Terror, revenge engulf Nato’s Libya, by Franklin Lamb

[PurityOfEssence]

Following meetings with Libyan evacuees (disappeared) from NATO’s nine months of bombing who are now present in nearby countries and from meetings inside Libya with incarcerated former officials and some of their family members as well as fugitive opponents of the new “government” it is clear that the current period is cascading into paroxysmal revenge attacks and political cleansing.

Those increasingly being targeted by “disappearance squads” are family members and associates, even former domestic employees such as gardeners, handymen, and household staff of former regime affiliates. Homes, cars, furniture, of former regime affiliates are being systematically confiscated. Torture has become the normal means to elicit information regarding the whereabouts of individuals thought to still be supporting the former regime. The reason, according to one former Libyan official who barely escaped one of the French squads and who now resides in Egypt, “is the same reason drones are so popular with your US military, torture works. Not 100% but it’s better than the other options.”

There appears to be a Tell Tale Heart paranoia settling in among some NTC elements who believe that if there is one Gadhafi supporter left in Libya it might mean the return of his ideas for Libya’s role via a vis the West and its re-colonization of Africa plans, control of Libya’s natural resources and its relations with the rapidly changing Middle East.

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/14-Nov-2011/Terror-revenge-engulf-Natos-Libya

I'll say it again: ALL DEATHS AFTER MARCH 19TH ARE THE FAULT OF THE INTERVENTIONISTS. Those who were cocksure that they knew what they were doing by violating the sovereignty of a very complex nation like this mostly assured us that things would be just fine. Revolutions tend to have rather messy second and third acts, and not only are we wrong here for shoving our noses into the affairs of a sovereign nation that had NOT had mass killings or ANY credible threat of them, we may also be giving great fodder to the Republicans if things untangle more in the next few months.

Not mentioned here is the extensive ethnic cleansing that has been done against blacks.

The Arab Spring gave a seemingly golden opportunity for the French and British to get rid of someone who was jacking up the rates to drill, demanding large signing bonuses and threatening nationalization. Then there's the bank issue. Then there's the telecom satellite. Then there's water.

[teddy51]

1. What I want to know is what is a good reason that NATO got involved

in Libya? There are many brutal Governments in the world that could justify regime change being dealt with by outsiders, but NATO has not taken all of them on. So why Libya?

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Besides, that, by the terms of their charter, they CAN'T

NATO members may only take action if a member nation is attacked, period. It IS a self-actuating treaty, so the President may take action without Congress' authorization if such an event presents itself--unlike UN requests, and the stipulations of the War Powers Resolution--but NATO cannot initiate action unless a member nation is attacked. NATO went into Afghanistan because we were attacked in New York.

Yes, your point about the comparison shows the hypocrisy: when the UN resolved to have a no-fly zone and authorize vague actions to protect Libyan civilians, approximately 100 had died in various protests, and all that I can tell had at least violence and torching of government buildings if not weapons present. These were hardly cruel stompings of hippies putting flowers in the barrels of rifles.

Syria, on the other hand, has experienced 3500 DEATHS by now, and there has been shelling of civilian neighborhoods and the like. Then there's Yemen. Then there's Bahrain.

It reeks of sugary excuse-making to enact a resource-grab. Why? Because that's what it is.

[teddy51]

10. Thank you, cause that is my take on it as well. We (the powers that be in NATO)

and many now have Conservative Governments ie: UK, Canada, France, etc. must be asked why they picked Libya and not a country with no oil resources.

[malaise]

16. OIL! n/t

[Philosopher King]

2. Are you suggesting that our all knowing foreign policy experts should have specifically

defined what it was that we are supporting and potential consequences of the action? :rofl:

Seriously, you are absolutely correct, but as you probably already know, those of us who prefer to contemplate, consider and calculate, prior to engaging, are simply "sticks in the mud," who are blocking the path to a better world.

[teddy51]

3. I think the world is a better place without Kadafi, but why did NATO decide

that he had to go, say as opposed to Myanmar?

[PurityOfEssence]

7. I humbly beg succor in the face of this.

I just have this bee in my bonnet from the Obama acolytes who firmly believe that anything he does is pristine and altruistic. This was ugly, violent violation of sovereignty to steal resources, and it was done in an idiotic and callous way. If one engages in war, one should do so quickly, whereas we did this on the ultra-cheap, thus causing many more civilian casualties.

The sheer illegality of the whole endeavor is outrageous, and the reactionaries just love that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have gutted and splayed the War Powers Resolution.

Those who think this is an act of human decency are fools, idiots, cheerleaders, self-absorbed sociopaths and nincompoops.

