Deep Politics Forum

I am not a supporter of the Libya did Lockerbie theory either Peter. And I don't think the UK government is either. But there are appearances to maintain :gossip:

I've been thinking about Moussa Koussa's 'defection'. Things are [I believe] not what they first appear! First, MK has long been in contact with US and UK intelligence. He was also a close associate of Gadaffi's [only G's sons were closer] and 15 years the intelligence chief in Libya.

Considering that he was conspicuously NOT mentioned as one to have their financial assets frozen, nor named as likely to be prosecuted by the ICC, it is my believe [at this time] that this 'defection' was planned a month ago, or more. And planned by both the Western Alliance [US/UK/NATO/UN/et al.] AND by Gadaffi/Koussa. I believe he is now operating as a double-agent.

In one 'shoe' he is feeding the UK and USA and their friends FALSE information about Gadaffi's state of mind and plans, etc. On the other 'shoe' he is acting out of self-preservation and working with the UK/USA to get at Gadaffi......and he'll choose whichever endgame best suits him, in the end.

Why did he choose the UK, rather than, say, Venezuela or Cuba?..... I believe he had guarantees of no harm coming to him by both the UK and USA. He is NO fool.

This is a very deep political game being played and only the first outlines of it can now been seen.....stay tuned!

Guns and Butter - "Operation Libya: Insurrection and Military Intervention" with Michel Chossudovsky


A US/NATO attempted coup d'etat in Libya; weaponry; media disinformation; who are the rebels; military attack part of long-range planning; real objective of the attack; oil; state of the economy in Libya; Egyptian and Libyan situations contrasted; Egyptian opposition leadership co-opted by foreign interests; the purpose of regime replacement.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/68638

Peter Lemkin Wrote:I've been thinking about Moussa Koussa's 'defection'. Things are [I believe] not what they first appear! First, MK has long been in contact with US and UK intelligence. He was also a close associate of Gadaffi's [only G's sons were closer] and 15 years the intelligence chief in Libya.

Considering that he was conspicuously NOT mentioned as one to have their financial assets frozen, nor named as likely to be prosecuted by the ICC, it is my believe [at this time] that this 'defection' was planned a month ago, or more. And planned by both the Western Alliance [US/UK/NATO/UN/et al.] AND by Gadaffi/Koussa. I believe he is now operating as a double-agent.

In one 'shoe' he is feeding the UK and USA and their friends FALSE information about Gadaffi's state of mind and plans, etc. On the other 'shoe' he is acting out of self-preservation and working with the UK/USA to get at Gadaffi......and he'll choose whichever endgame best suits him, in the end.

Why did he choose the UK, rather than, say, Venezuela or Cuba?..... I believe he had guarantees of no harm coming to him by both the UK and USA. He is NO fool.

This is a very deep political game being played and only the first outlines of it can now been seen.....stay tuned!

Jack Straw, former senior Blairite Minister (serving as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Justice Minister etc), gave a nod and wink interview to BBC Radio4's "Today" programme this morning. Straw was stating that Moussa Koussa was a long-time "back channel" into the Libyan regime for western governments. However, Straw seemed to be hinting at more - that Moussa Koussa was a western intelligence asset. (Or double agent in the old money.)

So, we now have:

- Libyan rebel leaders on the CIA payroll commanding the ragtag rebel forces AND senior members of the Gaddafi regime likely also receiving cheques from Langley and MI6;
- CIA and western covert military teams operating on Libyan soil FIGHTING Gaddafi mercenaries hired via Mossad;
- Gaddafi lambasting the West for allowing Al Qaeda to attack his regime AND NATO's top brass admitting the Libyan rebels contain "flickers of Al Qaeda".

And MSM producing fancy graphic maps of the "strategic oil towns" captured and lost by the rebels, and enthusiastically reporting on the rebel deals to sell Libyan oil via Arab slave monarchies, WHILST dismissing the notion that this is yet another War for Oil as a "conspiracy theory".

Satire is dead.

Again.

Libya's defected foreign minister Mussa Kussa was a man the United States could rely on and engage with despite his spy background, according to US cables released by WikiLeaks on Thursday.

"Kussa frequently travels with Moamer Kadhafi and is a principal adviser on security matters," WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, quoted the cable dated May 21, 2009 as saying.

"He is Western-educated... and is seen as a strong supporter of re-engagement with the West," said the message prepared ahead of a trip to Libya by now retired US general William Ward.

