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18 March, 2011

The Nation

At press time, the nuclear crisis in Japan is out of control: three reactors are in partial meltdown, two are leaking radiation, at least one pool full of eighty tons of “spent” uranium fuel rods may be burning, two other such pools are getting very hot. Three major explosions have destroyed much of the Fukushima plant’s basic infrastructure, like cranes, monitors and mechanical controls.

Japanese officials have prevaricated, fumbled and have now largely retreated; the distressed plant is just too hot. Their understanding of the crisis is fragmentary. What they tell the public is even more limited. In total desperation they bombed the site with water dropped from helicopters but aborted that plan when radiation exposure proved too dangerous. Radioactive fallout is already sickening people. And this is just the beginning.

Fukushima is a grave warning. The message is clear: systems fail; the unthinkable happens. Yet even in the face of this catastrophe a gang of pro-nuke zealots, like Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California, are saying the crisis will actually be good for the much-hyped but elusive “nuclear renaissance.”

Nunes wants the United States to build 200 new nuclear plants! But that figure, while stunning, is largely meaningless. Why not call for 301 or 517 new plants? The fact is that the amount of private capital required to build new plants is nowhere on the horizon. Wall Street is rightly scared of such investments; nukes go over cost and present huge risks. Only governments in places like China and India—unconcerned about making a profit on investments—build new nuclear plants.

So, never mind the blather about “new” nukes. It is the old ones we must focus on. The United States has a fleet of 104 old and rickety nuclear reactors. Twenty-three of them are the same General Electric design as the Fukushima plant. Perhaps more dangerous than our old and brittle equipment is the arrogance and overconfidence of our regulators and managers. The culture of the industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is pathologically cavalier. The mix of technological hubris with the profit motive has produced a track record of slipshod management, corner-cutting and repeated lying.

As former NRC commissioner Peter Bradford put it, “The phrase ‘it can’t happen here’ is an invitation to disaster.” But remarkably, that is what the pro-nuke crew are saying. Three days into the crisis in Japan, the Nuclear Energy Association put out a statement that read, “The events at Fukushima
Daiichi show that nuclear power’s defense-in-depth approach to safety is appropriate and strong.”

The nuclear power industry is setting our country up for disaster by quietly pushing the NRC to relicense and extend the operation of our existing fleet of old reactors. Worse, they are getting “power-up rates” that allow the plants to run at up to 120 percent of their originally intended capacity. That means their systems are subject to unprecedented amounts of heat, pressure, corrosion, stress and embrittling radiation. Many of these “up-rated” and relicensed plants are leaking or have leaked radioactive, carcinogenic, tritium-polluted water. A quarter of all US reactors have such leaks.

So far more than half of America’s commercial nuclear reactors have received new twenty-year operating license renewals. In fact, the NRC has not rejected a single license-renewal application. Vermont Yankee is one of the plants up for relicensing, and it has a tritium leak that no one can seem to find or stop. At first company officials from Entergy of Louisiana just lied about the problem, telling state regulators and lawmakers that the plant did not have the sort of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater. But it does.

Another problem is the accumulation of spent fuel rods that sit in pools onsite, next door to the reactors they once fed. Unlike the reactors, spent fuel rod pools are not housed in any sort of hardened or sealed containment structure. Their name—especially “spent” and “pool”—conveys calm dissipation. But the uranium in the spent fuel rod pools is highly radioactive, very unstable, extremely dangerous and, compared with reactors, not well supported, contained or looked over. When exposed to air for a day or two, the fuel rods begin to combust, giving off large amounts of radioactive cesium-137, a very toxic, long-lasting, aggressively penetrating radioactive element with a half-life of thirty years. In the environment, cesium-137 acts like potassium, and is taken up by plants and animals.

At Fukushima each reactor has between sixty and eighty-three tons of spent fuel rods stored next to it. At Vermont Yankee, with its GE reactor of the same design as the Fukushima plant, there are a staggering 690 tons of spent fuel rods onsite. What’s worse, spent fuel rod pools at Vermont Yankee are not equipped with backup water-circulation systems or even backup generators for the existing water-circulation system.

A regime of constant, careful inspection coupled with elaborate and expensive maintenance could make these old nuclear plants safer, but unfortunately the NRC’s requirements fall far short of that. During his campaign, Barack Obama called the NRC “a moribund agency…captive of the industry it regulates.” But as president he has been an utter disappointment on this front. The NRC, now run by Obama appointee Gregory Jaczko, is carrying on willy-nilly relicensing plants.

The NRC needs an overhaul—now. And our fleet of leaky old plants needs to be decommissioned. We get less than 9 percent of our total energy needs from nuclear power, so with proper conservation, we can make up that loss. Fukushima is trying to tell us something. We must heed its warning.

© 2011 The Nation

Christian Parenti, a Nation contributing editor, fellow at The Nation Institute and visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center, is the author of The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq (New Press), and is at work on a book about climate change and war.

 

 

 

21 March, 2011 Countercurrents.org

On March 19, ironically on the eighth anniversary of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a White House Office of the Press Secretary quoted Obama saying:

“Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to (attack) Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians,” he, in fact, doesn’t give a damn about. “That action has now begun,” he added, claiming military action was a last resort.

In fact, it was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including target selections, strategy, enlisting political and public support, troop deployments, and post-conflict plans.

Weeks, maybe months in advance, Special Forces, CIA agents, and UK SAS operatives were in Libya, enlisting, inciting, funding, and arming so-called anti-Gaddafi opposition forces, ahead of Western aggression for imperial control. More on it below.

A March 19 Department of Defense (DOD) Armed Forces Press Service release announced America’s led “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” saying:

“Coalition (of the willing) forces launched “Operation Odyssey Dawn” today to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan people from the country’s ruler….Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people.”

False! In fact, Washington-led naked aggression was launched to replace one despot with another, perhaps assassinate Gaddafi, his sons and top officials, colonize Libya, control its oil, gas and other resources, exploit its people, private state industries under Western (mainly US) control, establish new Pentagon bases, use them for greater regional dominance, perhaps balkanize the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq, and prevent any democratic spark from emerging.

According to DODspeak, Libya is being attacked, its people killed, civilian targets destroyed, and a humanitarian disaster created to save it. In other words, “destroying the village to save it” on a nationwide scale like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s, and Korea in the 1950s since WW II alone. Besides numerous proxy wars in Central America, Africa and elsewhere. Wherever America shows up, blood spills followed by horrific human suffering, what Libyans can now expect.

Military and government targets include:

— command-and-control centers;

— air defense systems;

— Gaddafi, his sons and senior officials;

— communications systems;

— government buildings and other facilities; and

— military air fields, tanks, artillery, other weapons, munitions, fuel depots, mobile and other targets.

About 25 US, UK, French, Canadian and Italian ships are involved, 11 from America, including three nuclear submarines. The Pentagon is providing command, control and logistics support. Air and surface-launched munitions are being used, including against Tripoli, the capital and Gaddafi stronghold.

Moreover, invasion and perhaps occupation may follow, despite official denials.

Either way, widespread death and destruction is likely. Surgical war is an oxymoron. Expect considerable “collateral damage,” the Orwellian designation for war crimes against noncombatants and civilian targets.

In his 1992 book titled, “Beyond Hypocrisy,” Edward Herman referred to “nuclear chicken analysis,” defining “collateral casualties” as “civilians killed as a regrettable ‘spillover effect’ of a nuclear attack on a military target’ more generally, allegedly unintended casualties” of any type attack.

In other words, “inadvertent and tragic errors” that, in fact, constitute wanton murder and destruction of schools, hospitals, vital infrastructure and other non-military targets.

Pack Journalism Promotes War

A previous article explained how it enlists public support for imperial war, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/pack-journalism-promotes-war-on-libya.html

Western media, including BBC and Al Jazeera incite it, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive. Smell it. It arrived again because inflammatory journalism stoked reasons to attack. As a result, America, Britain and France primarily readied strikes. Ground and submarine-launced cruise missiles inflicted widespread destruction. In addition, French jets struck “targets of opportunity,” preceded by exaggerated/unverified/inflammatory reports like the following:

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Reports Say Attacks by Regime Against Rebels Continue,” saying:

Unverified “(r)eports indicated that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces were continuing to press their attacks despite warnings that such moves would provoke military action.”

On March 19, Financial Times writer Tobias Buck headlined, “Gaddafi launches assault on Benghazi,” saying:

Forces loyal to Gaddafi attacked “in violation of the regime’s promise of a ceasefire.”

Libyan state TV channel, Al Jamahiriya, reported it differently, saying “the people of Benghazi have risen up against the rebels and raised the flag of Libya over the government building in the middle of the city.”

On March 19, New York Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

“American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international intervention” since 2003 against Iraq, omitting the illegality of both aggressions.

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrich and Elisabeth Musmiller headlined, “France Sends Military Flights Over Libya,” saying:

Flying reconnaissance missions, it’s “the first sign” of premeditated war, launching new hostilities against a war-torn region, without explanation why.

On March 19, Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined, “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

Hostilities began to stop “Qaddafi’s war on the Libyan opposition,” after a no-fly zone was established.

As a result, war arrived preemptively. French President Sarkozy said it’s to stop Gaddafi’s “murderous madness,” no matter that he responded to violence. He didn’t instigate it. So would Sarkozy, Obama or any leader against armed insurrection.

Love or hate him, Gaddafi said:

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans. This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe. You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs.”

Hours earlier, he pledged a ceasefire. Conflicting reports disagree if he honored it. Is he or Western intervention stoking violence? US media reports point fingers one way.

Washington, Britain, France, other NATO allies, and complicit Arab States back armed anti-Gaddafi insurrection. They’re promoting it, inciting it, funding it, arming it, with clear imperial aims. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/washingtons-un-war-resolution-on-libya.html

On March 19, ahead of intervention, Al Jazeera headlined, “Gaddafi forces encroaching on Benghazi,” saying:

Gaddafi unleashed “a fresh act of defiance even as the United States and its allies prepared to launch military attacks on Libya.”

Unverified “(r)eports from Libya say pro-government forces have entered the western outskirts of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, with the city also coming under attack from the coast and the south.”

Unnamed “(w)itnesses….said they heard large explosions….Government troops reportedly bombed the southern Benghazi suburb of Goreshi among other places.”

No verification was given, except to quote Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opposition National Libyan Council leader. More on him below. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported “a lot of jittery people…a lot of activity and a lot of firing going on.”

In contrast, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told the BBC that “the ceasefire is real, credible and solid. We are willing to receive (international and NGO) observers as soon as possible.” He insisted no air strikes were launched.

Hours later Al Jazeera headlined, “Airstrikes begin on Libya targets,” saying:

“French warplanes hit four tanks….on a day when opposition fighters in (Benghazi) reported coming under constant artillery and mortar fire.” Expect sustained strikes to follow.

Al Jazeera and other media reports don’t explain that “opposition” officials from organizations like the National Libyan Council and National Front for the Salvation of Libya have close Western ties, pretending they’re credible. More about them below.

Headquartered in Qatar, moreover, Al Jazeera noticeably abstains from criticizing its government, now part of Washington’s anti-Gaddafi coalition-of-the-willing, complicit in illegal aggression.

On March 18, Obama stopped short of declaring war, announcing “all necessary measures” against Gaddafi without full compliance with UN Resolution terms, including an immediate ceasefire, withdrawing his forces, reestablishing essential services to all parts of the country, and letting in “humanitarian assistance,” including foreign imperial forces opposed to his leadership.

In other words, impossible terms to accept to be followed by others likely demanding he step down, permit balkanization, predatory Western investment, US bases, and free exploitation of his resources and people. Imagine comparable demands made on America – non-negtiable to be followed by military action for non-compliance.

