The Libya thread

[JackRiddler]

.

You may remember Yvonne Ridley as the journalist held by the Taliban for 10 days or so back in 2001, who later converted to Islam. Reposting here not to be understood as an endorsement.

http://www.redress.cc/global/yridley20110430

“I was wrong to oppose military intervention in Libya – wrong, wrong, wrong”

By Yvonne Ridley in Benghazi

30 April 2011


Yvonne Ridley explains from Benghazi in eastern Libya why she was wrong to oppose Western intervention in Libya, which she now accepts was necessary to avoid the bloodbath Libyan mafia chief Muammar Gaddafi had planned for Libyans for daring to rise up against him.

Just a few weeks ago I stood on a public platform and vigorously slammed proposals for Western military intervention in Libya.

The hasty scramble by the Americans, French and Britons lacked strategy and a clear goal.

To me it appeared to be yet another oil-fuelled, reckless act by gung-ho leaders who would end up being sucked in to a long military campaign as futile as the Bush-Blair adventures into Iraq and Afghanistan that we are still paying for in terms of wasted lives.

“Here we go again,” I said. “Another imperialistic adventure with the long-term aim of getting our grubby hands on other peoples’ oil.”

To those few Libyans present, I warned they would live to regret this pact with the West that I likened to jumping into bed with the devil.

Being very conscious of the fact I’m not a Libyan and desperate at not wanting to be seen as another opinionated Westerner sticking my nose into matters I didn’t understand, I sought the views of many Libyan friends and contacts.

Their reaction was mixed, but more often than not I was told that without outside help the Libyan people would be slaughtered by Gaddafi who himself described those who opposed him as cockroaches that needed to be crushed.

To justify my stand I reasoned that all revolutions are bloody and that the heroic people of Tunisia and Egypt had paid the blood price in their hundreds to win freedom.

I even recounted Malcolm X telling people that if they were not prepared to die for it they should remove the word freedom from their vocabulary.

Of course, making grand statements from platforms in central London is one thing but going to see for myself what was happening on the ground was something else.

My few days in Libya proved to be extremely humbling, illuminating and provided me with a reality check.

I was wrong about opposing military intervention. No if, but or maybe – I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The people of Libya would have been brutally crushed without mercy if the West had not responded to their cries for help.

Perhaps the greatest shame is that Arab leaders stood by emotionless as the Libyan people begged everyone and anyone for help to bring down Gaddafi.

Some of those Arab leaders had no such hesitation in answering cries for help from the oppressive royal regime in Bahrain – obviously the Saudis and rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council cabal felt uncomfortable helping to bring down an evil, brutal, dictator who routinely abused and oppressed his people while happily propping up another.

It could have been an opportunity for the rising regional power Turkey to step in to the breach but to the massive disappointment of the Libyan people Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to become embroiled.

So in the end the West did intervene and although the blood of innocents is still flowing in the streets at least it is not a torrent.

And maybe this is a war led by no one, with no particular aim, but the enforcement of the no fly zone has prevented a massacre.

That is the view held by one of Libya's spiritual leaders, Sheikh Mohammed Bosidra, who told me: "We had no choice. It was either make a pact with NATO or be crushed. It was a matter of survival, as simple as that."

However many have already paid the ultimate blood price. Each town and city has a special place for its martyrs, and there are many. Faces of young men stared back at me from family portraits proudly hung in the central square in Benghazi and what struck me was how young they were.

In Derna, more portraits of the sons of Omar al-Mukhtar hung in the town centre and some of the bodies have been buried in a cemetery next to the tombs of three Sahaba and 70 other martyrs who fought against Roman and Byzantine forces in 692AD.

“We have a very fine tradition of producing martyrs in Derna and that is why Gaddafi hates the people of Derna more than anywhere else in Libya,” one woman told me.

And then she pointed to a French Tricolor and a Union Jack whispering: “Thank you, we will never forget what you have done for us.”

I admit I felt uncomfortable, even a fraud, on several different levels by accepting her thanks. Usually I end up apologizing for the deeds of various British governments and empire so this was something new for me.

We are still not clear what is the endgame of the NATO-led force, but the Libyan people are crystal clear in one thing: Gaddafi must go.

Only then can they begin to work out the next move, and it won’t be easy.

The Interim Transitional National Council says it is committed to liberate every part of Libya from Aamsaad in the east to Ras Jdir in the west, and from Sirte in the north to Gatrun in the south.

But from what I could see the mission is unstable and unpredictable, chaotic, disorganized and confused.

However, what is undeniable is the bravery and courage of the Libyan people who we in the media routinely refer to as rebels. These people are not rebels. They are shopkeepers, students, doctors, businessmen and mechanics who have never owned a gun or wanted to pick one up in anger, until now.

And yet there they are tens of thousands prepared to die for freedoms and liberties they’ve never known in Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.

I was moved to tears by a regiment of young men who marched, rallied and chanted demanding to be sent to the front lines in Misrata to help their brothers in arms.

Their personally-delivered message in Benghazi was to the members of the interim government and they were extremely critical of some elements of the ITNC who they said were more interested in parading around with bodyguards intoxicated with the little power they had than making real decisions.

The criticism of the leadership was stinging but reassuring that these young men were not blind to the shortcomings of their own. Too often in the Middle East people are blind and unquestioning in their loyalty to their leaders.

It is clear to me that once Gaddafi is gone – and he will go – the Libyan people will not replace him with another tyrant or a Western puppet. Whatever government and constitution they choose will be one of their own making.

But first we in the West must give them all the help and support they need to accomplish the removal of Gaddafi until it is time for NATO to go in a dignified exit.

And who knows, for once, Western intervention might just be regarded as a force for good.

[Nordic]

Did they just dig out all the old op-eds from the Saddam Hussein days and do a search and replace?

It sure seems like it.

He gassed his own people, you know!

[seemslikeadream]

Chinese Companies May Lose Billions in Libya
2011-03-06 14:10:58

With the unrest in Libya worsening, the status of Chinese businesses, contracts, and projects worth billions of dollars in the north African nation are now in limbo.

Our Larry Chen has more.

Although the uprising in Libya is happening halfway around the world, Chinese companies and enterprises stand to lose billions of dollars if the situation worsens.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, over 36,000 Chinese nationals work for 75 Chinese companies in Libya, including 13 State-owned enterprises.

Just last year, some $1.8 billion US dollars worth of contracts were signed between Chinese firms and Libya. However, their status is now in jeopardy.

He Wenping, Director of African Studies at the Institute of West Asia and Africa Studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says Libya had been considered as a safe place for investment.

