Is The US Attempting to Balkanize Libya: How Bad is Gadaffi Really?

Unverified Misreporting on Libya

By Stephen Lendman

March 01, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- America's media, Britain's state-controlled BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are spreading unverified or false reports on Libya's uprising.

On February 25, writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian specialist, based on reliable in-country contacts, headlined an important article, "Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?" Access it through the following LINK

For greater readership, this article covers key information in it. Its entirety explains much about what's ongoing - what major media accounts misreport or suppress, especially television reaching large audiences, presenting distorted managed news. It shouldn't surprise. Representing powerful interests, carefully filtered sanitized reporting substitutes for the real kind.

Gaddafi indisputably is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," and spawning "an entire hierarchy of corrupt officials," disdainful of popular interests.

Nonetheless, something is "(r)otten in the so-called 'Jamahiriya' (state of the masses) of Libya." Popular anger is justified and real. At issue is whether it's spontaneous or externally generated, and, if so, by whom and for what reasons.

Western powers, especially America, gladly support despots. They only fall into disfavor by forgetting who's boss. Mubarak forgot. So did Gaddafi, long targeted for removal despite rapprochement with America and Western nations. As a result, in-country reports lack credibility without verifiable proof. Much of it is lacking.
At issue is removing an outlier while keeping his regime intact, one friendly to Washington and Western interests. Acquiescence assures support for the world's most ruthless tyrants. Straying gets them in trouble. Gaddafi strayed, leaving him vulnerable for removal.

Comparing Yugoslavia to Libya

In the 1990s, "pack (or) advocacy journalism" substituted for the real kind, including by promoting the 1999 US-led NATO war of aggression to complete Yugoslavia's long-planned balkanization, characterized as "humanitarian intervention," the same theme repeated now.

From March 24 - June 10, 1999, daily attacks were relentless. Around 600 aircraft flew about 3,000 sorties, dropping thousands of tons of ordinance as well as hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles. Its ferocity to that time was unprecedented. Large numbers were killed, injured or displaced. Vast destruction was inflicted. Two million people lost their livelihoods, many their homes and communities, and for most their futures under military occupation.

Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions" remains the definitive Balkan wars history, explaining what Western media reports suppressed. For America and European powers, it was about deterring Slobodan Milosevic's "Greater Serbia" ambitions, a gross mischaracterization about 1990s events, culminating in naked aggression.

Libyan turmoil appears headed for a similar resolution, driven by unverified misreporting of events on the ground. In Yugoslavia, it was about removing Milosevic for a more accommodative replacement. In Libya, Gaddafi appears headed for the same fate, again by raw force, Washington's alternate "diplomacy," the same kind used to "liberate" Iraq and Afghanistan, destroying both countries, causing millions of deaths as well as vast devastation and despair.

Libyan Analysis in Bullet Points

-- Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and other regional allies, "upsetting (Libya's) established order is a US and EU objective," by replacing one despot with another.

-- the West "seek('s) to capitalize on the revolt" for new leadership it controls.

-- Heavy weapons are coming in.

-- Destabilizing Libya affects its vast energy reserves and neighboring states, perhaps the entire region.

-- Tensions among Libyan factions complicate matters further, including between Gaddafi's son, Saif Al-Islam, "and his father's circle of older ministers. Libyan ministers are generally divided amongst those (close to Said) and" member's of the "old guard."

-- Other tensions exist between Gaddafi and his sons, perhaps one generation against another, each with its own ideas incompatible with the other.

-- Gaddafi spent years purging opposition. Even so, "little loyalty is felt for (him) and his family." Fear alone gives them power. Now it's gone, denunciation of his regime openly stated. "Aref Sharif, the head of Libyan Air Force," renounced him. Ministers and ambassadors resigned, some going abroad. "Defections are snowballing amongst the military and government." Yet what's ongoing may differ significantly from unverified or willful major media misreporting, including by Al Jazeera.

-- Authentic opposition is real, but not organized. It's "been encouraged and prompted from outside Libya through social media networks, international news stations, and events in the rest of the Arab World." As a result, major media reports are suspect. Accept nothing from them at face value.

-- Internal opposition leadership comes "from within the regime itself." However, corrupt officials aren't populists. They oppose Gaddafi but not tyranny, corruption, and other trappings of power and privilege. Some of them, in fact, wish "to save themselves, while others" want to "strengthen their positions." It's also possible or likely that they've allied with Western powers for their own self-interest.

-- Major media reports, including by Al Jazeera, "about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable....No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown." Gaddafi, in fact, controls cities reported to be occupied by opponents. Moreover, some accounts of violence are spurious. Stories are invented to "justify no-fly zones," perhaps heading for war led by America and NATO.

