But before the actual proceedings could get underway, Defence Counsel Team Leader Jason Kay Kit Leon charged one of the Judges with bias.  Prosecutors characterized the allegation of bias and request for recusal as a “surprise” attack for which the Court had not had the opportunity to prepare.

Judge Niloufer Bhagwat, who served as a Judge with the Tokyo International Tribunal for War Crimes in Afghanistan, wrote in her decision that she found George W. Bush guilty for waging war against Afghanistan and the Afghani people.  In addition, Judge Bhagwat served as a prosecutor of George W. Bush at the People’s Tribunal on Iraq in 2005 in Istanbul.

Defense Counsel alleged that because of Judge Bhagwat’s participation in these various efforts and due to the opinions she has issued, that she cannot be fair in these Kuala Lumpur proceedings.  Judge Bhagwat did find that no Head of State, including George W. Bush, can exempt himself from international treaty organizations.

Judge Niloufer implored the panel in Istanbul to have the courage to speak the truth.  Counsel for the defendants found Judge Alfred Webre made the point that George W. Bush was served appropriately but failed to appear at the various people’s tribunals seeking justice for the victims of his Presidential decisions to take the people of the United States to war.

However, he made the point in defense of his colleague, Judge Bhagwat, that President Bush did not fail to appear at a Vancouver dinner at which he collected a US$150,000 speaking fee.  Judge Webre stated that perhaps the Tribunal should have offered the former U.S. President a sizeable speaking fee in order to gain his attendance at the Tribunal.

Francis Boyle, a part of the prosecuting team, spoke on the matter of bias and recusal based on precedents at the International Court of Justice and the United States Supreme Court, where judges are presumed to be able to render judgments despite what might appear at first glance to be conflicst of interests.

Interestingly, both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. have currently turned their sights onto two the Supreme Court Justices alleged to have bias on the President’s health care law which the Supreme Court has agreed to hear during this term.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan have been challenged for by Republicans and Democrats, respectively, in the Court’s health care deliberations due to the financial ties of Mrs. Clarence Thomas to organizations against the law and Justice Kagan’s role in preparing the defense of the controversial health care law while she served as the Administration’s Solicitor General.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Chief Judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman announced that he was “shocked” by the turn of events that required this matter to be aired in public.  Judge Bhagwat announced that she would recuse herselF from Charge 1 deliberations; her decision was accepted by the Court, and she left the Chambers.

Defense Counsel then proceeded to argue that the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to consider the actions of the President and Prime Minister.  The Prosecution anticipated this line of argument and was prepared with its counter-argument and declared that they are prepared to show that war crimes have been  committed and deriving its power directly from the people who refuse to be complicit in war crimes, the people will not be silenced and conscience cannot be silenced.

Francis Boyle added that complaints had already been filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against both Bush and Blair, but that the ICC had refused prosecution.  The Tribunal is expected to overrule Defense objection based on jurisdiction and proceed to the trial of President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Reprinted with the kind permission of Global Research

“When Libya was granted its independence by the United Nations on December 24, 1951, it was described as one of the poorest and most backward nations of the world. The population at the time was not more than 1.5 million, was over 90 per cent illiterate, and had no political experience or knowhow. There were no universities, and only a limited number of high schools which had been established seven years before independence.” [1]

Ghadafi had many grand plans. He wanted to create a South Atlantic Treaty Organization to protect Africa and Latin America. He advocated for a gold dinar standard as the currency of Muslim countries. Many of his plans were also of a pan-African nature. This included the formation of a United States of Africa.

Ghadafi’s Pan-African Projects

Colonel Ghadafi started the Great Man-Made River, which consisted of a massive project to transform the Sahara Desert and reverse the desertification of Africa. The Great Man-Made River with its irrigation plans was also intended to support the agricultural sector in other parts of Africa. This project was a military target of NATO bombings. Without just cause, NATO’s bombing campaign was intent upon destroying the Great Man-Made River.

Ghadafi also envisioned independent pan-African financial institutions. The Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Foreign Bank were important players in setting up these institutions. Ghadafi, through the Libyan Foreign Bank and the Libyan Investment Authority, was instrumental in setting up Africa’s first satellite network, the Regional African Satellite Communication Organization (RASCOM), to reduce African dependence on external powers. [2]

His crowning achievement would have been the creation of the United States of Africa. The supranational entity would have been created through the African Investment Bank, the African Monetary Fund, and finally the African Central Bank. These institutions were all viewed with animosity by the European Union, United States, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank.

Ghadafi’s Wealth Redistribution Project

Ghadafi had a wealth redistribution project inside Libya. U.S. Congressional sources in a report to the U.S. Congress even acknowledge this. On February 18, 2011 one report states:

In March 2008, [Colonel Ghadafi] announced his intention to dissolve most government administrative bodies and institute a Wealth Distribution Program whereby state oil revenues would be distributed to citizens on a monthly basis for them to administer personally, in cooperation, and via local committees. Citing popular criticism of government performance in a long, wide ranging speech, [he] repeatedly stated that the traditional state would soon be “dead” in Libya and that direct rule by citizens would be accomplished through the distribution of oil revenues. [The military], foreign affairs, security, and oil production arrangements reportedly would remain national government responsibilities, while other bodies would be phased out. In early 2009, Libya’s Basic People’s Congresses considered variations of the proposals, and the General People’s Congress voted to delay implementation. [3]

Ghadafi wanted all the people of Libya to have direct access to the nation’s wealth. He was also aware of the deep rooted corruption that plagued the ranks of the Libyan government. This was one of the reasons why he wanted to apply a model of political anarchy in Libya through progressive steps. He was talking about both these project for a few years.

