The War for Libya and the Propaganda War for Libya.......intertwined? An Interesting viewpoint.

[Peter Lemkin]

Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, February 25, 2011
- 2011-02-24

Is Tripoli being set up for a civil war to justify U.S. and NATO military intervention in oil-rich Libya?

Are the talks about sanctions a prelude to an Iraq-like intervention?

Something is Rotten in the so-called "Jamahiriya" of Libya

There is no question that Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi (Al-Qaddafi) is a dictator. He has been the dictator and so-called "qaid" of Libya for about 42 years. Yet, it appears that tensions are being ratcheted up and the flames of revolt are being fanned inside Libya. This includes earlier statements by the British Foreign Secretary William Hague that Colonel Qaddafi had fled Libya to Venezuela. [1] This statement served to electrify the revolt against Qaddafi and his regime in Libya.

Although all three have dictatorship in common, Qaddafi's Libya is quite different from Ben Ali's Tunisia or Mubarak's Egypt. The Libyan leadership is not outright subservient to the United States and the European Union. Unlike the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, the relationship that exists between Qaddafi and both the U.S. and E.U. is a modus vivendi. Simply put, Qaddafi is an independent Arab dictator and not a "managed dictator" like Ben Ali and Mubarak.

In Tunisia and Egypt the status quo prevails, the military machine and neo-liberalism remain intact; this works for the interests of the United States and the European Union. In Libya, however, upsetting the established order is a U.S. and E.U. objective.

The U.S. and the E.U. now seek to capitalize on the revolt against Qaddafi and his dictatorship with the hopes of building a far stronger position in Libya than ever before. Weapons are also being brought into Libya from its southern borders to promote revolt. The destabilization of Libya would also have significant implications for North Africa, West Africa, and global energy reserves.



Colonel Qaddafi in Brief Summary

Qaddafi's rise to power started as a Libyan lieutenant amongst a group of military officers who carried out a coup d'état. The 1969 coup was against the young Libyan monarchy of King Idris Al-Sanusi. Under the monarchy Libya was widely seen as being acquiescent to U.S. and Western European interests.

Although he has no official state or government position, Qaddafi has nurtured and deeply rooted a political culture of cronyism, corruption, and privilege in Libya since the 1969 coup. Added to this is the backdrop of the "cult of personality" that he has also enforced in Libya.

Qaddafi has done everything to portray himself as a hero to the masses, specifically the Arabs and Africans. His military adventures in Chad were also tied to leaving his mark in history and creating a client state by carving up Chad. Qaddafi's so-called "Green Book" has been forcefully portrayed and venerated as being a great feat in political thought and philosophy. Numerous intellectuals have been forced or bribed to praise it.

Over the years, Colonel Qaddafi has tried to cultivate a romantic figure of himself as a simple man of the people. This includes pretending to live in a tent. He has done everything to make himself stand out. His reprimanding of other Arab dictators, such as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, at Arab League meetings have made headlines and have been welcomed by many Arabs. While on state visits he has deliberately surrounded himself with an entourage of female body guards with the intent of getting heads to turn. Moreover, he has also presented himself as a so-called imam or leader of the Muslims and a man of God, lecturing about Islam in and outside of Libya.

Libya is run by a government under Qaddafi's edicts. Fear and cronyism have been the keys to keeping so-called "order" in Libya amongst officials and citizens alike. Libyans and foreigners alike have been killed and have gone missing for over four decades. The case of Lebanon's Musa Al-Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement, is one of the most famous of these cases and has always been a hindrance to Lebanese-Libyan relations. Qaddafi has had a very negative effect in creating and conditioning an entire hierarchy of corrupt officials in Tripoli. Each one looks out for their own interests at the expense of the Libyan people.

Fractions and Tensions inside the Hierarchy of Qaddafi's Regime

Because of the nature of Qaddafi's regime in Tripoli, there are a lot of internal tensions in Libya and within the regime structure itself. One of these sets of tensions is between Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and his father's circle of older ministers. Libyan ministers are generally divided amongst those that gather around Saif Al-Islam and those that are part of the "old guard."

There are even tensions between Qaddafi and his sons. In 1999, Mutassim Al-Qaddafi tried to ouster his father while Colonel Qaddafi was outside of Libya. Mutassim Qaddafi holds a Libyan cabinet portfolio as a national security advisor. He is also famously known amongst Libyans for being a playboy who has spent much of his time in Europe and abroad. There is also Khames Gaddafi who runs his own militia of thugs, which are called the Khames militia. He has always been thought of as possible contender for succession too against his other brothers.