On March 18, NATO Secretary-General Anders Rogh Rasmussen signaled war, saying the alliance was “completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the UN resolution as part of the broad international effort.”

Launched the next day, the resources of another resource-rich Arab state will be divided among Western belligerents, to benefit Libyans, they claim.

On March 20, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick, Steven Erlanger and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Qaddafi Pledges ‘Long War’ as Allies Pursue Air Assault,” saying:

“On Sunday, American (stealth) B-2 bombers were reported to have struck a major Libyan airfield,” following initial attacks against Libya’s air defense systems, “missile, radar and communications centers around Tripoli,” Misurata and Surt.

Reuters said “US fighter planes backed by electronic warfare aircraft” attacked Gaddafi’s ground troops and air defenses. A Pentagon statement stated:

“US Navy Growlers provided electronic warfare support over Libya while AV-8B Harriers from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted strikes….”

Parliamentary secretary Muhammad Zweid said attacks “caused some real harm against civilians and buildings.” According to an unnamed US official, Libya’s air defenses are now “severely disabled.”

As of Sunday morning, visible destruction also included 14 tanks, 20 armored personnel carriers, two or more trucks, rocket launchers, dozens of pick-ups, and exploding munitions. Ahead of cruise missile attacks, France initiated reconnaissance flights and aggression.

On March 19, Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya’s Global Research.ca article headlined, “Breaking News: Libyan Hospitals Attacked. Libyan Source: Three French Jets Downed,” saying:

Regime change-planned naked aggression was launched. “The war criminals are back at it again,” Washington, of course, in the lead. On March 19, “sources in Libya have reported that three medical facilities were bombarded. Two were hospitals and one a medical clinic. These were civilian facilities.”

Targets attacked included Al-Tajura and Saladin hospitals as well as a clinic near Tripoli, unrelated to military necessity, distant from combat areas. Moreover, civilian air facilities were struck as well as “all Libyan military bases” – air, naval and ground. In addition, “a vast naval blockade around Libya has now been imposed,” America the lead belligerent.

Further, Libyan sources report “two French jets were also shot down….near Janzour” plus another “near Anjile.” Washington and co-belligerents “are creating a real humanitarian disaster,” waging war for peace, killing civilians to save them, and destroying Libya by “humanitarian intervention.”

Moreover, Washington enlisted Egypt and Saudi Arabia to supply “opposition forces” with weapons, in violation of Resolution 1973 prohibiting any sent. Of course, international and US law forbid aggressive war, but that never deterred imperial America from preemptively attacking, invading, occupying and colonizing nations illegally, Libya its latest target.

Libya’s So-Called “Opposition”

Included are the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, its officials with ties to the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Also, Muhammad as-Senussi, Libya’s so-called heir to the Senussi Crown, concerned only for his own self-interest.

Central is the National Libyan Council (NLC), announced on February 26, established officially on March 5, led by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, a Western-allied opportunist.

NLC is an umbrella group of local so-called opposition leaders headquartered in Benghazi. Bogusly, it claims to represent all Libyans. Abdel-Jalil calls it a “transitional government” ahead of future elections after Gaddafi is deposed.

At the same time, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a Benghazi lawyer, refuted his leadership, calling himself NLC’s official spokesman. Both men, however, have similar aspirations, including controlling Libya by ousting Gaddafi.

As of now, Abdel-Jalil remains NLC’s official head, Ghoga its spokesman, and Omar El-Hariri in charge of military operations. General Abdel Fattah Younis may be another key member, his status, however, not confirmed. In total, NLC has about 30 members. Most aren’t named. Two known include, Mahmoud Jebril and Ali al-Essawi, former Libyan ambassador to India in charge of foreign affairs.

On March 5, Reuters headlined, “Rebel National Libya Council sets up (a three-member) crisis committee,” saying:

In charge of military and foreign affairs, members include Omar El-Hariri, Ali al-Essawi, and Mahmoud Jebril as leader.

Western Hypocrisy – Denouncing Violence While Backing It

At Obama’s behest, about 1,000 Saudi troops invaded Bahrain guns blazing, attacking peaceful protesters, arresting opposition leaders and activists, occupying the country, denying wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposing police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

Not an angry Western demand was heard to stop hostilities and leave. Nor against similar Egyptian army attacks or on civilians in Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Oman, Iraq, and Yemen, let alone daily against Palestinians.

On March 18, in fact, dozens of Yemenese were killed, scores more wounded in Sanaa, the capital, when security forces attacked thousands, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

Ally turned bete noire Gaddafi was targeted for removal. In contrast, Saleh is supported because of Yemen’s strategic location near the Horn of Africa on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, the Red Sea, its Bab el-Mandeb strait (a key chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea through which three million barrels of oil pass daily), and the Gulf of Aden connection to the Indian Ocean.

Instead of denouncing his brutality, Obama endorsed it, calling on “all sides (to pursue) a peaceful, orderly and democratic path to a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

Friday’s massacre was the bloodiest since resistance erupted in mid-February. Security forces and plainclothes police opened fire on demonstrators, shooting to kill, hitting some in the back of the head as they fled. Afterward, Saleh imposed a state of emergency and nationwide curfew.

Demonstrations, nonetheless, persist, Yemenese wanting his 32-year dictatorship ended. Achieving it, however, entails overcoming Washington’s imperial grip on regional client states, all run by favored despots.

A Final Comment

On March 19, Professor As’ad AbuKhalil’s Angry Arab.com headlined, “Bush Doctrine revised: Obama puts his stamp,” saying:

“Western/Saudi/Qarari military intervention in Libya sets a dangerous precedent.” Under Bush, ousting regimes for democracy “was a bloody farce….” Obama’s model may be installing puppets “without having ‘boots on the ground,’ ” but don’t discount them. He expanded Bush’s Afghan war, began his own in Pakistan as well as in Somalia, Yemen and Bahrain, backing favored despots besides the Saudi monarchy.

AbuKhalil calls NLC’s Abdel-Jalil “a useful idiot.” Moreover, “Western enthusiasm for (Libyan) intervention” was never properly explained beyond nonsensical platitudes about “humanitarian intervention” to protect civilians.

In contrast, “why (didn’t) the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia….warrant” similar outrage, let alone Israel’s Cast Lead, occupation and daily aggression against defenseless Palestinians.

Intervening militarily is Libya “is far more dangerous: it is intended to legitimize the return of colonial powers, (and) abort democratic uprisings all over the region. Bahrain (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) of today (are) the vision for Libya for tomorrow,” Western-dominated, of course.

Will it work? Love or hate Gaddafi, Libyans know what Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians endure. Moreover, its society is fractious, divided by tribal loyalties, suspicious of Western intervention, and long-governed locally as well as nationally.

Against them is America’s military might under leaders not shy about using it. As a result, Libyans are experiencing firsthand what’s ahead under Western control, what makes Iraqis yearn for Saddam, almost saintly compared to Washington.

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/

 

 

 

 

21 March, 2011 Countercurrents.org

On March 19, ironically on the eighth anniversary of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a White House Office of the Press Secretary quoted Obama saying:

“Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to (attack) Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians,” he, in fact, doesn’t give a damn about. “That action has now begun,” he added, claiming military action was a last resort.

In fact, it was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including target selections, strategy, enlisting political and public support, troop deployments, and post-conflict plans.

Weeks, maybe months in advance, Special Forces, CIA agents, and UK SAS operatives were in Libya, enlisting, inciting, funding, and arming so-called anti-Gaddafi opposition forces, ahead of Western aggression for imperial control. More on it below.

A March 19 Department of Defense (DOD) Armed Forces Press Service release announced America’s led “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” saying:

“Coalition (of the willing) forces launched “Operation Odyssey Dawn” today to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to protect the Libyan people from the country’s ruler….Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people.”

False! In fact, Washington-led naked aggression was launched to replace one despot with another, perhaps assassinate Gaddafi, his sons and top officials, colonize Libya, control its oil, gas and other resources, exploit its people, private state industries under Western (mainly US) control, establish new Pentagon bases, use them for greater regional dominance, perhaps balkanize the country like Yugoslavia and Iraq, and prevent any democratic spark from emerging.

According to DODspeak, Libya is being attacked, its people killed, civilian targets destroyed, and a humanitarian disaster created to save it. In other words, “destroying the village to save it” on a nationwide scale like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 70s, and Korea in the 1950s since WW II alone. Besides numerous proxy wars in Central America, Africa and elsewhere. Wherever America shows up, blood spills followed by horrific human suffering, what Libyans can now expect.

Military and government targets include:

— command-and-control centers;

— air defense systems;

— Gaddafi, his sons and senior officials;

— communications systems;

— government buildings and other facilities; and

— military air fields, tanks, artillery, other weapons, munitions, fuel depots, mobile and other targets.

About 25 US, UK, French, Canadian and Italian ships are involved, 11 from America, including three nuclear submarines. The Pentagon is providing command, control and logistics support. Air and surface-launched munitions are being used, including against Tripoli, the capital and Gaddafi stronghold.

Moreover, invasion and perhaps occupation may follow, despite official denials.

Either way, widespread death and destruction is likely. Surgical war is an oxymoron. Expect considerable “collateral damage,” the Orwellian designation for war crimes against noncombatants and civilian targets.

In his 1992 book titled, “Beyond Hypocrisy,” Edward Herman referred to “nuclear chicken analysis,” defining “collateral casualties” as “civilians killed as a regrettable ‘spillover effect’ of a nuclear attack on a military target’ more generally, allegedly unintended casualties” of any type attack.

In other words, “inadvertent and tragic errors” that, in fact, constitute wanton murder and destruction of schools, hospitals, vital infrastructure and other non-military targets.

Pack Journalism Promotes War

A previous article explained how it enlists public support for imperial war, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/pack-journalism-promotes-war-on-libya.html

Western media, including BBC and Al Jazeera incite it, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive. Smell it. It arrived again because inflammatory journalism stoked reasons to attack. As a result, America, Britain and France primarily readied strikes. Ground and submarine-launced cruise missiles inflicted widespread destruction. In addition, French jets struck “targets of opportunity,” preceded by exaggerated/unverified/inflammatory reports like the following:

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Reports Say Attacks by Regime Against Rebels Continue,” saying:

Unverified “(r)eports indicated that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces were continuing to press their attacks despite warnings that such moves would provoke military action.”

On March 19, Financial Times writer Tobias Buck headlined, “Gaddafi launches assault on Benghazi,” saying:

Forces loyal to Gaddafi attacked “in violation of the regime’s promise of a ceasefire.”

Libyan state TV channel, Al Jamahiriya, reported it differently, saying “the people of Benghazi have risen up against the rebels and raised the flag of Libya over the government building in the middle of the city.”

On March 19, New York Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

“American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international intervention” since 2003 against Iraq, omitting the illegality of both aggressions.

On March 19, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrich and Elisabeth Musmiller headlined, “France Sends Military Flights Over Libya,” saying:

Flying reconnaissance missions, it’s “the first sign” of premeditated war, launching new hostilities against a war-torn region, without explanation why.

On March 19, Times writers Steven Erlanger and David Kirkpatrick headlined, “Allies Open Push in Libya to Block Qaddafi Assaults,” saying:

Hostilities began to stop “Qaddafi’s war on the Libyan opposition,” after a no-fly zone was established.

As a result, war arrived preemptively. French President Sarkozy said it’s to stop Gaddafi’s “murderous madness,” no matter that he responded to violence. He didn’t instigate it. So would Sarkozy, Obama or any leader against armed insurrection.

Love or hate him, Gaddafi said:

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans. This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe. You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs.”

