Secret Bid to Arm Qaddafi Sheds Light on Tensions in China Government

A paramilitary policeman stands guard at the entrance of the Libyan embassy in Beijing

Πηγή: New York Times

By MICHAEL WINES
September 11, 2011

BEIJING — At a United Nations conference in Indonesia this summer, an official of the agency that oversees China’s weapons industry ticked off the hurdles that any proposal to sell Chinese weapons abroad must clear. Among them: arms sales must not alter another nation’s internal security. They must not violate United Nations arms embargoes. And they must win government approval.

“If you want to export a product, you should get permission,” said the official, Wang Feng. “You want to talk to some other country, you ship to the country, you should get permission.”

That was on June 11, or roughly a month before three of China’s biggest state-owned arms companies secretly offered to sell Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s army $200 million in weapons to put down the rebellion. The offer, discovered by a Canadian journalist in documents tossed into a Tripoli trash heap, flouted a United Nations embargo on weapons sales to the Qaddafi government — an embargo that China itself had voted for in February.

The government, at Foreign Ministry briefings last week, has said that it gave no permission for the deals to proceed.

China’s leaders have never liked international sanctions, calling them interference in other nations’ affairs. But the disclosure of the Libyan negotiations underscores a divide many analysts say has long existed between the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry — which both have a say in approving arms sales.

Some believe that big state-run weapons companies, with their close ties to the military, easily make end runs around the diplomats in the Foreign Ministry, which negotiates China’s position on international sanctions.

“It’s possible, and has been the case in the past, that Chinese arms companies push their own agenda,” Mathieu Duchatel, a senior researcher in Beijing with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said in an interview. “There are informal relationships between the different actors, and the logical decision-making process can be bypassed in certain cases.”

The military alliance may gain an added edge when the diplomats are themselves embattled. Since the rebels mounted their revolt last February, China’s policy toward Libya has been up for grabs, with the government apparently torn between economic interest in Colonel Qaddafi’s continued rule and a desire to be on the winning side should his opponents take control.

During much of this debate, supporters of Colonel Qaddafi seem to have had the upper hand. Alone among major powers, China has yet to recognize the rebels’ Transitional National Council, which took effective control of Libya after Colonel Qaddafi’s ouster.

Whether these calculations figured in the arms negotiations is hard to say, in part because the government insists that the arms being negotiated — antitank missiles, rocket launchers and portable rockets capable of bringing down aircraft, among others — were never delivered. Technically, at least, Chinese arms vendors are not required to seek permission before talking about deals with foreign customers.

On the other hand, some of the companies involved in negotiations with Colonel Qaddafi’s government have a track record of skirting sanctions, American officials say. The United States has repeatedly cited two of the firms, the China North Industries Corporation and the China National Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation, for selling missile technology and other equipment to Iran that it says violate international sanctions.

Chinese officials have argued that the Americans rely on incorrect information or too-sweeping definitions of prohibited weapons components.

More broadly, China’s record on enforcing international sanctions remains weak, many experts say. For example, the latest United Nations report on the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea, issued in May, faults China for failing to intercept suspected shipments of ballistic-missile items on North Korean cargo planes that land there en route to Iran. After vigorous protests by the Chinese, the report identified China only as “a neighboring third country.”

Chinese companies were major suppliers in the past decade of small arms and ammunition to Sudan, where they fueled the conflict in Darfur despite a United Nations prohibition. Similar charges have been leveled in wars in Congo and other African nations. Chinese officials say they have no control over arms once they reach their destination.

In theory, the violations should never occur to begin with. A government agency issues arms-export licenses in consultation with China’s Defense Ministry and its Foreign Affairs Ministry. The Defense Ministry is supposed to advise whether a weapon or technology is suited to sell to others. The Foreign Affairs Ministry advises whether they should be sold at all.

But in the Chinese government, as in Chinese life, personal relationships carry huge weight. And it is widely believed by outside experts that the fraternal ties between arms makers and the military, which owned many of them before weapons-making was hived off in the 1990s, overwhelm the diplomats’ say in the process. “The state-owned enterprises have a lot more leeway with regard to whom they can trade with,” said Stephanie Lieggi, a senior researcher and an expert on China’s arms industry at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.

That may be especially true with the trade in conventional weapons, which has taken a back seat among arms-control advocates to restraining the traffic in nuclear weapons components and their missile delivery systems.

China’s policy toward Libya was in flux in July, when China North, China Precision Machinery and a third company, the China Xinxing Import and Export Corporation, began brokering weapons deals in Beijing meetings with Colonel Qaddafi’s representatives. Joining an international outcry, China had supported an arms embargo against the Qaddafi government that won unanimous United Nations support last February. But the Chinese abstained from a subsequent resolution that essentially approved military support for the Libyan rebels. And not without reason: China had relied on the Qaddafi government for 3 percent of its oil needs and had extensive business interests in Libya. China also had long supplied Libya’s military with weaponry.

The arms-sales proposals drawn up in July, in meetings between Chinese company officials and Libyan military attachés, were notable on several accounts, scholars and experts say.

One was the sheer size of the $200 million order. “Usually, arms companies don’t have that in stock,” said Tai Ming Cheung, a senior researcher at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego. “The only organization that would have such large stockpiles would be the Chinese military.”

Another was the suggestion by the Chinese arms brokers, outlined in the trash-heap documents, that Libya conceal its purchases by funneling them through Algeria and South Africa, two governments sympathetic to Colonel Qaddafi. That not only would have made the weapons deliveries harder to detect, one Beijing researcher noted, it would also have provided a fig leaf for Chinese government concerns that the sales would violate a United Nations embargo.

But the government has said it knew nothing of the sales pitch. And so there is no evidence that the arms companies’ proposals to sidestep the embargo were known to higher-ups, much less carried out. “China has a prior record of nonimplementation of U.N. sanctions resolutions, so this is not too surprising,” said an expert at one Beijing research organization who refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. “It just doesn’t like to get caught.”

Jihadists plot to take over Libya

ASSOCIATED PRESS Rebel fighters celebrate in the desert outside a military base near Bani Walid, Libya, on Saturday. The U.S. has stepped up surveillance of elements of the rebel forces interested in setting up an Islamist state

Πηγή: Washington Times
By Bill Gertz

Sunday, September 4, 2011

U.S. steps up surveillance of suspects among rebels.

Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels. A government report circulated Tuesday said extremists were observed “strategizing” on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya after the regime of Col. Gadhafi is defeated.

“Several forum participants have suggested that, following a transitional stage, the battle should turn against secularist rebels and members of the [rebels’] Transitional National Council,” the unclassified report stated.

Some U.S. officials sought to play down the remarks by noting that such Internet postings are not always accurate measures of jihadist plans.

The report said the jihadists’ strength and influence on the ground “are uncertain at this time.”

However, the report said the jihadist plotting coincided with the high-profile emergence of Abu Abdallah al-Sadiq, a former leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and now a leading rebel. He is currently known as Abdel Hakim al-Khulidi Belhaj and led rebels in overrunning Col. Gadhafi’s Tripoli compound.

A U.S. official familiar with intelligence reports on the region said there are concerns that some LIFG members remain committed to al Qaeda and others may be temporarily renouncing their ties to the terrorist group for “show.”

“Some members of LIFG in the past had connections with al Qaeda in Sudan, Afghanistan or Pakistan, and others dropped their relationship with al Qaeda entirely,” the official said.

“It seems - from their statements and support for establishing a democracy in Libya - that this faction of LIFG does not support al Qaeda. We’ll definitely be watching to see whether this is for real or just for show.”

A defense official familiar with jihadist strategy said Islamists likely will emerge in power from the turmoil expected after the demise of the Gadhafi regime and the West will be partly to blame.

“We’re helping pave the way for them” through NATO airstrikes and other support, he said.

About 1,000 jihadists are operating covertly in Libya, Noman Benotman, a former Libyan al Qaeda member, told The Washington Times in March.

According to a translation of the forum exchanges, Libyan Islamists view the fall of Tripoli to rebels as the initial phase of a battle to take over the country.

Jihadists were urged to prepare for the next stage in the battle: taking on secular rebels and the interim National Transitional Council, sometimes called the Transitional National Council, the secular political organization that is mainly pro-democratic.

The jihadists want to set up an Islamist state ruled by Shariah law.

A jihadist writing as Asuli Mutatari, stated on the Shumukh al-Islam Network forum that “the real war will be fought after the fall of the tyrant [Col. Gadhafi] and after the establishment of a transitional democratic system.”

“After the awakening, we will fight those outside the [Islamic] law,” he stated.

Another forum posting urged Islamists to “quickly take control of cities with economic resources and strategic locations and establish Islamic courts there.”

A jihadist identified as Abu Abra’ al-Muqadas said the National Transitional Council must be neutralized because it will never allow anyone calling for an Islamic state to be part of the new government.

“They know that merely suggesting the application of Islamic law will cause Western countries to stop their support,” he said.

A posting by a forum member named Gullam Ashab al-Akhud said the National Transitional Council should be liquidated and replaced by a transitional council of Islamic Salafi jihadi scholars in Libya.

A second Internet forum, Ana al-Muslim, quoted Ayoub al-Jaza’iry as saying that thousands of Islamists in Libya have been trained by al Qaeda and are “working silently in sleeper cells.” He warned jihadists to keep a low profile to avoid alerting the United States to its power.

Some of the jihadists criticized NATO military support to the rebels and said post-Gadhafi Libya should not allow outside assistance. Some also urged the assassinations of secular National Transitional Council leaders.

Mohamed al-Jaza’iry stated on the Ana al Muslim Network that the next phase of the revolution should be the expulsion of foreign bases and reduction of foreign influence.

“The Libyan people must … turn their guns on the Crusader occupiers, along with collaborators and traitors,” he added.

The comments reflect an increase in Islamist rhetoric since the fall of Tripoli, but the number of hard-line Islamist and the extent of their influence or control is not known, the report said.

A Dec. 9, 2009, cable made public by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks revealed that the Gadhafi regime released more than 200 jihadists, including half of the imprisoned LIFG members, after they publicly renounced violence and claimed to have adopted a new code for jihad. The move was an initiative by Col. Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam and the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

Skeptics dismissed the effort as a temporary shift in tactics for the jihadists in exchange for winning their release from detention.

Russian’s recognition of TNC … in contracts.

Russia abstained in the U.N. vote on Libya. Striding over the wall kept closing an eye to the West approaching TNC’s recognition that followed two important contracts.

The first was on the Yamal LNG Integrated Project which consists of the production, treatment, transportation, liquefaction and shipping of natural gas and natural gas liquids from the South Tambey field on the Yamal Peninsula in Northwestern Siberia. On 2 March the French Total bought a $4B stake in Russia's Novatek, teams on Yamal LNG project .

On 24 March the suck of the Russian ambassador to Tripoli by Medvedev stoked new tension between President Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, after Vladimir Chamov called the Kremlin's acquiescence to air strikes targeting Libya a "betrayal of Russia's interests". Putin and Medvedev had opposite opinions on the NATO’s intervention from day one when Medvedev rejected Putin’s “crusade” remark over Libya.

On 6 June Moscow which had voiced concern about civilian casualties and excessive use of force since the NATO-led air campaign, already had opened discussion with the rebels in Benghazi in an attempt to become a middleman. In his press conference after the G8, Medvedev said that he had sent Mikhail Margelov to Benghazi to begin talks, that “Gaddafi’s regime has lost legitimacy and he must leave” and that Russia would not give him asylum.

On 31 August Exon Mobile signed an Arctic oil exploration deal with Russian state owned oil company, Rosneft, in a strategic move ahead of industry rivals, BP. As part of the deal, Rosneft will be allowed access to oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. The very same day, Russia finally recognized TNC as the governing authority in the country. Where there’s smoke there’s fire they say.

Libya war signals Nato conquest of oil-rich south, Russian diplomat says

Rogozin: the Russian diplomat is known for his candid language (Security and Defence Agenda)

Πηγή: EUobserver
By ANDREW RETTMAN

2/9/2011

The Libya conflict signals the end of Nato's eastward expansion and the beginning of a new campaign to conquer the oil-rich Muslim south, Russia's envoy to the military alliance has said.

"To us the war in Libya led by the Western coalition was an entirely new event, a new element that has to be analysed," Russia's ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, told EUobserver in an interview on Thursday (1 September), as the anti-Gaddafi coalition met in Paris to mark its victory.

