The Libya thread

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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:30 am

again I say Mr. G is waiting patiently for the Aristide plane

‘Nonsense’ and ‘conspiracy theories’

”The constitution is the guarantee for life and peace. The constitution should not sink in the blood of the Haitian people. That's why, if tonight my resignation is the decision that can avoid a bloodbath, I consent to leave with hope there will be life, not death." – President Aristide’s purported letter of resignation, alleged to have been written sometime Saturday night, February 28.

The multi-racial Bush lie-machine and its agents in mass media had only just begun to heap vicious calumnies on Black leadership. The world’s most famous liars – the fantasists of phantom Weapons of Mass Destruction – would call into question the veracity of Black America’s most outspoken and respected voices. Dutifully, the corporate media took their cues from the liars and embellished on these signals, in a brazen effort to make it appear that African Americans had gone crazy.

On the Monday morning following Aristide’s purported voluntary exile, Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters called Democracy Now! to report that the Haitian leader had not resigned, but had been kidnapped. “He is in the Central Republic of Africa at a place called the Palace of the Renaissance, and he’s not sure if that’s a house or a hotel or what it is and he is surrounded by military,” Waters told host Amy Goodman.

“It’s like in jail, he said. He said that he was kidnapped; he said that he was forced to leave Haiti. He said that the American embassy sent the diplomats; he referred to them as, to his home where they was lead by Mr. Moreno. And I believe that Mr. Moreno is a deputy chief of staff at the embassy in Haiti and other diplomats, and they ordered him to leave. They said you must go NOW….
“You have no choice, you must go and if you don’t you will be killed and many Haitians will be killed. We are planning with Mr. De filliped to come into Puerto Rico. He will not be alone he will come with American military and you will not survive, you will be killed. You’ve got to go now!”

TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson, now living in the Caribbean British Commonwealth nation of St. Kitts, is a familiar voice to the Aristide household. Robinson spoke with the Aristides as often as ten times a day as the U.S.-backed bands tightened their noose on the capital. However, Robinson was unable to reach the President or his wife, Mildred, on Saturday evening and night. Something was amiss, he thought. Then Robinson got the call from Bangui. “He did not resign. He did not resign,” Robinson told Amy Goodman, confirming Rep. Water’s earlier account.

”He was kidnapped and all of the circumstances seem to support his assertion. Had he resigned, we wouldn't need blacked out windows and blocked communications and military taking him away at gunpoint. Had he resigned, he would have been happy to leave the country. He was not.”

Robinson reported that he had worked the phones to find out the State Department’s story and been told that South Africa had refused Aristide asylum. Robinson spoke with South Africa’s foreign minister, who said that Aristide had not asked for asylum. (Of course he hadn’t – he had not planned to be leaving the country!)

“So, you see the State Department is telling an interested public, including members of the congress, that South Africa refused asylum. The State Department knows better. They know that President Aristide was not allowed to request asylum from South Africa or anybody else because he was not allowed to make any phone calls before they left Haiti, during the flight, and beyond.”

Colin Powell’s Big Lie was unraveling – and now it emerged that the Secretary of State had taken upon himself the role of Godfather. Ron Dellums, the distinguished former Congressman from the San Francisco Bay area who worked as a lobbyist for Aristide’s government, got a call from the Head-Negro-In-Charge on Saturday, warning in no uncertain terms that gunmen were coming to kill Aristide on Sunday morning. The U.S., said Powell, would not lift a finger to stop them. When the Americans come to call, Aristide must leave with them.

It is a mind-boggling measure of the Bush Pirates’ ferocious lawlessness that Powell would personally initiate the overt, criminally culpable act in the kidnapping of a head of state. This aspect of the crime alone should send him to The Hague.

The news had a disorienting effect on corporate newsrooms. How could they bury such accusations, now circling the globe via the Internet? Just as Maxine Waters was telling CNN of another call from the Central African Republic, this time from the Haitian First Lady, Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the microphone at the Pentagon. The Defense Secretary feigned surprise, actually chuckling at the very idea of a presidential kidnapping. "I don't believe that's true that he is claiming that. I just don't know that that's the case. I'd be absolutely amazed if that were the case."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan derided Waters and Robinson: "That's nonsense. Conspiracy theories do nothing to help the Haitian people move forward to a better, more free and more prosperous future."

That’s all the corporate newsreaders and wisecrackers needed to hear. A CNN anchor speculated that Aristide was “fabricating revisionist history on the fly,” with the transparent inference that Rep. Waters was a dupe or liar, herself. “Do you think we would make that up?” the Congresswoman asked, shocked and offended.

The same trained corporate seal then presented clumsily leading questions to one of the usual “security experts” that bounce around branded newsrooms spouting nonsense all day. Waters’ tale of diplomats accompanying U.S. troops to take Aristide away was – ludicrous on its face. “You wouldn’t have diplomats side by side with the military, right?” said the faux newsperson. It couldn’t have happened that way, the “expert” assured her.

Once the White House and Rumsfeld had spoken, the conversations with Aristide became “alleged phone calls,” and remained so until Aristide confirmed the events in his own voice. Aristide had asked Waters and Robinson to “tell the world it was a coup!” Corporate media tried their best to discredit the messengers and the victim.

Agents of corporate consensus

The Bush men’s incessant rampages against reality are bringing their corporate media partners into disrepute right along with them. As we wrote in ’s January 29 Cover Story, “The Awesome Destructive Power of the Corporate Media”:

In the past year we have seen consciousness-shaking evidence of the corporate media’s implacable hostility to any manifestation of resistance to the current order. Media rushed to embed themselves in the US war machine’s Iraq invasion, and collaborated to actively suppress public awareness of a full-blown movement against the war. Hundreds of thousands of protestors were made to disappear in plain sight. Corporate media conspired – which is what businessmen in boardrooms do as a matter of daily routine – not only to shield the public from dissenting opinions (their usual assignment), but to drastically diminish, distort and even erase huge gatherings that were profoundly newsworthy by any rational standard.

In the case of Aristide’s kidnapping – and that is the objective name of the crime, since he left in the coercive custody of the U.S. under threat of death from none other than the Secretary of State – the media collaborated with the perpetrators to justify the “disappearing” of a head of state. What shall we call such media? “Lackey” and “stooge” don’t work. The terms connote subservient status, and a kind of haplessness. But there is nothing hapless or subservient about Big Media, who are, through their interlocking ownerships and financial and directorship ties “full members of the presiding corporate pantheon.”