Hours earlier, he pledged a ceasefire. Conflicting reports disagree if he honored it. Is he or Western intervention stoking violence? US media reports point fingers one way.

Washington, Britain, France, other NATO allies, and complicit Arab States back armed anti-Gaddafi insurrection. They’re promoting it, inciting it, funding it, arming it, with clear imperial aims. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/03/washingtons-un-war-resolution-on-libya.html

On March 19, ahead of intervention, Al Jazeera headlined, “Gaddafi forces encroaching on Benghazi,” saying:

Gaddafi unleashed “a fresh act of defiance even as the United States and its allies prepared to launch military attacks on Libya.”

Unverified “(r)eports from Libya say pro-government forces have entered the western outskirts of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, with the city also coming under attack from the coast and the south.”

Unnamed “(w)itnesses….said they heard large explosions….Government troops reportedly bombed the southern Benghazi suburb of Goreshi among other places.”

No verification was given, except to quote Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opposition National Libyan Council leader. More on him below. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported “a lot of jittery people…a lot of activity and a lot of firing going on.”

In contrast, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told the BBC that “the ceasefire is real, credible and solid. We are willing to receive (international and NGO) observers as soon as possible.” He insisted no air strikes were launched.

Hours later Al Jazeera headlined, “Airstrikes begin on Libya targets,” saying:

“French warplanes hit four tanks….on a day when opposition fighters in (Benghazi) reported coming under constant artillery and mortar fire.” Expect sustained strikes to follow.

Al Jazeera and other media reports don’t explain that “opposition” officials from organizations like the National Libyan Council and National Front for the Salvation of Libya have close Western ties, pretending they’re credible. More about them below.

Headquartered in Qatar, moreover, Al Jazeera noticeably abstains from criticizing its government, now part of Washington’s anti-Gaddafi coalition-of-the-willing, complicit in illegal aggression.

On March 18, Obama stopped short of declaring war, announcing “all necessary measures” against Gaddafi without full compliance with UN Resolution terms, including an immediate ceasefire, withdrawing his forces, reestablishing essential services to all parts of the country, and letting in “humanitarian assistance,” including foreign imperial forces opposed to his leadership.

In other words, impossible terms to accept to be followed by others likely demanding he step down, permit balkanization, predatory Western investment, US bases, and free exploitation of his resources and people. Imagine comparable demands made on America – non-negtiable to be followed by military action for non-compliance.

On March 18, NATO Secretary-General Anders Rogh Rasmussen signaled war, saying the alliance was “completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the UN resolution as part of the broad international effort.”

Launched the next day, the resources of another resource-rich Arab state will be divided among Western belligerents, to benefit Libyans, they claim.

On March 20, New York Times writers David Kirkpatrick, Steven Erlanger and Elisabeth Busmiller headlined, “Qaddafi Pledges ‘Long War’ as Allies Pursue Air Assault,” saying:

“On Sunday, American (stealth) B-2 bombers were reported to have struck a major Libyan airfield,” following initial attacks against Libya’s air defense systems, “missile, radar and communications centers around Tripoli,” Misurata and Surt.

Reuters said “US fighter planes backed by electronic warfare aircraft” attacked Gaddafi’s ground troops and air defenses. A Pentagon statement stated:

“US Navy Growlers provided electronic warfare support over Libya while AV-8B Harriers from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted strikes….”

Parliamentary secretary Muhammad Zweid said attacks “caused some real harm against civilians and buildings.” According to an unnamed US official, Libya’s air defenses are now “severely disabled.”

As of Sunday morning, visible destruction also included 14 tanks, 20 armored personnel carriers, two or more trucks, rocket launchers, dozens of pick-ups, and exploding munitions. Ahead of cruise missile attacks, France initiated reconnaissance flights and aggression.

On March 19, Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya’s Global Research.ca article headlined, “Breaking News: Libyan Hospitals Attacked. Libyan Source: Three French Jets Downed,” saying:

Regime change-planned naked aggression was launched. “The war criminals are back at it again,” Washington, of course, in the lead. On March 19, “sources in Libya have reported that three medical facilities were bombarded. Two were hospitals and one a medical clinic. These were civilian facilities.”

Targets attacked included Al-Tajura and Saladin hospitals as well as a clinic near Tripoli, unrelated to military necessity, distant from combat areas. Moreover, civilian air facilities were struck as well as “all Libyan military bases” – air, naval and ground. In addition, “a vast naval blockade around Libya has now been imposed,” America the lead belligerent.

Further, Libyan sources report “two French jets were also shot down….near Janzour” plus another “near Anjile.” Washington and co-belligerents “are creating a real humanitarian disaster,” waging war for peace, killing civilians to save them, and destroying Libya by “humanitarian intervention.”

Moreover, Washington enlisted Egypt and Saudi Arabia to supply “opposition forces” with weapons, in violation of Resolution 1973 prohibiting any sent. Of course, international and US law forbid aggressive war, but that never deterred imperial America from preemptively attacking, invading, occupying and colonizing nations illegally, Libya its latest target.

Libya’s So-Called “Opposition”

Included are the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, its officials with ties to the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Also, Muhammad as-Senussi, Libya’s so-called heir to the Senussi Crown, concerned only for his own self-interest.

Central is the National Libyan Council (NLC), announced on February 26, established officially on March 5, led by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, a Western-allied opportunist.

NLC is an umbrella group of local so-called opposition leaders headquartered in Benghazi. Bogusly, it claims to represent all Libyans. Abdel-Jalil calls it a “transitional government” ahead of future elections after Gaddafi is deposed.

At the same time, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a Benghazi lawyer, refuted his leadership, calling himself NLC’s official spokesman. Both men, however, have similar aspirations, including controlling Libya by ousting Gaddafi.

As of now, Abdel-Jalil remains NLC’s official head, Ghoga its spokesman, and Omar El-Hariri in charge of military operations. General Abdel Fattah Younis may be another key member, his status, however, not confirmed. In total, NLC has about 30 members. Most aren’t named. Two known include, Mahmoud Jebril and Ali al-Essawi, former Libyan ambassador to India in charge of foreign affairs.

On March 5, Reuters headlined, “Rebel National Libya Council sets up (a three-member) crisis committee,” saying:

In charge of military and foreign affairs, members include Omar El-Hariri, Ali al-Essawi, and Mahmoud Jebril as leader.

Western Hypocrisy – Denouncing Violence While Backing It

At Obama’s behest, about 1,000 Saudi troops invaded Bahrain guns blazing, attacking peaceful protesters, arresting opposition leaders and activists, occupying the country, denying wounded men and women medical treatment, and imposing police state control in support of the hated monarchy.

Not an angry Western demand was heard to stop hostilities and leave. Nor against similar Egyptian army attacks or on civilians in Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Oman, Iraq, and Yemen, let alone daily against Palestinians.

On March 18, in fact, dozens of Yemenese were killed, scores more wounded in Sanaa, the capital, when security forces attacked thousands, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down.

Ally turned bete noire Gaddafi was targeted for removal. In contrast, Saleh is supported because of Yemen’s strategic location near the Horn of Africa on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, the Red Sea, its Bab el-Mandeb strait (a key chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea through which three million barrels of oil pass daily), and the Gulf of Aden connection to the Indian Ocean.

Instead of denouncing his brutality, Obama endorsed it, calling on “all sides (to pursue) a peaceful, orderly and democratic path to a stronger and more prosperous nation.”

Friday’s massacre was the bloodiest since resistance erupted in mid-February. Security forces and plainclothes police opened fire on demonstrators, shooting to kill, hitting some in the back of the head as they fled. Afterward, Saleh imposed a state of emergency and nationwide curfew.

Demonstrations, nonetheless, persist, Yemenese wanting his 32-year dictatorship ended. Achieving it, however, entails overcoming Washington’s imperial grip on regional client states, all run by favored despots.

A Final Comment

On March 19, Professor As’ad AbuKhalil’s Angry Arab.com headlined, “Bush Doctrine revised: Obama puts his stamp,” saying:

“Western/Saudi/Qarari military intervention in Libya sets a dangerous precedent.” Under Bush, ousting regimes for democracy “was a bloody farce….” Obama’s model may be installing puppets “without having ‘boots on the ground,’ ” but don’t discount them. He expanded Bush’s Afghan war, began his own in Pakistan as well as in Somalia, Yemen and Bahrain, backing favored despots besides the Saudi monarchy.

AbuKhalil calls NLC’s Abdel-Jalil “a useful idiot.” Moreover, “Western enthusiasm for (Libyan) intervention” was never properly explained beyond nonsensical platitudes about “humanitarian intervention” to protect civilians.

In contrast, “why (didn’t) the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia….warrant” similar outrage, let alone Israel’s Cast Lead, occupation and daily aggression against defenseless Palestinians.

Intervening militarily is Libya “is far more dangerous: it is intended to legitimize the return of colonial powers, (and) abort democratic uprisings all over the region. Bahrain (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) of today (are) the vision for Libya for tomorrow,” Western-dominated, of course.

Will it work? Love or hate Gaddafi, Libyans know what Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians endure. Moreover, its society is fractious, divided by tribal loyalties, suspicious of Western intervention, and long-governed locally as well as nationally.

Against them is America’s military might under leaders not shy about using it. As a result, Libyans are experiencing firsthand what’s ahead under Western control, what makes Iraqis yearn for Saddam, almost saintly compared to Washington.

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/

 

 

 

 

 

21 March, 2011

Countercurrents.org

20 March 2011 marked the 8th anniversary of the illegal, war criminal invasion of Iraq by the US , UK and Australia .  In post-invasion Iraq , violent deaths (1.4 million) and non-violent avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation (1.2 million) have totalled 2.6 million (so far). Yet the West ignores the carnage of the ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide and marked this dreadful anniversary by commencing a devastating high technology war on another Arab nation, Libya . A legitimate fear from the US-backed Palestinian Genocide, the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide and the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide is that this latest US war, the Libyan War, will likewise evolve to holocaust and genocide dimensions and to a Libyan Holocaust and Libyan Genocide.

As of 20 March 2011, the 8th anniversary of the illegal US, UK and Australian invasion of  Iraq on 20 March 2003,  the human cost  the Iraq War since 2003 involves 2.6 million violent and non-violent avoidable deaths of Indigenous Iraqis (4.5 million since 1990; see: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ). In comparison, post-2003 US Alliance deaths in the Iraq War total 4,758 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).

According to the 2006 Revision UN Population Division data, medical literature data, and other authoritative sources, the Iraqi Holocaust has been associated with 1.2 million post-invasion non-violent avoidable deaths; 1.4 million violent post-invasion deaths; and 0.8 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths (90% avoidable and due to gross US Coalition violation of the Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier supplies food and medical requisites to “the fullest extent of the means available to it.” In addition, avoidable deaths under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.7 million, violent deaths in the Gulf War totalled 0.2 million and under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions totalled 1.2 million. Iraqi refugees (both inside and outside Iraq ) totalled 5-6 million.

The ongoing Iraqi Holocaust (1990-2011) involves 1.6 million violent deaths, 2.9 million non-violent excess deaths, 4.5 million violent and non-violent excess deaths, 2.0 million under-5 infant  deaths, 1.8 million avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees – an Iraqi Holocasut and an Iraqi Genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention definition of  “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” (see: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/9-january-2010 ).  The Iraqi Genocide – still continuing under Nobel Peace Laureate and warmonger Obama –  is of a similar magnitude to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), “Jewish History Atlas” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), “Atlas of the Holocaust” (Michael Joseph, London)).

