Qaddafi regime funded presidential campaigns in US, Ukraine, France

https://www.thenational.ae/world/qaddafi-regime-funded-presidential-campaigns-in-us-ukraine-france-1.706025

Declassified Emails Reveal NATO Killed Gaddafi to Stop Libyan Creation of Gold-Backed Currency

Πηγή: The Free Thought Project
By Jay Syrmopoulos
January 14 2016

Washington, D.C. – In spite of French-led U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 creating a no-fly zone over Libya with the express intent of protecting civilians, one of the over 3,000 new Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department on New Year’s Eve, contain damning evidence of Western nations using NATO as a tool to topple Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. The NATO overthrow was not for the protection of the people, but instead it was to thwart Gaddafi’s attempt to create a gold-backed African currency to compete with the Western central banking monopoly.

The emails indicate the French-led NATO military initiative in Libya was also driven by a desire to gain access to a greater share of Libyan oil production, and to undermine a long term plan by Gaddafi to supplant France as the dominant power in the Francophone Africa region.

The April 2011 email, sent to the Secretary of State Hillary by unofficial adviser and longtime Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal with the subject line “France’s client and Qaddafi’s gold,” reveals predatory Western intentions.

The Foreign Policy Journal reports:

"The email identifies French President Nicholas Sarkozy as leading the attack on Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to obtain Libyan oil, ensure French influence in the region, increase Sarkozy’s reputation domestically, assert French military power, and to prevent Gaddafi’s influence in what is considered “Francophone Africa.”

Most astounding is the lengthy section delineating the huge threat that Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves, estimated at “143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver,” posed to the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency.

The email makes clear that intelligence sources indicate the impetus behind the French attack on Libya was a calculated move to consolidate greater power, using NATO as a tool for imperialist conquest, not a humanitarian intervention as the public was falsely led to believe.

According to the email:

"This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)".

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.)

The email provides a peek behind the curtain to reveal how foreign policy is often carried out in practice. While reported in the media that the Western backed Libyan military intervention is necessary to save human lives, the real driving factor behind the intervention was shown to be the fact that Gaddafi planned to create a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency, which would lessen French influence and power in the region.

The evidence indicates that when French intelligence became aware of the Libyan initiative to create a currency to compete with the Western central banking system, the decision to subvert the plan through military means began, ultimately including the NATO alliance.

h/t Levant Report

Jay Syrmopoulos is a political analyst, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on Ben Swann’s Truth in Media, Truth-Out, Raw Story, MintPress News, as well as many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.

The Big Lie About the Libyan War

Πηγή: FT
By MICAH ZENKO
MARCH 22, 2016

The Obama administration said it was just trying to protect civilians. Its actions reveal it was looking for regime change.

In this fifth anniversary week of the U.S.-led Libya intervention, it’s instructive to revisit Hillary Clinton’s curiously abridged description of that war in her 2014 memoir, Hard Choices. Clinton takes the reader from the crackdown, by Muammar al-Qaddafi’s regime, of a nascent uprising in Benghazi and Misrata; to her meeting — accompanied by the pop-intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy — with Mahmoud Jibril, the exiled leader of the opposition National Transitional Council; to her marshaling of an international military response. In late March 2011, Clinton quotes herself telling NATO members, “It’s crucial we’re all on the same page on NATO’s responsibility to enforce the no-fly zone and protect civilians in Libya.”

Just two paragraphs later — now 15 pages into her memoir’s Libya section — Clinton writes: “[By] late summer 2011, the rebels had pushed back the regime’s forces. They captured Tripoli toward the end of August, and Qaddafi and his family fled into the desert.” There is an abrupt and unexplained seven-month gap, during which the military mission has inexplicably, and massively, expanded beyond protecting civilians to regime change — seemingly by happenstance. The only opposition combatants even referred to are simply labeled “the rebels,” and the entire role of the NATO coalition and its attendant responsibility in assisting their advance has been completely scrubbed from the narrative.

In contemporary political debates, the Libya intervention tends to be remembered as an intra-administration soap opera, focused on the role Clinton — or Susan Rice or Samantha Power — played in advising Obama to go through with it. Or it’s addressed offhandedly in reference to the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. special mission and CIA annex in Benghazi. But it would be far more pertinent to treat Libya as a case study for the ways that supposedly limited interventions tend to mushroom into campaigns for regime change. Five years on, it’s still not a matter of public record when exactly Western powers decided to topple Qaddafi.

To more fully comprehend what actually happened in Libya five years ago, let’s briefly review what the Obama administration proclaimed and compare that with what actually happened.

On March 28, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the nation: “The task that I assigned our forces [is] to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a no-fly zone.… Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” Two days later, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon declared, “The military mission of the United States is designed to implement the Security Council resolution, no more and no less.… I mean protecting civilians against attacks from Qaddafi’s forces and delivering humanitarian aid.” The following day, Clinton’s deputy, James Steinberg, said during a Senate hearing, “President Obama has been equally firm that our military operation has a narrowly defined mission that does not include regime change.”

From the Defense Department, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen informed David Gregory of Meet the Press, “The goals of this campaign right now again are limited, and it isn’t about seeing him go.” Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates echoed the administration line: “Regime change is a very complicated business. It sometimes takes a long time. Sometimes it can happen very fast, but it was never part of the military mission.” (Emphasis added.)

Now, contrast Gates’s assertion in 2011 with what he told the New York Timeslast month:

“I can’t recall any specific decision that said, ‘Well, let’s just take him out,’” Mr. Gates said.“I can’t recall any specific decision that said, ‘Well, let’s just take him out,’” Mr. Gates said. Publicly, he said, “the fiction was maintained” that the goal was limited to disabling Colonel Qaddafi’s command and control. In fact, the former defense secretary said, “I don’t think there was a day that passed that people didn’t hope he would be in one of those command and control centers.”

This is scarcely believable. Given that decapitation strikes against Qaddafi were employed early and often, there almost certainly was a decision by the civilian heads of government of the NATO coalition to “take him out” from the very beginning of the intervention. On March 20, 2011, just hours into the intervention, Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a British submarine stationed in the Mediterranean Sea struck an administrative building in Qaddafi’s Bab al-Azizia compound, less than 50 yards away from the dictator’s residence. (This attack occurred just 100 yards from the building that Ronald Reagan authorized to be bombed by F-111s a quarter-century earlier in retaliation for a Berlin discothèque bombing ordered by the Libyan leader.) Just as the dictator somehow survived the attack on his personal residence in 1986, he also did in 2011.

Later that day, Vice Adm. William Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, wasasked by the press, “Can you guarantee that coalition forces are not going to target Qaddafi?” Gortney replied, “At this particular point, I can guarantee that he’s not on a targeting list.” When it was then pointed out that it was Qaddafi’s personal residence that had been attacked, Gortney added, “Yeah. But, no, we’re not targeting his residence. We’re there to set the conditions and enforce the United Nations Security Council resolution. That’s what we’re doing right now and limiting it to that.”

In fact, not only was the Western coalition not limiting its missions to the remit of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, but it also actively chose not to enforce them. Resolution 1970 was supposed to prohibit arms transfers to either side of the war in Libya, and NATO officials claimed repeatedly that this was not occurring. On April 19, 2011, a brigadier general stated, “No violation of the arms embargo has been reported.” Three weeks later, on May 13, a wing commander admitted, “I have no information about arms being moved across any of the borders around Libya.” In fact, Egypt and Qatar were shipping advanced weapons to rebel groups the whole time, with the blessingof the Obama administration, while Western intelligence and military forces provided battlefield intelligence, logistics, and training support.