"But before, countries like Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, all of them were regarded as very stable countries because those strongmen have been in power for decades long. So it has been ranked as very stable, political stable, social stable. So before, nobody had realized that even in those so-called stable countries there are actually high risks."

In a statement from the China Railway Construction Corporation, the state owned company says it has suspended its projects in Libya, worth a total of $4.2 billion US dollars.

Meanwhile, China National Petroleum Corporation, who's parent listed company PetroChina has been present in Libya since 2002, says some of its projects and operating sites have been attacked during the upheaval.

He Wenping says the situation in Libya may change the way Chinese enterprises enter foreign markets in the future.

"I think at least one lesson we can draw from this new round of turbulent in those countries that is in the future, for Chinese companies, even for other commercial activities, so before you move in, the risk analysis should be done very carefully. Not only the economic costs, risks, but also social political risks."

However, she does not expect Chinese companies to leave Libya for good, despite the current situation.

"They can do nothing, actually, frankly speaking. they can do nothing about situation like now in Libya. ... but I'm pretty sure no matter what kind of situation happening in Libya, and no matter who is in power, one thing is necessary, and that is economic development. ... so i think they will come back again, to negotiate, and to count the economic loses with whoever in power."

On top of the loss of business, the employment future of the nearly 36-thousand Chinese citizens who had been working in Libya also remains an open question.

For CRI, I'm Larry Chen.

[JackRiddler]

How the hell does P.D. Scott put out so much well-informed work so consistently and regularly?

This is not mainly about Libya, but about the emerging failure of US empire.

Please follow the link and read it there, where you will also see links to this great author's books. The following is my neurotic's archive.

http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3522

The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System

Peter Dale Scott

The present NATO campaign against Gaddafi in Libya has given rise to great confusion, both among those waging this ineffective campaign, and among those observing it. Many whose opinions I normally respect see this as a necessary war against a villain – though some choose to see Gaddafi as the villain, and others point to Obama.

My own take on this war, on the other hand, is that it is both ill-conceived and dangerous -- a threat to the interests of Libyans, Americans, the Middle East and conceivably the entire world. Beneath the professed concern about the safety of Libyan civilians lies a deeper concern that is barely acknowledged: the West’s defense of the present global petrodollar economy, now in decline..

The confusion in Washington, matched by the absence of discussion of an overriding strategic motive for American involvement, is symptomatic of the fact that the American century is ending, and ending in a way that is both predictable in the long run, and simultaneously erratic and out of control in its details.

Confusion in Washington and in NATO

With respect to Libya’s upheaval itself, opinions in Washington range from that of John McCain, who has allegedly called on NATO to provide “every apparent means of assistance, minus ground troops,” in overthrowing Gaddafi,1 to Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who has expressed deep concern about even passing out arms to a group of fighters we do not know well.2

We have seen the same confusion throughout the Middle East. In Egypt a coalition of non-governmental elements helped prepare for the nonviolent revolution in that country, while former US Ambassador Frank Wisner, Jr., flew to Egypt to persuade Mubarak to cling to power. Meanwhile in countries that used to be of major interest to the US, like Jordan and Yemen, it is hard to discern any coherent American policy at all.

In NATO too there is confusion that occasionally threatens to break into open discord. Of the 28 NATO members, only 14 are involved at all in the Libyan campaign, and only six are involved in the air war. Of these only three countries –the U.S., Britain, and France, are offering tactical air support to the rebels on the ground. When many NATO countries froze the bank accounts of Gaddafi and his immediate supporters, the US, in an unpublicized and dubious move, froze the entire $30 billion of Libyan government funds to which it has access. (Of this, more later.) Germany, the most powerful NATO nation after America, abstained on the UN Security Council resolution; and its foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has since said, “We will not see a military solution, but a political solution.”3

Such chaos would have been unthinkable in the high period of US dominance. Obama appears paralyzed by the gap between his declared objective – the removal of Gaddafi from power – and the means available to him, given the nation’s costly involvement in two wars, and his domestic priorities.

To understand America’s and NATO’s confusion over Libya, one must look at other phenomena:

• Standard & Poor’s warning of an imminent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating

• the unprecedented rise in the price of gold to over $1500 an ounce

• the gridlock in American politics over federal and state deficits and what to do about them



In the midst of the Libyan challenge to what remains of American hegemony, and in part as a direct consequence of America’s confused strategy in Libya, the price of oil has hit $112 a barrel. This price increase threatens to slow or even reverse America’s faltering economic recovery, and demonstrates one of the many ways in which the Libyan war is not serving American national interests.

Confusion about Libya has been evident in Washington from the outset, particularly since Secretary of State Clinton advocated a no-fly policy, President Obama said he wanted it as an option, and Secretary of Defense Gates warned against it.4 The result has been a series of interim measures, during which Obama has justified a limited U.S. response by pointing to America’s demanding commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet with a stalemate prevailing in Libya itself, a series of further gradual escalations are being contemplated, from the provision of arms, funds, and advisers to the rebels, to the introduction of mercenaries or even foreign troops. The American scenario begins to look more and more like Vietnam, where the war also began modestly with the introduction of covert operators followed by military advisers.

I have to confess that on March 17 I myself was of two minds about UN Security Council 1973, which ostensibly established a no-fly zone in Libya for the protection of civilians. But since then it has become apparent that the threat to rebels from Gaddafi’s troops and rhetoric was in fact far less than was perceived at the time. To quote Prof. Alan J. Kuperman,

. . . President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold. But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government. Misurata’s population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people — including combatants — have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 — less than 3 percent — are women…. Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The “no mercy’’ warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya’s leader promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away.’’ Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight “to the bitter end.’’5

The record of ongoing US military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that we should expect a heavy human toll if the current stalemate in Libya either continues or escalates further.

The Role in this War of Oil and Financial Interests

In American War Machine, I wrote how

By a seemingly inevitable dialectic,… prosperity in some major states fostered expansion, and expansion in dominant states created increasing income disparity.6 In this process the dominant state itself was changed, as its public services were progressively impoverished, in order to strengthen security arrangements benefiting a few while oppressing many.7

Thus, for many years the foreign affairs of England in Asia came to be conducted in large part by the East India Company…. Similarly, the American company Aramco, representing a consortium of the oil majors Esso, Mobil, Socal, and Texaco, conducted its own foreign policy in Arabia, with private connections to the CIA and FBI.8…

In this way Britain and America inherited policies that, when adopted by the metropolitan states, became inimical to public order and safety.9

In the final stages of hegemonic power, one sees more and more naked intervention for narrow interests, abandoning earlier efforts towards creating stable international institutions. Consider the role of the conspiratorial Jameson Raid into the South African Boer Republic in late 1895, a raid, devised to further the economic interests of Cecil Rhodes, which helped to induce Britain’s Second Boer War.10 Or consider the Anglo-French conspiracy with Israel in 1956, in an absurd vain attempt to retain control of the Suez Canal.