There have always been fears in Libya about the issue of succession after Colonel Qaddafi is gone. Over the years, Qaddafi has thoroughly purged Libya of any form of organized opposition to him or prevented anyone else, outside his family, from amassing enough power to challenge his authority.

The Issue of Loyalty and Defection in Libya

Undoubtedly, little loyalty is felt for Qaddafi and his family. It has been fear that has kept Libyans in line. At the level of the Libyan government and the Libyan military it has been both fear and self-interest that has kept officials, good and corrupt alike, in line. That mantle of fear has now been dispelled. Statements and declarations of denunciation against Gaddafi's regime are being heard from officials, towns, and military barracks across Libya.

Aref Sharif, the head of the Libyan Air Force, has renounced Qaddafi. Interior Minister Abdul Fatah Al-Yunis (Al-Younis), who is from Benghazi (Bengasi) and oversees a branch of the special operations work in Libya, has resigned. Yunis is reported to be Qaddafi's "number two" or second in charge, but this is incorrect. Abdullah Sanusi, the head of Libyan Internal Intelligence and Qaddafi's relative through marriage, is the closest thing to a "number two" within the structure of power in Tripoli.

Reports have been made about two Libyan pilots defected to Malta and Libyan naval vessels refusing to attack Benghazi. Defections are snowballing amongst the military and government. Yet, there must be pause to analyze the situation.

The Libyan Opposition

At this point, however, it must be asked who is the "opposition" in Libya. The opposition is not a monolithic body. The common denominator is the opposition to the rule of Qaddafi and his family. It has to be said that "actions of opposition or resistance against an oppressor" and an "opposition movement" are also two different things. For the most part, the common people and corrupt Libyan officials, who harbour deep-seated hate towards Qaddafi and his family, are now in the same camp, but there are differences.

There is an authentic form of opposition, which is not organized, and a systematic form of opposition, which is either external or led by figures from within the Libyan regime itself. The authentic people's internal opposition in Libya is not organized and the people's "actions of opposition" have been spontaneous. Yet, opposition and revolt has been encouraged and prompted from outside Libya through social media networks, international news stations, and events in the rest of the Arab World. [2]

The leadership of the internal opposition that is emerging in Libya is coming from within the regime itself. Corrupt officials that have rebelled against Gaddafi are not the champions of the people. These opposition figures are not opposed to tyranny; they are merely opposed to the rule of Colonel Qaddafi and his family. Aref Sharif and Al-Yunis are themselves Libyan regime figures.

It has to also be considered that some Libyan officials that have turned against Qaddafi are doing it to save themselves, while others in the future will work to retain or strengthen their positions. Abdel Moneim Al-Honi, the Libyan envoy to the Arab League in Cairo, can be looked at as an example. Al-Honi denounced Qaddafi, but it should be noted that he was one of the members of the group of Libyan officers who executed the coup in 1969 with Qaddafi and that later in 1975 he himself tried to take power in a failed coup. After the failed coup, he would flee Libya and only return in 1990 after Qaddafi pardoned him.

Al-Honi is not the only Libyan diplomat to resign. The Libyan ambassador to India has also done the same. There is an intention on the part of these officials to be members of the power structure in a Libya after the ouster of Qaddafi:

Libyan Ambassador to India Ali al-Essawi told the BBC that he was quitting, opposing his government's violent crackdown on demonstrators.

Mr. Al-Essawi was reported to be a Minister in Tripoli and could be an important figure in an alternative government, in case Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi steps down.

The second Libyan diplomat to put in his papers was Tripoli's Permanent Representative to the Arab League Abdel Moneim al-Honi, who said in Cairo that he had quit his job to "join the revolution" in his country.

"I have submitted my resignation in protest against the acts of repression and violence against demonstrators, and I am joining the ranks of the revolution," said Mr. Al-Honi. The Second Secretary Hussein Sadiq al Musrati, announced his resignation from China, in an interview with Al-Jazeera, and called on the Army to intervene in the uprising. [3]

Again, these revolting officials, like Al-Yunis and Sharif, are from within the regime. They are not mere diplomats, but former ministers. There is also the possibility that these types of "opposition figures" could have or could make arrangements with external powers.