The US Coalition invasion of Iraq was illegal and a  war crime. Thus UK Deputy PM Nick Clegg told the House of Commons in 2010 that the invasion of Iraq was illegal: “I am happy to account for everything that we are doing in this coalition government, a coalition government which has brought together two parties working in the national interest to sort out the mess that he left behind. Maybe one day, and perhaps we’ll have to wait for his (Jack Straw’s) memoirs, he could account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all, which is the illegal invasion of Iraq .” (see “Clegg says invasion of Iraq was “illegal””, Reuters, 21 JHlu 2010: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/07/21/uk-britain-clegg-iraq-idUKTRE66K4PT20100721 .”

And in Australia , the former President of the ultra-conservative Liberal Party. John Valder, slammed his party colleague Liberal PM John Howard as a war criminal over the Iraq Invasion: “Bush, Blair, and Howard, as leaders of the three members of the coalition of the willing, inflicted enormous suffering on the people of Iraq . And, as such, they are criminals. I believe the only deterrent to a repetition of the Iraq situation is punishment in some form as war criminals” (see “Howard is a war criminal  says former colleague”, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 July 2004: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/18/1090089035899.html ).

The war criminality of the Iraq invasion and occupation extends beyond the initial criminal invasion and the estimated 1.4 million Iraqi deaths due to the US invasion ( Just Foreign  Policy: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/156 ).  Thus Iraqi avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation (1.7 million, 1990-2003, 1.2 million, 2003-2011) also constitute evidence of a  huge US Coalition war crime through imposition of sustained, deadly deprivation on a civilian population. It is worth repeating that of the 5-6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in WW2 about 1 in 6 died from deprivation.

Articles 55 and 56 of the  Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War make clear the responsibility of an Occupier to provide life-sustaining food and medicine to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. These Articles are set out below.

Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.

The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.

The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.

If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.

In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.

Yet the US Alliance has grossly violated these Geneva Convention demands in both Occupied Iraq (1990-2011 non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation total 4.5 million) and in Occupied Afghanistan (2001-2011 non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation total 4.5 million). WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) informs that the annual  per capita total medical expenditure in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan is US$124 and US$29, respectively, as compared to US$6,714 for the Occupier the United States. Yet under-5 year old infant deaths total 2.0 million in Iraq (1990-2011) and 2.6 million in Afghanistan (2001-2011).

The victims of cowardly Western high technology wars are mostly women and children dying from war-imposed deprivation. Thus in post-1950 US Asian wars violent deaths and non-violent deaths from war-imposed deprivation total about 23 million, the breakdown  being 1 million Korea, 13 million (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) , 4.5 million (Iraq) and 4.9 million (Afghanistan).

Now the West has marked the 8th anniversary of the war criminal invasion of Iraq by commencing to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. The ostensible reason is to “protect civilians” and to support the legitimate desire of many Libyans for democracy but the horrible reality is that Libyan civilians  need protection from the genocidal French-UK-US (FUKUS) Coalition. The examples of Iraq and Afghanistan give an indication of the horrendous avoidable mortality that may come in a FUKUS-devastated bombed Libya and the sham of Western-imposed democracy.

Thus “American-installed democracy” in Afghanistan has meant a US Puppet Afghan President who was the only candidate in the recent presidential elections held under Occupier guns and the dominant but banned Taliban could field no candidates. In Occupied Iraq, as in Occupied Afghanistan, “American-installed democracy” has meant elections held after a major party the US did not like (the Ba’ath Party) was banned and its members were variously imprisoned, tortured and  killed on a huge scale.

Thus annual under-5 infant deaths currently total 3,000 in Libya (population 6.4 million) but are expected  to soar if the France-UK-US (FUKUS) Coalition, already bombing urban  areas and killing Libyans, succeeds in doing to Libya what the genocidal, Zionist-backed  US Alliance has achieved in Occupied Iraq (41,000 under-5 deaths yearly, population 30.7 million) or in Occupied Afghanistan (237,000 under-5 infant deaths yearly, population 28.2 million) (latest UNICEF data: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ).

Libya’s very low current pre-invasion infant mortality (2010) is about 16.9 deaths per 1000 live births (cf 5.7 in the US) as compared to 185 (1950, under British occupation) and 115 (in 1969 when Gaddafi took over from the UK-backed dictator King Idris). However, food, shelter, medicine and medical services cost money and with the oil-based Libyan economy already largely stopped by the already civilian-targetting, war criminal FUKUS Coalition, the Libyan infant mortality is expected to eventually soar to that in Occupied Iraq (32 deaths per 1,000 live  births) or Occupied Afghanistan (152) (latest UN Population Division data: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1 ; the Iraq and Afghanistan data are probably under-estimates from the respective Puppet Quisling regimes).

The devastation of Iraq by the US Coalition under Sanctions and US, UK and Israeli no-fly zone bombing (1.7 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation, 1990-2003) and under Occupation (1.2 million Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation, 2003-2011) was enabled by Mainstream media non-reportage and warmongering in the Western Murdochracies. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. On this 8th anniversary of the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq , decent people must (a) tell everyone they can about the horrendous human cost, and (b) insist that the war criminals be held accountable  through sanctions,  boycotts  and criminal prosecutions.

All decent folk will have great sympathy for the desire of the Libyan people and indeed of all people and all Arab people for human rights and genuine democracy but they must oppose the cowardly, turkey-shoot destruction of Libya by the genocidal, war criminal US Alliance.  One hopes that the Libyans themselves will find a solution through dialogue before too much damage has been done in terms of Libyan lives, infrastructure and the economy on which life depends.

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The saga of the Bahasa Bible never seems to end. For more than two decades its import has generated unnecessary controversy. It is imperative that a clear policy is formulated immediately and implemented in a fair and just manner.

 

It is wrong to view the Bahasa Bible as a security issue. As a nation which has an outstanding record of upholding freedom of worship as a fundamental liberty, Christians should have easy access to their scripture. Since Bahasa Malaysia is the language of common usage for a lot of Christians in Sabah and Sarawak and is also the medium through which a substantial number of young Christians in Peninsular Malaysia today understand written literature, it should not surprise anyone that the Bahasa Bible has become an important part of the lives of the 9 percent Christian minority in the country.

 

Seen from this perspective the stamping and serializing of  Bahasa Bibles which might  be interpreted— rightly or wrongly— as a security measure has caused considerable unhappiness among a huge segment of the Christian community in  Sarawak. Unless resolved quickly, it could well become the Opposition’s silver bullet to target the ruling Barisan Nasional in the coming state election. Political repercussions aside, justice demands that the Ministry of Home Affairs takes into account the feelings of the Christian community.

 

For many Muslims on the Peninsula, it is not so much the dissemination of Bibles in Bahasa which makes them uneasy. Rather, it is the use of the concept   ‘Allah’ in a Christian scripture, a concept which they regard as exclusive to Islam. While it is true that it is Islam that has endowed meaning to the concept since the advent of the Qur’an, Muslims in other parts of the world have not taken exception to the term appearing in the scriptures of other religions. Arab Muslims have always been aware that their Christian compatriots utter the word ‘Allah’ when they read the Bible just as Muslims in the Indian Sub-Continent know that the term appears many times in the Guru Granth Sahib of the Sikhs. Indeed, the Qur’an does not prohibit anyone from using the term which is why illustrious Islamic scholars have always emphasized that it is because Allah is all-inclusive and all-embracing that Allah is described as the “Lord of the Universes.”

 

This inclusive understanding of Allah is beginning to gain some ground in Malaysia. In the midst of the present controversy over the Bahasa Bible, ulama from both the BN and the Pakatan have pointed out that it is not wrong for non-Muslims to use the term within the confines of their religion— as long as it is not misused in the public arena.

 

Manipulating and distorting the term in order to win converts to one’s religion would be an example of misuse. Muslims are in a sense protected from such nefarious activities by the Federal and various State Constitutions. Article 11(4) of the Federal Constitution for instance prohibits the propagation of other religious doctrines among Muslims.

 

This is why it is important that the government and the ulama allay Muslim fears about threats to their religious identity from the use of certain terms and the Bahasa Bible. Muslims would do well to remember that even at the height of Western colonial rule stretching from Morocco to Malaysia when Muslims were much more vulnerable, very, very few of them renounced their faith and became Christians. Even today, in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Christian evangelization among Muslims has failed miserably. By and large, Muslims in most parts of the world remain attached to their religion.

 

Muslims in Malaysia should have more faith in themselves.

 

 

 

Chairman,

Board of Trustees,

Yayasan 1Malaysia.

 

 

Petaling Jaya.

 

 

22 March 2011.

 

 

 

Eight years after the US entered Iraq to topple Saddam and liberate the people, conditions are worse than ever.

Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis Last Modified: 21 Mar 2011 11:57

Nouri al-Maliki was strongly supported by former US president George W Bush, as was apparent in their final press conference together shortly before a shoe was launched at Bush from close range.

March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks.

It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people.

US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction.

Vice president Dick Cheney said the military effort would take “weeks rather than months”. And assistant defence secretary Ken Adelman predicted that “liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”.

Eight years on, it’s time to look back at that “cakewalk”.

4,400 US soldiers lost

More than 4,400 Americans have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq – more than the 3,000 killed on 9/11.

Over 32,000 US soldiers have been seriously wounded, many kept alive thanks to the miracle of modern medicine. But those numbers don’t tell the half of it.

Stanford University and Naval Postgraduate School researchers who examined the delayed onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) found that by 2023 the rate of PTSD among Iraq war veterans could rise to as high as 35 per cent.

And for the second year in row, more soldiers committed suicide in 2010 than died in combat, a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill – and watching your friends be killed.

Bankrupting the nation

In 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University’s Linda Blimes put the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $3tn, or about 60 times what the Bush administration first said the invasion would cost.

While a staggering figure, Stiglitz and Blimes now say that their estimate “was, if anything, too low”.

In an update published last fall in The Washington Post, they note that the war not only drove up the federal debt, but helped drive the skyrocketing oil prices that contributed to the crashing of the global economy.

According to the National Priorities Project, the money the US government spent destroying Iraq could have provided annual salaries for 12.5 million teachers or paid the annual healthcare costs for 167 million Americans.

When elected officials tell us our nation is bankrupt, we should tell them to bring our war dollars home.

Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis

The people who have suffered the most from the Iraq “cakewalk” are Iraqi citizens.

For an invasion sold as an act of liberation and of “profound morality” by propagandists like Jeffrey Goldberg, the US and its allies sure managed to kill a staggering number of those they were liberating.

The organisation Iraq Body Count (IBC) has documented at least 99,900 violent civilian deaths as a direct result of the US-led invasion.

But that’s an extremely conservative estimate based largely on deaths reported in Western media, an approach bound to undercount the massive death toll from the invasion.

Indeed, as WikiLeaks revealed last October, the US government covered up the violent killings of more than 15,000 Iraqi civilians – killings that weren’t reported by any Western paper which amounted to roughly 20 per cent of IBC’s official count at the time.

Unfortunately, the number of dead Iraqis is likely a lot higher than IBC’s count.

A 2006 study  by researchers at Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal found that in just over three years there were 654,965 “excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war”, with Iraq’s death rate more than doubling due to gunfire – the leading cause of mortality – as well as lack of medicine and clean water.

Then a 2008 analysis by British polling firm Opinion Research Business estimated “that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003”.

Power still out

Thirteen years of bombings and sanctions crippled the infrastructure and basic services of what was once a wealthy country.

Then came the 2003 invasion, which destroyed electrical plants, sewage systems, water treatment facilities, hospitals and more.

Eight years later, the living conditions in Iraqi are worse than under Saddam Hussein, with the country plagued by a continued lack of electricity, clean water, medical care and security

Iraqis wonder why – after the most powerful country in the world invaded and spent billions on reconstruction – they are still living in the dark.

