What NATO & Obama Have Wrought

[Edited 10/26/11]
Listening to the glee of our masters, both political and in media, at the death of Gaddafi, I was left feeling a bit more hopeless, a bit more angry, and perhaps, a bit more wise about the brutal facts of power left to the hands of the ruthless. When one faces ruthless people, as long as one faces that fact directly, one has to refine the response to their threat. Occupy Wall Street is a courageous beginning, but if they continue to be displaced from their occupations by the state power of militarized police [Apparently the local media doesn't think the protesters are members of the public], other tactics will have to be considered. The main point is that state power, whether international coalitions, national, or local, can be both overwhelming, and ruthless. Given the timid behavior of most people, one assumes they already get that.

But I digress.

The Western powers of the undemocratic UN Security Council, and the "defense" grouping called the "North Atlantic Treaty Organization," NATO, declared war on Muammar Gaddafi, for reasons, despite their claims, unrelated to humanitarian issues. Not unexpectedly, the west won their war over a small relatively defenseless nation. This is the well worn pattern. The problem they face now, not unlike the problems they faced in their illegal war against Iraq, is how to form a civil government that promotes more freedom and less suffering than that experienced under the government they deposed. Given that a civil, democratic government takes a back seat to Western access to Libya'a resources, that problem will likely go unnoticed, as will the war crimes committed by the "revolutionary" forces supported by the west. War crimes of the west, and their friends, are after all, not war crimes, but simply 'humanitarian" necessities, as in the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden during the end of World War II, the napalming of villages during the Vietnam war, and the destruction of civilians and their infrastructure during the NATO war on Serbia/Yugoslavia. The fact that NATO and their proxy Libyan quislings destroyed Sirte and other Libyan cities, many civilians included, in order to save civilians from the imagined potential crimes of Gadadfi matters little. Once you get through the nonsensical hypocrisy of the given motives for the brutal and merciless use of force, one is only left with the stark motive of controlling resources.

So now, after the brutal NATO onslaught, and the illegal, perverted, and unbelievably cruel killing of Gaddafi, we are left, not with governance that provided for the people, but with the weasel-eyed Mustafa Abdel Jalil, and the nice folks you can watch in the following videos. Fine, uplifting, humanitarian work, as usual.
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[See following link for all videos]
Gaddafi Sodomized By NATO Supported Rebels
Video shows abuse frame by frame (GRAPHIC)
An analysis appears to confirm that a rebel fighter sodomized Gaddafi with a knife.

By Tracey Shelton

October 25, 2011 "Global Post" -- SIRTE, Libya — An analysis of video obtained by GlobalPost from a rebel fighter who recorded the moment when Col. Muammar Gaddafi was first captured confirms that another rebel fighter, whose identity is unknown, sodomized the former leader as he was being dragged from the drainpipe where he had taken cover.

A frame by frame analysis of this exclusive GlobalPost video clearly shows the rebel trying to insert some kind of stick or knife into Gaddafi's rear end.

WARNING

Pictures and Videos should only be viewed by a mature audience

'Video shows Muammar Gaddafi being sodomized'


I personally would call that something more than being "sodomized." It is actually a most vicious torture.
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Gaddafi's Murder and International Law

By Craig Whitlock

Firoze Manji: Nothing in international law allows regime change and assassination of a leader.

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Used and Abused
The Murder of Gaddafi, and the War Crimes of Western Powers

By Peter Baofu, Ph.D.

October 25, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- - -

The jubilant reaction of Western powers and the foes of Muammar Gaddafi to his barbaric murder on October 20, 2011 raises some serious questions about war crimes committed by the Western-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters and NATO forces.

There are two serious violations of international law here, namely, (1) in relation to the Third Geneva Convention in 1929 and (2) in relation to the UN Security Council Resolution #1973 in 2011. Let me explain first (1) the Geneva Convention and then (2) the UN Resolution hereafter.

(1) The first violation of international law concerns the Third Geneva Convention in 1929, which offers rights to prisoners of war (POWs), such that POWs have certain rights to be protected. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rightly said on October 21, 2011 that, "in compliance with international law, the moment that a party to an armed conflict is captured, special procedures should be applied to him or her, including assistance, as well as a ban on killing such a person."

But this right was violated, when Gaddafi was captured alive (as POW) and was then repetitively verbally and physically abused before being shot dead shortly after. As "testified by the grainy mobile phone footage seen by the world of the former leader, bloodied and dazed, being dragged along by NTC fighters" in a gruesome way, "Gaddafi can be heard in one video saying 'God forbids this' several times, as slaps from the crowd [of NTC fighters] rain down on his head," as reported by Rania El Gamal for Reuters on October 23.

Then, he was executed by a young NTC fighter named Sanad al-Sadek al-Ureibi, who claimed that he shot Gaddafi after capture, because he did not want him alive; and other fighters celebrated with him after the summary execution. Worse, his dead body was then publicly displayed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center for more celebration.

This act of Western-backed NTC fighters is not only criminal but also barbaric. The foes of Gaddafi may argue that he deserves this fate, but two wrongs do not make a right (which is a well-known logical fallacy), and the answer to criminality is not more criminality. This blatant violation of the Geneva Convention then led Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, to charge on October 21 that "the manner of the deposed Libyan leader's killing could be a war crime," in a report by RT on October 22.