Kussa, 59, was installed as Kadhafi's foreign minister in March 2009 after having served as the head of Libya's intelligence agency from 1994.

"He has played a prominent role in US-Libya relations and, more broadly, in Libya's foreign affairs. Since becoming foreign minister, he has assumed several portfolios previously held by other prominent regime figures."

"Kussa is the rare Libyan official who embodies a combination of intellectual acumen, operational ability and political weight.

"Promoting specific areas of cooperation with him is an opportunity to have him cast that message in terms palatable to Libya's leadership." Kussa traveled to Britain from Tunisia on Wednesday, according to the British government.

The one-time ambassador to Britain arrived "under his own free will" through Farnborough airport southwest of London on Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

He was now in talks with British officials but Hague stressed that Kussa, who has been accused of masterminding the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, had not been offered immunity from prosecution. -AFP
http://www.thenewage.co.za/14059-1020-53..._WikiLeaks

Ref ID: 08TRIPOLI430

Date: 6/2/2008 16:59

Origin: Embassy Tripoli

Classification: CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN

Destination: 08TRIPOLI120

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Tags: PGOV,PREL,KISL,PTER,PHUM,LY,IZ

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TRIPOLI 000430 NOFORN SIPDIS DEPT FOR NEA/MAG, S/CT E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/27/2018 TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KISL, PTER, PHUM, LY, IZ SUBJECT: DIE HARD IN DERNA REF: TRIPOLI 120 TRIPOLI 00000430 001.2 OF 004 CLASSIFIED BY: Chris Stevens, CDA, U.S. Embassy - Tripoli, Dept of State. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)
1.© Summary: Frustration at the inability of eastern Libyans to effectively challenge Qadhafi's regime, together with a concerted ideological campaign by returned Libyan fighters from earlier conflicts, have played important roles in Derna's development as a wellspring of Libyan foreign fighters in Iraq. Other factors include a dearth of social outlets for young people, local pride in Derna's history as a locus of fierce opposition to occupation, economic disenfranchisement among the town's young men. Depictions on satellite television of events in Iraq and Palestine fuel the widespread view that resistance to coalition forces is justified and necessary. One Libyan interlocutor likened young men in Derna to Bruce Willis' character in the action picture "Die Hard", who stubbornly refused to die quietly. For them, resistance against coalition forces in Iraq is an important act of 'jihad' and a last act of defiance against the Qadhafi regime. End summary.
2.© P/E Chief paid an unofficial visit to the eastern Libyan town of Derna in early May in conjunction with a trip to Benghazi and the ancient Graeco-Roman ruins of Cyrene. P/E Chief traveled from Benghazi in a rented car with a driver/guide. (Note: An apparent lapse in coordination between security officials in Tripoli and Benghazi led to what appeared to be a rare gap in surveillance by security organizations. End note.) Located along Libya's eastern littoral in an area bracketed with rocky hills, Derna's beautiful, if bleak, setting and Soviet-style poured concrete buildings evoke Tyre and Sidon in South Lebanon. While asking directions to the city's old fort, P/E Chief met local resident xxxxxxxxxxxx(strictly protect), who happened to hail from the same tribe as P/E Chief's driver/guide. In typical fashion, xxxxxxxxxxxx promptly dropped what he was doing and spent the next several hours accompanying us around Derna, a town of some 50,000 people. Asked about his livelihood, xxxxxxxxxxxx described himself as "a free businessman", usually indicating someone who does not hold a full-time job, but instead gets by on a mix of odd jobs and commercial activities. BAAB AL-SHIHA: WELLSPRING OF LIBYAN FOREIGN FIGHTERS
3.© P/E Chief visited the Baab al-Shiha neighborhood, site of the town's old fort (now all but gone) and the district from which a large number of the Libyan foreign fighters identified in documents captured during September's Objective Massey operation in Iraq had hailed. The lower-middle class neighborhood, comprising poured concrete homes crowded along largely unpaved streets, sits on a hill overlooking the town. Unbidden, xxxxxxxxxxxx pointed out a number of small, discrete mosques tucked away in side alleys, noting that the profusion of "popular mosques" complicated effective monitoring by security forces. (Note: As reported reftel, another contact indicated previously that while mosques in town centers are closely monitored, it has been more difficult for secruity organizations to effectively monitor smaller, more remote mosques in exurbs and towns in eastern Libya. End note.)
4.© A number of residents were on the streets; however, they were visibly more wary and less friendly than in other Libyan towns. xxxxxxxxxxxx later noted that some residents were closely questioned by security officials after speaking with a visiting Newsweek reporter in April. Told P/E Chief was an American, xxxxxxxxxxxx jokingly swore and said "there goes my evening". Clarifying, he said he had plans that night, but would likely be detained and questioned by security officials about his interactions with an Emboff. While P/E Chief had not obviously been followed, word would doubtless reach security officials' ears that foreigners had visited and inquiries would be made. He dismissed the idea of parting company to avoid creating problems for him, saying it was important that he, as a son of Derna, not bow down to the central government's authority. "They may have their boot on our throat, but it's important that they know that we are still breathing and kicking", he said.
PERCEIVED U.S. SUPPORT FOR QADHAFI FUELS DESIRE TO FIGHT IN IRAQ
