer have the means to maintain the No Fly Zone. "The only alternative to unfreeze the situation is a land attack, which is banned by UN Resolution 1973, the historian said. This is why France and Great Britain are sending two ships with helicopters to comply with the UN resolutions."

Today, South African President Jacob Zuma is set to meet Libyan leaders to discuss a ceasefire, but many are sceptical about the chances of success of his visit. For Del Boca, none of the countries involved in this war is interested in a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In fact, "the real reasons of this war are control over the oil fields and US$ 200 billion in Libyan government funds deposited in foreign banks."

"The war is now illegal. Libya is still a sovereign country," Del Boca said. "Europe intervened in a war, backing part of the population against the other, despite UN resolutions that ban third countries from intervening in civil wars."

For the historian, the main problem is NATO’s arbitrary support for the Transitional Council that recently asked for more money to pursue the war.

"No one knows the Benghazi rebels. According to local sources, the cities of Cyrenaica have become a refuge for criminals, spies and members of extremist groups, many from other countries," the historian said.

According to Tunisian media, two border guards were killed in a gun battle with nine armed men, from an extremist movement, who were trying to join the Benghazi rebels.


http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=54647&t=Libya%3A+++NATO+failing+in+Libya%2C+media+hiding+the+truth%2C+says+Prof+Del+Boca





 

[Sasha]

Bombing the bombers to teach them bombs are bad always works.

Why would anyone question this foreign policy/hypocracy.

[bigron]

 
Libya's Gaddafi: I will not leave my country



By Peter Graff Peter Graff
5.31.11

South African President Jacob Zuma (centre) is greeted by Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi (right) and Libyan military officials upon his arrival in Tripoli. NATO pounded Libya's capital, only hours after South Africa's president left following talks that produced only a commitment to a peace plan already rejected by the military alliance and rebels

 
.TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi is emphatic he will not leave Libya, South African President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday after talks with the Libyan leader that left prospects for a negotiated end to the conflict looking dim.

But new questions emerged over how long Gaddafi could hold on after a senior United Nations aid official said shortages of food and medicine in areas of Libya controlled by Gaddafi amounted to a "time bomb."

Within hours of Zuma's departure from Tripoli late on Monday, Libyan television reported that NATO aircraft had resumed attacks, striking what it called civilian and military sites in Tripoli and Tajoura, just east of the capital.

Zuma was in Tripoli to try to revive an African "roadmap" for ending the conflict, which started in February with an uprising against Gaddafi and has since turned into a war with thousands of people killed.

The talks produced no breakthrough, with Gaddafi's refusal to quit -- a condition the rebels and NATO have set as a pre-condition for any ceasefire -- still the sticking point.

"Col. Gaddafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue," Zuma's office said in a statement. "He emphasized that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties."

Zuma also said Gaddafi's personal safety "is a concern" -- a reference to NATO strikes which have repeatedly hit the Libyan leader's Bab al-Aziziyah compound and other locations used by the Libyan leader and his family.

Now in its fourth month, Libya's conflict is deadlocked on the ground, with anti-Gaddafi rebels unable to break out of their strongholds and advance toward Tripoli, where Gaddafi appears to be firmly entrenched.

Rebels control the east of Libya around the city of Benghazi, Libya's third-biggest city Misrata, and a mountain range stretching from the town of Zintan, 150 km (95 miles) south of Tripoli, toward the border with Tunisia.

Western powers have said they expect Gaddafi will be forced out by a process of attrition as air strikes, defections from his entourage and shortages take their toll.

Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, told Reuters in Tripoli that some food stocks in areas under Gaddafi's control were likely to last only weeks.

"I don't think there's any famine, malnutrition. But the longer the conflict lasts the more the food stocks supplies are going to be depleted, and it's a matter of weeks before the country reaches a critical situation," Moumtzis said in an interview.

"The food and the medical supplies is a little bit like a time bomb. At the moment it's under control and it's ok. But if this goes on for quite some time, this will become a major issue," he said.

MORE


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110531/wl_nm/us_libya

[bigron]

Middle East
Jun 2, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF02Ak02.html 
 

Specter of chaos haunts Libya


By Victor Kotsev



TEL AVIV - The sense of chaos just keeps growing in Libya. Given the full-swing misinformation campaign on all sides, it is hard to confirm whether the latest reports of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's isolation and weakness are genuine, a product of a psychological campaign against him by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or manipulations of his own.

One threat, however, is looming larger and larger, and it could dramatically affect all strategic calculations. Libya may soon become a powder keg too big and fragmented for anyone to control, including Gaddafi, the rebels, and NATO.

The intensified bombing campaign in the last few weeks, coupled with a diplomatic offensive on several tracks, seems to have
softened the resolve of at least some of Gaddafi's power base. Last Friday, Russia, which had previously been sharply critical to NATO's campaign, joined the countries calling for Gaddafi's ouster, and offered to mediate an end to the conflict. On Monday, eight senior officers, including five generals, and (according to rebel reports) ''scores'' of soldiers defected from the government army. The officers may have been persuaded to do so in part by a shift in NATO tactics toward bombing assets that are important to them. [1]

It is far from clear, however, that these developments alone will change the status quo significantly. On Tuesday, Gaddafi told visiting South African President Jacob Zuma that he would not give up power, and Libyan government spokesman Ibrahim Moussa warned that such a scenario would lead to full-scale civil war. Gaddafi did tell Zuma that he was willing to negotiate.