This criminal act by Western-supported NTC fighters is not just restricted to the case of Gaddafi's death but also be extended to the murder of his son (and others in the group). For instance, Gaddafi's son, Mutassim Gaddafi, was captured alive, together with his father, and, in a video released by NTC fighters, he was shown to be "alive in custody, and even casually smoking a cigarette" in a room (surrounded by armed NTC fighters), but in a few moments later, "other images show him dead with gunshot wounds to his neck and abdomen" in the same room, in a report by RT on October 21.

A technical question here is who should be responsible for this criminal act. There are at least five legal possibilities, namely, (a) the individuals who physically abused him and/or pulled the trigger, like Sanad al-Sadek al-Ureibi and others to be identified, (b) the specific unit of NTC fighters which participated in the capture of Gaddafi and his group, (c) the NTC leadership, (d) NATO forces because of their participation (or complicity) in the attack which led to the capture (and the subsequent murder), and (e) certain leaders of Western powers who have given wholehearted support to NTC from the start to encourage the violence against the regime.

It is not surprising that, at the beginning, the NTC tried to cover up the criminal killing by making up fictional stories and blaming others instead. For instance, NTC leader Mahmoud Jibril, first tried to defend NTC by making a dubious public statement to the press that Gaddafi was killed in a crossfire and was shot by one of his own loyalists. But this cover-up was questioned later, even by a senior member of NTC, Waheed Burshan, who said on October 22: "We found that he was alive and then he was dead. And as far as we can tell, there was no fight" (crossfire).

Even "British MP Jeremy Corbyn said that, as Gaddafi was captured alive, he should have been treated as prisoner of war, interrogated and put on trial," but "it looks that there was an element of mob rule in this, and he was indeed killed in the back of the truck," as reported by RT on October 20.

So now, both "the UN Human Rights Office and Amnesty International are calling for an investigation into Gaddafi's death as it raises concerns over what may be the unlawful killing of a prisoner," as reported by RT on October 22. U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville even said on October 20 that he found it very disturbing when "you see someone who has been captured alive and then you see the same person dead....Summary executions are strictly illegal under any circumstances. It's different if someone is killed in combat....But if something else has happened, if someone is captured and then deliberately killed, then that is a very serious matter," as reported by Stephanie Nebehay for Reuters on October 21.

Unfortunately, because of the Western dominance in international legal bodies, any prosecution of war crimes committed by Western forces and their allies is very unlikely, as "Benjamin Barber, an analyst at a US think tank, does not expect anyone will be held accountable for the colonel's death," as reported by RT on October 22.

Now that Gaddafi was dead, the most tragic thing is that this gruesome murder "will cast doubt on the promises by Libya's new rulers to respect human rights and prevent reprisals. It would also embarrass Western governments which gave their wholehearted backing to the NTC," as reported by Rania El Gamal for Reuters on October 23.

Even British MP Jeremy Corbyn soberly warned that "this really does raise some question marks about the command and discipline of the NTC forces and what Libya is going to be like, not just tomorrow, but next month, next year and the next ten years."

Furthermore, according to Shirin Sagedhi, "the gruesome and public killing of Gaddafi was insulting to the people of Libya and the people of the region, as well as the 'idea that democratic forces would brutally kill someone like that,'" in a report by RT on October 22.

(2) And the second violation of international law concerns the UN Security Council Resolution #1973 in 2011, which set up a "no-fly zone" above Libya but did not authorize NATO forces to carry out an attack on any group who were not harming anyone but were fleeing from being attacked instead. Indeed, it was a French jet which "fired on Gaddafi convoy" when it was trying to flee from the ferocious attack by NTC fighers, as confirmed by French defense chief and reported by RT on October 20.

In this specific case, Gaddafi and his few bodyguards were under attack by NTC fighters when they were fleeing Sirte in a convoy, but NATO helped the NTC fighters and carried out an aerial attack (by a French jet) on Gaddafi's convoy (which led to Gaddafi's capture).

But this violates international law, in regard to the UN Security Council Resolution #1973, since, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday rightly pointed out, "the attack on Gaddafi's convoy was directly at odds with the agreed task of guaranteeing a no-fly zone," because "in this specific case one cannot speak of protecting the lives of civilians, either because the convoy did not attack anyone" and was trying instead to escape from the ferocious attack by NTC fighters, or because there was no civilian around to protect (as an excuse) in the first place.

Russia's NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, therefore accused NATO of being "directly involved in the operation to kill the former Libyan leader," since "apparently there were orders that oriented the military servicemen who are in Libya and that directed them to ensure the physical elimination of Gaddafi," as reported by RT on October 21.

Instead of showing respect towards international law, Western powers reacted joyfully to the killing, as shown by the elation of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, when "learned about the death of Muammar Gaddafi via an SMS message" in an interview "filmed by CBS NEWS," exclaimed "Wow!" and thus joyfully said, "We came, we saw, he died!," as reported by Pravda on October 21. And her boss, President Obama, triumphantly announced that, "without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives" of getting rid of Gaddafi and setting up a new regime.

In reaction to this Western joy over the killing, Rogozin thus observed that "the Western elation over the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi could have sadistic grounds," as he thus added: "The faces of the leaders of 'world democracies' are so happy, as if they remembered how they hanged stray cats in basements in their childhoods," as reported by RT on October 21.