Yet, the most damning piece of evidence comes from a public relations videothat NATO itself released on May 24, 2011. In the short video, a Canadian frigate — the HMCS Charlottetown — allegedly enforcing the arms embargo, boards a rebel tugboat and finds small arms, 105mm howitzer rounds, and “lots of explosives,” all of which are banned under Section 9 of Resolution 1970. The narrator states, “It turns out the tugboat is being used by Libyan rebels to transport arms from Benghazi to Misrata.” The Charlottetowncaptain radios NATO headquarters for further guidance. As the narrator concludes, “NATO decides not to impede the rebels and to let the tugboat proceed.” In other words, a NATO surface vessel stationed in the Mediterranean to enforce an arms embargo did exactly the opposite, and NATO was comfortable posting a video demonstrating its hypocrisy.

In truth, the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start.In truth, the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start. The threat posed by the Libyan regime’s military and paramilitary forces to civilian-populated areas was diminished by NATO airstrikes and rebel ground movements within the first 10 days. Afterward, NATO began providing direct close-air support for advancing rebel forces by attacking government troops that were actually in retreat and had abandoned their vehicles. Fittingly, on Oct. 20, 2011, it was a U.S. Predator drone and French fighter aircraft that attacked a convoy of regime loyalists trying to flee Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. The dictator was injured in the attack, captured alive, and then extrajudicially murderedby rebel forces.

The intervention in Libya shows that the slippery slope of allegedly limited interventions is most steep when there’s a significant gap between what policymakers say their objectives are and the orders they issue for the battlefield. Unfortunately, duplicity of this sort is a common practice in the U.S. military. Civilian and military officials are often instructed to use specific talking points to suggest the scope of particular operations is minimal relative to large-scale ground wars or that there is no war going on at all. Note that it took 14 months before the Pentagon even admitted, “Of course it’s combat,” for U.S. soldiers involved in the ongoing mission against the Islamic State in Iraq. Meanwhile, the public learned just this week — only because Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin was killed on Saturday — that there is a previously unannounced detachment of Marines in northern Iraq providing “force protection” for the Iraqi military and U.S. advisors. The gradual accretion of troops, capabilities, arms transfers, and expanded military missions seemingly just “happens,” because officials frame each policy step as normal and necessary. The reality is that, collectively, they represent a fundamentally larger and different intervention.

During the theatrical and exhaustive Benghazi hearing in October 2015, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) asked Clinton about a video clip that read, “‘We came, we saw, he died [meaning Qaddafi].’ Is that the Clinton doctrine?” Clinton replied, “No, that was an expression of relief that the military mission undertaken by NATO and our other partners had achieved its end.” Yet, this was never the military mission that the Obama administration repeatedly told the world it had set out to achieve. It misled the American public, because while presidents attempt to frame their wars as narrow, limited, and essential, admitting to the honest objective in Libya — regime change — would have brought about more scrutiny and diminished public support. The conclusion is clear: While we should listen to what U.S. and Western officials claim are their military objectives, all that matters is what they authorize their militaries to actually do.

The Libya War argument

Πηγή: Salon
BY GLENN GREENWALD
MONDAY, AUG 22, 2011 07:23 ET

In April, 2003, American troops entered Baghdad and Saddam Hussein was forced to flee; six months later, the dictator was captured ("caught like a rat in a hole," giddy American media outlets celebrated) and eventually hanged. Each of those incidents caused massive numbers of Iraqis who had suffered under his decades-long rule to celebrate, and justifiably so: Saddam really was a monster who had brutally oppressed millions. But what was not justifiable was how those emotions were exploited by American war advocates to delegitimize domestic objections to the war. Even though opposition to the war had absolutely nothing to do with doubt about whether Saddam could be vanquished by the U.S. military -- of course he could and would be -- the emotions surrounding his defeat were seized upon by Iraq War supporters to boastfully claim full-scale vindication (here's one of my all-time favorites from that intellectually corrupt genre).

So extreme was this manipulative way of arguing that then-presidential-candidate Howard Dean was mauled by people in both parties when he dared to raise questions about whether Saddam's capture -- being hailed in bipartisan political and media circles as a Great American Achievement -- would actually make things better. Dean's obvious point was that Saddam's demise told us very little about the key questions surrounding the war: how many civilians had died and would die in the future? What would be required to stabilize Iraq? How much more fighting would be unleashed? What precedents did the attack set? What regime would replace Saddam and what type of rule would it impose, and to whom would its leaders be loyal? That a dictatorial monster had been vanquished told us nothing about any of those key questions -- the ones in which war opposition had been grounded -- yet war proponents, given pervasive hatred of Saddam, dared anyone to question the war in the wake of those emotional events and risk appearing to oppose Saddam's defeat. That tactic succeeded in turning war criticism in the immediate aftermath of those events into a taboo (the same thing was done in the wake of Mullah Omar's expulsion from Afghanistan to those arguing that the war would result in a "quagmire").

As I've emphasized from the very first time I wrote about a possible war in Libya, there are real and important differences between the attack on Iraq and NATO's war in Libya, ones that make the former unjustifiable in ways the latter is not (beginning with at least some form of U.N. approval). But what they do have in common -- what virtually all wars have in common -- is the rhetorical manipulation used to justify them and demonize critics. Just as Iraq War opponents were accused of being "objectively pro-Saddam" and harboring indifference to The Iraqi People, so, too, were opponents of the Libya War repeatedly accused of being on Gadaffi's side (courtesy of Hillary Clinton, an advocate of both wars) and/or exuding indifference to the plight of Libyans. And now, in the wake of the apparent demise of the Gadaffi regime, we see all sorts of efforts, mostly from Democratic partisans, to exploit the emotions from Gadaffi's fall to shame those who questioned the war, illustrated by this question last night from ThinkProgress, an organization whose work I generally respect:




The towering irrationality of this taunt is manifest. Of course the U.S. participation in that war is still illegal. It's illegal because it was waged for months not merely without Congressional approval, but even in the face of a Congressional vote against its authorization. That NATO succeeded in defeating the Mighty Libyan Army does not have the slightest effect on that question, just as Saddam's capture told us nothing about the legality or wisdom of that war. What comments like this one are designed to accomplish is to exploit and manipulate the emotions surrounding Gaddafi's fall to shame and demonize war critics and dare them to question the War President now in light of his glorious triumph.

Of course, ThinkProgress could have just as rationally directed its question to President Obama's own Attorney General, Eric Holder, and his Office of Legal Counsel Chief, Caroline Krass, and his DOD General Counsel, Jeh Johnsen, all of whom argued that the war was illegal on the same grounds as Boehner did. Or they could have directed their comment to the numerous House Democrats who vehemently protested the war's illegality, and to the 60% of House Democrats who voted to de-fund it. Or they could have even directed it to ThinkProgress' own Matt Yglesias, who repeatedly expressed doubts about both the legality and wisdom of the Libya war, and last night wrote:

Let’s wish the best of luck to the people of Libya. Part of the problem with this intervention has always been that the fall of a dictator seems to me just as likely to lead to a bloody civil war or a new dictatorship as the emergence of a humane and stable regime. The effort to build a better future really only starts today.

Those are among the key questions that remain entirely unanswered. No decent human being would possibly harbor any sympathy for Gadaffi, just as none harbored any for Saddam. It's impossible not to be moved by the celebration of Libyans over the demise of (for some at least) their hated dictator, just as was the case for the happiness of Kurds and Shiites over Saddam's. And I've said many times before, there are undoubtedly many Libya war supporters motivated by the magnanimous (though misguided) desire to use the war to prevent mass killings (just as some Iraq War supporters genuinely wanted to liberate Iraqis).

But the real toll of this war (including the number of civilian deaths that have occurred and will occur) is still almost entirely unknown, and none of the arguments against the war (least of all the legal ones) are remotely resolved by yesterday's events. Shamelessly exploiting hatred of the latest Evil Villain to irrationally shield all sorts of policies from critical scrutiny -- the everything-is-justified-if-we-get-a-Bad-Guy mentality -- is one of the most common and destructive staples of American political discourse, and it's no better when done here.