Some speculated that Russia sensed that Gaddafi's downfall was inevitable, but it is hard to gauge how sincere the Kremlin shift is. Persistent reports of secret talks between the rebels, Gaddafi and possibly NATO have raised the possibility of a secret deal being in the works; some pundits suggest that such a deal may involve a transfer of power within the Gaddafi family, for example to Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam.

Russia's diplomacy on Libya has arguably been driven by ulterior motives since the start of the crisis, [2] and we can expect the Kremlin to have extracted a handsome price for even a slight change in its position. Some analysts speculate that such a price might manifest itself, for example, in American concessions over the missile defense system in Europe.

The impact of the defections is hard to measure as well. Gaddafi has also claimed that large numbers of rebels have surrendered to him, and it is difficult to confirm the scope of such occurrences and the veracity of reports on both sides. Besides, it is useful to keep in mind just how fluid the situation on the ground can sometimes be.

In the early days of the uprising, Western journalists were frequently surprised to see the same people participating in anti-Gaddafi rallies one day and in pro-Gaddafi rallies the next. It is possible that we are witnessing a similar phenomenon now, with at least some people circulating between the sides. The reports of back-channel negotiations between the seemingly irreconcilable rival governments add to these suspicions.

It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that NATO's bombing campaign is growing increasingly desperate. On Tuesday, Libya accused NATO of having killed 718 and injured 4,067 civilians since the start of the operation. These figures are hard to verify, but the air raids have recently intensified and the potential targets have broadened, making collateral damage more likely.

British and French attack helicopters are expected to be put to use soon, and as I argued previously, this could be seen as a precursor to a ground invasion. [3] In fact, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen admitted on Monday that NATO might send ground forces to Libya at some point, presumably after Gaddafi's ouster. ''I would anticipate that there might be a need at some point to unfold a small force ... a small number of people there to help them in some way," he told a NATO forum in Varna, Bulgaria. [4]

The Guardian meanwhile reported that small groups of former British special forces, hired privately by Arab countries, are already on the ground in the western port city of Misrata. [5]

This may be the beginning of a public legitimization campaign of a ground phase of the war. Beyond that, however, Rasmussen's remarks betrayed another reality on the ground: one where not only is the war difficult to win, but peace might prove an even greater challenge. Even if Gaddafi were to leave today, a peacekeeping force would clearly be required; it is far from clear that it would do the job.

There seems to be at least one reason which might theoretically persuade Gaddafi to relinquish power, or at least to confine himself to some limited part of Libya where he would be able to maintain control. That dynamic has not received sufficient reporting from the international media, even though there were signs of it from the very start.

It is hard to overstate the significance of the vast weapons supplies that were looted in the first weeks of chaos following the uprising. ''What we found was shocking,'' Peter Bouckaert, a Human Rights Watch expert who was in the country at the time. wrote in Foreign Policy in April. ''Qaddafi's weapon stocks far exceeded what we saw in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein ... There is good cause for US and European officials to worry - there are rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missiles, and artillery shells full of explosives that can easily be refashioned into car bombs.'' [6]

This is not even to mention the many thousands of guns that are circulating freely in Libya, some reportedly released by Gaddafi himself in an effort to arm the population against a ''Western invasion".

Tell-tale signs emerge in the rebels' own accounts. On Tuesday, a rebel spokesman told Reuters that ''[Gaddafi forces] filled [the rebel-held western town of Zlitan] with drug dealers, criminals and other crooks ... They gave them automatic weapons and hand grenades to oppress the residents of Zlitan. Besides arrests and intimidations, we hear accounts of rape." [7]

The reports remain to be confirmed; the potential for the creation of powerful criminal structures is clearly there, however, and such structures would soon enough begin to pursue their own interests rather than Gaddafi's or the rebels'. They have a powerful arsenal at their disposal as well as a large pool of potential foot-soldiers: the countless unemployed and radicalized people on the ground - whose allegiances often shift. Many convicts escaped from the jails during the uprising, so there is no shortage of trained operatives either.

There is also a looming threat that tribal identities might at some point trump loyalty to either Gaddafi or the rebels. Taken together, these threats add up to a recipe for a disaster. While until recently it was unlikely that any one except for Gaddafi would be able prevent the implosion of Libya into a full-scale brutal civil war, now it is unclear that even the colonel can do that.