On the other hand, the Wealth Redistribution Project, along with the establishment of an anarchist political system, was viewed as a very serious threat by the U.S., the E.U., and a group of corrupt Libyan officials. If successful, the reforms could have created political unrest amongst many domestic populations around the world. Internally, many Libyan officials were working to delay the project. This included reaching out to external powers to intervene in Libya to stop Ghadafi and his projects.

Why Mahmoud Jibril Joined the Transitional Council

Amongst the Libyan officials that were heavily opposed to this project and viewed it with horror was Mahmoud Jibril. Jibril was put into place by Saif Al-Islam Ghadafi. Because of strong influence and advice from the U.S. and the E.U., Saif Al-Islam selected Jibril to transform the Libyan economy and impose a wave of neo-liberal economic reforms that would open the Libyan market.

Jibril became the head of two bodies in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the National Planning Council of Libya and National Economic Development Board of Libya. While the National Economic Development Board was a regular ministry, the National Planning Council would actually put Jibril in a government position above that of the Office of the General-Secretary of the People’s Committee of Libya (which is the equivalent of the post of a prime minister). Jibril actually became one of the forces that opened the doors of privatization and poverty in Libya.

About six months before the conflict erupted in Libya, Mahmoud Jibiril actually met with Bernard-Henri Lévy in Australia to discuss forming the Transitional Council and deposing Colonel Ghadafi. [4] He described Ghadafi’s Wealth Redistribution Project as “crazy” in minutes and documents from the National Economic Development Board of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. [5]

Jibril strongly believed that the Libyan masses were not fit to govern themselves and that an elite should always control the fate and wealth of any nation. What Jibril wanted to do is downsize the Libyan government and layoff a large segment of the public sector, but in exchange increase government regulations in Libya. He would also always cite Singapore as the perfect example of a neo-liberal state. While in Singapore, which he regularly visited, it is likely that he also meet with Bernard-Henri Lévy.

When the problems erupted in Benghazi, Mahmoud Jibril immediately went to Cairo, Egypt. He told his colleagues that he would be back in Tripoli soon, but he had no intention of returning. In reality, he went to Cairo to meet the leaders of the Syrian National Council and Lévy. They were all waiting for him inside Cairo to coordinate the events in Libya and Syria. This is one of the reasons that the Transitional Council has recognized the Syrian National Council as the legitimate government of Syria.

Do Not Pity the Dead, Pity the Living!

Muammar Ghadafi is now dead.

He was murdered in his hometown of Sirte.

He stood his ground until the end like he said he would.

The Transitional Council, which vowed to take him to court had him murdered.

He even reminded the men who beat him, anally raped him, mocked him, and finally murdered him that they were not following the laws of Islam about respectful treatment of prisoners. NATO played a central role and oversaw the whole event.

The murder was systematic, because after Ghadafi was murdered his son and several other Libyan leaders were killed too.

Colonel Ghadafi’s death marks a historic milestone for Libya. An old era has ended in Libya and a new chapter begins.

Libya will not become a new paradise like the Transitional Council says. In many cases the living will envy the dead, because of men like Mahmoud Jibril, Ali Tarhouni, and Sliman Bouchuiguir.

Mahmoud Jibril is a mere opportunist. The man had no problems being a government official under the late Ghadafi. He never complained about human rights or a lack of democracy. He was the prime minister of the Transitional Council of Libya until a few days after the savage murder of Colonel Ghadafi. The opposition of Jibril to the late Ghadafi’s Wealth Redistribution Project and his elitist attitude are amongst the reasons he conspired against Ghadafi and helped form the Transitional Council.

Is this ex-regime official, who has always been an open supporter of the Arab dictators in the Persian Gulf, really a representative and champion of the people? How about his colleagues in the Transitional Council who negotiated oil contracts with NATO member states, even before they held any so-called government positions in the Transitional Council?

Notes

[1] Henri Pierre Habib, Politics and Government of Revolutionary Libya (Montmagny, Québec: Le Cercle de Livre de France Ltée, 1975), p.1.

[2] Regional African Satellite Communication Organization, “Launch of the Pan African Satellite,” July 26, 2010:
<http://www.rascom.org/info_detail2.php?langue_id=2&info_id=120&id_sr=0&id_r=32&id_gr=3>

[3] Christopher M. Blanchard and James Zanotti, “Libya Christopher M. Blanchard and James Zanotti, “Libya: Background and U.S. Relations,” Congressional Research Service, February 18, 2011, p.22.

[4] Private discussions with Mahmoud Jiribil’s co-workers inside and outside of Libya.

[5] Internal private documents from the National Economic Development Board of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Sociologist and Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montréal. He specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He was on the ground in Libya for over two months and was also a Special Correspondent for Flashpoints, which is an investigative news program carried on numerous stations in the United States and based in Berkeley, California.