"The war was the end-stage of Nato's eastern expansion. From now on, Nato will expand toward its southern borders, it will project its efforts toward the south, toward traditional Islamic societies," he explained.

"In my own opinion - this is not the official opinion of my country - it was an oil war," he added.

"The West has failed to put forward any economic response [to the financial crisis] and now they are trying to provide their economies with cheap hydrocarbons ... What makes all these ministries in Europe so keen to spend so much money on a new military campaign? Just to help the Libyan people? If you say so, you will make me laugh."

Rogozin predicted that Libya is only "the first" country in the region to face what he called a "new crusade".

He noted that Russia will not support an EU-drafted UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Syria in case Nato exploits it to start a war with President Bashar Assad as well.

"Now, we cannot trust Nato. We cannot be sure that after a similar resolution is taken on Syria, they will not exceed that also, that in such a case, [Nato] bombs will start dropping on Damascus."

He said Russia is "happy" that Nato has turned its attention away from former Soviet countries toward the south.

But he predicted the development will increase anti-Western Muslim radicalism in the Middle East and inside Europe. He also voiced worries about what he sees as Nato's attempt to take over from the United Nations in terms of world governance.

"In the first stage Nato will try to become equal to the United Nations in the decision-making process and in a later stage even superior to the UN ... Nato is a group of 28 countries and some of them will withdraw from this consolidation, the alliance itself will be left as a background to this process."

Rogozin defended Russia's own role in Libya, saying it tried to act as an honest broker between Gaddafi and rebel forces and recognised the rebel leaders, the Transitional National Council, on 1 September only when the civil war had ended.

But he accused the West of "nihilism" in its "violation" of UNSC 1973, which mandated the creation of a no-fly zone and protection of civilians, but which did not give Nato the right to wage war against Gaddafi or to supply arms to rebels.

On a personal note, he also accused Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen of lying about civilian deaths.

Referring to a Nato air strike in the Libyan town of Majer on 8 August, he said there is clear evidence that dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed.

The Russian ambassador wrote a letter to Rasmussen after the event to seek clarification.

"I received no response from the secretary general. Instead he issued a statement saying that Nato has flown such and such a number of sorties and he said in his statement that no civilians were killed in Libya ... We were shocked."

How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli

Πηγή: The Asia Times
By Pepe Escobar
Aug 30, 2011

His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him.

Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi's fortress of Bab-al-Aziziyah was essentially invaded and conquered last week by Belhaj's men - who were at the forefront of a militia of Berbers from the mountains southwest of Tripoli. The militia is the so-called Tripoli Brigade, trained in secret for two months by US Special Forces. This turned out to be the rebels' most effective militia in six months of tribal/civil war.
Already last Tuesday, Belhaj was gloating on how the battle was won, with Gaddafi forces escaping "like rats" (note that's the same metaphor used by Gaddafi himself to designate the rebels).

Abdelhakim Belhaj, aka Abu Abdallah al-Sadek, is a Libyan jihadi. Born in May 1966, he honed his skills with the mujahideen in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.

He's the founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and its de facto emir - with Khaled Chrif and Sami Saadi as his deputies. After the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, the LIFG kept two training camps in Afghanistan; one of them, 30 kilometers north of Kabul - run by Abu Yahya - was strictly for al-Qaeda-linked jihadis.

After 9/11, Belhaj moved to Pakistan and also to Iraq, where he befriended none other than ultra-nasty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - all this before al-Qaeda in Iraq pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and turbo-charged its gruesome practices.

In Iraq, Libyans happened to be the largest foreign Sunni jihadi contingent, only losing to the Saudis. Moreover, Libyan jihadis have always been superstars in the top echelons of "historic" al-Qaeda - from Abu Faraj al-Libi (military commander until his arrest in 2005, now lingering as one of 16 high-value detainees in the US detention center at Guantanamo) to Abu al-Laith al-Libi (another military commander, killed in Pakistan in early 2008).

Time for an extraordinary rendition 

The LIFG had been on the US Central Intelligence Agency's radars since 9/11. In 2003, Belhaj was finally arrested in Malaysia - and then transferred, extraordinary rendition-style, to a secret Bangkok prison, and duly tortured.

In 2004, the Americans decided to send him as a gift to Libyan intelligence - until he was freed by the Gaddafi regime in March 2010, along with other 211 "terrorists", in a public relations coup advertised with great fanfare.

The orchestrator was no less than Saif Islam al-Gaddafi - the modernizing/London School of Economics face of the regime. LIFG's leaders - Belhaj and his deputies Chrif and Saadi - issued a 417-page confession dubbed "corrective studies" in which they declared the jihad against Gaddafi over (and illegal), before they were finally set free.

A fascinating account of the whole process can be seen in a report called "Combating Terrorism in Libya through Dialogue and Reintegration". [1] Note that the authors, Singapore-based terrorism "experts" who were wined and dined by the regime, express the "deepest appreciation to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation for making this visit possible".

Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda's number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same - and Belhaj was/is its emir.

In 2007, LIFG was calling for a jihad against Gaddafi but also against the US and assorted Western "infidels".

Fast forward to last February when, a free man, Belhaj decided to go back into jihad mode and align his forces with the engineered uprising in Cyrenaica.

Every intelligence agency in the US, Europe and the Arab world knows where he's coming from. He's already made sure in Libya that himself and his militia will only settle for sharia law.

There's nothing "pro-democracy" about it - by any stretch of the imagination. And yet such an asset could not be dropped from NATO's war just because he was not very fond of "infidels".

The late July killing of rebel military commander General Abdel Fattah Younis - by the rebels themselves - seems to point to Belhaj or at least people very close to him.

It's essential to know that Younis - before he defected from the regime - had been in charge of Libya's special forces fiercely fighting the LIFG in Cyrenaica from 1990 to 1995.

The Transitional National Council (TNC), according to one of its members, Ali Tarhouni, has been spinning Younis was killed by a shady brigade known as Obaida ibn Jarrah (one of the Prophet Mohammed's companions). Yet the brigade now seems to have dissolved into thin air.

Shut up or I'll cut your head off 

Hardly by accident, all the top military rebel commanders are LIFG, from Belhaj in Tripoli to one Ismael as-Salabi in Benghazi and one Abdelhakim al-Assadi in Derna, not to mention a key asset, Ali Salabi, sitting at the core of the TNC. It was Salabi who negotiated with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi the "end" of LIFG's jihad, thus assuring the bright future of these born-again "freedom fighters".