UPDATE: Former MSNBC Donahue producer Jeff Cohen, in his book "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media,” documented the following from MSNBC in April, 2003, as U.S. forces entered Baghdad:

On April 10, three weeks into the war which he portrayed as mission accomplished, [Joe] Scarborough delivered a wacky commentary demanding that "disgraced" war skeptics like Jimmy Carter and Dennis Kucinich admit that “their wartime predictions were arrogant . . . misguided . . . and dead wrong.” This on a show in which he spoke of Iraq possessing WMD. Scarborough was gleeful that antiwar "elitists" like Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, and Janeane Garofalo were facing cancellations and boycotts. [Michael] Savage joined the conversation to say that "Hollywood idiots" are “absolutely committing sedition and treason." Scarborough responded, "These leftist stooges for anti-American causes are always given a free pass. Isn't it time to make them stand up and be counted for their views?"

With Gadaffi reportedly on the verge of falling, there certainly is a lot of similar chest-beating and boastful demands that war critics confess their shameful error -- as though anyone ever doubted that Gadaffi would fall -- and it all seems every bit as premature and manipulative as this April, 2003, orgy of self-celebrating war dances that took place on the MSNBC precinct of The Liberal Media.

Time to end Nato's war in Libya

Nurse at the hosptial in Misrata in Libya looks at a boy injured in the fighting, July 2011. Photograph: Irina Kalashnikova

Πηγή: The Guardian

By Dennis Kucinich

Sunday 21 August 2011

Whether Gaddafi goes or not, this costly intervention has thwarted peace talks and betrayed its 'humanitarian' mission

In March of this year, the US, France, Britain and their North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies launched military operations in Libya under the guise of a "humanitarian intervention". US diplomats and world leaders carelessly voiced unsubstantiated claims of an impending massacre in Benghazi. You hear no such appeals to humanity while Nato, in the name of the rebels (whoever they are), prepares to lay siege to Tripoli, a city of nearly 2 million people.

Libyan rebels are now advancing on the capital city of Tripoli with the aid of Nato strikes; this is sure to result in a real bloodbath, as opposed to the one that was conjured in Benghazi this past winter. Nato is assisting rebels who are blocking food, water and medical supplies from coming into the capital city, and is stopping those who need advanced medical care from travelling to Tunisia to access it. Nato is bombing power stations, creating blackouts, and using Apache helicopters to attack Libyan police checkpoints to clear roads for rebels to advance.

Regardless of whether Muammar Gaddafi is ousted in coming days, the war against Libya has seen countless violations of United Nations security council resolutions (UNSCRs) by Nato and UN member states. The funnelling of weapons (now being air-dropped) to Libyan rebels was, from the beginning of the conflict, in clear violation of UNSCR 1970. The use of military force on behalf of the rebels, in an attempt to impose regime change, has undermined international law and damaged the credibility of the United Nations. Countless innocent civilians have been killed, and Nato air strikes continue to place many at great risk.

So much for the humanitarian-inspired UNSCR 1973 as a means to protect civilians. The people of Libya cannot take another month of such humanitarian intervention.

The leading donor nations of Nato – the US, France and Great Britain – have been free to prosecute war under the cloak of this faceless, bureaucratic, alphabet security agency, now multinational war machine, which can violate UN resolutions and kill innocent civilians with impunity. War crimes trials are only for losers. The prospective conquerors, the western powers and their rebel proxies, will then expect to be able to assert control over Libya's vast oil and natural gas reserves.

The US share of the war against Libya has probably exceeded the $1bn mark. This extraordinary amount of money for an intervention that Americans were told would last "days not weeks" could only be explained by looking at the war as an investment, and at control over Libya's wealth as an opportunity to make a return on that investment. Cynical? Then tell me why else we are at war in Libya.

Viable peace proposals, such as the one put forward by the African Union (AU), have been quickly and summarily rejected. If there is going to be a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the US must work with and empower the AU to ensure regional security. The AU has proposed a peace plan that would facilitate an immediate ceasefire, the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, a dialogue between the Transitional National Council and the Gaddafi government, and the suspension of Nato strikes.

The use of force and ultimatums has not worked. As the war enters its sixth month, it is time for the US president and secretary of state to clean up the mess they've created with this needless military intervention, and to work to seriously to bring about a negotiated end to this war.

In June, I proposed a peace plan (pdf) derived in part from the efforts of the AU. This plan calls for an immediate ceasefire and lays out the principles necessary to create a framework to achieve reconciliation and national unity in Libya by a meaningful process. In its June report on Libya, the International Crisis Group stated:

"A political breakthrough is by far the best way out of the costly situation created by the military impasse. This will require a ceasefire between the regime and the Transitional National Council, the deployment of a peacekeeping force to monitor and guarantee this under a UN mandate, and the immediate opening of serious negotiations between regime and opposition representatives to secure agreement on a peaceful transition to a new, more legitimate political order. Nato and those states supporting its military action should facilitate this development, not hinder it."

I have recently received several reports indicating that a settlement was close, only to be scuttled by state department officials. Given that the department of state seems to have taken a singular role in launching the US into this war, it is more than disconcerting to hear that the same agency has played a role in frustrating a resolution to this conflict. There are viable solutions to peacefully end the conflict, if there is a desire to do so.

Continued military action promotes a cycle of violence that will persist whether Colonel Gaddafi is ousted or not. On 19 March 2003, the United States pursued regime change in Iraq. Eight years later, we're still wondering why the people of Iraq are not sufficiently grateful for our intervention, which has resulted in the death of over 1 million of their fellow countrymen and women.

How can we expect this grim manifesto of interventionism to ever result in anything but tragedy? It's time to end the war against Libya.

Debating the Lessons of History in Libya

Πηγή: Foreign Affairs

Micah Zenko
March 28, 2011

The Mythology of Intervention

When considering how the United States should deal with persistent foreign policy problems, history can be instructive. Distorted or misremembered history, however, is dangerous. Unfortunately, in the recent debate over U.S. intervention in Libya, journalists and analysts have propagated an array of falsehoods and mischaracterizations about the United States' uses of military force since the end of the Cold War. Believing in these myths -- particularly in their supposedly successful outcomes -- leads to a misunderstanding of contemporary problems and to a more interventionist U.S. foreign policy.

The first myth is that the combination of NATO airpower and a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) ground offensive drove Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo in 1999. Today, proponents of intervention in Libya, such as Max Boot at the Council on Foreign Relations and Peter Juul at the Center for American Progress, have advocated replicating this supposed success. They argue that Libyan rebel forces, fighting with close air support from Western fighter planes, could wage an effective ground offensive all the way to Tripoli and force Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi from power.

But a U.S. Air Force review of its precision airpower campaign in Kosovo revealed a much darker picture than NATO's glowing initial assessment: 14 tanks were destroyed, not 120, as previously reported; similarly, 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220, and 20 mobile artillery pieces, not 450, were eliminated. During the campaign, the Serbian military quickly adapted to NATO's operations by constructing fake "artillery" from logs and old truck axles, and "surface-to-air missiles" made of paper.

Furthermore, the KLA failed to mount a credible and sustained opposition to the disciplined, ruthless, and better-armed Serbian ground forces. Ultimately, it was NATO's escalation of air strikes against the Serbian military and the civilian infrastructure in Serbia proper -- combined with Russia's withdrawal of its support for Serbia -- that caused Milosevic to capitulate.
Even when accurate, historical analogies can be a double-edged sword.