“Agents” is the most accurate term we can think of, although we invite other suggestions. The corporate media act as agents for the corporate consensus on the way the world should work. Far from being “stooges” or “lackeys,” corporate media frame reality in ways that leave the people few options but to accept the corporate consensus. Like an army, they dominate and overwhelm the national conversation. In addition, as a social force – possibly the most important social force in the American cultural “bubble” – corporate media are profoundly racist, upholding collective white privilege as well as corporate dominance.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:44 am

of course they would...wouldn't you?

South African Gov’t Denies Sending Planes for Gadhafi
Monday, August 22nd, 2011 at 11:55 am UTC
Posted 2 minutes ago

South Africa says it has not sent planes to Libya to help embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi flee the country.

In a statement Monday, the South African government said it wished to dispel rumors that South African aircraft will fly Colonel Gadhafi and his family to an undisclosed location.

Speaking to reporters, Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said Mr. Gadhafi has not asked for asylum in South Africa, adding that she is sure he will not do so.

She said the Libyan leader's whereabouts are not known.

South African President Jacob Zuma led a failed African Union effort to mediate the conflict in Libya between Mr. Gadhafi's government and Western-backed rebels.

With Mr. Gadhafi appearing set to fall, South Africa said Monday it backs an AU roadmap that calls for a transitional Libyan government, the drafting of a new constitution, and Libya's first-ever democratic elections.

Heads of state who are part of the AU Contact Group on Libya plan to meet Thursday in Ethiopia's capital. The AU Peace and Security Council will meet there the following day.


South Africa Suffers Setback in Libya

By PETER WONACOTT And DEVON MAYLIE

JOHANNESBURG—Spreading rebel control of Libya on Monday appeared to signal an end to the regime of strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi, dealing a diplomatic setback to South Africa and other African nations who argued that a change in Libyan government should happen at the negotiating table and not on the battlefield.

South Africa, a continental power broker, has sought to bring rebels and Col. Gadhafi's forces together for talks to end the conflict. That stance hasn't changed.

Even as rebel trucks streamed into the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Monday, South Africa gave no indication it would recognize a rebel-led government. The U.S. and the U.K. are among the countries that see the rebel formation, known as the Transitional National Council, as Libya's legitimate government.

By contrast, Pretoria has supported an African Union plan for a transitional government once there's a "durable cease-fire." The transitional government should include elements from both the rebel forces and the current regime—but not Col. Gadhafi—and move toward drafting a new constitution and holding elections, according to the South African Minister of International Affairs, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.

"If this government falls, there is no government," she told reporters at a briefing.

South Africa's own history may have shaped its diplomatic response to crises on the continent. In 1994, amid threats of a race war, South Africa held a multiracial election after years of painstaking negotiations. As a result, a white-minority government yielded power and a former political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, became the country's first black president.

But that model hasn't been easily replicated in other parts of Africa, said Thomas Wheeler, a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg. Other inclusive governments are now under strain, as in the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe. And in resolving crises in Ivory Coast, Madagascar, and now Libya, a power-sharing model has held little or no appeal.

"The approach of getting people around the table isn't going to work when there's no goodwill to negotiate," said Mr. Wheeler, a former South African ambassador. "This is winner-take-all."

South Africa and the AU are seeking to stay involved in Libya's fast-changing political landscape. South African foreign minister, Ms. Nkoana-Mashabane, said there were plans "afoot" to form a transitional government in Libya if Col. Gadhafi's government falls and that it would include elements from the rebels and Tripoli.

South African President Jacob Zuma previously has met with Col. Gadhafi and rebel leaders as his part in a high-level AU negotiating panel to end hostilities, but failed to find common ground. The rebels rejected any effort of Col. Gadhafi to prolong his time in power and the talks had no noticeable impact on the efforts of Col. Gadhafi's forces to beat back rebel advances.

Mr. Zuma has said he rejects "foreign military intervention, whatever its form," echoing the African Union position. Yet South Africa and other United Nations Security Council members also supported a resolution imposing a no-fly zone when civilians came under fire from Col. Gadhafi's troops.

A spokesman said the AU intends to play a central role in the outcome and said just last week it received two representatives from the Transitional National Council, or TNC. He declined to give further details. Ms. Nkoana-Mashabane said South Africa will participate in high level AU meetings Thursday to "review the situation in Libya."

Separately, the South African foreign minister denied reports that the country was making arrangements to evacuate Col. Gadhafi from Libya. He hasn't made a request for asylum, either, Ms. Nkoana-Mashabane said.

"I'm actually quite amazed that there's an insinuation that we are facilitating the exit of anyone," she told reporters. "The solution to political problems in Libya should be made by Libyans themselves...including the future of [Col.] Gadhafi."
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby 2012 Countdown » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:59 am

Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya
Monday, March 28, 2011 11:07

The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company. Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done. What a skilled bunch of rebels - they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever. If only the rest of us were so versatile! But isn't forming a central bank something that could be done after the civil war is over? According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has "designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi." Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.

Of course it is probably safe to assume that the new Central Bank of Libya will be 100% owned and 100% controlled by the newly liberated people of Libya, isn't it?

Most people don't realize that the previous Central Bank of Libya was 100% state owned. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on the former Central Bank of Libya....

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state owned and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and enjoys the status of autonomous corporate body. The law establishing the CBL stipulates that the objectives of the central bank shall be to maintain monetary stability in Libya , and to promote the sustained growth of the economy in accordance with the general economic policy of the state.

Since the old Central Bank of Libya was state owned, it was essentially under the control of Moammar Gadhafi.

But now that Libya is going to be "free", the new Central Bank of Libya will be run by Libyans and solely for the benefit of Libyans, right?

Of course it is probably safe to assume that will be the case with the new national oil company as well, isn't it?

Over the past couple of years, Moammar Gadhafi had threatened to nationalize the oil industry in Libya and kick western oil companies out of the country, but now that Libya will be "free" the people of Libya will be able to work hand in hand with "big oil" and this will create a better Libya for everyone.

Right?

Of course oil had absolutely nothing to do with why the U.S. "inva---" (scratch that) "initiated a kinetic humanitarian liberty action" in Libya.

When Barack Obama looked straight into the camera and told the American people that the war in Libya is in the "strategic interest" of the United States, surely he was not referring to oil.