In this way, Western mainstream media did not waste time to engage in spinning the whole murder into one of bashing Gaddafi and his historical legacy, without telling the rest of the world about the Western complicity in supporting Gaddafi in all these years of dictatorial rule.

For instance, only some years ago, "former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had no qualms doing business with Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got cozy with him at a United Nations Summit in Rome," as reported by RT on October 21.

In the case of the U.S., the thoughtful comment by Matthew Rothschild on October 21 is worth mentioning: "The hypocrisy of the U.S. position could hardly be greater. In 2003, the Bush Administration rehabilitated Qaddafi, who became an ally of the United States in the 'war on terror.' In fact, the CIA used Qaddafi's intelligence service to torture detainees that the U.S. sent over to Libya. The CIA 'rendered' eight or nine detainees to Qaddafi's intelligence service, and sent questions along with for the torturers to ask, according to Human Rights Watch, in an interview with Democracy Now. The CIA may even have had agents present during some of the questioning. In 2008, Condoleezza Rice visited Qaddafi in Libya. The next year, Obama shook his hand, and John McCain offered him arms. When it was convenient for Washington to support Qaddafi, it did so. When it was convenient to attack him, it did so. But the Obama administration didn't attack Bahrain when it cracked down on people fighting for democracy against that kingdom. No, Washington even let Saudi Arabia, another kingdom, invade Bahrain to help put down the nonviolent uprising."

Many who do not know the history of modern Libya are not aware of the historical contributions of Muammar Gaddafi to his people and the region, even when he has his own failures. Consider, for instance, the following five important contributions by Gaddafi to his country and the region:

(a) He envisioned "the United States of Africa" and thus contributed to the formation of the African Union. In fact, "the African Union is basically the creation of Muammar Gaddafi, who saw it as a vessel for a stronger Africa," as reported by RT on October 20

(b) He succeeded in holding Libya together, which, according to Shirin Sagedhi, was previously fragmented by different "tribes and ethnicities."

(c) He transformed Libya to have "one of the highest GDPs per capita in Africa and...to provide an extensive level of social security, particularly in the fields of housing and education," in a way that many sub-Saharan countries in Africa could only dream of, in the article on Libya by Wikipedia.

(d) He managed to avoid being dominated by the Soviet Union or the U.S. during the Cold War by masterfully playing the Soviet Union against the U.S. without being a puppet of the former. After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, he continued to fight against Western domination in the region and thus developed bad blood with Western powers.

(e) He overthrew the Kingdom of Libya in a bloodless military coup against King Idris in 1969 and thus brought Libya into the modern era (from monarchic feudalism).

All these achievements are no small feats for a ruler of a small country with only a few million people and thus have allowed Gaddafi to rule for 42 years.

This does not mean that Gaddafi has no failures. Surely, there are good examples to consider, like his personal vanity, his abuse of power, his ruthlessness, and the like. But who has no failures, for a man with his historical status in the modern era?

But all these achievements are now forgotten, as the West had finished using him, and Western mainstream media is now spinning his historical legacy, in accordance to the dominant rhetoric of Western powers in world media.

Yet, history has its final say: Muammar Gaddafi, in the end, is a historical figure in the modern history of Africa and for that matter, the Middle East, in spite of all his personal faults. And the war crimes by Western powers and their allies help perpetuating the vicious cycle of violence and of suffering in the world.

This article was first published by Pravda

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Libya: Apparent Execution of 53 Gaddafi Supporters

Bodies Found at Sirte Hotel Used by Anti-Gaddafi Fighters

OCTOBER 24, 2011

The entrance to the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, where at least 53 persons were apparently executed. At the time of their killing the hotel was apparently controlled by anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata. The red graffiti on the right states "Tiger Brigade," the name of a prominent Misrata fighting group.

Bodies of persons lie in the garden of the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, immediately after they were put into body bags by local residents. At the time of their killing the hotel was apparently controlled by anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata. 53 persons were apparently executed at the site. . . . .

© 2011 Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
Libya Before and After Image Shows What a NATO/UN Humanitarian Mission Looks Like
Activist Post

All hail humanitarian war. Regime change can be a bitch. Start with sanctions because of 'humanitarian' reasons. If they don't work, arm ragtag mercenaries and implement a 'no-fly zone' through an international body. If the rebels can't hunt down the defunct leader, then just bomb the hell out the country until a bloody carcass vaguely resembling the leader turns up. Then claim that the humanitarian intervention was a wild success. PS: Make sure you destroy enough of the infrastructure to secure a huge IMF bondage loan for reconstruction.

The before and after picture of Libya below shows what the U.S./NATO means by a humanitarian war:

[See link for photos, or just Google "Sirte Libya Destruction photos"]

Libya--Rebel & NATO Violations of International Law & the U.N. Resolutions Continue to Escalate

The "humanitarian" intervention by the US & NATO, presented as an intervention to save the lives of Libyans, has been estimated to have killed 50 to 60,000 Libyans. NATO's 8,000 bombing raids in close air support of the "revolutionaries" have had their intended effect, even if not allowed by UN resolutions purportedly passed to protect imagined assaults on civilians in the anti-Gaddafi stronghold of Benghazi, where the rebellion began.