Millions fled their homes

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2003 “more than 4.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care” – hardly an endorsement of life in the “liberated” nation.

Many Iraqis fled to Iran, Jordan and Syria, while roughly 1.5 million fled to other parts of Iraq, the majority of whom “have found no solutions to their plight”, according to the UN.

In the aftermath, millions will never be able to return.

Forced into prostitution

Women in Iraq have been particularly hit by the invasion and occupation. The Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today.

Meanwhile, violence against women – including honour killings, rape and kidnapping – has increased, forcing many to remain at home and limiting employment and educational opportunities, according to a new Freedom House report.

“A deep feeling of injustice and powerlessness sometimes leads women to believe that the only escape is suicide,” the report notes.

Many Iraqi women who fled to neighbouring countries have found themselves unable to feed their children.

Just to make ends meet, tens of thousands of them – including girls 13 and under – have been forced into prostitution, particularly in Syria.

“From what I’ve seen, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis,” one refugee told The New York Times. “If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

Poisoning Iraqi society

The US military dropped thousands of bombs across Iraq laced with depleted uranium, the radioactive waste produced from manufacturing nuclear fuel.

Valued by the military for its density and ability to ignite upon impact, depleted uranium bombs continue to kill years after they’ve been dropped.

In Fallujah, which was bombarded more than anywhere else in Iraq, British researchers uncovered a massive increase in infant mortality and rates of cancer, with the latter exceeding “those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” according to The Independent.

And it’s not just Fallujah facing a cancer epidemic. Al Jazeera reports that in the central Iraq province of Babil, reported cancer cases rose from 500 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2008.

And in Basra, the last 15 years have seen childhood leukemia rate more than double, according to a  study published last year in the American Journal of Public Health.

Trading one strongman for another

Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Yet his worst crimes, including the 1980 invasion of Iran, came when he was backed by the US government, which was well aware of his penchant for torture and extrajudicial killings – talents American officials were fine with as as he was slaughtering Iranians.

Now, his US-backed successor, prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, is torturing and killing those who speak out against his rule. All he hasn’t done is invade that other, not-yet-liberated member of the “Axis of Evil”.

Inspired by the mass actions that took down US-backed strongmen in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest the al-Maliki government – only to be greeted with live ammunition.

On February 27, more than 29 protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, were gunned down by the Maliki-run security forces in Iraq.

Meanwhile, four journalists in Baghdad report that they, along with hundreds of protesters, were “blindfolded, handcuffed, beaten and threatened with execution” for being insufficiently pro-regime.

The charges of abuse come after WikiLeaks revealed further evidence that Maliki has been using the power of the state – and Shia death squads – to torture and murder his political opponents.

Life in the new Iraq isn’t a whole lot different than life under Saddam. Given the protests sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, it seems invasions and foreign military occupations just aren’t as effective as nonviolent protest at promoting reform.

Recruitment ad for al-Qaeda

When it wasn’t completely sold as a humanitarian mission, the Bush administration cast the war on Iraq as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks, scaring the American public into submission with vials of faux-anthrax and concocted tales about Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda.

Yet, as US intelligence agencies recognised after the invasion, “the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse”, in the words of one American official.

Indeed, there was no better recruitment ad for terrorists than the images the Bush administration and its allies providing foreign troops who were destroying Iraqi society.

And there’s no better way to create a committed enemy than to kill someone’s family – or in the case of Abu Ghraib, to humiliate and torture – sometimes to death – an innocent loved one.

Rewarding war criminals

Once you get past all the rationalisations, the invasion of Iraq was just like any other war. It necessitated teaching young men and women to believe that it’s morally acceptable to take kill.

And a 2007 army investigation spurred by the massacre of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha said as much.

“Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes,” wrote Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell in the report.

People typically don’t want to kill other human beings. They must be conditioned to dehumanise the enemy and believe that murdering is not just okay – but also just.

Basic training involves destroying a person’s ability to empathise with the “other” for the good of the nation (or rather, its rulers). But that ability doesn’t just suddenly reemerge when the war is over. And unfortunately, that’s evidenced by the alarming incidents of domestic violence committed by returning veterans.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq continues to affect lives after veterans of the war rejoin civilian life as police officers and husbands, as foremen and fathers. The lesson that violence is an acceptable means to achieve one’s ends is not one soon forgotten.

But violence isn’t just legitimised at base camp; it’s legitimised by the Obama administration’s failure to hold accountable those who took the country into an illegal war of aggression.

Those war criminals – the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Karl Rove – are all enjoying successful book tours and reaping hefty speaking fees, while the man who allegedly exposed war crimes, Bradley Manning, is behind bars being tortured.

There’s a lesson there – one that doesn’t speak well for our system of government. And it suggests that our political establishment will continue to drag us into wars of choice in the future. After all, they won’t be fighting or paying the consequences of combat.

On this shameful anniversary, let’s not forget that despite president Obama’s promise to leave Iraq, the US still has 50,000 troops there, thousands of private mercenaries and dozens of military bases, with generals not-so-subtly hinting at a permanent presence.

We should demand the president close those bases and bring the troops home. We should prosecute those responsible for sending them. And we should apologise to the Iraqi people for the misery the US government has wrought.

The damage of war has been done. But the US must begin making amends to Iraq by leaving.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange. Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The peace-loving citizens of the world should regard it as their sacred duty to appeal to the governments of France, Britain, the United States of America and others who are involved in the aerial bombardment of Libya; the Muammar Gaddafi government; and the rebels fighting the Gaddafi government, to cease all military operations immediately.  Some governments have already called for a total ceasefire, among them China, India, Iran, Russia and Turkey.

 

There are at least two compelling reasons why military operations should stop at once. One, in spite of denials from the US, British and other Western military commands, some alternative media are reporting mounting civilian casualties. The ‘No Fly Zone’ that these states are attempting to impose upon Libya is supposed to save lives but what is happening in reality is something else. Two, even if Western air power destroys not only Libya’s aerial defense but also Gaddafi’s entire military machine, there is no guarantee that he and his coterie would be ousted from power, considering that he still enjoys some support among his people. On the ground, he is   stronger militarily than his opponents who are split into contending factions and are hopelessly disorganized. This could lead to a protracted civil war with dire consequences for the country and the region as a whole.

 

The cessation of military conflict would be one aspect of a much larger negotiated political settlement between Gaddafi and the rebels that must include his own departure and the exit of his family and cronies from the citadel of power in the shortest possible time. An interim government, a proper constitution and provision for a free and fair election would all be part of the deal.

 

Who can help mediate such a solution?  The Turkish leadership has the credibility and the ability to play a pivotal role. The Chinese, Indian, German, Russian and Brazilian governments can also help to bring the Gaddafi government and the rebels to the negotiating table.

 

Given the likelihood of a stalemate on the military front, it is not inconceivable that Gaddafi and the rebels will agree to talk, especially if there is sufficient international pressure. However, can the Western allies also be persuaded to end their military assault immediately?

 

The chances are remote. Since their real objective is to establish control over Libya and its oil and gas through a pliable regime, they will continue their attack until there is some certainty that such a regime will emerge. In fact, they have already begun escalating their operations. According to a media report, the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle joined the assault on the 22^nd of March while Belgian and Spanish war planes have begun air patrols over Libya, strengthening the American, British, French and Dutch squadrons. If the ‘No Fly Zone’ does not achieve the allies’ goal, one should not rule out the injection of ground troops into the battlefield, though there is some hesitation among the allies about such a course of action at this moment.

 

Their dogged determination to pursue their objective convinces observers that the Libyan adventure parallels in some respects the US helmed war on behalf of Kuwait in 1991 and the Iraq war of 2003. In all three instances the desire to gain control over oil emerges as the common factor. In the case of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein’s foolish invasion of a weak neighbor, and, in the case of Iraq, his non-existent weapons of mass destruction helped the US and its allies to justify their nefarious agenda. Gaddafi’s despotic rule and his brutal suppression of his adversaries serve a similar purpose in the case of Libya. Exploiting the fatal flaws of a morally depraved leader to legitimize their own insatiable greed is a tactic often employed by hegemonic powers.

 

That it is their self-interest that dominates their political machinations in West Asia and North Africa becomes even more obvious in the stance that the US and its allies have adopted towards the crisis in Bahrain and Yemen. Though the Bahraini royal family has brutally suppressed the mass uprising of its largely Shia population with the help of soldiers and tanks from neighboring Saudi Arabia, US, British and French leaders have acquiesced with their move largely because the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is their loyal ally who hosts the US Fifth Fleet. Similarly, when another ally, the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Salleh, who has been in power for 32 years, mobilized his security forces and his militia to massacre 52 peaceful protesters on 18^th March 2011, all that President Obama could do was to make some innocuous  noises about the inappropriateness of violent responses to people’s demands.

 

The champions of democracy in the West, it appears, have no qualms about endorsing the suppression of peaceful democratic movements for change as long as it serves their hegemonic economic and political interests. If some popular movement succeeds in toppling an oppressive dictator who was allied to the West— as it happened in Egypt and Tunisia— then either Washington or London or Paris will try to direct the flow of change in the post- uprising phase aided and abetted by those institutions and individuals in the country in question with whom it enjoys close ties. In this regard, elements in the top brass of the armed forces in Egypt and Tunisia, it is alleged, are working hand in glove with certain centers of power in the West to ensure that their mutual interests prevail at the end of the day.

 

Managing and manipulating the people’s desire for genuine change in this manner, or endorsing the suppression of popular movements, or exploiting a rebellion in order to seize a nation’s resources, only serve to undermine the Arab uprising of 2011. The Arab masses, and indeed people everywhere, should not allow this to happen. This is why we should all oppose the meddling of Western hegemonic powers in the momentous developments unfolding in North Africa and West Asia.

 

Urging Western powers to stop the military assault upon Libya while appealing to Gaddafi and the rebels to observe an immediate ceasefire, is a plea from the heart aimed at protecting the lives of people, and ensuring their independence and their dignity.

 

 

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) and Professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

 

 

Malaysia.

 

25 March 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

Global Research, March 25, 2011

The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 13 No 3, March 28, 2011.

Peter Dale Scott’s Libyan Notebook

[Editor’s Note: Author’s selected quotations and analysis]

Preface

The world is facing a very unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation in North Africa and the Middle East. What began as a memorable, promising, relatively nonviolent achievement of New Politics – the Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt – has morphed very swiftly into a recrudescence of old habits: America, already mired in two decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sporadic air attacks in Yemen and Somalia, now, bombing yet another Third World Country, in this case Libya.

USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn in the Mediterranean Sea, March 19, 2011. US government handout

The initially stated aim of this bombing was to diminish Libyan civilian casualties. But many, senior figures in Washington, including President Obama, have indicated that the US is gearing up for a quite different war for regime change, one that may well be protracted and could also easily expand beyond Libya.1 If it does expand, the hope for a nonviolent transition to civilian government in Tunisia and Egypt and other Middle East nations experiencing political unrest, may be lost to a hard-edged militarization of government, especially in Egypt. All of us, not just Egyptians, have a major stake in seeing that that does not happen.

The present article does not attempt to propose solutions or a course of action for the United States and its allies, or for the people of the Middle East. It attempts rather to examine the nature of the forces that have emerged in Libya over the last four decades that are presently being played out.