Then consider the lobbying efforts of the oil majors as factors in the U.S. war in Vietnam (1961), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003).11 Although the role of oil companies in America’s Libyan involvement remains obscure, it is a virtual certainty that Cheney’s Energy Task Force Meetings discussed not just Iraq’s but Libya’s under-explored oil reserves, estimated to be around 41 billion barrels, or about a third of Iraq’s.12

Afterwards some in Washington expected a swift victory in Iraq would be followed by similar US attacks on Libya and Iran. General Wesley Clark told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now four years ago that soon after 9/11 a general in the Pentagon informed him that several countries would be attacked by the U.S. military. The list included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.13 In May of 2003 John Gibson, chief executive of Halliburton's Energy Service Group, told International Oil Daily in an interview, “"We hope Iraq will be the first domino and that Libya and Iran will follow. We don't like being kept out of markets because it gives our competitors an unfair advantage,"14

It is also a matter of public record that the UN no-fly resolution 1973 of March 17 followed shortly on Gaddafi’s public threat of March 2 to throw western oil companies out of Libya, and his invitation on March 14 to Chinese, Russian, and Indian firms to produce Libyan oil in their place.15 Significantly China, Russia, and India (joined by their BRICS ally Brazil), all abstained on UN Resolution 1973.

The issue of oil is closely intertwined with that of the dollar, because the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency depends largely on OPEC’s decision to denominate the dollar as the currency for OPEC oil purchases. Today’s petrodollar economy dates back to two secret agreements with the Saudis in the 1970s for the recycling of petrodollars back into the US economy. The first of these deals assured a special and on-going Saudi stake in the health of the US dollar; the second secured continuing Saudi support for the pricing of all OPEC oil in dollars. These two deals assured that the US economy would not be impoverished by OPEC oil price hikes. Since then the heaviest burden has been borne instead by the economies of less developed countries, who need to purchase dollars for their oil supplies.16

As Ellen Brown has pointed out, first Iraq and then Libya decided to challenge the petrodollar system and stop selling all their oil for dollars, shortly before each country was attacked.

Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing on Examiner.com, noted that "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.."

According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Lybia - Punishment for Qaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar," Qaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Qaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. … The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Qaddafi continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.

As I remember it, the Iraqi announcement to denominate oil in euros came originally on the day before or after the 2000 election. Maybe the six months before the invasion of March 2003 was an implementation.

And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned.... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.17

Libya not only has oil. According to the IMF, its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS [Bank of International Settlements], the IMF and their rules.18

Gaddafi’s recent proposal to introduce a gold dinar for Africa revives the notion of an Islamic gold dinar floated in 2003 by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, as well as by some Islamist movements.19 The notion, which contravenes IMF rules and is designed to bypass them, has had trouble getting started. But today the countries stocking more and more gold rather than dollars include not just Libya and Iran, but also China, Russia, and India.20

The Stake of France in Terminating Gaddafi’s African Initiatives

The initiative for the air attacks appears to have come initially from France, with early support from Britain. If Qaddafi were to succeed in creating an African Union backed by Libya’s currency and gold reserves, France, still the predominant economic power in most of its former Central African colonies, would be the chief loser. Indeed, a report from Dennis Kucinich in America has corroborated the claim of Franco Bechis in Italy, transmitted by VoltaireNet in France, that “plans to spark the Benghazi rebellion were initiated by French intelligence services in November 2010.”21

If the idea to attack Libya originated with France, Obama moved swiftly to support French plans to frustrate Gaddafi’s African initiative with his unilateral declaration of a national emergency in order to freeze all of the Bank of Libya’s $30 billion of funds to which America had access. (This was misleadingly reported in the U.S. press as a freeze of the funds of “Colonel Qaddafi, his children and family, and senior members of the Libyan government.”22 But in fact the second section of Obama’s decree explicitly targeted “All property and interests… of the Government of Libya, its agencies, instrumentalities, and controlled entities, and the Central Bank of Libya.”23) While the U.S. has actively used financial weapons in recent years, the $30-billion seizure, “the largest amount ever to be frozen by a U.S. sanctions order,” had one precedent, the arguably illegal and certainly conspiratorial seizure of Iranian assets in 1979 on behalf of the threatened Chase Manhattan Bank.24

The consequences of the $30-billion freeze for Africa, as well as for Libya, have been spelled out by an African observer:

The US$30 billion frozen by Mr Obama belong to the Libyan Central Bank and had been earmarked as the Libyan contribution to three key projects which would add the finishing touches to the African federation – the African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, the establishment in 2011 of the African Monetary Fund to be based in Yaounde with a US$42 billion capital fund and the Abuja-based African Central Bank in Nigeria which when it starts printing African money will ring the death knell for the CFA franc through which Paris has been able to maintain its hold on some African countries for the last fifty years. It is easy to understand the French wrath against Gaddafi.25

This same observer spells out her reasons for believing that Gaddafi’s plans for Africa have been more benign than the West’s:

It began in 1992, when 45 African nations established RASCOM (Regional African Satellite Communication Organization) so that Africa would have its own satellite and slash communication costs in the continent. This was a time when phone calls to and from Africa were the most expensive in the world because of the annual US$500 million fee pocketed by Europe for the use of its satellites like Intelsat for phone conversations, including those within the same country.

An African satellite only cost a onetime payment of US$400 million and the continent no longer had to pay a US$500 million annual lease. Which banker wouldn’t finance such a project? But the problem remained – how can slaves, seeking to free themselves from their master’s exploitation ask the master’s help to achieve that freedom? Not surprisingly, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the USA, Europe only made vague promises for 14 years. Gaddafi put an end to these futile pleas to the western ‘benefactors’ with their exorbitant interest rates. The Libyan guide put US$300 million on the table; the African Development Bank added US$50 million more and the West African Development Bank a further US$27 million – and that’s how Africa got its first communications satellite on 26 December 2007.26

I am not in a position to corroborate all of her claims. But, for these and other reasons, I am persuaded that western actions in Libya have been designed to frustrate Gaddafi’s plans for an authentically post-colonial Africa, not just his threatened actions against the rebels in Benghazi.

Conclusion

I conclude from all this confusion and misrepresentation that America is losing its ability to enforce and maintain peace, either by itself or with its nominal allies. I would submit that, if only to stabilize and reduce oil prices, it is in America’s best interest now to join with Ban Ki-Moon and the Pope in pressing for an immediate cease-fire in Libya. Negotiating a cease-fire will certainly present problems, but the probable alternative to ending this conflict is the nightmare of watching it inexorably escalate.America has been there before with tragic consequences. We do not want to see similar casualties incurred for the sake of anunjust petrodollar system whose days may be numbered anyway.