Second, many in and outside of government, including Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the diplomat and academic Philip Zelikow, have called for a so-called no-drive zone, in which Libyan armored divisions would be prohibited from any movement around the country, or at least from movement against civilian populations. They cite the successful use of such a policy by U.S. forces in Iraq after the first Gulf War. In Libya, this thinking goes, a no-drive zone could be relatively easy to set up and would neutralize Qadaffi's conventional ground capabilities and alter the military balance between the regime and rebels.

Yet there never was a no-drive zone in Iraq. In fact, in October 1994, Saddam Hussein dispatched 70,000 troops, led by two Republican Guard divisions, toward the Kuwaiti border. There, they joined six Iraqi army divisions already stationed below the 32nd parallel, the geographic marker that cordoned off the southern no-fly zone. To safeguard Kuwaiti and Saudi oil, the Clinton administration responded with Operation Vigilant Warrior, which rapidly deployed U.S. ground forces and armored equipment to the Persian Gulf. Deterred, Hussein quickly pulled his Republican Guard divisions back to central Iraq, where they stayed. In addition, UN Security Council Resolution 949 demanded the "withdrawal of all military units recently deployed to southern Iraq." Washington and London used that resolution as justification for formal diplomatic warnings to Baghdad that it could not augment its ground forces beneath the 32nd parallel. But this policy applied only to military units that arrived in the region after October 1994: in other words, although Hussein may have withdrawn his two Republican Guard divisions, six Iraqi Army divisions remained and freely attacked foes of the Baghdad regime.

Third, many military analysts, along with U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), seem to believe that no-fly zones protect civilians on the ground. But this is often not the case. Despite the rosy memories of some interventionists, the no-fly zones over Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-95) and northern and southern Iraq (1991-2003) failed to protect civilian populations.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina the no-fly zone went largely unenforced (with one notable exception, when NATO shot down four Serbian planes in February 1994). As Madeline Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in her memoir: "We voted to enforce no-fly zones, but the Serbs violated them hundreds of times without paying a significant price." To a lesser degree, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim airplanes and helicopters also violated the no-fly zone. Even if it had been enforced, the no-fly zone would have been impotent against the brutal counterinsurgency attacks conducted by Serbian ground forces, which massacred 9,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.

Within both the northern and southern no-fly zones in Iraq, Saddam's ground forces attacked any group that opposed the regime. In the south, in the years after the failed Shia uprising in 1991, Hussein initiated a brutal counterinsurgency campaign. His troops destroyed the marshlands that were part of the historical ecosystem of southern Iraq, building roadways through some so they could bring artillery within range of Shia insurgents and draining others so as to eliminate rebel hiding places. At the same time, Iraqi security forces cordoned off suspected rebel areas and controlled the movement of people. In the north, in August 1996 -- with the no-fly zone in full operational force -- Hussein viciously put down a short-lived Kurdish uprising with 40,000 troops, 300 tanks, and 300 pieces of artillery.

Outside powers, meanwhile, routinely violated the Iraqi no-fly zones. In southern Iraq, Iranian jets penetrated Iraqi airspace to bomb camps run by Mujahideen-e Khalq (an armed, Shia, anti-Tehran opposition group), which housed both civilians and fighters. In northern Iraq, Turkish fighter planes repeatedly bombed villages suspected of harboring Kurdistan Workers' Party terrorists. According to the U.S. State Department's 2000 report on human rights, in one of these attacks, Turkish planes accidentally killed 38 civilians. As one U.S. commander of the northern no-fly zone told me: "We would fly over the Kurds in F-16s to protect the population and assure humanitarian supplies. Then the Turks would bomb the Kurds with F-16s."

The fourth myth of U.S. intervention is that NATO established a no-fly zone over Kosovo in the 1990s -- which then did not stop Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries from forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians and killing 10,000 others. In debating a no-fly zone in Libya, commentators in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others, invoked this supposed fact, which suggested that no-fly zones were impotent, as a reason why they would fail in Libya.

In reality, after small skirmishes between Serbian forces and the KLA in early 1998, in July and August of that year, NATO debated a number of preventive deployments -- such as placing military observers in Albania and Macedonia -- and more intrusive measures, including a phased air campaign and the incursion of up to 200,000 NATO troops into Kosovo. Before Operation Allied Force began on March 24, 1999, however, NATO neither debated implementing a no-fly zone over Kosovo nor did it impose one.

Lastly, many believe the myth that killing political leaders neutralizes the threat their regimes pose. Citing the recent success of unmanned drone strikes in killing suspected al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan, many, including British Foreign Secretary William Hague, have asked, "Why don't we just assassinate Qadaffi?" Although this may appear to be an easy solution, the targeted killing of political leaders does not work.

Recent, comparable efforts to use cruise missiles or bombs to eliminate U.S. adversaries -- including Qadaffi himself in 1986 and again by the British last Monday, Osama Bin Laden in 1998, Milosevic in 1999, and Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 -- all failed. Despite the United States' intelligence capabilities, political leaders who believe they are targeted are adaptive, resilient, and hard to kill from a distance. The U.S. record of failure in this regard is even worse than the historical average. Of the 298 publicly reported assassination attempts on national leaders between 1875 and 2004, less than 20 percent were successful. Furthermore, while decapitating the leadership certainly generates confusion, the aftermath is rarely positive -- as with the killing of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963, when the United States plunged deeper into a civil war on behalf of incompetent generals in Saigon. However unpleasant a truth it may be, nothing short of a full-scale invasion can assure regime change, as shown everywhere from Grenada to Panama and Iraq to Afghanistan.

Even when accurate, historical analogies can be a double-edged sword. As Ernest May and Richard Neustadt argued in their book, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, well-deployed and critically examined historical references can enhance decision-making (the Kennedy administration relied on the lessons of World War II to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis), or degrade it (the Truman administration misunderstood Nazi and fascist expansionism, which led it to miscalculate in Korea).

In the debate over whether, and how, to intervene in Libya, opponents and proponents called on historical examples to bolster their case. Too often, these examples were historically inaccurate and were misapplied to Libya's unfolding civil war. If the legacy of recent uses of U.S. military force demonstrate anything, it is that regardless of whether the objective is to protect civilians on the ground, precipitate Qaddafi's removal from power, or stabilize a postconflict Libya, more force, time, attention, and resources will be needed than the international community has thus far proven willing to commit.

UK riots: Gaddafi calls on David Cameron to step down over rioting

Col Muammar Gaddafi has called on David Cameron to stand down Photo: GETTY IMAGES/PA

Πηγή: The Telegraph

By Bruno Waterfield
7:05AM BST 11 Aug 2011

Col Muammar Gaddafi has used the riots as pretext for a bizarre call on David Cameron to step down because, he claimed, the Prime Minister was unfit to govern after unleashing “violent repression” on “peaceful protesters”.

The Libyan leader, at war with rebels and a British-led Nato campaign after he used the military in an attempt to crush protests, attempted to turn the tables on Mr Cameron.

Khaled Kaaim, Libya’s deputy foreign minister, accused the Government of having declared war on the British people.

“Cameron and his government must leave after the popular uprising against them and the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations by police,” said Mr Kaaim.

“Cameron and his government have lost all legitimacy. These demonstrations show that the British people reject this government, which is trying to impose itself through force.”

In a caricature of the Western response in February when the Libyan regime massacred its opponents by using aircraft and tanks against demonstrators, Mr Kaaim called on the UN Security Council to act to prevent a “flagrant violation of the rights of the British people”.

The comments were echoed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, another despotic leader who has been subjected to UN sanctions and Western criticism for crushing opposition.

“This savage treatment of people is absolutely unacceptable, and British statesmen must hear the voice of the people and grant them freedoms,” he said. “British politicians should look to help their own people instead of invading Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya to plunder their oil.”

Libyan Rebels Dissolve Cabinet Amid Discord

Πηγή: New York Times
By KAREEM FAHIM
August 8, 2011


BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebel leaders dissolved their own cabinet on Monday, in an effort to placate the family of an assassinated rebel military leader and quiet discord in a movement already struggling to remove the country’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from power.