5.© Over lunch at a popular restaurant just off the waterfront, xxxxxxxxxxxx and his business partner (who declined to give his name)discussed at length the local political-economic, cultural and religious scene, noting that it was "well-known" that a large number of suicide bombers (invariably described as "martyrs") and foreign fighters in Iraq hailed from Derna, a fact in which the town "takes great pride". xxxxxxxxxxxx stressed TRIPOLI 00000430 002.2 OF 004 the importance of the link between the domestic political situation in Libya and the flow of foreign fighters in Iraq. Residents of eastern Libya in general, and Derna in particular, view the al-Qadhafa clan as uneducated, uncouth interlopers from an inconsequential part of the country who have "stolen" the right to rule in Libya. (Note: Qadhafi's hometown, Sirte, is a remote spot located on the coast midway between the leading cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. End note.) Easterners had tried and failed to bring down Qadhafi's regime via the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) insurgency in the 1990s.
6.© There was a strong perception, he said, that the U.S. had decided in the wake of Qadhafi's decision to abandon WMD aspirations and renounce terrorism to support the regime to secure counter-terrorism cooperation and ensure continued oil and natural gas production. Many easterners feared the U.S. would not allow Qadhafi's regime to fall and therefore viewed direct confrontation with the GOL in the near-term as a fool's errand. At the same time, sending young Libyans to fight in Iraq was "an embarrassment" to Qadhafi. Fighting against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq represented a way for frustrated young radicals to strike a blow against both Qadhafi and against his perceived American backers. Dismissing P/E Chief's argument that we have privately pressed the GOL to adopt further political and economic reforms, xxxxxxxxxxxx noted that human rights activist Fathi el-Jahmi (who hails from Benghazi), remained in detention. The U.S. surely had the wherewithal to secure el-Jahmi's release if it really cared about human rights; the fact that el-Jahmi remained in detention was viewed as one sign that the U.S. tacitly supported Qadhafi, regardless of his actions. (Note: We heard a similar line of reasoning from Libyan contacts in Benghazi. End note.) TARGETED IDEOLOGICAL CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN LIBYA
7.© Rejecting the idea that Derna was uniformly extremist, xxxxxxxxxxxx and his business partner described the town as being divided between religiously conservative and secular residents. A "large number" of Derna's citizens were not happy about the increasingly conservative religious atmosphere that had prevailed since the 1980's, he claimed. Elaborating, al-Mansuri attributed adherence to more extreme iterations of Islam to "unnatural foreign influences" on religious practices in Derna. A number of Libyans who had fought and in some cases undergone "religious and ideological training" in Afghanistan, Lebanon and the West Bank in the late 1970's and early 1980's had returned to eastern Libya, including Derna, in the mid to late 1980's. Claiming their return was "not coincidental", he described a deliberate, coordinated campaign to propagate more conservative iterations of Islam, in part to prepare the ground for the eventual overthrow by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) of Muammar Qadhafi's regime, which is "hated" by conservative Islamists. (Note: After taking pains to curry favor with the 'ulema' in Libya in the years immediately after the 1969 revolution, Qadhafi broke with them in the late 1970's, criticizing aspects of Islam as "un-revolutionary". Although he renewed efforts to cultivate Muslim leaders in the 1990's, deep suspicions remain. The LIFG waged a successful low-level guerrilla insurgency in the early to mid-1990's, specializing in robbery and raids on remote military garrisons to sustain itself. End note.)
8.© According to xxxxxxxxxxxx, these returned former fighters deliberately targeted towns and areas known to be less heavily surveilled and controlled by government security officials. Many of those were located in eastern Libya, where authorities have since Ottoman times experienced difficulty extending the writ of the central government. xxxxxxxxxxxx mentioned a small group of Libyans who had reportedly fought in Afghanistan, subsequently undergone religious training in northern Syria and Lebanon, and then returned to Derna in the late 1980's as having been particularly instrumental in steering the community in a more conservative direction. Stressing their conservatism, he said they had spearheaded campaigns against many aspects of daily life, such as smoking cigarettes, which they deemed "un-Islamic". He pointed out the large number of religiously-themed audio cassettes and DVDs on offer in Derna's markets. Many featured sermons and speeches by conservative imams in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Egypt.
LIMITED SOCIAL OUTLETS CREATE FERTILE ENVIRONMENT; SATELLITE TV FOSTERS "HARD VIEW" TRIPOLI 00000430 003.2 OF 004
9.© A dearth of social outlets for young people in Derna "created space" for the message of returned fighters and conservative imams, who deliberately sought to eliminate the few social activities on offer for young people to monopolize the social and cultural environment. While Derna's social life had never been robust, there had been public cinemas, sports leagues and some youth activities organized outside the auspices of mosques. Virtually all of those had petered out in the late 1980's and 1990's, in part because of a campaign to label such activities as "un-Islamic". He cited a popular youth theater group that had staged up to half a dozen productions a year, including western plays. Clerics criticized "un-Islamic" themes and the fact that boys and girls were cast together in some productions; the resulting social stigmatization of families whose children had participated led to the group's demise in the late 1980's.