After all, war for oil was a "Bush thing", right? The Democrats voted for Obama to end wars like this, right? Surely no prominent Democrats will publicly support this war in Libya, right?

Surely Barack Obama will end the bombing of Libya if the international community begins to object, right?

Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize. He wouldn't deeply upset the other major powers on the globe and bring us closer to World War III, would he?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has loudly denounced "coalition strikes on columns of Gaddafi's forces" and he believes that the U.S. has badly violated the terms of the UN Security Council resolution....

"We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council resolution."

So to cool off rising tensions with the rest of the world, Obama is going to call off the air strikes, right?

Well, considering the fact that Obama has such vast foreign policy experience we should all be able to rest easy knowing that Obama will understand exactly what to do.

Meanwhile, the rebels seem to be getting the hang of international trade already.

They have even signed an oil deal with Qatar!

Rebel "spokesman" Ali Tarhouni has announced that oil exports to Qatar will begin in "less than a week".

Who knew that the rag tag group of rebels in Libya were also masters of banking and international trade?

We sure do live in a strange world.

Tonight, Barack Obama told the American people the following....

"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different."

So now we are going to police all of the atrocities in all of the other countries around the globe?

The last time I checked, the government was gunning down protesters in Syria.

Is it time to start warming up the Tomahawks?

Or do we reserve "humanitarian interventions" only for those nations that have a lot of oil?

In fact, atrocities are currently being committed all over Africa and in about a dozen different nations in the Middle East.

Should we institute a draft so that we will have enough young men and women to police the world with?

We all have to be ready to serve our country, right?

The world is becoming a smaller place every day, and you never know where U.S. "strategic interests" are going to be threatened next.

The rest of the world understands that we know best, right?

Of course the rest of the world can surely see our good intentions in Libya, can't they?

Tensions with Russia, China and the rest of the Arab world are certainly going to subside after they all see how selfless our "humanitarian intervention" has been in Libya, don't you think?

In all seriousness, we now live in a world where nothing is stable anymore. Wars and revolutions are breaking out all over the globe, unprecedented natural disasters are happening with alarming frequency and the global economy is on the verge of total collapse.

By interfering in Libya, we are just making things worse. Gadhafi is certainly a horrible dictator, but this was a fight for the Libyan people to sort out.

We promised the rest of the world that we were only going to be setting up a "no fly zone". By violating the terms of the UN Security Council resolution, we have shown other nations that we cannot be trusted and by our actions we have increased tensions all over the globe.

---
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/516/283/ ... Libya.html
George Carlin ~ "Its called 'The American Dream', because you have to be asleep to believe it."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:05 am

^^^^^ :lovehearts:

silly rebels...... and they think Mr. G was bad?
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby semper occultus » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:54 am

nice little training opportunity though :

UKFrance Summit 2010
Declaration on Defence and
Security Co-operation


Tuesday 2 November 2010
Declaration signed by the UK and France following the UK-France Summit 2010 in London on 2 November 2010.

www.number10.gov.uk


Operations and training

8. Combined Joint Expeditionary Force. We will develop a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force suitable for a wide range of scenarios, up to and including high intensity operations. It will involve all three Services: there will be a land component comprised of formations at national brigade level, maritime and air components with their associated Headquarters, and logistics and support functions. It will not involve standing forces but will be available at notice for bilateral, NATO, European Union, United Nations or other operations. We will begin with combined air and land exercises during 2011 and will develop the concept before the next UK-France Summit and progress towards full capability in subsequent years.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:08 pm

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has not been captured
Muammer Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has not been arrested by rebels - despite earlier reports - and is still in Tripoli.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby kenoma » Tue Aug 23, 2011 4:58 am

seemslikeadream wrote:
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has not been captured
Muammer Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has not been arrested by rebels - despite earlier reports - and is still in Tripoli.


And Mohammed is free too, probably never arrested in the first place.

Awkward.
Hmm, the ICC acting as an organ of NATO propaganda? Who would have thought


It is of course highly unlikely rebels hold anything close to the 80% of Tripoli that they claim. Probably just a few neighbourhoods with a lot of camera trickery to make it look like a lot more
Expectation calibration and expectation management is essential at home and internationally. - Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power, February 21, 2008
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:58 am

Scott Horton Interviews John Glaser

Scott Horton, August 22, 2011

John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the seemingly victorious Libyan rebels (or was NATO the victor?); imagining Libya post-Gadhafi, with a devastated infrastructure, East/West schism, wrecked economy and human rights abuses galore; whether this is the end of foreign intervention or just the beginning; and the manic, self-destructive US empire, where limited resources are spread ever thinner.



and let's remember.....
Outrageous Behavior: Bogus Bluster From Bigwigs Hides Lockerbie Truth
Written by Chris Floyd
Saturday, 05 September 2009 00:07

If you need more proof that we are living in a masquerade, in a world of sham, show and deceit, in a veritable -- dare we say it? -- empire burlesque, look no further than the recent manufactured "scandal" over the release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

Al-Megrahi, who is dying, was released on "compassionate grounds" by the Scottish government last week, and returned to a hero's welcome in his native land of Libya. As soon as he was freed, we heard howls of outrage from Washington: how could such a heinous killer be allowed to walk free? There were stern words from the UK government in London, which pretended that it had nothing to do with the Scots' decision. There was ponderous talk from various punditti about a breach in the "special relationship," even of boycotts of British goods.

All of this -- every bit of it -- was just shoddy theatrics, a puppet show for the rubes. You can bet that every single official trumpeting their moral outrage at al-Megrahi's release knew the truth of the matter: he was not released because he was dying, but because the slow-turning wheels of his appeals process was about to force the release of hundreds of pages of damning documents that would confirm, yet again, that he had been, as the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission put it, the victim of a "miscarriage of justice" -- a frame job by the US and UK governments which has been covered up, in admirable bipartisan fashion, for years.

Why did they frame al-Megrahi, when they knew the real instigators of the bombing? Because they needed the support of the instigators to launch the wanton slaughterfest known as "Desert Storm."

John Pilger and William Blum lay out the details. First Pilger:

No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests."

"The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft – he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognize him in the courtroom....

Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash.

...Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt canceled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the "architect" of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr. on 11 January 1990, she agreed to "low-key" the disaster after their intelligence services had reported "beyond doubt" that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group contracted by Tehran as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship’s captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr. "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer."

Perversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran’s support as he built a "coalition" to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. "Like lazy and overfed fish," wrote Foot, "the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and op-ed warmongering against Libya." The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defense intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be centerpiece of Megrahi’s defense.


And that is the crux of the matter, and the reason for the release. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission had referred the case for appeal. The intelligence agency reports would have been forced into the open by a new hearing. No one wanted that. The sacred "continuity" of the militarist oligarchies in America and Britain would have been shaken if the truth of how they really operate -- regardless of which party is in office -- came out.

Here's Blum:

President Obama said that the jubilant welcome Megrahi received was "highly objectionable". His White House spokesman Robert Gibbs added that the welcoming scenes in Libya were "outrageous and disgusting". British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "angry and repulsed", while his foreign secretary, David Miliband, termed the celebratory images "deeply upsetting." Miliband warned: "How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya's reentry into the civilized community of nations."

Ah yes, "the civilized community of nations", that place we so often hear about but so seldom get to actually see. American officials, British officials, and Scottish officials know that Megrahi is innocent. They know that Iran financed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian group, to carry out the bombing with the cooperation of Syria, in retaliation for the American naval ship, the Vincennes, shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July of the same year, which took the lives of more people than did the 103 bombing. And it should be pointed out that the Vincennes captain, plus the officer in command of air warfare, and the crew were all awarded medals or ribbons afterward. No one in the US government or media found this objectionable or outrageous, or disgusting or repulsive. The United States has always insisted that the shooting down of the Iranian plane was an "accident". Why then give awards to those responsible?

Today's oh-so-civilized officials have known of Megrahi's innocence since 1989. The Scottish judges who found Megrahi guilty know he's innocent. They admit as much in their written final opinion. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigated Megrahi's trial, knows it. They stated in 2007 that they had uncovered six separate grounds for believing the conviction may have been a miscarriage of justice, clearing the way for him to file a new appeal of his case. 3 The evidence for all this is considerable. And most importantly, there is no evidence that Megrahi was involved in the act of terror.

The first step of the alleged crime, sine qua non — loading the bomb into a suitcase at the Malta airport — for this there was no witness, no video, no document, no fingerprints, nothing to tie Megrahi to the particular brown Samsonite suitcase, no past history of terrorism, no forensic evidence of any kind linking him to such an act.

And the court admitted it: "The absence of any explanation of the method by which the primary suitcase might have been placed on board KM180 [Air Malta to Frankfurt] is a major difficulty for the Crown case."

The scenario implicating Iran, Syria, and the PFLP-GC was the Original Official Version, endorsed by the US, UK, Scotland, even West Germany — guaranteed, sworn to, scout's honor, case closed — until the buildup to the Gulf War came along in 1990 and the support of Iran and Syria was needed for the broad Middle East coalition the United States was readying for the ouster of Iraq's troops from Kuwait. Washington was also anxious to achieve the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by groups close to Iran. Thus it was that the scurrying sound of backtracking could be heard in the corridors of the White House. Suddenly, in October 1990, there was a New Official Version: it was Libya — the Arab state least supportive of the US build-up to the Gulf War and the sanctions imposed against Iraq — that was behind the bombing after all, declared Washington.

The two Libyans were formally indicted in the US and Scotland on Nov. 14, 1991. Within the next 20 days, the remaining four American hostages were released in Lebanon along with the most prominent British hostage, Terry Waite.


They overlooked hundreds of innocent people killed in a covert terrorist attack in revenge for hundreds of other innocent people killed in a celebrated, decorated state terrorist attack in order to ensure that they could kill thousands of innocent people in a pointless war to preserve the fortunes of the Bush family business partners and Western favorites, the repressive, undemocratic tyrants of Kuwait, who were having a financial and territorial dispute with the repressive, undemocratic tyrant of Iraq, who until he threatened the Bush partners had been a favorite of the West. This is the corrupt, blood-soaked reality that lies behind the trumpery of the "respectable" world.

You know what? Barack Obama was right, after all. The whole thing is a damnable "outrage."


Lockerbie: Megrahi Was Framed
by John Pilger, September 04, 2009

The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown’s "repulsion" to Barack Obama’s "outrage," the theater of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"

Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power." Amen.

The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as "a babbling brook of bullsh*t." Such eloquence summarizes the circus of Megrahi’s release.

No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of "strategic interests."

"The endgame came down to damage limitation," said the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who took part in the original investigation, "because the evidence amassed by [Megrahi's] appeal is explosive and extremely damning to the system of justice." New witnesses would show that it was impossible for Megrahi to have bought clothes that were found in the wreckage of the Pan Am aircraft – he was convicted on the word of a Maltese shopowner who claimed to have sold him the clothes, then gave a false description of him in 19 separate statements and even failed to recognize him in the courtroom.

The new evidence would have shown that a fragment of a circuit board and bomb timer, "discovered" in the Scottish countryside and said to have been in Megrahi’s suitcase, was probably a plant. A forensic scientist found no trace of an explosion on it. The new evidence would demonstrate the impossibility of the bomb beginning its journey in Malta before it was "transferred" through two airports undetected to Flight 103.

A "key secret witness" at the original trial, who claimed to have seen Megrahi and his co-accused al-Alim Khalifa Fahimah (who was acquitted) loading the bomb on to the plane at Frankfurt, was bribed by the US authorities holding him as a "protected witness." The defense exposed him as a CIA informer who stood to collect, on the Libyans’ conviction, up to $4m as a reward.

Megrahi was convicted by three Scottish judges sitting in a courtroom in "neutral" Holland. There was no jury. One of the few reporters to sit through the long and often farcical proceedings was the late Paul Foot, whose landmark investigation in Private Eye exposed it as a cacophony of blunders, deceptions and lies: a whitewash. The Scottish judges, while admitting a "mass of conflicting evidence" and rejecting the fantasies of the CIA informer, found Megrahi guilty on hearsay and unproven circumstance. Their 90-page "opinion," wrote Foot, "is a remarkable document that claims an honored place in the history of British miscarriages of justice." (Lockerbie – the Flight from Justice by Paul Foot can be downloaded from the Private Eye website for £5).