External Forces at Play in Libya

The governments of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and Italy all knew very well that Qaddafi was a despot, but this did not stop any of them from making lucrative deals with Tripoli. When the media covers the violence in Libya, they should also ask, where are the weapons being used coming from? The arms sales that the U.S. and the E.U. have made to Libya should be scrutinized. Is this a part of their democracy promotion programs?

Since rapprochement between the U.S. and Libya, the military forces of both countries have moved closer. Libya and the U.S. have had military transactions and since rapprochement Tripoli has been very interested in buying U.S. military hardware. [4] In 2009, a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lieutenant-Colonel Hibner, affirmed this relationship best: "[The U.S.] will consider Libyan requests for defen[c]e equipment that enables [Libya] to build capabilities in areas that serve our mutual interest [or synchronized U.S. and Libyan interests]." [5] The qualifier here is U.S. interests, meaning that the Pentagon will only arm Libya on the basis of U.S. interests.

In what seems to have happened overnight, a whole new arsenal of U.S. military hardware has appeared in Libya. American-made F-16 jets, Apache helicopters, and ground vehicles are being used inside Libya by Qaddafi. [6] This is a shocking revelation, if corroborated. There are no public records about some of this U.S. military hardware in the the arsenal of the Libyan military. In regards to the F-16s, Libyan jets are traditionally French-made Mirages and Russian-made MiGs.

Silvio Berlusconi and the Italian government have also been strong supporters of Qaddafi's regime. There is information coming out of Libya that Italian pilots are also being used by the Libyan Air Force. [7] Mercenaries from Chad, Sudan, Niger, and Nigeria are also being used. This has been verified through video evidence coming out of Libya. The Libyan regime is also considering contracting American or European security firms (mercenaries). [8]

The Politics of Al Jazeera

The Libyan government has shut down the internet and phone lines and an information war is underway. Although one of the most professional news networks in the world, it has to be cautioned that Al Jazeera is not a neutral actor. It is subordinate to the Emir of Qatar and the Qatari government, which is also an autocracy. By picking and choosing what to report, Al Jazeera's coverage of Libya is biased. This is evident when one studies Al Jazeera's coverage of Bahrain, which has been restrained due to political ties between the leaders of Bahrain and Qatar.

Reports by Al Jazeera about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable. [9] Hereto, the reports that Libyan jets have been attacking people in the streets have not been verified. No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown, while visual confirmation about other events have been coming out of Libya.

Al Jazeera is not alone in its biased reporting from Libya. The Saudi media is also relishing the events in Libya. Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned paper that is strictly aligned to U.S. interests in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Its editor-in-chief is now running editorials glorifying the Arab League for their decision to suspend Libya, because of the use of force by Tripoli against Libyans protesters why were such steps not taken for Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen? Inside and outside the Arab World, the mainstream media is now creating the conditions for some sort of intervention in Libya.

The Role of Foreign Interests in Libya

Qaddafi and his sons have run Libya like a private estate. They have squandered its wealth and natural resources. One of Gaddafi's son's is known to have paid the American singer Beyoncé Knowles a million or more U.S. dollars for a private music concert. [10] Foreign corporations also play a role in this story.

The positions and actions of foreign corporations, the U.S., and the European Union in regards to Libya should not be ignored.

Questioning the role of foreign governments and corporations in Libya is very important. The Italian and U.S. governments should be questioned about the role that pilots of Italian nationality and newly bought U.S. weaponry are playing in Libya.

It is very clear that democracy is only used as a convenient pretext against dictators and governments that do not bow down and serve U.S. and E.U. interests. All one needs to do is to just look at the way Mutassim Qaddafi was welcomed with open arms in Washington on April 21, 2009 by Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration. Upon their meeting, Secretary Clinton publicly said:

I am very pleased to welcome Minister Gaddafi to the State Department. We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya. We have many opportunities to deepen and broaden our cooperation and I am very much looking forward to building on this relationship. So Mr.Minister welcome so much here. [11]

What the U.S. and the E.U. want to do now is maximize their gain in Libya. Civil war seems to be what Brussels and Washington have in mind.

[Peter Lemkin]

Petroleum and Empire in North Africa. NATO Invasion of Libya Underway
Muamar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide

by Keith Harmon Snow
[Note: Original has outstanding and important oil maps, that explain much!]

Global Research, March 2, 2011
allthingspass.com


Are events unfolding in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt more about petro-terrorism or about freedom and democracy? How much oil is there in North Africa? Who is in control of that oil? What is the relationship between the West and Muamar Gaddafi? Is he really the terrorist we've all been led to believe he is? Who is the Libyan "opposition" and who are the "rebels" we read about?

