Middle East and North Africa Solidarity Day at Occupy Boston
Sunday December 4, 4-6 pm
In the past year, there have been uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa in countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen. The uprisings have inspired people across the world, including the Occupy movement in the US. At the same time, when questioned about US-made tear gas being used to repress protestors in Egypt, a US government spokesman said "this tear gas is approved for export to many countries around the world. It's used by police forces in many countries around the world including our own."
What is going on in countries that are US allies like Egypt, Bahrain, and Tunisia? What is going on in regimes that are not US allies, such as Syria and Iran?
How does Israel/Palestine fit into the regional context? What are the economic interests behind US and European intervention in the region?
Please join us on Sunday December 4 from 4-6pm in Dewey Square (Occupy Boston main stage) next to South Station for a public discussion on solidarity with the movements of the 99% in the Middle East and North Africa!
Web: https://www.facebook.com/events/254237974629348/
OCCUPY BOSTON
Showing posts with label hands off the Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hands off the Middle East. Show all posts
Monday, December 05, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
From The SteveLendmanBlog-America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Sunday, March 06, 2011
America's War on Libya
America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Since WW II alone, America waged direct and proxy wars against Korea, Southeast Asia, Central and South American countries, African ones, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and now Egypt and Libya. One down, one to go, besides dozens of attempted and successful coups, as well as numerous other interventions to control world markets, resources and people. Imperial America doesn't sleep. It plots, deciding where next to strike.
Despite popular passion for democratic change, uprisings in Egypt and Libya were externally orchestrated, funded and armed by Washington to replace one despot with another. Democracy won't be tolerated. It's never been at home.
America's media go along, especially when Washington goes to war or plans one. In the lead: The New York Times, the nation's equivalent of an official information and propaganda ministry, posing as independent journalism.
It's February 28 editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies" made baseless accusations, then called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes. Indeed it should - against America and Western co-conspirators, not Libya, for instigating regional aggression, a reality The Times ignored, besides previously against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other US targets.
On March 4, writer David Kirkpatrick headlined, "Qaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless," saying:
Gaddafi attacked "unarmed protesters....His militia's actions seemed likely to stir renewed debate over international intervention to limit his use of military power against his own citizens, possibly by imposing a no-flight zone." If established, it's an act of war ahead of aggressive air attacks against a defenseless country, America's latest imperial target.
Kirkpatrick's article read more like bad fiction than real journalism, borrowing a page from now disgraced former Times writer Judith Miller, who functioned as a Pentagon press agent, promoting America's planned Iraq conquest and occupation. Now it's Libya, struggling to defend itself against naked aggression, covert so far but not for long, claiming "humanitarian intervention."
US warships are now positioned in the Mediterranean close by. About 1,200 Marines went to Greece for "Operation Libya." "Rebels" are being sent military and other supplies. Armed intervention is coming, colonial subjugation planned. Libya's "humanitarian crisis" was made in the USA. The pattern by now is familiar, used against many past targets.
On March 4, hinting about what's already begun, Obama said:
"So what I want to make sure of is that the United States has full capacity to act potentially rapidly if the situation deteriorated in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands, or a situation in which civilians were - defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger."
He already called on Gaddafi to step down. Among his options, he included a no-fly zone, saying:
"I don't want us hamstrung. I want us to be making our decision based on what's going to be best for the Libyan people in consultation with the international community."
In Geneva, Hillary Clinton called intervention "an option we are actively considering," referring to a no-fly zone and other measures. Stiff economic sanctions were also imposed, effective 8:00PM EST February 25."
The die is cast. Colonizing Libya is planned to exploit its vast energy reserves, other resources, and people, doing what's best for Washington, not Libyans, what's always top priority.
Major Media Suppressed Independent Voices
On August 13, 2011, Fidel Castro will be 85. An elder statesman, he remains active, thoughtful and incisive, now writing commentaries on world issues. On March 3, the Havana Times headlined, "Fidel Castro Forecasts War on Libya," publishing his full article in English.
Until America intervened, Libya "occupie(d) the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa," including the continent's highest life expectancy. Authorities gave special attention to healthcare and education. Poverty is low. "The cultural level of the population is without a doubt the highest. The population wasn't lacking food and essential social services." Employment was plentiful, including for "hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries (to) carry out ambitious plans for production and social development."
America plans naked aggression to halt them. "The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media," distorts reality on the ground, including by Al Jazeera. Its daily commentaries feature misinformation and distortions based on unverified reports, including about alleged bombings that Russian satellite imagery proved untrue. Nonetheless, Gaddafi is falsely called an aggressor, not victim, his regional despot status notwithstanding.
Telesur Journalists Targeted
Reporting from Libya, Pan American broadcaster Telesur's Jordan Rodriguez said members of his team were threatened, assaulted, and arrested for trying to report events accurately, including about pro-Gaddafi rallies in Tripoli's Green Square.
Prior to Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's military junta detained and interrogated its Cairo team, preventing them from reporting the same way. Other independent journalists were also accosted. Dozens of incidents were reported.
Telesur's Rodrigo Hernandez said he and his colleagues were bullied face down on the pavement, left there for hours, then "forced into an armored police vehicle, with armed personnel inside, and blindfolded," en route to a military barracks for questioning.
They were also threatened with imprisonment, deportation, or "something much worse" if they kept reporting and were detained again. Similar tactics are ongoing in Libya to prevent accurate reports coming out. Imperial Washington wants none of its plans exposed.
Accurate Independent Journalism
Keith Harmon Snow is an independent journalist, war correspondent, human rights investigator, photographer, lecturer, and longtime observer of African country events. On March 1, his article titled, "Petroleum & Empire in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide? NATO Invasion Underway" provided detailed Libyan information. Access it through the following link:
http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2011/03/petroleum-empire-maps-for-north-africa/
Key points he stressed included:
-- In 2004, America's sanctions were dropped "in exchange for Gaddafi's (limited) collaboration, (paving) the way for a new era of US-Libyan bilateral trade." America's main interest is Libya's vast oil, gas and other mineral reserves. The Oil and Gas Journal estimates 46.4 billion barrels of oil and around 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, producing 95% of Libya's 2010 export earnings. Its petrodollars "were reportedly invested in US Equity and Big Banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and others, and into (companies) like the Carlyle Group, one of America's most seedy arms dealers."
-- the CIA "long wanted" Gaddafi removed and replaced." In 1986, Reagan-ordered air strikes tried to kill him. His infant daughter was murdered instead. "The CIA (downed) Pan Am 103," not Gaddafi who had nothing to do with it.
-- Libya's "opposition" includes "unspecified, unnamed, unidenfied 'rebels' of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protesters...." They seemingly "appeared out of thin air." Who they are isn't explained. NFSL, in fact, was established in 1981 by Sudan's Colonel Jaafer Nimieri, a US puppet dictator from 1971 - 1985.
-- For decades, CIA front groups have been operating in Libya, "backing armed insurgents and interventions" portrayed as "pro-democracy" movements.
-- Western media is reporting misinformation about events on the ground, including alleged bombings, massacres, and possible nerve gas used. None of it is credible. Libya, in fact, is being attacked. It's responding in self-defense.