10.© The fact that Derna's educational system was weak had also enabled conservative clerics. xxxxxxxxxxxx described a situation in which mosques and imams effectively offered the only alternative to schools, sports leagues and after-school activities. A heavy influx of Arabic-language satellite television - a phenomenon that dated to the late-1990's - also fostered a "hard view" of the world, xxxxxxxxxxxx said. Most young men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news, religious sermons and western action films on English language satellite channels broadcast from the Gulf. The result was a heady mixture of violence, religious conservatism and hatred of U.S. policy in Iraq and Palestine. The consensus view in Derna is that the U.S. blindly supports Israel and has invaded Iraq to secure oil reserves and position itself to attack Iran, he said. He dismissed P/E Chief's attempts to clarify U.S. policy, stressing that most people base their judgments on information they receive from satellite television and at the mosque. PRIDE IN DERNA'S HISTORY AS A TOWN OF FIGHTERS
11.© xxxxxxxxxxxx attributed the flow of foreign fighters from Derna in part to local pride in the town's reputation as a historical locus of resistance to occupation. While many of the town's citizens were uncomfortable with the town's increasingly conservative Islamist bent, the fact that young men from Derna traveled to Iraq in disproportionate numbers to fight against coalition forces was viewed through a different lens. Not everyone liked the "bearded ones" (a reference to conservative imams) or their message, xxxxxxxxxxxx said, but the duty of a Muslim in general - and of a son of Derna in particular - was to resist occupation of Muslim lands through jihad. "It's jihad - it's our duty, and you're talking about people who don't have much else to be proud of." Derna's residents might take issue with attempts to ban smoking or restrict social activities, but there was consensus on "basic issues" like jihad. Depictions on al-Jazeera of events in Iraq and Palestine fueled the widely-held view in Derna that resistance to coalition forces was "correct and necessary". Referring to actor Bruce Willis' character in the action picture "Die Hard", who stubbornly refused to die quietly, he said many young men in Derna viewed resistance against Qadhafi's regime and against coalition forces in Iraq as an important last act of defiance.
12.© Claiming "most Libyans" shared that sentiment, xxxxxxxxxxxx proudly said the difference was that Derna's sons actually acted on their beliefs. Derna had historically resisted "occupations of all kinds - Ottoman, Italian, American (a reference to the 1805 attack on Derna led by William Eaton), and Qadhafi's." Derna's role in opposing the Italian occupation in the early 20th century helped foster the near-deification of Libyan resistance leader Omar al-Mukhtar, who hailed from eastern Libya. A visit to the al-Sahab mosque near the town's center was telling. Large murals on the mosque's exterior (inaccurately) depicted Islamic warriors besting what appeared to be Roman soldiers. The mosque's imam showed P/E Chief a series of small shrines to medieval holy men and a small cemetery filled with graves of "martyrs" who had resisted Ottoman and Italian occupation. Many of the markers were garlanded with flowers; xxxxxxxxxxxx said families often come to picnic in the mosque's garden on holidays and pay their respects at the cemetery.
WEAK ECONOMY HURTS MARRIAGE PROSPECTS, FUELS FRUSTRATION
13.© As discussed reftel, xxxxxxxxxxxx drew a direct line between the parlous local economy and the willingness of Derna's TRIPOLI 00000430 004.2 OF 004 sons to travel to Iraq for jihad. A military base in Derna closed in the early 1990's, taking with it a large number of jobs (cooks, washerwomen, auto mechanics, electricians, etc.) who helped support the base. Derna has a small fishing and maritime transport industry; other economic activities are largely restricted to services and smuggling. While a military prison, located along the town's waterfront, remains open, the closure of the base hit the town hard and ushered in a more difficult era of economic austerity. Unemployment, particularly among young men between the ages of 18 and 40, is high - xxxxxxxxxxxx put the percentage of un- and under-employed men in that demographic at 60 to 70 percent. Dim employment prospects leave many young men in Derna without the means to marry - a key social anchor in what remains a traditional society - and the average age at which men marry has crept upwards. Asked about reports that many now marry in their early- to mid-30's (reftel), xxxxxxxxxxxx said most of his friends and acquaintances actually did not marry until their mid-30's to early- 40's. He half-jokingly noted that the cumulative level of sexual frustration among Derna's young men was "a big problem".
14.© In addition, while Benghazi and other parts of eastern Libya had benefited in the last several years from increased government patronage, Derna continued to "suffer from neglect". Citing an indeterminate grudge between Libya's former monarch, King Idriss al-Sanussi, and leading citizens of Derna, xxxxxxxxxxxx claimed that Derna had long been the victim of a deliberate government campaign to keep it poor. He compared Derna's plight to the fortunes of another conservative eastern Libyan town, Bayda. While Bayda had been the summer retreat for King Idriss and was initially shunned in the early years of Qadhafi's rule, its fortunes changed after Qadhafi married Sadia Farkhis, daughter of a prominent citizen of the town. The government subsequently established the Omar al-Mukhtar University in what had been the royal palace and sited a number of government-owned enterprises there. By contrast, Derna had not benefited from any such measures.
15.© Comment: xxxxxxxxxxxx remarks suggest that frustration at the inability of eastern Libyans to effectively challenge Qadhafi's regime, together with a concerted ideological campaign by returned Libyan fighters from earlier conflicts, have played an important role in in Derna's development as a wellspring of Libyan foreign fighters in Iraq. The GOL's limited ability to extend its writ in eastern Libya - along with limited social outlets, dim economic prospects and the town's historical role as a center of resistance - have fostered a landscape in which Derna's angry young men view the conflict in Iraq through the lens of dissatisfaction with their government and with the USG's perceived support of it. Observations of the town, together with information reported reftel, strongly suggest that comments by senior GOL officials to the effect that the east is under control are exaggerated. End comment. STEVENS