A rebel spokesman said that the prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, the only member of the cabinet who kept his job, would have to present a new slate of cabinet members to the rebel legislative body, the Transitional National Council, for approval in the coming days. The cabinet was dissolved, the spokesman said, “for improper administrative procedures” that led to the arrest and subsequent killing of the military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, a former top Libyan commander who defected to the rebel side.

The move left the rebels without several of its leaders — including the ministers of defense, finance, interior and justice — as they try to fight a three-front war, run dozens of cities under their control and rein in armed militias that have multiplied since the February uprising.

And it threatened to halt a flurry of negotiations between the rebels and foreign governments, just as the rebels have started to wrest millions of dollars in loans and other grants from their allies.

Mazin Ramadan, a member of the finance committee, said that he believed the changes were supposed to take effect on Thursday and that he planned on continuing his work: “The interruption is not good. But this is not something we are going to worry about. This is not going to stop us.”

The reshuffling also seemed to represent an effort by interest groups within the rebel movement, including homegrown leaders who helped start the uprising, to assert their power by sidelining leaders who had returned from exile and held key posts.

For months, there had been complaints that cabinet members were unknown to most Libyans, spending most of their time abroad — especially in Qatar, the country that has emerged as the rebels’ most enthusiastic patron.

A rebel spokesman said that Mr. Jibril, who has rarely been seen in Benghazi, would be required to start spending more time in Libya.

The killing of General Younes had raised fears of internal strife, after members of his tribe, the Obeidi, said they would turn to violence unless there was a proper investigation. His family cautiously welcomed Monday’s reshuffling but demanded more action. “We only care about justice,” the family said in a statement that was also signed by the Obeidi. “We don’t seek power. We insist on bringing those involved with the assassination, regardless of their ranks or titles, to be prosecuted by a fair, civilized judicial system.”

General Younes was killed more than a week ago in murky circumstances. His family’s outrage has been focused on events that preceded the killing, when the general was summoned to Benghazi to be questioned by leaders, including Ali al-Essawi, Mr. Jibril’s deputy, according to General Younes’s family.

Rebel leaders have delivered mixed messages about the motive for the killing. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the head of the rebel council, called the assassination a “conspiracy” by the Qaddafi government. But others have said the general was killed by rebels seeking revenge for his role in the brutal suppression of an Islamist insurrection in the eastern city of Darnah in the mid-1990s.

Before he joined the rebels, General Younes served as the head of the Libyan special forces and the interior minister.

In recent months, Islamists have been suspected in the killings of other former Qaddafi officials. Despite pledges by the rebels to fully investigate, the shootings of at least three former Qaddafi internal security officers several months ago remain unsolved.       

Qatari plane supplies ammunition to Libya rebels

Πηγή: Reuters

by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Misrata

Sat Aug 6, 2011 4:42pm GMT

MISRATA, Libya, August 6 (Reuters) - A Qatari plane made a quick stop in the rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata on Saturday to offload ammunition destined for rebel fighters, sources with knowledge of the flight said.

Officials at the airport acknowledged a Qatari plane landed at Misrata airport but declined to reveal details of its contents.

"The plane offloaded six pick-up trucks which were packed with ammunition and minutes later it flew off again," said one source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another source showed Reuters a photo of a plane shortly after its departure with "Qatar" written on underside of the fuselage.

Rebels seeking to protect Misrata and advance the 200 kilometres (125 miles) to Tripoli have been complaining of a lack of weapons and ammunition to effectively push forward to the capital.

France has previously air-dropped weapons and ammunition to rebels in western Libya.

Qatar has been one of staunchest supporters of Libyans seeking to topple Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Fighting is currently on the eastern outskirts of Zlitan, one of two major towns between Misrata and Tripoli which is firmly in the hands of the Libyan leader.

Taking Zlitan would be a major breakthrough in the war.

End Game for Benghazi Rebels as Libyan Tribes Prepare to Weigh In?

Πηγή: Foreign Policy Journal

By Franklin Lamb
August 3, 2011

TRIPOLI — On July 30, the day before this 97.5 percent Muslim country began the holy month of Ramadan, NATO spokesperson Roland Lavoie lamely attemptedational  to explain to the press at the Rixos Hotel and internationally why NATO was forced to bomb three Tripoli TV towers at the Libyan Broadcasting Authority, killing three journalists/technicians and wounding 15 others. Like most people currently in central Tripoli, this observer was awakened at 1:50 a.m. by the first of a series of nine blasts, three of which I watched from my balcony as they happened, and which seemed to be about 800 yards away as I saw one TV tower being blown apart. On the four-lane divided highway adjacent to my hotel and below my balcony, which runs along the sea front, I could see two cars frantically swerving left and right as they sped along, presumably trying to avoid a NATO rocket, fearing they themselves might be targeted.

According to NATO spokesperson Lavoie, allowing Libya’s population to watch government TV, and by implication, to hear terrorist public service announcements concerning subjects such as gasoline availability, food distribution for Ramadan, updates on areas to be avoided due to recent NATO bombing, prayers and lectures by Sheiks on moral and religious subjects during Ramadan, or to see the Prayer Times chart posted on government TV, during this month of fasting, plus children’s programs and normal programming, had to stop immediately.

The reason to bomb Libyan government TV, according to NATO, is that Libyan leader Gaddafi has been giving interviews and speeches following repeated NATO bombings that recently have included hospitals, Ramadan food storage warehouses, the nation’s main water distribution infrastructure, private homes, and more than 1,600 other civilian sites. NATO believes that preventing Gaddafi’s use of Libya’s public airwaves by bombing transmission towers is within UN resolutions 1970 and 1973, the scope of which are being expanded beyond all recognition from their original intent. NATO spokesperson Lavoie claims that Libya’s leadership is using TV broadcast facilities to thwart NATO’s “humanitarian mission” and, yet again are, “putting civilian lives at risk.”

Government officials admit using the media for communication with the population, including to urge tribal unity, to dialogue with those based in Benghazi referred to here as “NATO rebels”, to argue for an immediate ceasefire and, yes, even to call for all Libyans to resist what many here, including Colonel Gaddafi, call “the NATO crusader aggressors.”

In western Libya, and even among many in the east, according to recent rebel defectors who daily arrive on the western side, NATO has lost the respect of this country, Africa, the Middle East, and increasingly the international community. The reasons are well known here and include the serial false premises and descriptions of what happened in February in Benghazi and Misrata areas.

In addition, NATO daily bombing strikes have increased approximately 20 percent since July 25, and will continue to increase according to French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, who, along with UK Defense Minister Liam Fox, while publicly saying NATO must continue the bombing, is privately expressing his frustration with the killing of rebel military commander Abdul Fatah Younnis. This assassination, according to Libyan officials, was very likely carried out by Younnis’ rebel leaders or Al Qaeda. Both are said to feel that the rebel leadership in Benghazi is collapsing. So do many NATO leaders and the Obama Administration.

A former senior member of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party, Sir Menzies Campbell, has just urged the UK government to rethink its involvement in the war on Libya. Campbell said Britain must undertake a “wholesale re-examination and review” of its involvement in the NATO conflict in Libya after the murder of the opposition figure and Britain “must think about the end-game of the conflict in Libya.”

One Libyan government supporter, who just arrived here in Tripoli, claims he spent the past two months on the ground in Benghazi “undercover” as a liaison between the rebels and NATO. He told his rapt audience at a Tripoli hotel this week many details of what he claims is NATO’s frustration with the deterioration, corruption, and incompetence of their “team” in the east and the CIA view that “Al Qaeda will eat Mahmoud Jibril and the entire rebel leadership for Iftar during one of the Ramadan feasts during August. They are just waiting for the right opportunity to make a dramatic move and take control.”