It doesn't require a crystal ball to picture the consequences of LIFG/AQIM - having conquered military power and being among the war "winners" - not remotely interested in relinquishing control just to please NATO's whims.

Meanwhile, amid the fog of war, it's unclear whether Gaddafi is planning to trap the Tripoli brigade in urban warfare; or to force the bulk of rebel militias to enter the huge Warfallah tribal areas.

Gaddafi's wife belongs to the Warfallah, Libya's largest tribe, with up to 1 million people and 54 sub-tribes. The inside word in Brussels is that NATO expects Gaddafi to fight for months if not years; thus the Texas George W Bush-style bounty on his head and the desperate return to NATO's plan A, which was always to take him out.

Libya may now be facing the specter of a twin-headed guerrilla Hydra; Gaddafi forces against a weak TNC central government and NATO boots on the ground; and the LIFG/AQIM nebula in a jihad against NATO (if they are sidelined from power).

Gaddafi may be a dictatorial relic of the past, but you don't monopolize power for four decades for nothing, and without your intelligence services learning a thing or two.

From the beginning, Gaddafi said this was a foreign-backed/al-Qaeda operation; he was right (although he forgot to say this was above all neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy's war, but that's another story).

He also said this was a prelude for a foreign occupation whose target was to privatize and take over Libya's natural resources. He may - again – turn out to be right.

The Singapore "experts" who praised the Gaddafi regime's decision to free the LIFG's jihadis qualified it as "a necessary strategy to mitigate the threat posed to Libya".

Now, LIFG/AQIM is finally poised to exercise its options as an "indigenous political force".

Ten years after 9/11, it's hard not to imagine a certain decomposed skull in the bottom of the Arabian Sea boldly grinning to kingdom come.

Note
1. Click here

Libya without Qaddafi: Decoding an Uncertain Future

Πηγή: Foreign Policy Journal
by Richard Falk
August 28, 2011

There is so much spin surrounding the Transitional National Council (TNC) victory in Libya that it is difficult to interpret the outcome, and perhaps premature to do so at this point, considering that the fighting continues and the African Union has withheld diplomatic recognition on principled grounds. Almost everything about the future of Libya has been left unresolved, beyond the victory of the rebel forces as massively assisted by NATO air strikes, as well as a variety of forms of covert assistance given to the anti-regime Libyans on the battlefield. Of course, in the foreground is the overthrow of a hated and abusive dictator who seemed more the outgrowth of the surrealist imagination than a normal political leader, who managed to rule his country for more than 42 years and raised the material standards of the Libyan people beyond that of other societies in the region.

It does seem that the great majority of the Libyan people shared with others in the region a thirst for political freedom. The initial uprising seems definitely inspired by the Arab Spring. But unlike the other populist challenges to authoritarian Arab states, in Libya, the anti-regime forces abandoned nonviolent tactics at an early stage and became an armed uprising. This raised some doubts and widespread fears about the onset of a civil war in the country, but it also brought forth a variety of explanations about the murderous behavior of the regime that left its opponents no alternative.

Now with Qaddafi gone as leader, if not yet captured or killed, a new central concern emerges. What will the morning after bring to Libya? At the moment, it is a matter of wildly divergent speculation as the unknowns are so predominant. There are a few observations that clarify the main alternatives. More favorably than in Egypt or Tunisia, this populist uprising possesses a revolutionary potential. It has seemed poised to dismantle the old order altogether and start the work of building new structures of governance from the ground up. The fact that the TNC resisted many calls for reaching an accommodation or compromise with the Qaddafi regime gives the new leadership what appears to be a clean slate with which to enact a reform agenda that will be shaped to benefit the people of the country rather than foreign patrons. This opportunity contrasts with the messy morning after in Egypt and Tunisia, where the remnants of the old order remain in place. In Cairo, numerous demonstrators were sent to jail, and reportedly tortured, after new demonstrations were held in Tahrir Square led by those fearful that their political aspirations were being destroyed by the same old bureaucracy that had provided Mubarak with his oppressive structures of authority that made the country safe for neoliberal exploitation and unsafe for constitutional democracy. Let’s hope that the TNC can sustain Libyan unity and commit itself to the building of a democratic constitutional order and an equitable economy step by step. It will not be easy as Libya has no constitutional experience with citizen participation, an independent judiciary, or the rule of law. Beyond this, political parties, non-state controlled media, and civil society were absent from Libya during the Qaddafi era.

And then there is the big possible problem of NATO’s undefined post-Qaddafi role. The air war inflicted widespread damage throughout the country, and already NATO entrepreneurial interests are staking their claims, and TNC spokespersons have indicated that those who lent their cause support will be rewarded in appreciation. Fortunately, NATO does not purport to be an occupying force, but the United States and the principal European countries that took part in the war are pulling strings to release billions of dollars of assets of the Libyan state that were frozen in compliance with Security Council Resolution 1973 and various national directives, and may well be playing a major advising role behind the scenes. Will this dynamic of enabling the new leadership to achieve a finance recovery and reconstruction in Libya come as part of a package containing undisclosed political conditions and economic expectations? There are signs that oil companies and their government sponsors are scrambling to get an inside track in the current fluid situation. It does not require paranoia about imperialist geopolitics to take note of the fact that the two major military interventions in the Arab world within the last decade were both situated in significant oil producing countries whose leadership rejected integration into a world order in which global energy policy was under the firm control of the market interests of international capital. And, oh yes, the other likely target of major Western military action is Iran, and it too ‘happens’ to be a major oil producer. Let us recall that the UN failed to respond in oil-free Rwanda in 1994 when a small expansion of a peacekeeping presence already in the country might have saved hundreds of thousands from an unfolding genocidal onslaught.

In the realm of world politics, it may be worth observing, coincidences rarely happen.