Libyan Rebels are Led by a CIA Jackal
30th March 2011

" … This information is available to anyone who conducts even a cursory Internet search, but it has not been reported by the corporate-controlled media in the United States, except in the dispatch from McClatchy, which avoids any reference to the CIA. None of the television networks, busily lauding the freedom fighters' of eastern Libya, has bothered to report that these forces are now commanded by a longtime collaborator of US intelligence services. Nor have the liberal and left' enthusiasts of the US-European intervention in Libya taken note. They are too busy hailing the Obama administration for its multilateral and consultative' approach to war, supposedly so different from the unilateral and cowboy' approach of the Bush administration in Iraq. That the result is the samedeath and destruction raining down on the population, the trampling of the sovereignty and independence of a former colonial countrymeans nothing to these apologists for imperialism. … "

Libya: A CIA commander for the rebels

By Patrick Martin | Opinion Maker | March 28, 2011

The Libyan National Council, the Benghazi-based group that speaks for the rebel forces fighting the Gaddafi regime, has appointed a long-time CIA collaborator to head its military operations. The selection of Khalifa Hifter, a former colonel in the Libyan army, was reported by McClatchy Newspapers Thursday [see below] and the new military chief was interviewed by a correspondent for ABC News on Sunday night.Hifter's arrival in Benghazi was first reported by Al Jazeera on March 14, followed by a flattering portrait in the virulently pro-war British tabloid the Daily Mail on March 19. The Daily Mail described Hifter as one of the "two military stars of the revolution" who "had recently returned from exile in America to lend the rebel ground forces some tactical coherence." The newspaper did not refer to his CIA connections. …

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/03/lib...he-rebels/
Khalifa Hifter: New Rebel Military Commander may have ties to CIA

By northsunm32 | All Voices | March 30, 2011

… [Col. Khalifa Haftar] settled in with his family in Vienna Virginia about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley.