The towns of Sirte, Ben Walid, and Sabha are under siege, with their water and power cut off or under threat of being cut off. Rebel leaders in Benghazi fill the compliant, or is that complicit, international media, with reports of Gaddafi loyalists killing 800 civilians in Sirte, his home town of loyalists, probably to cover for the current and coming crimes of the rebels and NATO. As of now, there is little, if any, information provided from Gaddafi loyalists in the main stream corporate media. In the propaganda war, the rebels need to promote in advance the idea that the coming carnage, to be caused by them, has been caused by Gaddafi and his followers, and the media reports it as fact.

But many articles in the mainstream press contain the following quote:

"'In the end, we will get Sirte, even if we have to cut water and electricity' and let NATO pound it with airstrikes.'

Well, they have already, or soon will, cut off water and electricity in the three towns of Gaddafi loyalists.

"there is no electricity, running water or regular telephone service, and medicine is running
out."

Muammar Gaddafi's stronghold said to be a scene of growing desperation with no power or water and food running low

Siege: "A military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside"

Are there international legal requirements under the laws of war that need to be complied with?

To quote Tom Gjelten at crimesofwar.org:

"The laws pertaining to siege warfare, however, have changed radically in the post-World War II era. Though the word “siege” is never mentioned as a term of law, the Additional Protocols of 1977 impose restrictions on warfare that, if enforced, would effectively make siege illegal. Besieging forces are not allowed to target civilians or starve them “as a method of warfare,” and relief agencies are authorized to provide aid to needy populations.

The most important limitations are the rules regarding “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” including food and water supplies. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 upheld the traditional view that an army may legally block food or other relief shipments into a besieged city if the aid would result in more goods becoming available to the local military forces. But Article 54 of the First Additional Protocol contains an absolute ban on the starvation of civilians as well as forbidding the destruction of foodstuffs, crops, livestock and drinking water supplies that a civilian population relies on for sustenance. This provision may require a besieging force to allow relief supplies to enter a besieged city, even if some of the supplies will inevitably be shared with the defenders. A besieging army is also forbidden, for example, from destroying a city’s drinking water supply.

Comparable rules are found in the Second Additional Protocol, applicable in internal conflict. "

But hey, who cares about international law, certainly not the leaders of the US or "the international community," (i.e., the Western powers) who like the Mafiosi in "The Godfather," give countries with coveted resources an offer they can't refuse--in this case and others, under the banner of "humanitarian intervention." Humanitarian bombs to follow.
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Recent articles on the Western war on Libya:

Libya: Here We Go Again

See also: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29036.htm

By Chris Hedges

September 05, 2011 "Truth Dig" - -Here we go again. The cheering crowds. The deposed dictator. The encomiums to freedom and liberty. The American military as savior. You would think we would have learned in Afghanistan or Iraq. But I guess not. I am waiting for a trucked-in crowd to rejoice as a Gadhafi statue is toppled and Barack Obama lands on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to announce “Mission Accomplished.” War, as long as you view it through the distorted lens of the corporate media, is not only entertaining, but allows us to confuse state power with personal power. It permits us to wallow in unchecked self-exaltation. We are a nation that loves to love itself.

I know enough of Libya, a country I covered for many years as the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, to assure you that the chaos and bloodletting have only begun. Moammar Gadhafi, during one of my lengthy interviews with him under a green Bedouin tent in the sprawling Bab al-Aziziya army barracks in Tripoli, once proposed marrying one of his sons to Chelsea Clinton as a way of mending fences with the United States. He is as insane as he appears and as dangerous. But we should never have become the air force, trainers, suppliers, special forces and enablers of rival tribal factions, goons under the old regime and Islamists that are divided among themselves by deep animosities and a long history of violent conflict.

Stopping Gadhafi forces from entering Benghazi six months ago, which I supported, was one thing. Embroiling ourselves in a civil war was another. And to do it Obama blithely shredded the Constitution and bypassed Congress in violation of the War Powers Resolution. Not that the rule of law matters much in Washington. The dark reasoning of George W. Bush’s administration was that the threat of terrorism and national security gave the executive branch the right to ignore all legal restraints. The Obama administration has made this disregard for law bipartisan. Obama assured us when this started that it was not about “regime change.” But this promise proved as empty as the ones he made during his presidential campaign. He has ruthlessly prosecuted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where military planners speak of a continued U.S. presence for the next couple of decades. He has greatly expanded our proxy wars, which rely heavily on drone and missile attacks, as well as clandestine operations, in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. Add a few more countries and we will set the entire region alight.

The NATO airstrikes on the city of Sirte expose the hypocrisy of our “humanitarian” intervention in Libya. Sirte is the last Gadhafi stronghold and the home to Gadhafi’s tribe. The armed Libyan factions within the rebel alliance are waiting like panting hound dogs outside the city limits. They are determined, once the airstrikes are over, not only to rid the world of Gadhafi but all those within his tribe who benefited from his 42-year rule. The besieging of Sirte by NATO warplanes, which are dropping huge iron fragmentation bombs that will kill scores if not hundreds of innocents, mocks the justification for intervention laid out in a United Nations Security Council resolution. The U.N., when this began six months ago, authorized “all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack.” We have, as always happens in war, become the monster we sought to defeat. We destroy in order to save. Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council estimates that the number of Libyans killed in the last six months, including civilians and combatants, has exceeded 50,000. Our intervention, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, has probably claimed more victims than those killed by the former regime. But this intervention, like the others, was never, despite all the high-blown rhetoric surrounding it, about protecting or saving Libyan lives. It was about the domination of oil fields by Western corporations.