Presented with this story are petroleum industry concessions maps ** for North Africa that people might want to ponder in between the Western propaganda on Libya. Amidst the full-court press of propaganda presented by the western media and State Department disinformation apparatus we find that Muamar Gaddafi is even accused of committing genocide against his own people. Are there double standards at work?




An original photograph; backside text reads: Al Haji Amin (centre) is introducing military senior officers to his brother Col. Gaddafi, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command of Arab republic of Libya, shortly on arrival at Gulu Airfield [norther Uganda] to perform the official handing over of aircrafts to Uganda Airforce, March 3, 1974.

From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli


On September 1, 1969 the pro-western regime that had ruled in Libya was overthrown by Colonel Muamar Gaddafi and his officers. At the time, Libya was home to the largest US Air Base (Wheelus Air Base) in North Africa. Agreements between the USA and Libya signed in 1951 and 1954 granted the USAF the use of Wheelus Air Base and its El Watia gunnery range for gunnery and bombing training and for transport and bombing stopovers until 1971. During the Cold War the base was pivotal to expanding US military power under the Strategic Air Command, and an essential base for fighter and reconnaissance missions. The Pentagon also used the base -- and the remote Libyan desert -- for missile launch testing: the launch area was located 15 miles east of Tripoli. Considered a 'little America on the shores of the Mediteranean', the base housed some 4600 US military personnel until its evacuation in 1970.

With the discovery of oil in Libya in 1959, a very poor desert country became a very rich little western protectorate. US and European companies had huge stakes in the extremely lucrative petroleum and banking sectors, but these were soon nationalized by Gaddafi. Thus Libya overnight joined the list of US 'enemy' or 'rogue' states that sought autonomy and self-determination outside the expanding sphere of western Empire. Further cementing western hatred of the new regime, Libya played a leading role of the 1973 oil embargo against the US and maintained cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. Gaddafi also reportedly channeled early oil wealth into national free health care and education.

Many of the concessions in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt involve state-owned oil companies. The US/European/Israeli nexus seeks to dislodge state-ownership -- to whatever extent it actually exists -- and dislodge any Chinese workers or companies involved in the oil exploitation, and replace these with western companies and western agents.
[1]
ALGERIA & TUNISIA OIL SECTOR MAPS
(Note the HUNT OIL Concession in the lower right, in NIGER: HUNT OIL is out of Texas.)






At one time Gaddafi played around with Idi Amin, but his ties to other despots -- such as Tony Blair and George H. W. Bush -- are far more notable, though far less advertised. Remember that Gaddafi has served the prerogatives of imperialism for years, even while being presented as the world's premier terrorist.

The CIA has long wanted to eliminate and replace Muamar Gaddafi. President Reagan bombed Tripoli, killing Gaddafi's infant daughter: the United States bombing of Libya (code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon) comprised the joint USAF, Navy, and Marines air-strikes against Libya on April 15, 1986. The US CIA brought down the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 flight over Scotland in 1988 and blamed this on Gaddafi.

In recent years Gaddafi has played along with the western fiction of Al-Queda, though it seems likely that some of the true mercenaries in Libya today are 'Al-Queda' terrorists trained by the United States to serve US interests in places like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and now Libya. However, the CIA has always had their sites on Gaddafi.



Libyan currency 2009

Note the double standard in how the western press presents the accusations of Gaddafi using mercenaries, as if it is something unique to Gaddafi and Libya, and not something we ever do.

National front for the Salvation of Libya


In almost all western media accounts, the so-called "opposition" in Libya includes the unspecified, unnamed, unidentified "rebels" of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protestors who began with a 'peaceful sit-in' as reported by the New York Times and uncritically repeated everywhere else.

Reportage of atrocities in Darfur, Sudan (2003-2011) and Rwanda (1990-1994) was always blamed on the governments (Omar Bashir in Khartoum and Juvenal Habyarimana in Kigali) with no context to the foreign backed insurgency and intervention occurring, which in both cases involved the US, UK and Israel. Similarly, in Libya today, there is no context or history to the FNSL 'rebels': they are categorically presented as the good guys, no matter that they seem to have appeared out of thin air. No one explains who these people are who are cited by the New York Times or CNN or Democracy Now as sources.



Street scene in Tripoli, September 2009.