At stake is not just America’s relation to Libya, but to China. The whole of Africa is an area where the west and the BRIC countries will both be investing. A resource-hungry China alone is expected to invest on a scale of $50 billion a year by 2015, a figure (funded by America’s trade deficit with China) which the West cannot match.27 Whether east and west can coexist peacefully in Africa in the future will depend on the west’s learning to accept a gradual diminution of its influence there, without resorting to deceitful stratagems (reminiscent of the Anglo-French Suez stratagem of 1956) in order to maintain it.

Previous transitions of global dominance have been marked by wars, by revolutions, or by both together. The final emergence through two World Wars of American hegemony over British hegemony was a transition between two powers that were essentially allied, and culturally close. The whole world has an immense stake in ensuring that the difficult transition to a post-US hegemonic order will be achieved as peacefully as possible.



Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan.

His website, which contains a wealth of his writings, is here.

Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 18 No 2, May 2, 2011.

Notes

1 “McCain calls for stronger NATO campaign,” monstersandcritics.com, April 22, 2011, link.

2 Ed Hornick, “Arming Libyan Rebels: Should U.S. Do It?” CNN, March 31, 2011.

3 “Countries Agree to Try to Transfer Some of Qaddafi’s Assets to Libyan Rebels,” New York Times, April 13, 2011, link.

4 “President Obama Wants Options as Pentagon Issues Warnings About Libyan No-Fly Zone,” ABC News, March 3, 2011, link. Earlier, on February 25, Gates warned that the U.S. should avoid future land wars like those it has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, but should not forget the difficult lessons it has learned from those conflicts.

"In my opinion, any future Defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it," Gates said in a speech to cadets at West Point” (Los Angeles Times, February 25, 2011, link).

5 Alan J. Kuperman, “False Pretense for War in Libya?” Boston Globe, April 14, 2011.

6 America’s income disparity, as measured by its Gini coefficient, is now among the highest in the world, along with Brazil, Mexico, and China. See Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, 38, 103; Greg Palast, Armed Madhouse (New York: Dutton, 2006), 159.

7 This is the subject of my book The Road to 9/11, 4–9.

8 Anthony Cave Brown, Oil, God, and Gold (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 213.

9 Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 32. One could cite also the experience of the French Third Republic and the Banque de l’Indochine or the Netherlands and the Dutch East India Company.

10 Elizabeth Longford, Jameson’s Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982); The Jameson Raid: a centennial retrospective (Houghton, South Africa: Brenthurst Press, 1996).

11 Wikileak documents from October and November 2002 reveal that Washington was making deals with oil companies prior to the Iraq invasion, and that the British government lobbied on behalf of BP’s being included in the deals (Paul Bignell, “Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq,” Independent (London), April 19, 2011).

12 Reuters, March 23, 2011.

13 Saman Mohammadi, “The Humanitarian Empire May Strike Syria Next, Followed By Lebanon And Iran,” OpEdNews.com, March 31, 2011.

14 "Halliburton Eager for Work Across the Mideast," International Oil Daily, May 7, 2003.

15 “Gaddafi offers Libyan oil production to India, Russia, China,” Agence France-Presse, March 14, 2011, link.

16 Peter Dale Scott, “Bush’s Deep Reasons for War on Iraq: Oil, Petrodollars, and the OPEC Euro Question”; Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 41-42: “From these developments emerged the twin phenomena, underlying 9/11, of triumphalist US unilateralism on the one hand, and global third-world indebtedness on the other. The secret deals increased US-Saudi interdependence at the expense of the international comity which had been the base for US prosperity since World War II.” Cf. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 37.

17 "Globalists Target 100% State Owned Central Bank of Libya." Link.

18 Ellen Brown, “Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking,” Reader Supported News, April 15, 2011.

19 Peter Dale Scott, “Bush’s Deep Reasons for War on Iraq: Oil, Petrodollars, and the OPEC Euro Question”; citing “Islamic Gold Dinar Will Minimize Dependency on US Dollar,” Malaysian Times, April 19, 2003.

20 “Gold key to financing Gaddafi struggle,” Financial Times, March 21, 2011, link.

21 Franco Bechis, “French plans to topple Gaddafi on track since last November,” VoltaireNet, March 25, 2011. Cf. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, “November 2010 War Games: ‘Southern Mistral’ Air Attack against Dictatorship in a Fictitious Country called ‘Southland,’" Global Research, April 15, 2011, link; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 19, 2011.

22 New York Times, February 27, 2011.

23 Executive Order of February 25, 2011, citing International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, seizes all Libyan Govt assets, February 25, 2011, link. The authority granted to the President by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act “may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purpose” (50 U.S.C. 1701).

24 “Billions Of Libyan Assets Frozen,” Tropic Post, March 8, 2011, link (“largest amount”); Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 80-89 (Iranian assets).

25 “Letter from an African Woman, Not Libyan, On Qaddafi Contribution to Continent-wide African Progress , Oggetto: ASSOCIAZIONE CASA AFRICA LA LIBIA DI GHEDDAFI HA OFFERTO A TUTTA L'AFRICA LA PRIMA RIVOLUZIONE DEI TEMPI MODERNI,” Vermont Commons, April 21, 2011, link. Cf. Manlio Dinucci, “Financial Heist of the Century: Confiscating Libya's Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF),” Global Research, April 24, 2011, link.

26 Ibid. Cf. “The Inauguration of the African Satellite Control Center,” Libya Times, September 28, 2009, link; Jean-Paul Pougala, “The lies behind the West's war on Libya,” Pambazuka.org, April 14, 2011.

27 Leslie Hook, “China’s future in Africa, after Libya,” blogs.ft.com, March 4, 2011 ($50 billion). The U.S trade deficit with China in 2010 was $273 billion.

One thing he leaves out, like most non-European observers, and that I keep emphasizing, is the motive to prevent refugees from North Africa from entering Europe. Anyone who has lived on the Continent for any period will know how important this is in the domestic politics in all of those countries. That's where they stop being progressive. Never mind that it can't work; the governments will choose intervention over negotiations as a strategy, preferring to appear to be taking action. Fact is, refugees from North Africa have now caused the first major crisis in the Schengen system of open borders without border controls. Italy has been receiving the most refugees and France has reinstituted border controls to prevent them from entering.

.

[JackRiddler]

.

By the way, now more than a week ago... but this is how to win over the Libyan people?

