- In his new article headlined, "9/11 After A Decade:
Have We Learned Anything?" Paul Craig Roberts said:
-
- "Today Americans are unsafe, not because of terrorists
and domestic extremists, but because they have lost their civil liberties
and no protection from unaccountable government power."
-
- So have millions under occupation and/or attack by US/NATO
forces, terrorizing them in the name of "democracy" to "set
them free."
-
- America is a global terror state. For decades, it's menaced
humanity's survival by imperial wars for wealth and power, not liberation
or democratic values. All US administrations reviled them, notably Obama's,
including at home.
-
- Under him, "unaccountable government power"
terrorizes globally.
-
- It's a truism that where large energy reserves exist,
America has imperial plans to control them. Libya is now ground zero. US-led
NATO assassins invaded to menace, intimidate, kill, plunder, and cause
out-of-control chaos, notably in Tripoli, the struggle's current epicenter.
-
- On August 16, Michel Chossudovsky's article headlined,
"The Pentagon's 'Salvador Option:' The Deployment of Death Squads
in Iraq and Syria," saying:
-
- Reports suggest the use of "thousands of Islamist
'freedom fighters,' reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage
the CIA's jihad (holy war)" against Soviet Russia in Afghanistan.
-
- Chossudovsky wrote about possible plans "to enlist
thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim
world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house,"
train, and send them to Syria.
-
- Thousands of similar elements are in Libya.
-
- On August 20, independent journalist Thierry Meyssan
said NATO debarked large numbers of jihadi forces with heavy weapons on
Tripoli's coast. Special forces led them. Violence and mass killing followed.
It still rages, slaughtering hundreds, perhaps thousands, and wounding
many more.
-
- On August 26, London Independent writers Kim Sengupta
and Portia Walker headlined, "Bodies pile up as search for Gaddafi
intensifies," saying:
-
- "Fierce fighting and wild rumors (spread) as hunt
gathers pace." So far, there's "no sign of an end to the conflict
as" battles rage.
-
- On August 26, London Guardian writer Simon Jenkins headlined,
"Libya is not an advertisement for intervention," saying:
-
- "Several claims....made about NATO's involvement
(have) little basis in reality," including:
-
- (1) Preventing a Benghazi massacre. It "was NATO
propaganda."
-
- In fact, mass killing only began when NATO arrived and
hasn't stopped.
-
- (2) Replacing Gaddafi to protect civilians and install
a more democratic regime.
-
- NATO plans occupation and puppet leaders taking orders
from Washington, as well as plundering Libya for profit.
-
- (3) "(N)o foreign troops on the ground" will
be used.
-
- "This NATO pledge was mendacious....British (and
other Western) ground troops were extensively deployed in Libya,"
arriving before conflict began last winter.
-
- (4) "Britain was not taking sides in a foreign civil
war."
-
- In fact, Washington, Britain, and other NATO countries
partnered to oust Gaddafi. Insurgents, supported by air power, were recruited
to do it. Western interests "most emphatically decided the fate of
the Libyan people. (They) brought anarchy in the place of order....(They
can't) disown the consequences."
-
- From the start, Western leaders knew if they "toppled
Gaddafi (they) would own the place. It was no good saying they "learn(ed)
from Iraq. The lesson of Iraq was, don't do it in the first place."
-
- Libya, in fact, is replicating it. NATO's Operation Mermaid
Dawn hoped to end it in Tripoli. "Mermaid" is Tripoli's nickname.
On August 20, it was launched from Sarim Street's Ben Nabi mosque after
Iftar, the breaking Ramadan's fast.
-
- Insurgents used mosque loud speakers to broadcast chants
to Tripoli residents. NATO carpet bombing and strafing preceded and accompanied
it to clear their way to advance unimpeded after initial loyalist counterattacks.
-
- Activated sleeper cells around the city joined the fighting.
Weapons were shipped in weeks in advance. Text messages urged residents
to join insurgents. Battles raged. They still do. Likely protracted conflict
will cause thousands of deaths and injuries, as well as destruction across
Tripoli and other parts of Libya, besides the horrendous past six months'
toll.
-
- The Big Lie accompanies the campaign, including a Potemkin
village replica of Tripoli's Green Square and Gaddafi compound in Doha,
Qatar.
-
- It was used to create fabricated scenes of euphoria,
aired by Al Jazeera, an imperial co-conspirator. In fact, it was an elaborate
hoax to convince residents Tripoli was in rebel hands. Perhaps seizure
of Gaddafi's compound was also exaggerated, reminiscent of Orson Welles'
famous 1938 War of the Worlds radio drama.
-
- The hoax heard around the world sounded real enough to
make millions think aliens had landed. Angry about public gullibility,
Welles reportedly said, "If they'll believe everything, I'm going
to give them something (really) unbelievable to believe."
-
- Misinformation and the art of surprise work well enough
to convince people of most anything. It's especially effective tactically
in wars. The jury is out on if it'll work this time, given strong loyalist
opposition to NATO occupation.
-
- All along, the pretext used to intervene was to "protect
civilians and civilian populated areas from threat of attack," as
stipulated under the General Assembly's 2005 World Summit Outcome Document,
adopting the responsibility to protect (RtoP).