Only the zealots of “humanitarian intervention” could seriously have contemplated the kind of protracted, bloody land war in Libya that would have been necessary to win. So, the bet on an alliance with NATO now appears to have been doomed from the start, even on its own terms.

The force that is rapidly entering into this conflict is the leadership of Libya’s more than 2000 tribes. In a series of meetings in Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere, the Tribal Council is speaking out forcefully and forging a political block that is demanding an end to Libyans killing Libyans.

Generally considered Libya’s largest tribe are the Obeidis, to which the Younnis family belongs. Some of the tribal leaders and members have vowed revenge against rebel leaders, and as they carried the coffins of Abdul Fatah and his two companions, they chanted, under the gaze of security forces, “the blood of martyrs will not go in vain.”

Libya’s Tribal Council has issued a manifesto which makes clear that it intends to end this conflict, help expel “the NATO crusaders”, and achieve reforms while supporting the Gaddafi, Tripoli based government. Before Ramadan is over, it intends to end Libya’s crisis even if it needs to rally its hundreds of thousands of active members to march on Benghazi.

NATO, according to various academics at Al Nasser and Al Fatah University, and Libya’s Tribal leadership, appear surprisingly ignorant and even contemptuous of this country’s tribes and their historic roles during times of crises and foreign aggression and occupation. One tribal leader well known to Italy was Omar Muktar.

As NATO and its backers contemplate their endgame, they may want to consider some excerpts from the Libyan Tribal Council’s manifesto issued on July 26. Speaking for Libya’s 2000 tribes, the Council issued a Proclamation signed by scores of tribal leaders from eastern Libya:

By this letter to the extraordinary African Summit, convening in Addis Ababa, the notables of the Eastern tribes of the Great Jamahiriya confirm their complete rejection of what is called the Transitional Council in Benghazi which hasn’t been nominated nor elected by Tribal representatives but rather imposed by NATO.

What is called the Transitional Council in Benghazi was imposed by NATO on us and we completely reject it. Is it democracy to impose people with armed power on the people of Benghazi, many of whose leaders are not even Libyan or from Libyan tribes but come from Tunisia and other countries?

… The Trial Council assures its continuing cooperation with the African Union in its suggestions aimed at helping to prevent the aggression on the Libyan people.…

The Tribal Council condemns the crusader aggression on the Great Jamahiriya executed by the NATO and the Arabic regressive forces which is a grave threat to Libyan civilians as it continues to kill them as NATO bombs civilian targets.…

We do not and will not accept any authority other than the authority that we chose with our free will which is the People’s Congress and Peoples Committees, and the popular social leadership, and will oppose with all available means, the NATO rebels and their slaughter, violence and maiming of cadavers. We intend to oppose with all the means available to us the NATO crusader aggressors and their appointed lackeys.

According to one representative of the Libyan Supreme Tribal Council, “The tribes of Libya have until today not fully joined in repelling the NATO aggressors. As we do, we serve notice to NATO that we shall not desist until they have left our country and we will ensure that they never return.”

General's Abdul Fatah Youni assassination mystery

On July 24 the Jordan based Al - Bawaba media reported that General Abdul Fatah Younis "head of the rebel forces army in Libya, was killed in the fighting in Brega area some 10 days ago in what was described as mysterious circumstances." "It is worth mentioning that there were differences between some rebel leaders and Younes as some rebels claimed he was responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of people in front of Italy's consulate in Benghazi in 2006. This incident was related to a protest against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed." Next day he gave a radio interview to announce he was alive and well and declare that the rebels would achieve victory before the impending start of Ramadan. TNC officials claimed afterwards that someone was impersonating Gen Younes, who was indeed under arrest. He accused Gaddafi regime of distributing this false information in order to influence the morale of the rebels.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil

On July 28 General Abdul Fatah Younis reported that was killed along with his comrades Colonel Mohammed Khamis and Major Nasser Mathkour. National Transitional Council (TNC), the opposition's administration based in Benghazi chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in the subsequent press conference that Libyan state TV had announced to its listeners that they would “hear good news about Abdul Fatah Younis this week.” As for the assassination he remarked: "Today, we learned that Major General Abdel Fattah Younes Faraj and his two companions were shot by gunmen after he was summoned to appear before a judicial committee to investigate military affairs. But the deceased did not appear before this committee, because of the procedures that happened to him, which are under investigation. The head of the armed group, one of them that actually carried out the assassination, was arrested." He gave a last warning "to the individuals who are armed inside the cities, we will not allow armed militias within the city limits. They have one of two choices: They have to join the front, or they have to join the national security forces inside the cities" and exteneded condolences "to all the Libyans and all the tribes, especially the tribe of Obeidat that have paid heavily with more than 40 martyrs and in excess of 500 injured at the front" adding that "these events will not turn the Obeidat tribe away from the revolution. Relatives of the dead, relatives of the martyrs and some of these tribes are here, and we all ask the Allah the almighty to give his mercy upon all of them.."


The TNC claimed that Major-General Abdel Fatah Younes had been shot by pro-Gaddafi forces. But this was immediately dismissed by supporters of the commander, who claimed he had been killed by fellow revolutionary fighters. Roadblocks were being set up in Benghazi after units loyal to Gen Younes were reported to have left the front line at the port of Brega and entered the opposition capital. The roads to the commander's home were sealed off by the Shabaab, volunteer militia fighters formed after the uprising. Later in the evening, gunmen burst into a hall where the head of the TNC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil had announced Gen Younes's death, and sprayed the room with rifle fire. A witness said that they later managed to enter the hotel with their weapons but security forces calmed them down and convinced them to leave. “They shouted ‘You killed him,’” in reference to the NTC, he added.

Ali Tarhouni

After 24 hours of confusion, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni said Younes had been killed by fighters who were sent to fetch him from the front and his bullet-riddled and partially burned body was found at a ranch near the rebel capital of Benghazi. Tarhouni said late on Friday a militiaman had been arrested and confessed that his subordinates had carried out the killing. He announced that the assassination of Gen Younes had been conducted by "renegade" members of the Abu Obeida al-Jarrah brigade which had taken Gen Younes into custody on suspicion of treason. Younes had been recalled over suspicions he or his family were secretly in contact with the Libyan leader.

Gaddafi's government pointed the finger at Fawzi Bu Kitf, head of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, a federation of armed rebel groups operating in the east of the country. In an apparent effort to distance himself from the killing, Bu Kitf on Saturday named the key suspect as Mustafa al-Rubh, the field commander who had been dispatched to arrest Younes.

On 30/7 Al - Jazeera reported that Younis was shot dead "after he had been held and questioned by their investigators regarding "a military matter", the head of the council says." Jalil claimed that since the throats of the men had not been cut the killing was not the work of Islamists but of pro - Qaddafi agents seeking to create divisions within the opposition. There was a warrant signed by Ali Essawi, his deputy, and that after Abdel Fattah Younes, the commander of the rebel armed forces, had been questioned on Thursday he had been released.

Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters. that behind this act it was al-Qaeda that wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region. Mohammed Agoury, a member of the rebel special forces, told the AP news agency that he was present when a group of rebels from the February 17th Brigade came to Younes' operations room before dawn on Wednesday and took him away for interrogation.

Abdul Fatah Younis was a senior military officer in Libya. He held the rank of Major General and the post of Minister of Interior, considered as a key supporter of Muammar al-Gaddafi or even No. 2 in the Libyan government. He had arrived in Benghazi commanding a special forces unit whose mission was to help relieve the beseiged Katiba compound, which had sheltered the remaining loyalist forces in the city since 18 February, and which was undergoing almost continuous attack. He claimed to have ordered his soldiers not to shoot at protesters, and negotiated an arrangement whereby the loyalists were permitted to retreat from the building and the city. Reading his short speech from a paper he resigned on camera on 22 February 2011 to defect to the rebel side.