-- Corporate and Western interests in Libya, not despotism, explain what's ongoing. They're fueling civil war to replace one despot with another, one they control. "Chaos in the Arab World has been viewed as beneficial (to) Washington, Tel Aviv," and other Western powers. Balkanization may be planned, similar to Yugoslavia, culminating as explained above - "liberation" for control, not democracy America won't tolerate, including at home. If it happens, regional destabilization may follow, leaders everywhere wondering who's next.

-- Henry Kissinger once said: "to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal." If balkanization is planned, friends and foes alike may be targeted if thought unreliable. Libya's chaos also affects Europe and global energy issues, including price, for oil heading over $100 a barrel and maybe much higher, threatening fragile economies with deeper crisis.

-- Washington wanted Gaddafi replaced for years. Former NATO commander General Wesley Clark once included Libya among future targeted countries besides Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Divide, conquer and control, a game way pre-dating modern America.

-- Libya conducted secret negotiations with Washington in 2001. Formal rapprochement followed, but doing business with imperial powers is dangerous, and in Gaddafi's case perhaps fatal with no safe haven if civil war or NATO ousts him. Either "provides the best cover" for controlling Libya's "energy sector and to appropriate (its) vast wealth."


-- Libyans should be wary. America and Western powers play hardball against popular interests throughout the region.

-- "Actions of opposition to Gaddafi are strong, but there is no strong organized 'opposition movement.' The two are different." Moreover, no opposition force wants democracy.

-- Serious discussion suggests a Yugoslav-type "humanitarian intervention." A "no-fly" zone is mentioned, an act of war if imposed, giving Western powers the right to intervene militarily the way Iraq was bombed in the 1990s. Invasion and occupation, in fact, could follow to replace the already weakened regime. Libya's assets would be plundered, its people left with one despot replacing another.

For decades, Gaddafi denied Libyans democratic freedoms. Imperial occupation, however, is worse, creating nightmarish conditions for Iraqis, Afghans, and others experiencing US-style rule, exceeding the worst of regional despots' harshness, making some look benign by comparison.

Under more populist leaders than Gaddafi and internal opposition forces, mobilized resistance may prevent it, but not easily or quickly. Libyans must now liberate themselves, independent of Western powers wanting to exploit them for their own self-interest.
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World Cheers as the CIA Plunges Libya Into Chaos

By David Rothscum

March 01, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- February 23, 2011 -- How was Libya doing under the rule of Gadaffi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.

Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.

People in Libya were rich. Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.

How does Libya get so rich? The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.

Like any country, Libya suffers from a government with corrupt bureaucrats that try to gain a bigger portion of the pie at the cost of everyone else. In response to this, Kadaffi called for the oil revenue to be distributed directly to the people, because in his opinion, the government was failing the people. However, unlike the article claims, Kadaffi is not the president of Libya. In fact he holds no official position in the government. This is the big mistake that people make. They claim that Kadaffi rules over Libya when in fact he doesn't, his position is more or less ceremonial. He should be compared to a founding father.

The true leader of Libya is an indirectly elected prime-minister. The current prime-minister is Baghdadi Mahmudi. Calling Khadaffi the leader of Libya is comparable to calling Akihito the leader of Japan. Contrary to what your media is sketching, opinions in Libya vary. Some people support Gadaffi but want Mahmudi out. Others want both out. Many just want to live their life in peace. However, effort is taken to sketch the appearance of a popular revolt against the supposed leader of Libya, Gadaffi, when in fact he is just the architect of Libya's current political system, a mixture of pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islamic government.

Videos of Pro-Gaddafi protests are disappearing from Youtube as we speak. "Pro Gaddafi Anti Baghdadi Mahmudi demonstrations in" . "Pro Gaddafi protests in front of Libyan embassy London"  is gone. Youtube deletes any video containing gore normally, except when it's from Libya. Apparently more traumatizing to it's viewers than chopped up bodies are Libyans who do not jump on the bandwagon and enter the streets to force Gadaffi out.

Are the protesters in Libya comparable to the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia? Not at all. The governments reaction is more violent, and obviously excessive violence is being used. However let us look for a moment at the actions of the protesters. The building of the the general people's congress, the parliament of Libya, was put on fire by angry protestors. This is comparable to protesters putting the United States Capitol on fire. Do you think that for even a moment the US government would sit idly by as protesters put the US capitol on fire?