Reprinted with kind permission of Global Research Canada

 How are you today, Mr. Rozoff?

Rather distressed by the news of this morning, or yesterday morning in your case.

Ok, what is your first impression?

It was a brutal, gratuitous slaying of an almost 70-year-old man, killed after being captured. And if the intent of 216 days of NATO bombing was to kill him in the first place, which is clearly the case, with the multiple bombings of his compound in Tripoli, which in one case killed one of his sons and three grandchildren; it is clearly targeted killing and I suppose NATO can now claim success. It has got what it wanted.

President Barack Obama said that there is going to be a pull-out from Libya very soon, so in your mind does that mean the objective has been met?

Yes, it has entirely. Regime change, take-over of Africa’s largest oil reserves, the incorporation of Libya, which hitherto had been the only North African country that was not a member of NATO’s so-called Mediterranean Dialogue, into what is now according to Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen a military partnership with the North Atlantic Alliance… So in every sense their objective has been accomplished. It’s certainly nothing that is going to benefit the Libyan people.

You don’t see this as being justice for the oppressed Libyan people? I mean there are people saying that Gadhafi was a terrible guy. He killed thousands so he deserved to die.

There is just so much – what term do I want to use? – low taste, gratuitous reveling in the murder of this man, who was born 70 years ago in the very city he was murdered in on the 216th day of NATO’s bombing of his country. He was born under Italian Fascist occupation and he died under NATO occupation. I think the parallel there can’t be missed, including the fact that Italy supplied some of the warplanes that have devastated his country since the middle of March, since March 19th. If he was the monster they’ve portrayed him as being – and I invite your listeners to go to the NATO website and see some of the crude caricatures of Gadhafi they’ve posted over the last few days – wall graffiti and so forth – portraying him in a demeaning and belittling way, to further dehumanize him preparatory to murdering him.

Caricature of Col. Ghadafi on the Nato website

Alright, I saw some television coverage of his naked body being thrown around like a piece of meat. I am sorry for the expression.

Yes, after they brought him to Misrata. This is sickening, barbaric and worse than barbaric treatment and it’s in a long line of similar travesties. This is true with Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, with any leader of a country that doesn’t kow-tow entirely. I am not putting all these people in the same basket. Let’s rephrase that. Any leader whose time has come according to the United States and NATO can expect death. Hussein was hanged, Gadhafi was shot. Whereas Gadhafi was considered to be – he was only nominally so, but he was considered to be – the head of state and even the head of the military, and the bombing of his private residences under the guise of their being command and control centres suggests that he was considered by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to be in charge of the Libyan military, when he was captured on Thursday his treatment was governed by the Geneva Conventions, but instead he was shot through the head and murdered. This is the new regime that is being implanted in Libya, and for all the West’s talk of the rule of law and humanitarian concerns and so forth this is a graphic image of its true intentions, just like the death of Slobodan Milosevic in a veritable dungeon in the Netherlands because he was denied proper medical treatment in Russia, and the grotesque hanging of Saddam Hussein. This is the image of the new world order, a world order in all its transparent barbarism.

What do you mean he was denied medical treatment in Russia?

Russia offered to make a deal with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to bring Slobodan Milosevic to Moscow for medical treatment, but he was denied that opportunity and he died shortly thereafter. Even more foul play may have been involved but the message is very clear.

Do you see a pattern, I am sorry to interrupt you there. Do you see a pattern here, I am sure you do, between Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and now Gadhafi? I mean, we have countries, for example, Hussein and Gadhafi, they pretty much stopped their weapons’ programs. They cooperated with the CIA, in this case from what I’ve heard, and it’s pretty much a given, Gadhafi was assisting the war on terror fight by the United States by allowing rendition flights to Libya. He stopped his weapons programs. Do you see a pattern here?

Yes, there’s a very clear pattern. That the United States and the North Atlantic alliance use somebody for whatever purpose they want to and then get rid of them and kill them afterwards. Slobodan Milosevic, at political risk to himself inside at that time the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, played a role in negotiating an end to the armed hostilities in Bosnia, in gratitude for which his country was bombed for 78 days in 1999 by the United States and its NATO allies and subsequently he was left to die in prison.

He had a deal with the CIA, I think, it came out, and I think that it’s pretty much a part of the public record that he believed that he was going to be protected.

I don’t know the details about that but at the end of the day what we see is there are a lot of corpses and we see the killings of heads of state. We have to recall that again, even though he was a titular, a nominal, head of state, Muammar Gadhafi was the longest reigning leader in the world. He is was last personal link – since Fidel Castro retired as president of Cuba – between the post-World War II national liberation struggles and the emergence of new nations during the Cold War era and the post-Cold War era that issued in NATO as an international military strike force that can topple governments at will around the world. NATO boasts on its website as of today of flying over 26,000 air missions over a country of six million people, with well over 9,000 of those being combat sorties. So this monster has been unleashed over the last 20 years and Libya will not be the last country so targeted. That you can be assured of.

What do you think is going to happen next?