-- Vicious propaganda is being used to enlist support for imperial intervention. "US troops have already moved ashore....joining the 'opposition....The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya." British and American Special Forces are operating out of Benghazi and Tobruck. Other covert US forces have been on the ground for weeks. Nothing humanitarian is planned.
-- More than oil and gas is wanted. So are valued mineral deposits. "Libya has a huge land mass with massive untapped mineral potential (including uranium)," besides known energy resources.
-- Accusing Gaddafi of genocide is malicious and untrue, like other major media fabrications. Their "disinformation frenzy and hysteria knows no bounds." No verifiable evidence exists, but there's plenty proving US genocides in Iraq, Afghanistan, and earlier in other targeted countries, causing many millions of deaths for decades. Western media air brushed them out, including The New York Times, America's lead propaganda instrument.
In "Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective," Gerald Perreira wrote:
"The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. (It's) fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject (his) vision of Libya as part of a United Africa."
"For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on....Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside the Western imagination."
As a result, all Western government and media reports lack credibility. They're malicious imperial agitprop, including from top officials, BBC and Al Jazeera, each with its own agenda, all serving Western interests, harmful to Libyans.
A Final Comment
Ongoing events in Libya are familiar. Like many of his past counterparts, Gaddafi's been targeted for removal. For weeks or much longer, covert CIA and Special Forces operatives recruited, funded and armed so-called "opposition forces." They, not Gaddafi, instigated violence, heading for civil war. He responded in self-defense. Doing less would be irresponsible.
Western media portray instigators as victims, saying Gaddafi's waging war on his people. America and Western nations are called white knights, offering "humanitarian intervention" when, if fact, imperial colonization is planned. The longer violence continues, the more false media reports will exaggerate it, enlisting support for another nation to be destroyed to save it.
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and many other oppressed people understand, victimized by imperial aggression, occupation, exploitation, immiseration, and regular drone attacks murdering innocent men, women and children called militants.
The latest in Afghanistan were nine young children, aged seven to 12, gathering wood in the mountains near their village. They were murdered in cold blood, what's escalating in Libya, being softened up in preparation for colonization and greater harshness.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
America's War on Libya
America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Since WW II alone, America waged direct and proxy wars against Korea, Southeast Asia, Central and South American countries, African ones, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and now Egypt and Libya. One down, one to go, besides dozens of attempted and successful coups, as well as numerous other interventions to control world markets, resources and people. Imperial America doesn't sleep. It plots, deciding where next to strike.
Despite popular passion for democratic change, uprisings in Egypt and Libya were externally orchestrated, funded and armed by Washington to replace one despot with another. Democracy won't be tolerated. It's never been at home.
America's media go along, especially when Washington goes to war or plans one. In the lead: The New York Times, the nation's equivalent of an official information and propaganda ministry, posing as independent journalism.
It's February 28 editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies" made baseless accusations, then called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes. Indeed it should - against America and Western co-conspirators, not Libya, for instigating regional aggression, a reality The Times ignored, besides previously against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other US targets.
On March 4, writer David Kirkpatrick headlined, "Qaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless," saying:
Gaddafi attacked "unarmed protesters....His militia's actions seemed likely to stir renewed debate over international intervention to limit his use of military power against his own citizens, possibly by imposing a no-flight zone." If established, it's an act of war ahead of aggressive air attacks against a defenseless country, America's latest imperial target.
Kirkpatrick's article read more like bad fiction than real journalism, borrowing a page from now disgraced former Times writer Judith Miller, who functioned as a Pentagon press agent, promoting America's planned Iraq conquest and occupation. Now it's Libya, struggling to defend itself against naked aggression, covert so far but not for long, claiming "humanitarian intervention."
US warships are now positioned in the Mediterranean close by. About 1,200 Marines went to Greece for "Operation Libya." "Rebels" are being sent military and other supplies. Armed intervention is coming, colonial subjugation planned. Libya's "humanitarian crisis" was made in the USA. The pattern by now is familiar, used against many past targets.
On March 4, hinting about what's already begun, Obama said:
"So what I want to make sure of is that the United States has full capacity to act potentially rapidly if the situation deteriorated in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands, or a situation in which civilians were - defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger."
He already called on Gaddafi to step down. Among his options, he included a no-fly zone, saying:
"I don't want us hamstrung. I want us to be making our decision based on what's going to be best for the Libyan people in consultation with the international community."
In Geneva, Hillary Clinton called intervention "an option we are actively considering," referring to a no-fly zone and other measures. Stiff economic sanctions were also imposed, effective 8:00PM EST February 25."
The die is cast. Colonizing Libya is planned to exploit its vast energy reserves, other resources, and people, doing what's best for Washington, not Libyans, what's always top priority.
Major Media Suppressed Independent Voices
On August 13, 2011, Fidel Castro will be 85. An elder statesman, he remains active, thoughtful and incisive, now writing commentaries on world issues. On March 3, the Havana Times headlined, "Fidel Castro Forecasts War on Libya," publishing his full article in English.
Until America intervened, Libya "occupie(d) the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa," including the continent's highest life expectancy. Authorities gave special attention to healthcare and education. Poverty is low. "The cultural level of the population is without a doubt the highest. The population wasn't lacking food and essential social services." Employment was plentiful, including for "hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries (to) carry out ambitious plans for production and social development."
America plans naked aggression to halt them. "The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media," distorts reality on the ground, including by Al Jazeera. Its daily commentaries feature misinformation and distortions based on unverified reports, including about alleged bombings that Russian satellite imagery proved untrue. Nonetheless, Gaddafi is falsely called an aggressor, not victim, his regional despot status notwithstanding.
Telesur Journalists Targeted
Reporting from Libya, Pan American broadcaster Telesur's Jordan Rodriguez said members of his team were threatened, assaulted, and arrested for trying to report events accurately, including about pro-Gaddafi rallies in Tripoli's Green Square.
Prior to Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's military junta detained and interrogated its Cairo team, preventing them from reporting the same way. Other independent journalists were also accosted. Dozens of incidents were reported.
Telesur's Rodrigo Hernandez said he and his colleagues were bullied face down on the pavement, left there for hours, then "forced into an armored police vehicle, with armed personnel inside, and blindfolded," en route to a military barracks for questioning.
They were also threatened with imprisonment, deportation, or "something much worse" if they kept reporting and were detained again. Similar tactics are ongoing in Libya to prevent accurate reports coming out. Imperial Washington wants none of its plans exposed.
Accurate Independent Journalism
Keith Harmon Snow is an independent journalist, war correspondent, human rights investigator, photographer, lecturer, and longtime observer of African country events. On March 1, his article titled, "Petroleum & Empire in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide? NATO Invasion Underway" provided detailed Libyan information. Access it through the following link:
http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2011/03/petroleum-empire-maps-for-north-africa/
Key points he stressed included:
-- In 2004, America's sanctions were dropped "in exchange for Gaddafi's (limited) collaboration, (paving) the way for a new era of US-Libyan bilateral trade." America's main interest is Libya's vast oil, gas and other mineral reserves. The Oil and Gas Journal estimates 46.4 billion barrels of oil and around 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, producing 95% of Libya's 2010 export earnings. Its petrodollars "were reportedly invested in US Equity and Big Banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and others, and into (companies) like the Carlyle Group, one of America's most seedy arms dealers."