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/libyan-leader- ... 22652.html

Angry mobs burn British, Italian embassies in Libya after NATO bombing kills Gadhafi son

By Ben Hubbard,Karin Laub, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Mon, 2 May, 2011


TRIPOLI, Libya - Angry mobs attacked Western embassies and a U.N. office in Tripoli Sunday after NATO bombed Moammar Gadhafi's family compound in an attack officials said killed the leader's second youngest son and three grandchildren, ages six months to two years.

Russia said the Western alliance exceeded its U.N. mandate of protecting Libyan civilians with the strike.

The vandalized embassies were empty and nobody was reported injured, but the attacks heightened tensions between the Libyan regime and Western powers, prompting the United Nations to pull its international staff out of the capital.

The bombing did not slow the attacks by Gadhafi's forces on rebel strongholds in the western part of Libya that has remained largely under the control of the regime. The rebel port of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gadhafi's troops for two months, came under heavy shelling Sunday and at least 12 people were killed, a medic said.

Gadhafi has repeatedly called for a cease-fire, most recently on Saturday, but has not halted his assault on Misrata, a city of 300,000 where hundreds have been killed since the rebellion against Libya's ruler erupted in mid-February.

The rebels, who control most of eastern Libya, have been unable to gain an advantage on the battlefield despite weeks of NATO airstrikes. Alliance officials and allied leaders emphatically denied they were hunting Gadhafi to break the stalemate between the better trained government forces and the lightly armed rebels.

Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, who commands NATO's operation in Libya, said that "we do not target individuals." However, the leaders of the U.S., Britain and France have said Gadhafi must go, prompting warnings by U.N. Security Council members Russia, China and Brazil against NATO attempts to change the regime.

In some of its strongest language, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Sunday accused NATO of a "disproportionate use of force" and cast doubt on NATO's assertion that it is not targeting Gadhafi or members of his family. Russia called for an immediate cease-fire.

NATO warplanes have shifted their focus in the past two weeks from support for rebels on the front lines to attacking the regime's communications centres. Saturday's strike reduced most of the Gadhafi family compound, which takes up an entire block in the residential Garghour neighbourhood, to rubble.

Officials said it killed 29-year-old Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, who had survived a 1986 U.S. airstrike on his father's Bab al-Aziziya residential compound. Also killed were 2-year-old Carthage, the daughter of Gadhafi's son Hannibal; six-month-old Mastura, daughter of Gadhafi's daughter Aisha; and 15-month-old Seif Mohammed, son of Gadhafi's son Mohammed.

Dr. Gerard Le Clouerec, a French orthopedic surgeon who runs a private clinic in Tripoli, inspected the bodies of an adult and two infants at Tripoli's Green Hospital on Sunday.

He told reporters that the adult's face was intact and that "in relation to a photo we have seen most probably was the son of Gadhafi." He said the adult had a thin moustache and a full beard.

The two children had been badly disfigured, the doctor said.

The complex targeted Saturday, hidden from view by blast walls and tall trees, contained three one-story buildings and a large yard with lawns, geranium flower beds, a woodshed, a swing and a table soccer game. A dead deer and a twisted bathtub lay on the debris-strewn grass.

A kitchen clock, knocked from the wall, had stopped a 8:08 and 45 seconds, the time of the explosion. Cooking pots with food, including stuffed peppers, noodles and a stew, had been left on the stove, covered with aluminum foil. Thick grey dust covered crates of onions and lemons in the pantry.

In one of the living rooms, a pile of video games, including FIFA 10, were scattered on a sofa. In what looked like a children's bedroom, half an apple and a glass container of Nutella chocolate spread stood on a night stand.

Foreign ambassadors, many from Africa, were given a tour by government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, who told them that Africans must stick together against attempts at foreign meddling.

After news of the air strike spread in Tripoli, angry mobs trashed the embassies of Britain and Italy, a U.S. consular department and a U.N. office, said Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim.

The British Foreign Office said only burned shells remained of the British embassy buildings, including the ambassador's residence. The buildings had been "ransacked, vandalized and completely destroyed," a spokeswoman said.

Britain, which has taken a leading role in supporting the rebels, responded by ordering the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador, saying he must leave by Monday.

The Italian embassy in Tripoli was also burned, the Italian Foreign Ministry said, accusing the Gadhafi regime of failing to take measures to protect foreign missions. Italy withdrew its diplomats weeks ago and promised the attack on the embassy "will not weaken" its determination to continue with its partners in that mission.

Kaim said a U.S. consular department was also attacked.

A Libyan anti-Gadhafi activist who toured Tripoli said he saw scorch marks outside the building's windows and a green Libyan flag draped over the roof on one side. The windows in the guard shack at the entrance were smashed, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The U.S. evacuated its diplomatic staff at the start of the Libyan crisis, leaving Turkey to represent American interests in the country. In Washington, the State Department said it was aware of the reports of damage. "If true, we condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms," the statement said, adding that by failing to protect the diplomatic missions, the regime "has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations."

Vandals also entered empty U.N. offices in Tripoli and some vehicles were taken, according to Stephanie Bunker, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Bunker said 12 foreign staffers left for neighbouring Tunisia because of the unrest.

Bunker told AP Sunday night that the foreign minister personally apologized to the U.N. and promised to compensate any losses and to expedite the U.N.'s return.

Kaim said the attacks were "regrettable" but that police had been outnumbered by angry crowds of hundreds of people. He said Libya would pay compensation for the damage.

Rebels celebrated the news of the airstrike that killed Gadhafi's son, although some questioned the veracity of the claim, saying the regime could be trying to discredit the international military campaign.

Libyan state TV broadcast footage apparently shot in a morgue showing what appeared to be two bodies, covered by green Libyan flags, lying on metal gurneys. A flower wreath leaned near a wall. Two smaller shapes were covered by white sheets on separate gurneys.

Gadhafi and his wife, Safiya, were in the family compound at the time of the attack but escaped unharmed, said Ibrahim, the government spokesman.

Seif al-Arab was the second-youngest of Gadhafi's seven sons and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began. He also has a biological daughter, Aisha.

The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time studying and partying in the southern German city of Munich in recent years and was not involved in Libyan power structures as were many of his siblings. Even photos of him are scarce. On Sunday, Ibrahim distributed a headshot showing him with a full black beard and wearing a black shirt.

Gadhafi, who has been in power for more than four decades, has fought fiercely to put down an uprising against his regime that began with protests inspired by a wave of Mideast unrest and escalated into an armed rebellion.

Misrata, Libya's third-largest city 125 miles (200 kilometres) southeast of Tripoli, has emerged as a key battleground as Gadhafi seeks to consolidate his hold in the west.