The FNSL was part of the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition held in London in 2005, and British resources are being used to support the FNSL and other 'opposition' in Libya. The FNSL was actually formed in October 1981 in Sudan under Colonel Jaafar Nimieri-- the US puppet dictator who was openly known to be a Central Intelligence Agency operative, and who ruled Sudan ruthlessly from 1977 to 1985. The FNSL held its national congress in the USA in July 2007. Reports of 'atrocities' and civilian deaths are being channeled into the western press from operations in Washington DC, and the opposition FNSL is reportedly organizing resistance and military attacks from both inside and outside Libya.

Italy and France are also said to be backing these opposition groups, as the Italian and French oil companies AGIP and ELF and others seek to chop off and eat their pieces of the predatory pie. The US, Britain and Israel seek to insure control of the petroleum sector in advance of competitor corporations from other European countries.

National Endowment for (non) Democracy


In 1983, the Pentagon, USAID, US State Department, and the CIA were all involved in the creation and implementation of 'Project Democracy' -- National Security Decision Directive 77 (NSDD 77) -- and this led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy. After that, many of the tactics used in covert interventions were shifted away from the CIA and onto the NED, whose involvement with covert operations and foreign interventions are nonetheless well-established.

A 'soft' intervention CIA front, the National Endowment for Democracy has been deeply involved in Libya along with the CIA fronted Freedom House (under their Blue Umbrella program and others). These entities have backed 'opposition', supported propaganda campaigns and so-called 'pro-democracy' movements, and are known to be involved with backing armed insurgents and interventions.

NED works its overt intelligence sector magic through four organizations under its (own) umbrella: National democratic Institute; International republican Institute, Center for Private Enterprise, and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity. NED is closely aligned with US foreign policy interests and achieves its mission through the revolving doors between US Government and the NED Board of Directors.

Some of these NED directors include: former US Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger (Nixon) and Madeleine Albright (Clinton), former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci (Reagan), former National Security Council ChairZbigniew Brzezinski (Carter), former NATO Supreme Allied Command in Europe, General Wesley K. Clark (Clinton), and the current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz (George W. Bush).

Freedom House is supportive of NED programs but has been around since its creation by Elanor Roosevelt and they have been very active against Libya. Freedom House is funded by, amongst others, UNILEVER Corporation, USAID, and the US Information Agency (USIA). Freedom House, in alliance with USIA, has provided covert and overt "Radio Free' disinformation programs all over the world since at least 1952: e.g. Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia.

Past and present Freedom House trustees include: former CIA director R. James Woosley; former national security adviser (at the time of the US invasion of Congo-Zaire) Anthony Lake; Harvard professor Samuel Huntington; UNILEVER executive Ned Bandler; CIA insider Andrew Young; former Joseph Mobutu confidant and national security insider Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick; former NED director and International Crisis Group trustee Zbigniew Brzezinski; USAID intelligence operative J. Brian Atwood (USAID administrator who oversaw the US-backed genocide against millions of Hutu refugees in Zaire, 1996-1998) and many more.

Freedom House is also very likely affiliated with the phantom US Office of Strategic Information (OSI), formed after September 11, 2001. OSI is said to have been reorganized, with all its original functions reassigned to the Office of Global Communications, Information Awareness Office (IAO), and the newly reactivated Counter-Disinformation/Misinformation Team (Counter-Information Team). However, then Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld issued statements affirming that the OSI's operations would continue.

Rogue State Painted with Blatant Propaganda

In the ABC LITELINE report FNSL Leader Speaks from Washington we find the Washington monument in the background for an interview with an Arab agent being used by the western propaganda system as a credible source -- but with zero explanations of who he is or why his claims might be false.

FNSL operative Irahim Sahad speaks freely, making any claim he likes, and nothing he says is challenged or counter-balanced. Sahad suggests that the UN Security Council MUST be convened to stop the genocide being committed by Gaddafi against his own people. Ibrahim Sahad's bias is unveiled by such statements as "The UN Security Council was convened when just one man was killed in Lebabon -- so it should be convened to address the most brutal use of live ammunition, heavy arms and mercenaries." The claim employs a double-standard, saying in short that Lebanese lives are worth more than Libyan, which is not at all the case, and that the United Nations takes serious one man's life in Lebanon, so they should take far more serious the monumental loss of life [claimed] in Libya.