I don’t know if Libya is able to be put back together again. The Western powers incited regional and tribal differences in order to topple the former Gadhafi government, and believing you can put that genie back in the bottle is overly optimistic – and disingenuous. With the military commander of the National Transitional Council [Abdel Hakim Belhaj] being somebody the United States incarcerated and interrogated as part of its “extraordinary rendition” program and a former fighter in Afghanistan, past leader of the so-called Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, you have al-Qaeda elements and tribal separatists – they’ve created real pandemonium here and now they claim that they want to stabilize Libya. I don’t see it happening. At the end of the day, with the alleged no-fly zone and humanitarian intervention, NATO has transparently waged a war against a government on behalf of insurgents, period. This was clearly the intent from the beginning and now it’s proven successful.

 Reprinted with the kind permission of Global Research Canada

Though it is evident that many pieces of video footage featuring Gadhafi `s last hours are fake, still there are some which may prove real. It is easy to explain why fake videos have been made: they were aimed to suppress courage in the rebels, and – if we suggest that the video showing Gadhafi `s killing are fake – to prevent a new wave of uprising set for the nearest future.

But my task now is to analyse the footage showing Gadhafi `s bloodied body from the point of view of international law, no matter whether the videos were fake or real, but relying on the fact that the footage was considered genuine by the global media and NATO leaders.

For the past few days we have been shown the footage of a man, who looked much like Gadhafi, being brutally killed. The world`s major political factions have reacted differently. But the reaction of the International Criminal Court deserves special attention.

Russia`s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a thorough investigation in to Gadhafi `s death.  The world`s leading human rights organization, Amnesty International, commented on the event. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court keeps silence. Why?…

At the moment Gadhafi was captured he was still alive. After the capture he was dead – the video footage shows him having a bullet hole in his left temple. This is enough to qualify his killing as a war crime.

In March the UN Security Council (UNSC) admitted that Libya was in grip of an armed conflict, which means that all the sides involved in the conflict should abide to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field.

Article 3 says: “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed ‘ hors de combat ‘ by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria”.

Otherwise, all actions causing the death of a captive should be viewed as a ‘serious violation’ of the Convention. The word serious in this context is a legal definition which serves to differentiate between common violations the ICC does not have to deal with, and  grave crimes which rightly fall under the Court`s jurisdiction. So, what was demonstrated on television about Gadhafi `s death is a serious violation of the norms of international law.

The reasons for the ICC to keep silence about the situation are quite obvious: on having started the hearings into Gadhafi `s death, they will by all means have to investigate numerous reports on crimes committed by the National Transitional Council (NTC). The easiest thing the ICC could do in this situation would be to say that the Court was founded to deal with the gravest crimes, while the killing of one person is not the case.

But they can`t say that, first of all because the case has already been classified as ‘serious crime’, and, secondly, as the Gadhafi case has been opened already. The least thing the ICC is now expected to do is to qualify the killing as an obstacle to exercise justice.

They cannot keep silence any longer. Gadhafi `s murder is not a private case but a part of a bigger case, which has been launched earlier. Certainly, the death of a key defendant impedes the investigation, but those who killed him can be identified in the video.

The UN General Assembly rejected Muammar Gadhafi `s appeal to investigate the killings of all state and government leaders of UN member countries throughout 65 years of the organization`s history. It proves that in most countries the authorities do not want publicity on those killings.

But if Gadhafi was alive and put to trial, he could have testified on a number of very controversial issues, including the Lockerbie bombing, as well as on some other operations carried out by the West against Libya and other countries. Thus, having put Gadhafi on trial, the ICC would have become the least interested in bringing the process to the logical end.

But the Court is silent on Gadhafi `s death. On the day when the ousted Libyan leader was killed,the ICC addressed the Republic of Malawi in southeast Africa to explain why it failed to arrest the Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir during his visit to Malawi last Friday in accordance with the order issued in 2008. Why the ICC does not demand the same from the Libyan authorities?

Remarkably, the official accusations once unveiled by the ICC against Gadhafi include ‘the use of lethal force’, ‘manslaughter’, ‘cruelty and torture’. The question is why Gadhafi `s case should be viewed differently from what has been going on in the neighbourhood. The ICC definitely has the reason.

Reprinted with kind permission of Strategic Culture Foundation Online Journal

Jubilant, they withheld smiles and promptly switched to comments on the future of Libya, which revolved around the key idea that having the embattled country revert to normalcy would be a major challenge for its now triumphant new administration.

Western media, in the meantime, are airing footage of elated crowds, but limit reporting to flocks of young people in the central squares of Tripoli, as piecing together the picture across Libyan provinces and tribal zones could produce a completely different impression.

The hunt for Libya’s strongman M. Gadhafi reached the end when French pilots spotted his convoy and Libyan “fighters for democracy” did the job on the ground. Footage of the brutal murder of Gadhafi left the world in a state of shock, the inescapable conclusion being that the west has brought up in the Arab world a brand of freedom fighters who clearly have instincts of maniacal killers. With the grisly executions of S. Hussein and his supporters in recent memory, the massacre in Libya reads as a perpetuation of the tradition.

It did not evade watchers that threats against Syria’s B. Assad and Yemen’s A. Saleh were voiced by the same people who killed Gadhafi. They surely are the ones to know what the future holds, considering that the Syrian “fighters for democracy” currently training in Turkish camps are in no way different from the backers of the Libyan National Transitional Council, were schooled by the same instructors, and obviously have similar objectives.