On Sunday, the Libyan government unleashed two volleys of rockets on Misrata's port, the rebel-held city's only lifeline. Heavy shelling also occurred elsewhere in the city throughout the day, killing 12 people and raising the two-day death toll to 23.

A first round of rockets hit the port early in the morning, while a Maltese aid ship that arrived the night before was unloading its cargo, said Ahmed al-Misrati, a truck driver who was in the port at the time.

Al-Misrati said the rockets hit the port area and the water near the boat, which pulled out to sea before it could finish unloading the aid.

A second, larger salvo of dozens of rockets struck the port area in the afternoon, causing fires that sent a huge plume of black smoke over the horizon.

One rocket hit a makeshift checkpoint outside the port, killing two people, medics said. Associated Press Television News footage showed smoke from a line of rocket strikes along the port road and a man screaming and holding his injured hand while fleeing from the checkpoint. Two bodies lay in the rubble.

Strikes also hit inside the port, destroying part of its main road and setting fire to shipping containers on the dock full of aid, said Ahmed al-Jamal, 27, who was slightly injured when the port restaurant was hit.

Fighting between rebel fighters and government forces continued in the southwestern neighbourhood of al-Gheran.

Some 20 rebel fighters who said they were waiting for NATO airstrikes to advance collected in a house there, eating cookies, giving milk to local cats and leaning their rifles on the wall before lining up for Muslim prayers.

One fighter flipped through photos of his children on his cellphone when a rocket-propelled grenade hit near the house's open door, causing a boom that shook the walls. Shrapnel shattered the windshield and headlights of a parked ambulance, killing two fighters and injuring four others.

_____

Hubbard reported from Misrata, Libya. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Juergen Baetz in Berlin, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Lynn Berry in Moscow and Bouazza ben Bouazza in Tunis, Tunisia, contributed to this report.

[8bitagent]

Notice not a peep out of anyone after Obama kills all those children in the Ghadafy compound? Why werent people celebrating then? No instead Uncle Bomb makes yuck yuck with roadkill head, making fun little allusions and smirks about his big announcement the next day. Oh Seth Myers, you little little tool.

[RocketMan]

Libya - all about oil or all about banking?

VERY INTRIGUING, also in light of the recent disclosures of "secret stashes" of gold in Greece and Portugal.

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned.... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Libya not only has oil. According to the IMF, its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?

[Nordic]

http://www.johnperkins.org/?p=1051

Libya: It’s Not About Oil, It’s About Currency and Loans

April 29, 2011 by Johnperkins

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- World Bank President Robert Zoellick Thursday said he hopes the institution will have a role rebuilding Libya as it emerges from current unrest.
Zoellick at a panel discussion noted the bank’s early role in the reconstruction of France, Japan and other nations after World War II.

“Reconstruction now means (Ivory Coast), it means southern Sudan, it means Liberia, it means Sri Lanka, I hope it will mean Libya,” Zoellick said.

On Ivory Coast, Zoellick said he hoped that within “a couple weeks” the bank would move forward with “some hundred millions of dollars of emergency support.”( By Jeffrey Sparshott, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES –full article here – http://tinyurl.com/3hj8yyp .)

We listen to U.S. spokespeople try to explain why we’re suddenly now entangled in another Middle East war. Many of us find ourselves questioning the official justifications. We are aware that the true causes of our engagement are rarely discussed in the media or by our government.

While many of the rationalizations describe resources, especially oil, as the reasons why we should be in that country, there are also an increasing number of dissenting voices. For the most part, these revolve around Libya’s financial relationship with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and multinational corporations.

According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.

The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.

In my talks, I often find it necessary to remind audiences of a point that seems obvious to me but is misunderstood by so many: that the World Bank is not really a world bank at all; it is, rather a U. S. bank. Ditto, its closest sibling, the IMF. In fact, if one looks at the World Bank and IMF executive boards and the votes each member of the board has, one sees that the United States controls about 16 percent of the votes in the World Bank – (Compared with Japan at about 7%, the second largest member, China at 4.5%, Germany with 4.00%, and the United Kingdom and France with about 3.8% each), nearly 17% of the IMF votes (Compared with Japan and Germany at about 6% and UK and France at nearly 5%), and the US holds veto power over all major decisions. Furthermore, the United States President appoints the World Bank President.

So, we might ask ourselves: What happens when a “rogue” country threatens to bring the banking system that benefits the corporatocracy to its knees? What happens to an “empire” when it can no longer effectively be overtly imperialistic?

One definition of “Empire” (per my book The Secret History of the American Empire) states that an empire is a nation that dominates other nations by imposing its own currency on the lands under its control. The empire maintains a large standing military that is ready to protect the currency and the entire economic system that depends on it through extreme violence, if necessary. The ancient Romans did this. So did the Spanish and the British during their days of empire-building. Now, the US or, more to the point, the corporatocracy, is doing it and is determined to punish any individual who tries to stop them. Qaddafi is but the latest example.
Understanding the war against Quaddafi as a war in defense of empire is another step in the direction of helping us ask ourselves whether we want to continue along this path of empire-building. Or do we instead want to honor the democratic principles we are taught to believe are the foundations of our country?

History teaches that empires do not endure; they collapse or are overthrown. Wars ensue and another empire fills the vacuum. The past sends a compelling message. We must change. We cannot afford to watch history repeat itself.

Let us not allow this empire to collapse and be replaced by another. Instead, let us all vow to create a new consciousness. Let the grass-roots movements in the Middle East – fostered by the young who must live with the future and are fueled through social networks – inspire us to demand that our country, our financial institutions and the corporations that depend on us to buy their goods and services commit themselves to fashioning a world that is sustainable, just, peaceful, and prosperous for all.

We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to step across that threshold, to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation.
John Perkins
Twitter: @economic_hitman

[MinM]

[JackRiddler]

.

Gaddafi has appeared on Libyan TV, in talks with tribal leaders.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/ ... 1945.shtml

May 11, 2011

UN chief Ban calls for immediate Libya cease-fire

(AP) GENEVA — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called for "an immediate, verifiable cease-fire" in Libya on Wednesday and said Moammar Gadhafi's government had agreed to another visit by a special envoy.

The secretary-general said he spoke with Libya's prime minister by phone late Tuesday to urge a ceasefire and demand unimpeded access for U.N. humanitarian workers there. He also called on Gadhafi's forces to stop attacking civilians.

Ban said the prime minister, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, agreed to receive a special U.N. envoy who would now travel to Tripoli to undertake "negotiations for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and unimpeded access for humanitarian workers."

The U.N. chief said it would be the seventh such visit to Libya by his envoy, Abdul Ilah Khatib, a Jordanian politician and economist who has twice served as foreign minister.