Col Khalifa Haftar

The committed assassination possibly will leave Khalifa Haftar at the helm of the rebel's army. Haftar is probably the CIA's man in Libya. He came to Benghazi on March 14, straight from Fairfax, Virginia, where had lived for 20 years. Upon his arrival with his two sons he self - proclaimed as commander of the Free Libyan Army. Claiming that he doesn't report to Omar Hariri, the rebels' defense minister or to Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, who had the title of chief of staff, he told that one of his sons was in regular contact with James Clapper, U.S. director of National Intelliglence, a claim that a spokesperson for Clapper said was inaccurate. In March, Younes was rumoured to have nearly come to blows with Col Khalifa Belqasim Haftar, a rival within the rebel camp, and for a time both men claimed to be in command of the rebel forces as they raced towards Tripoli, only to be thrown back towards Benghazi. Hifter swiftly replaced Younis as the commander of rebel forces as his son claimed that he was responsible for commanding rebel troops in the field, while Younes served as chief of staff back at headquarters. Omar Hariri, defence minister at the time, represented the military before the NTC, he said in late April. Furthermore he claimed that his father along with Jalil and Ali Essawi that later signed the warrant against Younes worked together as a team, a kind of military council. According to Hifter Jalil and Essawi was a figurehead and commander in chief only in name. But in the contrary it seems that the NTC degraded his role and promoted Younes. As Abdulhafiz Ghoga, the NTC's vice chairman and spokesman, told Al Jazeera in an interview later Younes was at the top of the army’s chain of command. Hariri represented the military before the NTC, it was true, but Hifter was only a commander, one of many leaders of the newly formed rebel brigades.

In recent months, the dispute seemed to resolve. The NTC presented a more disciplined public face to the media, eliminated contradictory remarks about who was in charge and minimised Hifter's role in favor of Younes. It replaced Defence Minister Omar Hariri with Jalal al-Dogheily, a senior opposition figure who was older than both Younes and Hifter and whose job was to both coordinate military affairs and mediate between the two men. 

It seems that the pro - American rebel's officials blame the Islamists, the more localized conservatives blame Qaddafi while himself blames Al - Qaeda. Anyway the whole story underlines the fragmentaion of the revolutionaries among different foreign policy trends, local mentality, contest for power among the tribes and fundamentalism and retaliation. Abdul Fatah Youni's death was for the moment per se less important than the ongoing political manipulation of the assassination. Finally, it must be noted that the the Obeidat tribe loyal to Yunis blaming the NTC for his death, that Jalil had wished that "these events will not turn from the revolution" expressing his "condolences ... especially (to) the tribe of Obeidat that have paid heavily with more than 40 martyrs and in excess of 500 injured at the front", is divided to 15 sub - tribes standing at the center of the Harabi Confederation, the practically hegemonic tribe among the tribes of Cyrenaica, which overlaps between the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and al Qaeda. 

The War on Libya : An Imperialist Project to Create Three Libyas

Πηγή: Global Research
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

TRIPOLI, July 28, 2011 The division of Libya into three separate countries is part of the US-NATO imperial design. It is part of a project shared by the U.S., Britain, Italy, and France.

The NATO war launched against Libya in March 2011 was geared towards the breakup of the country into three separate entities.

The NATO led war, however, is back firing. The Libyan people have united to save their country and Tripoli is exploring its strategic options.

Preface: Reality versus Fiction

Almost all of the text herein was written a few months prior to my trip to Tripoli. It is part of a series of articles on Libya which I have been updating. It is fitting to conclude it in Tripoli, Libya. To be here on the ground in Libya is to be witness to the lies and warped narratives of the mainstream media and the governments. These lies have been used to justify this criminal military endeavor.

The mainstream media has been a major force in this war. They have endorsed and fabricated the news, they have justified an illegal and criminal war against an entire population.

Passing through the neighbourhood of Fashloom in Tripoli it is apparent that no jets attacked it as Al Jazeera and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) falsely claimed. Now the same media networks, newspapers, and wires claim on a daily basis that Tripoli is about to fall and that the Transitional Council is making new advances to various cities. Tripoli is nowhere near falling and is relatively peaceful. Foreign journalists have also all been taken to the areas that are being reported to have fallen to the Transitional Council, such as Sabha and its environs.

The mainstream media reporting out of Tripoli have consistently produced false reports. They report about information from “secure internet services” which essentially describes embassy and intelligence communication media. This is also tied to the “shadow internet” networks that the Obama Administration is promoting as part of a fake protest movement directed against governments around the world, including Latin America, Africa and Eurasia.

The foreign press operating out of Libya have deliberately worked to paint a false picture of Libya as a country on the brink of collapse and Colonel Qaddafi as a despot with little support.

A journalist was filmed wearing a bulletproof vest for his report in a peaceful area where there was no need for a bulletproof vest. These journalists broadly transmit the same type of news as the journalists embedded with the armed forces, the so-called embedded journalists. Most of the foreign press has betrayed the sacred trust of the public to report accurately and fairly.

Not only are they actively misreporting, but are serving the interests of the military coalition. They are actively working "against Libya." They and their editors have deliberately fashioned reports and taken pictures and footage which have been used to portray Tripoli as an empty ghost town.

Le Monde for example published an article on July 7, 2011 by Jean-Philippe Rémy, which included misleading photographs that presented Tripoli as a ghost city. The photographs were taken by Laurent Van der Stickt, but it was the editors in Paris who selected the pictures to be used for publication. Le Monde is an instrument of war propaganda. It is publishing material which serves to mislead French public opinion.

Sky News is no better. Lisa Holland of Sky News has always used the words “claimed,” “claim,” and “unverified” for anything that Libyan officials say, but presents everything that NATO says without the same doubt-casting language as if it is an unquestionable truth. She used every chance she had to degrade the Libyans. When she visited the bombed home of the daughter of Mohammed Ali Gurari, where the entire family was killed by NATO, she repeatedly asked if Qaddafi was responsible for the bombing to the dismay of those present, with the exception of the reporters who helped paint distorted pictures in the mind of their audiences and readers. She has deliberately distorted the underlying the reality of the situation, blaming Qaddafi, while knowing full well who had killed the Gurari family.

Other reports include those of Liseron Boudoul., Boudoul is a reporter for Télévision française 1 (TF1), who has been in Tripoli for months. She reported on March 22, 2011 that all the reports coming out of Tripoli are reviewed and censored by Tripoli. This statement was fabricated. If the Libyans had been censoring the news, they would not have allowed her to make that statement or for her and her colleagues to continue their disinformation campaign. Like all the other foreign journalists in Libya, she has witnessed the popular support for Colonel Qaddafi, but this important information has been deliberately withheld from her reports.

Much of what is being passed on as news by foreign reporters on the ground is a mirror of the US-NATO's fake humanitarian mandate.

There is a real military-industrial-media complex at work in North America and Western Europe. Most of the media claims are nonsensical and contrary to the facts on the ground. They ignore the realities and hard facts. Were these to have been revealed, people in NATO countries would be mobilizing against their governments and against the NATO led war on Libya.

They have helped portray the victim as the aggressor. They use every chance they have to demonize the Libyan government, while upholding the legitimacy of NATO. Essentially many of these so-called journalists are professional propagandists.

The mainstream media has also basically worked as an intelligence branch of the Pentagon and NATO in multiple ways. The mainstream media has been party to atrocities and crimes and that point should not be lost when analyzing the war in Libya. British journalists have even been said to have given coordinates for bombings to NATO.