No doubt, any Arab world leader is vulnerable to criticism if judged form the standpoint of western democracy, and this simply had to be true of Gadhafi, a son of a country where life is in every regard different from what westerners are accustomed to.

The questions arising in the context are whether the murder of Gadhafi, an act of mob justice perpetrated by his pro-Western opponents, was acceptable by the western democracy standards and, generally, what type of political culture NATO brings to the countries where it helps demolish entrenched political regimes?

For example, while talk about Libya’s march to democracy remains a staple, at the moment the country seems doomed to a lingering domestic conflict during which western companies will be comfortably carving up the Libyan oil riches. The western political class and media pretend to be oblivious to the contours of the situation, be it in Libya or in Iraq.

The death of Gadhafi is by all means a major NATO success. Gone is another defiant and nationally-minded leader, and his place will be taken by a puppet akin to those already installed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Step by step, the west is forming across the Muslim world a cohort of rulers serving the architects of globalization rather than their own nations.

Who is next on the hit list – Saleh, Assad, or Ahmadinejad, and is the post-Soviet Central Asia going to be the next target?

Reprinted with kind permission of Strategic Culture Foundation  Online Journal

 Obama’s decision is described in the press as “highly unusual” and “surprising”, even “weird”. It is none of these things. It is the logic of American foreign policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to halt the influence of China, an imperial rival, and “protect” Indonesia, which President Nixon called “the region’s richest hoard of natural resources …the greatest prize”.

Vietnam merely got in the way; and the slaughter of more than three million Vietnamese and the devastation and poisoning of their land was the price of America achieving its goal. Like all America’s subsequent invasions, a trail of blood from Latin America to Afghanistan and Iraq, the rationale was usually “self defence” or “humanitarian”, words long emptied of their dictionary meaning.

In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”.

 This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.

Obama’s other justification also invites satire. This is the “national security of the United States”. The LRA has been doing its nasty work for 24 years, of minimal interest to the United States. Today, it has fewer than 400 fighters and has never been weaker. However, US “national security” usually means buying a corrupt and thuggish regime that has something Washington wants.

 Uganda’s “president-for-life” Yoweri Museveni already receives the larger part of $45 million in US military “aid” – including Obama’s favourite drones. This is his bribe to fight a proxy war against America’s latest phantom Islamic enemy, the rag-tag al Shabaab group based in Somalia. The RTA will play a public relations role, distracting western journalists with its perennial horror stories.

 However, the main reason the US is invading Africa is no different from that which ignited the Vietnam war. It is China. In the world of self-serving, institutionalised paranoia that justifies what General David Petraeus, the former US commander and now CIA director, implies is a state of perpetual war, China is replacing al-Qaeda as the official American “threat”.

When I interviewed Bryan Whitman, an assistant secretary of defence at the Pentagon last year, I asked him to describe the current danger to America. Struggling visibly, he repeated, “Asymmetric threats … asymmetric threats”. These justify the money-laundering state-sponsored arms conglomerates and the biggest military and war budget in history. With Osama bin Laden airbrushed, China takes the mantle.

Africa is China’s success story. Where the Americans bring drones and destabilisation, the Chinese bring roads, bridges and dams. What they want is resources, especially fossil fuels. With Africa’s greatest oil reserves, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was one of China’s most important sources of fuel.

 When the civil war broke out and NATO backed the “rebels” with a fabricated story about Gaddafi planning “genocide” in Benghazi, China evacuated its 30,000 workers in Libya. The subsequent UN security council resolution that allowed the west’s “humanitarian intervention” was explained succinctly in a proposal to the French government by the “rebel” National Transitional Council, disclosed last month in the newspaper Liberation, in which France was offered 35 per cent of Libya’s gross national oil production “in exchange” (the term used) for “total and permanent” French support for the NTC.

 Running up the Stars and Stripes in “liberated” Tripoli last month, US ambassador Gene Cretz blurted out: “We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources!”

The de facto conquest of Libya by the US and its imperial partners heralds a modern version of the “scramble for Africa” at the end of the 19th century.

 Like the “victory” in Iraq, journalists have played a critical role in dividing Libyans into worthy and unworthy victims. A recent Guardian front page carried a photograph of a terrified “pro-Gaddafi” fighter and his wild-eyed captors who, says the caption, “celebrate”. According to General Petraeus, there is now a war “of perception … conducted continuously through the news media”.

 For more than a decade the US has tried to establish a command on the continent of Africa, AFRICOM, but has been rebuffed by governments, fearful of the regional tensions this would cause. Libya, and now Uganda, South Sudan and Congo, provide the main chance.

As WikiLeaks cables and the US National Strategy for Counter-terrorism reveal, American plans for Africa are part of a global design in which 60,000 special forces, including death squads, already operate in 75 countries, soon to be 120. As Dick Cheney pointed out in his 1990s “defence strategy” plan, America simply wishes to rule the world.

That this is now the gift of Barack Obama, the “Son of Africa”, is supremely ironic. Or is it? As Frantz Fanon explained in Black Skin, White Masks, what matters is not so much the colour of your skin as the power you serve and the millions you betray.