Notes:

1. This Week at War: The Milosevic Option, Foreign Policy, May 20, 2011.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/20/this_week_at_war_the_milosevic_option

2. The vetoes that weren't, Foreign Policy, March 21, 2011.
http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/21/the_vetoes_that_werent

3. NATO goes Kosovo in Libya, , Asia Times Online, May 24, 2011.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME25Ak02.html

4. NATO: Ground force may be needed in Libya after Gaddafi, Jerusalem Post, May 30, 2011.
http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=222842

5. Libya: SAS veterans helping Nato identify Gaddafi targets in Misrata, The Guardian May 31, 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/31/libya-sas-veterans-misrata-rebels

6. Qaddafi's Great Arms Bazaar, Foreign Policy, April 31, 2011.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/08/qaddafi_s_great_arms_bazaar

7. Gaddafi arms "crooks" to crush Zlitan rebels: witness, Reuters, 31 May 2011. BR>
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-libya-zlitan-idUSTRE74U70120110531



Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv.
 
 
 
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF02Ak02.html

[Protean]

Mass Murder Plan of NATO rolls on--------

'Summer of War' by NATO: 90 more days of Libya bombing

NATO has declared its extending its operation in Libya by another three months. The alliance chief says this decision is meant to prove to Muammar Gaddafi that the alliance is determined to fulfil the UN mandate. Let's cross live to James Corbett an editor of an independent news website to discuss the latest developments.

http://youtu.be/FGorSQWYQpQ

[bigron]

Military Escalation: "Phase Two" of the War on Libya

By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, June 1, 2011


A new phase of the war is unfolding leading to a process of military escalation as well as the eventual landing of US-NATO commandos on Libya's shores.

An unprecedented deployment of naval power in the Mediterranean is occurring.

The USS George H W Bush supercarrier, the most advanced vessel in the US naval arsenal, together with its strike and carrier group has entered the Mediterranean, to join up with the Sixth Fleet in Naples.

Aircraft supercarrier USS George H W Bush (CVN77) is the World's largest naval vessel: with "four-and-a-half acres of space on its flight deck, making it capable of housing 90 jets and helicopters. It is home to 5,500 crew". Equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare systems, it is the World's largest "mobile military base" (Manlio Dinucci, "Boots on the Ground": Sarkozy and Cameron Prepare to Land in Libya, Global Research, May 31, 2011).

The USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group was sent on its "maiden voyage" to the Sixth Fleet area of naval operations, namely the Mediterranean.  It was "certified ready for combat operations" a month before the onset of the war on Libya. USS George H.W. Bush Strike Group Certified Combat Ready, February 21, 2011)

MUCH MORE

 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25081

[bigron]

NATO Wants to Free Africa From the Africans

by Glen Ford

BAR, June 1, 2011
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/nato-wants-free-africa-africans


Gulf Arabs, the European Union, heads of state in Washington, Paris and London, the war chiefs of NATO – everyone was consulted on the assault against Libya, except Africans, whose latest peace plan was rejected out of hand. In the end, the opinions of the so-called Libyan "rebels" won’t count, either. "These rebels lost their legitimacy the second they decided to become the ground troops for a neocolonial invasion of North Africa." As underlings, they’ll just take orders.

"The rebels have chosen to become imperialism’s mascots, waiting like pitiful little Gunga Dins for the British and French to arrive with attack helicopters to burn and kill their countrymen."

As far as the United States and Europe are concerned, Africans have nothing to say about what happens in Africa. South African President Jacob Zuma made a second trip to Libya this week, on behalf of the African Union, seeking a diplomatic end to NATO’s war against Mouammar Gaddafi’s government. Just as with a previous African Union peace keeping mission, back in early April, Col. Gaddafi agreed to the peace plan. And just as before, the so-called rebels and their American and European bosses refused even to consider a cease fire. As has been obvious from the beginning of this "humanitarian" farce, the Great White Fathers of Europe and the "Wall Street mascot" from the United States, as Obama has been called, will be satisfied with nothing less than regime change in Libya – and to Hell with what Africans think!

The Euro-Americans will soon prove just as contemptuous of their erstwhile North African Arab allies, based in Benghazi, who claim to be leading a "revolution" against Gaddafi. But these rebels lost their legitimacy the second they decided to become the ground troops for a neocolonial invasion of North Africa. Revolutionaries fight the Power. The gang from Benghazi are mere pawns of imperialism and have no credibility whatsoever as revolutionaries. This is an imperialist war, fought for imperial objectives. The rebels have chosen to become imperialism’s mascots, waiting like pitiful little Gunga Dins for the British and French to arrive with attack helicopters to burn and kill their countrymen.

"The gang from Benghazi are mere pawns of imperialism and have no credibility whatsoever as revolutionaries."

NATO orders their Libyan minions around like children. NATO recently "issued instructions" that the rebels not move beyond certain points in the desert, so as not to enter the killing fields that the rich white fathers – plus Obama – are preparing to incinerate Libyan government soldiers. Naturally, the rebels will do exactly as they are told, since this is not their revolution. Rather, Libya is the front line of the European and American counter-revolution. The chain of command reaches to Paris, London and Washington. Benghazi has reverted to the colonial outpost that it was when the Italians ruled – only now, in the 21st century, all of the Europeans plus the Americans get to lord over the Libyans, who grin and skin while thanking the colonizers for coming back to save Africa from the Africans.