There are also significant unresolved issues associated with the precedent set by the UN in authorizing a limited protective intervention that, when acted upon, ignored the guidelines set forth by the drafters of the Security Council resolution. The actual scope and ill-disguised purpose of the intervention, shortly after it became an operational reality in Libya, was to tip the balance in a civil war and achieve regime change. Such goals were never acknowledged by the pro-intervening governments in the course of the extensive and sharp Security Council debate, and had they been, it is almost certain that two permanent members, China and Russia, given their reluctance to approve of any use of force in the Libyan situation, would have blocked UN action by casting a veto. The UN is confronted by a dilemma. Either it refuses to succumb to geopolitical pressures, as was the case when it withheld approval from the United States plan to attack Iraq in 2003, and steps aside while a so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ is hastily formed to carry out an attack, or they grant some kind of limited authority that is cynically overridden by the far more expansive goals of the intervening governments, as has been the case in Libya. Either way, respect for the authority of the UN is eroded, and the historical agency of geopolitics is confirmed.

In the Libyan case, the evaluation of the UN role is likely to depend on what happens in the country during the weeks and months ahead. If a humane and orderly transition takes place in the country, and national resources are used to benefit the people of Libya and not foreign economic interests, the intervention will be effectively marketed as a victory for humane governance and a demonstration that the international community can engage in humanitarian intervention in an effective and principled manner. If the country descends into chaos as the Libyan victors fight among themselves for the political and economic spoils or take revenge on those associated with the Qaddafi regime, the intervention will be retrospectively discredited. This will happen also if the country becomes one more neoliberal fiefdom in which the majority of the population struggles to subsist while tiny elites sitting in Tripoli and Benghazi collaborate with foreign financial and corporate interests while skimming billions off the top for themselves.

This assessment of the intervention as a precedent is based on considering only its consequences. As such, it does not take into account the importance of maintaining as a matter of principle, the integrity of UN authorizations of military force both in relation to the UN Charter and with respect to confining the military undertaking to the strict limits of what was authorized. I will consider in a companion essay this issue of sustaining constitutionalism and the rule of law when the Security Council authorizes military action.

Allies guided rebel ‘pincer’ assault on Tripoli

Πηγή: The Washington Post
By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller,
August 22 2011

NATO and its allies helped Libya’s rebels mount an aggressive “pincer” strategy in recent weeks, providing intelligence, advice and stepped-up airstrikes that helped push Moammar Gaddafi’s forces toward collapse in Tripoli, NATO and U.S. officials said Monday.

The strategy included coordinated rebel advances in recent days from three directions: Misurata and Brega to the east, the refinery city of Zawiyah to the west, and the strategic southern approach to Tripoli at Gharyan. Retreating government troops allowed the rebel advance and provided clear targets for NATO airstrikes, the officials said.




As Gaddafi’s forces took up positions to defend the capital, “the targeting shifted toward Tripoli over the last four or five days. . . and the target set [in the capital] became larger,” said a senior NATO official, one of several alliance and U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence matters.

NATO said airstrikes had hit 22 targets in and around Tripoli on Saturday, with additional strikes Sunday. Most were carried out by NATO and allied aircraft, aided by six armed U.S. Predator drones and satellite imagery on the location and capabilities of government forces.

“We have a good operational picture of where forces are arrayed on the battlefield,” Marine Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

Once the rebels began arriving in force, government troops in much of the capital melted away. The rebels have reached “a clear tipping point in Tripoli, rather than a prolonged stalemate,” a senior European diplomat said.

“We are finishing quicker than I think many people were beginning to fear” we would, said the diplomat, referring to rising unease in NATO capitals this summer as the conflict began to drag into its sixth month.

Even as rebels seized control of large swaths of Tripoli, U.S. officials said it was unclear how long the fighting in the capital would continue and they expressed concern that loyalists could employ terror tactics in a final urban battle.

“There is still some fighting in the capital, but for the most part, the Libyan regime forces seem to have just not engaged,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “The challenge now is that you’ve got a city of 2 million, and we’re into urban warfare.”

The remaining questions, officials said, were Gaddafi’s location and the extent to which he retains the ability to control or communicate with his troops.

British, French and Qatari Special Forces have been operating on the ground in Libya for some time and helped the rebels develop and coordinate the pincer strategy, officials said. At the same time, CIA operatives inside the country — along with intercepted communications between Libyan government officials — provided a deeper understanding of how badly Gaddafi’s command structure had crumbled, according to U.S. officials.

The collapse could be traced to “two things,” a high-ranking U.S. military official said. “One was the knowledge that we had on the disintegration of the command structure of the Gaddafi forces.”

The rebels were emboldened by that information, officials said, gaining confidence that the war was turning in their direction.

“The second thing, in the lead-up into Tripoli, we really provided a lot of imagery on the locations of the Gaddafi forces,” the official said. “So as the rebels were getting into their positions when they came around the south and up into the west side of Tripoli, we had a good sense of where [Gaddafi’s] forces were at.”

That intelligence flow had been obstructed for most of the early months of the conflict, officials said, in part because of restrictions on the amount of information that could be given to NATO allies.

But the administration reached a decision about six weeks ago that enabled the sharing of more sensitive materials with NATO, including imagery and signals intercepts that could be provided to British and French Special Operations troops on the ground in addition to pilots in the air.

Although U.S. military officials were not in direct contact with rebel forces, the NATO allies and “particularly the Qataris” on the ground worked closely with the rebels’ military and political command “to help them think this one through and also provide them with the capabilities,” the NATO official said.

NATO, whose United Nations mandate is limited to the protection of Libyan civilians, has been anxious not to be seen acting as the rebel air force in a coordinated strategy. But the NATO official acknowledged that “the effect of what we were doing was not dissimilar. What we saw was sort of the collapse of the regime and its capability to direct its forces.”

The United States and its allies have also been keeping “a close eye on Libya’s chemical weapons stockpiles” since the conflict began, another U.S. official said. “Especially during this tumultuous time, maintaining vigilance on this issue is a priority.” The official noted that Gaddafi had previously destroyed many of his most dangerous weapons, and “much of what remains is outdated or difficult to make operational.”

But “we’re obviously now getting to the point of the ‘day after,’ ” the European diplomat said. While the collapse of order in Iraq after the U.S. invasion there “is in the back of everybody’s mind,” considerable stabilization planning has been done, he said.

A previously scheduled meeting Monday and Tuesday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, among representatives of Libya’s opposition Transitional National Council and the allies has turned its attention to post-conflict security, including how to maintain a “viable police presence” and turn “some of the more ragtag” elements of the rebels into a proper security force, the diplomat said.