Here are some of the media's rallying cries making headlines everywhere the English language is used:

* Gaddafi killing his own people!
* West worried that Gaddafi may use Nerve Gas!
* Heavy Weaponry Used Against Civilians!
* Heavy Arms Used in Libyan Crackdown!
* Gaddafi Committing Crimes Against Humanity!

The death tolls in Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo -- by US/NATO/ISRAELI forces -- far surpass anything that might have occurred in Libya. Meanwhile, most 'news' on Libya is based on false accusations and false assertions -- such as the THREAT of nerve gas being used.

The 'international community' repeatedly enforced or renewed sanctions against Libya in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2004, it was established that Washington and London were grossly exaggerating claims of Gaddafi's development of nuclear and chemical weapons. In Afghanistan the US is using weapons of mass destruction and has been since the invasion of 2001: these include phosgene and uranium weapons. A deeper issue might be the loss of certain nuclear weapons, as claimed by sources in London, which reportedly went missing from US/NATO stocks. Claims are that these weapons made their way into teh hands of British arms dealer John Bredenkamp, a long time crony of the Robert Mugabe gang in Zimbabwe, and that they may have been sold to Libya, Yemen or North Korea.

[2]
LIBYA




[2a]
LIBYA
Map SIRTE BASIN





Muamar Gaddafi Sides with Empire

"[T]he fundamental problem and issue before the people in the region is that the US rulers seek imperial control and imposition of semi-colonial country-selling regimes; the more autocratic and brutal, the better from the point of the US imperialism that is unrelenting history," reports Ralph Schoenman, in 'US Imperialism Against Democratic ME'. "Every time the population is given the opportunity to shape its own destiny, to seek its national independence, to seek its own control over its own resources, to seeks its own sovereignty and determination of its own future, that is incompatible with the US imperialism.

When Barack Obama was accepted by the US people as the new president, Gaddafi praised Obama and described Obama's White House housesit as "a victory against racism" and he urged the first Black U.S. president "to lead his country boldly and with integrity."

"The Black people's struggle has made tremendous advances against racism in America," Gaddafi said. "It was God who created color. Today President Obama, son of a Kenyan father, a true son of Africa, has made it in the United States of America."

At a speech he gave in his private tent in Tripoli in September 2008, Gaddafi rambled and muddled and zipped his all-over-the-place speech up as quick as he began. Is he a desert mystic? Did he write the infamous "Green Book" or was it ghost-written? Is his rambling speech emblematic of his propensity to try to please, to do what he likes, to be careful not to say the wrong thing, while being unable to remain silent when the hypocrisies of the west are (or were) thrown up in his face?

Pentagon Invasion Already Underway

The US will use any propaganda necessary to whip up American fervor over Gaddafi and justify Pentagon or MI6 or NATO operations. US and British warships sit off the coast of Libya -- and they don't sit there idly. The imposition of a 'no-fly' zone means that US/NATO planes can do as they like, with the understanding that what we are really talking about are possible bombing and fighter sorties against Libya.

US troops have already moved ashore in Libya, joining the 'opposition ' and 'rebel' forces in 'rebel' controlled territories. The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya.
The recent report noted that British and US special forces entered Libyan port cities of Benghazi and Toburk on February 23 and 24.

US covert operatives have been on the ground for weeks, in not much longer, whether they have entered by sea (SEALS) or by way of Niger, where the US has openly published information about its covert operations. (See, for example, the travelology reports by former U.S. Special Forces now 'journalist' Robert Kaplan in America's African Rifles a Pentagon massaged and approved propaganda feature in the pro-war Atlantic Monthly). Any opportunity to attack, destabilize, invade will be exploited by the Pentagon.

Of course, as this is written the US media is preparing the ground for the English news consuming masses to see the Pentagon invasion as a "humanitarian" mission in Libya. There is nothing humanitarian about the Pentagon, and there has never been.

[3]
Egypt




The Desert Mystic

Libya is a country of approximately 6 million people, having a huge geographical area but low population density. Claims that Gaddafi has uplifted his people over the course of his 40 year dictatorship are false. Poverty is high throughout the country, and in Tripoli there are the obvious signs of capitalism: overcrowding, traffic, environmental pollution and destruction of nature. However, Gaddafi's "Green Book" -- if in fact it was written by him -- is worth reading. Had it been written by most anyone else who is opposed to the expansion of western empire with all its horrors, it would be more widely appreciated.