Reprinted with kind permission of Global Research

For more information on John Pilger, visit his website at www.johnpilger.com

US and NATO strategists were wrong in thinking that the military campaign would be completed in several weeks. Under resolution no. 1973 of the UN Security Council, the no-fly zone over the air space of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was created, an embargo on weapon supplies was introduced and the Libyan assets were frozen. The operation in Libya which was initially due to be completed by June 27 was prolonged by 90 days until the end of September.

There have been reports in the media that a wide-scale ground operation in Libya under the US command is being planned and the troops are expected to be deployed there by October. The Libyan war is the fifth in addition to the four wars the US is conducting in Iraq, Afghanistan Pakistan and Yemen.

The goals of the US permanent presence in Libya are to punish Qaddafi for his refusal to join USAFRICOM, to drive the Chinese away from Libya and to cut access to oil resources for Europeans.

150 days of war have revealed the poor state of political and military coordination within NATO. France, which initiated the military operation, could do nothing with Qaddafi without US noise jammers, fuel tankers, AEW planes and cruise missiles.

In order to employ dozens of their Tornado bomb fighters against Libya, Britain had to leave half of its aircraft fleet in England without spare parts and to stop flights of its defensive fighters.

The operation in Libya is a localized military conflict and if Europeans have problems with the ammunition just a couple months after the beginning of the campaign it would be reasonable to ask them what kind of war they were preparing for? Once again this war exposes the level of the European “war machine”.

The operation against Libya was planned at the headquarters of USAFRICOM headed by General K. Ham. The officers of the air forces of Great Britain, France and other countries of the coalition came to the headquarters to work out joint actions.

Only later was the NATO leadership put in charge of the planning. Perhaps the main task was neither the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya nor the liquidation of the Libyan air forces as it was earlier in Yugoslavia and Iraq but the liquidation of the Libyan leadership.

But NATO underestimated the moral and psychological state of the Libyan troops. The leadership of the US and NATO supposed that after the first strikes Qaddafi’s army would be defeated and the Libyan soldiers would begin to surrender themselves as prisoners, but the Qaddafi’s army managed to keep its combat effectiveness.

The Libyan army in March and the Libyan army in July of 2011 are two different armies in terms of tactics, effectiveness and courage. Those soldiers learn very fast. The mission quell the Libyan combat power has remained unfulfilled. NATO and the US have failed to gain full control over the coastline and the Western part of Libya.

Unexpectedly for the Western coalition, most of the population supported Qaddafi. According to the media, about 70 per cent of citizens of Libya either support their leader or stay neutral. The government troops are supported by the units of local defence (a reserve component of the armed forces) and the militia. It means that the leaders of the operation against Libya see the rebel minority not the majority which is loyal to Qaddafi as a “peaceful population”.

The second unexpected issue was that Khalifa Haftar, the former colonel of the Libyan army who fled the country more than 20 years ago and who headed the combat units of the “revolutionaries” is not a respected figure in local tribes. Some of the former rebels said:

“Listen, we were not happy with Qaddafi, but when we saw NATO, including Italy, our former colonial occupant, we reconsidered it. Okay he is a dictator we have been under him for more than 40 years but what the hell – he is the Libyan nationalist and he managed to create for us the highest level of living in Africa”.

The third unexpected issue is that the forecast that amid the chaos the insurgents of Al Qaeda and numerous terrorist groups acting in the countries of Sahel – Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania – would try to seize weapons kept at storage facilities in the south of Libya came true.

The militants managed to seize RPG-7grenade throwers, machine guns, Kalashnikov guns and also shoulder fired missiles. “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)” has already organized several caravans for the transportation of weapons from Libya to Mali and Algeria.

A peculiar aspect of the military operation in Libya has been the wide-scale use of guided weapon systems. Their application was based on the data received from radio electronic and optic intelligence in real time. Thanks to the high accuracy of target detection the share of guided weapons application rose to 85 per cent.

The ambition to implement the concept of “surgical” strikes led to a wide use of tactical cruise missiles BGM-109 Tomahawk, US bombs with laser guidance AG M-123, AGM-65F Maverick missiles, air-to-air AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, AASM guided bombs, Storm Shadow cruise missiles, “air-to-surface” A2SM, 2000-pound GBU-31B/JDAM bombs, Enhanced Paveway III, guided Brimstone missiles.

During the Libyan war the US tested in real combat such weapons as Florida Ohio-class strategic missile submarine, Tomahawk Block IV (TLAM-E) tactical cruise missile, radio warfare EA-18G Growler aircraft of the US air forces.

Britain tested multipurpose Eurofighter Typhoon jet fighter, AC-130heavily-armed ground-attack aircraft and MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter. The US and NATO forces also used uranium armour piercing weapon and vacuum bombs (weighting up to 2 tons).

As of June 3, the US expenditure on military operations in Libya (only Pentagon related costs) amounted to $715.9 million. The US servicemen supplied humanitarian aid worth $1 million, while another $1 million was spent on replenishment of reserves of the US Defence Ministry. By September 30, the Libyan campaign will have cost another $400 million.

Storm Shadow and Tomahawk missiles launched from submarines cost $1.1 million and ₤800,000 pounds each. According to the French Defence Ministry, as of May 3, of total €53 million spent on the United Defender operation €31.7 million ($ 45.1 million) was spent on ammunition.