Poland said Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was traveling to meet rebel forces in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Spokesman Rafal Sobczak said Sikorski flew there Wednesday, becoming the highest-ranking Europe politician to travel to meet the rebels in Libya, according to Sobczak.

The minister was also bringing humanitarian aid for civilians.

Ban pronounced the uprisings across North Africa and the Arab world a rare but fragile opportunity to advance democracy and human rights. He said the movements must be "nurtured and carefully handled by the people who created it."

Ban called on all nations' patrol ships off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea to help prevent more tragedies like the apparent deaths of all 600 African migrants aboard an overcrowded ship to Europe that broke apart within sight of the Libyan capital.

"I'm disturbed by accounts of people fleeing the fighting, losing their lives at sea," Ban said. "I ask patrol vessels in the Mediterranean not to wait for distress signals to offer help. Any boat leaving Libya should be considered a boat in need of assistance and protection."

Ban said he approved of President Barack Obama's decision to send Navy SEAL commandos into Pakistan to kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

"This operation was conducted under extremely difficult, extremely dangerous situations, and that's why I expressed my relief that justice was done to this mastermind of crimes," Ban said.

Asked whether he believes NATO coalition forces are exceeding their U.N. authorization or should step their attacks to oust Gadhafi, Ban said those forces have a mandate "to take necessary military action to prevent Gadhafi forces (in their attempt) to kill those civilian population(s)."

In Brussels, NATO welcomed Ban's call for a cease-fire.

"Of course we agree with the U.N. Secretary-General," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said. "NATO would like to see an immediate end to the violence since our mandate is to protect civilians."

"There can be no solely military solution to the crisis in Libya," she said.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is on a visit to the United States, said last month that any cease-fire must be verifiable and credible, and that there must be a complete end to attacks against civilians.

___

Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html

"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 Barack Obama, December, 2007

"No more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. That is not who we are. . . . We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers" -- candidate Barack Obama, August 1, 2007

[JackRiddler]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/ ... e-u-s.html

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Guest Post: Congress Proposes Bill to Allow Worldwide War … Including INSIDE the U.S.

→ Washington’s Blog


Americans who have been paying attention are outraged that Bush lied us into Iraq by making up false claims about weapons of mass destruction and pretending that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11.

Many are disgusted that Obama got us into a war in Libya without Congressional authorization.

But as the ACLU noted yesterday, Congress is going even further … proposing handing permanent, world-wide war-making powers to the president – including the ability to make war within the United States:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-secur ... ldwide-war

A hugely important provision for Congress to authorize a new worldwide war has been tucked away inside the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill was marked up by members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) last Wednesday that poured into Thursday morning (2:45 a.m. to be exact).

A couple of minutes past midnight, Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered an amendment to strike Sec. 1034 — the new authorization for worldwide war provision — from the NDAA. Visibly angry that such a large sweeping provision had not yet had any public hearing whatsoever, he vigorously characterized it as a very broad declaration of war.

Rep. Garamendi was very concerned by the limitless geographic boundaries of the provision. Essentially, it would enable the U.S. to use military force anywhere in the world (including within the U.S.) in search of terrorists.

***

While a new authorization for worldwide war has had its first public debate, it unfortunately only lasted a hair over 10 minutes and occurred after midnight.

Though it is a very troubling expansion of war authority, it has been lingering for more than three years as a “sleeper provision,” and it is finally getting the attention of some members of Congress. We hope that further debate in Congress in the weeks ahead will allow for a more in-depth examination of unchecked authority to wage worldwide war, and what the outcomes of such a provision will yield.

SNIP

[seemslikeadream]

NATO: A Feast of Blood
Wed, 05/25/2011 - 01:59 — Cynthia McKinney


by Cynthia McKinney, in Tripoli

“Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?” writes Cynthia McKinney as bombs rain down on Tripoli, capital of Libya.

“It is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian intervention." If the humanitarian ruse is allowed against Libya, why not…anywhere? “People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs.”



NATO: A Feast of Blood

by Cynthia McKinney, in Tripoli

“The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.”

While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism. Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was created by the United States in response to the Soviet Union's survival as a Communist state. NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue. This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.

NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all. Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated. The Soviet Response was the Warsaw Pact that maintained a "cordon sanitaire" around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack. Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the "Cold War."

Avowed "Cold Warriors" of today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states of the U.S. whose moves anywhere on the planet are to be contested. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided an accelerated opportunity to exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence. Africa and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states and Afghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other "stans" of the region, have always factored prominently in the theories of "containment" or "rollback" guiding U.S. policy up to today.

“I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here--along with white phosphorus.“

With that as background, last night's NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable. A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night (Monday), rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.

I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.

I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here--along with white phosphorus. If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?

Women carrying young children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their eyes. With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the scene of the attack. Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people.

Sporadic gunfire broke out and it seemed everywhere around me. Euronews showed video of nurses and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those injured from NATO's latest installation of shock and awe. Suddenly, the streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving. Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?

Whatever the military objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.

“Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people.”

I did wonder too if the any of the politicians who had authorized this air attack had themselves ever been on the receiving end of laser guided depleted uranium munitions. Had they ever seen the awful damage that these weapons do a city and its population? Perhaps if they had actually been in a city under air attack and felt the concussion from these bombs and saw the mayhem caused they just might not be so inclined to authorize an attack on a civilian population.

I am confident that NATO would not have been so reckless with human life if they had been called on to attack a major western city. Indeed, I am confident that they would not be called upon ever to attack a western city. NATO only attacks (as does the US and its allies) the poor and underprivileged of the 3rd world.

Only the day before, at a women's event in Tripoli, one woman came up to me with tears in her eyes: her mother is in Benghazi and she can't get back to see if her mother is OK or not. People from the east and west of the country lived with each other, loved each other, intermarried, and now, because of NATO's "humanitarian intervention," artificial divisions are becoming hardened. NATO's recruitment of allies in eastern Libya smacks of the same strain of cold warriorism that sought to assassinate Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolution with "homegrown" Cubans willing to commit acts of terror against their former home country. More recently, Democratic Republic of Congo has been amputated de facto after Laurent Kabila refused a request from the Clinton Administration to formally shave off the eastern part of his country. Laurent Kabila personally recounted the meeting at which this request and refusal were delivered. This plan to balkanize and amputate an African country (as has been done in Sudan) did not work because Kabila said "no" while Congolese around the world organized to protect the "territorial integrity" of their country.

I was horrified to learn that NATO allies (the Rebels) in Libya have reportedly lynched, butchered and then their darker-skinned compatriots after U.S. press reports labeled Black Libyans as "Black mercenaries." Now, tell me this, pray tell. How are you going to take Blacks out of Africa? Press reports have suggested that Americans were "surprised" to see dark-skinned people in Africa. Now, what does that tell us about them?