Foot reported that most of the staff of the US embassy in Moscow who had reserved seats on Pan Am flights from Frankfurt canceled their bookings when they were alerted by US intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. He named Margaret Thatcher the "architect" of the cover-up after revealing that she killed the independent inquiry her transport secretary Cecil Parkinson had promised the Lockerbie families; and in a phone call to President George Bush Sr. on 11 January 1990, she agreed to "low-key" the disaster after their intelligence services had reported "beyond doubt" that the Lockerbie bomb had been placed by a Palestinian group contracted by Tehran as a reprisal for the shooting down of an Iranian airliner by a US warship in Iranian territorial waters. Among the 290 dead were 66 children. In 1990, the ship’s captain was awarded the Legion of Merit by Bush Sr. "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer."

Perversely, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Bush needed Iran’s support as he built a "coalition" to expel his wayward client from an American oil colony. The only country that defied Bush and backed Iraq was Libya. "Like lazy and overfed fish," wrote Foot, "the British media jumped to the bait. In almost unanimous chorus, they engaged in furious vilification and op-ed warmongering against Libya." The framing of Libya for the Lockerbie crime was inevitable. Since then, a US defense intelligence agency report, obtained under Freedom of Information, has confirmed these truths and identified the likely bomber; it was to be centerpiece of Megrahi’s defense.

In 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi’s case for appeal. "The commission is of the view," said its chairman, Dr. Graham Forbes, "that based upon our lengthy investigations, the new evidence we have found and other evidence which was not before the trial court, that the applicant may have suffered a miscarriage of justice."

The words "miscarriage of justice" are missing entirely from the current furor, with Kenny MacAskill reassuring the baying mob that the scapegoat will soon face justice from that "higher power." What a disgrace.


The Sunday Herald

May 28, 2000

Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government;Lockerbie trial witness gagged by US government

BYLINE: By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor, And Ian Ferguson In New York

SECTION: Pg. 1

LENGTH: 878 words

INVESTIGATION
A FORMER CIA agent who claims Libya is not responsible for the Lockerbie bombing is being gagged by the US government under state secrecy laws and faces 10 years in prison if he reveals any information about the terrorist attack.

United Nations diplomats are outraged that the US government is apparently suppressing a potential key trial witness. Diplomats are now demanding that the CIA agent, Dr Richard Fuisz, be released from the gagging order. Fuisz, a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher, was, according to US intelligence sources, the CIA's key operative in the Syrian capital Damascus during the 1980s where he also had business interests.



One month before a court order was served on him by the US government gagging him from speaking on the grounds of national security, he spoke to US congressional aide Susan Lindauer, telling her he knew the identities of the Lockerbie bombers and claiming they were not Libyan.
Lindauer, shocked by Fuisz's claims, immediately compiled notes on the meeting which formed the basis of a later sworn affidavit detailing Fuisz's claims. One month after their conversation, in October 1994, a court in Washington DC issued an order barring him from revealing any information on the grounds of "military and state secrets privilege".

When contacted by the Sunday Herald last night, Fuisz said when asked if he was a CIA agent in Syria in the 1980s: "That is not an issue I can confirm or deny. I am not allowed to speak about these issues. In fact, I can't even explain to you why I can't speak about these issues." Fuisz did, however, say that he would not take any action against a newspaper which named him as a CIA agent.

Congressional aide Lindauer, who was involved in early negotiations over the Lockerbie trial, claims Fuisz made "unequivocal statements to me that he has first-hand knowledge about the Lockerbie case". In her affidavit, she goes on: "Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of PanAm 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever."

Fuisz's statements to Lindauer support the claims of the two Libyan accused who are to incriminate a number of terrorist organisations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which had strong links to Syria and Iran.

Lindauer said Fuisz told her he could provide information on Middle Eastern terrorists, and referred to Lockerbie as an

"example of an unsolved bombing case that he said he has the immediate capability to resolve".

Lindauer says Fuisz told her CIA staff had destroyed reports he sent them on Lockerbie. Lindauer also refers in her affidavit to speculation that the USA shifted any connection to Lockerbie away from Syria to Libya in return for its support during the Gulf war.

She added that Fuisz told her: "If the US government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack today. I could do the right thing I could go into any crowded restaurant and pick out these men I can tell you their home addresses You won't find them anywhere in Libya. You will only find them in Damascus. I was investigating on the ground and I know."

The 1994 gagging order was issued following disclosures by Fuisz during other legal proceedings about alleged illegal exports of military equipment to Iraq. The order claims that the information held by Fuisz is vital to the "nation's security or diplomatic relations" and can not be revealed "no matter how compelling the need for, and relevance of, the information". The submission also makes clear that the government is empowered to "protect its interests in this case in the future", thereby gagging Fuisz permanently.

Details of Fuisz's gagging have been passed to the United Nations, including UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Russia's UN ambassador Sergey Lavrov and the Libyan UN ambassador, as well as representatives of France and China. The report on the Fuisz gagging, containing Lindauer's affidavit, refers to "the history of US interference and sabotage by the United States".

One senior UN diplomat said: "In the interests of natural justice, Dr Fuisz should be released from any order which prevents him telling what he knows of the PanAm bombing." With Fuisz prohibited from speaking, neither the defence nor prosecution can call him as a witness.

A legal source close to Fuisz said: "We want the truth out. The naming of knowledgeable witnesses who can't be called would utterly change the face of this trial. Dr Fuisz obviously cannot claim he has any knowledge because of national security issues and he could face 10 years in jail. However, if he is not allowed to talk the entire case should be dropped.

"Apart from the US government freeing him from the gag, the only way to allow him to speak would be to subpoena him to the Scottish Court, but the court has no power of subpoena in America."

The Sunday Herald will make the Lindauer affadvit and Fuisz gagging order available to both the Crown and defence if they require the documents.

Copyright 2000 Scottish Media Newspapers Limited

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23140&p=382074&hilit=PanAm+103+Libya#p382074
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:11 am

Image

August 23, 2011
Now What in Libya?
Qaddafi Has Lost; But Who Has Won?

By PATRICK COCKBURN

The civil war in Libya went on longer than expected, but the fall of Tripoli came faster than was forecast. As in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad in 2003, there was no last-ditch stand by the defeated regime, whose supporters appear to have melted away once they saw that defeat was inevitable.

While it is clear Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has lost power, it is not certain who has gained it. The anti-regime militiamen that are now streaming into the capital were united by a common enemy, but not much else. The Transitional National Council (TNC) in Benghazi, already recognised by so many foreign states as the legitimate government of Libya, is of dubious legitimacy and authority.