Libya: A Nation and its Society

Because of its geographic location, Libya has been at the crossroads, a meeting point of various ethnic groups and nationalities, The inhabitants of Libya are a mixed people of various stocks from Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and Southwest Asia. Berbers, Egyptians, Greeks, people of Italian descent, people from the Levant, Iranians, Arabs, Turks, Vandals, Hadjanrais, Tuaregs (the Kel Tamajaq or Kel Tamashq), and several other groups have all contributed to the mosaic that constitutes the present population and society of Libya.

The genesis of the concept of a Libyan nation as a loosely-knit entity started with the imperial rule of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa. For the inhabitants of Libya it resulted in a shared feeling of similarity that intensified after the Italo-Ottoman War. After this war between the Ottoman Empire and Italy, the three Ottoman provinces in Libya fell under Italian colonial control.

We are edging towards the partition of Libya

Colonel Gaddafi may be able to enjoy sanctuary in his homeland if he steps down, according to a suggestion by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

Πηγή: The Telegraph

7:50PM BST 27 Jul 2011

Western recognition of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) looks like the start of a process that Nato has been desperate to avoid – the partition of the country. 

Yesterday’s decision by the British Government to recognise Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) as the “sole governmental authority” of that country has limited practical but considerable symbolic significance.

It follows the decision a fortnight ago by the Libya Contact Group, meeting in Istanbul, to accept the rebels as the legitimate governing authority in Libya. A total of 30 countries, including the US and France, have now taken similar action.

In practical terms it means the expulsion from London of the Gaddafi regime’s remaining diplomats and the transfer of the embassy building and £91 million in frozen assets to the NTC.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said it would also enable the UK and its allies to offer greater practical assistance to the NTC on the ground. But it is the underlying symbolism of the measure that matters most.

This looks like the start of a process that the Nato alliance has been desperate to avoid – the effective partition of the country.

As Con Coughlin argued on these pages yesterday, the Nato aerial campaign is getting nowhere. While its primary aim – the prevention of a massacre in Benghazi – was achieved in short order, since the third week of April there has been a military stalemate.

Rebel forces remain unable to advance and Nato is incapable of dislodging Gaddafi. With Ramadan starting next week, combat will be suspended for a month and the impasse looks set to drag on into the autumn and beyond.

By recognising the NTC as the legitimate diplomatic authority for Libya, the Nato allies are making a clear declaration that the rebels will have a continuing role in Libya in the future

But with the Gaddafi regime remaining firmly in control of the west of the country and, crucially, of Tripoli, it looks increasingly likely that so, too, will the colonel and his clan.

Mr Hague’s suggestion on Monday that there is no need for Gaddafi to leave Libya, only to leave power, is a significant step in that direction.

It opens the way for Gaddafi to hand over control to a successor of his choice in the knowledge that he will be able to enjoy sanctuary in his homeland.

David Cameron, who was a prime architect of the intervention, has had to devote an immense amount of his time and energy to a military campaign that is running into the sand.

He has learnt to his cost what we have warned from the start – that aerial power alone, even when wielded by the most powerful military alliance in history, may not be enough to dislodge a dictator like Gaddafi.

The Contact Group will have to start reviewing its longer-term strategy and may have little option but to start laying plans for dealing with a divided Libya.

Blasts rock Tripoli as NATO targets Gadhafi compound

Πηγή: Reuters

By Missy Ryan

TRIPOLI | Sun Jul 24, 2011 7:28pm BST

Explosions rocked central Tripoli for the second night in a row and Britain said weeks of NATO bombardment had inflicted extensive damage
TRIPOLI — Explosions rocked central Tripoli for the second night in a row and Britain said weeks of NATO bombardment had inflicted extensive damage on Moammar Gadhafi's heavily-fortified compound.

Libya's leader is clinging to power despite a four-month-old NATO air campaign and a lengthening conflict with rebels seeking an end to his 41-year rule and who have seized large swathes of the North African country.

The explosions hit Tripoli at about 1 a.m. Sunday, a day after NATO launched strikes on what it said was a military command site in Tripoli.

Major General Nick Pope, chief of the defense staff's communications officer, said Royal Air Force aircraft struck the high perimeter walls of Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziyah complex.

"Gadhafi has for decades hidden from the Libyan people behind these walls. The vast Bab al-Aziziyah compound is not just his personal residence, but more importantly is also the main headquarters for his regime, with command and control facilities and an army barracks," Pope said Sunday.

"Successive NATO strikes in past weeks have inflicted extensive damage on the military facilities within."

As the war drags on longer than many had initially envisaged, the West is increasingly hoping for a negotiated end.

Gadhafi's foreign minister, Abdelati Obeidi, left Cairo on Sunday after a three-day visit without making any comments.

"Obeidi met with a number of Egyptian officials and personalities to discuss the latest developments in Libya and ways to resolve the crisis in peaceful ways," a Libyan embassy official said without giving details. He was headed for Tunis.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Friday Libyan representatives were ready to hold more talks with the United States and the rebels, but Gadhafi would not quit.

Ibrahim said senior Libyan officials had a "productive dialogue" with U.S. counterparts last week in a rare meeting that followed U.S. recognition of the rebel government.
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"We believe other meetings in the future ... will help solve Libyan problems," Ibrahim told reporters in Tripoli. "We are willing to talk to the Americans more."


TOUGH FIGHT

On the cusp of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, poorly armed rebels seem unlikely to quickly unseat Gadhafi.

The rebels declared advances this week but they also suffered losses near Misrata and in fighting for Brega.

Thursday rebels said minefields slowed their advance on Brega -- which they had earlier claimed to have all but captured -- but they had pushed closer to Zlitan, on the Mediterranean coast 160 km (100 miles) east of Tripoli.

It was relatively quiet on the western front near Zlitan on Sunday, with some sporadic fire from Gadhafi's forces. Most rebels were taking shelter from the sun. The main hospital in Misrata said one man had been killed and five wounded.

"We are holding this position and waiting to move forward. God willing, it will be soon," said Salim, a 21-year-old student and rebel volunteer.

Britain's Pope said RAF jets on patrol near Zlitan successfully struck four buildings Saturday, which NATO surveillance had identified as command and control centres and staging posts, as well as hitting an ammunition stockpile.

Apache helicopters also struck a number of military positions between Zlitan and Khums, he said.

Zlitan is the largest city between rebel-held Misrata and the capital Tripoli and remains in Gadhafi's control. Were the rebels to take Zlitan, attention would turn to Khums, the next large town on the coastal road to the capital.

Fighting also briefly broke out in the western mountains, where rebels have captured large swathes of territory.

Witnesses said Gadhafi's forces shelled rebels in Qawalish. They said a group of civilian cars left the pro-Gadhafi town of Asaba, followed by Gadhafi's troops, and stormed toward Qawalish before pulling back and shelling from a distance.

Gadhafi's government has urged ordinary Libyans to join his fight against the rebels, but few have so far heeded the call.

As Western nations intensify diplomatic efforts to foster an exit from the conflict, a European diplomat said a U.N. envoy would seek to persuade warring parties in Libya to accept a plan that envisages a ceasefire and a power-sharing government, but with no role for Gadhafi.

The diplomat said the informal proposals would be canvassed by the special U.N. envoy to Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, who has met both government and rebels several times.

Khatib, a Jordanian senator, told Reuters in Amman he hoped both sides would accept his ideas.

"The U.N. is exerting very serious efforts to create a political process that has two pillars; one is an agreement on a ceasefire and simultaneously an agreement on setting up a mechanism to manage the transitional period," he said. He did not go into the details of that mechanism.

Hopes for a negotiated settlement are growing as Europe and the United States grapple with fiscal crises at home. This week, France said for the first time Gadhafi could stay in Libya as long as he gives up power.

Complicating Gadhafi's situation is the fact the world court in The Hague seeks his arrest over crimes against humanity allegedly committed by his forces. This makes it difficult for him to find refuge outside the country.