[sad sally]

14. Another act of human decency aka war in the making here:

Reports: U.S. Military to Help Fight Nigerian Terrorists

The Pentagon’s shadow war in Africa could have a new front, if reports coming out of Nigeria are accurate. U.S. troops are headed to Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group that has killed up to 400 people this year in an escalating campaign of bombings and shootings. At least that’s what Nigerian military sources tell Scott Morgan, a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes under the pseudonym “Confused Eagle.” The Guardian also has the story.

U.S. officials have refused to confirm the deployment.

However, a new U.S. assistance mission would be consistent with steadily increasing Pentagon involvement in a wide range of African conflicts. American forces have been active in and around Somalia for the better part of a decade, targeting pirates and the terror group al-Shabab. Last month, President Barack Obama announced he was sending 100 U.S. advisers to help the Ugandan army track the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group in Congo. And this year the Pentagon has quietly set up a number of new bases in Ethiopia and the Seychelles to provide air support to all these operations.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/u-s-troops-nigeria/?du

[marmar]

4. Boy, nobody could see this coming.

:sarcasm:

[Starry Messenger]

5. k&r

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Yet it's still at zero, so the unrec brigade is out in force

What a shameful episode.

Thanks for the consistent decency...

[Starry Messenger]

15. Thank you for posting this PurityOfEssence.

This entire thing sickens me.

[PurityOfEssence]

17. The deep and blatant cynicism of the whole thing is jaw-dropping

Tawerga has been ethnically cleansed. The oil is flowing. The money is out in the open and up for grabs.

The cheerleaders are less vocal these days, aren't they? 'Twas a time when any such threads would be met with vigorous rebuttal from the virtuous warmongers, but such doesn't seem to be the case now. Now it's just the basic unreccing.

It's only just starting. Any student of history understands the messiness of the next few steps after an overthrow like this. Still, the corporate media is a powerful friend to those who like to keep thievery and conquest secret, and this is a glorious moment for them: most of the left is silenced due its need to keep the lie alive that Obama is unquestionable and saintly.

Once again: more dead people whose demise is our fault. It is unconscionable, and shocking that such wickedness gets no media attention at all. It is chilling and nauseating, your response hits a chord: it sickens me too, leaving me literally becalmed with a depressed feeling of true nausea.

Those who defend this illegal and deceptive resource-grab are frightening for their gullibility and disgusting for their need to keep rationalizing the unsupportable. Mercifully, many have peeled off from the pom-pom squad and see the error of their ways.

[riderinthestorm]

9. Boy, I seem to remember anyone suggesting Libya was in a civil war

and that NATO engagement was a mistake...

... were roundly criticized as being anti-Muslim bigots who hated the freedom/democracy/equal rights wave of Arab Spring revolutionaries! Or worse accused of being Gaddafi lovers???11111!!!111


I mean, Libya was only about that right? Gawd forbid anyone mention the civil war that had been a long running battle there for well, decades? Or the illegal NATO involvement? Or the fact we were backing the Islamist faction and what was the future for women/glbt/minority religions etc. etc.

(and please don't bring up Libya's pure sweet crude, or Europe's oh so valuable contracts, or anything about oil!)

[teddy51]

11. So why did NATO select Libya to defend? There are many, many countries out there

that have brutal leaders running there countries. Why Libya?

[riderinthestorm]

12. Libya has some of the best sweet crude oil on the planet. nt

[teddy51]

13. So WTF am I missing with your post here?

(and please don't bring up Libya's pure sweet crude, or Europe's oh so valuable contracts, or anything about oil!)

[court jester]

18. From 1999: Backing up Globalization with Military Might - a 12 yr old article sums it up

better than most available now

"...Burgeoning military alliances, with the U.S. at the helm, are likely to try intervening in a similar way against North Korea, China — any country refusing to be a "New World Order" colony by allowing its wealth and labor power to be plundered by the TNCs...

"...An article by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times entitled "What the World Needs Now" tells it all. Illustrated by an American Flag on a fist it said, among other things: "For globalism to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is....The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist-McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." (23)

"...There could not be a better description of how the U.S. armed forces are seen as the military arm of the globalizing transnational corporations (TNCs)..."

http://www.globalissues.org/article/448/backing-up-globalization-with-military-might
This article contains what used to be call "reporting" or "journalism", as opposed to what we have now, which is a bunch of well coiffed talking useless heads repeating press releases


Kaddafi didn't want to play ball...so he was taken out. (hey even female news anchors now sound like Tony Soprano)

And if you missed this it is astounding:

http://www.laguerrehumanitaire.fr/english