Gaddafi has funded Pan-African organizations and individuals, some of whom have very noble missions and serve to challenge the downtrodden, while he has also funded some armed factions involved in unjust wars or destabilizations. Gaddafi has funded Louis Farrakan and the Nation of Islam. He has funded Jean Pierre Bemba and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the rebellion also backed by Yoweri Museveni, responsible for a very definitive genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.



Human Rights Watch has reported that international arms dealer Victor Bout illegally shipped weapons into Congo-Zaire, picking them up in Libya and delivering them to Rwandan Hutu forces. However, Human Rights Watch is deeply compromised when it comes to reporting and not reporting the facts -- or selectively reporting them -- on Central Africa. If Gaddafi did supply or facilitate the provision of arms to Hutu insurgents in Congo, it may be one of the more reasonable actions he took: e.g. the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are forever misaligned by the Pentagon and its propaganda minions precisely because they fought against the illegal invasion of Rwanda by Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni. Meanwhile, it is Rwanda, Uganda and their foreign multinational corporate allies that are responsible for the preponderance of killing in Central Africa (not the FDLR).

According to Amnesty International, another selective human rights organ serving western interests, Gaddafi also reportedly armed Sudanese in Darfur -- long before the current conflict began in 2003 -- to fight against western backed interventions in Chad and Sudan.

Gaddafi reportedly owns land in Zimbabwe and may flee there or to other countries where repressive control is maintained in service to western interests.

Muamar Gaddafi is/was the most recent chairman of the African Union, another elite organization designed to serve western exploitation -- or run by a cabal of thieves, at the very least, who all have the goods on each other, and so none will ever challenge the way things are -- while the people, the masses of Africa, everywhere suffer.

The African Union (AU) signed on with Washington for the devastating neo-liberal trade and tarifs agreement known euphemistically as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The AU special report on genocide in Rwanda was a complete whitewash serving US/UK interests and protecting dictators Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni. The AU has also been slammed by African leaders for inaction and silence in various developments on the continent.

Former AU chairman have included some of Africa's most criminal dictators, such as Dennis Sassou Nguesso, who has reigned with absolute military brutality in the Republic of Congo for some 20 years (with a gap from 1992-1997). Gabon's present ruler Albert-Bernard Bongo is the son-in-law of Dennis Sassou-Nguesso, and both have been sustained with millions of Elf petrol dollars (see, e.g., keith harmon snow: The Crimes of Bongo). Sassou-Nguesso's elite Cobra militia were also trained by French advisers and, like Colonel Joseph Mobutu, Sassou-Nguesso relied on Israeli security and intelligence for protection.

The AU's alliance with NATO began long ago, and it saw expanded joint military operations in Sudan, where the AU served as NATO's "African face" for US/UK and Israeli military interventions in the war for Darfur. For example, forces fighting for the NATO interests, commanded and commandeered under an AU banner, came from Paul Kagame's Rwanda Defense Forces (formerly called Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army) responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo and, then, Darfur. Rather than condemning western military expansion and different forms of AFRICOM or CIA-backed terrorism, for example, the AU backs the western war of annihilation in Somalia, involving Ugandan troops trained by US Special forces, and the Pentagon's expansion in Ethiopia, and support for dictator Meles Zenawi there. Ethiopia is the site of an ongoing genocide against the Annuak, Omo and Orono people -- and no one has reported the atrocities in the blood drenched oil-rich Ogaden basin there. What say the AU?


In AFRICA: Global NATO Seeks to Recruit 50 New Military Partners, journalist Rick Rozoff reports: "A recent article in Kenya's Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU." Rozoff explains that this is a likely maneuver against the spread of Chinese interests in the continent.
According to Black Commentator editor Glen Ford, who traveled to Tripoli in 2008, Gaddafi on the Outs, the man who ruled this not-so-little North African dictatorship is about finished.

[5]
SUDAN
(Darfur is the giant block 12 concession on the left side.)




And Now, The Gaddafi Genocide

Claims made by Libyan 'opposition' and reported in the western press that Gaddafi is committing genocide against his own people represent the height of western arrogance and hypocrisy. At this very moment the wars being prosecuted by the USA and its allies, including Japan, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, far dwarf the 'atrocities' committed in Libya. While we have no credible reporting about who is killing, who is opposition, how many dead, etc., out of Libya, we have credible report after credible report establishing that the US and its allies have perpetrated massacres, tortures, and other atrocities, in the millions of people, in Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan - for a short list.