There is another problem in ending the war. It has never been a straight trial of strength between two groups of Libyans because of the decisive role of Nato air strikes. The insurgents themselves admit that without the air war waged on their behalf – with 7,459 air strikes on pro-Gaddafi targets – they would be dead or in flight. The question, therefore, remains open as to how the rebels can peaceably convert their foreign-assisted victory on the battlefield into a stable peace acceptable to all parties in Libya.

Precedents in Afghanistan and Iraq are not encouraging and serve as a warning. The anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan won military success thanks, as in Libya, to foreign air support. They then used this temporary predominance arrogantly and disastrously to establish a regime weighted against the Pashtun community.

In Iraq, the Americans – over-confident after the easy defeat of Saddam Hussein – dissolved the Iraqi army and excluded former members of the Baath party from jobs and power, giving them little choice but to fight. Most Iraqis were glad to see the end of Saddam Hussein, but the struggle to replace him almost destroyed the country.

Will the same thing happen in Libya? In Tripoli, as in most oil states, the government provides most jobs and many Libyans did well under the old regime. How will they now pay for being on the losing side? The air was thick yesterday with calls from the TNC for their fighters to avoid acts of retaliation. But it was only last month that the TNC's commander-in-chief was murdered in some obscure and unexplained act of revenge. The rebel cabinet was dissolved, and has not been reconstituted, because of its failure to investigate the killing. The TNC has produced guidelines for ruling the country post-Gaddafi, which is intended to ensure that law and order should be maintained, people fed and public services continued.

It is far too early to know if this is a piece of foreign-inspired wishful thinking or will have some beneficial effect on developments. The Libyan government was a ramshackle organisation at the best of times, so any faltering in its effectiveness may not be too noticeable at first. But many of those celebrating in the streets of Tripoli and cheering the advancing rebel columns will expect their lives to get better, and will be disappointed if this does not happen.

Foreign powers will probably push for steps towards forming a constituent assembly of some sort to give the new government legitimacy. It will need to create institutions which Colonel Gaddafi largely abolished and replaced with supposedly democratic committees that, in effect, policed his quirky one-man rule. This will not be easily done. Long-term opponents of the regime will find it difficult to share the spoils of victory with those who turned their coats at the last minute.

Some groups have been empowered by the war itself, such as the long-marginalised Berbers from the mountains south-west of Tripoli, who put together the most combat-effective militia. They will want their contribution to be recognised in any new distribution of power.

Libya does have several advantages over Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not a country with a large and desperate part of the population destitute and living on the margins of malnutrition. It does not have the same blood-soaked recent history as Afghanistan and Iraq. For all the demonisation of Colonel Gaddafi over the last six months, his one-man rule never came near rivalling that of Saddam Hussein for savagery.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the outside powers reacted to military success by overplaying their hands. They treated their opponents vindictively and assumed they had been defeated never to rise again. They convinced themselves that their local allies were more representative and effective than they really were. It is in the heady moment of victory that the ingredients are created which produce future disasters.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby eyeno » Tue Aug 23, 2011 1:29 pm

Bob Tuskin interviews Susan Lindauer about what is really happening in Libya. Interesting interview.

http://www.oraclebroadcasting.com/archi ... 22_16k.mp3
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby eyeno » Tue Aug 23, 2011 2:05 pm

Libya: NATO Psy-Op Collapses - Qaddafi Prevails Again
NATO bluff called by Qaddafi; rebels' victory facade crumbles.

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Update: You can't make this up - the International Criminal Court (ICC) now claims it never confirmed that Qaddafi's son Saif Al-Islam was captured. Here is the Telegraph article quoting ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo as having indeed confirmed his capture. Here is a farcical Reuters report now claiming such a confirmation was never claimed. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo should resign, so should editors at both the Telegraph and Reuters and a myriad of other media agencies complicit in spreading this willful and malicious propaganda.

August 23, 2011 - Once again a defiant Qaddafi has prevailed against the full might of NATO aggression including a murderous bombing campaign followed by NATO special forces on the ground supporting mobs of US/UK/French/Qatari backed Al Qaeda thugs which swarmed Tripoli over the weekend. "Illustrious" news agencies from the Qatari government's AlJazeera, to the now exposed frauds at CNN, BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP have been caught perpetuating a concerted war propaganda campaign in order to break the will of both Libya and in particular Tripoli.
Image

Photo: Taken overnight, Qaddafi's son Saif Al-Islam "confirmed" to be captured and ready to be transferred to the Hague by the illegitimate International Criminal Court, is actually very much free and leading efforts to drive out NATO backed Al Qaeda thugs from Tripoli.

Reports that Qaddafi's son Saif Al-Islam was "captured" by Libyan rebels by the disingenuous media outlets and "confirmed" by the Fortune 500 contrived International Criminal Court (ICC), who went as far as saying preparations were already under way to transfer Saif to the Hague, are now confirmed lies with Saif Al-Islam very much free, appearing to journalists at the Rixos Hotel in southern Tripoli flanked by Libyan military forces and very much leading what appears to be a significant Libyan government counterattack. It appears that NATO operations are ending just as they began, based on a verified pack of lies. (Please see March's "Libya: Another War, Another Pack of Lies")


Everything we have been told, from President Obama's teleprompter readings to Luis Moreno-Ocampo of the ICC's claims of Saif's "confirmed" capture, to the mainstream media and the Al Qaeda infested "Transitional National Council" are now systematically being exposed as overt, verified lies as part of what may be the biggest psychological operation in modern history. Al Jazeera who was already featuring lofty "The Last Days of Gaddafi" narratives is now forced to face reality and irrefutable evidence that the rebel operations in Tripoli were clearly over-hyped war propaganda and the reality is Qaddafi and the Libyan people have called NATO's bluff.

To illustrate just how absurd the Western media has become as their lies break upon the rocks of reality, a recent farcical attempt to save face regarding Saif's appearance before journalists at the Riox included an Al Jazeera report claiming that rebel leaders had confirmation Saif al-Islam was arrested "but have no idea how he escaped." To help out the media it might be suggested that Saif was never captured in the first place and that reports of his arrest were simply a ploy to embolden rebels and make it appear as if the momentum had swung in favor of NATO. (For more on US State Department lies rehashed through "media" please see: "Libyan Rebels Lying Left and Right")
Image

Image: Here, the International Criminal Court "confirms" the now verified lie that Saif Al-Islam was being held by rebels. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, in a fit of unmitigated lies claimed, "we have confidential information from different sources that we have within Libya confirming this." He would continue, "it is very important to make clear there is an obligation to surrender Saif to the ICC in accordance with the Security Council resolution." Along with UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon's claim that the "international community" is obligated to comply to the ICC we see unfolding a criminal organization of liars and degenerates of unprecedented proportions.
....