To this end I have begun to compile what I call my Libyan Notebook, a collection of relevant facts that underlie the present crisis. This Notebook will be judgmental, in that I am biased towards collecting facts that the US media tend to ignore, facts that are the product in many instances of investigative reporting that cuts to the heart of power relations, deep structures, and economic interests in the region including the US, Israel, and the Arab States as these have played out over the last two decades and more. But I hope that it will be usefully objective and open-ended, permitting others to draw diverse conclusions from the same set of facts.2

I wish to begin with two ill-understood topics: I. Who Are the Libyan Opposition, and II. Where Are the Libyan Rebel Arms Coming From?

I. Who Are the Libyan Opposition

1) Historically:

“If Muammar Al Gaddafi behaved paranoid, it was for good reason. It wasn’t long after he reached the age of 27 and led a small group of junior military officers in a bloodless coup d’état against Libyan King Idris on September 1, 1969, that threats to his power and life emerged – from monarchists, Israeli Mossad, Palestinian disaffections, Saudi security, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO), British intelligence, United States antagonism and, in 1995, the most serious of all, Al Qaeda-like Libyan Islamic fighting group, known as Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya. The Colonel reacted brutally, by either expelling or killing those he feared were against him.”3

Gaddafi and Nasser in a 1969 Photo. Getty image

2) National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL)

“With the aim of overthrowing Libyan strongman Muammar Khadafy, Israel and the U.S. trained anti-Libyan rebels in a number of West and Central African countries. The Paris-based African Confidential newsletter reported on January 5th, 1989, that the US and Israel had set up a series of bases in Chad and other neighboring countries to train 2000 Libyan rebels captured by the Chad army. The group, called The National Front for the Salvation of Libya, was based in Chad.”4

“US official records indicate that funding for the Chad-based secret war against Libya also came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Israel and Iraq. The Saudis, for instance, donated $7m to an opposition group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (also backed by French intelligence and the CIA). But a plan to assassinate Gadafi and take over the government on 8 May 1984 was crushed. In the following year, the US asked Egypt to invade Libya and overthrow Gadafi but President Mubarak refused. By the end of 1985, the Washington Post had exposed the plan after congressional leaders opposing it wrote in protest to President Reagan.”5

“The FNSL [National Front for the Salvation of Libya] was part of the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition held in London in 2005, and British resources are being used to support the FNSL and other ‘opposition’ in Libya…. The FNSL held its national congress in the USA in July 2007. Reports of ‘atrocities’ and civilian deaths are being channeled into the western press from operations in Washington DC, and the opposition FNSL is reportedly organizing resistance and military attacks from both inside and outside Libya.”6

3) National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO),

“The main group leading the insurrection is the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition which includes the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). The NFSL, which is leading the violence, is a U.S.-sponsored armed militia of mostly Libyan expatriates and tribes opposed to al-Qaddafi.”7

4) Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG)

“The LIFG was founded in 1995 by a group of mujahideen veterans who had fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Upon their return to Libya they grew angry about what they viewed as the corruption and impiety of the Libyan regime and formed the LIFG to create a state that would show what they believed to be the true character of the Libyan people.

The most significant LIFG attack was a 1996 attempt to assassinate Gadhafi; LIFG members led by Wadi al-Shateh threw a bomb underneath his motorcade. The group also stages guerilla-style attacks against government security forces from its mountain bases. Although most LIFG members are strictly dedicated to toppling Gadhafi, intelligence reportedly indicates that some have joined forces with al-Qaida to wage jihad against Libyan and Western interests worldwide. ….

As recently as February 2004, then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that “one of the most immediate threats [to U.S. security] is from smaller international Sunni extremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links. They include … the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.”8

“In recent days Libyan officials have distributed security documents giving the details of Sufiyan al-Koumi, said to be a driver for Osama bin Laden, and of another militant allegedly involved in an “Islamic emirate” in Derna, in now-liberated eastern Libya. Koumi, the documents show, was freed in September 2010 as part of a “reform and repent” initiative organised by Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son….

The LIFG, established in Afghanistan in the 1990s, has assassinated dozens of Libyan soldiers and policemen. In 2009, to mark Gaddafi’s 40 years in power, it apologised for trying to kill him and agreed to lay down its arms. MI6 [British Intelligence] has been accused in the past of supporting it. Six LIFG leaders, still in prison, disavowed their old ways and explained why fighting Gaddafi no longer constituted “legitimate” jihad. Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, another freed LIFG member, denied the official claims. “Gaddafi is trying to divide the people,” he told al-Jazeera. “He claims that there is an Islamist emirate in Derna and that I am its emir. He is taking advantage of the fact that I am a former political prisoner.”

Derna is famous as the home of a large number of suicide bombers in Iraq. It is also deeply hostile to Gaddafi. “Residents of eastern Libya in general, and Derna in particular, view the Gaddadfa (Gaddafi’s tribe) as uneducated, uncouth interlopers from an inconsequential part of the country who have ‘stolen’ the right to rule in Libya,” US diplomats were told in 2008, in a cable since released by WikiLeaks.

The last 110 members of the LIFG were freed on 16 February, the day after the Libyan uprising began. One of those released, Abdulwahab Mohammed Kayed, is the brother of Abu Yahya Al Libi, one of al Qaida’s top propagandists. Koumi fled Libya and is said to have ended up in Afghanistan working for Bin Laden. Captured in Pakistan, he was handed over to the US and sent to Guantánamo Bay in 2002. In 2009 he was sent back to Libya.9 US counter-terrorist experts have expressed concern that al-Qaida could take advantage of a political vacuum if Gaddafi is overthrown. But most analysts say that, although the Islamists’ ideology has strong resonance in eastern Libya, there is no sign that the protests are going to be hijacked by them.10

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Members released

“Fierce clashes between [Qadhafi’s] security forces and Islamist guerrillas erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) formally declared its existence in a communiqué calling Qadhafi’s government “an apostate regime that has blasphemed against the faith of God Almighty” and declaring its overthrow to be “the foremost duty after faith in God.” [3] This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghans who had been granted political asylum in Britain…. The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. LIFG’s next big operation, a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards, was later said to have been financed by British intelligence to the tune of $160,000, according to ex-MI5 officer David Shayler. [4] While Shayler’s allegations have not been independently confirmed, it is clear that Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base of logistical support and fundraising on its soil. At any rate, financing by bin Laden appears to have been much more important. According to one report, LIFG received up to $50,000 from the Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of its militants killed on the battlefield.” [2005]11

“Americans, Britons and the French are finding themselves as comrades in arms with the rebel Islamic Fighting Group, the most radical element in the Al Qaeda network [to bring down Gaddhafi]. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted the risks of the unholy alliance in a congressional hearing, saying that the Libyan opposition is probably more anti-American than Muammar Gaddhafi. A decade ago, this very same delusion of a Western-Islamist partnership in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya ended abruptly in the 9/11 attacks.”12

“In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited ‘around 25’ men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are ‘today are on the front lines in Adjabiya.

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters ‘are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,’ but added that the ‘members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader’.

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad’s president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, ‘including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries’.

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against ‘the foreign invasion’ in Afghanistan, before being ‘captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan’. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.” (“Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links,” Daily Telegraph [London], March 25, 2011)

5) Transitional National Council

“A RIVAL transitional government to the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi looks set to win US and other international support as momentum builds to oust the longtime dictator.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed yesterday that the Obama administration was reaching out to opponents of Colonel Gaddafi. She said the US was willing to offer ‘any kind of assistance’ to remove him from power.

Protest leaders who have taken control in Libya’s eastern cities claim to have established a transitional “national council” that amounts to rival rule. They have called on the country’s army to join them as they prepare for an attack on the capital, Tripoli, where the Libyan leader retains control.

Confident the Libyan leader’s 42-year rule was coming to an end, Mrs Clinton said yesterday: ‘We are just at the beginning of what will follow Gaddafi.'”13

6) Facebook

“He [Omar El- Hariri, Chief of Armed Forces for the Transitional National Council] remained under close surveillance by the security forces until Feb. 17, when the revolution started. It was not initiated by prominent figures of the older generation, he said, but began spontaneously when Tunisia and Egypt inspired the youth. ‘Children of Facebook!’ he declared, in English, with a broad smile.”14

7) Oil

“Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council.

The Transitional National Council released a statement announcing the decision made at a March 19 meeting to establish the ‘Libyan Oil Company as supervisory authority on oil production and policies in the country, based temporarily in Benghazi, and the appointment of an interim director general” of the company.

The Council also said it “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”15

Peter Dale Scott’s Libyan Notebook

II. Where Are the Libyan Rebel Arms Coming From?

Robert Fisk, “Libya in turmoil: America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels;

Obama asks Saudis to airlift weapons into Benghazi,” Independent, March 7, 2011:

“Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a “day of rage” from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington’s highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.

Washington’s request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 ….

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. Their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain – even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.

The Saudis have been told that opponents of Gaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars as a first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafi’s armour, and ground-to-air missiles to shoot down his fighter-bombers.

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hours but they would need to be delivered to air bases in Libya or to Benghazi airport. If the guerrillas can then go on to the offensive and assault Gaddafi’s strongholds in western Libya, the political pressure on America and Nato – not least from Republican members of Congress – to establish a no-fly zone would be reduced.

US military planners have already made it clear that a zone of this kind would necessitate US air attacks on Libya’s functioning, if seriously depleted, anti-aircraft missile bases, thus bringing Washington directly into the war on the side of Gaddafi’s opponents.

For several days now, US Awacs surveillance aircraft have been flying around Libya, making constant contact with Malta air traffic control and requesting details of Libyan flight patterns, including journeys made in the past 48 hours by Gaddafi’s private jet which flew to Jordan and back to Libya just before the weekend.

Officially, Nato will only describe the presence of American Awacs planes as part of its post-9/11 Operation Active Endeavour, which has broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region.

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to all Nato countries under the mission’s existing mandate. Now that Gaddafi has been reinstated as a super-terrorist in the West’s lexicon, however, the Nato mission can easily be used to search for targets of opportunity in Libya if active military operations are undertaken.

Al Jazeera English television channel last night broadcast recordings made by American aircraft to Maltese air traffic control, requesting information about Libyan flights, especially that of Gaddafi’s jet.

An American Awacs aircraft, tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Malta control tower on Saturday for information about a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCN on its way from Amman to Mitiga, Gaddafi’s own VIP airport.

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say: “Do you have information on an aircraft with the Squawk 2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]?”

Malta air traffic control replies: “Seven, that sounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340, with a destination Mitiga, according to flight plan.”

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangers from a co-ordinated day of protest by its own Shia Muslim citizens who, emboldened by the Shia uprising in the neighbouring island of Bahrain, have called for street protests against the ruling family of al-Saud on Friday.

After pouring troops and security police into the province of Qatif last week, the Saudis announced a nationwide ban on all public demonstrations.

Shia organisers claim that up to 20,000 protesters plan to demonstrate with women in the front rows to prevent the Saudi army from opening fire.

If the Saudi government accedes to America’s request to send guns and missiles to Libyan rebels, however, it would be almost impossible for President Barack Obama to condemn the kingdom for any violence against the Shias of the north-east provinces.

Thus has the 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 military priorities in the region. “16

“Libya rebels coordinating with West on air assault,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2011

 

“Reports from the region suggest that the Saudis and Egyptians have been providing arms. Though U.S. officials could not confirm that, they say it is plausible.”17

“Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011:

“CAIRO-Egypt’s military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington’s knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said.

The shipments-mostly small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition-appear to be the first confirmed case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters. Those fighters have been losing ground for days in the face of a steady westward advance by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The Egyptian shipments are the strongest indication to date that some Arab countries are heeding Western calls to take a lead in efforts to intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebels in their fight against Mr. Gadhafi in Libya. Washington and other Western countries have long voiced frustration with Arab states’ unwillingness to help resolve crises in their own region, even as they criticized Western powers for attempting to do so.