And so it makes perfect sense that a peace proposal from the president of South Africa, Black Africa's most powerful and wealthy country, acting on behalf of the organization that includes every nation on the continent, counts for less than nothing in the imperial scheme of things. The West encourages South African President Jacob Zuma to help bring chaotic Black countries into line, but Zuma and the African Union are not authorized to interfere with imperial wars on the continent. That's "white folks business."

When the Western attack helicopters arrive, the Benghazi-based rebels will cheer, as if they won something. The Gunga Dins should carefully study those helicopters and their awesome firepower, because those guns will one day likely be turned against them. The U.S. and Europe have no intention of allowing Libyans to rule Libya. And after all, why should the imperialists hand over all that oil to a bunch of local flunkies who couldn't even fight their own war. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/nato-wants-free-africa-africans

[bigron]

Greater China
Jun 4, 2011 
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/MF04Ad02.html 
 
Russia's Libya role irks China

By M K Bhadrakumar


Russia went to the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Deauville last week as an inveterate critic of the "unilateralist" Western intervention in Libya, but came away from the seaside French resort as a mediator between the West and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The United States scored a big diplomatic victory in getting Moscow to work for regime change in Libya.

No sooner than he got back to Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his special envoy to Africa Mikhail Margelov to travel to Libya "in the nearest time". Margelov is liked in the West and by Libyan rebels. He admitted, "Gaddafi's future is the 'most delicate topic'."

The Western version is that in the middle of the G-8 summit, Medvedev suddenly declared that "Gaddafi has forfeited legitimacy" and Russia plans to "help him go". But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted: "It wasn't a Russian initiative. It was a request, an appeal from President Sarkozy, from President [Barack] Obama, from other participants."

The Kremlin is obviously eager to inject a fresh lease of bonhomie into Russia's "reset" with the US. Medvedev's meeting with Obama at Deauville failed to resolve the differences over deployment of missile defense system in Europe. The Kremlin is uneasy that the West is coolly ignoring Russian protestations about the intervention in Libya and a growing discord with the US is the last thing Medvedev wants.

A credibility problem

However, Russia's u-turn displeases China. Beijing feels that Moscow led it up the garden path and left it alone. Russia virtually dumped the "joint cooperation" project on the Middle East and North Africa that Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi worked out at their meeting in Moscow last month as a new dimension to Sino-Russian strategic partnership.

A Moscow-datelined commentary by Xinhua displays genuine irritation. It begins with a wry remark that Russia "strikingly joined the Western powers" in urging Gaddafi's exit. It adds, "Experts and analysts believe Russia made the move to protect its own interests in Libya and have a stake in the country's future. Yet they remain skeptical over whether Russia could help make a difference in the Middle East country."

The commentary analyses that Russia was all along fence-sitter wagering which side in the Libyan internal conflict would ultimately prevail and, therefore, it criticized both the West and Gaddafi. But Moscow could lately see that the NATO was determined to have Gaddafi ousted and that realization "might have helped Russia make up its mind" to tag along with the West.
Xinhua said there were weighty considerations behind this opportunism:
Moreover, seeking to protect its interests and stay relevant in the post-conflict Libya is perhaps another key reason. Russia sees Libya as an important partner in the region, having poured billions of US dollars of investment in Libya in sectors like oil exploration, railway construction and arms sales. Already, a chaotic Libya is crippling Russia's investment there.

As NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] air raids are gaining further momentum, it's only natural for Russia to start considering its own role as it cannot afford to stay out of the picture.

Additionally, some of the Western nations' promises and offers at the G-8 summit also prompted Russia to make the turn. At the summit, the Western countries pledged to facilitate Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization by the end of this year while ahead of the summit, France and Russia reached a deal under which Paris would sell four Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Moscow.
Xinhua expressed doubt, however, whether Russia would meet with success in its newfound role, since "Moscow has limited influence in Libya ... [and] Gaddafi's departure from power is still distant."

Significantly, The People's Daily featured a separate article highlighting that China has all along pursued a highly principled policy toward the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The implied comparison with Russia's unpredictable course is obvious. The commentary underlined a great consistency in China's Middle East policies in regard of its observance of the "basic norms of mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs when it comes to international relations ... Regarding the violent conflicts in certain countries, China calls on all related parties to settle differences through dialogues and negotiations and to avoid violence". The People's Daily explained:

China has forged an image of a trustworthy and responsible country by adhering to its principles and showing flexibility when dealing with various problems according to the actual situations in international forums such as the United Nations. Based on the principles of respecting national sovereignty and non-interference in others' internal affairs, China did not vote in favor of the UN Security Council's resolution for establishing a no-fly zone in Libya.

However, it did not cast a dissenting vote either based on the purpose of protecting civilians and the positions of various parties, such as the League of Arab States and the African Union ...

Meanwhile, China also opposed interference in the internal affairs and the sanctions approved by the UN Security Council and by other international institutions, which have made the problem more complicated.