France has called for a meeting of the international contact group for Libya, consisting of a larger group of interested nations, to be held next week. Originally scheduled for mid-September, it “was going to be a run-of-the-mill meeting” until the events of last weekend, the European diplomat said.

Staff writer Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.

Libyan rebels claim control of most of Tripoli

Libyan rebel fighters from Tripoli brigade deface a portrait of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi
(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Πηγή: AP
By KARIN LAUB and BEN HUBBARD
Aug 22, 8:36 AM EDT

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Libyan rebels claimed to be in control of most of the Libyan capital on Monday after their lightning advance on Tripoli heralded the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's nearly 42-year regime. Scattered battles erupted, and the mercurial leader's whereabouts remained unknown.

The international community called on Gadhafi to step down and moved ahead with post-war planning as euphoric residents celebrated in the Green Square, the symbolic heart of the Gadhafi regime. Colleagues warned he wouldn't go easily. Two of his sons were captured late Sunday.

The Western alliance promised to maintain its air campaign until all pro-Gadhafi forces surrender or return to barracks. NATO warplanes have hit at least 40 targets in and around Tripoli in the past two days - the highest number on a single geographic location since the bombing started more than five months ago, officials said.

The ability of rebels to move into Tripoli in an hours-long blitz showcased the evolution of the opposition fighters who first rose against the regime six months ago, swiftly capturing the eastern part of the vast North African nation but failing to advance westward toward Tripoli even with the help of months of NATO airstrikes.

For months, the rebels - mainly civilian volunteers who took up arms and had little military training - were judged to be big on zeal but short on organization and discipline, but their stunning success in Tripoli showed a high level of planning, coordination and discipline.

In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said frozen Libyan assets would soon be released to help the country's rebels establish order, saying Gadhafi's regime was "falling apart and in full retreat."

Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, who was in Tripoli, warned of pockets of resistance and said as long as Gadhafi remains on the run the "danger is still there."

Clashes broke out early Monday at Gadhafi's longtime command center known as Bab al-Aziziya early Monday when government tanks emerged from the complex and opened fire at rebels trying to get in, according to Abdel-Rahman and a neighbor. An AP reporter at the nearby Rixos Hotel where foreign journalists stay heard gunfire and loud explosions from the direction of the complex.

Moammar al-Warfali, whose family home is next to the compound, said there appeared to be only a few tanks belonging to the remaining Gadhafi forces that have not fled or surrendered.

"When I climb the stairs and look at it from the roof, I see nothing at Bab al-Aziziya," he said. "NATO has demolished it all and nothing remains."

The Rixos also remained under the control of Gadhafi forces, with two trucks loaded with anti-aircraft machine guns and pro-regime fighters and snipers posted behind trees. Rebels and Tripoli residents set up checkpoints elsewhere in the city.

The rebels' top diplomat in London, Mahmud Nacua, said opposition forces controlled 95 percent of Tripoli. He vowed "the fighters will turn over every stone to find" Gadhafi and make sure he faced justice.

A rebel field commander said reinforcements were arriving in Tripoli by sea from the north, south and southeast.

"Our fighters are coming from all directions and, God willing, today we will liberate the whole city," the commander, Suleiman Sifaw, told The Associated Press.

State TV broadcast bitter audio pleas by Gadhafi for Libyans to defend his regime as the rebels advanced on Sunday. Opposition fighters captured his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, who along with his father faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Another son was under house arrest.

Rebel chief Mustafa Abdel-Jalil vowed Monday to give Gadhafi a "fair trial with all legal guarantees" when captured.

"It's over, frizz-head," chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square late Sunday, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi. The revelers fired shots in the air, clapped and waved the rebels' tricolor flag. Some set fire to the green flag of Gadhafi's regime and shot holes in a poster with the leader's image.

But Gadhafi's defiant audio messages raised the possibility of a last-ditch fight over the capital, home to 2 million people. Gadhafi, who was not shown, called on supporters to march in the streets of the capital and "purify it" of "the rats."

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim also claimed the regime has "thousands and thousands of fighters" and vowed: "We will fight. We have whole cities on our sides. They are coming en masse to protect Tripoli to join the fight."

Gadhafi's former right-hand man, who defected last week to Italy, said the longtime leader would not go easily.

"I think it's impossible that he'll surrender," Abdel-Salam Jalloud said in an interview broadcast on Italian RAI state radio, adding that "He doesn't have the courage, like Hitler, to kill himself."

Jalloud, who was Gadhafi's closest aide for decades before falling out with the leader in the 1990s, fled Tripoli on Friday, according to rebels.

The startling rebel breakthrough, after a long deadlock in Libya's 6-month-old civil war, was the culmination of a closely coordinated plan by rebels, NATO and anti-Gadhafi residents inside Tripoli, rebel leaders said. Rebel fighters from the west swept over 20 miles (30 kilometers) in a matter of hours Sunday, taking town after town and overwhelming a major military base as residents poured out to cheer them. At the same time, Tripoli residents secretly armed by rebels rose up.

When rebels reached the gates of Tripoli, the special battalion entrusted by Gadhafi with guarding the capital promptly surrendered. The reason: Its commander, whose brother had been executed by Gadhafi years ago, was secretly loyal to the rebellion, a senior rebel official, Fathi al-Baja, told The Associated Press.

On Monday, rebels erected checkpoints on the western approaches to the city, handing out candy to passengers and inquiring about their destination. Cars leaving the city were subjected to more rigorous checks.

President Barack Obama said Libya is "slipping from the grasp of a tyrant" and urged Gadhafi to relinquish power to prevent more bloodshed.

"The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people," Obama said in a statement from Martha's Vineyard, where he's vacationing. He promised to work closely with rebels.

South Africa, which led failed African Union efforts to mediate between the rebels and Gadhafi, refused to offer support to the rebels on Monday, saying it wants to see a unity government put in place as a transitional authority. But speaking to reporters, Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said she did not envision a role for Gadhafi on such a transitional body, saying he had told AU mediators four months ago he was ready to give up leadership.

Nkoana-Mashabane also said repeatedly that South Africa has sent no planes to Libya to evacuate Gadhafi, has received no request from him for asylum and is involved in no efforts to extricate him.

Nkoana-Mashabane also said, "We don't know his (Gadhafi's) whereabouts. We assume he is still in Libya."