What follows next is unsure. With Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas and others calling for an expedient landing of NATO occupation forces it seems they above all others knew just how tenuous the rebels' hold on Tripoli was. As explained previously, the war in Libya goes beyond pilfering the nation's material wealth, it is about establishing the Wall Street-London international order and its primacy over the nation-state. A NATO failure in Libya would infinitely complicate planned operations against Syria, Iran, and along Russia and China's peripheries. While it appears that NATO's last ditch murder spree has failed, with so much on the table, everything from continuous carpet bombing to a NATO land invasion under the guise of UN "peace monitors" or Haas' NATO occupation forces are possibilities already being planned.

What we do know is how desperate the corporate-financier elite are and how absolute their control is over the mainstream media. Such a large, wide scale disinformation campaign is only possible if each news agency, from AP, Reuters, BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, New York Times, CNN, Al Jazeera and others, are completely compromised by corporate-financier interests. The following lists shows that indeed many of these "news agencies" share consortium memberships with some of the largest corporate-financier interests on earth presenting an immense conflict of interest obviously producing astronomically duplicitous improprieties.

Council on Foreign Relations
Chatham House (Major Corporate Members)
Chatham House (Corporate Members)
Chatham House (Corporate Partners)
Brookings Institution (page 20 of Annual Report)

When we see Reuters sitting side-by-side oil giants like BP, Exxon, Chevron within the halls of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Chatham House and then see reports gloating over Western oil companies moving in to replace Chinese and Russian investments in Libya, their duplicity and lack of independence in their reporting becomes glaringly obvious. These media organizations are in fact PR fronts for the Fortune 500 and their collective goal of implementing a global empire, nation to nation. For now, they are currently obsessed over Libya and the implications its conclusion will have on their future planned conquests, the next being Syria.

It would be a good idea for those following the current NATO murder spree in Libya to abandon any trust in Reuters, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, and any of the "reputable" newspapers wasting paper and space on our nations' newsstands, all of whose fates are tied directly to the corporate-financier interests pinning their hopes on a NATO victory in Libya. Instead, we must commit ourselves to vetting reliable alternative news sources as well as committing ourselves to the responsible of researching the news of the day on our own. Let this be proof positive as to how essential it is to boycott and replace everything eminating from the Fortune 500 including their army of professional liars also known as the "mainstream media."

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/08/lib ... .html#more
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Aug 23, 2011 4:24 pm

.

Apologies for over-posting from counterpunch generally the last few days, but they really are a platform for a heterogeny of good stuff. The following is, at least, a pithy summary.

All reasons for pessimism and cynicism aside, I honestly wish that Libyans now together find the vision and courage to reconcile, to avoid further bloodshed, to keep the best of the old system (a national economic plan that puts human development ahead of maximum exploitation) and create a democracy free of imperialism, neoliberalism, a police state and/or Islamist repression.


http://counterpunch.org/patrick08232011.html

August 23, 2011

Now What in Libya?
Qaddafi Has Lost; But Who Has Won?


By PATRICK COCKBURN

The civil war in Libya went on longer than expected, but the fall of Tripoli came faster than was forecast. As in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad in 2003, there was no last-ditch stand by the defeated regime, whose supporters appear to have melted away once they saw that defeat was inevitable.

While it is clear Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has lost power, it is not certain who has gained it. The anti-regime militiamen that are now streaming into the capital were united by a common enemy, but not much else. The Transitional National Council (TNC) in Benghazi, already recognised by so many foreign states as the legitimate government of Libya, is of dubious legitimacy and authority.

There is another problem in ending the war. It has never been a straight trial of strength between two groups of Libyans because of the decisive role of Nato air strikes. The insurgents themselves admit that without the air war waged on their behalf – with 7,459 air strikes on pro-Gaddafi targets – they would be dead or in flight. The question, therefore, remains open as to how the rebels can peaceably convert their foreign-assisted victory on the battlefield into a stable peace acceptable to all parties in Libya.

Precedents in Afghanistan and Iraq are not encouraging and serve as a warning. The anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan won military success thanks, as in Libya, to foreign air support. They then used this temporary predominance arrogantly and disastrously to establish a regime weighted against the Pashtun community.

In Iraq, the Americans – over-confident after the easy defeat of Saddam Hussein – dissolved the Iraqi army and excluded former members of the Baath party from jobs and power, giving them little choice but to fight. Most Iraqis were glad to see the end of Saddam Hussein, but the struggle to replace him almost destroyed the country.

Will the same thing happen in Libya? In Tripoli, as in most oil states, the government provides most jobs and many Libyans did well under the old regime. How will they now pay for being on the losing side? The air was thick yesterday with calls from the TNC for their fighters to avoid acts of retaliation. But it was only last month that the TNC's commander-in-chief was murdered in some obscure and unexplained act of revenge. The rebel cabinet was dissolved, and has not been reconstituted, because of its failure to investigate the killing. The TNC has produced guidelines for ruling the country post-Gaddafi, which is intended to ensure that law and order should be maintained, people fed and public services continued.

It is far too early to know if this is a piece of foreign-inspired wishful thinking or will have some beneficial effect on developments. The Libyan government was a ramshackle organisation at the best of times, so any faltering in its effectiveness may not be too noticeable at first. But many of those celebrating in the streets of Tripoli and cheering the advancing rebel columns will expect their lives to get better, and will be disappointed if this does not happen.

Foreign powers will probably push for steps towards forming a constituent assembly of some sort to give the new government legitimacy. It will need to create institutions which Colonel Gaddafi largely abolished and replaced with supposedly democratic committees that, in effect, policed his quirky one-man rule. This will not be easily done. Long-term opponents of the regime will find it difficult to share the spoils of victory with those who turned their coats at the last minute.

Some groups have been empowered by the war itself, such as the long-marginalised Berbers from the mountains south-west of Tripoli, who put together the most combat-effective militia. They will want their contribution to be recognised in any new distribution of power.

