OMNI LIBYA
Contents
Why Gaddafi and Not the Other Tyrants?
Deal with Saudis
Bombing a School for Children
Killing Gaddafi’s Son and Grandchildren
The Anti-Empire Report
On April 9, Condoleezza Rice delivered a talk in San Francisco US overthrew Saddam Hussein, an argument that's used when all other arguments fail: "The children of Iraq
My response to such a line is this: If you went into surgery to correct a knee problem and the surgeon mistakenly amputated your entire leg, what would you think if someone then remarked to you how nice it was that "you actually no longer have a knee problem, thank God." ... The people of Iraq
Unfortunately, they've lost just about everything else as well. Twenty years of American bombing, invasion, occupation and torture have led to the people of that unhappy land losing their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... more than half the population either dead, disabled, in prison, or in foreign exile ... the air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.
In 2006, the UN special investigator on torture declared that reports from Iraq
"It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003," reported the Washington Post on May 5, 2007.
"I am not a political person, but I know that under Saddam Hussein, we had electricity, clean drinking water, a healthcare system that was the envy of the Arab world and free education through college," Iraqi pharmacist Dr. Entisar Al-Arabi told American peace activist Medea Benjamin in 2010. "I have five children and every time I had a baby, I was entitled to a year of paid maternity leave. I owned a pharmacy and I could close up shop as late as I chose because the streets were safe. Today there is no security and Iraqis have terrible shortages of everything — electricity, food, water, medicines, even gasoline. Most of the educated people have fled the country, and those who remain look back longingly to the days of Saddam Hussein." 3
And this from two months ago:
"Protesters, human rights workers and security officials say the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has responded to Iraq's demonstrations in much the same way as many of its more authoritarian neighbors: with force. Witnesses in Baghdad and as far north as Kirkuk described watching last week as security forces in black uniforms, tracksuits and T-shirts roared up in trucks and Humvees, attacked protesters, rounded up others from cafes and homes and hauled them off, blindfolded, to army detention centers. Entire neighborhoods ... were blockaded to prevent residents from joining the demonstrations. Journalists were beaten." 4
So ... can we expect the United States and its fellow thugs in NATO to intervene militarily in Iraq as they're doing in Libya Iraq as they tell us they're doing in Libya Iraq as they're conspiring, but not admitting, in Libya
Similarly Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria ... all have been bursting with protest and vicious government crackdown in recent months, even to a degree in Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive societies in the world. Not one of these governments has been assaulted by the United States, the UK, or France as Libya has been assaulted; not one of these countries' opposition is receiving military, financial, legal and moral support from the Western powers as the Libyan rebels are — despite the Libyan rebels' brutal behavior, racist murders, and the clear jihadist ties of some of them. 5 The Libyan rebels are reminiscent of the Kosovo rebels — mafiosos famous for their trafficking in body parts and women, also unquestioningly supported by the Western powers against an Officially Designated Enemy, Serbia
So why is only Libya Libya Libya first in Africa .) None of the other countries has a more secular government than Libya Syria , Yemen
It should be noted that the ultra-conservative Fox News reported on February 28: "As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya Libya Iran , Venezuela , North Korea , and Saudi Arabia but also Canada , give Libya
Of all the accusations made against Gaddafi perhaps the most meaningless is the oft-repeated "He's killing his own people." It's true, but that's what happens in civil wars. Abraham Lincoln also killed his own people.
Muammar Gaddafi has been an Officially Designated Enemy of the US US
It was claimed as well that Libya was behind, or at least somehow linked to, an attempt to blow up the US Embassy in Cairo, various plane hijackings, a bomb explosion on an American airliner over Greece, the blowing up of a French airliner over Africa, blowing up a synagogue in Istanbul, and blowing up a disco in Berlin which killed some American soldiers. 7
In 1990, when the United States needed a country to (falsely) blame for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , Libya
Gaddafi's principal crime in the eyes of US President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) was not that he supported terrorist groups, but that he supported the wrong terrorist groups; i.e., Gaddafi was not supporting the same terrorists that Washington was, such as the Nicaraguan Contras, UNITA in Angola, Cuban exiles in Miami, the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, and the US military in Grenada. The one band of terrorists the two men supported in common was the Moujahedeen in Afghanistan
And if all this wasn't enough to make Gaddafi Public Enemy Number One in Washington (Reagan referred to him as the "mad dog of the Middle East"), Gaddafi has been a frequent critic of US Tunisia and Egypt , could Washington
It may well happen that the Western allies will succeed in forcing Gaddafi out of power. Then the world will look on innocently as the new Libyan government gives Washington Stuttgart , Germany US Djibouti Libya Libya
And remember — in the context of recent history concerning Iraq , North Korea , and Iran — if Libya had nuclear weapons the United States
Or the United States
Over the years, the American government and media have fed us all a constant diet of scandalous Gaddafi stories: He took various drugs, was an extreme womanizer, was bisexual, dressed in women's clothing, wore makeup, carried a teddy bear, had epileptic fits, and much more; some part of it may have been true. And now we have the US
As I write this, US/NATO missiles have slammed into a Libyan home killing a son and three young grandchildren of Gaddafi, this after repeated rejections of Gaddafi's call for negotiations — another heartwarming milestone in the glorious history of humanitarian intervention, as well as a reminder of the US bombing of Libya in 1986 which killed a young daughter of Gaddafi.