The riots erupting now are not secular youth desiring change, or anything like we saw in Egypt and Tunisia. A group calling itself "Islamic Emirate of Barka", the former name of the North-Western part of Libya, has taken numerous hostages, and killed two policemen. This is not a recent development. On Friday, the 18th of February, the group stole 70 military vehicles after attacking a port and killing four soldiers. Unfortunately, a military colonel has joined the group and provided them with further weapons. The uprising started in the eastern city of Benghazi. The Italian foreign minister has raised his fears of an Islamic Emirate of Benghazi declaring itself independent.

So where does this sudden uprising come from? The answer is that the same groups the US has been funding for decades are now taking their chance to gain control over the nation. A group recently arrested in Libya consisted of dozens of foreign nationals that were involved in numerous acts of looting and sabotage. The Libyan government could not rule out links to Israel.

Great Britain funded an Al Qaeda cell in Libya, in an attempt to assassinate Gadaffi. The main opposition group in Libya now is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. This opposition group is being funded by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, and French Intelligence. This group unified itself with other opposition groups, to become the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. It was this organization that called for the "Day of Rage" that plunged Libya into chaos on February 17 of this year.

It did this in Benghazi, a conservative city that has always been opposed to Gadaffi's rule. It should be noted that the National Front for the Salvation of Libya is well armed. In 1996 the group tried to unleash a revolution in the eastern part of Libya before. It used the Libyan National Army, the armed division of the NFSL to begin this failed uprising.

Why is the United States so opposed to Gadaffi? He is the main threat to US hegemony in Africa, because he attempts to unite the continent against the United States. This concept is called the United States of Africa. In fact, Gadaffi holds all sorts of ideas that are contrary to US interests. The man blames the United States government for the creation of HIV. He claims that Israel is behind the assasination of Martin Luther King and president John. F. Kennedy. He says that the 9/11 hijackers were trained in the US. He also urged Libyans to donate blood to Americans after 9/11. Khadaffi is also the last of a generation of moderate socialist pan-Arab revolutionaries that is still in power, after Nasser and Hussein have been eliminated, and Syria has aligned itself with Iran.

The United States and Israel however have no interest in a strong Arab world. In fact it seems that elementary to the plan is bringing Libya to its knees through chaos and anarchy. In late 2010, the United Kingdom was still propping up the Libyan government through lucrative arms sales. Nothing is a better guarantee to destroy Libya than a bloody civil war. The tribal system that is still strong in Libya is useful to exploit to generate such a war since Libya has historically been divided into various tribal groups.

This is also why the Libyan government responds by importing mercenaries. Tribal allegiances go before allegiance to the government, especially in Benghazi, and thus the central government has no control over the eastern part of the country anymore. The alternative to mercenaries is a conflict between the various ethnic groups. Gadaffi has tried for 41 years to make the country more homogeneous, but opposition groups funded by outside forces will take little more than a few days to put the country back into the 19th century, before the region was conquered and unified by Europeans. The violence is indeed excessive, but everyone seems to forget that the situation is not the same as in Tunis and Egypt. Tribal ties play a far greater role, and thus the conflict will unfortunately be bloodier.

Please remember at all times that the violent Libyan civil war unfolding now is not comparable to the revolutions seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Both of these revolutions involved peaceful protesters suffering from poverty, in opposition to their corrupt governments. The chaos in Libyan consists of a mixture of tribal conflicts, conflict over oil revenue (since most oil is in the east of the country), radical islamists opposed to Gadaffi's system of government, and outside destabilization by Western funded exile groups.


Gadaffi took control in a bloodless coup from a sick monarch away for medical treatment 41 years ago. His ideology is based on unification and he attempted to peacefully merge his country with Egypt and Syria. It would take a miracle for the violence unfolding now to lead to a single stable democratic government in Libya, with full control over the entire country. The country is more than twice the size of Pakistan, but with 6 million inhabitants. Endless deserts divide many of the cities in the nation. If anything we should ask ourselves how many more nations will be shattered into pieces in the coming months, as the world cheers.

Have Bush and the Neocons Ruined it for the Israelis?

By: Juan Cole
Monday, Jan. 5, 2009

The Israeli propaganda blitz around their attack on Gaza has been greeted with uncharacteristic skepticism by the American public and even by some of the mainstream US press. Even the Jewish American community is uneasy about this one, in a way perhaps unparalleled since the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon and siege of Beirut. Jews for Peace in Los Angeles are actively protesting the Gaza atrocities, and newspaper articles from around the US on local protests held this weekend often mention mixed Arab-American and Jewish-American rallies.

If it is true that Americans are greeting Israeli talking points with more criticism this time, is it because we have been intensively exposed for the past 8 years to precisely this sort of mental manipulation by Bush-Cheney and their stable of Neoconservatives?

Let's take some of the basic techniques of propaganda practiced by Bush and compare them to those deployed by the Israeli leadership in the past 8 days. MORE...

BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE DAYLIGHT: GAZA'S CHILDREN

by Judith Moriarty

What do we know of Gaza? Basically nothing. The little news that we receive from this area is censored and one-sided. According to Robert Fisk - 'Gaza exists because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created. They, their children and grandchildren are among the one and a half Palestinian crammed into the refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza. 80% of these people once lived in what is now Israel. Watching the news, you'd think that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamic lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza - a rubbish heap of destitute people of NO origin - and began firing homemade rockets into 'peace- loving, democratic Israel.'
MORE...

One and Two State Solutions:The Myth of International Consensus

By Kathleen Christison

24/01/08 Counterpunch

...The humanitarian disaster that is Gaza is entirely the result of the international community's supine refusal to stand up to Israel and the U.S. and its active support for an embargo on Gaza that is imprisoning and starving 1.5 million inhabitants and devastating the Gazan economy...

...Invocation of the international consensus to induce Palestinians to stop advocating true equality in a single state in all of Palestine comes out of a kind of denial, a refusal to acknowledge that the international consensus is so oblivious to the injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinians that it has not noticed and does not care that the possibility of establishing two states died quite some years ago. A real two-state solution...is now a forlorn dream from which the international consensus has yet to awaken.
MORE...

NOTE:

This piece by Kathleen Christison is simply excellent. Tragically it provides an accurate depiction of the so-called "facts on the ground" in Palestine/Israel. What is transpiring among the poor people of Gaza is reprehensible. The US and Israel bare prime responsibility for what has become a true humanitarian crisis. It is not factually incorrect to label it a kind of "passive transfer" reminiscent of the Nakba ["the catastrophe"; the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes] over a half century ago under the Hagana (pre-Israeli Defense Force).

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

Israel Causes Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: International Outrage Builds

Palestinian water authority: 40% of Gazans lack running water
Haaretz.com, original HERE...
By Amira Hass



Gaza Strip residents Monday moved from worrying about the electricity cuts of the previous 40 hours to worrying about a water shortage. The municipality needs electricity to bring water to homes and the houses need it to pump water to the roof tanks. Hence 40 percent of Gaza Strip homes - 600,000 people - had no running water Monday, the Palestinian water authority said.

Oxfam International said Monday that unless diesel and fuel supplies were resumed immediately, all the Strip's water pumps could stop working Tuesday. The non-governmental organization also warned of the sewage system's collapse in the absence of diesel.

"Without electric power we can manage somehow, without bread too," says a resident of the Nasser neighborhood in northern Gaza. "It's cold enough to prevent the food from going bad and we try to open the refrigerator as little as possible. The kids grumble but they can learn to live without the computer. But without water?"

"We calculate each step," he says. "We don't put on the gas heaters, because tomorrow might be colder. We don't cook for long. But to consider whether to go to the toilet? Whether to wash our face? That is insufferable."

The Israeli human rights organizations Adalah and Gisha Monday petitioned the High Court of Justice for an urgent interim injunction to prevent Israel from continuing to restrict the industrial diesel oil supply to the Gaza Strip. They said the shortage deriving from Israel's deliberate cuts in recent weeks culminated in the dramatic closure of the border crossings on Friday. The power cuts caused a shortage of drinking water and damage to the hospitals' function already on January 5, when Gaza's electric power's production was cut by 30 percent. But the High Court of Justice dismissed their request.

From small transistor radios, people listened to Al-Jazeera news broadcasts on local radio stations throughout the day. This was their only link to the world, as no newspapers are reaching the Strip either. The report of the defense minister's order to resume the diesel supply reached one Gaza City resident while he was sitting on the sofa at home, wrapped in a blanket. The gas in the heater ran out on Sunday. His daughters and wife were also covered with blankets, as were most city residents. It was the only thing they could do, to ward off the cold.

He asked himself if the resumption of diesel supply - if indeed the promise was kept - would change the picture he saw from his window: a grid of dark streets. The weak light, coming from the windows of a few apartments that had private generators, only enhanced the darkness all around.

See also: The poor and the sick suffer as Israel cuts power to Gaza
The Independent

Dr al-Arani also claimed that five patients brought to the hospital in the past 24 hours, including three babies, had died either from hypothermia or from power cuts interrupting their vital oxygen supplies at home. MORE...

and This: Egptian border guards open fire to drive off Gaza protestors
International Herald Tribune/ AP January 22, 2008

Egyptian border guards fired in the air and used clubs and water cannon to drive back hundreds of Palestinian women and children who surged across the border from Gaza Tuesday in a protest to back their demands for the frontier to be opened for shipments of food and essential provisions. MORE...