The shipments also follow an unusually robust diplomatic response from Arab states. There have been rare public calls for foreign military intervention in an Arab country, including a vote by the 23-member Arab League last week urging the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

The vote provided critical political cover to Western powers wary of intervening militarily without a broad regional and international mandate. On Thursday evening, the U.N. Security Council voted on a resolution endorsing a no-fly zone in Libya and authorizing military action in support of the rebels.

Within the council, Lebanon took a lead role drafting and circulating the draft of the resolution, which calls for “all necessary measures” to enforce a ban on flights over Libya. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have taken the lead in offering to participate in enforcing a no-fly zone, according to U.N. diplomats.

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi, meanwhile, have praised Qatar from the first days of the uprising, calling the small Gulf state their staunchest ally. Qatar has consistently pressed behind the scenes for tough and urgent international action behind the scenes, these officials said.

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-held Benghazi. After pro-Gadhafi forces retook the town of Ras Lanuf last week, Libyan state TV broadcast images of food-aid packages bearing the Qatari flag.

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to back calls from leaders in Congress for arming Libya’s rebels directly, arguing that the U.S. must first fully assess who the fighters are and what policies they will pursue if they succeeded in toppling Col. Gadhafi. U.S. officials believe the opposition includes some Islamist elements. They fear that Islamist groups hostile to the U.S. could try to hijack the opposition and take any arms that are provided.

The Egyptian weapons transfers began ‘a few days ago’ and are ongoing, according to a senior U.S. official. ‘There’s no formal U.S. policy or acknowledgement that this is going on,’ said the senior official. But ‘this is something we have knowledge of.’

Calls to Egypt’s foreign ministry and the spokesman for the prime minister seeking comment went unanswered. There is no means of reaching Egypt’s military for comment. An Egyptian official in Washington said he had no knowledge of weapon shipments.

The U.S. official also noted that the shipments appeared to come “too little, too late” to tip the military balance in favor of the rebels, who have faced an onslaught from Libyan forces backed by tanks, artillery and aircraft.

“We know the Egyptian military council is helping us, but they can’t be so visible,” said Hani Souflakis, a Libyan businessman in Cairo who has been acting as a rebel liaison with the Egyptian government since the uprising began.

“Weapons are getting through,” said Mr. Souflakis, who says he has regular contacts with Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebel leadership in Libya. “Americans have given the green light to the Egyptians to help. The Americans don’t want to be involved in a direct level, but the Egyptians wouldn’t do it if they didn’t get the green light.”

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libya said the U.S. has wanted to avoid being seen as taking a leadership role in any military action against Mr. Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraq and Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust with Washington throughout the region.

But the U.S. stated clearly it wants Mr. Gadhafi out of power and has signaled it would support those offering help to the rebels militarily or otherwise.

A spokesman for the rebel government in Benghazi said arms shipments have begun arriving to the rebels but declined to specify where they came from.

“Our military committee is purchasing arms and arming our people. The weapons are coming, but the nature of the weapons, the amount, where it’s coming from, that has been classified,” said the spokesman, Mustafa al-Gherryani.

The U.S. official said Egypt wanted to keep the shipments covert. In public, Egypt has sought to maintain a neutral stance toward the rebel uprising in Libya. Egypt abstained during the Arab League’s vote calling for the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone on Mr. Gadhafi, according to people familiar with the internal Arab League deliberations.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborers are believed to still be in Libya.

On the other hand, the Egyptian military’s covert support for the rebels suggests that it has calculated that Mr. Gadhafi is unlikely to remain in power, at least in the eastern half of the country, and therefore Egypt is eager to begin to build good relations with the rebels.

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared to make some progress fending off pro-Gadhafi forces’ assaults and have rolled out new weapons for the first time since the uprising began last month. Among them are rebel tanks that have taken up positions on the front lines in recent days. Rebels also launched fighter-jet attacks on government positions on Wednesday for the first time so far.

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to have been among the weapons seized by rebels from defected units of the Libyan army in the eastern half of the country, but they have received spare parts or trained mechanics from outside the country to help them deploy them, some rebel officials have speculated.

-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed to this article.18

Benjamin Gottlieb, “Egypt Arms Libyan Rebels As Gaddafi’s Conquest Continues,” NeonTommy Annenberg Digital News, March 17, 2011:

Arms shipments from Egypt’s military have begun flowing across the border into Libya with U.S. knowledge, Libyan rebels and U.S. officials said Thursday.

Made up mostly of small arms, such as assault rifles and ammunition, the shipments are the first confirmed reports of an outside government supporting rebel fighters with weapons. Rebels have been loosing ground for days against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to end the conflict before foreign intervention plans are finalized.

Although the U.N. approved a “no-fly zone” over Libya late Thursday, rebel forces fear that any planned foreign intervention would be too little to late.

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusually bold response by an Arab nation intervening in a conflict outside its borders. There have also been rare public decrees for the West to intervene in the conflict – the Arab League voted 23-0 last week encouraging the U.N. to impose the “no-fly zone” over Libya.

In spite of reports of arms flowing across the Egyptian boarder, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reuters that Egypt would not be involved in any military intervention in neighboring Libya.

“Egypt will not be among those Arab states. We will not be involved in any military intervention. No intervention period,” Bakhoum said.

Bakhoum was responding to comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said Thursday that discussions were on the table regarding Arab involvement in U.S. and European intervention in the conflict.

Clinton has said repeatedly that the U.S. desires involvement from a neighboring Arab nation in any planned intervention.

A Libyan rebel government spokesman in Benghazi, Mustafa al-Gherryani, said rebels have begun receiving arms shipments from neighboring nations, however he declined to reveal their origin.

“Our military committee is purchasing arms and arming our people. The weapons are coming, but the nature of the weapons, the amount, where it’s coming from, that has been classified,” he said.19

Yoichi Shimatsu, “Mideast Revolutions and 9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar,” New America Media, March 1, 2011

“It may puzzle and perhaps dismay young protesters in Benghazi, Cairo and Tunisia that their democratic hopes are being manipulated by an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has underhandedly backed a surge of militant Islamist radicals across North Africa. Credible U.S. intelligence reports have cited evidence pointing to Qatar’s long-running support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and jihadist fighters returning from Afghanistan.

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorism investigators in the wake of 9-11 need to be reexamined now that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an on-and-off affiliate of Al Qaeda, has seized armories across half of the North African country. Libya’s well-stocked arsenals contain high-power explosives, rocket launchers and chemical weapons. LIFG is on the State Department’s terrorist list.

Most worrying, according to a U.S. intelligence official cited by CNN, is the probable loss of chemical weapons. The Federation of American Scientists reports that, as of 2008, only 40 percent of Libya’s mustard gas was destroyed in the second round of decommissioning. Chemical canisters along the Egyptian border were yet to be retrieved and are now presumably in the hands of armed militants.

After initially letting slip that the earliest Libyan protests were organized by the LIFG, Al Jazeera quickly changed its line to present a heavily filtered account portraying the events as ‘peaceful protests’. To explain away the gunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during the uprising, the Qatar-based network presented a bizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libya having been executed by their officers for ‘refusing to fight’. The mysterious officers then miraculously vacated their base disappearing into thin air while surrounded by angry protesters! Off the record, one American intelligence analyst called these media claims an ‘absurdity’ and suggested instead the obvious: that the soldiers were gunned down in an armed assault by war-hardened returned militants from Iraq and Afghanistan….

According to a Congressional Research Service report of January 2008, ‘Some observers have raised questions about possible support for Al Qaeda by some Qatari citizens, including members of Qatar’s large ruling family. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Qatar’s Interior Minister provided a safe haven to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed during the mid-1990s, and press reports indicate other terrorists may have received financial support or safe haven in Qatar after September 11, 2001.’

The national security chief, Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, is further mentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ‘to join the Bosnia jihad.’ The report recalls how after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, FBI officials “narrowly missed an opportunity to capture” the suspect in Qatar. ‘Former U.S. officials have since stated their belief that a high-ranking member of the Qatari government alerted him to the impending raid, allowing him to flee the country.'”20

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan. Peter Dale Scott is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan.

His website, which contains a wealth of his writings, is here.

Notes

1 “Defense Secretary Gates, who recently warned against any further protracted US ground war, said on March 23 that the end of military action in Libya is unknown and could last longer than a few weeks. ‘I think there are any number of possible outcomes here and no one is in a position to predict them,’ Gates told reporters in Egypt” (C-Span, March 24, 2011).

2 Interested readers may wish to consult my first exploration, “Googling ‘Revolution’ in North Africa.”

3 Dan Lieberman, “Muammar Al Gaddafi Meets His Own Rebels,” CounterCurrents.org, March 9, 2011.

4 Joel Bainerman, Inside the Covert Operations of the CIA & Israel’s Mossad (New York: S.P.I. Books, 1994), 14.

5 Richard Keeble, “The Secret War Against Libya,” MediaLens, 2002.

6 “Petroleum and Empire in North Africa. NATO Invasion of Libya Underway,” By Keith Harmon Snow, 2 March 2011.

7 Ghali Hassan, “U.S. Love Affair with Murderous Dictators and Hate for Democracy.” Axis of Logic, Mar 17, 2011.

8 Center for Defense Information, “In the Spotlight: The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG),” January 18, 2005

9 Qadhafi was concerned about Al Qaeda terrorism in Libya, and in 1996 Libya became the first government to place Osama bin Laden on Interpol’s Wanted List (Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror [New York: Columbia UP, 2002], 142). Thereafter American and Libyan intelligence collaborated closely for some years against Al Qaeda. Beginning when?

10 Ian Black, “Libya rebels rejects Gaddafi’s al-Qaida spin,” Guardian, March 1, 2011.

11 Gary Gambill, “The Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Jamestown Foundation,” Terrorism Monitor, May 5, 2005,; citing Al-Hayat (London), 20 October 1995 [“communiqué”]; “The Shayler affair: The spooks, the Colonel and the jailed whistle-blower,” The Observer (London), 9 August 1998; Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, Ben Laden: La Verite interdite (Bin Ladin: The Forbidden Truth). Cf. also Annie Machon, Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 And the Shayler Affair (Book Guild Publishing, 2005) [Shayler].

12 Yoichi Shimatsu, “Attack on Libya: Why Odyssey Dawn Is Doomed,” New America Media, March 20, 2011.

13 “US reaches out to Libyan insurgents,” The Australian, March 1, 2011,

14 “How a onetime friend to Gadhafi became his rival,” Globe and Mail [Toronto], March 4, 2011.

15 Libyan Rebel Council in Benghazi Forms Oil Company to Replace Qaddafi’s,” Bloomberg, March 22, 2011.

16 Robert Fisk, “America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels,” Independent, March 7, 2011.

17 “Libya rebels coordinating with West on air assault,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2011.

18 “Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels,” Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011,

19 Benjamin Gottlieb, “Egypt Arms Libyan Rebels As Gaddafi’s Conquest Continues,” NeonTommy Annenberg Digital News, March 17, 2011.

20 Yoichi Shimatsu, “Mideast Revolutions and 9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar,” New America Media, March 1, 2011. The al-Thani family’s protection of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is confirmed by former CIA officer Robert Baer (Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2003). Cf. Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil (New York: Crown, 2003); Peter Lance, Triple Cross (New York: Regan/HarperCollins, 2006), 234-37.

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Last Modified: 26 Mar 2011 14:56

A Palestinian activist holds Israeli bread products being sold in a shop in the West Bank town of Ramallah [EPA]

It was Egypt that got me thinking about the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in a serious way. I was already conducting a quiet targeted boycott of settlement goods – silently reading labels at the grocery store to make sure I was not buying anything that came from over the Green Line.