The uprising against Gadhafi broke out in mid-February, inspired by successful revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya's neighbors to the east and west respectively. A brutal regime crackdown quickly transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized Libya's east, setting up an internationally recognized transitional government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.

Gadhafi clung to the remaining territory, and for months neither side had been able to break the other.

In early August, however, rebels launched an offensive from the Nafusa Mountains, then fought their way down to the Mediterranean coastal plain, backed by NATO airstrikes, and captured the strategic city of Zawiya.

The rebels' leadership council, based in Benghazi, sent out mobile text messages to Tripoli residents, proclaiming, "Long live Free Libya" and urging them to protect public property. Internet service returned to the capital for the first time in six months.

Gadhafi is the Arab world's longest-ruling, most erratic, most grimly fascinating leader - presiding over this North African desert nation with vast oil reserves and just 6 million people.

For years, he was an international pariah blamed for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. After years of denial, Gadhafi's Libya acknowledged responsibility, agreed to pay up to $10 million to relatives of each victim, and the Libyan rule declared he would dismantle his weapons of mass destruction program. That eased him back into the international community.

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.

Libya: Escalating War to anticipate Palestine's State recognition?

It is logical that the war in Libya should come to an end till 20 September when the UAE will issue the full membership of Palestine into the UN. Otherwise this conflict will become a leverage for pressure as the Arab states that have till now backed the NATO's Unified Protector operation could step back, leak information to the media and so on. This means that in the next 30 days the hardest part of the dirty job of forcing democracy by killing civilians is going to take place intensified. 

This is the pick point of this war as the devisions among the rebels have been recently underlined by the murder of General Abdul Fatah Youni  resulting to the dissolution of their own cabinet. US would not like to let this bargaining chip to the hands of the Arabs in view of the crucial upcoming negotiations on the hottest post in the Middle East. But it remains a big question mark how many innocent civilian's lives will this rushing act of open regime change operation have to take in order to succeed. 

The mainstream media finally accepting the support to Qaddafi's regime report that negotiations are still on the table. While on 8 August the Navy scheduled to hold a commemorative ceremony aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) for the 2,000th Tomahawk cruise missile combat launch on Aug. 5 at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. , missiles that cost between $US600,000 and $US1.2 million each, the same time that famine in Somalia has killed more than 29,000 kids in the last 90 days it is clear that the regime change is not a wishful thought for all Libyans. Furthermore it is a sarcastic u-turn the newly negotiations prospect now pushed by the media. It is not one person's war going on in Libya after all they admit. It is a cruel civil war almost impossible to have a happy end...

Imperial Plans for Libya Post-Gaddafi

Πηγή: War Is A Crime

By Stephen Lendman

11 August 2011

A previous article suggested NATO's Libya war is unraveling, having misjudged the commitment of Libyans to resist, fight back, and support Gaddafi. Access it through this link.

Nonetheless, daily bombings continue intensively, averaging 51 daily strike sorties in the last week alone, targeting Tripoli and other Gaddafi controlled areas mercilessly.

Despite clear evidence of war crimes, NATO claims civilians and civilian targets aren't struck. In fact, they're targeted deliberately and repeatedly, killing hundreds and injuring many more as part of a campaign to cow targeted populations into submission.

In the last 48 hours, Tripoli power facilities were bombed, knocking it out to parts of the city. Earlier, Libya's Great Man-Made River system and a factory producing pipe for it were struck to reduce fresh water supplies. A food warehouse was destroyed to decrease available amounts.

Three ground-based satellites were disabled, killing three employees and injuring another 15. Hospitals and medical clinics are targeted so less healthcare can be provided, and oil facilities are bombed, reducing available stockpiles. Numerous other civilian targets are also struck repeatedly, including infrastructure and residential neighbors unrelated to military necessity.

As stated above, it's part of NATO's terror bombing campaign to cow Libyans. So far, they've become more embolden, knowing the unacceptable alternative.

On August 8, AFP reported at least 85 civilians killed in Majer village near Zlitan in western Libya. Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim called it "a crime beyond imagination," saying the dead included 32 women, 32 children, and 20 men from 12 families, massacred in cold blood.

NATO spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie called the farmhouses bombed (with civilian families, not belligerents) "legitimate target(s)."

He lied, saying "very clear intelligence demonstrat(ed) that 'former' farm buildings were being used as a staging point for (pro-Gaddafi) forces to conduct attacks against the people of Libya. We do not have evidence of civilian casualties at this stage...."

Reporting from Tripoli, independent journalist/activist Lizzie Phelan commented on how Libyans reacted to the massacre, saying:

"I watched their heartbroken and incensed loved ones bury the 33 children, 32 women, and 20 men NATO (called) 'mercenaries.' Most (people in) Zlitan....turned out for their burial, chanting furiously against NATO."

"Person after person came to tell us how NATO was creating a generation of Libyans so filled with rage that they would see no recourse but to send themselves to martyrdom in revenge against the west."

Farmhouses bombed were "some distance apart from one another." They'd "been hosting scores of refugees from....Misrata, who fled from the horrifying (rebel) atrocities," what NATO and western media never report.

In fact, many of those massacred came to help after bombing began. Follow-up attacks slaughtered them, unconscionable war crimes, including by pilots carrying out illegal orders.

"At the funeral, survivors said "they would sacrifice their lives for their leader Muammar Gaddafi." Grief stricken children chanted, "The blood of our martyrs will not be forgotten."

The attack followed a decision by National Transitional Council (NTC) head Mustafa Abdul Jalil to sack his entire executive committee, a sign of further disarray besides the assassination of rebel commander Adbul Fatah Younis and two of his aides last month, allegedly for holding talks with Gaddafi officials. If true, he wanted reconciliation to end the conflict.

For Washington, its NATO partners, and TNC puppets, however, peace and reconciliation aren't options. As a result, Libyans can expect more attacks and/or destabilization to inflict relentless pain and suffering, even if fighting winds down to stalemate and Washington accepts a face-saving solution.

It may be no more than an unacceptable "Kosovo Model," a fifth column resolution, giving anti-Gaddafi extremists a foothold to parlay toward total control.