Libya does have several advantages over Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not a country with a large and desperate part of the population destitute and living on the margins of malnutrition. It does not have the same blood-soaked recent history as Afghanistan and Iraq. For all the demonisation of Colonel Gaddafi over the last six months, his one-man rule never came near rivalling that of Saddam Hussein for savagery.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the outside powers reacted to military success by overplaying their hands. They treated their opponents vindictively and assumed they had been defeated never to rise again. They convinced themselves that their local allies were more representative and effective than they really were. It is in the heady moment of victory that the ingredients are created which produce future disasters.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 23, 2011 5:37 pm

I suspected he was underground 8)

Hunt for Qaddafi Takes Rebels Under Tripoli in Search of Secret Tunnels

By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Caroline Alexander - Aug 23, 2011 3:51 PM CT

When Libyan rebels stormed Muammar Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli he was nowhere to be found. The hunt for the Libyan dictator may now take them underground.

Suspecting it might come to this, Qaddafi taunted North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies three months ago, saying in a May 13 speech: “I live in a place they cannot reach and where you cannot kill me.”

Rebels broke into the compound in Bab Al Aziziya on Aug. 23 after a day of gun battles, some of them riding black pick-ups with machine guns welded to the back. The fighters were shown in news broadcasts entering the broken gates of the compound and trying to tear down a statue of a golden fist holding a jet, which Qaddafi used as backdrop for speeches and rallies.

Libyans have grown up on tales of an intricate network of air-conditioned 1970s-era secret passages, which were fortified in the aftermath of the 1986 U.S. bombing raid on Tripoli to provide an increasingly paranoid Qaddafi with a safe way out, according to Karim Mezran, a Libyan exile and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy.

“Nobody visited these underground bunkers but the information that we got is that he has some tunnels leading from Bab Al Aziziya to some other places like the airport and even Martyrs’ Square,” the former Green Square staging ground for pro-Qaddafi demonstrations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s former deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters yesterday in New York. Dabbashi, who now represents the opposition, said the rebels “expect him to have some residences underground.”
On the Run

While Qaddafi’s whereabouts is still unknown, the rebels said they had achieved “total victory” over him. Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the rebel National Transitional Council, said in an interview that Qaddafi isn’t in the Al Aziziya compound and that rebels will comb the area where they expect to find underground tunnels and corridors.

Former Libyan Prime Minister Abdel-Salam Jalloud, once one of Qaddafi’s closest associates, told Italian television RaiTre on Aug. 21 that Qaddafi will fight to the very end, though he won’t kill himself like Adolf Hitler. After the 1973 military coup, Chilean President Salvador Allende committed suicide with a gun.

“I can envisage him more of a Saddam Hussein than a Salvador Allende,” Ronald Bruce St. John, author of 14 books on Libya, said in a telephone interview from Albuquerque, New Mexico. “I can see him in a spider hole somewhere but not with an AK-47. I think he is probably insane. He is totally detached from reality.”
Hussein’s Hole

In December 2003, 10 months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was finally caught in a hole next to farm buildings in his hometown of Tikrit. In 2006, he was led to the gallows by masked men and hung in Baghdad.

Qaddafi’s Bab Al Aziziya underground complex has several entrances, including one that Qaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam has used to drive in and out. It also may have a tunnel that connects the compound to Tripoli’s Rixos hotel, where foreign journalists were staying during this year’s conflict and where Saif al-Islam re-emerged this week after reports that he had been captured, Mezran said.
Three-Pronged

The storming of the compound came after three days of battles between rebels and Qaddafi forces inside the capital. The rebels mounted a three-pronged attack on Tripoli over the weekend, ending weeks of stalemate in the sixth-month conflict.

The bunker discovered by rebels underneath Qaddafi’s villa in the mountain town of Bayda gives a clue what the tunnels in Tripoli might be like.

According to a report and photos in the Daily Mail newspaper in February, the bunker had three nine-inch-thick blast doors and led to a massage room, seven bedrooms, a kitchen, and caverns full of equipment. Passageways with power generators and an air filtration system led to an escape shaft in the countryside.

That’s a lot more luxurious than the accommodation Iraq’s Hussein had to resort to. His chamber was six to eight feet deep, with only enough room for one person to lie down, an air vent and an extractor fan.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:15 pm

seemslikeadream wrote:I suspected he was underground 8)


Two possibilities for you, deary:

Image

Image

wait, got to throw in this one too:

Image
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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JackRiddler
 
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Re: The Libya thread

Postby StarmanSkye » Tue Aug 23, 2011 7:14 pm

Just to add: Flavia Krause-Jackson and Caroline Alexander are WAAAAY behind the 8-ball, recycling the sad, pathetic, disingenous Pentagon-swill BS about Saddam's 'hidey-hole'. Their cheap-shot background-deficient sensationalism doesn't inspire much regard for their credibility. It smacks of mass-media grandstand sandpiling, distracting and insulting their audience (perhaps pandering is more like it?) instead of providing something approaching an insightful critique, ie. WHY is the western media obsessed with following the US-aided NATO play-by-play interfernece in Libya's politics? It just adds legitimacy to an ongoing litany of warcrimes and economic-incentivized war-profiteering, intransigence and neoliberal intrigue. I find it apalling.

Gaddafi is, to a great extent, who he is because he's had to negotiate the minefields of American and global elite's agenda while compromising his principles as little as possible. Gaddafi was one of the more noble, benevolent leaders Africa and the Middle East suffered thru because all the best ones were eliminated as 'obstacles' to American Interests. Now the mass-media enthralled West can giggle and mock and gloat over the demise of the 'Mad Dog of Tripoli' because he just wasn't good enough. Maybe its impossible for the west to come to terms with the political effect America and Europe's betrayal, subterfuge, Cold War intrigues and neoliberal instigation have had on the Middle East and Africa these last 5 decades, a battleground for the West vs East Cold War drama -- and so we succumb to the trivial dismissal and rancor of exceptionalist put-downs and denouncement instead of cultivating the big picture. Its far easier, anyway, and spares us any responsibility for the enormous damage our Foreign Policy has had on people we know hardly anything about -- and which our media encourages us not to care about.

IOW, I don't like the tone or attitude of this article, as I didn't care for the 'poll' about Gaddafi's fate. I'm too mindful of the immense suffering the people of Libya have undergone, and will yet experience in the days and weeks and months ahead, by way of the West's encouragement -- and for WHAT? It SURE isn't for greater independence, self-rule or improved quality of life. Its for the LooT.
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