-
- A previous article explained paragraph 138, stating each
nation must "protect (its) population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing, and crimes against humanity."
-
- Paragraph 139 delegates responsibility to the UN "to
use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance
with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from"
these crimes.
-
- Military force isn't authorized, and the UN Charter prohibits
it for humanitarian interventions. As a result, justifying it under RtoP
is illegal. Doing so amounts to committing war crimes to prevent them.
-
- The UN Charter's Chapter VI calls for peaceful conflict
resolutions. If they fail, Chapter VII authorizes the Security Council
to impose boycotts, embargoes, blockades and severance of diplomatic ties
- not war.
-
- As a result, Washington's led NATO intervention is naked
aggression, supplemented by paramilitary assassins, terrorizing Tripoli
residents and other Libyans they attacked, murdering Gaddafi loyalists.
-
- After entering Tripoli, AP and Reuters reported massacres
of his supporters near his compound, AP saying:
-
- "The bodies are scattered around a grassy square
next to (Gaddafi's) Bab al-Aziziya (compound). Prone on grassy lots as
if napping, (they're) sprawled in tents. Some have had their wrists bound
by plastic ties. The identity of the dead are unclear but they are in all
likelihood activists that set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with
(Gaddafi) outside his compound in defiance of the NATO bombings."
-
- AP noted "the disturbing specter of mass killings
of noncombatants, detainees and the wounded." Some were "shot
in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs. A body in a doctor's
green hospital gown was found in the canal. The bodies were bloated."
-
- Reuters reported 30 bodies "riddled with bullets....Five
of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped
to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm." Two other
bodies "were charred beyond recognition."
-
- The London Telegraph interviewed a surgeon saying hundreds
were "coming in within the first few hours (of fighting). It was like
a vision from hell. Missile injuries were the worst. The damage they do
to the human body is shocking to see, even for someone like me who is used
to dealing with injuries."
-
- He said most casualties were civilians. Tripoli's three
main hospitals are full of them. Unable to handle the volume, many suffer
in agony or die untreated. Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres)
warned of a medical catastrophe. Already there's a human one wrought by
NATO and their rebel assassins on the pretext of humanitarian intervention.
-
- What's involved, of course, is planned colonization,
occupation and plunder of Libya's wealth and natural resources, including
its Great Man-Made River (GMMR). Gaddafi rightfully called it the "Eighth
Wonder of the World," consisting of the largest global underground
network of pipes and aqueducts, distributing water from an ocean-sized
aquifer.
-
- Along with free education, healthcare, housing assistance
and other social benefits, Gaddafi supplied it to Libyans. NATO wants it
privatized to make it costly or unaffordable henceforth, along with charging
for everything formerly gotten free.
-
- The opening comments of a previous article bear repeating,
saying:
-
- The US/UK/French-led war on Libya will be remembered
as one of history's greatest crimes. It violates the letter and spirit
of international law and America's Constitution.
-
- The Nuremberg Tribunal's Chief Justice Robert Jackson
called naked aggression "the supreme international crime against peace....so
calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot
tolerate (its) being ignored, because it cannot survive....being repeated."
-
- Post-WW II, it got worse, highlighted by what Washington,
its NATO partners, and rebel assassins are doing across Libya. At the same
time, they scandalously avoid calling it war, when, in fact, it's that
and more in the worst sense.
-
- Make no mistake. For months, Libyans have been slaughtered
and terrorized by vicious war criminals headquartered in Washington, London
and Paris.
-
- Unaccountable, they plan more conflicts across the region
for total dominance at the expense of thousands more lost lives, as well
as unspeakable human misery. It doesn't get any worse than that.
-
- A Final Comment
-
- A morning email alert said the following:
-
- "Although journalists reporting from the Rixos Al
Nasr Hotel in Tripoli were relocated to the Corinthia Hotel, also in Tripoli,
on Wednesday August 24, in an effort to increase their safety, independent
journalist and Canadian citizen Mahdi Nazamroaya continues to express grave
concerns for his life. Mr. Nazemroaya told friends on Thursday that his
safety was now even more at risk with armed groups entering the Corinthia
hotel. Mr. Nazemroaya is unable to leave the hotel.
-
- The planned departure of a boat which would have brought
journalists and migrants outside of Libya was delayed and the transfer
of journalists to the boat in all safety remains uncertain.
-
- The Canadian Government has yet to act to ensure that
Mr. Nazemroaya is repatriated to his home country despite having ties with
the Hongarian embassy in Tripoli. Friends and family continue to demand
that the government take concrete action to ensure that Mr. Nazemroaya
is escorted back to safety.
-
- Mr. Nazemroaya is a recent graduate of the University
of Ottawa where he also held a research assistant position."
-
-
- For further information:
- Mireille Gervais
- Director, Student Appeal Centre, Student Federation of
the University of Ottawa
-
- The lives of other trapped independent journalists are
also at risk, including Lizzie Phelan, Franklin Lamb, Thierry Meyssan,
Mathieu and Julien Ozanon Teil, because they're unprotected at the rebel-held
Corinthia Hotel.
-
- As a result, assuring their safe passage out of Libya
is urgent. So far, a chartered ship can't dock because of fighting. The
longer it's delayed, the greater the risk. Further updates will follow.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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