The article asserts that "China's peaceful foreign policy has paid off" in the Middle East. China seems to anticipate that Russia's image would take a beating over Libya, and seems to distance itself from negative fallouts.

Obama is the winner
 
A credibility problem is bound to arise in the Chinese mind. China has brought its position much closer to Russia's over the developments in Middle East, even suggesting it would block any Western-sponsored moves against Damascus in the United Nations Security Council. China will need to rethink how it responds if the Libyan issue comes up again in the United Nations Security Council. There can be fallouts on other areas such as the Afghan problem. At Deauville, Obama "gave Russia", as Time magazine put it, a US$400 million contract for the supply of helicopters to Afghanistan.

The deal has been wrapped up when hardly a fortnight remains for the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at Astana, where Afghanistan tops the agenda. On the other hand, a country acting in its self-interests in any given situation - that is not something that shocks Chinese sensitivities. Besides, Libya is not a major template in the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.

On Thursday, it became clear that a major gas deal between the two countries is going to be signed on June 10. After holding talks with the visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan in Moscow, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said, "We are expecting that we will sign the range of contracts during the visit of the Chinese president to Russia."

Russia has in recent years sought to align itself more closely with China as it seeks to unlock new energy markets in Asia. Thus, on final reckoning, Libya is a blip in Beijing's ties with Moscow, compared to the prospect of 70 billion cubic metes of Russian natural gas sent to China annually.

What counts, therefore, is not so much that China has lost heavily due to Russia's change of course on Libya as that Obama has gained significantly. Medvedev's call for Gaddafi to go has more than symbolic value for Obama.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation has so far failed to remove Gaddafi from power and he seems determined to dig in. The protracted operation poses difficulties for the West financially and politically and if Moscow could persuade Gaddafi to throw in the towel, it will be wonderful denouement for Obama. On the other hand, if Russia fails in his "mediatory services", the enterprise won't look as Obama's folly, either.

Second, Russia's hitherto angry reaction to the NATO intervention in Libya blocked any scope for the West to get a UN Security Council mandate for regime change in Tripoli. Obama can now expect smooth sailing for any move seeking UN Security Council legitimacy for a successor regime in Tripoli. A Russian veto can be ruled out.

Also, Russia's volte-face over Libya has implications for Obama's strategy toward Syria, Russia's remaining Middle Eastern ally. The US is relentlessly seeking regime change in Syria and, once again, Russia stands in the way. But, for how long?

Russian rhetoric continues to be strong on Syria. "Attempts to change the regime in Syria by using force should be curbed," Lavrov advised NATO on Thursday. But Damascus wouldn't be easily convinced. And that works to the US's advantage.

On a broader plane, the message is going out that Obama's "reset" policy is slowly but steadily turning Russia from being an obstructionist power to a collaborator. Countries raging from Iran to Ukraine and Kazakhstan to Tajikistan - would take note. The Russian turnaround on Libya shows that the US-Russia discourse is becoming distinctly conciliatory.

Obama's policy of "selective cooperation" toward Russia stands vindicated. Russia has given excellent cooperation over Iran and Afghanistan - and now on Libya. The "reset" seems a success story for the Obama administration's foreign policy - second only to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey
 
 
http://atimes.com/atimes/China/MF04Ad02.html

[bigron]

 

The War in Libya Growing More Illegal by the Day


By Glenn Greenwald

June 02, 2011 "Salon" --  To the extent that the War Powers Resolution (WPR) authorized President Obama to fight a war in Libya for 60 days without Congressional approval -- and, for reasons I described here, it did not -- that 60-day period expired 12 days ago.  Since that date, the war has been unquestionably illegal even under the original justifications of Obama defenders, though I realize that objecting to "illegal wars" -- or wars generally -- is so very 2005.  After making clear that they intended to contrive "some plausible theory" to justify this illegal war, the White House finally settled on the claim that the war in Libya -- despite featuring substantial U.S. military action with the goal of destroying a foreign army and removing that nation's leader -- is too small and limited to be a real "war" under the Constitution and the WPR.
Even the White House seemed to recognize the absurdity of that excuse -- the WRP explicitly applies "in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced (1) into hostilities" -- and the President thus subsequently requested a Resolution from Congress approving the war.  That authorization, however, never came, and now it seems that Congress is closer to doing the opposite: approving a bipartisan bill opposing the war:

MORE


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28232.htm

[bigron]

For those who support the Libyan "Opposition"

02.06.2011 19:53

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/02-06-2011/118101-support_libya-0/#


Maybe those who refuse to call the Libyan Opposition terrorists and instead continue to accuse the forces of the Libyan Government of attacking innocent civilians - see the photos accompanying this piece - could answer some of the questions posed in this article. If not, then maybe they could ask themselves why they are supporting Islamist terrorists.

Under which United Nations resolution did NATO get the right to murder civilians? Why did NATO murder Colonel Gaddafi's son if their remit was to impose a no-fly zone to protect civilians? Why did NATO murder three of Colonel Gaddafi's grandchildren? Why has there been no accountability for the murder of innocent children? Why is nobody calling Cameron, Sarkozy or Obama a cold-blooded child murderer?