A Washington Post report March 26 1996 described an armed rebellion against Gadaffi in Libya The article cites witnesses to the rebellion who report that "its leader is Col. Khalifa Haftar, of a contra-style group based in the United States called the Libyan National Army.This comparison is to the "contra" terrorist forces financed and armed by the US government in the 1980s against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Hifter's CIA connections go further back, to 1987. A French newspare reported that Hifter, then a colonel in Gaddafi's army, was captured fighting in Chad in a Libyan-backed rebellion against the US-backed government of Hissène Habré. He defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia, which operated in Chad until Habré was overthrown by a French-supported rival, Idriss Déby, in 1990.

So Hifter can list many different military experiences on his resume. Two at least probably involve the CIA. Perhaps the former Libyan Justice Minister who heads the Libyan National Council received a glowing recommendation from the CIA as to Hifter's skills.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-new...ies-to-cia
Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia

By Chris Adams
McClatchy Newspapers | March 26, 2011

WASHINGTON The new leader of Libya's opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled even in his late-60s to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.

Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.

Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi's side until just a month ago.

At a news conference Thursday, the rebel's military spokesman said Younes will stay as Hifter's chief of staff, and added that the army such as it is would need "weeks" of training.

According to Abdel Salam Badr of Richmond, Va., who said he has known Hifter all his life including back in Libya Hifter whose name is sometimes spelled Haftar, Hefter or Huftur was motivated by his intense anti-Gadhafi feelings.

"Libyans every single one of them they hate that guy so much they will do whatever it takes," Badr said in an interview Saturday. "Khalifa has a personal grudge against Gadhafi … That was his purpose in life."

According to Badr and another friend in the U.S., a Georgia-based Libyan activist named Salem alHasi, Hifter left for Libya two weeks ago. alHasi, who said Hifter was once his superior in the opposition's military wing, said he and Hifter talked in mid-February about the possibility that Gadhafi would use force on protesters.

"He made the decision he had to go inside Libya," alHasi said Saturday. "With his military experience, and with his strong relationship with officers on many levels of rank, he decided to go and see the possibility of participating in the military effort against Gadhafi." He added that Hifter is very popular among members of the Libyan army, "and he is the most experienced person in the whole Libyan army." He acted out of a sense of "national responsibility," alHasi said.

"This responsibility no one can take care of but him," alHasi said. "I know very well that the Libyan army especially in the eastern part is in desperate need of his presence."

Omar Elkeddi, a Libyan expatriate journalist based in Holland, said in an interview that the opposition forces are getting more organized than they were at the beginning up the uprising. Hifter, he said, is "very professional, very distinguished," and commands great respect.

Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/26/11...z1I7EKInF3

From http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/...ADA784C3F9

Release: Why Did the Fed Bail Out the Bank of Libya?




March 31, 2011
How do Gadhafi's Bankers Avoid U.S. Sanctions?

WASHINGTON, March 31 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.
The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law.
Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government.
"It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya," Sanders said.
In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others, Sanders asked why the central bank made at least 46 emergency, low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corp., in which the Central Bank of Libya owns a 59 percent stake.
In the same letter, Sanders asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why the Treasury Department on March 4 let the Libya-controlled bank skirt the economic sanctions against Libya.
The senator also questioned why the Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp. is even allowed to operate branches inside United States. "Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions to operate two banking branches within our own borders?" Sanders asked.
The Fed transactions were made public earlier this year as a result of a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law that forced the U.S. central bank to reveal which financial institutions it bailed out during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2010.
In another dubious twist, the Fed loans, at interest rates as low as 0.25 percent, relied on U.S. Treasury securities as collateral. In other words, at the same time that the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, it was lending money at a higher interest rate to another arm of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department.

America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya

By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24049

Global Research, March 30, 2011

A war on Libya has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 20 years. Using nukes against Libya was first envisaged in 1997.

On April 14th 1986, Ronald Reagan ordered a series of bombings directed against Libya under "Operation El Dorado Canyon", in reprisal for an alleged Libya sponsored terrorist bombing of a Berlin discotheque. The pretext was fabricated. During these air raids, which were condemned by both France and Italy, Qadhafi's residence was bombed killing his younger daughter.