Once the Libyans realize what the Iraqis and Afghans have bitterly discovered—that we have no interest in democracy, that our primary goal is appropriating their natural resources as cheaply as possible and that we will sacrifice large numbers of people to maintain our divine right to the world’s diminishing supply of fossil fuel—they will hate us the way we deserve to be hated. Libya has the ninth largest oil reserves in the world, which is why we react with moral outrage and military resolve when Gadhafi attacks his citizens, but ignore the nightmare in the Congo, where things for the average Congolese are far, far worse. It is why the puppets in the National Transitional Council have promised to oust China and Brazil from the Libyan oil fields and turn them over to Western companies. The unequivocal message we deliver daily through huge explosions and death across the occupied Middle East is: We have everything and if you try and take it away from us we will kill you.

History is replete with conquering forces being cheered when they arrive, whether during the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine in World War II, the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon or our own arrival in Baghdad, and then rapidly mutating from liberator to despised enemy. And once our seizure of Libyan oil becomes clear it will only ramp up the jihadist hatred for America that has spread like wildfire across the Middle East. We are recruiting the next generation of 9/11 hijackers, all waiting for their chance to do to us what we are doing to them.

As W.H. Auden understood:

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

The force used by the occupier to displace the old regime always makes sure the new regime is supine and complaint. The National Transitional Council, made up of former Gadhafi loyalists, Islamists and tribal leaders, many of whom detest each other, will be the West’s vehicle for the reconfiguration of Libya. Libya will return to being the colony it was before Gadhafi and the other young officers in 1969 ousted King Idris, who among other concessions had let Standard Oil write Libya’s petroleum laws. Gadhafi’s defiance of Western commercial interests, which saw the nationalization of foreign banks and foreign companies, along with the oil industry, as well as the closure of U.S. and British air bases, will be reversed. The despotic and collapsed or collapsing regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria once found their revolutionary legitimacy in the pan-Arabism of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. But these regimes fell victim to their own corruption, decay and brutality. None were worth defending. Their disintegration, however, heralds a return of the corporate and imperial power that spawned figures like Nasser and will spawn his radical 21st century counterparts.

The vendettas in Libya have already begun. Government buildings in Tripoli have been looted, although not on the scale seen in Baghdad. Poor black sub-Saharan African immigrant workers have been beaten and killed. Suspected Gadhafi loyalists or spies have been tortured and assassinated. These eye-for-an-eye killings will, I fear, get worse. The National Transitional Council has announced that it opposes the presence in Libya of U.N. military observers and police, despite widespread atrocities committed by Gadhafi loyalists. The observers and police have been offered to help quell the chaos, train new security forces and provide independent verification of what is happening inside Libya. But just as Gadhafi preferred to do dirty work in secret, so will the new regime. It is an old truism, one I witnessed repeatedly in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, that yesterday’s victims rapidly become today’s victimizers.

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. More

© 2011 TruthDig.com
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One Hell of a Humanitarian Intervention
30,000 Bombs Over Libya

By Thomas C. Mountain

September 05, 2011 --- After some 8,000 bombing raids, with estimates of 4 bombs used per attack NATO has already dropped over 30,000 bombs on Libya. That’s almost 200 bombs per day for 6 months, some tens of thousands of tons of high explosives. With an estimated 2 Libyans killed per bomb and without a single NATO casualty the Western regimes have massacred over 60,000 Libyans in the past half year with the rebels themselves having said there have been 50,000 Libyan deaths. One hell of a humanitarian intervention isn’t it?
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Anti-Empire Report

Libya And The World We Live In

"Why are you attacking us? Why are you killing our children? Why are you destroying our infrastructure?"
– Television address by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, April 30, 2011

By William Blum

September 01, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- A few hours later NATO hit a target in Tripoli, killing Gaddafi's 29-year-old son Saif al-Arab, three of Gaddafi's grandchildren, all under twelve years of age, and several friends and neighbors.

In his TV address, Gaddafi had appealed to the NATO nations for a cease-fire and negotiations after six weeks of bombings and cruise missile attacks against his country.

Well, let's see if we can derive some understanding of the complex Libyan turmoil.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO and the European Union — recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like "humanitarian".

If The Holy Triumvirate decides that it doesn't want to overthrow the government in Syria or in Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Jordan, no matter how cruel, oppressive, or religiously intolerant those governments are with their people, no matter how much they impoverish and torture their people, no matter how many protesters they shoot dead in their Freedom Square, the Triumvirate will simply not overthrow them.

If the Triumvirate decides that it wants to overthrow the government of Libya, though that government is secular and has used its oil wealth for the benefit of the people of Libya and Africa perhaps more than any government in all of Africa and the Middle East, but keeps insisting over the years on challenging the Triumvirate's imperial ambitions in Africa and raising its demands on the Triumvirate's oil companies, then the Triumvirate will simply overthrow the government of Libya.

If the Triumvirate wants to punish Gaddafi and his sons it will arrange with the Triumvirate's friends at the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for them.

If the Triumvirate doesn't want to punish the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Jordan it will simply not ask the ICC to issue arrest warrants for them. Ever since the Court first formed in 1998, the United States has refused to ratify it and has done its best to denigrate it and throw barriers in its way because Washington is concerned that American officials might one day be indicted for their many war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, said to the world in 1998 that the United States should be exempt from the court's prosecution because it has "special global responsibilities". But this doesn't stop the United States from using the Court when it suits the purposes of American foreign policy.