Why is NATO trying to murder Colonel Gaddafi? Why have the leaders of this act of butchery changed their tune, starting off by declaring that "This is not about removing Gaddafi" (Cameron) to now describing him as a legitimate target? Why is NATO targeting civilian structures, as it did in Iraq, with military hardware?

Why did the Libyan "Revolution" start on the frontiers where Revolutions had already occurred in Tunisia and Egypt and in Misrata where NATO military personnel deployed through the port? Why are NATO personnel on the ground when NATO is not allowed to deploy troops? Why are western mercenaries being deployed inside Libya?

Why is NATO taking sides in a civil war? Does NATO not know that it is illegal to get involved in an internal conflict? Does NATO know that the UNO cannot under any circumstances permit the use of force against a sovereign nation unless it is attacking its neighbours? Why has NATO accused the Libyan government of using cluster bombs against its own population when:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yL7tAWLNyA&feature=player_detailpage

 

Why are 90% of the Libyan tribes on the side of Colonel Gaddafi? Why are the Benghazi based terrorists called "The Rats" by the population of Libya? Why are they for the most part anonymous? Why did they ask NATO to bomb the building where the records of their corruption were kept?

What is the role of Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi inside the rebellion? Does NATO know he has links to Al-Qaeda? Does NATO know he was arrested for fighting alongside Al-Qaeda against the American and British forces in Afghanistan? Does NATO know that he recruited terrorists to be suicide bombers in Iraq? Does NATO know where most of the suicide bombers in Iraq came from? Answer: Benghazi.

Why are French lawyers preparing to launch a case against Sarkozy for crimes against humanity?

Who was the first international leader to issue an arrest warrant for Osama bin laden and Al-Qaeda? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi. Who was the African leader who financed African satellites so that Africans would not be saddled with a payment of 500 million USD a year, every year, to use Western satellites? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi. Who was the African leader behind the African Union so that Africa could find the solutions to its problems? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi.

Who was the African leader who launched an ambitions telemedicine programme benefiting all Africans? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi. Who was the African leader who implemented a continent-wide e-learning programme? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi. Who inherited the poorest nation in the world and turned it into the richest in Africa? Answer: Muammar al-Qathafi.

Who has educated, fed and housed his people? Have Cameron, Sarkozy or Obama or any of those who support the Islamist terrorists calling themselves the "Rebels" implemented a free housing programme? Why not? If they are superior to Colonel Gaddafi, answer the question. Why do Libyans have housing for free and your citizens do not?

Why has NATO said nothing of the tremendous social programmes Colonel Gaddafi has implemented? Why has NATO said nothing of Colonel Gaddafi's education programme inside Libya? Why has NATO said nothing of Gaddafi's financing of pro-African progressive groups? Ditto cultural groups?

Why all the lies about Gaddafi attacking civilians? Why did the Russian satellites reveal that at the time of the NATO lies about Gaddafi bombing his people, not a single flight was registered? Why when SKY news took Saif al-Islam al-Qathafi to visit a bombed residence did such a residence not exist?

Why doesn't NATO tell the truth, that an armed insurrection was aided and abetted from abroad, that armed terrorists (see the photos) were sent to create havoc in Libya and that the Government forces first tried to negotiate and only then took up arms against them and fought not civilians, but terrorists?

Why has NATO not taken up any of the many offers of ceasefire presented by the Libyan government?

This war is illegal. NATO is guilty of war crimes. NATO should disengage now and allow the people of Libya to sort it out for themselves. NATO should be barred from the reconstruction process. NATO should be barred from Africa. The African continent should reconsider its position with those who are raping a son of Africa and sign contracts with the progressive members of the international community.

This entire debacle is about destroying the African Union and implementing AFRICOM - the take-over of Africa and its resources by the USA, and finding new markets for its lobbies. Those who support the Rebels against Colonel Gaddafi have fallen for the trap hook, line and sinker.

Time to launch a diplomatic offensive involving the African Union. NATO out. Libyan solutions for Libyan questions.
Photos: Armed bearded islamist terrorists? Why no! Look at them! They are poor innocent unarmed civilians. look at these unarmed civilians - on a tank!

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey


http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/02-06-2011/118101-support_libya-0/#

[bigron]

Mercenaries joining both sides in Libya conflict

Thu Jun 2, 2011 10:12pm GMT 
http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFN0229488620110602

* Gaddafi using more private contractors than rebels

* Westerners turning up near front lines

* U.S. secret operations still very low key

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and rebel groups seeking to depose him are both hiring private military contractors to bolster their fighting forces, according to U.S. and Western security officials.

They said small numbers of private contractors were turning up on the ground in Libya working with rebels fighting Gaddafi's forces.

The officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that -- to their knowledge -- none of the foreigners working with the rebels was American or being paid with U.S. government funds.