The claim of genocide here, akin to the one-sided charges against former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, or against Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, are one more clear example of the Politics of Genocide delineated in great detail by this writer and others. Reports in western media -- provided, again, by the FNSL and other western intelligence, covert operations or psychological operations flak organizations -- are filled with harsh language and characterizations not seen in reporting on or by western military campaigns. For example, in many western reports we can find, such as Gruesome Footage Proves Libya Using Heavy Arms makes claims that "newspapers obtained shocking footage of corpses with bodies blasted off and several torsos in Libyan hospitals."

So there are several torsos. That is not quite genocide. Where are the images? If such images of death and destruction do appear it will be in sharp contrast to the complete whiteout on dead bodies in the Pentagon's other theaters of war, in the eastern Congo or Somalia, or in Afghanistan.

Images of dead bodies can be produced and published but these are easily stripped of context. How do western audiences and propaganda consumers know that these are authentic and not recycled images of protests from Yemen or Bahrain dumped into the western press (with their willing acknowledgment) by Britain's MI-6, as has been alleged? Al-Jezeera shows its true western colors by not reporting much of anything, and that certainly not critical of western manipulation or involvement.

We saw the tactic of collecting dead bodies and skeletons used in Rwanda by the Pentagon-s agents of teh Rwandan Patriotic Front, and in Darfur and South Sudan, where journalist Nicholas Kristof produced some dead shriveled bodies from some desert somewhere and claimed these were from the New York Times' Secret Genocide Archives. The atrocities were committed, we are told, by President Omar al-Bashir and the government of Sudan.

However, there is never any mention of US military involvement, mercenaries (Pacific Architects and Engineers, Dyncorp, others) on the ground in Sudan. Dead men tell no tales, or dead women: these dead bodies are as likely dead from US or Israeli backed 'rebels' -- the Justice and Equality Movement or Sudan Liberation Army backed by the US, NATO, Israel and our puppet dictator in Uganda.



Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni greets the entourage of foreign mercenaries Tony Buckingham and others as part of the Heritage Oil & Gas / Sandline International meetings to secure oil concessions in the bloody Semliki basin bordering eastern Congo and northern Uganda: both sites of legitimate genocides.

The double-standards and outright lies can be seen quickly, if one knows there are deeper truths, by examining propaganda produced by the International Crisis Group, or such propaganda tracts as Smith College English teacher Eric Reeves' A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide -- where there is not one reference to Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni and his Pentagon assisted backing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in South Sudan, and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), in Darfur, in all of the 386 pages.

Western mercenaries that have been deeply involved, and remain so, in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts, in coup d'etats, in massacres and other atrocities, include British mercenary Tony Buckingham -- whose mercenary past is legendary -- founder of Heritage Oil & Gas, a petroleum company linked by Buckingham to mercenary firms Branch Energy and Sandline International. Buckingham was also a partner in the infamous Executive Outcomes, with former British SAS soldier-of-misfortune Tim Spicer -- the recipient of massive Pentagon contracts in Iraq. Heritage director General Sir Michael Wilkes retired from the British Army in 1995 and is a former Middle East adviser to the British government and a member of the Army Board. Wilkes commanded Britain's Special Air Services (SAS) regiment and was director of Special Forces. Heritage Oil has exploited opportunities in Mali, Uganda, Republic of Congo, Oman and Iraq.



Heritage Oil & Gas map of operations in Iraq.



In short, almost everything in the western press on the crises in Libya is slanted by some faction, or interest, or it is tainted by western arrogance, or by anti-imperialist ideology (of 'solidarity'), even in the case of the alternative media. There is very little accurate reporting of any kind (but some good work linked or cited herein).

This report is just another incomplete picture of an incomplete puzzle -- but it seeks to penetrate through and expose the ongoing western media campaign for what it is: a psychological operation against the masses of earth's people who have not and do not benefit from the nasty policies and actions implemented to serve a very small and elite group of people.

People wishing to support the legitimate grievances and actions for freedom and truth in Libya should challenge the western terrorist apparatus out of Washington, DC, Tel Aviv, Brussels, London and Ottawa.

Prayers for the true innocent civilians in Libya, and across the region.


keith harmon snow traveled to Tripoli, Libya in 2009 and stayed about 3 days while attending the "2009 International Conference of the Green Book supporters" as a member of the US Delegation invited by former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney (D-GA).

** Maps are from a petroleum industry map of all Africa produced in 1996: much has changed since then, only for the worse, in terms of oil and gas expansions.