-- the CIA "long wanted" Gaddafi removed and replaced." In 1986, Reagan-ordered air strikes tried to kill him. His infant daughter was murdered instead. "The CIA (downed) Pan Am 103," not Gaddafi who had nothing to do with it.
-- Libya's "opposition" includes "unspecified, unnamed, unidenfied 'rebels' of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protesters...." They seemingly "appeared out of thin air." Who they are isn't explained. NFSL, in fact, was established in 1981 by Sudan's Colonel Jaafer Nimieri, a US puppet dictator from 1971 - 1985.
-- For decades, CIA front groups have been operating in Libya, "backing armed insurgents and interventions" portrayed as "pro-democracy" movements.
-- Western media is reporting misinformation about events on the ground, including alleged bombings, massacres, and possible nerve gas used. None of it is credible. Libya, in fact, is being attacked. It's responding in self-defense.
-- Vicious propaganda is being used to enlist support for imperial intervention. "US troops have already moved ashore....joining the 'opposition....The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya." British and American Special Forces are operating out of Benghazi and Tobruck. Other covert US forces have been on the ground for weeks. Nothing humanitarian is planned.
-- More than oil and gas is wanted. So are valued mineral deposits. "Libya has a huge land mass with massive untapped mineral potential (including uranium)," besides known energy resources.
-- Accusing Gaddafi of genocide is malicious and untrue, like other major media fabrications. Their "disinformation frenzy and hysteria knows no bounds." No verifiable evidence exists, but there's plenty proving US genocides in Iraq, Afghanistan, and earlier in other targeted countries, causing many millions of deaths for decades. Western media air brushed them out, including The New York Times, America's lead propaganda instrument.
In "Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective," Gerald Perreira wrote:
"The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. (It's) fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject (his) vision of Libya as part of a United Africa."
"For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on....Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside the Western imagination."
As a result, all Western government and media reports lack credibility. They're malicious imperial agitprop, including from top officials, BBC and Al Jazeera, each with its own agenda, all serving Western interests, harmful to Libyans.
A Final Comment
Ongoing events in Libya are familiar. Like many of his past counterparts, Gaddafi's been targeted for removal. For weeks or much longer, covert CIA and Special Forces operatives recruited, funded and armed so-called "opposition forces." They, not Gaddafi, instigated violence, heading for civil war. He responded in self-defense. Doing less would be irresponsible.
Western media portray instigators as victims, saying Gaddafi's waging war on his people. America and Western nations are called white knights, offering "humanitarian intervention" when, if fact, imperial colonization is planned. The longer violence continues, the more false media reports will exaggerate it, enlisting support for another nation to be destroyed to save it.
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and many other oppressed people understand, victimized by imperial aggression, occupation, exploitation, immiseration, and regular drone attacks murdering innocent men, women and children called militants.
The latest in Afghanistan were nine young children, aged seven to 12, gathering wood in the mountains near their village. They were murdered in cold blood, what's escalating in Libya, being softened up in preparation for colonization and greater harshness.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
From The StevLendmanBlog-Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya
Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
America's major media never met an imperial war it didn't love and promote, never mind how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive.
Despite Washington already bogged down in two losing ones, Obama's heading for another on Libya, the media pack in the lead clamoring for it, perhaps by "shock and awe," supplemented by special forces death squads on the ground recruiting, inciting, and arming opposition elements.
Notably favoring intervention, a New York Times February 24 editorial headlined, "Stopping Qaffafi," saying:
Unless he's stopped, he'll "slaughter hundreds or even thousands of his own people in his desperation to hang on to power."
Where's the Times outrage over millions Washington slaughtered, hundreds more killed daily, its ties to global despots, its funding and support for Israeli brutality against Palestinians, and its imperial insanity to achieve unchallengeable global dominance, no matter how many corpses it takes to do it.
Nonetheless, The Times hailed Libyan courage, asking for more Western support, implying the belligerent kind. "Colonel Qaddafi and his henchmen have to be told in credible and very specific terms the price they will pay for any more killing. They need to start paying now. (The) longer the world temporizes, the more people die."
On February 28, The Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," saying:
His "crimes continue to mount. Rebel commanders said (his) warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country." However, Russian satellite imagery showed no bombing evidence or destruction on the ground. So much for The Times or other major media credibility, reporting the same unverified accounts.
On March 8, The Times headlined, "Washington's Options on Libya," saying:
"....some way must be found to support Libya's uprising and stop (Gaddafi) from slaughtering his people....It would be a disaster if (he) managed to cling to power by butchering his own people."
Indisputably, Gaddafi is a despot, but he didn't initiate conflict. Western powers did, sending in covert intelligence and special forces to incite, arm and support it.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron admitted that UK commandos were in Benghazi. So did Foreign Secretary William Hague, telling Parliament it was "a serious misunderstanding," drawing laughs from opposition benches.
Channel 4 News aired a video with him saying intelligence and elite special forces were on "a diplomatic mission" to make contact with rebel elements. However, he left unexplained why they arrived secretly by helicopter at 2AM with no advance warning. In fact, the Cameron/Hague "misunderstanding" came to enlist and incite violence along with US special forces there for the same purpose. Commandos are trained killers, not diplomats.
As a result, Gaddafi responded in self-defense. Washington and NATO bear full responsibility for growing daily casualties. Blood's on their hands. It's their cross to bear, costing many Libyan lives.
It hardly matters for greater stakes, including:
-- replacing one despot with another;
-- preventing democratization;
-- colonizing Libya;
-- controlling its oil, gas and other resources;
-- privatizing its state industries, handing them over to Western interests;
-- perhaps balkanizing the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq - in other words, effectively destroying it for profit and control, as well as using it as a platform to intimidate other regional states to comply fully with Western diktats - or else; and
-- exploiting its people ruthlessly as serf labor.
It's a familiar Western scheme, justified as "humanitarian intervention," what America, above all, doesn't give a damn about and never did, seeking only imperial dominance, no matter how much death and destruction it takes to get it. "Operation Libya" had antecedents, notably in Yugoslavia and Iraq, two previous countries Western powers destroyed and now exploit.
International Law on Self-Defense and External Intervention - Humanitarian or Otherwise
International law authorizes Gaddafi to respond in self-defense. Article 51 of the UN Charter's Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression" states:
"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."
In other words, self-defense is permissible. Moreover, the UN Charter explains under what conditions intervention, violence and coercion (by one state against another) are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, including no-fly zones that are acts of war.
In addition, Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral or other external threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or otherwise authorized by the Security Council.
Three General Assembly resolutions also prohibit non-consensual belligerent intervention, including:
-- the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty;
-- the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; and
-- the 1974 Definition of Aggression.
Under no circumstances, with no exceptions, may one nation, NATO, or other combination of nations intervene against another without specific Security Council authorization. Doing so is illegal aggression, a lawless act of war. Washington and NATO have already initiated conflict. Gaddafi, or any other democrat or despot, legally may respond in self-defense as he's doing, love him or hate him. By law, he's justified.