If the Triumvirate wants to support a rebel military force to overthrow the government of Libya then it does not matter how fanatically religious, al-Qaeda-related,1 executing-beheading-torturing, monarchist, or factionally split various groups of that rebel force are at times, the Triumvirate will support it, as it did certain forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope that after victory the Libyan force will not turn out as jihadist as it did in Afghanistan, or as fratricidal as in Iraq. One potential source of conflict within the rebels, and within the country if ruled by them, is that a constitutional declaration made by the rebel council states that, while guaranteeing democracy and the rights of non-Muslims, "Islam is the religion of the state and the principle source of legislation in Islamic Jurisprudence."

Adding to the list of the rebels' charming qualities we have the Amnesty International report that the rebels have been conducting mass arrests of black people across the nation, terming all of them "foreign mercenaries" but with growing evidence that a large number were simply migrant workers. Reported Reuters (August 29): "On Saturday, reporters saw the putrefying bodies of 22 men of African origin on a Tripoli beach. Volunteers who had come to bury them said they were mercenaries whom rebels had shot dead." To complete this portrait of the West's newest darlings we have this report from The Independent of London (August 27): "The killings were pitiless. They had taken place at a makeshift hospital, in a tent marked clearly with the symbols of the Islamic crescent. Some of the dead were on stretchers, attached to intravenous drips. Some were on the back of an ambulance that had been shot at. A few were on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl to safety when the bullets came."

If the Triumvirate's propaganda is clever enough and deceptive enough and paints a graphic picture of Gaddafi-initiated high tragedy in Libya, many American and European progressives will insist that though they never, ever support imperialism they're making an exception this time because ...

The Libyan people are being saved from a "massacre", both actual and potential. This massacre, however, seems to have been grossly exaggerated by the Triumvirate, al Jazeera TV, and that station's owner, the government of Qatar; and nothing approaching reputable evidence of a massacre has been offered, neither a mass grave or anything else; the massacre stories appear to be on a par with the Viagra-rape stories spread by al Jazeera (the Fox News of the Libyan uprising). Qatar, it should be noted, has played an active military role in the civil war on the side of NATO. It should be further noted that the main massacre in Libya has been six months of daily Triumvirate bombing, killing an unknown number of people and ruining much of the infrastructure. Michigan U. Prof. Juan Cole, the quintessential true-believer in the good intentions of American foreign policy who nevertheless manages to have a regular voice in progressive media, recently wrote that "Qaddafi was not a man to compromise ... his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to." Is that clear, class? We all know of course that Sarkozy, Obama, and Cameron made compromises without end in their devastation of Libya; they didn't, for example, use any nuclear weapons.

The United Nations gave its approval for military intervention; i.e., the leading members of the Triumvirate gave their approval, after Russia and China cowardly abstained instead of exercising their veto power; (perhaps hoping to receive the same courtesy from the US, UK and France when Russia or China is the aggressor nation).

The people of Libya are being "liberated", whatever in the world that means, now or in the future. Gaddafi is a "dictator" they insist. That may indeed be the proper term to use for the man, but it must still be asked: Is he a relatively benevolent dictator or is he the other kind so favored by Washington? It must also be asked: Since the United States has habitually supported dictators for the entire past century, why not this one?

The Triumvirate, and its fawning media, would have the world believe that what's happened in Libya is just another example of the Arab Spring, a popular uprising by non-violent protestors against a dictator for the proverbial freedom and democracy, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt, which sandwich Libya. But there are several reasons to question this analysis in favor of seeing the Libyan rebels' uprising as a planned and violent attempt to take power in behalf of their own political movement, however heterogeneous that movement might appear to be in its early stage. For example:

1. They soon began flying the flag of the monarchy that Gaddafi had overthrown.

2. They were an armed and violent rebellion almost from the beginning; within a few days, we could read of "citizens armed with weapons seized from army bases"3 and of "the policemen who had participated in the clash were caught and hanged by protesters"

3. Their revolt took place not in the capital but in the heart of the country's oil region; they then began oil production and declared that foreign countries would be rewarded oil-wise in relation to how much each country aided their cause.

4. They soon set up a Central Bank, a rather bizarre thing for a protest movement.

5. International support came quickly, even beforehand, from Qatar and al Jazeera to the CIA and French intelligence.

The notion that a leader does not have the right to put down an armed rebellion against the state is too absurd to discuss.

Not very long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Mideast/North Africa world with perhaps the highest standards of living in the region. Then the United States of America came along and saw fit to make a basket case of each one. The desire to get rid of Gaddafi had been building for years; the Libyan leader had never been a reliable pawn; then the Arab Spring provided the excellent opportunity and cover. As to Why? Take your pick of the following:

- Gaddafi's plans to conduct Libya's trading in Africa in raw materials and oil in a new currency — the gold African dinar, a change that could have delivered a serious blow to the US's dominant position in the world economy. (In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars; sanctions and an invasion followed.)

For further discussion see here.

- A host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: "We've got a big image problem down there. ... Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don't trust the US."

- An American military base to replace the one closed down by Gaddafi after he took power in 1969. There's only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It'll perhaps be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.

- Another example of NATO desperate to find a raison d'être for its existence since the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact.