While the use of mercenaries by Gaddafi's opponents appears to be new, the beleaguered Libyan leader has long used foreign freelancers, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. Gaddafi's mercenaries outnumber the rebels', U.S. officials said, and he is relying on them to reinforce what is left of his regular military, significantly weakened by an increasingly aggressive NATO military campaign.

Contractors working with the Benghazi-based rebels may have come from or been recruited through private military companies in countries such as France and Britain, which are playing the most active front-line roles in the NATO campaign.

MORE

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFN0229488620110602

[bigron]

White House pushes back on efforts to end Libya intervention


By Sam Youngman - 06/02/11 02:12 PM ET
 
The White House said Thursday that President Obama believes the NATO mission in Libya is succeeding, and he is opposed to ending that mission right now.

With a number of Democrats and some Republicans pushing for an end to U.S. involvement in the mission, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president believes most members agree with the mission.

"We believe that the policy is working," Carney said. "We believe the goal the president has is shared by the majority of the members of Congress."


Carney said the president has held true to his word that the U.S. would step back from its leadership position in the bombing campaign after the early days of the mission.

And, Carney said, the White House has "consulted Congress every step of the way."

U.S. and NATO efforts have been key to saving lives in Libya, Carney said.

"Beyond the consultation with Congress, I think the president believes very strongly that we're doing the right thing here," Carney said.

Source:
http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/164457-white-house-pushes-back-on-efforts-to-end-libya-intervention

[Protean]

Chossudovsky: US, NATO clearly going into ground war

RT-Video Interview w/Michel Chossudovsky
http://youtu.be/4WtyD1Njr9c

Russia's foreign minister has criticized the way the UN resolution on Libya is being implemented, in the wake of NATO's 90-day extension of its mission there. Sergey Lavrov says NATO's actions go beyond the scope of the resolution and undermine international law. According to Michel Chossudovsky from the Canadian-based Center for Research on Globalization, there are clear signs that we might soon see American boots touch Libyan soil.

[bigron]

The war in Libya 'is not a war'. Really?


by Dennis Kucinich

The recent strikes are believed to be most intense attack on the Libyan capital since action against Muammar Gaddafi began in March; the US has contributed 93% of cruise missiles and 50% of planes involved in Nato combat operations, at an estimated cost of $700m. Photograph: guardian.co.uk/Reuters

June 2, 2011

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m78312&hd=&size=1&l=e


Nato has extended combat operations in Libya, yet the president has dodged granting Congress its constitutional right to decide

The following is the text of a letter Representative Dennis J Kucinich has sent to members of Congress ahead of their consideration of his bill to end US involvement in the military action against Libya


Yesterday [Wednesday], the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) announced it would continue combat operations in Libya for at least another 90 days. Nato. The president went to Nato on Libya, not the US Congress, as the constitution requires. The US has thus far provided 93% of the cruise missiles, 66% of the personnel, 50% of the ships and 50% of the planes at an estimated cost of up to $700m, and now Nato says the war will go another 90 days. Since when does Nato trump the constitution of the United States?

It is time, in the name of the people of the United States, that Congress insist that the president obey the constitution and the statutes concerning war powers.

Last week, I introduced H Con Res 51, a bipartisan resolution that disapproves of US military operations in Libya and requires the president to withdraw US armed forces from participation in the Nato mission in the country within 15 days after passage. I support my colleague Representative Turner's resolution, which disapproves of US military operations in Libya because I believe that it is the minimum that Congress must do to challenge the unconstitutional war in Libya. Yet, as the war in Libya surpasses the 60-day mark with no end in sight, it is clear that Congress must do more than just express its disapproval.

Article 1, section 8 [of the US constitution] provides only Congress with the ability to declare war or authorise the use of military force. The War Powers Act allows a narrow exemption from the constitutional requirement by allowing the president to take the US to war without congressional approval in the face of an "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces". We have now been involved in a war on Libya for over 72 days with no constitutionally required authorisation for the use of military force or declaration of war.

The president recently submitted a letter to Congress about the war in Libya arguing that he was not required to come to Congress for authorisation because the war is not really a war. Really.

While we may not all agree on the merits of military intervention in Libya, we can all agree that Congress must have the opportunity to have a full and ample debate on the commitment of US armed forces to a war abroad. This institution cannot stand by idly as a war of choice with significant ramifications for our national and economic security is waged without Congress fulfilling its responsibilities under the constitution. We must defend the constitution of the United States.


http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m78312&hd=&size=1&l=e




 

[bigron]

What Does the ICC Stand For?

The Imperialist Crime Cover-Up


By DIANA JOHNSTONE

CounterPunch, June 2, 2011

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone06022011.html

Last May 16, Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, officially sought an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moammer Kadhafi for "crimes against humanity". Also accused were the leader’s son Seif al-Islam Kadhafi and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi.

U.S. jurist David Scheffer told Agence France Presse: "NATO will doubtless appreciate the ICC investigation and indictment of top Libyan leaders, including Kadhafi."

Well, yes. And nobody is better placed to know what NATO appreciates than David Scheffer. 