Post-Gaddafi Planning

On July 25, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) convened a conference, hosting 50 government, diplomatic, and other experts to assess the Libya war and way forward. It concluded the following:

(1) No military solution is possible because rebels can't take Tripoli or other strategic Gaddafi-controlled areas. Moreover, Libya's military adjusted "to its degraded condition, and defections slowed to a trickle. While time is not on Gaddafi's side, neither" does it favor rebels.

(2) "Even so, the post-Gaddafi era" already began. Washington and its NATO partners should adapt to it that way.

(3) Giving too much money to TNC officials is as bad as too little.

(4) Washington shouldn't "become wedded to the TNC," but should flexibly "accept a wide variety of outcomes. TNC officials perhaps are "fragment(ed) and out-of-touch with conditions on the ground."

(5) The UN has some legitimacy in Libya. Gaddafi only fears Washington. A possible new Security Council resolution will be needed for Libyan reconstruction that will be considerable with parts of the country turned to rubble, mostly non-military sites.

On August 9, the Australian posted a London Times Tom Coghlan article headlined, " Iraq haunts plans for post-Gaddafi Libya," saying:

Washington, its NATO partners and TNC officials "prepare(d) a (70 page) blueprint for a post-Gaddafi Libya (that) charts the first months after" he falls, believing it's a fait accompli. In fact, it may be more imperial arrogance, similar to Iraq and Afghanistan, besides America's humiliating defeat in Vietnam and Korea stalemate.

Claiming the document draws from lessons learned, it relies on Gaddafi defections after he's ousted or killed. Whether rebel fighters will accept them is uncertain, given disparate elements in their ranks.

A United Arab Emirates-supported "10,000 - 15,000 strong 'Tripoli task force' " is planned to control Tripoli, "secure key sites and arrest high-level Gaddafi" loyalists.

Whether true or not, it claims 800 government security officials are already covertly recruited, ready "to form the 'backbone' of a new security apparatus." Another 5,000 non-ideologically committed Gaddafi loyalists will become part of the interim government's forces "to prevent a security vacuum."

In addition, it claims rebels in and around Tripoli have 8,660 supporters, including 3,255 in Gaddafi's army. Moreover, mass high-ranking official defections are "considered highly likely, with 70 per cent of them (supporting) the regime out of fear alone."

Again, these unverified claims may be more propaganda than factual. Leaking to the Times, in fact, may be to entice defections. In other words, if Gaddafi loyalists believe others are deserting, and the regime appears near collapse, they may not wish to feel like rats on a sinking ship so will come over to avoid going down.

Notably, TNC planner Aref Ali Nayed expressed regret about the leak, but said:

"It is important that (Libyans know) there is an advance plan, and it is now a much more advanced plan."

Perhaps so or maybe it's propaganda intimidation to discourage resistance and encourage giving up on Gaddafi to end bombings and fighting on the ground. Why continue if defeat is imminent, but is it?

Evidence shows Libyans are winning. Rebels are in disarray, and though NATO bombing inflicted extensive numbers of deaths, injuries and destruction, popular support for Gaddafi is strong. Moreover, Libyans remain emboldened to resist, steadfastly unwilling to have their country colonized and plundered.

Nonetheless, other document details include:

-- securing key security, telecommunications, power, transportation infrastructure, and other important sites;

-- deploying Nafusa Mountain and Zentan fighters, not rebels, in Tripoli;

-- having mostly Tripoli residents serve as interim security forces in Gaddafi loyalist areas;

-- providing an emergency one-month $550 million to supply gas and oil to western Libya after Gaddafi falls;

-- having the UN provide humanitarian aid, supported by the UAE, Qatar and Turkey;

-- "a pre-recorded program of announcements by rebel leaders and clerics would initiate the Tripoli task force plan, call for calm and warn against revenge attacks on regime supporters;" an out-of-country FM radio station was set up for this purpose;

-- if Gaddafi is killed, negotiating with his sons, called "regime captains;" and

-- "multiple rebel groups" will be avoided, as well as having a "clear plan to deal with a hostile fifth column."

A Final Comment

Despite intensive bombing since mid-March, Gaddafi remains firmly in control, enjoying overwhelming support with good reason. The alternative is too grim to accept.

As a result, whether the above document is factual, wishful thinking, or propaganda, imperial Washington is a long way from prevailing.

Nonetheless, make no mistake. Libya is Obama's war. At the same time, America hasn't won one since WW II. Hopefully Libyans will keep that record intact and retain their sovereignty, free from intolerable imperial dominance.

Libyan rebels refuse to negotiate with Moammar Kadafi

Libyans in Benghazi mourn a rebel fighter killed during recent clashes with forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi near Port Brega. (Sergey Ponomarev, Associated Press / July 19, 2011)

Libyan rebels refuse to negotiate with Moammar Kadafi
Convinced that their battlefield strategy will work, the rebel forces are refusing France's demands that they negotiate with the Libyan leader to peacefully end their uprising.

Πηγή: Los Angeles times

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

July 19, 2011

Reporting from Benghazi, Libya— As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising.

Yet the rebels are sticking to their guns — literally.

They're convinced that victory is inevitable and adamantly refuse to negotiate directly with Kadafi even as the French government contends that the Libyan leader is seeking ways to relinquish power.

After the United States formally recognized the rebel Transitional National Council on Friday as the country's legitimate government body, the rebels again insisted that Kadafi must go before negotiations begin.

"Our position remains: no negotiations until Kadafi, his sons and his inner circle are gone," said Habib Ben Ali, media liaison for the council.

In the rebels' de facto capital, Benghazi, commanders lay out a battlefield strategy that seeks to allay concerns in Western capitals over the failure of the four-month NATO air campaign to topple the Kadafi regime. But the unorthodox approach relies more on faith and bluster than proven military tactics, and raises the prospect of a prolonged conflict.

Rebel commanders say they plan to strangle Kadafi by cutting off Tripoli, the capital, from three directions. They predict that government troop defections and low morale, combined with fuel and supply shortages, will open the way to the city soon.

But rebels on each front are devising their own strategies, with only limited direction from headquarters in Benghazi, said Abdul Jawad, a senior rebel commander.

"We are not a traditionally structured military organization," Jawad said, a profound understatement given the rebels' haphazard formations.

Rebel forces are poorly trained and equipped, with little central command and scant grasp of military tactics. For months, their commanders have promised the imminent "liberation" of Tripoli, only to find themselves mired in a protracted battlefield stalemate.