Barely acknowledged by the Western media, a planned attack on Libya using nuclear weapons, had been contemplated by the Clinton Administration in 1997, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The Department of Defense had developed a new generation of bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons for use in the Middle East and Central Asia:
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The B61-11 earth-penetrating weapon with a nuclear warhead had not been tested. It was part of the B61 series, coupled with a so-called "low yield" nuclear warhead. According to US military sources: "If used in North Korea, the radioactive fallout [of the B61-11] could drift over nearby countries such as Japan." (B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon, Globalsecurity.org). The B61-11 earth-penetrating version of the B61 was configured initially to have a "low" 10 kiloton yield, 66.6 percent of a Hiroshima bomb, for post-Cold War battlefield operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The Pentagon's Plan to Nuke Libya

The B61-11 tactical nuclear weapon was slated by the Pentagon to be used in 1997 against the "Qadhafi regime": Tarbunah has a population of more than 200,000 people, men, women and children. It is about 60 km East of Tripoli. Had this "humanitarian bomb" (with a "yield" or explosive capacity of two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb) been launched on this "suspected" WMD facility, it would have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, not to mention the nuclear fallout...

The man behind this diabolical project to nuke Libya was Assistant Secretary of Defense Harold Palmer Smith Junior. "Even before the B61 came on line, Libya was identified as a potential target". (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - September/ October 1997, p. 27, emphasis added)

Harold Palmer Smith had been appointed by President Bill Clinton to oversee nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs with a focus on "the reduction and maintenance of the US arsenal of nuclear weapons". From the outset, his actual mandate, was not "reduce" but to "increase" the nuclear arsenal by promoting the development of a new generation of "harmless" mini-nukes for use in the Middle East war theater.

Harold Palmer Smith Junior

"Testing" the B611-11 Nuclear Bomb on an Actual Country

The Department of Defense's objective under Harold Smith's advice was to fasttrack the "testing" of the B61-11 nuclear bomb on an actual country: While the Pentagon later denied its intention to bomb Libya's Tarhunah plant, it nonetheless confirmed that "Washington would not rule out using nuclear weapons [against Libya]". (Ibid., emphasis added.)
Nukes and Mini-Nukes: Iraq and Afghanistan
The US military contends that "mini-nukes" are "humanitarian bombs" which minimize "collateral damage". According to scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon, they are "harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground",
The B61-11 is a bon fide thermonuclear bomb, a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the real sense of the word.
Military documents distinguish between the Nuclear Earth Penetrator (NEP) and the "mini-nuke", which are nuclear weapons with a yield of less than 10 kilotons (two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb). The NEP can have a yield of up to a 1000 kilotons, or seventy times a Hiroshima bomb.
This distinction between mini-nukes and the NEP is in many regards misleading. In practice there is no dividing line. We are broadly dealing with the same type of weaponry: the B61-11 has several "available yields", ranging from "low yields" of less than one kiloton, to mid-range, and up to the 1000 kiloton bomb.
In all cases, the radioactive fallout is devastating. Moreover, the B61 series of thermonuclear weapons includes several models with distinct specifications: the B61-11, the B61-3, B61- 4, B61-7 and B61-10. Each of these bombs has several "available yields".
What is contemplated for theater use is the "low yield" 10 kt bomb, two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb.
The Libya 1997 "Nuclear Option" had set the Stage...
Neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations have excluded using thermonuclear bunker buster bombs in the Middle East war theater. These weapons were specifically developed for use in post Cold War "conventional conflicts with third world nations". They were approved for use in the conventional war theater by the US Senate in 2002, following the adoption of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review.
In October 2001, in the immediate wake of 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld envisaged the use of the B61-11 in Afghanistan. The stated targets were Al Qaeda cave bunkers in the Tora Bora mountains.
Rumsfeld stated at the time that while the "conventional" bunker buster bombs "'are going to be able to do the job'... he did not rule out the eventual use of nuclear weapons." (Quoted in the Houston Chronicle, 20 October 2001, emphasis added.)
The use of the B61-11 was also contemplated during the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. In this regard, the B61-11 was described as "a precise, earth-penetrating low-yield nuclear weapon against high-value underground targets", which included Saddam Hussein's underground bunkers: "All options are on the table"... Sheer madness. Nukes to implement "regime change"... What Rumsfeld had proposed, as part of a "humanitarian mandate", was the use of a nuclear bomb to "take out" the president of a foreign country.