The day before, Tripoli had made yet another offer of a truce, calling for an end to NATO bombing and for peace negotiations with the armed rebels based in Benghazi.  NATO’s response took the form of the ICC indictment.  When NATO bombs a country to unseat a leader, the targeted leader must be treated like a common criminal.  His place cannot be at the negotiating table, but behind bars.  An international indictment handily transforms NATO’s military aggression into a police action to arrest "an indicted war criminal"  – an expression that evacuates the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty".   

This is a familiar pattern.

On March 24, 1999, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in support of armed Albanian rebels in Kosovo. Two months later, in mid-May, as the bombing intensified against Serbia’s infrastructure, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Louise Arbour, issued an indictment against Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity.  All but one of the alleged "crimes against humanity" took place in Kosovo during the chaos caused precisely by the NATO bombing. 

On March 31, 2011, NATO began bombing Libya, and this time the International Criminal Court was even faster.  And the charges were even less substantial. Ocampo said that there was evidence that Kadhafi personally ordered attacks on "innocent Libyan civilians". 

In Libya as in the Kosovo war, the accusations are those made by armed rebels supported by NATO, with no discernable trace of independent neutral investigation.

In the spring of 1999, David Scheffer, who was then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s  Ambassador at large for War Crimes, visited Louise Arbour and provided her with NATO reports on which to base her indictments.  Indeed, Scheffer had earlier helped set up the ICTY as instructed by Ms Albright.  The May 1999 accusations served their main immediate purpose: to block negotiations and to justify NATO’s continued bombing. As Madeleine Albright put it, "We are not negotiating with Milosevic… The indictments, I think, clarify the situation because they really show that we are doing the right thing in terms of responding to the kinds of crimes against humanity that Milosevic has perpetrated."  (See Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder, PlutoPress, 2004, pp.141-145.)

To sum up, in both cases an "international criminal tribunal/court" intervenes in the midst of a NATO bombing to accuse the leader of the country being bombed of "crimes against humanity" based on flimsy evidence provided by NATO itself or by its rebel clients. 

Thus the International Criminal Court turns out to be a continuation of the ICTY, that is, an instrument not of international justice but the judicial arm of Western intervention in weaker countries.  The ICC could well stand for Imperialist Crimes Cover-up.

It certainly does not deserve its official title, since it studiously ignores truly "international" crimes, such as U.S. and NATO aggression or the many massacres of civilians that result.  Rather, so far the only alleged crimes it has undertaken to prosecute have all been the result of internal conflicts taking place in countries on the African continent.  In short, the ICC so far acts mainly as a way of putting political pressure on, or justifying military action against, weak governments the Western powers want to replace with leaders of their choice.

Concerning the Kadhafi indictment, Scheffer is quoted by AFP as saying that the move might increase pressure on Kadhafi to think about finding refuge in a country that has not agreed to ICC jurisdiction.  This is a senseless remark, since Libya itself has not agreed to ICC jurisdiction.  Nor has Sudan, which has not prevented the ICC from going after its president, Omar Al Bashir, even though the ICC is supposed to apply only to countries that have recognized its jurisdiction.  But non-recognition of ICC jurisdiction proves to be of no protection for weak countries.

Just as NATO and the ICC continue to pursue Kadhafi on the pretext that he is "killing his own people", in Afghanistan NATO armed forces continues to kill people who are not their own, with impunity.

The ICC has developed into one of the most blatant illustrations of double standards.  The United States manipulates the ICC without recognizing its jurisdiction, and having further protected itself by bilateral agreements with a long list of countries that provide immunity for United States citizens as well as by Congressional laws to protect U.S. citizens from the ICC.

Other NATO countries have recognized ICC jurisdiction, but there is no sign that they will ever be troubled by the international court. 

Last Sunday, two notoriously nonconformist French lawyers, Jacques Vergès and former foreign minister Roland Dumas, announced that they intended to bring a lawsuit against President Nicolas Sarkozy for "crimes against humanity" in Libya.  At a press conference in Tripoli, Dumas deplored that the NATO mission to protect civilians was killing them, and said he was ready to defend Kadhafi at the ICC.  Meanwhile, the two lawyers intend to represent the families of victims of NATO bombing in litigation against Sarkozy in French courts.  "We are going to break through the wall of silence," announced Vergès.

There is more solid evidence of the civilian victims of NATO bombing, including the three baby grandchildren of Moammer Kadhafi, than of the "crimes against humanity" attributed by Ocampo to the Libyan leader.  But the French public has been mesmerized by the propaganda portraying Kadhafi as a bloodthirsty ogre whose only desire is to "kill his own people".  Since most people in the West know absolutely nothing about Libya, anything goes.

On Monday, as France and Britain prepared to send in combat helicopters to support the armed rebels and hunt down Kadhafi, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that Kadhafi’s "reign of terror is coming to an end".  The real "rain of terror" is the rain of NATO bombs falling on defenseless Tripoli, with the clear intention of terrorizing Libyans into surrendering to the NATO-backed rebels.  And there is no sign of it ever coming to an end.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions.She can be reached at  diana.josto@yahoo.fr
 


http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone06022011.html