As of May 8, Britain’s expenditure on guided high precision weapon amounted ₤43.77 million ($71.8 million). Sending 4 Tornado GR4 bombers, 3 Europe Typhoon jet fighters and support aircraft costs ₤3.216 million daily. One hour of operation of Tornado plane costs ₤33,000, including fuel, maintenance and crew training. Typhoon costs ₤80,000 per hour.

Italy’s Defence Minister Ignazio la Russa announced that his country had reduced costs on participation in the operation in Libya from €142 million to €60 million). By September 30, the total costs on the operation in Libya are expected to reach $1.1 billion.

Reprinted with kind permission from  The Strategic Culture Foundation Online Journal

The ban which was unanimously approved in parliament in April makes it a criminal offence for women to wear anything that hides their face in public such as the burqas and niqabs worn by Muslim women.

The move has already met with stiff opposition and criticism. Dr Mehmood Khalid, a spokesperson for the Brussels based International Imam Organisation said that the move is unhelpful:

“Instead of taking such measures the Government should launch programs for integration of Muslims into Belgium and implement open door policy. We all should work together and increase the brotherhood and parity between Islam and other faiths.”

Two Muslim women have already challenged the ban in Belgium’s Constitutional Court branding it as discriminatory. Ines Wouters, the lawyer representing the women told La Libre newspaper that the ban contravenes fundamental human rights such as freedom of religion and expression.

The most vociferous opposition to the ban has come from the Council of Europe. Its Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg said that the new law is a direct result of Islamaphobia and anti-Muslim sentiment spreading across Europe.

“It is more likely that such laws – so obviously targeting the adherents of one religious faith – would further stigmatise these women and lead to their alienation from the majority society. Banning women dressed in the burqa/niqab from public institutions like hospitals or government offices may only result in them avoiding such places entirely. This is not liberation,” Hammarbarg said.

The Commissioner added that ban is at odds with human rights standards, in particular the right to respect for one’s private life and personal identity.

France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, was the first European nation to ban the burqa in April of this year.

In what appeared to be a series of reprisals against Qaddafi backers, the populations of the towns were chased away and the locals' property was extensively damaged. Two currently deserted medical centres and scores of local businesses were looted by the rebels. HRW also said rebels were beating suspected Qaddafi loyalists and torching their homes, while much of the abuse is being directed against members of the Mashaashia tribe who are known to be traditional supporters of the Libyan government.

The information supplied by HRW have resonated with audiences in the US and Europe, where the legitimacy and fairness of the military campaign which grew out of a fuzzy UN mandate and was launched to prop up the cause of Libya's “freedom fighters” are being increasingly called into question. At the moment, it seems clear from the rebels' conduct that a tide of retaliatory violence may sweep across Libya if the anti- Qaddafi forces prevail.

In the meantime, rebel officials are making awkward attempts to downplay the recent looting and arson in the western part of Libya. The region's senior rebel commander Col. Mukhtar Farnana said in a follow-up interview that “the reprisals were not sanctioned” and even denied knowing any details of the incidents, but was caught lying by HRW as, according to the watchdog, he was the individual who originally shared with the investigators specific information about the abuses and, moreover, conceded that those came as a “punishment” for collaboration with Qaddafi 's regime.

HRW quoted the field commander as saying: “People who stayed in the towns were working with the army. Houses that were robbed and broken into were ones that the army had used, including for ammunition storage. Those people who were beaten were working for Qaddafi’s brigades”. Rebel conduct under the conditions of unfolding armed conflict predictably tends to be mixed.

Some of the captured soldiers and officers from government forces are being detained under decent conditions, given medical treatment in hospitals and even allowed to see their relatives; while there is reliable evidence that others were beaten at the point of capture or shot on site. Several prisoners in Misurata were shot through the feet as a means to prevent escape.

On many occasions, journalists also witnessed rebels fire indiscriminately on towns held by government forces, with makeshift rockets hitting obviously civilian targets. Qaddafi 's army faces similar accusations, but the flight of civilians from regions falling to them never reached the same proportions as that triggered by rebel advances.

A shocking instance where a crime had been committed by the rebels surfaced hours before HRW rolled out its sensational findings. In the zone between the Um al-Jersan and Qawalish villages, five bodies decomposed beyond recognition were unearthed from a deep concrete basin linked to the region's water pipeline, with cloth bindings scattered around, which provides evidence that the people had had their arms and legs bound.

Judging by remnants of military uniforms, the dead had been the government army's servicemen. Pistol and rifle cartridges were also littered on site. Local residents pointed to heaps of rock and freshly turned dirt where, as they said, other dead bodies were rotting.

Western comments drawn by the HRW report largely revolve around the argument that no party to a ferocious civilian conflict can be realistically expected to emerge with a spotless reputation. That in itself is true, but has to be seen in the context that from the outset the NATO propaganda was presenting Libyan rebels as ‘freedom fighters’  and it now transpires that this picture is at odds with reality.

The situation evokes similarities with Kosovo, where ‘freedom fighters’ from the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army, lauded by then US Secretary of State M. Albright, mercilessly butchered defenceless people and even set up a network of trafficking forcibly extracting human organs. These days, Libyan rebels are treated as heroes by N. Sarkozy and NATO top brass, and there are no signs that the hypocrisy and bias will ever wane.