- Gaddafi's role in creating the African Union. The corporate bosses never like it when their wage slaves set up a union. The Libyan leader has also supported a United States of Africa for he knows that an Africa of 54 independent states will continue to be picked off one by one and abused and exploited by the members of the Triumvirate. Gaddafi has moreover demanded greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations.

- The claim by Gaddafi's son, Saif el Islam, that Libya had helped to fund Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign6 could have humiliated the French president and explain his obsessiveness and haste in wanting to be seen as playing the major role in implementing the "no fly zone" and other measures against Gaddafi. A contributing factor may have been the fact that France has been weakened in its former colonies and neo-colonies in Africa and the Middle East, due in part to Gaddafi's influence.
Gaddafi has been an outstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause and critic of Israeli policies; and on occasion has taken other African and Arab countries, as well as the West, to task for their not matching his policies or rhetoric; one more reason for his lack of popularity amongst world leaders of all stripes.

- In January, 2009, Gaddafi made known that he was considering nationalizing the foreign oil companies in Libya. He also has another bargaining chip: the prospect of utilizing Russian, Chinese and Indian oil companies. During the current period of hostilities, he invited these countries to make up for lost production. But such scenarios will now not take place. The Triumvirate will instead seek to privatize the National Oil Corporation, transferring Libya's oil wealth into foreign hands.

- The American Empire is troubled by any threat to its hegemony. In the present historical period the empire is concerned mainly with Russia and China. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya and elsewhere in Africa. The average American neither knows nor cares about this. The average American imperialist cares greatly, if for no other reason than in this time of rising demands for cuts to the military budget it's vital that powerful "enemies" be named and maintained.

- For yet more reasons, see the article "Why Regime Change in Libya?" by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, and the US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks — Wikileaks reference 07TRIPOLI967 11-15-07 (includes a complaint about Libyan "resource nationalism")

A word from the man the world's mightiest military powers have been trying to kill:

"Recollections of My Life", written by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, April 8, 2011, excerpts:

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer, so, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following his path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us ... I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it. ... In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy". They know the truth but continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip.

More Here
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In case you missed the WikiLeaks link above, here it is again:

GROWTH OF RESOURCE NATIONALISM IN LIBYA

Killing Children & Innocents to Save "Civilians" in the Quest for Energy; Obama Says Bin Laden Dead, Fight Against Al Qaeda Will Continue Anyway

In this Edition:

- Killing Children & Innocents to Save "Civilians" in the Quest for Energy;

- Obama Says Bin Laden Dead, Fight Against Al Qaeda Will Continue Anyway
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Killing Children & Innocents to Save "Civilians" in the Quest for Energy

While the citizens (especially the wealthier ones) of Baker City were either off enjoying the first real spring days of the year at the Snake River or the foothills, and others were busy improving their yards after a long winter, and in some cases trying to bring their properties in line so as to keep the Council and realtor inspired Property Maintenance Ordinance gestapo from harassing them, America's European "defense' organization," NATO, was busy killing Muammar Gaddafi's family, including an attempt on Muammar Gaddafi himself. In the process, they killed 3 of Gaddafi's grand children and a son, while missing Muammar Gaddafi. From NATO's perspective, apparently even innocent children are fair game as the West violates the intent of the UN "resolution", a resolution that was intended to protect Libyan civilians, so as to prosecute their nefarious war.

The Western press, especially from those countries prosecuting the war for empire and Libyan oil, are awash with articles saying it is probably a fabrication (in the face of the bombed out home and dead bodies), while diverting attention to the trashing of their own embassies in reaction to the dastardly deed, but how would we know? The leaders of many countries believe the killings of innocent children is true, and given the previous aggressions of both the US and NATO, I do too. Haven't they done the same thing too many times before, in Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Do we remember that our government lied us into supporting the war on Iraq and so many before? It is another trumped up war after all, and the record is clear that neither the US nor NATO will let innocents get in the way of their aims for dominance over resource rich nations. To all of you supporters of America's and NATO's wars for energy and empire, why don't you just drop the bullshit, and say out loud, that you don't give a good god damn how many innocent children, women, and men get killed in your quest for dominance and cheap energy?

Two articles by Chris Floyd, full of the appropriate sarcasm, follow:

The Joker is Wild: Imperial Party Masks Murder Abroad

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD
SUNDAY, 01 MAY 2011 23:58

It was one of those horrific juxtapositions that an imperial state breeds in abundance: the emperor joking at a luxurious banquet with fawning courtiers, while his agents are killing innocent children on a distant frontier.

Such was the scene this weekend, as President Barack Obama enjoyed his star turn at the White House Correspondents Dinner, that sick-making orgy of cuddly collusion between the media and political elites. In recent years, the sycophantic shindig has turned into a veritable Oscars Night for the political set. (And increasingly the Hollywood set as well; one of the major stories of the big night was that Dinner guests Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson were seen holding hands as they left one of the many glittering "after-parties" attached with the event! I mean, OMG! No wonder it got screaming headlines at HuffPo -- that bastion of hard-hitting progressive journalism.)

Obama delivered the usual professionally scripted zingers to appreciative howls of laughter from the savvy Beltway crowd. (The same kind of laughter that the same crowd gave in the same craven way to Dubya Bush when he was the bossman.) These paeans of praise later rippled out across the progressive blogosphere, where stalwarts like Digby rushed to post up video clips of Obama's "very funny speech" at the Dinner. The progressosphere was absolutely aglow with giddy, giggly pride at the sight of Obama shooting fat dead fish in a barrel -- i.e., making fun of Donald Trump.