by Kevin Carson, April 15, 2011
Some disconcerting facts, or at least disconcerting questions, are beginning to emerge regarding Obama’s Libyan intervention.First of all, the Asia Times reported on April 2 that Saudi Arabia engineered an Arab League voting bloc to approve the American intervention in Libya, in return for Obama giving the Saudis a free hand to intervene in Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement — so troubling to the conservative monarchies of the Gulf — in that country.
“children school hit in NATO strike”
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TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Shattered glass litters the carpet at the Libyan Down's Syndrome Society, and dust covers pictures of grinning children that adorn the hallway, thrown into darkness by a NATO strike early on Saturday.
It was unclear what the target of the strike was, though Libyan officials said it was Muammar Gaddafi himself, who was giving a live television address at the time."They maybe wanted to hit the television. This is a non-military, non-governmental building," said Mohammed al-Mehdi, head of the civil societies council, which licenses and oversees civil groups in
The missile completely destroyed an adjoining office in the compound that houses the government's commission for children.
The force of the blast blew in windows and doors in the parent-funded school for children with Down's Syndrome and officials said it damaged an orphanage on the floor above.
"I felt sad really. I kept thinking, what are we going to do with these children?" said Ismail Seddigh, who set up the school 17 years ago after his own daughter was born with Down's.
"This is not the place we left on Thursday afternoon."
There were no children at the school when the missiles hit early on Saturday morning, since Friday begins the weekend in
A mound of rubble was all that remained of one wing of the main building that adjoined the school, though an antenna of some kind protruded from the ruins.
Both Mehdi and Seddigh said they had assumed that the antenna on the building was there to strengthen mobile phone signals and were not aware of any other use.
In the rubble of the main building, a shredding machine packed with sliced up documents lay on its side. A fax and phone were nearby and shelves of files could be seen.
The Libyan government has repeatedly said that NATO airstrikes have hurt and killed civilians but has not responded to requests by journalists to visit the hospitals, making it tough to verify casualty figures.
NATO has hit inside or near Gaddafi's compound before, or struck military or logistical sites. Saturday's government-organized visit was the first to bring journalists -- whom government minders watch closely -- to a civilian site.
Inside the school, the power had been knocked out by the strikes, the floor was wet because of a leaking pipe and desks were covered in glass and debris.
Seddigh's school prepared children with Down's Syndrome up to the age of 6 to go to normal schools, giving them speech therapy, handicrafts and sports sessions and teaching them to read and write. It handles 50 to 60 children a day.
(Reporting by Lin Noueihed)
01/05/2011
Gaddafi's son, 3 grandchildren killed
Rebels celebrate the news of the killing of Libyan leader Gaddafi's youngest son, Seif al-Arab, on Saturday. Reuters
The strike, which came hours after Gaddafi called for a ceasefire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum.
Rebels honked horns and chanted "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" while speeding through the western city of Misrata, which Gaddafi's forces have besieged and subjected to random shelling for two months, killing hundreds. Fireworks were set off in front of the central Hikma hospital, causing a brief panic that the light would draw fire from Gaddafi's forces.
The attack struck the house of Gaddafi's youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya Alliance officials in Brussels
Seif al-Arab Qadhafi, 29, was the youngest son of Gaddafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Qadhafi, who had been touted as a reformist before the uprising began in mid-February. The younger Gaddafi had spent much of his time in Germany
Gaddafi's children had been increasingly engaged in covering up scandals fit for a "Libyan soap opera," including negative publicity from extravagant displays of wealth such as a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to a batch of diplomatic cables released by the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website.
But Seif al-Arab remained largely in the shadows, although he had a penchant for fast cars and partying when outside Libya
Muammar Gaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli
END OF LIBYA
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