Yet The Times urges NATO to expand "its air surveillance over Libya (and) share relevant information with the rebels." No matter that violating its air space is illegal and aggressive. The Times also wants pressure put on "Qaddafi and his cronies to cede power," by what authority it didn't say because there is none. No matter because in Times-think, "(i)t would be a disaster if (he) managed to cling to power by butchering his own people."
Hyperbole, misinformation, imperial support, and disdain for international and US laws as well as democratic values are Times specialties - on display backing Washington's attempt to destroy, colonize and exploit another country, no matter the corpse count to do it.
In his March 9 commentary, longtime insider Bob Chapman said the following:
"....as we pointed out after the Tunisian episode, this was the beginning of CIA, MI6 and Mossad planned activities in the Middle East. As usual there were several objectives. The first was a distraction to cover up (Western) financial troubles....The second was to remove Mubarak from his dictatorial position, because (he refused) to participate and agree to an invasion of Iran and to cause chaos in the region, so that (Iranian allies) would not give it assistance in the event of war."
"There was also the matter of controlling Libya's oil and toppling its dictator Gaddafi....From behind the scenes, (new leadership will emerge) tied to the CIA, MI6 and the Mossad. (These plans) have been in the works for years." Unrest will continue. "A solution will be found for Libya, and the west hopes its puppet (Saudi) regime stays in place." If disruption occurs there, America will intervene. Turmoil will continue for some time. "It won't take long for Mr. Gaddafi to be deposed and sent on his way," perhaps by US troops.
More Major Media War Endorsements
With total editorial control, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal aggressively backs imperial wars, notably now against Libya. On February 23, it editorial headlined, "Liberating Libya," saying:
"The US and Europe should help Libyans overthrow the Gadhafi regime," replacing him, of course, with a Western favored despot, ceding control to imperial interests.
On March 6, the Journal headlined, "Obama's Libyan Abdication," asking:
"Will the US let Gadhafi slaughter his way back to power? The greatest danger now to US interests - and to Obama's political standing - would be for (him) to regain control....isolated and dangerous (he'll) likely (abet) terrorists," hyperbole exceeding The New York Times and most other corporate sources.
Not far behind, a February 21 Washington Post editorial screamed, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for his atrocities," calling them "genocide." It was the same deception used before, including against Slobodan Milosevic to justify NATO's punishing 1999 illegal aggression to complete its long-planned Yugoslavia balkanization, defended then as "humanitarian intervention," no matter the vast destruction and loss of lives it caused.
The Post's resident zealot, Charles Krauthammer, called Gaddafi "a capricious killer" in his March 4 "Baghdad to Benghazi" article, saying he's "delusional, unstable and crazy."
On March 8, the Post's Marc Thiessen headlined, "Apply the Reagan Doctrine in Libya," by arming opposition elements, and inciting violence to topple Gaddafi the way Reagan operated in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union and Central America, notably against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and FMLN in El Salvador, killing countless tens of thousands in the process, a record airbrushed from official history, calling imperial slaughter "liberation."
Arming Libya's Opposition
On March 7, London Independent writer Robert Fisk headlined, "America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels," saying:
Washington asked "Saudi Arabia (to) supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi." In the 1980s, Saudis helped arm Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and Contra forces in Central America. Asking Saudi help lets Washington deny involvement, perhaps impossible with Fisk breaking the news. He also said "US Awacs surveillance aircraft have been flying around Libya" for days, violating its air space illegally.
Moreover, he noted an "Arab awakening, the demand for democracy in North Africa, the Shia revolt, and the rising against Gaddafi become entangled in the space of just a few hours with US (UK, and NATO) priorities in the region." They augur no good for Libyans for sure.
A Final Comment
At times, Al Jazeera sounds like BBC, falling short of what viewers deserve. On February 18, Professor As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab News Service discussed its coverage, saying:
"I am seething. The coverage of Aljazeera Arabic has become too blatantly politically biased for my taste. They protect their allies and friends and go intensely after the rivals and enemies of Qatar (where it's based) like the regime of Hosni Mubarak."
When GCC countries "decided to back the Bahrain monarchy, Aljazeera quickly reflected that. It is not a story anymore. Aljazeera is extensively covering Libya and Yemen now: not close allies of Qatar. If Mubarak was a member of the GCC, he would have been protected by Aljazeera."
Nonetheless, its service is vastly superior to US corporate news, offering entirely propaganda, sanitized reports and infotainment, a worthless mix to be avoided and condemned.
Reaching 40 million viewers, The New York Times called Al Jazeera "the bete noire" of Arab governments (shaping) popular rage against oppressive American-backed Arab governments (and against Israel) ever since its (1996) founding."
In their recent study on "How Al Jazeera Shapes Political Identities," Erik Nisbet and Teresa Myers found that exposure to Arabic media weakens national identities and strengthens Muslim and Arab ones.
Asked how it affects Middle East protests, Nisbet said:
"In the short term, the Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab narratives typically embedded in Al Jazeera content, in combination with growing Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab identification among Arab audiences, most likely facilitate the contagion begun by the Tunisian revolt."
The long-term implications for US foreign policy are also significant, posing "a serious challenge for Egyptian relations with the United States and Israel." Perhaps also for America's regional agenda. The "greater political liberalization combined with the growth of transnational political identification may challenge the United States to enact foreign policy within a regional context dominated by transnational political identities whose interests may be more opposed, or at least less amenable, to US foreign policy goals compared to state-centric identities."
Anything weakening Washington's dominance anywhere is important. Hopefully, Al Jazeera will promote and encourage it by more forcefully opposing imperial intervention, especially by belligerence and occupation.
That would make its service invaluable.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya
Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
America's major media never met an imperial war it didn't love and promote, never mind how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive.
Despite Washington already bogged down in two losing ones, Obama's heading for another on Libya, the media pack in the lead clamoring for it, perhaps by "shock and awe," supplemented by special forces death squads on the ground recruiting, inciting, and arming opposition elements.
Notably favoring intervention, a New York Times February 24 editorial headlined, "Stopping Qaffafi," saying:
Unless he's stopped, he'll "slaughter hundreds or even thousands of his own people in his desperation to hang on to power."
Where's the Times outrage over millions Washington slaughtered, hundreds more killed daily, its ties to global despots, its funding and support for Israeli brutality against Palestinians, and its imperial insanity to achieve unchallengeable global dominance, no matter how many corpses it takes to do it.
Nonetheless, The Times hailed Libyan courage, asking for more Western support, implying the belligerent kind. "Colonel Qaddafi and his henchmen have to be told in credible and very specific terms the price they will pay for any more killing. They need to start paying now. (The) longer the world temporizes, the more people die."
On February 28, The Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," saying:
His "crimes continue to mount. Rebel commanders said (his) warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country." However, Russian satellite imagery showed no bombing evidence or destruction on the ground. So much for The Times or other major media credibility, reporting the same unverified accounts.
On March 8, The Times headlined, "Washington's Options on Libya," saying:
"....some way must be found to support Libya's uprising and stop (Gaddafi) from slaughtering his people....It would be a disaster if (he) managed to cling to power by butchering his own people."
Indisputably, Gaddafi is a despot, but he didn't initiate conflict. Western powers did, sending in covert intelligence and special forces to incite, arm and support it.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron admitted that UK commandos were in Benghazi. So did Foreign Secretary William Hague, telling Parliament it was "a serious misunderstanding," drawing laughs from opposition benches.
Channel 4 News aired a video with him saying intelligence and elite special forces were on "a diplomatic mission" to make contact with rebel elements. However, he left unexplained why they arrived secretly by helicopter at 2AM with no advance warning. In fact, the Cameron/Hague "misunderstanding" came to enlist and incite violence along with US special forces there for the same purpose. Commandos are trained killers, not diplomats.
As a result, Gaddafi responded in self-defense. Washington and NATO bear full responsibility for growing daily casualties. Blood's on their hands. It's their cross to bear, costing many Libyan lives.
It hardly matters for greater stakes, including:
-- replacing one despot with another;
-- preventing democratization;
-- colonizing Libya;
-- controlling its oil, gas and other resources;
-- privatizing its state industries, handing them over to Western interests;
-- perhaps balkanizing the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq - in other words, effectively destroying it for profit and control, as well as using it as a platform to intimidate other regional states to comply fully with Western diktats - or else; and
-- exploiting its people ruthlessly as serf labor.
It's a familiar Western scheme, justified as "humanitarian intervention," what America, above all, doesn't give a damn about and never did, seeking only imperial dominance, no matter how much death and destruction it takes to get it. "Operation Libya" had antecedents, notably in Yugoslavia and Iraq, two previous countries Western powers destroyed and now exploit.
International Law on Self-Defense and External Intervention - Humanitarian or Otherwise
International law authorizes Gaddafi to respond in self-defense. Article 51 of the UN Charter's Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression" states:
"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."
In other words, self-defense is permissible. Moreover, the UN Charter explains under what conditions intervention, violence and coercion (by one state against another) are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, including no-fly zones that are acts of war.
In addition, Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral or other external threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or otherwise authorized by the Security Council.
Three General Assembly resolutions also prohibit non-consensual belligerent intervention, including:
-- the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty;
-- the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; and
-- the 1974 Definition of Aggression.
Under no circumstances, with no exceptions, may one nation, NATO, or other combination of nations intervene against another without specific Security Council authorization. Doing so is illegal aggression, a lawless act of war. Washington and NATO have already initiated conflict. Gaddafi, or any other democrat or despot, legally may respond in self-defense as he's doing, love him or hate him. By law, he's justified.
Yet The Times urges NATO to expand "its air surveillance over Libya (and) share relevant information with the rebels." No matter that violating its air space is illegal and aggressive. The Times also wants pressure put on "Qaddafi and his cronies to cede power," by what authority it didn't say because there is none. No matter because in Times-think, "(i)t would be a disaster if (he) managed to cling to power by butchering his own people."
Hyperbole, misinformation, imperial support, and disdain for international and US laws as well as democratic values are Times specialties - on display backing Washington's attempt to destroy, colonize and exploit another country, no matter the corpse count to do it.
In his March 9 commentary, longtime insider Bob Chapman said the following:
"....as we pointed out after the Tunisian episode, this was the beginning of CIA, MI6 and Mossad planned activities in the Middle East. As usual there were several objectives. The first was a distraction to cover up (Western) financial troubles....The second was to remove Mubarak from his dictatorial position, because (he refused) to participate and agree to an invasion of Iran and to cause chaos in the region, so that (Iranian allies) would not give it assistance in the event of war."
"There was also the matter of controlling Libya's oil and toppling its dictator Gaddafi....From behind the scenes, (new leadership will emerge) tied to the CIA, MI6 and the Mossad. (These plans) have been in the works for years." Unrest will continue. "A solution will be found for Libya, and the west hopes its puppet (Saudi) regime stays in place." If disruption occurs there, America will intervene. Turmoil will continue for some time. "It won't take long for Mr. Gaddafi to be deposed and sent on his way," perhaps by US troops.
More Major Media War Endorsements
With total editorial control, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal aggressively backs imperial wars, notably now against Libya. On February 23, it editorial headlined, "Liberating Libya," saying:
"The US and Europe should help Libyans overthrow the Gadhafi regime," replacing him, of course, with a Western favored despot, ceding control to imperial interests.
On March 6, the Journal headlined, "Obama's Libyan Abdication," asking:
"Will the US let Gadhafi slaughter his way back to power? The greatest danger now to US interests - and to Obama's political standing - would be for (him) to regain control....isolated and dangerous (he'll) likely (abet) terrorists," hyperbole exceeding The New York Times and most other corporate sources.
Not far behind, a February 21 Washington Post editorial screamed, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for his atrocities," calling them "genocide." It was the same deception used before, including against Slobodan Milosevic to justify NATO's punishing 1999 illegal aggression to complete its long-planned Yugoslavia balkanization, defended then as "humanitarian intervention," no matter the vast destruction and loss of lives it caused.
The Post's resident zealot, Charles Krauthammer, called Gaddafi "a capricious killer" in his March 4 "Baghdad to Benghazi" article, saying he's "delusional, unstable and crazy."
On March 8, the Post's Marc Thiessen headlined, "Apply the Reagan Doctrine in Libya," by arming opposition elements, and inciting violence to topple Gaddafi the way Reagan operated in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union and Central America, notably against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and FMLN in El Salvador, killing countless tens of thousands in the process, a record airbrushed from official history, calling imperial slaughter "liberation."
Arming Libya's Opposition
On March 7, London Independent writer Robert Fisk headlined, "America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels," saying:
Washington asked "Saudi Arabia (to) supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi." In the 1980s, Saudis helped arm Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and Contra forces in Central America. Asking Saudi help lets Washington deny involvement, perhaps impossible with Fisk breaking the news. He also said "US Awacs surveillance aircraft have been flying around Libya" for days, violating its air space illegally.
Moreover, he noted an "Arab awakening, the demand for democracy in North Africa, the Shia revolt, and the rising against Gaddafi become entangled in the space of just a few hours with US (UK, and NATO) priorities in the region." They augur no good for Libyans for sure.
A Final Comment
At times, Al Jazeera sounds like BBC, falling short of what viewers deserve. On February 18, Professor As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab News Service discussed its coverage, saying:
"I am seething. The coverage of Aljazeera Arabic has become too blatantly politically biased for my taste. They protect their allies and friends and go intensely after the rivals and enemies of Qatar (where it's based) like the regime of Hosni Mubarak."
When GCC countries "decided to back the Bahrain monarchy, Aljazeera quickly reflected that. It is not a story anymore. Aljazeera is extensively covering Libya and Yemen now: not close allies of Qatar. If Mubarak was a member of the GCC, he would have been protected by Aljazeera."
Nonetheless, its service is vastly superior to US corporate news, offering entirely propaganda, sanitized reports and infotainment, a worthless mix to be avoided and condemned.
Reaching 40 million viewers, The New York Times called Al Jazeera "the bete noire" of Arab governments (shaping) popular rage against oppressive American-backed Arab governments (and against Israel) ever since its (1996) founding."
In their recent study on "How Al Jazeera Shapes Political Identities," Erik Nisbet and Teresa Myers found that exposure to Arabic media weakens national identities and strengthens Muslim and Arab ones.
Asked how it affects Middle East protests, Nisbet said:
"In the short term, the Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab narratives typically embedded in Al Jazeera content, in combination with growing Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab identification among Arab audiences, most likely facilitate the contagion begun by the Tunisian revolt."
The long-term implications for US foreign policy are also significant, posing "a serious challenge for Egyptian relations with the United States and Israel." Perhaps also for America's regional agenda. The "greater political liberalization combined with the growth of transnational political identification may challenge the United States to enact foreign policy within a regional context dominated by transnational political identities whose interests may be more opposed, or at least less amenable, to US foreign policy goals compared to state-centric identities."
Anything weakening Washington's dominance anywhere is important. Hopefully, Al Jazeera will promote and encourage it by more forcefully opposing imperial intervention, especially by belligerence and occupation.
That would make its service invaluable.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
From The The HistoMat Blog-HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Stop the War Protest at Downing Street
HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN
Join the day of action this Saturday March 12th – Downing Street 2pm in London - called by Stop the War Coalition, CND and the British Muslim Initiative
Labels: afghanistan, empire, Libya, war
posted by Snowball @ 7:35 PM
Stop the War Protest at Downing Street
HANDS OFF THE MIDDLE EAST - NO MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA - TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN
Join the day of action this Saturday March 12th – Downing Street 2pm in London - called by Stop the War Coalition, CND and the British Muslim Initiative
Labels: afghanistan, empire, Libya, war
posted by Snowball @ 7:35 PM
Friday, February 11, 2011
Don't "No-Fly" Libya- A Guest Commentary- Hands Of Libya- Down With Qaddafi
Don't "No-Fly" Libya
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Tue, 03/08/2011 - 5:29pm.
by Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies - March 4, 2011
Today in Libya, civilians are being killed by a besieged and isolated dictator. Libyan warplanes have been used to attack civilians, although the vast majority of the violence has come from ground attacks. The Libyan opposition’s provisional national council, meeting in Benghazi, is debating whether they should request military support from the international community, maybe the UN or NATO, starting with a no-fly zone. The Arab League announced that it was also considering establishing a no-fly zone, perhaps with the African Union.
It is unclear what casualties the airstrikes may have caused. The anti-regime forces have some access to anti-aircraft weapons, and Qaddafi has already lost planes and pilots alike to the opposition — but it is far from clear where the military balance lies.
Powerful U.S. voices — including neo-conservative warmongers and liberal interventionists in and out of the administration, as well as important anti-war forces in and out of Congress — are calling on the Obama administration to establish a no-fly zone inLibya to protect civilians.
A Libyan activist writes in The Guardian, “we welcome a no-fly zone, but the blood of Libya's dead will be wasted if the west curses our uprising with failed intervention.” He says that his hopes for a happy ending are “marred by a fear shared by all Libyans; that of a possible western military intervention to end the crisis.” He seems to believe that a U.S. or NATO no-fly zone would mean something other than a Western military intervention.
Ironically it was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who warned that establishing a no-fly zone “begins with an attack on Libya.” It would be an act of war. And the Middle East doesn’t need another U.S. war.
What would a no-fly zone in Libya mean? A bit of history may provide some perspective.
Bombing Tripoli
The year was 1986. People had been killed, this time in a terrorist attack in Europe. The Libyan government, led by Muammar Qaddafi, was deemed responsible. The U.S. announced air strikesdirected at “key military sites” in Tripoli and Benghazi. Exactly the kind of targeted air strikes that would precede a no-fly zone. But according to the BBC, the missiles hit a densely populated Tripoli suburb, Bin Ashur. At least 100 people were killed, including Qaddafi’s three-year-old daughter. Qaddafi himself was fine.
Libyans remember.
Fast-forward half a decade. The 1991 Gulf War in Iraq was over. A besieged and defeated Arab dictator was posturing, threatening force, and the victorious U.S. decided to intervene again, officially for humanitarian reasons. The U.S. and Britain established unilateral “no-fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq. (U.S. and British officials consistently lied, claiming they were enforcing “United Nations no-fly zones,” but in fact no UN resolution ever even mentioned one.) During the twelve years of the no-fly zone, hundreds were killed by U.S. and British bombs.
Iraqis remember. So do Libyans.
Assume the “attack on Libya” preceding a no-fly zone succeeds in its very specific purpose: to eliminate the anti-aircraft weapons that could threaten U.S. planes enforcing the zone. But does that mean it also eliminates all anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of the opposition, the defectors from Qaddafi’s air force? What would the consequences be of that?
And then there are the “what if” factors. What if they made a mistake? The 1986 U.S. airstrikes inLibya were supposed to be aimed at military targets — yet more than 100 people, many of them civilians, were killed; why do we assume it will be any different this time? What if a U.S. warplane was shot down and pilots or bombers were captured by Qaddafi’s military? Wouldn’t U.S. Special Forces immediately be deployed to rescue them? Then what?
And that’s just the military part. That’s just the beginning.
Consequences
No-fly zones, like any other act of war, have consequences. In Libya, though it is impossible to precisely gauge public opinion, a significant majority of people appears opposed to the regime and prepared to mobilize and fight to bring it down. That is not surprising. While the Libyan revolt is playing out in vastly different ways, and with far greater bloodshed, it is part and parcel of the democratic revolutionary process rising across the Arab world and beyond. And just as in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, and elsewhere, there is no evidence that the Libyan population supports foreign military involvement.
To the contrary, although at least part of the anti-Qaddafi leadership is indeed calling for some kind of military intervention, there appears to be widespread public opposition to such a call. Certainly there is fear that such foreign involvement will give credibility to Qaddafi’s currently false claims that foreigners are responsible for the uprising. But beyond that, there is a powerful appeal in the recognition that the democracy movements sweeping the Middle East and North Africa areindigenous, authentic, independent mobilizations against decades-long U.S.- and Western-backed dictatorship and oppression.
There have been broadly popular calls for international assistance to the anti-Qaddafi forces, including support for a UN-imposed assets freeze and referral to the International Criminal Court for top regime officials. And despite the breathtaking hypocrisy of the U.S., which embraces the ICC as a tool against Washington’s current opponents but rejects it for war criminals among its Israeli and other allies and refuses its jurisdiction for itself, the use of the Court for this purpose is very appropriate.
But there is no popular call for military intervention. Human rights lawyer and opposition spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga was crystal clear: “We are against any foreign intervention... This revolution will be completed by our people.” And Libyan General Ahmad Gatroni, who defected to lead the opposition forces, urged the U.S. to “take care of its own people, we can look after ourselves.”
Indeed, if the U.S. is so worried about the bombing raids against civilians, perhaps the Obama administration should take another look at Afghanistan, where nine Afghan children, ages seven to fourteen, were killed by U.S. attack helicopters in Kunar province on March 1st. If the Congress is so eager to follow the wishes of Libya’s opposition, perhaps General Gatroni’s call for the U.S. to “take care of its own people” could mean challenging another stark reality: the people of Wisconsin, facing a $1.8 billion budget deficit, will pay $1.7 billion in taxes this year just for their share of an already-existing war, the one in Afghanistan.
Global Opposition
Internationally, there is widespread public and governmental opposition in influential countries, such as India, to establishing a no-fly zone. In the United Nations, many governments are reluctant to order an act of war that would significantly escalate the military conflict underway in Libya. The Security Council resolution that passed unanimously on February 27 condemned the violence and imposed a set of targeted sanctions on the Qaddafi regime, but did not reference Article 42 of the UN Charter, the prerequisite for endorsing the use of force.
Instead, the Council relied on Article 41, which authorizes only “measures not involving the use of armed force.” Passage, let alone unanimity, would have been impossible otherwise. Russia’s ambassador specifically opposed what he called “counterproductive interventions,” and other key Council members, including veto-wielding China as well as rising powers India, South Africa, and Brazil, have all expressed various levels of caution and outright opposition to further militarizing the situation in Libya.
So far, the Obama administration and the Pentagon appear to be vacillating on support for a no-fly zone. An anonymous administration official told the New York Times“there’s a great temptation to stand up and say, ‘We’ll help you rid the country of a dictator’… But the president has been clear that what’s sweeping across the Middle East is organic to the region, and as soon as we become a military player, we’re at risk of falling into the old trap that Americans are stage-managing events for their own benefit.”
In fact that “old trap,” seizing control of international events for Washington’s own benefit, remains central to U.S. foreign policy. It’s becoming harder these days, as U.S. influence wanes. But key U.S. political forces are upping the pressure on Obama to send the troops — at least the Air Force. Those rooting for war include right-wing Republican warmongers eager to attack Obama as war-averse (despite all evidence to the contrary), as well, unfortunately, as some of the strongest anti-war voices in Congress (including Jim McDermott, Mike Honda, Keith Ellison, and others), who presumably believe that the humanitarian necessity of a no-fly zone still outweighs the dangers.
It doesn’t. Humanitarian crises simply do not shape U.S. policy. If they did, we might have heard a bit more last week when the Baghdad government — armed, financed, trained, and supported by the United States — killed 29 Iraqi civilians demonstrating against corruption. We might have seen humanitarian involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions of civilians have been killed in Africa’s longest and perhaps most brutal war. And we might have seen, if not direct U.S. intervention, at least an end to the U.S. enabling of the Israeli assault on Gaza that killed more than 900 civilians, 313 of them children.
Rather, “humanitarian” concerns become a tool of powerful circles to build popular support for what would otherwise bring massive public outrage — “really, while the costs of existing wars have already brought the U.S. economy to its knees, you want to launch another U.S. war in the Middle East??”
Whose Humanitarianism?
It’s not that there are no real humanitarian concerns; Libyan civilians are paying a huge price in challenging their dictator. But powerful U.S. interests are at stake, and few of them have anything to do with protecting Libyan civilians. Certainly oil is key; not so much about access to Libyan oil (the international oil market is pretty fungible), but about which oil companies will gain privileged positions? Will it be BP and Chevron who win the lucrative contracts to develop Libya’s enormous oil fields, or will Chinese and Russian oil companies take their place? What pipelines will a new government in Libya choose, and which countries and corporations will benefit?
And it’s not only about oil. The Libyan uprising is one of many potentially revolutionary transformations across the Arab world and in parts of Africa, where long-standing U.S.-backed dictatorships are collapsing — what kind of credibility can the U.S. expect in post-Qaddafi Libya? Washington may be betting that it can win credibility with the opposition by jumping out in front with an aggressive anti-Qaddafi “military assistance” campaign, perhaps starting with a no-fly zone. But in fact Washington risks antagonizing those opposition supporters, apparently the vast majority, determined to protect the independence of their democratic revolution.
The future of Libya and much of the success of the democratic revolutions now underway across the region, stand in the balance. If the Obama administration, the Pentagon, war profiteers and the rest of the U.S. policymaking establishment continue to define U.S. “national interests” as continuing U.S. domination of oil-rich and strategically-located countries and regions, Washington faces a likely future of isolation, antagonism, rising terrorism and hatred.
The democratic revolutionary processes sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have already transformed that long-stalemated region. The peoples of the region are looking for less, not greater militarization of their countries. It is time for U.S. policy to recognize that reality. Saying no to a no-fly zone in Libya will be the best thing the Obama administration can do to begin the process of crafting a new, demilitarized 21st century policy for the U.S. in the newly democratizing Middle East.
Submitted by ujpadmin1 on Tue, 03/08/2011 - 5:29pm.
by Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies - March 4, 2011
Today in Libya, civilians are being killed by a besieged and isolated dictator. Libyan warplanes have been used to attack civilians, although the vast majority of the violence has come from ground attacks. The Libyan opposition’s provisional national council, meeting in Benghazi, is debating whether they should request military support from the international community, maybe the UN or NATO, starting with a no-fly zone. The Arab League announced that it was also considering establishing a no-fly zone, perhaps with the African Union.
It is unclear what casualties the airstrikes may have caused. The anti-regime forces have some access to anti-aircraft weapons, and Qaddafi has already lost planes and pilots alike to the opposition — but it is far from clear where the military balance lies.
Powerful U.S. voices — including neo-conservative warmongers and liberal interventionists in and out of the administration, as well as important anti-war forces in and out of Congress — are calling on the Obama administration to establish a no-fly zone inLibya to protect civilians.
A Libyan activist writes in The Guardian, “we welcome a no-fly zone, but the blood of Libya's dead will be wasted if the west curses our uprising with failed intervention.” He says that his hopes for a happy ending are “marred by a fear shared by all Libyans; that of a possible western military intervention to end the crisis.” He seems to believe that a U.S. or NATO no-fly zone would mean something other than a Western military intervention.
Ironically it was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who warned that establishing a no-fly zone “begins with an attack on Libya.” It would be an act of war. And the Middle East doesn’t need another U.S. war.
What would a no-fly zone in Libya mean? A bit of history may provide some perspective.
Bombing Tripoli
The year was 1986. People had been killed, this time in a terrorist attack in Europe. The Libyan government, led by Muammar Qaddafi, was deemed responsible. The U.S. announced air strikesdirected at “key military sites” in Tripoli and Benghazi. Exactly the kind of targeted air strikes that would precede a no-fly zone. But according to the BBC, the missiles hit a densely populated Tripoli suburb, Bin Ashur. At least 100 people were killed, including Qaddafi’s three-year-old daughter. Qaddafi himself was fine.
Libyans remember.
Fast-forward half a decade. The 1991 Gulf War in Iraq was over. A besieged and defeated Arab dictator was posturing, threatening force, and the victorious U.S. decided to intervene again, officially for humanitarian reasons. The U.S. and Britain established unilateral “no-fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq. (U.S. and British officials consistently lied, claiming they were enforcing “United Nations no-fly zones,” but in fact no UN resolution ever even mentioned one.) During the twelve years of the no-fly zone, hundreds were killed by U.S. and British bombs.
Iraqis remember. So do Libyans.
Assume the “attack on Libya” preceding a no-fly zone succeeds in its very specific purpose: to eliminate the anti-aircraft weapons that could threaten U.S. planes enforcing the zone. But does that mean it also eliminates all anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of the opposition, the defectors from Qaddafi’s air force? What would the consequences be of that?
And then there are the “what if” factors. What if they made a mistake? The 1986 U.S. airstrikes inLibya were supposed to be aimed at military targets — yet more than 100 people, many of them civilians, were killed; why do we assume it will be any different this time? What if a U.S. warplane was shot down and pilots or bombers were captured by Qaddafi’s military? Wouldn’t U.S. Special Forces immediately be deployed to rescue them? Then what?
And that’s just the military part. That’s just the beginning.
Consequences
No-fly zones, like any other act of war, have consequences. In Libya, though it is impossible to precisely gauge public opinion, a significant majority of people appears opposed to the regime and prepared to mobilize and fight to bring it down. That is not surprising. While the Libyan revolt is playing out in vastly different ways, and with far greater bloodshed, it is part and parcel of the democratic revolutionary process rising across the Arab world and beyond. And just as in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, and elsewhere, there is no evidence that the Libyan population supports foreign military involvement.
To the contrary, although at least part of the anti-Qaddafi leadership is indeed calling for some kind of military intervention, there appears to be widespread public opposition to such a call. Certainly there is fear that such foreign involvement will give credibility to Qaddafi’s currently false claims that foreigners are responsible for the uprising. But beyond that, there is a powerful appeal in the recognition that the democracy movements sweeping the Middle East and North Africa areindigenous, authentic, independent mobilizations against decades-long U.S.- and Western-backed dictatorship and oppression.
There have been broadly popular calls for international assistance to the anti-Qaddafi forces, including support for a UN-imposed assets freeze and referral to the International Criminal Court for top regime officials. And despite the breathtaking hypocrisy of the U.S., which embraces the ICC as a tool against Washington’s current opponents but rejects it for war criminals among its Israeli and other allies and refuses its jurisdiction for itself, the use of the Court for this purpose is very appropriate.
But there is no popular call for military intervention. Human rights lawyer and opposition spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga was crystal clear: “We are against any foreign intervention... This revolution will be completed by our people.” And Libyan General Ahmad Gatroni, who defected to lead the opposition forces, urged the U.S. to “take care of its own people, we can look after ourselves.”
Indeed, if the U.S. is so worried about the bombing raids against civilians, perhaps the Obama administration should take another look at Afghanistan, where nine Afghan children, ages seven to fourteen, were killed by U.S. attack helicopters in Kunar province on March 1st. If the Congress is so eager to follow the wishes of Libya’s opposition, perhaps General Gatroni’s call for the U.S. to “take care of its own people” could mean challenging another stark reality: the people of Wisconsin, facing a $1.8 billion budget deficit, will pay $1.7 billion in taxes this year just for their share of an already-existing war, the one in Afghanistan.
Global Opposition
Internationally, there is widespread public and governmental opposition in influential countries, such as India, to establishing a no-fly zone. In the United Nations, many governments are reluctant to order an act of war that would significantly escalate the military conflict underway in Libya. The Security Council resolution that passed unanimously on February 27 condemned the violence and imposed a set of targeted sanctions on the Qaddafi regime, but did not reference Article 42 of the UN Charter, the prerequisite for endorsing the use of force.
Instead, the Council relied on Article 41, which authorizes only “measures not involving the use of armed force.” Passage, let alone unanimity, would have been impossible otherwise. Russia’s ambassador specifically opposed what he called “counterproductive interventions,” and other key Council members, including veto-wielding China as well as rising powers India, South Africa, and Brazil, have all expressed various levels of caution and outright opposition to further militarizing the situation in Libya.
So far, the Obama administration and the Pentagon appear to be vacillating on support for a no-fly zone. An anonymous administration official told the New York Times“there’s a great temptation to stand up and say, ‘We’ll help you rid the country of a dictator’… But the president has been clear that what’s sweeping across the Middle East is organic to the region, and as soon as we become a military player, we’re at risk of falling into the old trap that Americans are stage-managing events for their own benefit.”
In fact that “old trap,” seizing control of international events for Washington’s own benefit, remains central to U.S. foreign policy. It’s becoming harder these days, as U.S. influence wanes. But key U.S. political forces are upping the pressure on Obama to send the troops — at least the Air Force. Those rooting for war include right-wing Republican warmongers eager to attack Obama as war-averse (despite all evidence to the contrary), as well, unfortunately, as some of the strongest anti-war voices in Congress (including Jim McDermott, Mike Honda, Keith Ellison, and others), who presumably believe that the humanitarian necessity of a no-fly zone still outweighs the dangers.
It doesn’t. Humanitarian crises simply do not shape U.S. policy. If they did, we might have heard a bit more last week when the Baghdad government — armed, financed, trained, and supported by the United States — killed 29 Iraqi civilians demonstrating against corruption. We might have seen humanitarian involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions of civilians have been killed in Africa’s longest and perhaps most brutal war. And we might have seen, if not direct U.S. intervention, at least an end to the U.S. enabling of the Israeli assault on Gaza that killed more than 900 civilians, 313 of them children.
Rather, “humanitarian” concerns become a tool of powerful circles to build popular support for what would otherwise bring massive public outrage — “really, while the costs of existing wars have already brought the U.S. economy to its knees, you want to launch another U.S. war in the Middle East??”
Whose Humanitarianism?
It’s not that there are no real humanitarian concerns; Libyan civilians are paying a huge price in challenging their dictator. But powerful U.S. interests are at stake, and few of them have anything to do with protecting Libyan civilians. Certainly oil is key; not so much about access to Libyan oil (the international oil market is pretty fungible), but about which oil companies will gain privileged positions? Will it be BP and Chevron who win the lucrative contracts to develop Libya’s enormous oil fields, or will Chinese and Russian oil companies take their place? What pipelines will a new government in Libya choose, and which countries and corporations will benefit?
And it’s not only about oil. The Libyan uprising is one of many potentially revolutionary transformations across the Arab world and in parts of Africa, where long-standing U.S.-backed dictatorships are collapsing — what kind of credibility can the U.S. expect in post-Qaddafi Libya? Washington may be betting that it can win credibility with the opposition by jumping out in front with an aggressive anti-Qaddafi “military assistance” campaign, perhaps starting with a no-fly zone. But in fact Washington risks antagonizing those opposition supporters, apparently the vast majority, determined to protect the independence of their democratic revolution.
The future of Libya and much of the success of the democratic revolutions now underway across the region, stand in the balance. If the Obama administration, the Pentagon, war profiteers and the rest of the U.S. policymaking establishment continue to define U.S. “national interests” as continuing U.S. domination of oil-rich and strategically-located countries and regions, Washington faces a likely future of isolation, antagonism, rising terrorism and hatred.
The democratic revolutionary processes sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have already transformed that long-stalemated region. The peoples of the region are looking for less, not greater militarization of their countries. It is time for U.S. policy to recognize that reality. Saying no to a no-fly zone in Libya will be the best thing the Obama administration can do to begin the process of crafting a new, demilitarized 21st century policy for the U.S. in the newly democratizing Middle East.
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