This was real leadership! This was the president striking back, taking it to his enemies at last, and, hey, having some fun with it too. Oh, what a tonic! What a hoot! What yocks! 2012? Bring it on!

But even as the media mavens and the glitterati and the fightin' progressive keyboarders were lapping up the imperial schtick, Libyans were digging the eviscerated bodies of three young children out of the ruins of the private home where they were killed by NATO missiles Saturday night. They were the grandchildren of Moamar Gadafy, who was the target of the attack, which also killed his youngest son. The dead children were all under the age of 12.

The missiles tore into a residential area of Tripoli, where the Gadafys were having a family gathering. NATO -- along with the nasty little upper class twit now in charge of the British government, David Cameron -- insisted that the Humanitarian Interventionists were not, repeat NOT, trying to kill Moamar Gadafy by sending three missiles into a house where they believed he was staying. No, no, no. That would be wrong; that would be totally outside the UN mandate governing the intervention. That would be attempted assassination and regime change. The good and godly lords of the West would never do anything like that.

So even though Cameron and Obama and that little French guy all wrote a column together declaring that Moamar Gadafy cannot be allowed to stay in power, they are not trying to change the regime. And even though they are sending missiles into his houses, they are not trying to kill him. And anyway, even if they were trying to kill him -- which they're not -- they would be within their rights to do so under the UN mandate which permits attacks on the regime's "command and control" sites. Or as Cameron -- a former PR flack - put it, he and Obama and the little guy can send missiles into private homes and kill small children because they are trying to prevent "a loss of civilian life by targeting Gadafy's war-making machine." And since Gadafy is at the heart of that machine, they are permitted to try to kill him. But they aren't targeting him. Is it all clear now?

It must be clear, for the murder of these children by NATO missiles has occasioned almost no protest -- indeed, hardly any mention -- across the political spectrum in the United States. The progressives are too busy yukking it up at their man's comic cool. The rightwing militarists are too busy applauding this attempt to "cut off the head of the snake." The "centrists" are too busy sleeping off their Correspondence Dinner hangovers.

And so the killing on the frontiers -- the ever-expanding line of imperial dominance -- will go on. But while the yuks and yocks of the courtiers' banquet keep ringing through the Beltway, you can be sure that the people being blown to bits on those imperial lines -- in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. -- will not die laughing.

NOTE: After yesterday's post on the deadly incident, a reader kindly called to mind a previous piece -- originally written eight years ago -- that might have some relevance to these latest imperial juxtapositions:

See Rome

While you were dreaming
While you wrapped your mind in silks
Bronze Steel Stone
Did their work

While you breathed the fumes
Of the oracle's fissure
Deranged the senses
Settled in soft beds

Rome
Sent agents into the streets
Hard men pinched men
Bronze Steel Stone

To eliminate execute
Discredit and destroy

See Rome

While you stood in the forum
Declaimed high words
Filled temples with fragrant smoke
Scrawled millions of learned disquisitions

Rome marched
Somewhere, in your name
Fired the village
In your name
Put steel to the belly

While you were wrapped in silks
While you grubbed
While you drank degraded waters
Drank dark, brilliant wine
While you sang, while you dreamed

Rome was
Rome hammered the real

Your silks
Your songs
Are dreams

See Rome

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Annals of a Golden Age: Peace Laureate Surpasses Reagan in Killing Gadafy Kin OR http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27999.htm

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD
SUNDAY, 01 MAY 2011 00:23

O how wonderful it is to live in such an enlightened age! Just think: not long ago, the U.S. government was seen as little more than a vast war machine -- brutal, murderous, inhumane, bent on global domination. Yet now, by some marvelous, miraculous twist of fate, that same government is being led by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate! It's as if Lyndon Johnson had been turfed out of office back in the day and replaced by Martin Luther King Jr.!

So what the modern-day MLK up to today? In what way was the Laureate in the White House advancing the vision and practice of peace? Why, he was murdering children in a "targeted assassination," of course! He was escalating an increasingly savage "regime change" operation in blatant contradiction to the UN mandate supposedly governing the latest of his escalations and surges around the world.

Yes, on Saturday -- just days after the Peace Laureate's administration announced it was sending unmanned drone bombers into the Libyan civil war, the residence of Libyan leader Moamar Gadafy was torn apart by a precision missile attack. The attack on a residential area of Tripoli missed Gadafy, but killed his youngest son, Saif al-Arab, and three of the leader's grandchildren.

With this great act of peace, Obama surpassed one of his favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan, who only managed to kill a single infant adopted daughter of Gadafy back when he was bombing Libya. The Laureate now has four Gadafy family members -- and blood members, too! -- notched on his gun belt.

This is surely an achievement in which all progressive lovers of peace can take enormous pride.

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Obama Says Bin Laden Dead, Fight Against Al Qaeda Will Continue Anyway

OK, after almost 10 years, and over a million deaths, we finally got him, says the tough guy puppet President, invoking fears of 911, but we're just going to have to continue killing around the globe anyway (because that's what we know how to do best?). Obama: "His death does not mark the end of our effort. . ."

Obama announces Osama bin Laden killed by U.S.
By Michael A. Memoli and Michael Muskal
May 1, 2011, 8:35 p.m.