Awakening even fleetingly the West's hopelessly rigid public opinion takes a bombshell. Who knows, perhaps Serbia's history could have taken a different turn if news had popped up at the peak of the Yugoslavian conflict that Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas had carved up a European citizen and the extracted organs had been used for human repair in Italy's clinics.

Reprinted with kind permission from the Strategic Culture Organisation online journal.

He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1970, stating that the Civil Rights Act was ‘humiliating to the South.’ As governor of California from 1967 to 1975 he persecuted the Black Panther Party going so far as to change the law to stop them from carrying guns.

Bearing arms in public was legal at the time and armed Black Panthers would follow and observe police patrols. This prevented racist police harassment and shootings and brought instant respect and members to the Panthers.

When white militia groups walked about with guns in sight there had been no complaints. In 1967 Reagan signed into law the Mulford Act banning the public display of weapons, which had the effect of disempowering the Panthers and weakening the black community.

Reagan stated that black political activist Angela Davis was a terrorist, sacked her from her teaching post at UCLA then vowed she would never work in his state again. Reagan was President from 1981 to 1989 – what was his attitude to black people during that period ?

He was strongly opposed to affirmative action policy. He fired U.S. Commission on Civil Rights members who were critical of his Civil Rights policies. On Civil Rights leaders he is quoted as saying:

“Sometimes I wonder if they really mean what they say, because some of those leaders are doing very well leading organizations based on keeping alive the feeling that they’re victims of prejudice.”

He opposed the move to a national holiday in honour of Martin Luther King and only signed it in 1983 after an overwhelming veto proof vote (338 to 90 in the House of Representatives and 78 to 22 in the Senate). When he did sign the holiday into existence in full view of the world media, he was asked whether Martin Luther King a communist. He replied ‘Well we’ll now in 30 years wont we?” and flung down his pen.

In 1983 he decided to invade the tiny Caribbean country of Grenada stating that it “was a threat to the National Security of the United States.” He was against the Civil Rights Restoration act of 1988 and the US Congress had to overturn his Presidential veto to make it happen.

He was well known for the Just Say No campaign and his funding of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). At the same time as being concerned about young America’s exposure to drugs.

Reagan authorised the Iran Contra deal, which, apart from illegally supplying arms to Iran, saw drugs from Central America being imported to black areas of Los Angeles. This led to the crack epidemic which brought death, destruction, misery and imprisonment to hundreds of thousands of African Americans.

It destabilised communities and led to an increase in crime, prostitution, abortions and domestic violence. This dysfunction which was caused by the government’s actions was blamed upon the black community.

The scandal was exposed by journalist Gary Webb and his Dark Alliance series. Black drug dealer Freeway Ricky Ross revealed that the CIA supplied him with cocaine which he turned into crack, making up to three million dollars a day.

To protect his wealth he bought Uzi machine guns and other heavy weapons which prompted other dealers to do the same. His protected drug supply was delivered to US military bases direct from Nicaragua and distributed to Baltimore, New York and Ohio.

White drug dealer Marine Colonel Oliver North supervised this process. Ricky Ross was sentenced to life imprisonment, later reduced to 20 years. Oliver North ran for Senate as a Republican in 1994 and now has a chat show on Fox news.

Sales of the drugs were used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua who were involved in numerous human rights abuses, torture and the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in a country which referred to them as terrorists.

Reagan excused and patronised the apartheid regime in South Africa. He called Mandela and the ANC terrorists. In an interview with CBS in 1981 he stated he was loyal to the white South Africa because it was “a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.”

He bankrolled a proxy war led by Jonas Savimbi in Angola.  Since independence from the Portuguese in 1975, Angola had taken a stand against the white South African government and supported the ANC.

South Africans waged a secret war against the Angolans using Savimbi as an extension of their army. Reagan funded Savimbi’s UNITA army which meant the war was intensified and lasted longer than it should have.

Tens of thousands of deaths, refugees and disabled people were created by this policy. Angola was further underdeveloped by this extended armed conflict. In 1986 Savimbi met Reagan at the white House

Reagan attempted to strengthen apartheid South Africa by using Jeanne Kirkpatrick, US ambassador to the UN, to fight attempts to impose sanctions. CIA director William Casey was sent to meet his equivalent in Pretoria

In 1984 while in Washington, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Tutu said:

“In my view, the Reagan administration’s support and collaboration with it [South Africa] is equally immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian . . . You are either for or against apartheid and not by rhetoric. You are either in favour of evil or you are in favour of good. You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can’t be neutral.”

In 1986, Reagan gave a speech where he said Mandela should be released but denounced sanctions because they would “hurt black workers”.

Tutu’s response to this was: “I found it quite nauseating. I think the West, for my part, can go to hell . . . Your president is the pits as far as blacks are concerned. He sits there like the great, big white chief of old.”

Later that year when Congress actually voted for limited sanctions he used his veto and Congress had to override the veto.

Reagan left office in 1989, Mandela was released in 1990. Is it possible that without Reagan’s support Mandela would have been released earlier and many lives and much suffering would have been spared?

So why is a black Democratic President praising this white Republican President who did all of the above and where is this history in the present media coverage?

 More articles by Tony Warner

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