“What I experienced last night is no "humanitarian intervention."

The sad fact, however, is that it is the Libyans themselves, who have been insulted, terrorized, lynched, and murdered as a result of the press reports that hyper-sensationalized this base ignorance. Who will be held accountable for the lives lost in the bloodletting frenzy unleashed as a result of these lies?

Which brings me back to the lady's question: why is this happening? Honestly, I could not give her the educated reasoned response that she was looking for. In my view the international public is struggling to answer "Why?".

What we do know, and what is quite clear, is this: what I experienced last night is no "humanitarian intervention."

Many suspect it is about all the oil under Libya. Call me skeptical but I have to wonder why the combined armed sea, land and air forces of NATO and the US costing billions of dollars are being arraigned against a relatively small North African country and we're expected to believe its in the defense of democracy.

What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not "humanitarian intervention." Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not "humanitarian intervention." What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why to people now terrified by NATO's bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian intervention." Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority? Where is the "Conscience of the Congress?"

For those of who disagree with Dick Cheney's warning to us to prepare for war for the next generation, please support any one who will stop this madness. Please organize and then vote for peace. People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs. Libyans don't need NATO helicopter gunships, smart bombs, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium to settle their differences. NATO's "humanitarian intervention" needs to be exposed for what it is with the bright, shining light of the truth.

As dusk descends on Tripoli, let me prepare myself with the local civilian population for some more NATO humanitarianism.

Stop bombing Africa and the poor of the world!

[Nordic]

I wish I'd voted for McKinney. At least I'd have a clear conscience about my vote.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... vice=Print

Independent.co.uk

Exclusive:

Exclusive: Battered Libya sues for peace

As President Obama vows 'We will not relent until the shadow of tyranny is lifted', Gaddafi's Prime Minister offers Nato a ceasefire, amnesty for rebels, reconciliation, constitutional government – and an exit strategy

By Kim Sengupta and Solomon Hughes
Thursday, 26 May 2011


The Libyan regime is preparing to make a fresh overture to the international community, offering concessions designed to end the bloodshed of the three-month-long civil war.

The Independent has obtained a copy of a letter from the country's Prime Minister, Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, being sent to a number of foreign governments. It proposes an immediate ceasefire to be monitored by the United Nations and the African Union, unconditional talks with the opposition, amnesty for both sides in the conflict, and the drafting of a new constitution.

David Cameron and Barack Obama met yesterday to try to find an exit strategy from a conflict increasingly appearing to have no definitive military solution in sight. The US President acknowledged that the allies now seem to face a long, attritional campaign.

Behind the scenes, there are signs that Western powers may agree to a ceasefire without the precondition of Muammar Gaddafi and his immediate family going into exile.

Both the British Prime Minister and the US President declared yesterday that the Libyan dictator must leave the country. However senior officials from both sides of the Atlantic increasingly indicate that talks should start if the regime forces end their military action, and there are also genuine signs that Colonel Gaddafi is relinquishing direct control of the state apparatus.

Unusually, Dr Mahmoudi's letter makes no mention of Colonel Gaddafi's role in the country's future. Previous regime communiqués have insisted that the Colonel will fight on, while other proposals, notably by his son Saif al-Islam, envisaged Colonel Gaddafi staying on as a figurehead as a period of transition gets under way.

The alliance led by Britain, France and the US has put its stock in backing the Libyan revolutionaries. Although the rebels in the port of Misrata have thrown back regime troops besieging their city, the main rebel force in the east of the country has failed to make any headway despite two months of Nato bombing. Meanwhile the opposition's political leadership, based in Benghazi – some of them senior former regime officials – insists that no talks can be held until Colonel Gaddafi and his family go into exile.

Whitehall sources say there is a widespread feeling that the Cameron government "set the bar too high" in stating that the departure of the Libyan leader was a prerequisite for a deal to end the strife.

"They thought he would do a runner like Ben Ali [in Tunisia] and Mubarak [in Egypt]," said one. "We know we will have to deal with members of the regime in the future. After all, a lot of the rebel council are former regime people. We should give the people in Tripoli some wriggle room to help them ease out Gaddafi."

Dr Mahmoudi's letter stated: "The future Libya will be radically different to the one that existed three months ago. That was always the plan. Only now we may need to accelerate the process. But to do so, we must stop the fighting, start talking, agree on a new constitution and create a system of government that both reflects the reality of our society and conforms to the demands of contemporary governance.

"We must immediately make humanitarian assistance available to all Libyans in need whether they are in Libya or outside. The cycle of violence must be replaced by a cycle of reconciliation. Both sides need the incentive to move out of their corner and to engage in a process that will lead to consensus."

The Libyan Prime Minister's initiative follows meetings held with Ban Ki-moon which led to the United Nations Secretary General calling for an "immediate, verifiable ceasefire". The UN's special envoy in Libya, Abdel Elah al-Khatib, had discussed specific conditions needed for this with Dr Mahmoudi and a select few regime officials.

The official government estimate of the cost of Libyan military operations for the UK alone is £100m so far, although independent defence analysts claim it adds up to three times that figure. However there is no doubt that this is likely to escalate significantly with the ratcheting up of operations which this week saw the heaviest bombing of Tripoli so far.

Britain and France are sending attack helicopters to take part in Libyan operations, and the RAF is said to be considering sending more Tornado GR4 jets. The firepower from the aircraft is considered to be necessary as the range of targets within Libya is widened.

Advocates of military action hold that it is the intensification of attacks which is driving the regime to seek a deal. According to defence officials, more than 1,200 targets have been "degraded" since the start of operations.

Extract from the letter

"We propose that parliament will convene at an extraordinary session to appoint an executive committee which will manage the public affairs and foresee the ceasefire and propose a mechanism for a political dialogue... comprising representatives from all regions and civil society. A committee will be... mandated with drafting a constitution to the Libyan people for adoption which will define the political system in Libya. A process of reconciliation will be initiated which will include amnesty and compensation to all victims of the conflict. We are ready to talk to help mediate a ceasefire and to initiate discussions on the future form of constitutional government... Let us create a road-map to the future. What has occurred in Libya is part of a wider series of events throughout the Arab world. We understand this. We are ready and we know what is required of us."

©independent.co.uk

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/lib ... story.html

Libya’s prime minister calls for cease-fire


By Michael Birnbaum, Updated: Thursday, May 26, 10:47 PM

TRIPOLI, LIBYA — Libya’s prime minister called for a cease-fire Thursday, saying for the first time that the government would be willing to talk to the rebels, but the White House immediately rejected the offer as not credible.

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