I had been doing this for a long time. But, at some point, I realised that my private targeted boycott was a bit naïve. And I understood that it was not enough.

It is not just the settlements and the occupation, two sides of the same coin, which pose a serious obstacle to peace and infringe on the Palestinians’ human rights. It is everything that supports them – the government and its institutions. It is the bubble that many Israelis live in, the illusion of normality. It is the Israeli feeling that the status quo is sustainable.

And the settlements are a bit of a red herring, a convenient target for anger. Israelis must also face one of the major injustices that have resulted from their state – the nakba, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

While BDS addresses that, among other concerns – the three principles of the movement are respect for the Palestinians’ right of return, as outlined in UN resolution 194, an end to the occupation and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel – I remained reluctant to get involved.

I have to admit that I was frightened by the movement. I did not think it would help. I was sure that BDS would only encourage Israel to dig its heels in deeper. It will only make things worse for everyone, I reasoned.

Egypt was the tipping point for me. I was exhilarated by the images of people taking to the streets to demand change. And while the Palestine Papers prove that the government seems intent on maintaining the status quo, I know plenty of Israelis who are fed up with it.

There are mothers who do not want to send their children to the army; soldiers who resent guarding settlers. I recently spoke with a 44-year-old man – a normal guy, a father of two – who told me he wants to burn something he is so frustrated with the government and so worried about the future.

And Egypt is on many Israeli lips right now. So, what can be done to help bring it to Israeli feet? What can be done to encourage Israelis to fight for change, to fight for peace, to liberate themselves from a conflict that undermines their self-determination, their freedom?

BDS has stacked up a number of successes, which is one reason the Israeli Knesset is trying to pass a bill, known as the Boycott Law, that would effectively criminalise Israelis who join the movement, subjecting them to huge fines.

And some of those involved with BDS are already feeling an immense amount of pressure from the state.

‘Israel’s mask of democracy’

Leehee Rothschild, 26, is one of the scores of Israelis who have answered the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS. Recently her Tel Aviv apartment was raided. While the police did this under the pretense of searching for drugs, she was taken to the station for a brief interrogation that focused entirely on politics.

“The person who came to release me [from interrogation] was an intelligence officer who said that he is in charge of monitoring political activity in the Tel Aviv area,” Rothschild says. It was this officer who had requested the search warrant.

Since Operation Cast Lead, Israeli activists have reported increasing pressure from the police as well as General Security Services – known by their Hebrew acronym, Shabak.

The latter’s mandate includes, among other things, the goal of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state, making those who advocate for democracy a target.

House raids, such as the one Rothschild was subjected to, are not uncommon, nor are phone calls from the Shabak.

“Obviously [the pressure] is nothing compared to what Palestinians are going through,” Rothschild says. “But I think we’re touching a nerve.”

When asked about the proposed Boycott Law, Rothschild comments: “If the bill goes through, it will peel off, a little more, Israel’s mask of democracy.”

Tough love

As for her involvement in BDS, Rothschild remarks that she was not aware of the movement until it became a serious topic of discussion within Israel’s radical left, which she was already active in. And even after she heard about it, she did not jump onboard right away.

“I had reservations about [BDS],” Rothschild recalls. “I thought about it for a very long time and I debated it with myself and my friends.

“The main reservation I had was that the economic [aspects] would first harm the weak people in the society – the poor people – the people who have the least effect on what’s going on. But I think that the occupation is harming these people much more than the divestments can.”

Rothschild points out that state funds that are poured into “security and defence and oppressing the Palestinian people” could be better used in Israel to help those in the low socioeconomic strata.

“Another reservation I have had is that it might make the Israeli public more extremist, more fundamentalist,” Rothschild adds. “But I have to say that the road it has to go to be more extreme is very short right now.”

As an Israeli, Rothschild considers joining the BDS movement to be an act of caring. It is tough love for the country she was born and raised in.

“I hope that, for some people, it will be a slap in their face and they will wake up and see what’s going on,” Rothschild says, adding that the oppressor is oppressed, as well.

“The Israeli people are also oppressed by the occupation – they are living inside a society that is militant; that is violent; that is racist.”

‘Renouncing my privileges’

Ronnie Barkan, 34, explains that he took his first step towards the boycott 15 years ago, when he refused to complete his mandatory military service.

“There’s a lot of social pressure [in Israel],” Barkan says. “We’re raised to be soldiers from kindergarten. We’re taught that it’s our duty [to serve in the army] and you’re a parasite or traitor if you don’t want to serve.”

“What is even worse is that people are raised to be deeply racist,” he adds. “Everything is targeted at supporting [Jewish] privilege as the masters of the land. Supporting BDS means renouncing my privileges in this land and insisting on equality for all.”

Barkan likens his joining of the boycott movement to the “whites who denounced their apartheid privileges and joined the black struggle in South Africa”.

When I cringe at the “a-word,” apartheid, Barkan counters: “Israel clearly falls under the legal definition of the ‘crime of apartheid’ as defined in the Rome Statute.”

‘Never again to anybody’

Some oppose BDS because it includes recognition of the Palestinian right of return. These critics say that the demographic shift would impinge on Jewish self-determination. But Barkan argues that “the underlying foundation [of the movement] is universally recognised human rights and international law”.

He emphasises that BDS respects human rights for both Palestinians and Jews and includes proponents of a bi-national, democratic state as well as those who believe a two-state solution is the best answer to the conflict.

He also stresses that BDS is not anti-Semitic. Nor is it anti-Israeli.

“The boycott campaign is not targeting Israelis; it is targeting the criminal policies of Israel and the institutions that are complicit, not individuals,” he says.

“So let’s say an Israeli academic or musician goes abroad and he is turned away from a conference or a venue just because he’s Israeli … ” I begin to ask.

“No, no, this doesn’t fall under the [boycott guidelines],” Barkan says.

“Because that’s not a boycott. It’s racism,” I say.

“Exactly,” Barkan responds, adding that the Palestinian call for BDS is “a very responsible call” that “makes a differentiation between institutions and individuals and it is clearly a boycott of criminal institutions and their representatives”.

“Whenever there is a grey area,” he adds, “we take the gentler approach.”

Still, Barkan has faced criticism for his role in the boycott movement.

“My grandmother who went to Auschwitz tells me, ‘You can think whatever you want but don’t speak up about your politics because it’s not nice,’ I tell her, ‘You know who didn’t speak up 70 years ago.'”

Barkan adds: “I think that the main lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is ‘never again to anybody’ not ‘never again to the Jews.'”

Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

 

To understand Gaddafi’s power, we need to delve deeper into the cultural memory of a once colonised country

 

The Guardian,    Friday 25 March 2011

The Italian pilot Giulio Gavotti made military history in North Africa in 1911

It’s not on most people’s list of anniversaries to remember but it should be. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, the world’s first aerial bombing campaign took place – in Libya. In September 1911, desperate for an empire of their own, the Italians invaded. The Ottoman backwater had scarcely mattered to the sultans; for years it had been used chiefly as a place of exile for unfortunate political prisoners. But war propelled Libya into the headlines, the Italians’ colonial foray, triggering a chain of events that led inexorably to the first world war.

When the airman Giulio Gavotti dropped four grenades from his Taube monoplane on to the enemy outside Tripoli, little damage was done: indeed the practice of priming and then dropping live bombs by hand was nearly as hazardous to the Italian pilots as it was to the Turkish troops below. Nevertheless, a staff officer, Major Giulio Douhet, had seen enough to formulate the arguments that would make him the century’s foremost advocate of war from the skies. A decade later, Douhet argued in his classic study The Command of the Air that the sheer terror induced by mass bombing of civilian targets would shorten conflicts and save lives; outrage was thus misplaced, for total war was humane. The western way of war had been born in the north African desert.

Few remembered the Libyan victims. Indeed, the Italians had gone to war assuming the Arab population would greet them as liberators from the Ottoman yoke. By the time they realised their mistake, it was too late, and they were pinned back to the coast. Faced with a popular insurrection, they retaliated through the deliberate destruction of villages, wells and herds with force. Nearly 100,000 people were interned or deported, and thousands died of disease or malnutrition in labour camps. Italian planes once again bombed the country, this time dropping mustard gas in defiance of the 1925 Geneva protocol.

Finally, the fascist regime declared that the Libyan provinces were to become an integral part of Italy itself. A stroke of the pen turned the inhabitants into strangers in their own land, paving the way for the foundation of a new Roman empire with Italian farmer colonists. The settlers were still streaming in when the second world war turned the country into a new battlefield, littering the desert with mines that were still impeding oil exploration 20 years later.

With Mussolini’s defeat in the second world war, the entire story vanished into oblivion. the way so many other small wars fought by would-be civilisers against “savage races” had done. A new set of Great Powers took over before handing the whole problem of Libya’s future to the United Nations. Italy resurrected itself as a cold war ally of Britain and America. Postwar Italians condemned fascism’s crimes against fellow-Italians, but they forgot about the far worse crimes across the sea. No one else in Europe cared much either But in Libya the long decades of oppression could not be forgotten so easily. The Italians had devastated the old pastoral economy, and depopulated much of the land: the very term Siziliani (many of the settlers had come from Sicily) remained a term of loathing. Memories of anti-colonial resistance helped to legitimise Libya’s new British-backed king, Idris, who as head of the Sanusi order had been a figurehead for the struggle against the Italians. But such memories also helped bolster the 27-year-old Colonel Gaddafi when he accused the king of selling out to latter-day imperialism, toppled him in a coup and set up the republic that he continues to rule to this day.

From the very start of the regime, present and past merged as the anti-colonialist Gaddafi ordered British and American air bases to close and kicked out the 20,000 Italians still living in the country, nationalising their property. As his regime became more and more unpopular, so it found new uses in Libya’s history of oppression. Even as it razed the monuments of the Sanusi leadership, now seen by regime propagandists as feudal usurpers of a popular nationalist movement, so it sent researchers into the countryside as part of a vast oral history project to collect memories of the guerrilla war and Italian atrocities.

Such moves not only wrapped the regime in the heroic mantle of the anti-Italian jihad, they served geopolitical purposes too. Two years after forcing the Italians to leave, the socialist Gaddafi was inviting Italian corporations back in, turning the former colonial oppressor into Libya’s chief European business partner. And when in 2004 he sought new respectability in Europe, Italy became a crucial ally and history was part of the deal: Berlusconi apologized publicly for Italy’s past crimes, and in return, Gaddafi promised to keep Italy’s unwanted illegal migrants locked up in camps inside Libya. Visiting the country for the signing of the compensation accord in 2009, the ageing colonel posed next to Berlusconi with a photograph prominently pinned to his chest of Omar Mukhtar, a leader of the uprising whom the Italians had hanged in 1931. Buried in the treaty’s small print was Libya’s commitment in effect to divert much of the compensation money it was getting from Rome back into the pocket of Italian firms.

It is not only in Libya, of course, that the memory of colonial atrocities has provided rhetorical ammunition for nasty post-colonial regimes. The lesson here however concerns Western amnesia rather than Gaddafi’s exploitation of the past. For now those western planes are in action once again over Libyan skies, this past has become our past too; indeed it always was. The majority of Libyans may hate Gaddafi and wish him gone as quickly as possible. But they will remember what we have forgotten – that these planes are not the first, that there is a long history of overwhelming western might being deployed on north African shores, and that western power generally comes professing good intentions. If the west wishes today to underline the differences that surely exist between its intervention now and earlier ones, a precondition for persuasiveness is to familiarise ourselves with what we have forgotten, to understand why this history does matter despite everything that the Gaddafis of the world do with it, and will matter more and more the longer the regime hangs on.