(author's note: There is no documentary evidence that the B61-11 was used against Iraq).

Is a Nuclear Attack on Libya Still on the Pentagon's Drawing Board?

"The Coalition of the Willing" under US-NATO mandate is currently involved in "a humanitarian war" on Libya to "protect the lives of innocent civilians".

Is the use of a nuclear bomb excluded under the Alliance's R2P Responsibility to Protect Doctrine?

The Bush administration's 2001 nuclear doctrine contained specific "guidelines" regarding "preemptive" nuclear strikes against several countries in the broader Middle East Central Asian region, which explictly included Libya.

As revealed by William Arkin in early 2002, "The Bush administration, in a secret policy review... [had] ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons [The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review approved by the Senate in late 2002] against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the "axis of evil"--Iraq, Iran, and North Korea--but also China, Libya and Syria. (See William Arkin, "Thinking the Unthinkable", Los Angeles Times, 9 March 2002) The preemptive nuclear doctrine (DJNO) --endorsed by the Obama Administration-- allows for the preemptive use of "mini nukes" in conventional war theaters directed against "rogue states". While the "guidelines" do not exclude other (more deadly) categories of nukes in the US /NATO nuclear arsenal, Pentagon "scenarios" in the Middle East and North Africa are currently limited to the use of tactical nuclear weapons including the B61-11 bunker buster bomb.

The fact that Libya had been singled out by the Pentagon for a possible 1997 mini-nuke "trial run" was a significant element in the formulation of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

It is worth noting that tactical B61 nuclear weapons have also been deployed by America's NATO partners: five European "non-nuclear states", including Belgium, The Netherlands and Italy, which are directly participating in the Libya bombing campaign, have B61 mini-nukes stockpiled and deployed under national command in their respective military bases. (Michel Chossudovsky, Europe's Five "Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States", February 10, 2010)

These European-based mini-nukes are earmarked for targets in the Middle East. While Libya is not mentioned, according to "NATO strike plans", the European-based thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs could be launched "against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran" (quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe, February 2005).

In the context of the ongoing war against Libya, "all options are on the table", including the preemptive nuclear option, as part of a "humanitarian mandate" to protect the lives of innocent civilians.

In 2007, a Secret 2003 STRATCOM Plan was revealed, which confirmed Washington's resolve to wage preemptive nuclear attacks against Iran, Syria and Libya. While the concepts and assumptions of this document were derived from the 2001 NPR, the Plan formulated by Strategic Command headquarters (USSTRATCOM) focused concretely on issues of implementation.

The use of nuclear weapons including the B61-11 against Libya in the course of the current military campaign, as initially envisaged by the Department of Defense in 1997 and subsequently embodied as the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) cannot, therefore, be ruled out.

Carsten Wiethoff Wrote:From http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/...ADA784C3F9

Release: Why Did the Fed Bail Out the Bank of Libya?




March 31, 2011
How do Gadhafi's Bankers Avoid U.S. Sanctions?

WASHINGTON, March 31 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya.
The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law.
Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government.
"It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya," Sanders said.
In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others, Sanders asked why the central bank made at least 46 emergency, low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corp., in which the Central Bank of Libya owns a 59 percent stake.
In the same letter, Sanders asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner why the Treasury Department on March 4 let the Libya-controlled bank skirt the economic sanctions against Libya.
The senator also questioned why the Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corp. is even allowed to operate branches inside United States. "Why would the U.S. government allow a bank that is predominantly owned by the Central Bank of Libya an institution on which the U.S. has imposed strict economic sanctions to operate two banking branches within our own borders?" Sanders asked.
The Fed transactions were made public earlier this year as a result of a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law that forced the U.S. central bank to reveal which financial institutions it bailed out during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2010.
In another dubious twist, the Fed loans, at interest rates as low as 0.25 percent, relied on U.S. Treasury securities as collateral. In other words, at the same time that the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, it was lending money at a higher interest rate to another arm of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department.

Gadaffi is or [more likely now] was 'one of our boys' and 'one of OUR Dictators'. Add to the mix, Moussa Koussa and before Wilson and Terpil; stir and add an olive - and what do you get?!....................you scratch my 'back' and I'll scratch yours [until you no longer fit in our PLANS]. The truth will never come out in the MSM. This very much resembles the attack into Panama to remove another of 'one of our boys' and another 'one of OUR Dictators' named Noreiga. From the same playbook, just on another stage...:mexican: