ODYSSEY DAWN

"It will be over in 48 hours"

Just how many times did we hear that? Some people like to look into the name of the mission, Operation Odyssey Dawn, though those in charge of naming it say it was totally random. “There’s a group of planning officers led by a Lieutenant Colonel that in the early days of planning and looked at a list and decided to call it Odyssey basically because they liked the word odyssey,” said Eric Elliot, with US Africa Command. Still, some continue to find the title concerning. “It’s sort of an odd combination,” said Hayes Roth, Chief Marketing Officer for Landor Worldwide. “Odyssey implies that we’re on a long journey and dawn means we’re at the beginning of that long journey so in English, that’s a little worrisome.” And it’s not just the dictionary definition to be concerned about. Think about Homer’s epic, poem The Odyssey. In some ways, it’s a story about people wandering around the Mediterranean for ten years unable to find their way. The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly around the world. However, Russia's military chiefs say they have been monitoring from space and the pictures tell a different story. According to Al Jazeera and BBC, on February 22 Libyan government inflicted airstrikes on Benghazi, the country's largest city and on the capital Tripoli. However, the Russian military, monitoring the unrest via satellite from the very beginning, says nothing of the sort was going on on the ground. At this point, the Russian military is saying that, as far as they are concerned, the attacks some media were reporting have never occurred. American officials said the military intervention has cost the Pentagon an extra $550 million so far, with bombs and missiles accounting for most. There are no official figures for the UK share of the cost, but at least £25 million will have been spent by British forces, most accounted for by weapons. The rebel forces trying to topple Gaddafi admittedly include more than 1,000 Al-Qaeda soldiers while enjoying total backing– weapons, planes, funding and forces– from the U.S., Britain, NATO and other allies. The CIA and British SAS forces that are now "officially" entering Libya as ground support were covertly operating at least a month ago. There are absolutely no "pro-democracy" fighters in Libya, especially in the East. Majority of the rebel forces are hard core Al-Qaeda, Darna is like world capital of terrorism, others are monarchists and islamic fundamentalists. If there was any doubt in the past that Al-Qaeda is CIA's secret army, today there is none. That's a fact. People trying to lead these unleashed gangs of mujahedeens are in fact former US POWs straight from Guantanamo. One key Libyan rebel leader (Khalifa Hifter) spent the last 20 years: inside the U.S., living just minutes away from Langley, Virginia, also known as home base to the CIA. It is insane. Do people in U.S. know this? No, they are brainwashed zombies. Mainstream propaganda does its job well. Another "bombs for peace" campaign, rrright..."Bombs for peace", that's like fucking for virginity. Just how legal is this war? Lord Ashdown, the former high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the coalition forces led by Britain, France and the US were facing "a moment of danger" over the legality of their actions. He said "continued support for this looks as though it is leading to support for regime change, which legally is beyond the [United Nations] security council resolution". Legal experts said the international coalition may have overstepped what was agreed by the UN resolution sanctioning military action to "take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack". Concern grew as Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said he believed the military action was now in breach of international law. "We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the UN security council resolution," he said. Russia abstained from the vote which resulted in resolution 1973. President Obama has told Congress, "U.S. military forces commenced operations" in Libya. Article I, section 8 of the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall have the power ... to declare war..." Since Congress has not declared war on Libya, is American involvement in the Libyan war unconstitutional? Some members of Congress think so. Presidential candidate Barack Obama agreed in 2007: "the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Whatever else may be true about them, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 were authorized by Congress. In the case of the Iraq war, there was a vigorous Congressional and public debate before the war took place. In this particular case, the decision of the Obama Administration to engage the country in a new Middle East war without Congressional authorization represents a long-term threat to the U.S. peace movement, because the U.S. peace movement is engaged in a long struggle to try to influence U.S. policy in the direction of less war, and Congress is a key arena in which the peace movement tries to assert influence over U.S. policy. And the precedent that has been set here, especially if Congress does not take affirmative action to reassert its war powers, is extremely dangerous. If President Obama can engage the country in a war in Libya with a "recess bombing" which has not been authorized by Congress, what's to stop a future President from doing the same thing in, let's say Iran?

The Libyan no-fly zone was established long ago; the focus is now on attacking Gaddafi's ground forces, enabling rebel advancements, and regime change. Libyan tanks, artillery and armoured vehicles do not fly. A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by government ground forces in and around key coastal cities. Then there's the question of the legality of arming rebel troops. That would be a violation of the U.N. Resolution 1970 ("imposing an arms embargo on the country") and a breach of international law. More to the point, can it really be said that arming Libyan rebels is necessary for the protection of civilians? That sounds much more like what one does to help one side win a civil war. Arming the Libyan rebels will lay the foundation for new war 10 years from now. Maybe US are counting on that? The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused France of seeing Libya as a source of 'oil, gold mines and underground treasures'. Using incendiary language directed at France in a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said: "I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in Libya's direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on." President Gül reinforced the Turkish view that France and others were being driven primarily by economic interests. "The aim [of the air campaign] is not the liberation of the Libyan people," he said. "There are hidden agendas and different interests." Earlier this week, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister who was previously Sarkozy's chief adviser, outraged the Muslim world by stating that the French president was "leading a crusade" to stop Gaddafi massacring Libyans. Gaddafi's son has claimed that Libya helped finance Nicolas Sarkozy's successful election campaign in 2007. Asked what he felt about the French president's so far unsuccessful efforts to muster support for military intervention, Saif said: "Sarkozy must first give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We funded it. We have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people. He was given the assistance so he could help them, but he has disappointed us. Give us back our money." On August 30, 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in Benghazi. Under its terms, Italy would pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation. Never happened. In exchange, Libya would take measures to combat illegal imigration coming from its shores and boost investments in Italian companies. Libya supplies almost a quarter of Italy’s oil, and Italy is the world’s largest importer of Libyan crude. Libya also owns 7.5 per cent of the Italian bank UniCredit and has investments in Fiat, the defense conglomerate Finmeccanica, the energy company ENI, the soccer team Juventus and a variety of other Italian businesses. Who is bombing Libya? Gaddafi's debtors united in a "coallition of the willing". This financial backing helped Italy stave off the most damaging effects of the global recession that started in 2008. It is interesting to note that in response to international pressure, Italy has only frozen some Libyan assets, but none belonging to the country’s central bank or the Libyan Investment Authority. However, Italy’s hardly the only cash-strapped European nation to forge significant economic ties with the Gaddafi regime. In 2009, the European Union’s two-way trading with Libya amounted to more than $37 billion, with Germany, France and Spain among its leading partners. Naturally, the bulk of this was petroleum because Libya supplies more than 10 per cent of Europe’s oil. For a sense of just how much that is, consider that the United States of America, which had just $2.6 billion in two-way trade with Libya in 2009 and imports virtually no petroleum from the country, gets roughly 10 per cent of its oil from Saudi Arabia. That’s what Europe is losing as Libya burns. Donald Trump, whose flirtations with a presidential bid continue, says he has special experience dealing with Libyan leader Moammer Gaddafi. Trump, who has said he will decide on a presidential bid by June this year, said he is particularly happy with the fact he "screwed" Gaddafi on a past real estate deal. "I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn't let him use the land," Trump boasted. "That's what we should be doing. I don't want to use the word 'screwed', but I screwed him." Good job, Mr Trump, put it in your CV. No Gaddafi, no debt... and maybe oil for free. The Gaddafi's family has a reputation for lavish parties attended by stars. Beyonce and Mariah Carey have performed in elaborate New Year’s Eve parties in the Carribean thrown by Gaddafi’s son, Mutassim, while 50 Cent performed in a private concert during the 2005 Venice Film festival. For each performance, the alleged fee is $2 million per-performer. Stars also get paid to simply attend parties. Following the brutal domestic conflict in Libya, stars who have performed for the Gaddafi family, have been expressing their "regret" by donating the money they gained from Gadaffi’s family to charity. Among the stars who have donated their money are Nelly Furtado, Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Usher. The latest star who followed their lead is rapper 50 Cent, who announced that he will donate to Unicef. The London School of Economics (LSE) says it will set up fund to support North African students with money donated by son of Libyan leader. In 2009, the university accepted £1.5 million from the International Charity and Development Foundation, which is chaired by the younger Gaddafi, who owns a $16 million mansion in London’s fashionable Hampstead Garden neighbourhood. The London School of Economics, which has come under heavy criticism for accepting a donation from a Gadaffi charity, is looking into accusations that Moammar Gaddafi’s second-oldest son and presumed political heir, 38-year-old Saif Islam, plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis at LSE. His abandoned London home has been occupied by anti-Gaddafi protesters from throughout Britain. The cold reality is that with Libya descending into chaos, Europe is losing a major partner just when its key economies are struggling to regain their footing. Britain has recently emerged as a major target for Libyan investments. Libya has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on prime London commercial real estate and last year, a senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority announced that the fund had earmarked $8 billion exclusively for Britain. So what were they thinking?

Life under "Gaddafi's dictatorship"

Just how bad was it? In the early 1980s, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in the world; its GDP per capita was higher than that of developed countries such as Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and New Zealand. The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector. Compared to its neighbors, Libya enjoys a low level of both absolute and relative poerty. Libyan officials in the past six years have carried out economic reforms as part of a broader campaign to reintegrate the country into the global capitalist economy. This effort picked up steam after UN sanctions were lifted in September 2003, and as Libya announced in December 2003 that it would abandon programmes to build weapons of mass destruction. Authorities have privatised more than 100 government owned companies since 2003 in industries including oil refining, tourism and real estate, of which 29 are 100% foreign owned. High oil revenues and a small population have allowed the Libyan state to provide an extensive level of social security, particularly in the fields of housing and education. Libyan social security legislation of 1973 ranked among the most comprehensive in the world and it protected all citizens from many hazards associated with employment. Workers employed by foreign firms were entitled to the same social security benefits as workers employed by Libyan citizens. Subsidized food, inexpensive housing, free medical care and education, and profit-sharing were among the benefits that eased the lives of all citizens. The government protected the employed in their jobs and subsidized the underemployed and unemployed. In addition, there were nurseries to care for the children of working mothers, orphanages for homeless children, and homes for the aged. I could live under such dictator. Before Odyssey Dawn, Libya was undergoing a business boom. Many government-run industries were being privatised. Many international oil companies have returned to the country, including oil giants Shell and Exxon Mobil. Tourism was on the rise. The United States removed Gaddafi's regime, after 27 years, from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. (Gaddafi decided to pay almost $3 billion in compensation to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772.).

Death of Osama Bin Laden

(photo above)Osama Bin Laden and Zbigniew Brzezinski:

President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski visiting 'his boy', Osama Bin Laden, in training with the Pakistan Army, 1981.Photo originally scanned from the New York Village Voice. Photo credited to the Sygma/Corbis Agency, Paris.

Osama Bin Laden CIA agent

In mid-1979, about the same time as the Soviet Union deployed troops into Afghanistan, the United States began giving several hundred million dollars a year in aid to the Afghan Mujahideen insurgents. The most famous of the Afghan Arabs was Bin Laden. As the war neared its end, bin Laden organized Al-Qeada. Bin Laden received security training from the CIA itself. It is difficult to believe that the United States played no role in the operations of the son of one of the wealthiest men in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, it is much more likely that the United States knew full-well of bin Laden's operation and gave it all the support they could. An article in Der Spiegel, in 2007, entitled "Arming the Middle East", Siegesmund von Ilsemann called Bin Laden "one of the CIA's best weapons customers."

"Death" of Osama bin Laden

Now, at the top of FBI's most wanted list, bin Laden was allegedly killed on May 2, 2011 in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan in a raid by U.S. special operations forces. Pakistani officials denied harboring or supporting bin Laden, saying that they had no knowledge that he was there. The official mission code name was Operation Neptune Spear, with Jackpot as the code name for bin Laden as an individual and Geronimo as the code word for bin Laden's capture or death. (Geronimo was the Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who defied the U.S. government and eluded capture.) After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then dumped it somewhere at sea within 24 hours of his death. Al Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on jihadist websites, vowing to avenge the killing. There is an outcry from some groups for the photo evidence of the death. White House said the photograph of a dead Osama bin Laden is "gruesome" and that "it could be inflammatory" if released. The only released image so far, apparently showing a dead Osama bin Laden broadcast on Pakistani television and picked up by British newspaper websites is a fake. The bloodied image of a man with matted hair and a blank, half-opened eye has been circulating on the internet for the past two years. It was used on the front pages of the Mail, Times, Telegraph, Sun and Mirror websites, though swiftly removed after the fake was exposed on Twitter. Obama has shown irritation that the focus is more on the photo than the fact that Osama was killed. The statements released state that the Osama is in fact dead, and was proven with DNA evidence (The White House claims there was a DNA match between the body and tissue taken from bin Laden’s dead sister’s brain). In a propaganda piece reeking of US Triumphalism, two alleged journalists, Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, of the Associated Press or, rather, of the White House Ministry of Truth, write, or copy off a White House or CIA press release that “Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe. How many Americans will notice that the first paragraph of the “report” justifies CIA prisons and torture? Without secret prisons and torture “the terror mastermind” would still be running free, despite having died from renal failure in 2001. Americans are too busy celebrating to think, a capability that seems to have been taken out of their education.

Details of Osama bin Laden’s "sea burial" have emerged after the Associated Press obtained internal e-mails between U.S. military officials as part of a Freedom of Information request. The e-mails, which were heavily blacked out, mark the first public disclosure about the al-Qaeda leader’s burial and highlight the intense secrecy surrounding the mission.

One e-mail sent on May 2 described how bin Laden’s body was prepared: it was washed in an Islamic ritual of ablution, wrapped in a white sheet and then put in a weighted bag. Other cryptic e-mails made reference to bin Laden’s body, calling it “the package” delivered by “FedEx.”

No sailors on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson watched as Islamic rites were read, and the al-Qaeda leader’s body was dropped into the ocean, according to the e-mails, which also detailed religious rites.

“A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker,” read an e-mail sent on May 2 from Rear Admiral Charles Gaoette. “After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body slid into the sea.”

The AP received the e-mails from the Department of Defense but has also filed separate requests regarding the mission. Agency officials claimed in March that they could not find any photographs or videos taken during the raid in Abbottabad. They also claim to have no photographs or video of bin Laden’s body or the burial on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson. Separately, the Pentagon said that there was no death certificate, autopsy report or DNA test results on record. Pre-raid documents revealing plans of disposing bin Laden’s body if he were to be killed were also unavailable. The Department of Defense also refused to confirm or deny the existence of official logs detailing the performance of military equipment used in the raid, including a helicopter that crashed during the mission... 

Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead...

He's been dead for almost ten years. Osama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported (Dec 2001), citing a Taliban leader who attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. Bin Laden, according to the source, was suffering from a serious lung complication and succumbed to the disease in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. Another source, a former CIA agent, currently living in Turkey , Berkan Yashar, himself an ethnic Chechen, told the Russian TV station, Channel One. “Samy, Ayub and Mahmud (Bin Laden's Chechen bodyguards) were with him right to the end. I remember well this date as there were three sixes in it – June 26, 2006. Those three men, as well as two Muslims from London and two from the US saw Bin Laden dead. He was seriously ill before his death. He faded away to skin and bone. The three Chechens washed his body before burying it.”

Yashar also said that on the eve of May 2, when President Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed, the Americans found only Bin Laden’s grave near the Afghan-Pakistani border and staged an operation. According to Yashar, US special forces started hunting Bin Laden’s Chechen guards after Bin Laden’s death was first announced at a conference in Washington in November 2008. The last of them, Samy, was taken by the American special forces a few days before Bin Laden was officially pronounced dead. Berkan Yashar believes Samy could have told them the exact place of burial.

Allegedly, the “most wanted criminal” was not moving from hide-out to hide-out in desolate mountains, but ensconced in luxury quarters in broad daylight. Nevertheless, despite his obvious location, it took the CIA years to find him after claiming to have gained information of his whereabouts out of captives in secret prisons. So the claimed murder of bin Laden by the US in a sovereign foreign country with which the US is not at war, a crime under international law, has set up three more self-serving possibilities: Terrorists will avenge bin Laden’s death, says the CIA, setting up another false flag attack to keep the profits flowing into the military/security complex and the power flowing into the unaccountable CIA. Homeland Security can extend the domestic police state, abuse of travelers, and arrests of war protestors. And Pakistan is under the gun of invasion and takeover (for India, of course) for shielding bin Laden. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda connections, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? Obama needs closure of the Afghan war and occupation in order to deal with the US budget deficit. Subsequent statements from Obama regime officials suggest that the agenda might be to give Americans a piece of war victory in order to boost their lagging enthusiasm. Obama needs some "good news" after terrible failure in Libya. Dead or alive, it doesn't matter, Al-Qaeda lives on. There was no Al-Qeada in Iraq, Bosnia or Kosovo before NATO humanitarian operations.

BROTHERS IN ARMS

LIBYA: Al-Qaeda and NATO on the same side

British MI6 and the CIA paid Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda $100,000 dollars to assassinate Gaddafi in 1996 (source). Indeed, it was Gaddafi’s Libya who put out the first Interpol warrant for Bin Laden’s arrest in 1998. Western intelligence agencies blocked the warrant from being pursued, and allowed Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to go on and kill more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania Statements of support for Libya's revolution this year by Al-Qaeda and leading Islamists have led to fears that military action by the West might be playing into the hands of its ideological enemies. Some of the very rebels now being funded and trained by western forces were part of the Al-Qaeda cell that tried to kill Gaddafi on behalf of the United States and Britain 15 years ago. WikiLeaks cables, independent analysts and reporters have all identified supporters of Islamist causes among the opposition to Col Gaddafi's regime, particularly in the towns of Benghazi and Dernah. Col Gaddafi has pinpointed the rebels in Dernah as being led by an Al-Qaeda cell that has declared the town an Islamic emirate. The regime also casts blame on hundreds of members of the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group released since the group renounced violence two years ago. The man running Dernah's defences, Abdelkarim al-Hasadi, was arrested by US forces in Afghanistan in 2002. Achieving new heights of hypocrisy, the U.S government is hyping the threat of Libyan-backed reprisal terror attacks inside the United States, while launching air strikes in support of so-called “protesters” who have commandeered fighter jets and tanks, and are in fact Islamic fundamentalist Al-Qaeda cells who want to impose sharia law in Libya. The UN-backed air strikes have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the human rights of “protesters”. This is about giving war a new facelift, leaving the new world order free to pillage any country they like in the name of “humanitarian” assistance. United States, which kills scores of innocent people every week with predator drone strikes, has now suddenly developed a conscience for human suffering. The whole farce mirrors Bill Clinton’s bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Serbia, which were also about helping Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to topple autocratic but relatively moderate regimes, and were also military conquests packaged in the cloak of “humanitarian” deception by the global establishment media. (wanna know more?)

Support for Muammar al Gaddafi from the people of Serbia

Facebook page

that hit over 22,000.00 fans in just two days (over 66,000.00 on april 5th). Group against aggression on Lybia formed by administrators from Serbia is most visited facebook page on the net at the moment. People got organized via facebook and showed their support in front of TITO memorial center in Belgrade. People of Libya, you are not alone. Serbian media have reported that Serb support for Gadhafi has been welcomed by the Libya's state-run media, while the Libyan opposition has warned that the pro-Gadhafi camp likely enjoys financial backing from nationalist Serb parties. Nothing can be further from the truth. Backers of this facebook group are ordinary everyday internet users that just don't buy another "humanitarian war for peace" lie. Why is that so hard to understand? "There's no such thing as free lunch" is a western saying. In their minds, you have to pay for everything, that's why they think that this support is paid by someone. Nope... this one is for free. Serbian people know fully well what's going on these days in the desert.

video

Journalism or Propaganda

Remember this when you turn on your tv "News" channel. Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare. If you control what people think, you’ve won the war before it has even begun. Since the 1950’s all major news and polling organizations have, to one degree or another, been absorbed into the sphere of control of the intelligence agencies.

The U.S. Department of Defense defines psychological warfare as:
"The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives."

Probably every conflict is fought on at least two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda. The “good guys” and the “bad guys” can often both be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy and even fabrications, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy. In preparing for or justifying war, additional techniques are often employed:

The Preliminary Stage—during which the country concerned comes to the news, portrayed as a cause for “mounting concern” because of poverty/dictatorship/anarchy;
The Justification Stage—during which big news is produced to lend urgency to the case for armed intervention to bring about a rapid restitution of “normality”;
The Implementation Stage—when pooling and censorship provide control of coverage;

There is always a "dead baby story" and it comes at the key point of the Justification Stage—in the form of a story whose apparent urgency brooks no delay—specifically, no time for cool deliberation or negotiating on peace proposals. Human interest stories … are ideal for engendering this atmosphere. Reference to the "dead baby story" is about the 1991 Gulf War where a U.S. public relations firm got a Kuwaiti Ambassador’s daughter to pose as a nurse claiming she saw Iraqi troops killing babies in hospitals. The purpose of this was to create arousal and demonize Iraq so war was more acceptable. The Guardian also points out four stages in preparing a nation for war:

1. The crisis
The reporting of a crisis which negotiations appear unable to resolve. Politicians, while calling for diplomacy, warn of military retaliation. The media reports this as “We’re on the brink of war”, or “War is inevitable”, etc.
2. The demonisation of the enemy’s leader
Comparing the leader with Hitler is a good start because of the instant images that Hitler’s name provokes.
3. The demonisation of the enemy as individuals
For example, to suggest the enemy is insane.
4. Atrocities
Even making up stories to whip up and strengthen emotional reactions.

Journalists who engage in war propaganda must be held accountable.

/by Thierry Meyssan

The war propaganda has entered a new phase, involving the coordinated action of satellite TV stations. CNN, France24, the BBC and Al Jazeera have become instruments of disinformation used to demonize governments and justify armed aggressions. These practices are illegal under international law and the impunity of the perpetrators must be stopped. We witnessed a situation in 2002 when Globovisión broadcast live images of a popular revolution against elected President Hugo Chávez plus images of pro-Chavez activists gunning down protesters. This staged event had made it possible to mask a military coup orchestrated by Washington with the help of Madrid. However, after a genuine popular uprising aborted the coup and reinstated the elected president, legal and journalistic investigations revealed that the revolution filmed by Globovisión was in fact a case of visual trickery and that the Chavistas had never fired on the crowd, but were themselves the victims of snipers armed by the CIA. We see the same thing happening today, but with a consortium of satellite channels which transmit images of nonexistent events in Libya and Syria. Their aim is to make people believe the majority of Libyans and Syrians want to overthrow their political institutions and that Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad have massacred their own people. On the basis of such media intoxication, NATO attacked Libya and is about to destroy Syria. Resolution 110 of 3 November 1947 regarding "measures to be taken against propaganda and the inciters of a new war," condemns "propaganda which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. " Words and, especially, images can be used to prepare the worst crimes. In this case, the intoxication by CNN, France24, the BBC and Al Jazeera constitute "crimes against peace." They should be considered as being more serious than the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by NATO in Libya and by Western intelligence agencies in Syria insofar as they precede and make them possible. Journalists who engage in war propaganda must be tried by International Justice.

War, Propaganda and the Media

"Just doing my job"/ Joseph Goebbels

"Bombs for Peace" over Libya

Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Hillary Clinton, representatives of the Arab League and UN chief Ban Ki-moon have met in Paris to discuss military action to help Al-Qaeda in Libya. Although Germany does not want to take part in any military action in Libya there are reports that there is a proposal on the table between Germany and the US. It could result in Germany sending reinforcements to Afghanistan to free up resources for the Libya mission. Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama, didn't want to be the first to spill some Libyan blood unlike Sarkozy who owes Gaddafi some money, so French were the first to invade Libyan air space. Americans made it clear they do not want to lead the "no-fly zone operation" – they will be just participating. The main goal of the operation is to "protect civilians from Gaddafi". We already know how NATO protects civilians. But, there is a catch, not to mention that those "civilians" use jet fighters and tanks. In order to protect "civilians" one must first, get rid of Gaddafi.

Recent history in the Balkans and Iraq shows us that "no-fly zones" are the first step to a full-on ground assault. Those who advocate in favour of intervention assume that the outcome will be a free and liberal-democratic Libya. It is perhaps worth consulting our history books to remember that democracy does not just happen. It is a messy and long process. There is no guarantee that if NATO bombs Libya, democracy will result. What if the outcome of the rebellion against Gaddafi were to be a hardline Islamic government? Creating a no-fly zone at this point would be the first step to escalating the war, not preventing or ending it. If they are going to strike against targets in the cities, that will certainly result in large numbers of civilian casualties. If west intervenes in Libya, why not in Egypt, why not in Bahrain, why not in Ivory Coast? Some big players in Arab League trade their green light for agression on Libya for freedom of dealing with their own opposition. I'll scratch your back if you scratched mine. I wonder if that call for intervention from Arab League would be possible if Mubarack was still in power. Speaking of new democratic Egypt, Egypt's military is supplying arms to Libyan rebels with the US government’s full knowledge. Facing greater pressure from the Libyan army, rebel gangs have been losing ground. Rebellion has been a disaster and Libyan government won. There was no civil war, only bunch of untrained seccesionists. They were about to be defeated.

Tripoli has submitted to the UN Security Council’s demands and declared a ceasefire. Earlier on Thursday, the UN Security Council approved a resolution which allowed military action against Libyan forces as long as it helped stop violence in the country and did not include any ground operations. On Friday, Libyan Foreign Minister Mussa Kussa said that they had decided on an immediate ceasefire, and pledged that the government will do its best to ensure peace and order in the country and protect human rights. Libyan people's army has encircled last rebel strong hold, city of Benghazi. Mujahedeen fighters were about to be destroyed when US and EU decided to help them and turn the tide. Libyan authorities have already asked the governments of Malta, Turkey and China to send their observers to the country so that they keep a watch on the maintenance of peace. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said that Gaddafi should withdraw his troops from those cities occupied by the opposition. He also called on the Libyan authorities not to prevent "humanitarian aid deliveries to civilians" (weapon deliveries for rebel forces). Same thing happened in Yugoslavia, back in 1999. Same US administration, same Clintons, same politics. Meanwhile, the rebels say they simply do not need the ceasefire. The clashes in the east and west still continue. One "democratic opposition" fighter jet got shot down by Libyan forces and it was enough to call a ceasefire failed. French have dropped their bombs... War is on. It’s not full-scale war, but the objectives of the Western allies are certainly greater than a no-fly zone. Britain and France have absolutely no interest in the revolution being victorious all the way from the east to Tripoli and on to the west of Libya. They have all the oil they need in eastern Libya. They want to devide the country in two. If Gaddafi steps down that is. They are intervening in order to freeze the presence of revolutionary change at a certain point that is not fundamentally threatening to their interests. Collaborators will fight to the end because they know Gaddafi will have no merci on them. Another shamefull war, another lie. Hypocrisy of the West stinks like hell. Talking about selective interference. What about Bahrain? Islamist Rebellion in Libya is anything but killing innocent civilians. But, peaceful protesters are being killed today... in Bahrain.

Bahrain's security forces have continued their attempts to break the back of the island kingdom's mainly Shia opposition movement with a series of arrests and more attacks on Shia villages outside the capital. The 250,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery operated by Bahrain Petroleum Company has been shut down by the strike, what was unacceptable. Pro-democracy protesters fled in panic, witnesses said, as Saudi forces appeared poised to help the embattled government restore order in the strategic Gulf kingdom, home to the US Fifth Fleet. The Saudi troops entered Shiite-majority Bahrain last Sunday as part of the Gulf countries' joint Peninsula Shield Force, the Saudi official told AFP, requesting anonymity. Saudi Arabia being another democracy of course...

Humanitarian Imperialism

by Diana Johnstone

Disturbing similarities between NATO intervention in Serbia 1999 and Libya 2011

Less than a dozen years after NATO bombed Yugoslavia into pieces, detaching the province of Kosovo from Serbia, there are signs that the military alliance is gearing up for another victorious little “humanitarian war”, this time against Libya. The differences are, of course, enormous. But let’s look at some of the disturbing similarities. As “the new Hitler”, the man you love to hate and need to destroy, emerges Gaddafi. Back in the 90's it was Slobodan Milosevic. The media had less than a decade to turn Milosevic into a monster, whereas with Gaddafi, they’ve been at it for several decades. As with Kosovo, the crisis in Libya is perceived by the hawks as an opportunity to assert power. By putting aside the U.N.'s antiquated rules, the United States can "save lives, improve global welfare, and serve its own national interests at the same time". An internal conflict between a government and armed rebels is being cast as a “humanitarian crisis” in which one side only, the government, is assumed to be “criminal”. This a priori criminalization is expressed by calling on an international judicial body to examine crimes which are assumed to have been committed, or about to be committed. It is crystal clear how the International Criminal Court is being used to set the stage for eventual military intervention. The ICC can be used by the West to get around the risk of a Security Council veto for military action. “The Kosovo war” set NATO on the endless path it now pursues in Afghanistan. There is again "We must do something to prevent genocide" Chorus. The mass of refugees fleeing Kosovo as NATO began its bombing campaign was used to justify that bombing, without independent investigation into the varied causes of that temporary exodus – a main cause probably being the bombing itself. Today, from the way media report on the large number of refugees leaving Libya since the troubles began, the public could get the impression that they are fleeing persecution by Gaddafi. As is frequently the case, media focuses on the superficial image without seeking explanations. A bit of reflection may fill the information gap. It is hardly likely that Gaddafi is chasing away the foreign workers that his regime brought to Libya to carry out important infrastructure projects. Rather it is fairly clear that some of the “democratic” rebels have attacked the foreign workers out of pure xenophobia. Another resemblance between former Yugoslavia and Libya is that the United States (and its NATO allies) once again end up on the same side as their old friend from Afghan Mujahidin days, Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was a discreet ally of the Islamist party of Alija Izetbegovic during the Bosnia civil war (which resulted in creation of white Al-Qaeda), a fact that has been studiously overlooked by the NATO powers. Of course, Western media have largely dismissed Gaddafi’s current claim that he is fighting against bin Laden as the ravings of a madman. However, the combat between Gaddafi and bin Laden is very real and predates the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Libyan Islamist Group was formed in 1995 by veterans of the U.S.-sponsored fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Their declared aim was to overthrow Gaddafi in order to establish a radical Islamist state. As Serbia did in the 90's, Lybia is now fighting Al-Qaeda but that fact makes no difference to NATO. In 1999, the United States was eager to use the Kosovo crisis to give NATO’s new “out of area” mission its baptism of fire. The charade of peace talks at Rambouillet was scuttled by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In Libya, the situation could be even worse. Libya is not a populous historic state with thousands of years of history, a strong sense of national identity and a long political culture. Half a century ago, it was one of the poorest countries in the world, and still has not fully emerged from its clan structure. Gaddafi, in his own eccentric way, has been a modernizing factor, using oil revenues to raise the standard of living to one of the highest on the African continent. The opposition to him comes, paradoxically, both from reactionary traditional Islamists on the one hand, who consider him a heretic for his relatively progressive views, and Westernized beneficiaries of modernization on the other hand, who are embarrassed by the Gaddafi image and want still more modernization. So far, the dogs of war are sniffing around for more bloodshed than has actually occurred. Indeed, the US escalated the Kosovo conflict in order to “have to intervene”, and the same risks happening now with regard to Libya, where Western ignorance of what they would be doing is even greater.
The Chavez proposal for neutral mediation to avert catastrophe is the way of wisdom. But in NATOland, the very notion of solving problems by peaceful mediation rather than by force seems to have evaporated.

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